The Founders' Tale

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The two girls walked in silence for a while, threading their way through the trees to the edge of the forest.
The forest itself had covered the entire side of the hill, the trees looking like a carpet of moss when observed from a distance. The girls had exited it that the base of the hill, where a flat plain with a wide river running through could be seen. A village sat along the bank of the river, its houses dotted arbitrarily along the track that ran through the middle.
The girls joined the path, travelling east with the setting sunlight casting long shadow in front of them. They passed through the dwindling crowds of market day, many people selling ailments, books, beast and food. Helga giggled at the sheep that ran by and at the funny parrot sat on one man's shoulder. Rowena stormed through the crowd with a scowl on her face until she came to an open-door blacksmiths. The ground around the building was black with soot and the noise of shouting and hammer against metal was deafening. Rowena squeezed herself and Helga around the bottom of a large mare and walked up to the small, rickety door at the back of the blacksmiths.
"Rowena!" A young boy cried, his face blackened with soot. "Hold on, I'll be out in a minute." He pulled a piece of blackened metal out of the fire and into the bucket of water beside it. Rowena walked through the door to the garden outside, letting go of Helga's hand to go play with the small dog.
Moments later the young boy came out of the shop with a dirty towel in his hands. Seeing Rowena, he stepped forward and kissed her hard on the mouth. Rowena quickly recognised the taste of soot and sausages before he pulled away.
He wiped his face then sat down on the rock ledge against the wall and Rowena sat down with him. Helga giggled in the distance as the dog licked her face. The boy finished wiping his face to reveal rosy cheeks and brilliant blue eyes. His red hair stuck out in all directions, it's colour undeniable. His hands were still filthy.
"What's up?" He asked, wiping his neck and hands with the cloth.
"Nothing much, really. Just the aristocratic idiot being undeniably vexatious." She said, fiddling with the cuff of her sleeve.
"Oh. Poor you. But how are things in the family?"
"Rodolphus and Henry are still missing. It's really straining both families. I've heard Mother crying at night." She looked down. "I just wish he would come home. I wish they would both come home."
"Hey, hey, hey. Don't be sad. They'll be back. You know that." He said, wrapping his arms around Rowena. She leant her head against his shoulder as she observed Helga.
"GODRIC! YOU'S BETTER NOT BE SKIVING OUT OF YOUR WORK, YOU LAZY BOY!" A voice roared from the shop. An incredibly dirty man appeared around the door to look for the boy.
"Oh, sorry Ms Rowena. My apologies for shouting like that. Come along boy, you've still got two more horses to shoe." He turned and disappeared back inside the shop. Godric looked at Rowena, who smiled. "Get to work." He smiled to and kissed her on the cheek before going back inside.
Rowena picked up the book that was resting on her lap and called Helga to her. Helga waved at the dog and trotted behind Rowena out of the garden gate and into the back street.
They walked past several houses, Helga counting them aloud until she found her own.
The house of Hufflepuff was a simple affair, with the standard thatched roof and mud walls. In the back garden a piglet played in the mud outside its hut, grunting and squealing in delight. Helga patted the piglet on the head before following Rowena inside through the old, rickety door.
Inside was as simple as outside. The walls were covered with handmade arrases, the little windows accompanied with their own shutters and the floor covered with brown rugs to keep the dirt to a minimum. The table was surrounded by precarious chairs for the family to sit on, an open fire and bread oven off to the right of the house and two larders packed with meat, vegetables, fruit, preserved food, cheese, milk, bread, cakes and biscuits. Oats and barley stood in sacks stacked next to the larders for the piglet when it was old enough, and baskets aplenty mounded up on top of those. Off to the side of the building was a ladder leading up to the first floor where the beds sat and where all of the spare material for making clothes lay.
In the middle of the ground floor a woman of her early forties stood with a broom in her hand, dabbing her face with the hem of her apron. Her blonde hair was short and curled around her soft face.
"Mummy!" Helga ran to her mother with her arms out wide. Her mother bent down and picked up her daughter.
"Hey little one. Where have you been?" The mother held the child on her hip while she cast a spell on the broom in the room.
"We went into the forest and I saw a niffler." Helga's words were muffled in her mother's neck. Her mother laughed and looked at Rowena.
"Has she been a good girl?" she asked.
Rowena nodded and smiled. "As good as gold."
Helga's mother put her down on the floor and leant forward. "Any news on Henry?"
Rowena shook her head. "Not a word about Henry or Rodolphus. My guess is that they've travelled abroad." Rowena could see the sadness in the mother's eyes. They shared a moment of small silent consolation.
"I wish they would come back. Hadrian is struggling by himself on the farm, I need all the help I can get in the daytime, what with the practice and everything, we can't keep this up forever." Helga's mother sighed deeply. 

"I'll help you out the best I can, I'll take turns at the practice, I'm experienced enough." Rowena said.

The blonde woman smiled at Rowena. "No no, my dear, you're just a child, you should not be working. You do enough to take Helga out from under my feet. She's is beginning to sleepwalk again. I hope she's not going down with it." She rubbed her brow.

"Hey, they'll be alright. Helga will be fine. I'll be showing her more animals next week, the Bedlam Brothers' Circus is coming to town, she'll like that, seeing all of the mystical animals. Do not worry yourself."
Helga's mother smiled. "Thank you, dear. Here, take this." She pushed a cupcake into Rowena's hands. "As thanks."
"Thank you, Heather."
Rowena left the house munching on the cake and walked down the lonely road. As she wandered, the wind careening her hair, she thought about many things. Some were irrelevant, like how the cake would taste nicer if it had a sugar butterfly on the top, some were not so irrelevant, such as her relationship with Godric. She decided she should probably discuss the problem with her mother. Turning right, she crossed the river over the bridge and carried on up the steep trail. To the right of the path a small cluster of stone houses came into view, though the path carried on to the looming mansion.
Rowena turned right into the first stone house. It had two floors, glass in the windows and a small bronze handle on the dark wooden door. She opened the door, book underneath her arm and a bite of cake in her hand, she wandered across the hall and into the library. Sitting down on a dark red sofa next to a well-stoked fire, she opened the book and began absorbing the words almost instantly, subconsciously eating the rest of the cake.
When the fire had shrunk considerably, and the snack had been eaten hours ago, she stopped reading and yawned. Shivering, she bent back over the book but couldn't get absorbed, sensing a looming presence in front of her.
"Biscuit?"