A wild boar had led her to a wide, open place with excellent terrain. If such a place truly existed, she would absolutely choose it as the site for Hogwarts.
"Rowena, you must have been thinking too much about finding a location for the school these past few days. When you think about something during the day, you dream about it at night. That's perfectly normal," Godric said with a laugh. To him, this was nothing unusual.
Back when he was trying to quit drinking, he often dreamed of all kinds of strange little animals leading him into dead trees in the forest to look for wine brewed by different creatures.
"True." Rowena chose to believe Godric's explanation. Otherwise, she would have to taste Salazar's strange potions.
The four of them packed up their campsite from the night before and set off.
They hadn't gone far when Rowena frowned. The places they were passing looked strangely familiar, just like the path she had followed behind the wild boar in her dream.
"Let's go this way." When they came to a familiar fork in the road, Rowena, as if guided by some unseen force, chose the same path she had walked in her dream the night before.
The further they went, the quieter Rowena became, and her steps grew faster.
The other three friends didn't quite understand why, but they followed after her all the same.
A few minutes later, the four of them passed through a stretch of woodland and arrived at a lake. Rowena froze on the spot. It was exactly the same as the scene she had seen in her dream.
"This place actually looks pretty good. Should we set the school here?"
"Do you want to go check out a few other places?"
"Rowena, how does this compare to the place you saw in your dream? Hey, why aren't you saying anything?"
Rowena: "…"
She told her friends what had happened.
"Huh?" The three of them exclaimed in unison, all of them standing there in shock.
"Salazar, I heard you've developed a potion to ward off evil spirits?" Rowena asked softly, looking toward the cliff on the other side of the lake.
"Yes." Slytherin nodded blankly and replied out of habit, "I'll make it for you and bring it over in a bit."
...
And so, the site of Hogwarts was decided in this rather comical scene.
Thinking of this, Rhys remembered a rumor that had long circulated in Slytherin House: that Hogwarts Castle was the private property of Salazar Slytherin, and that the deed to the school was hidden in the Headmaster's office.
When he first heard this rumor, he had been completely stunned.
Hogwarts Castle had been built jointly by the four of them, along with several of the students they had taken in back then. There had never been a single, clear owner.
Besides, if he really had owned such a perfectly located castle, how could he have stood by and watched his old friends run all over Britain in those days?
After all, they had almost decided to build a massive ship to serve as their magical school. They could have had the ship sail around the world, searching for young witches and wizards with magical talent and bringing them aboard to learn magic.
That rumor was probably spread by later generations of Slytherins just to glorify themselves. For anyone who actually understood Hogwarts' history, it would only add another joke to laugh at.
"Salazar, is something wrong?" Helga's voice reached his ears, pulling Rhys's attention back to reality.
"Nothing." Rhys shook his head, burying those tangled memories deep in his mind, then began to focus on carefully inscribing the runes onto the protective barrier.
One rune after another settled onto the surface of the shield, and memories from that morning long ago slowly resurfaced in his mind.
As his magic continued to be consumed, the new layer of the barrier gradually became covered with runes. Fine beads of sweat began to form on Rhys's forehead, his hair clumping into strands from the moisture, and even the back of his robes was soaked through with sweat.
Helga stood to the side, helping her old friend by fixing some of the runes he hadn't inscribed properly and correcting a few obvious mistakes.
As the sun was about to set, Rhys carved the final rune onto the main gate directly in front of him. The next moment, the entire magic array lit up.
Woosh! Hogwarts was plunged into darkness in an instant, then returned to normal just as quickly.
The students inside the castle noticed that something was off and crowded over to the windows. Outside, the sunset was still there. The young wizards rubbed their eyes, but the scene before them remained unchanged.
"Did it just flash for a moment?"
"Yes, I'm sure it did…"
The students discussed it among themselves, but none of them could make sense of it. It wasn't just the students. The professors who noticed the strange phenomenon were equally puzzled. Only Dumbledore, seated by the window in the Headmaster's office, understood what had happened.
'Professor White has succeeded.'
Aside from Dumbledore, Daphne, and a few others who understood mana flow also sensed that something was wrong.
"There seemed to be a very strong surge of magic just now…"
"The range was huge. It felt like it covered the entire school."
'Was it the teachers' doing?' Cedric raised his head and looked out the window. Following what his teacher had taught him, he channeled magic into his eyes, and in that moment, dense layers of runes appeared before his sight across the sky.
The runes flickered a few times before gradually fading away, but Cedric knew very well that they were still covering the sky above the school. They had merely hidden themselves.
"Diggory, did the sun seem to flash just now?" a friend's voice came from beside him.
"It did seem like that. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe in our next Astronomy class, we can ask Professor Sinistra what kind of astronomical phenomenon that was." Although he understood more than most people, Cedric still chose to keep it to himself.
If the other students knew that Hogwarts was covered by a mass of mysterious runes, they would probably panic. But as long as the teachers and Professor Dumbledore were around, it shouldn't be a problem.
"Come on, let's head to the Great Hall first. There'll be a lot of people soon." He put on a gentle smile and spoke in a reassuring tone.
"You're right!" His friend's attention was immediately diverted, and he strode toward the Great Hall.
Cedric smiled and shook his head, then quickly followed after him.
That was what Hufflepuff students were like. Even if the sky were about to fall, they would still make sure to eat first.
Outside the gates of Hogwarts, Rhys looked at the now empty lakeside lawn before him, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "Helga, our magic array has been successfully completed."
"Whether it's sound, light, or even heat, it's completely seamless. At the moment the array is activated, neither wizards nor Muggles can see Hogwarts. I believe this is the strongest magic array in the world today, fully comparable to the concealment array at the entrance to Asgard back then," Rhys said proudly.
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12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI