Mess

1. Herbology

Rowena was taking a relaxing stroll around the Hogwarts grounds, by the greenhouses, thinking about her dream that night. She had a feeling it had something to do with Salazar’s recent uncooperativeness, but then a loud splat broke her away from her thoughts.

“Aargh! My best hat! What is going on here?” she exclaimed, noticing the culprits immediately.

A cowering pair of third year Hufflepuffs stood by the greenhouses.

“Oh, Rowena, I’m so sorry, I was just showing them how to extract pus from these plants, I didn’t think they’d try practicing outside…” Helga apologized, rushing to her mortified friend.

Authority Questioned?

69. Slap

“How could you? How dare you undermine my authority in front of my students?” Rowena stormed into her fiancee’s office.

Godric stood in front of her and raised his hands in a submissive gesture, but a mocking smile playing on his lips.

“Honey, you were being too harsh on…”

SLAP! echoed throughout the chamber as the wizard touched his cheek.

“What was that for?” he exclaimed, shocked and angry.

“For dismissing them before their detention was over and telling them that letting their prank custard-pie birds fly around the common room when I told them to get rid of them!”

Invisible

45. Torch

Rowena sighed as she pushed the covers off her bed. She was hot, she couldn’t sleep. Deciding that perhaps a book might be a better way of passing time than futilely fighting insomnia, she sat up in bed…

…and noticed a flickering light right by her door, spilling under the crack.

She opened unlocked it immediately, letting it swing open to reveal a flickering torch suddenly pause on its way down the stairs, floating in mid-air.

“Prattler, I told you not to wear that around school!” Rowena uncovered the student under the Invisibility Cloak, shaking her head at him angrily.

Teaching at Hogwarts

9. Defence Against the Dark Arts

“We’ve already discussed this, you can’t take that post!”

“Why not? Helga’s sister has only been here for a year and she prefers to teach Charms to the Dark Arts anyway!”

Rowena paused by the doorway, listening to Godric trying to persuade Salazar the DADA post was not for him.

“It’s Defence Against, not the Dark Arts, Salazar. There are some branches of magic the students don’t have to know,” Godric spat, brushing by Rowena on his way out of the classroom and not even seeing her.

Rowena followed suit, hearing a desk being overturned in the room behind her.

Unsuccessful Requests

84. Angry

Rowena stormed into her office, still fuming after her recent meeting with the Minister for Magic. She had requested that the strict rules for newly formed schools be lifted, to allow for Hogwarts to develop without the looming danger of being closed down at any moment. She had wanted him to approve of the school, something she knew would lead many more students into their grounds.

But no, he said he was still unsure that the teaching of Muggleborns was a wise choice, and wanted to wait a few more years before making his decision final.

So much for justice.

Opening Feast Interrupted

93. Chicken

The opening feast had run according to plan, and Rowena was about to rise, to announce the ending and usher the students to their common rooms.

That’s when it happened.

A piercing screech echoed around the Hall as the sound of claws striking stone resounded behind the stray chicken careening between tables. Students laughed, some of the younger ones jumped out of their seats, startled.

Rowena cast an angry glance at the openly guffawing Godric before pointing her wand at the bird, sending it back to the kitchens and making a mental note to discuss security issues with the elves.

Changing Pictures

31. Dress Robes

Rowena unpacked the parcel which had been left by her door. There was not note, nothing to indicate who it had come from, so, driven by curiosity, Rowena swiftly unpacked it as soon as she’d locked her door.

“What in Merlin’s beard…?” she exclaimed, holding back the yellow-golden material away from her to see at the stitched image properly.

It showed an eagle being caught by a badger.

“Dress robes indeed,” Rowena smiled, thinking of Helga when she altered the imaged to show the eagle carrying the badger off as its prey.

She wondered how Helga would like this alteration.

Bad Luck in Mischief - Again

4. Ancient Runes

Rowena glanced through the half-open door of the Ancient Runes classroom, smiling at the the rows of students focusing on their parchments, their quills scraping away.

She was about to leave and carry on with her stroll around the castle when an ill-aimed rune dictionary flew a mere inch above her head.

She turned around, noticing two students sitting motionlessly in their seats, quills clutched tightly in their hands.

Rowena almost growled when she recognized them as them as the two who had a mud fight in Herbology recently, which had resulted in her being plastered in the foul thing.

Nature’s Silencing Charm

33. Classroom

“Come on, we can talk here,” Godric pulled Rowena into an empty classroom too quickly for her to protest.

“Oh, I can just see how you’ll be talking in here mpfff…” her words were smothered with his lips.

“Anybody might walk in and see us!” she exclaimed, pushing away from him. “And besides, you can’t just kiss me to silence me when I’m not saying something you want to hear!”

“No?” he asked, smirking at the hint of a smile around her lips, signifying she wasn’t really serious. He pulled her to him again for another kiss.

She didn’t protest.

Annoying Fiancés

95. Snowball

She had been ignoring the banging of her fiancé’s owl for the past ten minutes, and was beginning to wonder when the windowpane would give way to its beak. He knew she didn’t want to talk to him, and she was stubbornly hoping his owl would realize so soon, too.

Blissful silence… she sighed after a moment, turning to see the owl flying off.

Moments later, however, a clump of January snow smashed into the glass, startling her. Another charmed snowball, and another bounced off her window as she groaned and left her office to speak to the lion-loving wizard.

Unexpected Holiday

47. Portkey

Rowena walked across her living room in her apartment in Muggle London, sighing in frustration as she noticed another of Godric’s shirts just draped carelessly over a chair. She leaned over to put it away, but the moment that she touched the material…

…she found herself in her lover’s arms, staring at a wonderful view presented through the window. A view of Venice. She could see the sun reflecting off the canal, the happy couples passing by and crossing the small bridges littering the city.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear, kissing it. “Did you like my Portkey idea?”

Practicing for Class

12. Charms

“Aguamenti!” Rowena turned the corner, only to be splashed with a stream of cold water which soaked her favourite black hat.

“What are you doing?!” she screamed, trying to fruitlessly shake off the liquid which made her robes cling to her tightly.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry, Professor, I was just practicing for Charms class, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be passing by…” the second year Ravenclaw girl replied, flustered.

“Practicing in the corridor? What were you thinking? That will be five points from my own house. Don’t let me catch you at it again.” Rowena stomped off angrily.

Meetings

43. Headmaster

Rowena entered the conference room, plastering a smile to her face as she shook the hand of one of her least favourite wizards who stalked the planet, the Headmaster’s of Durmstrang, another newly formed school somewhere up in the north. Of course, nobody knew Durmstrang’s location, just as nobody but its founders could locate Hogwarts.

“Good morning, Philippe, I’m glad we could meet,” she began.

“Yes, well, we need to discuss the students we educate in magical lore,” he replied, although from his sour expression Rowena guessed his views did no differ from Salazar’s.

This would be a long morning.

Flying Future

44. Ford Anglia

“What is this meant to be?” Rowena asked, glancing at the crude sketch of something flying around the castle, which the Divination Professor, Amanda Trelawney, clutched in her hand.

“Oh, I’ve had another vision! It’s form the far-off future!” the witch explained. “See, Muggles will invent these machines for transportation, and some wizard will cast a charm on it so that it can fly… a pair of students will fly it to Hogwarts some day, in years to come.”

“Aha…” Rowena sniffed. She had no great respect for visions or predictions, and even less for flying machines of the future.

Authority and Punishment

46. Dungeon

“You cannot do that! You cannot go locking up students in the dungeons as a form of punishment!” Rowena yelled at Salazar as he stared disdainfully back at her.

“Trouble-makers and rule-breakers need to be taught a lesson,” he replied calmly, refusing to give her the magic keys to the prison.

“Admit it, you’re only doing it because they are Gryffindors and Muggleborns, and you want to spite Godric for that fight you got into yesterday!” she retaliated furiously.

“That is an unjustified accusation! You cannot constantly undermine my influence here!” Salazar paled with anger, his eyes locking on hers.

Purity over Points

35. Pureblood

“You want to make Gregory a Prefect? Out of all the fifth-years you pick the one who loses you most points?” Rowena’s voice stated flatly, cutting the air between herself and Salazar as, once again, she had come to discuss his approach towards students.

“Why not? We decided to choose those who are the most fitting from our Houses,” Salazar replied smugly. “He’s had the right upbringing, he’s a pureblood… perfect for the role. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” he left her.

Rowena stared after him with narrowed eyes, knowing he’d just said it all; Greg was indeed a Pureblood.

Almost-Trouble

36. Muggle

Rowena walked down the Muggle path, not looking where she was going. As a result, she stumbled and almost fell into a passing man.

“Watch it!” he pushed her roughly aside, almost making her fall and causing her wand to fall out of her robe pocket. He didn’t seem to notice it, however, and walked on.

“Merlin, how I’d love to hex him into next week,” the witch muttered as she inconspicuously picked up her instrument and walked on, this time paying more attention to where she was going. To think she’d been this close to giving her identity away.

Searching from the Air

37. Animagi

The eagle soared above the grounds on its search for… something. The students below barely paid any attention to it, not yet having heard about the disappearance of one of their Muggle peers.

Rowena had decided to have a look around the school before telling her fellow founders about this. It was the last straw; she was almost certain Salazar had something to do with the disappearance.

So, she’d changed into her Animagi form and launched herself off from her window. She only hoped nobody would close it while she was gone; her being an Animagi was no common knowledge.

Wrong Victim

60. Joke

“Come on, let’s stretch it here!”

“No, someone will see it, lower!”

“Stop fussing and just leave it already, there’s somebody walking down the corrid…”

“It’s Professor Ravenclaw! Take it down!”

“NO, stay, she’ll see and then we’re all dead! She’ll never understand it was just a joke we wanted to play on the first years!”

Rowena walked down the corridor, oblivious to the thin line stretched across just above her ankles. Until it got tangled around her foot and….

“I told you it was a bad idea,” one of the students said, before he disappeared down the corridor after his friends.

Sick

78. Author's Choice

Rowena sneezed loudly and moaned, falling back on her pillows. She cursed herself for not having listened to her tutor when he had taught her about healing spells; she’d been interested only in charming and transfiguring things, and as a result could not even cure her cold when the Hogwarts Healer was absent!

“Stupid draughts, I need to remember to as Salazar to fix that door so the wind doesn’t blow underneath it…” she said, thinking about the too-small door to her Transfiguration classroom.

This just wasn’t fair. She hated colds, and being sick, and…

“ACHOO!” she sneezed loudly again.

Helpful Levitation Charm

6. Divination

Rowena helped the Divination Professor levitate his crystal balls to the top of one of the castle’s towers, trying to be welcoming. However, he talked constantly, and let it be known that Rowena did not have time for matters such as visions and premonitions.

“You know, I could try and see for you, if you would like. I’m sure you already know that this school will be successful for centuries to come, but perhaps you’d like to know your specific role in creating its future…

She rolled her eyes at his back, following him up the ladder to his classroom.

Losing Trinkets

7. Care of Magical Creatures

She saw the unicorns much earlier than she heard her sister, Rachel Ravenclaw, explaining their characteristics to the fourth-years gathered around her, some of the girls stroking the silver creature excitedly.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you lesson, but do you have any Niffler’s left? It seems that I’ve lost… ah… something of value,” Rowena asked, speaking over the students.

She couldn’t exactly openly state in front of everyone that her coronet and Helga’s cup had gone missing, now, could she? Imagine the rumours then, of how the two of them were too disorganized to keep track of their own things!

Hangovers

57. Gape

Rowena sat at the staff table, her head in her hands. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the pounding pain of her hangover. She glanced around the Great Hall, thankful that the vast majority of the students had left home for Christmas holidays, and the remainder was still fast asleep in their dormitories.

The previous night’s New Year’s Party had been exceptional, with exceptionally good drinks that all who attended were presently regretting trying.

Still nursing her head, she failed to notice the shocked face of a Prefect gaping at her from the doorway. So much for remaining inconspicuous.

Lack of Manners?

27. Owl

The owls swooped into the Great Hall, disturbing everyone from their breakfast. Rowena eyed one bird which seemed headed for her warily; she was not a great fan of owls. The tawny giant circled above her head before perching on the back of her chair and delivering its letter.

She too the letter as the owl rose, noting the Ministry’s seal.

It circled above her head again, letting something white and disgusting plop into her goblet, before promptly flying off.

Rowena stared at her drink, shocked; although, admittedly, she had been aware the Minister had a… specific sense of humour.

Saving Lives

28. Timeturner

She left Godric the wrapped up box on his desk. She’d only just arrived with it from the Ministry of Magic, having acquired it illegally, of course. Timeturners were not freely given to magical folk, whether they were one of the most famous four, or not.

In any case, her sister had been a great help, and Rowena knew that Godric would be as grateful to Rachel as she herself was.

If only this would work, though. If only Salazar could be convinced to see sense. If only Godric managed to save Helga’s life before it was too late, again…