Prologue

There is a story about Hogwarts that floats around from student to student. It's one of those stories that no one ever asks adults about, and so is never confirmed or denied. No one seeks confirmation of it; it is too mythical-sounding to be taken seriously. It begins at the beginning of time, with a creature. In some stories the creature is red and breathes fire; in some it is transparent, and its tears fill oceans. In all of them, the creature wakes when the earth is still burning, next to its mate. Together the enjoy the new world, shaping mountains, laying their feet in lava and digging out valleys and plains. They picnic on firey flowers, and forests spring up from the remains of their lunch. They scratch at the earth and bring forth the first spring of water, they marvel at it and drink. It tastes like nothing they've ever imagined before. It tastes like dreams. They are happy.

Then one day the creature's mate dies. There are a variety of stories about how this happens; the mate is thrown from a mountain, bitten by a poisonous beast, drinks too much water and is converted into a new kind of creature. The mate becomes air; earth; fire. In any case, the mate of the creature is gone, and there is wailing over the earth for two hundred years. And when the mourning song is finished, the creature curls upon itself and decides to sleep. The earth is still hot, and softens underneath the creature, making a space for it. And the creature decides that it has had enough of this world, and will sleep until it the earth is cool and then it will drift away. The new earth moves around it; mountains rise and fall over the sleeping form. And millennia go by.

There is a reason, they say, why there were no muggles on the spot where Hogwarts is built; there is a reason why Hogsmeade is free from them. For thousands of years muggles would discovers this spot, beautiful, perched on a cool, clear lake; next to a mountain; a clean, fertile plain, swamp, meadowland. They would attempt to claim it, and the spot with throw them off. They would stick a spade into the ground and the ground would grow angry and send them away. It would push them into water, face first; it would turn to quicksand and swallow them whole. It throw up trees around them; destroy their crops. It would fill in any holes they dug with mud and stones and clay. There were many stories of men being driven mad by the spot, found crawling through the forest with pebbles in their ears, rabbit's blood on their chins, babbling about the creature under the earth. Eventually the muggles decided to stay away. "It's a haunted place," they muttered to each other. "The earth doesn't want us there."

When Hogwarts was erected on this spot, there was no argument with the creature. They say that it was Salazar Slytherin who managed to talk to it, to soothe it, to determine its demands, to come to an agreement. The creature had not spoken in millennia; it had forgotten that there was such a thing as speech. They agreed not to disturb it, they explained that here they would teach their magical young. The creature was pleased with communication, it was pleased with the delicate and fragile minds of these new creatures. It agreed to let them stay, perched on its back. And after a time the creature developed a taste for the dreams of children.

It is not voyeurism, per se. The creature does not understand the cares and concerns of mortals. But there is a quality of the dreams of children that tastes to the creature the way that that first drink of water did; a cool freshness against it's black tongue that was reassuring and calming. And so the dreams of children help keep the creature under Hogwarts content.

"The creature eats your dreams," the upper years tell the firsties. "You won't remember them anymore, because the creature eats them. And if you do remember them, the creature will come to get you, because you stole its dinner!" The laugh and go back to eating their chicken pasties and green beans and pumpkin soup.

There are many stories about Hogwarts. It is true that the students rarely remember their dreams; but then, so few people do.