Author's Notes: So, I kept my promise to myself and managed to produce a chapter in time to post on the one year anniversary of the start of this story. I have written over 50,000 words over the last 12 months on what started out as a rather silly idea – and, while I'd have liked to have done more, I'm still pretty pleased with that. I promise that there will be more action in this story soon, but this chapter is rather sitcom-like in some respects, I think.

I'll leave it up to you to decide if I'm making a dig at canon pairings or just foreshadowing when I say... well, you'll know it when you see it.

11. With Friends Like These

Despite the willing help of the villagers and the liberal use of magic from the four Founders – Harry still felt a slight thrill down his spine when he thought of them as that – it was late in the afternoon before the rough little schoolhouse could be considered fully built. There was still a good deal more left to do – at present the building was little more than a barn – but everyone seemed happy to leave any interior work for another day, even Rowena. She seemed far more relaxed now than she had earlier in the day; perhaps having accomplished something so concrete and obvious had reassured her that what they were trying to do was actually possible after all.

Harry was pleasantly exhausted by the time he and Draco headed back to their cabin, the way he usually felt after a hard Quidditch practice. It wasn't so much that using magic was tiring, although it could be a little wearing. Most of the fatigue probably came from standing all day out in a field in the sun, with only a couple of short breaks where he could sit down. Even in what would one day become Scotland, it could be warm enough to be exhausting, at least during the summer.

He'd been looking forward to finally getting an opportunity to lay down and relax – or possibly sleep – for a while before dinner. But, unfortunately, that was not to be.

"Master Slytherin?" The voice was Lord Edgar's, smooth and commanding. Harry, who was not yet used to being addressed so, didn't immediately realise that the Lord was speaking to him. Seeing this, Draco dug an elbow in his side and hissed in his ear. Both boys stopped and turned to face Rowena's father.

"My lord?" Harry said, politely, wishing it were possible to just tell the man togo away.

"Walk with me a moment." It was not a request – and Harry, with his usual dislike for being ordered around, started to bristle at the tone. Then Draco elbowed him in the ribs again. "I have something of import that I would say to you." Lord Edgar's eyes rested on Draco for a moment before he added, "Alone."

"I..." Harry looked at Draco, who gave a single rather terse nod by way of reply. "Very well, my lord." If it had to be, he might as well not anger the man any more than he absolutely had to, he supposed.

"Good, then." The Lord of Raven's Claw walked a few paces away, then stopped and half-turned back towards them. Harry gave Draco one last rather desperate look, before shrugging and moving to follow Rowena's father. As Lord Edgar walked on again, Harry fell into step alongside him, and for a few minutes they walked in silence. Having no idea what this was supposed to be about, and being in no mood to do the Lord any sort of favour, Harry was certainly not going to be the first one to break.

"So, Master Slytherin, I have been watching you with great interest in the time that you have been here." At this start, Harry's throat tightened in horror and fear. Could Lord Edgar have realised that they were not who they were pretending to be? But in that case, why did he not want to talk to Draco? Before he could panic too much, however, Lord Edgar continued, "And so I feel beholden to ask you: what intentions do you have towards my daughter?"

Harry stared slackly at the man, barely able to believe his ears. It was bad enough when Helga made comments about that sort of thing. But this? He had no idea what to do or say. Eventually he managed to stammer, "Rowena?"

"As far as I am aware, I have only the one daughter," Lord Edgar said, in a voice that denied the possibility of his comment being any sort of joke. "Now, do not trifle with me, Master Slytherin. I am not a patient man. I have looked up your antecedents" – another word Harry was going to have to ask Draco or Rowena about – "and find your family and lineage acceptable for an alliance, should that be your intention."

Harry had managed to gather his wits enough to speak coherently. "My intentions? But shouldn't it be Rowena's opinions or intentions that you care about?" Looking up into those stony eyes, he hurriedly added, "My lord."

"Modern sensibilities," Lord Edgar scoffed. "In my considered opinion matters such as this should still be discussed and arrangements made by the parents. But with your parents so far away, that is regrettably out of the question." Then he sighed. "To be perfectly frank with you, it is Rowena's intentions that are so vexing to me. She is so relentlessly modern, so intent on provoking me, that I know not to what lengths she might go."

To hear the opinions of nine hundred and whatever called modern might have amused Harry had he not been understandably distracted by the rest of Lord Edgar's words. What exactly was the man worried about? What lengths did he fear that Rowena would go to? And... why did everyone here act as though admiring a girl – he could admit now that he did admire Rowena – meant that you must also want to marry her? Modern it might seem to Lord Edgar, but to Harry it was old-fashioned in the extreme. Not to mention worrying, for even supposing he did want to get married, how would he handle meeting the Slytherin family? No; it was something to be avoided at all costs. And yet he did not dare speak so bluntly to Rowena's father.

"I... um, well, really I hadn't thought all that much about it," he said, in a faltering voice. "I'm only thirteen; I hadn't planned on getting married so soon. I... I'm really sorry if my behaviour has offended you, sir."

The Lord's expression softened very slightly. "Not at all, Master Slytherin. You have been most respectful in your manner towards both me and my daughter. I have no complaint to make, save that I should like to have something settled for my daughter ere she turns twenty with nary an offer to show for it." He sighed. "But you are right. You are young yet and far from home; it is unfair to expect a decisive answer to so delicate a question. I apologise, Master Slytherin – but do know that I would look kindly on your future suit, should that be your desire."

"Um... thank you?" Harry was honestly at a loss for what to say. The whole conversation was so bizarre to him that he could almost believe that none of it was happening. "I'll... well, I'll keep that in mind, sir."

Lord Edgar made a mostly failed attempt at a friendly smile. "Good, then. I am very sorry to have disturbed your evening, Master Slytherin."

"No, no, it's okay." Harry just wanted to get away from there. To get out altogether, return to a place where no one talked to thirteen year olds about marriage, and adults never apologised to Harry even when they had done something wrong.

Since that almost certainly wasn't possible, though, he'd settle for returning to Draco and their cabin.

As if reading his mind, Lord Edgar said, "I shall detain you no longer, then. Good evening to you, young Slytherin."

"Good evening, my lord." Harry gathered his wits enough to make a rather untidy sort of bow, and then watched in stunned disbelief as Lord Edgar walked away towards the Hall. For almost a minute he stood staring, unable to work up the mental energy to even contemplate moving. Then he shook his head, turned around, and began the slow walk back to his own house.

Draco accosted him the moment he stepped inside, exactly as he'd expected – at least part of the reason why he'd walked so slowly. "So what was that about then?"

Harry listened for the faint buzzing sound of the muffling charm. Once he'd satisfied himself that, yes, their thin privacy shield was working, he crossed the room, sank down into his bed, and told Draco everything.

By the time he'd finished, the other boy's eyes were wide. "Wow. That's sort of weird. And pretty offensive, too. I can definitely see where Rowena gets some of her manners from." He scowled, but Harry ignored both the expression and most of his words.

"It was really weird, but I thought... Is that really how they did things back then? Or... uh, now, I guess."

"I don't know. It might be." Draco looked thoughtful, then smirked. "Though maybe Lord Ravenclaw is just desperate because it's the first time she's taken any interest in any boy. He was probably afraid that she was... well, you know..."

"Gay, you mean?" Harry gave a snort of laughter. "I mean, God, Draco, I don't get you at all. This morning you were trying to get me to admit I wanted to see you half naked, and now you can't even say the word gay without stuttering and turning into a beetroot." And indeed, Draco's face had gone a rather interesting shade of red.

"Yeah, well, I'm not... gay, so I don't see what my stupid jokes have to do with anything."

Harry rolled his eyes at this, and nearly made some retort before he thought better of it. The days when actually upsetting Draco had sounded appealing were over. Instead, he sighed and said, "Whatever. This is stupid. I like Rowena and all, of course. And maybe she likes me..."

"She does." Draco gave him an irritatingly knowing grin.

"Maybe she does," Harry said, forcefully. "But so what? That's like saying that if we'd stayed in our own time I'd have ended up marrying Ginny just because she was all awkward around me and maybe fancied me."

Draco frowned. "Ginny?"

His ignorance seemed nothing short of insulting to Harry, who snapped, "Yeah, Ginny. Remember, the kid who nearly died because of your father and that stupid evil diary he gave her? That Ginny."

"I... okay, okay, I'm sorry." Draco looked even paler than usual, and Harry felt suddenly rather guilty for taking it out on him.

He sighed. "Don't be. It wasn't your fault; you didn't know anything about it."

Draco didn't meet Harry's eyes, his shoulders stiff and unhappy. After a moment of silence, he looked up and said, in a tone of almost disgusted amazement, "My father was a piece of shit."

This was not something Harry had ever expected to hear Draco say – so of course he had to ruin it immediately. "Nah," he said, lightly. "He will be a piece of shit."

Draco glared at him. "Stop ruining my epiphany, Potter."

"Your what?"

"My... don't you know what that means?" There was a faint hint of contempt in Draco's face and voice, an unpleasant reminder of the times before, when they'd still been enemies. "It's just like a... an important realisation, you know? Something that changes the way you look at the world. That sort of thing. Good for character development."

Harry snorted. "Character development? You're not some great literary hero, you know?"

"Now that's just not true." Draco gave him a rather smug–looking smile. "I'm Godric Gryffindor, remember?"

"Nice to see you've changed your tune about that," Harry said, dryly.

Draco shrugged. "Oh, I'll adopt whatever attitude will let me win the argument."

"At least you admit it, I suppose." Harry was more than a little exasperated, but somehow was still trying not to laugh. "Anyway, why didn't you just say 'important realisation' or whatever rather than showing off your epiphany thing?"

Draco gave a dismissive toss of his head. "Because epiphany sounds better, you cretin." Harry opened his mouth to reply, and the grey eyes narrowed. "And if you ask me what cretin means, I'm going to come over there and punch you."

Harry leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. "I'd like to see you try."

"Try? It'd be easy." Draco stood up, an unpleasant gleam in his eye. "Here, let me show you."

He took a step forward with undisguised intent. Harry rolled sideways and off his bed, putting the wooden frame of it at least partly between him and Draco. "You'll have to pin me down first." A wide grin accompanied the ridiculous challenge.

"Oh, gladly." Draco smirked – but, as the battle was joined, he saw a matching grin on the other boy's face.

The next morning, it was a rather battered–looking Harry and Draco who met Rowena at the school site. She stared at them, at the interesting array of bruises and scratch marks, and in a strangely tense voice asked, "What on earth happened to the two of you last night?"

Harry almost didn't realise what she was talking about until Draco said, a little sharply, "We were wrestling."

"Wrestling?" Rowena frowned. "But what... why...?" She looked from one uncomfortable expression to the other, then raised an eyebrow. "Do I really want to know?"

"It wasn't anything weird," Harry protested, ignoring the fact that absolutely everything about the past couple of weeks had been weird in one way or another. "I said something he thought was stupid, he threatened to hit me for it, so I told him to come on then. So he did. And... yeah, we were sort of fighting, I guess. But not in like a bad way or anything."

Rowena shook her head slightly, looking puzzled. "But... why did you resort to bare fist fighting over that?"

Harry shrugged. "He doesn't have a sword."

"He..." Rowena reached up and massaged her temples. "But you are wizards. If you had a grievance with one another, why did you not use your wands?"

"Because we're friends," Draco put in, quite as if it was the most natural and obvious answer in the world. "You really shouldn't hex your friends."

"But you can punch your friends? What earthly sense does that make?" Rowena sighed. "Never mind. I am quite sure that I shall never understand wizards."

"They are rather nonsensical, are they not?" All three of them turned to see Helga leaning against the wooden wall of the schoolhouse, watching them with a rather amused expression. "Though I do not know if it is simply Godric and Salazar who are so strange, or if all wizards are the same."

Rowena laughed. "I think it must be a common trait, at least, Helga. After all, where do you think the duelling tradition came from?"

"Witches invented it," Helga declared, sweeping her arm out dramatically and nearly throwing her riding gloves at them. "Because they were tired of their menfolk returning home in same state as Salazar and Godric. I'm almost certain of it."

Rowena gave a heavy, long suffering sort of sigh, though one corner of her mouth twitched in an unmistakable half-smile. "Between the three of you it shall be a wonder if I do not go quite mad." Then, with a soft bark of laughter, she nodded towards the new school building. "Shall we look inside and measure out the space for furnishings? Or does one of you have some fresh torment for me?"

Helga's eyes glowed with mischief. "Well, since you mention it..."

"That was a rhetorical question, thank you, Helga." Rowena flicked her hair back with a toss of her head and moved towards the school. Some skilled craftsman had installed a door at some point after they'd left the site the previous evening, and so Rowena was able to throw this open to good effect. Harry and the others followed her into what was at present little more than an empty barn. Or, given the dividing walls already in place, perhaps it was more like a stable block. Either way, it was not as yet much like a school.

"So, this area is an entrance hall, sort of?" Harry asked, looking around at the small, plain and not at all grand room they were standing in. "We should hang some banners or something," he added, thinking of the Ravenclaw Hall dining room.

"Indeed we should." Rowena sounded approving for the first time that morning, and Harry couldn't help but smile when he heard it. "However, that should be a simple enough task, so it can wait until we have furnished our other rooms."

Before anyone else could say anything, Helga spoke. "If I am to teach the magically gifted children basic Potions, I shall require the room with the chimney flue."

Rowena nodded. "That seems logical. So you are resolved on teaching Potions to anyone who shows an aptitude for it?"

"It was my understanding that we would all teach some basic magic to the witch and wizard children," Helga said, tugging at a stray lock of her hair. "Even if you wish to give all of the children some education, which I agree is an admirable goal, we are here first and foremost for the magical children."

A faintly troubled look drifted across Rowena's face, but she raised no objection to Helga's words. "Here, I shall show you how I have assigned the rooms." She led them into the central hallway. "So behind the far left door will be Helga's classroom for teaching Potions to magical children and herblore for everyone. I will take the far right for history and theory of magic; I have requested that a bookshelf be brought in for all my source texts." Then she turned to Harry and Draco, saying, "I hope that you can come to a decision about which of the near rooms is which without punching one another." Her eyes shone with amusement.

"I'm sure we can," Harry said, but was immediately interrupted – and contradicted – when Draco punched him lightly on the arm. "Oh, thanks for showing me up, Godric, you cretin." This drew a snort from the other boy and an eye roll from Rowena. He walked over and poked his head around first one door and then the other. Behind each was a bare unfurnished room that looked very little like any classroom Harry had ever seen before – so he supposed there wasn't much to choose between them. "Up to you which you want," he told Draco as he returned to the others.

Draco shrugged. "Guess I'll take the left then." He looked along the corridor and gestured to the fifth door, the one that stood at the far end. "What's going to be behind that door, then?"

"Ah, that." Rowena smiled. "The room beyond that door stretches the full width of the building. I had thought to put a long table within for dining, so that the children do not have to return home for lunch."

Helga looked rather skeptical. "So you would undertake to provide lunches for everyone we teach?"

"I had intended to." Rowena met her friend's eyes and gave a slight frown at what she saw there. "Why, do you think it unwise?"

"I think it very generous," Helga said, slowly. "And yet I am unconvinced that your father would approve of such generosity, Rowena, dear."

"Oh, he very likely will not," Rowena replied, lightly. "But that should not signify all that much, since he disapproves exceedingly of this entire venture. I do not imagine that providing a free lunch will really do so very much to exacerbate what he already feels."

"You are completely unconcerned with his feelings and wishes, then?" Helga put one hand on her hip and cocked her head to one side.

Rowena only laughed. "No more so than you are unconcerned with those of your own father, Helga. Do not challenge me on this, else I shall think you a base hypocrite."

For a moment, Harry thought that Helga might make some retort to this – but then her expression softened and whatever anger she might have felt dissolved into laughter. "I concede the point," she said, once she had regained her composure. "Though, regardless, Rowena – these are your father's lands and your father's peasants. We should at least show some care for what we do, I think."

"Perhaps you are right." Rowena had a strange look on her face, as though she didn't like the taste of the words. Then she shook her head and turned to Draco. "Come, Godric, let us look at your room and discuss what furnishings we shall need to procure." Draco blinked in surprise and confusion, but allowed himself to be led away.

For their part, Helga and Harry were no less confused. "That... I am unsure exactly what she means by that." Helga sighed. "Nevertheless, Salazar, shall we go likewise and inspect your classroom?"

"Yeah, sure, but there's really nothing in it to look at." Harry shrugged and looked after Rowena, wondering what was wrong with her this morning. Had her father said something to her? Was that why she was acting strangely, and taking Draco off alone rather than Harry? It seemed rather unfair. But it wasn't as if there was anything he could do about it – and, besides, as he walked with Helga into the other classroom, it occurred to him that it was the perfect opportunity to ask her something. They stopped just inside the door, and he took the chance. "Helga? Did you... not like the idea of teaching Muggles?"

She made an odd sort of sound, somewhere between a cough and a chuckle. "You are an observant man, Salazar." He noticed that she made no attempt to deny the charge, nor did she seem to think it necessary to defend herself.

"Yeah, maybe I am," Harry said, a little annoyed that Helga, quite unlike her usual self, was not talking more than strictly warranted. "That doesn't mean I understand why though."

"No, I suppose that you would not, idealist that you are." There was a teasing note in her voice, but it was affectionate teasing, so Harry didn't mind too much. "I am just wary of what will happen if Muggle children learn exactly what we can do... and what they cannot do."

Harry frowned a little as he thought about it – but, as he remembered the Dursleys, he realised that what Helga was saying made a horrible sort of sense. "Are you worried that they'll fear us or hate us if they know what we can really do, then? I would've thought that seeing it for themselves would be better than, I don't know, making up a lot of scary stories about magic that aren't true at all."

"That is a point," Helga said. "But no. What worries me is not that they will fear us or hate us, but that they will envy us. To watch magic and know that you will never be able to perform it might lead to more resentment and anger than ignorance and fear ever will."

"Oh." Harry's voice sounded very small and rather squeaky in his own ears.

Helga snorted. "Yes. Exactly. I am not as intelligent as Rowena, and I have always known that and accepted it. But I have something that Rowena does not, and that is the ability to see beyond my own nose. It is a noble thing that you and she want to do, but I do not know if it is a wise one."

But wasn't it wisdom that Rowena Ravenclaw had been famous for? Or had it been cleverness, as Helga had said? Harry wasn't sure he remembered anymore. Hermione's lectures on the Founders – and the importance of reading Hogwarts, A History – seemed so very long ago and far away.

He sighed. What he hated was that what Helga had said seemed reasonable to him. Who could say that his Aunt Petunia hadn't become so bitter and hateful of all things magical because she'd had to watch Harry's mother do things that she knew she would never have the ability to do? And if that was how envious people treated magical children, it was no wonder that in his own time it had been, would be, illegal to tell Muggles about magic. When he'd first heard about it, he'd honestly thought that the Statute of Secrecy sounded kind of silly. Now, though... now he wasn't so sure.