I think May/Brendan came from Johto, and I always thought that Norman was newly instated as Petalburg's Gym Leader, which is why his wife and child moved to Hoenn, although he seems pretty well-known by various people already (such as Professor Birch, who is apparently a old and close friend).

 

Yeah that's what I've been thinking of writing, maybe that Norman has been in Petalburg for a year or so before Player Character and Mother move over?

 

Could also have Norman be a pokemon trainer who is semi-retiring from adventuring to give his wife and child a stable home, so he takes up the recently vacant position at Petalburg.

I've read too much of GoC, it seems.

 

Is the Hogwarts founding date ever mentioned anywhere, beyond vaguely medieval?

I was thinking it would be amusing to place it during Macbeth's reign (1040–1057), but I can't think if there's anything in canon bounding it out of those dates.

 

The Sorting Hat sings the following:

But that only mentions his own coming into existence, so we can assume safely that Hogwarts is at least a thousand years old. It all really depends on when they decided they needed to enchant headwear to sort students and since Slytherin was still at school at the time, it might imply it was somewhat soon after they made the school.

And speaking of Hogwarts, was it built from the ground up or was it simply repurposed by the Founders?

 

Haha, that's what plagues me in this story a little bit, always wondering if it's too much like GoC or Sun Soul, even though I think it isn't, I'm always left wondering if it is. Just going to have to read through my first chapter

Ended up solving that question though, In my mind Norman is from Hoenn and was hired by Steven before Steven vacated his title and left it to Wallace.

Because Norman being from Johto his whole life yet having a Full Hoenn team doesn't make sense to me.

 

Well, let's consider the possibilities.

Pre-409AD (Roman)

The Romans did build stone forts, but not really castles of the kind that Hogwarts is. Roman Founders would fit with the idea that Merlin went to Hogwarts, and would explain Hogwarts being built with plumbing, but the real problem here is that Hogwarts being 1600+ years old is really a lot older than the "around 1000 years ago" that McGonagall tells us in CoS.

450-1066 (Anglo-Saxon)

Anglo-Saxon Founders would fit rather well with a lot of factors. The time period is right, especially if it is towards the later end of the first millennium. It can also work with Merlin having gone to Hogwarts. Hogwarts being founded by one of the Germanic tribes which came to Britain would explain the way ancient runes are taught there and continued to be used by wizards into the 1500s (when Beedle lived).

The Anglo-Saxons generally didn't use stone to build, and they built hill forts, not castles... but they did use stone to build churches and cathedrals, so if one considers Hogwarts as more of a cathedral (courtyards, large windowed halls, etc.) than a castle then it could fit.

Post-800AD (Viking)

Contrary to popular belief, the Vikings weren't just raiders: they settled and administrated large parts of the North East of England for decades, including the city of York from 867-954 (though it changed hands a few times in that period). This is the right time period for the founding of Hogwarts and again, Vikings would explain the prominent place of Ancient Runes. However, the Vikings weren't really builders, especially of stone buildings, and they were dominant in Britain for the shortest time out of all these groups.

Post-1066 (Norman)

Of all the groups here, the Normans suit Hogwarts best in terms of architecture. It was the Normans who brought the building of large stone castles to the British isles. However, Norman founders would give Hogwarts a rather late founding date. The Normans also spoke French... not only are the Founders' names extremely unFrench, but one would think that if the Norman invasion signified a Frenchification of the wizarding world then ancient runes would have fallen into disuse, as they did in the Muggle world.

Scottish

It's possible that the Founders were from one of the Scottish kingdoms descending from native Britons (Kingdom of Strathclyde), Picts (Picland) or Gaelic people (Dál Riata), rather than Anglo-Saxons or Vikings (Kingdom of Northumbria, which included Edinburgh). Of course, until 927, when Æthelstan united the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, there was no idea of "England" and "Scotland": the British Isles contained many independent Kingdoms.

I've assumed in this post that wizards were not particularly constrained by geography, so people from the south could have founded Hogwarts. After all, it accepts students from across the British Isles.

However, if Hogwarts is indeed in the Scottish highlands and geography is important, then foundation by Britons of Strathclyde or Picts of Pictland is likely. If so, I think Britons are the far more likely group, though Picts are more geographically accurate. Scrathclyde was a rather more advanced society than the Picts, who were rather tribal, and Strathclyde also had influence from the south, including some measure of Viking and Anglian settlement. The Kingdom of Strathclyde lasted from 450 to sometime between 1018-1054, so it was in the right time period too.

Distinct wizarding culture

Finally, it's possible that separation between wizards and Muggles was greater than I'm assuming, even back in those times, and Hogwarts was founded by some uniquely wizarding people unconnected to the other migrations to and around Britain. However, as late as 1066 we know that the Malfoy family migrated to Britain with the Norman invasion as court wizards, so I think that wizards were quite closely intermingled with Muggles at the time of Hogwarts' founding.

Conclusion

All told, my money is either on Anglo-Saxon wizards (probably from Northumbria, which extended up into what is now Scotland) who ranged north beyond their borders or Britons from Strathclyde. Anglo-Saxons built in stone more than Britons did, so for that reason I'll suggest that Hogwarts was founded by them.

 

Damn, I love reading Taure's posts, especially when he's just answering a question, rather than ranting at someone who confused fanon with canon or some such.

 

Personally, I think the castle is newer than Hogwarts. Originally, it was probably made of wood. Only in Norman times did people start rebuilding it into a stone castle.

Random question: what kind of dragons were used to make wands? As far as we know, there's only one breed of phoenixes and unicorns, but there are a whole lot of types of dragons. So which ones would have been used by, say, Ollivander?

 

Any would do? A dragon is a dragon, regardless of the breed. Think of them as dog breeds.

 

True, but I do wonder if Ollivander distinguishes between dragon breeds. Even if there is absolutely no Magical difference between their heart strings, does he distinguish between them for economical differences? Is there a dragon breed common enough to justify killing enough of them to make wands?

 

How did Salazar Slytherin fit the Chamber of Secrets into it, then?

 

It is underground. And we know he had multiple descendent who visited the Chamber over the years. And we know of at least one descendent who made changes to the entrance when new construction called for it.

 

With magic, of course.

We've seen tents as big as houses.

 

WHile still the size of a tent.

 

I'm trying to write an HP/Dresden crossover, and I have a problem related to trying to make Dresden magic influence HP magic. It's fundamentally HP magic but somethings should change. I'm already thinking about making so that you must believe it will work so it will work, unlike the more skill-like approach in HP. I already risked making it "mana" spending. Any more ideas?

Ideas for the inverse would be even more welcome.

 

Dresden magic fucks with electricity post-50's, roughly. We're told in one of the books (I want to say Cold Days, for this) that overtime the magic sort of gets used to the technology around it and scales up a couple decades. This could mean that HP's magic screws with his cousin's games and basically everything around him. TV is a grey area because CRT's been around forever, but I suppose you could have him fuzz the picture by being in the general vicinity, as opposed to completely nuking the TV like Dresden does to hard drives.

 

Yes, yes. Good thing you remembered me. I was think about making him fuck up any devices post 80's. Computers, video games, delicate stuff.

 

I thought DF magic had different side-effects through the ages, but always something annoying. For the moment this is screwing with electronics, but Dresden hopes that one day it becomes being irresistible to the other sex.

 

He mentions that the old one was strange afflictions of the skin (warts), lol.