(no subject)
Title: The Confession
Genre: General, Tragic
Characters: Rowena Ravenclaw, Helena Ravenclaw, Founders, King Vortigern
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,740 words
Summary: Rowena writes about her life and Helena
Author's Notes: Written for hecticity because she asked for it and she's awesome.
My dearest friend:
I know that tonight the fates will deliver me from this earthly and mortal prison of which I have been held captive on for far too long. I leave you this letter with hopes that the truth may be known. In fact, I feel that I owe it to her. My only regret is that she died without ever knowing of it.
First and foremost, I loved Helena. Of course I did. It is impossible to not love her. As a child, she bared her soul to me, begging me to love her. She did not know she did not have to beg. I already loved her. I loved her with all of my heart.
But Helena's story cannot begin without first telling you of Vortigern's and mine.
I married Vortigern out of spite. Yes, it is true. I pray this does not bruise your delicate sensibilities, but I only married him out of anger and hurt. I have been accused of many things, including being heartless and unfeeling. My dear, you know this to not be true, but I have seen the doubt in your eyes. Let me tell you this: I am not unfeeling. In fact, I feel far too much. Far, far too much.
Vortigern and I met through my father, who was still hoping that I might wed. Unfortunately, I could not love Vortigern because I already had someone else in my heart, but that is a different part of this story. Father tried to introduce me to him, anyway. A little while later, however, he married another and it was of no real loss to me. He had a son, Vortimer, but I do not know what became of him or of his mother. Vortigern never mentioned them. But I digress. Vortigern soon lost his power to Ambrosius Aurelianus, Pendragon's uncle, who preceded King Arthur's own father. Vortigern gave up his kingdom and faked his death, which is probably why his family did not look for him. He and I soon started a correspondence when he was building his little hideaway and needed my expertise on warding spells. We met once in a while at my father's house, where he was still welcome. He soon began to woo me. But I declined him. I rejected him. I could not love Vortigern.
And now, I do believe you must be asking yourself why I could not love him. It was because I loved Salazar. Yes, Salazar Slytherin. The man I found so odious when Queen Maeve introduced us. As I told you once, I had learned to enjoy his company. I must admit I may have not been completely honest with you. I did not only enjoy his company, I yearned for it. Before you start worrying about the whole situation, my dear, let me tell you that it has passed and do not concern yourself about things you can do nothing about anymore. I gradually learned to respect him as a man as we were discussing the different houses. I found that I admired his choice in qualities and we talked deeply about his choices (and mine) after that meeting. It slowly developed into a love affair.
We put off any sort of real commitment to each other because we had decided to put the school before all else. Hogwarts was our first priority. We felt that it would be unfair to you and Godric if we went let ourselves get distracted by romance. So we decided to wait. Now, I must warn you that what follows may be offensive to your good heart. But do not hate him. We were both at fault. I agreed to deception; it seems only right that I be deceived myself. Vortigern had begun his courting by now, sending me silly little gifts and such. Salazar and I laughed about it together. Then, during the Easter holidays, when we all went home to our families, I discovered something quite disconcerting. I was with child! I began to worry about how this would eventually affect Hogwarts. Still, Galen had been conceived as well at this point, so I felt a little better about it. I decide that I would consult Salazar before I made any decisions. After all, the child was half his.
I returned to Hogwarts on the same day that we were all scheduled to arrive. Godric arrived first, I remember. I arrived second and you came shortly after I did. When dinner time came and Salazar had not yet appeared, I decided to wait for him in his quarters. I sat on his bed, nearly giddy from my news - for I thought that he would be excited as well. Agitated as I was, I could not sit still and so I paced his room. And I must admit my curiosity got the better of me as I started looking at the letters on his desk. The first thing noted was that it was in a rather feminine cursive. I could have stopped myself right there, but I read on. It was a letter from Agatha, whom Salazar did not introduce to us until he decided to bring Suresh to Hogwarts. Agatha, whom, to this day, I have never seen.
You must imagine the horror I felt at that moment. I was carrying Salazar's bastard child. It suddenly all made sense. Why he insisted we could not be together, even after Hogwarts had already been reasonably established. Why he would not come with me to Scotland. Why he always insisted he needed to go to home for the holidays. Why he would not take me with him. I had stepped a reasonable distance from the desk when he entered his room. I could not hide the surprise on my face, because he asked me what the matter was. I could not tell him. I merely wept and left without a word. That night, I immediately wrote to Vortigern.
Vortigern replied in the morning. The owl came at breakfast. You saw me write my response to him at the table. I told him I would meet him and discuss things thoroughly. You were surprised and asked me if I was seriously considering the man. I responded vaguely, but you saw Salazar leave the table. You and Godric thought nothing of it, but I felt my heart plunge into my belly. Vortigern visited that weekend. I told him that I would marry him and he dined with us that weekend. The next weekend, I went to visit him at his chateau. The week after that, I was married to him. Godric was concerned and so were you. You fretted and worried, but once I told you that I had been falling in love with him slowly, you believed me and were happier than I. The truth being...anyone could be happier than I.
It was a small, quick ceremony. Vortigern assumed I would immediately take up the post of wife, but I told him Hogwarts was more important, and I had already told him that before we married. He said he had hoped I would change my mind once we were wed, but I told him that my students needed me far more than he did. He relented. I immediately went back to Hogwarts. There was no wedding night. Not ever.
I quickly began to show. In winter, I went home to him and I gave birth to my baby. I called her Helena, my light. She would be my hope, the sun in my life. She would be a reason for me to live, for me to keep going. I loved her so much, and I had not even seen her yet. Labor was painful, but I did not care anymore. My baby was about to be born. My darling sweet little girl.
She had his eyes.
I could not look at her. My Helena, my baby, my daughter had his eyes. After all the pains I had taken to deny he had any part of her. That he could never claim my daughter. Yet, the most obvious part of her belonged to him. Marked her as his. I could not bear to look at her.
Vortigern was upset. Still, he was a man of propriety and he did not call me names until we were quite alone. At which point, I swallowed my pride and promised to be faithful to him. I would never let another man touch me. I told him that if he would love my daughter, I would be his wife. And the poor soul had really learned to love me, the few brief times we had met. It was rather heart-breaking. But I kept my promises. No man ever touched me again. Not Salazar, not Vortigern, no one.
As for loving Helena, he told me he never truly loved her. That he only took care of her and taught her what he knew in the hopes that I would learn to love him. That I would someday return to him. His mistake was thinking I would return, but let me say that I was never with him. There was nothing to return to. However, my dear Vortigern was lying. He loved Helena. If he did not, he would not have taken the pains to make sure she was well-educated, to throw her all those silly birthday parties and to tell me that sometimes my daughter needed me too. So the silly man had fallen for Helena's charms, like so many other men.
Helena was brilliant. She was far more brilliant than any of my Ravenclaw students. At the age of six, she could use a wand like a twelve-year old. Vortigern, of course, did not have a wand, because he used a different kind of magic. Potions and incantations and rituals were his style, some of which I sometimes performed myself. Helena first picked up a wand on her first visit to Hogwarts, when she was four years old. You remember this, my dear, it was the day I combed the entire castle for my wand. Finally, I found Helena in the courtyard with Salazar. She had turned a field of flowers blue. It was sweet and amazing. I would have said something about it, but he was there and I could not stand both of their grey eyes looking at me. So I left without a word. I did not expect him to take her to his classes. I did expect him to have a wand crafted for her. I did not expect him to fall in love with her.
Vortigern told me that Godric and Salazar visited, I allowed it. I allowed it because Godric would teach her humanity - something Vortigern and I both lacked. Salazar, on the other hand, I had no reason to disallow because he taught he so well. Vortigern, once again on his death bed, told me he had seen the resemblance immediately. It hurt him to see Helena with Salazar because it reminded him that she was his. And that I had once been his as well. Clearly, another bit of evidence to support the fact that he loved Helena.
Helena grew up a beautiful woman. Many men reportedly came to Vortigern to ask for her hand. But she would have none of them. Much like how I was, remember, my dear? How no man was ever good enough for me. Helena told Vortigern that she could not love a man until he matched her intelligence and was able to captivate her mind as well as her heart. All those silly men who wanted her only wanted her for her body. And she would have none of them.
Finally, when she reached the age of seventeen, she told Vortigern that she could no longer live under my shadow. She would not stand for it anymore. She would not go through life as the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. She told him that she would have bore it had I been a mother she could be proud of. But there was nothing for her to be proud of, because I was not a mother. I was just a woman that she had fed off of for a few months. She also told him that I was not fit to be a mother because my body allegedly rejected her early anyway. It was clear that either I could not wait to get rid of her or that she could not wait to be rid of me, as everyone assumed she was premature, having been born seven months after my wedding to Vortigern. She fled to Albania. Vortigern wrote to me, demanding that I fix this. Once again, he clearly loved her.
I, of course, could not go to her myself. I would not be able to look at her and she would not trust me. So I went to Vortigern and asked him which of her suitors was the most persistent. He named a Baron of sorts, though he said he did not trust him. I did not listen to him. I sent for the Baron and commissioned him to bring Helena back. If he did, I would agree to their union. By this time, I had fallen quite ill and Vortigern took care of me so well that I did not return to Hogwarts for some time. I needed the rest. I had thrown over two decades of my heart and my soul into the school. I had not worn the diadem for some time, finding it a bother, which is why I did not notice it was missing until I searched for it to give to Helena as a gift of apology. But she had taken it.
My thoughts are becoming rather confusing now. I do think I am going to leave very, very soon. You must try to decode my sentences, then, my dear, for my mind is beginning to dim.
The Baron killed my daughter. He killed her because she would not come. Vortigern howled for days. When her body came, so young and so beautiful, I finally realized how much I had wronged her. How much I truly loved her. Her eyes were closed, I could no longer see the grey that plagued me. She was so beautiful, my baby. My darling, sweet baby. And I had sent the man who killed her. I placed a curse upon the Baron, cursed him to walk the earth forever, plagued by guilt and shame. I do believe he is one of the ghosts at Hogwarts now. Vortigern fell into a sickness shortly after we buried Helena. He called it consumption, or old age, one of those things. I called it heartbreak. It was my turn to nurse him, take care of him. He told me how glad he was I was finally acting like a wife, though he would not be able to enjoy it for long. I did not feel sad at those words. I have said it before. Vortigern meant and means nothing to me. I am grateful he took care of my daughter, but no. I did not love him.
My hand grows weak, my dear. I do not think I can hold this quill for much longer. So I must end this with my regrets over my daughter and my guilt over causing her death and that of my husband's. I want the truth to be known, my dear. There will be no need to tell Salazar. Commission Ciaran to do it. He is a faithful young man. Release this letter after all four of us are gone, so that no one is hurt.
I grow weary. I think this will be the last. I love you, my dear. Thank you for being a the best friend anyone could ask for, though I never truly deserved you.
Yours,
Rowena
Helga was weeping somewhere far off, trying to arrange everything for Rowena's funeral. Godric was with her, making sure she did not faint from exhaustion. The letter trembled in Salazar's hand. No, this letter must never be released. It would destroy everything they had strived for. Rowena knew that the school always came first. To destroy the reputation of one of her founders would not reflect kindly upon the school.
"She was mine," Salazar whispered. "They were both mine."
And with that, he commissioned Rowena's letter to the flames.
Genre: General, Tragic
Characters: Rowena Ravenclaw, Helena Ravenclaw, Founders, King Vortigern
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,740 words
Summary: Rowena writes about her life and Helena
Author's Notes: Written for hecticity because she asked for it and she's awesome.
My dearest friend:
I know that tonight the fates will deliver me from this earthly and mortal prison of which I have been held captive on for far too long. I leave you this letter with hopes that the truth may be known. In fact, I feel that I owe it to her. My only regret is that she died without ever knowing of it.
First and foremost, I loved Helena. Of course I did. It is impossible to not love her. As a child, she bared her soul to me, begging me to love her. She did not know she did not have to beg. I already loved her. I loved her with all of my heart.
But Helena's story cannot begin without first telling you of Vortigern's and mine.
I married Vortigern out of spite. Yes, it is true. I pray this does not bruise your delicate sensibilities, but I only married him out of anger and hurt. I have been accused of many things, including being heartless and unfeeling. My dear, you know this to not be true, but I have seen the doubt in your eyes. Let me tell you this: I am not unfeeling. In fact, I feel far too much. Far, far too much.
Vortigern and I met through my father, who was still hoping that I might wed. Unfortunately, I could not love Vortigern because I already had someone else in my heart, but that is a different part of this story. Father tried to introduce me to him, anyway. A little while later, however, he married another and it was of no real loss to me. He had a son, Vortimer, but I do not know what became of him or of his mother. Vortigern never mentioned them. But I digress. Vortigern soon lost his power to Ambrosius Aurelianus, Pendragon's uncle, who preceded King Arthur's own father. Vortigern gave up his kingdom and faked his death, which is probably why his family did not look for him. He and I soon started a correspondence when he was building his little hideaway and needed my expertise on warding spells. We met once in a while at my father's house, where he was still welcome. He soon began to woo me. But I declined him. I rejected him. I could not love Vortigern.
And now, I do believe you must be asking yourself why I could not love him. It was because I loved Salazar. Yes, Salazar Slytherin. The man I found so odious when Queen Maeve introduced us. As I told you once, I had learned to enjoy his company. I must admit I may have not been completely honest with you. I did not only enjoy his company, I yearned for it. Before you start worrying about the whole situation, my dear, let me tell you that it has passed and do not concern yourself about things you can do nothing about anymore. I gradually learned to respect him as a man as we were discussing the different houses. I found that I admired his choice in qualities and we talked deeply about his choices (and mine) after that meeting. It slowly developed into a love affair.
We put off any sort of real commitment to each other because we had decided to put the school before all else. Hogwarts was our first priority. We felt that it would be unfair to you and Godric if we went let ourselves get distracted by romance. So we decided to wait. Now, I must warn you that what follows may be offensive to your good heart. But do not hate him. We were both at fault. I agreed to deception; it seems only right that I be deceived myself. Vortigern had begun his courting by now, sending me silly little gifts and such. Salazar and I laughed about it together. Then, during the Easter holidays, when we all went home to our families, I discovered something quite disconcerting. I was with child! I began to worry about how this would eventually affect Hogwarts. Still, Galen had been conceived as well at this point, so I felt a little better about it. I decide that I would consult Salazar before I made any decisions. After all, the child was half his.
I returned to Hogwarts on the same day that we were all scheduled to arrive. Godric arrived first, I remember. I arrived second and you came shortly after I did. When dinner time came and Salazar had not yet appeared, I decided to wait for him in his quarters. I sat on his bed, nearly giddy from my news - for I thought that he would be excited as well. Agitated as I was, I could not sit still and so I paced his room. And I must admit my curiosity got the better of me as I started looking at the letters on his desk. The first thing noted was that it was in a rather feminine cursive. I could have stopped myself right there, but I read on. It was a letter from Agatha, whom Salazar did not introduce to us until he decided to bring Suresh to Hogwarts. Agatha, whom, to this day, I have never seen.
You must imagine the horror I felt at that moment. I was carrying Salazar's bastard child. It suddenly all made sense. Why he insisted we could not be together, even after Hogwarts had already been reasonably established. Why he would not come with me to Scotland. Why he always insisted he needed to go to home for the holidays. Why he would not take me with him. I had stepped a reasonable distance from the desk when he entered his room. I could not hide the surprise on my face, because he asked me what the matter was. I could not tell him. I merely wept and left without a word. That night, I immediately wrote to Vortigern.
Vortigern replied in the morning. The owl came at breakfast. You saw me write my response to him at the table. I told him I would meet him and discuss things thoroughly. You were surprised and asked me if I was seriously considering the man. I responded vaguely, but you saw Salazar leave the table. You and Godric thought nothing of it, but I felt my heart plunge into my belly. Vortigern visited that weekend. I told him that I would marry him and he dined with us that weekend. The next weekend, I went to visit him at his chateau. The week after that, I was married to him. Godric was concerned and so were you. You fretted and worried, but once I told you that I had been falling in love with him slowly, you believed me and were happier than I. The truth being...anyone could be happier than I.
It was a small, quick ceremony. Vortigern assumed I would immediately take up the post of wife, but I told him Hogwarts was more important, and I had already told him that before we married. He said he had hoped I would change my mind once we were wed, but I told him that my students needed me far more than he did. He relented. I immediately went back to Hogwarts. There was no wedding night. Not ever.
I quickly began to show. In winter, I went home to him and I gave birth to my baby. I called her Helena, my light. She would be my hope, the sun in my life. She would be a reason for me to live, for me to keep going. I loved her so much, and I had not even seen her yet. Labor was painful, but I did not care anymore. My baby was about to be born. My darling sweet little girl.
She had his eyes.
I could not look at her. My Helena, my baby, my daughter had his eyes. After all the pains I had taken to deny he had any part of her. That he could never claim my daughter. Yet, the most obvious part of her belonged to him. Marked her as his. I could not bear to look at her.
Vortigern was upset. Still, he was a man of propriety and he did not call me names until we were quite alone. At which point, I swallowed my pride and promised to be faithful to him. I would never let another man touch me. I told him that if he would love my daughter, I would be his wife. And the poor soul had really learned to love me, the few brief times we had met. It was rather heart-breaking. But I kept my promises. No man ever touched me again. Not Salazar, not Vortigern, no one.
As for loving Helena, he told me he never truly loved her. That he only took care of her and taught her what he knew in the hopes that I would learn to love him. That I would someday return to him. His mistake was thinking I would return, but let me say that I was never with him. There was nothing to return to. However, my dear Vortigern was lying. He loved Helena. If he did not, he would not have taken the pains to make sure she was well-educated, to throw her all those silly birthday parties and to tell me that sometimes my daughter needed me too. So the silly man had fallen for Helena's charms, like so many other men.
Helena was brilliant. She was far more brilliant than any of my Ravenclaw students. At the age of six, she could use a wand like a twelve-year old. Vortigern, of course, did not have a wand, because he used a different kind of magic. Potions and incantations and rituals were his style, some of which I sometimes performed myself. Helena first picked up a wand on her first visit to Hogwarts, when she was four years old. You remember this, my dear, it was the day I combed the entire castle for my wand. Finally, I found Helena in the courtyard with Salazar. She had turned a field of flowers blue. It was sweet and amazing. I would have said something about it, but he was there and I could not stand both of their grey eyes looking at me. So I left without a word. I did not expect him to take her to his classes. I did expect him to have a wand crafted for her. I did not expect him to fall in love with her.
Vortigern told me that Godric and Salazar visited, I allowed it. I allowed it because Godric would teach her humanity - something Vortigern and I both lacked. Salazar, on the other hand, I had no reason to disallow because he taught he so well. Vortigern, once again on his death bed, told me he had seen the resemblance immediately. It hurt him to see Helena with Salazar because it reminded him that she was his. And that I had once been his as well. Clearly, another bit of evidence to support the fact that he loved Helena.
Helena grew up a beautiful woman. Many men reportedly came to Vortigern to ask for her hand. But she would have none of them. Much like how I was, remember, my dear? How no man was ever good enough for me. Helena told Vortigern that she could not love a man until he matched her intelligence and was able to captivate her mind as well as her heart. All those silly men who wanted her only wanted her for her body. And she would have none of them.
Finally, when she reached the age of seventeen, she told Vortigern that she could no longer live under my shadow. She would not stand for it anymore. She would not go through life as the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. She told him that she would have bore it had I been a mother she could be proud of. But there was nothing for her to be proud of, because I was not a mother. I was just a woman that she had fed off of for a few months. She also told him that I was not fit to be a mother because my body allegedly rejected her early anyway. It was clear that either I could not wait to get rid of her or that she could not wait to be rid of me, as everyone assumed she was premature, having been born seven months after my wedding to Vortigern. She fled to Albania. Vortigern wrote to me, demanding that I fix this. Once again, he clearly loved her.
I, of course, could not go to her myself. I would not be able to look at her and she would not trust me. So I went to Vortigern and asked him which of her suitors was the most persistent. He named a Baron of sorts, though he said he did not trust him. I did not listen to him. I sent for the Baron and commissioned him to bring Helena back. If he did, I would agree to their union. By this time, I had fallen quite ill and Vortigern took care of me so well that I did not return to Hogwarts for some time. I needed the rest. I had thrown over two decades of my heart and my soul into the school. I had not worn the diadem for some time, finding it a bother, which is why I did not notice it was missing until I searched for it to give to Helena as a gift of apology. But she had taken it.
My thoughts are becoming rather confusing now. I do think I am going to leave very, very soon. You must try to decode my sentences, then, my dear, for my mind is beginning to dim.
The Baron killed my daughter. He killed her because she would not come. Vortigern howled for days. When her body came, so young and so beautiful, I finally realized how much I had wronged her. How much I truly loved her. Her eyes were closed, I could no longer see the grey that plagued me. She was so beautiful, my baby. My darling, sweet baby. And I had sent the man who killed her. I placed a curse upon the Baron, cursed him to walk the earth forever, plagued by guilt and shame. I do believe he is one of the ghosts at Hogwarts now. Vortigern fell into a sickness shortly after we buried Helena. He called it consumption, or old age, one of those things. I called it heartbreak. It was my turn to nurse him, take care of him. He told me how glad he was I was finally acting like a wife, though he would not be able to enjoy it for long. I did not feel sad at those words. I have said it before. Vortigern meant and means nothing to me. I am grateful he took care of my daughter, but no. I did not love him.
My hand grows weak, my dear. I do not think I can hold this quill for much longer. So I must end this with my regrets over my daughter and my guilt over causing her death and that of my husband's. I want the truth to be known, my dear. There will be no need to tell Salazar. Commission Ciaran to do it. He is a faithful young man. Release this letter after all four of us are gone, so that no one is hurt.
I grow weary. I think this will be the last. I love you, my dear. Thank you for being a the best friend anyone could ask for, though I never truly deserved you.
Yours,
Rowena
Helga was weeping somewhere far off, trying to arrange everything for Rowena's funeral. Godric was with her, making sure she did not faint from exhaustion. The letter trembled in Salazar's hand. No, this letter must never be released. It would destroy everything they had strived for. Rowena knew that the school always came first. To destroy the reputation of one of her founders would not reflect kindly upon the school.
"She was mine," Salazar whispered. "They were both mine."
And with that, he commissioned Rowena's letter to the flames.