# When Magic Remembers
## Chapter 13: The First Students
*Hogwarts Castle, September 1st, 993 CE - Two years after the Tower Between Worlds*
The Great Hall had been transformed.
Gone were the rough timber beams and packed earth floors of the construction years. In their place stood soaring stone arches that seemed to reach toward the heavens themselves, their surfaces carved with intricate patterns that shifted and flowed in the candlelight. Long tables of polished oak stretched across the flagstone floor, while floating candles cast warm light over tapestries that depicted the four founders working together to raise the castle from the earth.
But it was the children seated at those tables that truly made the space come alive.
Forty-three students, ranging in age from eleven to sixteen, filled the hall with the kind of energy that only young people could generate. They chattered excitedly in a dozen different languages and dialects, their voices creating a symphony of anticipation and nervousness that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
Harry watched from his distributed consciousness, his awareness spread throughout the castle's stones and timbers, and felt a deep satisfaction at what they had accomplished. This was what they had been building toward—not just a school, but a community of young wizards who would carry the knowledge and values of magical Britain into the future.
"Are you ready for this?" Minerva asked softly, her voice carrying to him through the network connections that now linked every part of the castle.
She had remained at Hogwarts after the confrontation with Herpo, officially serving as a scholar of transfiguration but actually helping to develop the curriculum and teaching methods that would define magical education for centuries to come. Her knowledge of future pedagogical techniques, carefully adapted to medieval sensibilities, had proven invaluable in creating something that was both innovative and practical.
"As ready as anyone can be for something that's never been attempted before," Harry replied, his voice emanating from the stones themselves. "Forty-three students, four founders with very different ideas about education, and a castle that's still learning how to be a school."
The sorting ceremony they had developed was unlike anything that would come later. There were no houses yet—that development would come naturally as the founders' different teaching philosophies evolved into distinct traditions. Instead, the students were simply welcomed as members of the Hogwarts community, with the understanding that they would find their own paths through the curriculum over the coming years.
"Welcome," Godric said, rising from his seat at the high table. His voice carried clearly through the hall, enhanced by the acoustical charms that had been worked into the very architecture. "Welcome to Hogwarts, the first school of its kind in magical Britain. You are not just students—you are pioneers, the first generation to benefit from an education that brings together the best of all magical traditions."
The students fell silent, their attention focused on the red-haired founder who had become something of a legend in the two years since the defeat of Herpo. Stories of the battle against the spiritual parasites had spread throughout the magical communities, growing in the telling until the founders had become figures of myth and wonder.
"You will find," Godric continued, "that this school operates differently from other forms of magical education. We do not simply teach you spells and potions—we teach you to think, to question, to understand the fundamental principles that govern magic itself. You will learn not just how to cast a charm, but why it works, how it can be improved, and what ethical considerations should guide its use."
He gestured to his fellow founders, each of whom had risen to stand beside him. "Lady Hufflepuff will teach you the healing arts and the magic of growing things. Lord Ravenclaw will instruct you in the theoretical foundations of magic and the art of scholarly inquiry. Lord Slytherin will guide you through the more advanced applications of magic, including those that require careful judgment and strong will."
"And what will you teach us, Lord Gryffindor?" called out a bold young woman with wild red hair who reminded Harry strongly of someone he couldn't quite place.
Godric smiled at her directness. "I will teach you courage, young lady. Not the absence of fear, but the ability to act rightly despite fear. I will teach you that magic is not just about power, but about the wisdom to use that power in service of others."
The students murmured among themselves, clearly impressed by the scope of what they were being offered. Most of them had expected to receive the traditional apprenticeship education—learning a single magical discipline from a single master. Instead, they were being promised a comprehensive education that would expose them to all aspects of magical knowledge.
"But first," Helga said, her warm voice carrying easily through the hall, "you must eat. Learning is hungry work, and we've prepared a feast to welcome you properly to your new home."
The tables suddenly groaned under the weight of appearing food—roasted meats and fresh bread, vegetables from the castle's gardens, and sweets that had been prepared by the kitchen staff with liberal applications of magical enhancement. The students fell to with the enthusiasm of young people who had been traveling for days to reach the castle.
As they ate, Harry found himself listening to their conversations, learning about the backgrounds and motivations that had brought them to Hogwarts. Some came from established magical families who saw the school as an opportunity to give their children a more comprehensive education than traditional apprenticeships could provide. Others were the children of Muggles, young people who had manifested magical abilities with no family understanding of what that meant.
There was Blythe of Orkney, whose weather-working abilities had manifested early enough to save her fishing village from a devastating storm. Thomas the Scribe's son, who could make his ink change colors and his parchment repair itself. Eirik the Quiet, who spoke to animals in their own languages and was accompanied by a raven that translated his words for those who couldn't understand him directly.
Each student represented a different aspect of magical Britain, a different tradition or approach to the art that had brought them together under one roof. It was exactly what the founders had envisioned—a place where diversity of thought and practice would strengthen rather than weaken the magical community.
"They're remarkable," Rowena said, her voice carrying the wonder of someone who had spent years planning for this moment but was still amazed to see it actually happening. "Each one brings something unique, something that will enrich the whole community."
"The question," Salazar said quietly, "is whether we can provide them with the guidance they need to develop their potential responsibly. Some of these children are already showing abilities that could be dangerous if not properly channeled."
Harry knew what he meant. Even from his distributed perspective, he could sense the raw power that some of the students carried. Young Morgana ferch Gorlois—no relation to the elder Morgana they had consulted during the network crisis—showed signs of necromantic ability that would require careful supervision. The twin brothers Aldric and Aelfric demonstrated a form of joint consciousness that allowed them to share spells and thoughts across distance.
"That's why we're here," Helga said firmly. "To provide that guidance, to help them understand not just what they can do, but what they should do. Magic without wisdom is just power without purpose."
The meal continued for another hour, with the students gradually relaxing as they realized that this strange new school was not going to be as formal or intimidating as they had feared. The founders moved among the tables, talking with individual students, answering questions, and beginning the process of understanding each young person's unique needs and capabilities.
As the evening wound down, Godric stood once again to address the assembled students. "Tomorrow, your formal education begins. But tonight, I want you to understand something important about this place. Hogwarts is not just a school—it is a community. You are not just students—you are members of a family that will endure long after you have graduated and gone out into the world."
He paused, his eyes moving across the faces of the young people who were listening intently. "The bonds you form here, the friendships you make, the knowledge you share—these will shape the magical world for generations to come. You are not just learning for yourselves, but for all those who will follow in your footsteps."
"No pressure," whispered one of the students, causing a ripple of nervous laughter through the hall.
"Actually, yes," Godric said with a grin. "Quite a lot of pressure. But you won't be carrying it alone. That's the point of community—to share the burdens and multiply the joys."
As the students were dismissed to their dormitories, Harry found himself reflecting on the magnitude of what they were attempting. These forty-three young people would become the first generation of Hogwarts graduates, the proof of concept for magical education as they had envisioned it. Their successes and failures would determine whether the school survived and thrived, or whether it would join the ranks of ambitious experiments that had ultimately failed.
But watching them file out of the Great Hall, chattering excitedly about the day ahead, Harry felt optimistic about their chances. These were bright, eager young people who had been given an unprecedented opportunity to learn and grow. With proper guidance and support, they could become exactly the kind of wizards the magical world needed.
"The real work begins tomorrow," Minerva said, appearing beside him in the corridor outside the Great Hall. Unlike the founders, she had maintained her human form, using time magic to exist simultaneously in the past and her original timeline.
"The real work began the day we decided to build this place," Harry replied. "Tomorrow is just the next step."
They walked together through the corridors of the castle, past classrooms that had been prepared for their first lessons, past dormitories where students were settling in for their first night away from home, past the library where thousands of books waited to share their knowledge with eager minds.
"Do you think it will work?" Minerva asked. "This grand experiment in magical education?"
"I think," Harry said carefully, "that it will work better than anything that's come before. Whether it will work perfectly, whether it will achieve everything we hope for it—that remains to be seen."
They paused at a window that looked out over the lake, where the lights of the castle reflected in the still water. The network connections pulsed steadily around them, linking Hogwarts to the other centers of magical learning and protection throughout Britain. Everything was stable, secure, functioning as it should.
"The students will test us," Minerva observed. "They'll push boundaries, question assumptions, challenge our methods. Are we ready for that?"
"We'd better be," Harry said with a laugh. "If we're not ready to be challenged by our own students, we have no business teaching them."
The next morning brought the first classes, and with them, the first real test of the educational system they had designed. The students were divided into small groups based on their existing knowledge and interests, rather than their ages or backgrounds. This allowed for more personalized instruction but also created logistical challenges as professors tried to coordinate lessons across multiple skill levels.
Harry watched from his distributed consciousness as Helga led a group of younger students through the fundamentals of herbology, teaching them not just which plants had magical properties, but how to observe and understand the natural world around them. Her classroom was actually a greenhouse that had been built into the castle's structure, with living walls that demonstrated the principles she was teaching.
"Magic," she explained to her attentive students, "is not something separate from nature—it is part of nature, an expression of the same forces that make plants grow and seasons change. When you learn to work with magical plants, you're learning to work with the fundamental energies that govern all life."
Meanwhile, Rowena was conducting a theoretical magic class that looked more like a philosophy seminar than a traditional lesson. Her students sat in a circle, discussing the ethical implications of different magical practices and exploring questions that had no easy answers.
"If you can heal someone without their knowledge or consent," she posed to the group, "should you? What if they're unconscious and dying? What if they're conscious but refusing treatment? What if healing them would save their life but violate their deeply held beliefs?"
The students grappled with the question, their answers revealing the different moral frameworks they had inherited from their various backgrounds. Some argued for absolute respect for individual autonomy, others for the healer's duty to preserve life, still others for situational ethics that depended on specific circumstances.
"There are no universally correct answers to these questions," Rowena concluded as the discussion wound down. "But there are better and worse ways to think about them. The goal is not to memorize the right answer, but to develop the judgment to make good decisions in complex situations."
Salazar's advanced magical theory class was smaller but more intense, focusing on the students who showed the greatest natural ability and the strongest drive to push beyond conventional limits. His classroom was located in the castle's lower levels, where the stone walls were inscribed with protective runes and the magical atmosphere was carefully controlled.
"Power without control is not power at all," he told his students as they practiced advanced transfiguration techniques. "It is merely chaos waiting to happen. The mark of a truly skilled wizard is not how much magic they can channel, but how precisely they can apply it to achieve their desired ends."
He demonstrated by transforming a block of stone into a perfect crystal sculpture, then back into stone, then into a different sculpture entirely. The transitions were so smooth they seemed effortless, but Harry could sense the incredible precision required to maintain such perfect control.
"Your homework," Salazar concluded, "is to practice basic transfiguration until you can achieve perfect repeatability. I don't want to see magic that works sometimes—I want to see magic that works exactly as intended, every time."
Godric's class was the most unconventional of all. Instead of meeting in a traditional classroom, he took his students outside to the castle grounds, where they practiced what he called "practical magic"—spells and techniques that had direct applications to real-world problems.
"Magic is not an academic exercise," he explained as he demonstrated a lighting charm that could work in any weather conditions. "It is a tool for improving the world, for helping people, for making things better than they were before. If you can't explain why a spell is useful, you probably don't understand it well enough to cast it safely."
His students practiced healing charms on volunteers from the village, learned protective spells by defending actual targets from simulated attacks, and studied illusion magic by creating entertainment for the castle's staff. Everything was practical, applicable, and designed to reinforce the connection between magical knowledge and real-world responsibility.
"It's working," Minerva observed as she and Harry watched the various classes from their hidden vantage points. "The students are engaged, they're learning, they're beginning to understand magic as something more than just a collection of spells and potions."
"But?" Harry asked, sensing the reservation in her voice.
"But they're also beginning to develop preferences," she replied. "Some are drawn to Helga's nurturing approach, others to Rowena's intellectual rigor, still others to Salazar's pursuit of excellence or Godric's practical applications. The foundations of the house system are already beginning to form."
Harry had noticed the same thing. The students were naturally gravitating toward the founders whose teaching styles and values most closely matched their own personalities and interests. It wasn't formalized yet, but the seeds of division were already being planted.
"Is that necessarily a bad thing?" he asked. "Different students have different needs and learning styles. Maybe allowing them to specialize will help them develop their abilities more effectively."
"Maybe," Minerva agreed. "But specialization can also lead to isolation. If the students stop learning from all four founders, they'll miss out on the breadth of knowledge and perspective that makes Hogwarts special."
It was a valid concern, and one that Harry found himself thinking about as the days passed. The integrated curriculum they had designed was based on the idea that exposure to multiple approaches would create more well-rounded wizards. But the students' natural tendencies toward specialization suggested that their original vision might need to be adjusted.
The issue came to a head three weeks into the term, when a dispute arose over the teaching of defensive magic. Godric believed that all students should learn combat spells, while Helga argued that such knowledge could lead to violence and should be restricted to those who specifically chose to study it. Rowena wanted to approach the subject from a theoretical perspective, examining the ethical implications of different defensive strategies. Salazar insisted that defensive magic should be taught only to students who demonstrated the maturity and judgment to use it responsibly.
"We can't teach four different versions of the same subject," Rowena said during one of their increasingly heated faculty meetings. "The students need consistency, not conflicting approaches to fundamental concepts."
"But we can't reduce everything to a single perspective either," Godric argued. "That would eliminate the diversity of thought that makes this place special."
"Perhaps," Salazar suggested, "we should allow students to choose their primary area of focus. Let them study intensively with one of us while taking basic courses with the others."
"That's just traditional apprenticeship with extra steps," Helga protested. "We came here to create something new, not to recreate the old system with minor modifications."
The argument continued for hours, touching on fundamental questions about the nature of education, the role of specialization, and the balance between individual needs and collective goals. Harry listened from his distributed consciousness, feeling the weight of decisions that would shape not just the current students' education, but the structure of magical learning for centuries to come.
"Perhaps," he said finally, his voice emanating from the stones themselves, "the answer isn't to choose between integration and specialization, but to find a way to honor both."
The founders fell silent, turning their attention to their transformed colleague.
"What do you mean?" Minerva asked.
"I mean that maybe the students should have a primary mentor—one of you whose approach most closely matches their personality and goals—but also be required to study with all four of you during their early years. Specialization within a framework of broad exposure."
Harry paused, thinking through the implications of what he was suggesting. "They could start with integrated classes for their first two years, learning the basics from all four of you. Then, once they understand the different approaches, they could choose their primary focus for their later years while still maintaining connections to the other three areas."
"Houses," Rowena said suddenly. "You're describing a house system. Students affiliated with one founder but still part of the larger community."
"Exactly. And if we structure it right, the houses could complement each other rather than compete. Each one contributing its unique strengths to the whole."
The founders considered the proposal, working through the practical implications. How would students be sorted into houses? How would they maintain connection to the other founders' teachings? How would they prevent the houses from becoming isolated from each other?
"It could work," Helga said thoughtfully. "If we're careful about how we implement it. The key would be ensuring that the houses collaborate rather than compete."
"Competition isn't necessarily bad," Godric pointed out. "It can motivate students to excel, to push themselves beyond what they thought possible."
"As long as it doesn't become destructive," Salazar added. "Competition that builds people up is valuable. Competition that tears people down is dangerous."
"Then we'll have to be very careful about the culture we create," Rowena concluded. "The values we emphasize, the rewards we offer, the way we resolve conflicts between houses."
Over the following weeks, they refined the concept, developing a system that would allow students to affiliate with the founder whose approach most closely matched their own while still requiring them to study with all four during their early years. The sorting process would be based on lengthy conversations with each student, rather than any kind of magical test or arbitrary assignment.
The first official sorting ceremony took place on Halloween night, exactly two months after the students had arrived at Hogwarts. The Great Hall was decorated with floating pumpkins and autumn leaves, and the students gathered around the high table where the four founders sat with serious expressions.
"Tonight," Godric announced, "we begin a new tradition. Each of you will choose a primary mentor—one of us whose approach to magic and learning most closely matches your own interests and goals. This choice will determine your house affiliation and your primary course of study for the remainder of your time at Hogwarts."
The students murmured among themselves, excited and nervous about the decision they were about to make. Most had already formed preferences during their weeks of classes, but the formal choice still felt momentous.
"However," Helga continued, "choosing a house does not mean abandoning the other areas of study. You will still take classes with all four of us, still be exposed to all aspects of magical learning. The house system is meant to enhance your education, not limit it."
"Remember," Rowena added, "this is not a test with right and wrong answers. There is no house that is better or worse than the others. Each one serves a different purpose, meets different needs, develops different strengths."
"And remember," Salazar concluded, "that your house will become your family during your time here. You will support each other, learn from each other, and carry the values of your house with you when you leave Hogwarts."
The sorting began with the youngest student, a shy eleven-year-old named Godwin who had shown remarkable aptitude for healing magic. After brief conversations with each founder, he chose to join Helga's house, which had decided to call itself Hufflepuff in honor of their mentor.
One by one, the students made their choices. Some were obvious—Blythe of Orkney, with her practical approach to weather magic, gravitated naturally toward Godric's house, which had taken the name Gryffindor. Others were more surprising—young Morgana ferch Gorlois, despite her necromantic abilities, chose Rowena's house (Ravenclaw) rather than Salazar's (Slytherin), explaining that she wanted to understand the theoretical foundations of death magic before she attempted to practice it.
By the end of the evening, the students were roughly evenly divided among the four houses, with each group reflecting the values and approaches of their chosen founder. Gryffindor attracted the brave and the practical, those who wanted to use magic to directly help others. Hufflepuff drew the nurturing and the patient, those who believed in the power of quiet growth and careful tending. Ravenclaw appealed to the curious and the analytical, those who wanted to understand the deep principles underlying magical phenomena. Slytherin attracted the ambitious and the focused, those who were willing to push boundaries in pursuit of excellence.
"It's done," Minerva said as the newly sorted students celebrated their house affiliations. "The die is cast. We've created something that will endure for centuries."
"For better or worse," Harry replied, watching the four groups of students already beginning to develop their own traditions and loyalties.
"Mostly for better, I think," Minerva said. "At least, I hope so."
As the celebration continued into the night, Harry found himself thinking about the future he had helped create. The house system would indeed endure for centuries, becoming one of the most distinctive features of Hogwarts education. But he also knew that it would eventually become a source of division rather than unity, that the friendly competition between houses would gradually harden into something more bitter and destructive.
But that was still in the future. For now, he could take satisfaction in what they had accomplished—a functioning school, engaged students, and a system that honored both individual differences and collective goals.
The first generation of Hogwarts students was settling into their new homes, ready to begin the next phase of their education. Whatever challenges lay ahead, they would face them as a community, supported by the bonds they were forming and the knowledge they were gaining.
It was a good beginning.
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*Author's Note: Chapter 13 shows Hogwarts functioning as a school for the first time, with the founders developing their distinctive teaching styles and the origins of the house system. The chapter explores how educational philosophy naturally leads to specialization, while also showing the collaborative spirit that initially made the system work.*
*The sorting ceremony and house formation represent a major milestone in the story, establishing traditions that will endure for centuries while also planting the seeds of future conflict. The balance between individual development and community cohesion is a central theme that will become increasingly important as the story progresses.*
*Next chapter will likely focus on the development of the students over their first year, the growing sophistication of the curriculum, and the first signs of tension between the houses that will eventually lead to larger conflicts among the founders.*