A/N: Even if you never bother with Author's Notes, please read this one - it's important!

This is the story of the founders of Hogwarts, but not in the semi-mythic form it appears in the books. Anyone who knows anything about Medieval history knows a lot of things about that story are historically impossible, from the formation of the names of the founders themselves (surnames weren't common, and not usually inherited so Ravenclaw's daughter would have been unlikely to have the same second name as her mother) to the building of a castle such as Hogwarts in the north of Scotland at that date, to the very concept that schools, as we think of them, even existed in Britain then.

However, if you do know anything about Medieval history, you also know how unreliable a lot of it is. 'History' written down in the early Middle Ages include 'factual' accounts of miracles alongside dates of battles, and the biography of a king was quite likely to claim his descent from a Norse god or mythical Greek warrior. A lot of it was based on hearsay and folklore; people wrote down an old story as fact, then twenty years later someone else wrote it down again, only slightly differently, to match their own interpretation of the story. Down the years, names of places and people have been changed to suit the language and pronunciation of the person recording them - London itself has been known as Londinium (under the Romans), Lundenwic (in the Anglo Saxon language), and Lundenburgh (by the later Anglo Saxons), before becoming London.

I've used that unreliability to create a story that isn't very like the simplified, modernised version told in the books, but resembles something more like turn-of-the-millennium Europe. I don't claim to be an expert in history, and there are some compromises (and some poetic license) in there, but this is the story of the founders as it might really have been - the story that the myths might have sprung from.

Prologue

AD 992

The snow still lay thick upon the ground, but it had gone from the tree branches. They stood out black against the white of it, the dark mass of the king's forest. Godric balanced on the tor, looking down. He could see for miles up here. Beyond the forest and the moor to the west lay Cornwall, and beyond that the ocean. And behind him, to the east, was all the rest of England. He took a deep breath of the cold, clear air.

Down below him, on the road, a figure appeared. A man on a horse. He narrowed his eyes against the brightness of the snow that dazzled him. Cathbad the monk, coming to see his father again? No, it was not Cathbad's fat pony. Nor was it merely a vagabond, for the horse moved strongly and looked of good stock. Visitors weren't frequent at this time of the year, and Godric felt something like a wind sweep through him. Something else was happening. Some new change. He leaped from the rock, his feet sinking into the snow, and whistled his hounds to him. With as much haste as he could, he struggled down towards the road.

The changes must keep coming, unwelcome changes, but he had thought he might have until the snow melted at least. Until last year, he had never thought of change or of the future or of anything much outside the bright halls of his father, his dogs and his ponies, and playing on the moor with Willa. His life was of no great importance. Leofric was already a great wizard, serving the king with their father. Eamon would be the thegn and command a hall of his own. Godric, the third son, the spare, could go where he liked and do as he pleased.

But Leofric had died, and the cold had set in.

Out of breath, his cheeks glowing hot, Godric reached the hall and pushed open the door. Inside it was dark, and he paused to let his eyes adjust. The fire was blazing, and his father stood by it. The stranger, whose horse he had seen in the yard outside, sat close by with a plate of bread and a mug of ale. His father turned as he came in, and brandished a piece of parchment.

"See, Godric, our friend here brings messages from afar."

Godric stared at him. His father seemed more pleased than anything, and his sudden fear abated.

"What is it? Messages from who?"

His father smiled and came over to him.

"When I leave for the king's court, Godric, you shall come with me."

"To the king's court?" Godric said doubtfully.

"No." His father placed a hand on his shoulder and drew him further into the room. "This letter is from my old friend. I wrote to him about you. There are things you must learn now, things that are more urgent than they were... before." For a moment, his voice faltered, then he cleared his throat and went on. "I cannot stay and teach you. So you will do as your brothers did before you, and go away to be trained. My friend will take you."

Godric blinked in the smoky air. It was a change so great it made his head spin with fragments of thought. His mother, Willa, his hound Wulf, the moor he loved. He was to leave it all behind.

"Do not be afraid, lad," his father said more gently. "He is a good man. And it is not forever."

"I'm not afraid," Godric said, and it was almost true. He had known that this might come, or something like it.

"Good. As soon as the weather improves, we depart east."

It was raining. Icy, sleety rain that drove inside her cloak and froze her hands on the reins. The had ridden a long way. How far, she was not quite sure, although she had tried to keep the map in her head as they passed between hills and forded rivers. And it was too early in the year to make good travelling. She was tired and cold and saddlesore, and she had never felt so alone.

But she was of a royal house, Rhonwen told herself, blinking back tears. A British royal house, and these Saxons must not see her fear. Her grandfather had not been afraid when he had pursued and killed the king of the Scots.

The man called Hraefn drew his horse drew with hers, and placed a hand on her reins. She pulled her shoulders a little straighter. Her mother had surely been afraid when she was snatched by the Scots, and she had also been thirteen, the same age as Rhonwen. But her mother had been brave, so she could be brave too. And this was nothing like that. Nobody had stolen Rhonwen. Her mother and father and grandfather, all her family, knew where she was. Hraefn meant her no harm. He was a good man.

He spoke to her, and she stared at him through the rain, sleet hanging on her eyelashes, and tendrils of her hair lying sodden across her face. Until she had met him and his men, she had thought that she spoke English well, but she understood hardly anything he said. He repeated what he had said, but she shook her head. His words meant nothing.

Instead, he pointed ahead of them. She followed his finger, and in the gathering dark she saw lights upon a hill.

"My home," he said, and she understood.

The horses plodded onwards, and Rhonwen gazed at those glimmering lights. Hraefn's Law. The hill of Hraefn. Named for his grandfather, though, not for him. He too had sounded tired, but there had been a glow in his voice. He loved his home. That was one more thing she knew about him now, to add to the little collection she had been storing up in her mind as they travelled.

She would simply have to learn to understand them. Learn to be one of them. Not that she would ever be a Saxon, but she could come to know their ways. Perhaps she could even teach them some of hers. She felt her heart lift a little, although perhaps it was only that their journey was ending. The prospect held new fears. The people here were more strangers. What would they think of her? And he was her husband. Now that they were no longer on the road, she knew he would expect her to share his bed. All the unknowns were terrifying, but for the moment she could only feel relieved at the thought of a warm, dry hall and a fire and a proper meal. Once she was warm, everything would be easier.

This was not just his home, after all. It was hers too. She was no longer merely Rhonwen verch Rhys; she was Rhonwen of Hraefn's Law, and she would learn to own that name.

She watched the beehives burn, and felt her heart break. The smoke rose up from the green valley floor and turned the sky yellow.

Their farm. It had been her home all her life, and her grandfather had owned it before her father, and his parents before that. They had been here among these rolling hills for so long, and now it was gone. Her home, and the bees' home too. The bees were her friends. Her father had taught her how to whisper the news to them. The first time had been when Eirik was born. She had been only three years old then, but she had sat in the grass as they hummed around her head in the sunshine, and told them about her new baby brother. And again, each time another little brother or sister came along. Helga had learnt how to handle a swarm, how to lift out the honey, how to go among them without being stung.

There would have been a new birth to report to them this summer, but now there would be no bees.

"Why...?" her mother whispered, her face white and drawn. She was near her time, and the pregnancy had been hard.

The twins clutched her skirts, weeping with fear. The three older children huddled together. They all knew the answer to their mother's whispered question, but it did not help.

They were Danes. No matter that they had been here so long. No matter that her mother's family were not even from Denmark, but Sweden. No matter that the pirates who had raised the coast were nothing to do with them. When they had settled this land, the whole burgh had been Norse, but the Danelaw was no more. This was Saxon country again now, under the rule of Aethelred, who hated the Danes.

And they held Danish names. They were Norsemen. That was enough.

"We have nothing left." Her father's voice was defeated. "We are ruined. And nowhere to go. There is nowhere safe any more."

There was silence for a time. The flames were dying down.

"There is one we can turn to," her mother whispered at last.

An even deeper shadow crossed her father's face.

"We cannot go there."

"We must. There is nowhere else, and we have the children, and the babe on its way. No matter what you think of her, she will help us. She is my mother's kin."

Her father said nothing, but Helga knew that that meant he had agreed.

As her mother turned away, the other children with her, Helga stepped up and slipped a hand under his arm. He was still watching the beehives.

"We are not ruined, Da." She spoke in the old Norse tongue that was his native language, although she did not speak it very well. "Not while we still have each other."

"Aye," he said, trying to smile. "We still have each other. That's something, isn't it Helga-girl? That's something."

The wind was high and the sea was rough as the small vessel made its crossing from Flanders to England. He curled himself into a miserable ball and hoped that if he were dying, he would hurry up and do it. He had journeyed far in the past months, but this was by far the worst part of it. He wished that they had never left the southern lands for this cold, stormy wasteland.

"Boy!" A dark head poked itself into the tiny space. "Ach, boy! It stinks in here!"

He made no reply, except for a faint whimper. The eyes in the dark face softened and a hand reached out and touched his shoulder. The man muttered a strange incantation, and the sickness faded a little, to a mild queasiness.

He struggled into a sitting position and watched as the man began to clean up the bottom of the boat, his wand in his hand. He was damp with sweat, his hair sticking to his forehead, and the motion of the boat was still unpleasant, but he no longer felt like dying.

"Why did you not help me before?"

The man raised his eyebrows. "I am sorry, boy. I did not realise how bad you were."

He frowned. "Could you not still the storm as well?"

"No," the man replied, sounding amused. "I have no power over the elements. Nobody does."

He did not like to hear about things that were beyond anyone's power. It seemed to him that there were many things that might be possible, but that people had simply not yet learnt to do. Although he was speaking to one of the great wizards of the world, so he did not question it.

"Can I learn to do that spell you just did?" he asked instead.

There was silence for a moment.

"Yes," the man said eventually. "Some day, young Salazar, you can learn to do that."

He retreated again, and Salazar lay back against a coil of rope. In a short while, he would go above the deck, but not quite yet. He closed his eyes and felt the boat tossed beneath him, and the power of the storm. Perhaps one day he would learn a way to harness that power. Then he would never need to fear a boat again.