Chapter 72: Ravenclaw
"Are you just going to keep following me?"
"..."
"Helena, I caught a glimpse of the hem of your robes before you disappeared into the wall. Given how many times I've noticed something similar since the start of the year, I think it's safe to say you've been watching me. Is there a particular reason?"
Staaare.
Helena's head emerged from the wall. She fixed me with a look for about ten seconds, then retreated back into the stone.
"Helena, if the reason you've been following me so closely is the promise I made last year, I haven't forgotten it. I simply didn't manage to gather all the ingredients over the summer. As soon as the last one arrives, I'll perform the ritual, and you'll have a portrait of your mother that you can speak with."
She emerged again, but this time her gaze was directed at the floor.
"Er... Helena?"
"..."
I sighed. Figuring out what any girl was thinking was hard enough. When that girl happened to be a ghost, it became all but impossible.
"Helena, I have no idea what you're thinking, and unless you tell me, I can't address your doubts or confirm your hopes."
"I... forgive me. I doubted you."
"It's all right. I understand, and I hold no ill will toward you."
I smiled at her, and she tentatively smiled back.
"Right. I should have everything I need by Halloween, and I'll be able to bind the imprint of your mother's soul, drawn from the planet's informational field, to the portrait. The ritual itself shouldn't take more than two or three hours. We can manage it during the feast."
"Yes."
She nodded and hurried back into the wall.
"Women. How is anyone supposed to understand you?"
I shook my head and returned to my work, though thoughts of Helena's behavior kept drifting back, uninvited.
Some time later. Halloween.
"Right. I'd better be off."
I headed for the common room door, but Penny grabbed my shoulder.
"And where exactly are you going?"
"Me? Business to attend to. I told you a week ago that I wouldn't be able to make the Halloween feast."
I shrugged easily.
"And if I said... I wanted to come with you?"
"Then I would say I have no objection, but the matter doesn't concern only me. I'd need to ask the other person involved, a girl, as it happens, whether she minds having company."
I looked at Penny, who had developed the very faintest of frowns.
"A girl?"
"Yes."
"Fine. Ask."
"Excellent. If she's agreeable, I'll send you a Patronus with directions. Does that work?"
"Yes."
I could see Penny wasn't entirely pleased, but she was sensible enough to understand that not everything depended on me. And since we'd managed to shift some of the responsibility for the first-years, particularly the Muggle-born ones, onto other older students, we'd been spending considerably more time together. She had no desire to begrudge me the work.
That said, the spark of jealousy in her eyes when I mentioned the girl had clearly given her pause. There wasn't much to be done about that, so I made my way to the Room of Requirement, where Helena materialized almost exactly thirty seconds after I did.
"Helena, would it be all right if I invited Penny? She's rather put out that we can't spend the evening together, and..."
"I don't mind."
She cut me off. I gave her a grateful smile, conjured a Patronus, and sent Penny instructions on where to go and when to expect me. In the meantime, I began the preliminary preparations.
Ten minutes or so passed before I went to the door and opened it.
"What the...?!"
Penny stumbled back against the opposite wall, staring at me in shock.
"First, language. Second, come in and close the door behind you. I have work to do."
I was in no mood for discussion, so I simply returned to what I was doing. A moment later, I heard the door close.
"Questions afterwards."
I interrupted Penny before she could speak. She closed her mouth at once. I went back to checking the ingredients, again and again, until I was certain everything was as it should be.
"Right. The portrait."
I looked at the canvas Helena and I had moved here from one of Hogwarts' hidden rooms several days ago.
"...present. All other ingredients prepared. Now, silence, both of you. Don't disturb me."
I began drawing out an extraordinarily complex ritual schema. Different lines required different materials: ordinary chalk, black chalk, charcoal, and the blood of various magical creatures. Portraits were normally made far more simply, but only because they were created while the subject was alive. In this case...
Rowena had been dead for a very long time. A simple ritual circle would never suffice. This called for something considerably more elaborate.
Still, it was a genuinely interesting exercise for a wizard of my level, and I found I was looking forward to it rather than dreading it.
"Now, the portrait goes here."
I set it with great care at the center of the first circle, then immediately began completing the second, which overlapped the first at one edge while the rest of it existed only as chalk outlines, guiding the geometry of their interlocking shapes.
Some time later, the second circle was finished as well.
"Helena, please take your place at the center."
Without a word, she drifted over the floor and hovered at the exact midpoint of the circle. What remained was to enclose the entire configuration in one final ritual ring before activation.
I completed that too. I had not calculated all of this independently. My notebook was open the entire time, and it contained notes detailed enough to explain nearly every centimeter of every circle. But I did it.
I stepped back and looked at what I had made with something rather close to pride.
"Well. The moment of truth."
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I was terribly nervous. Helena was terribly nervous. And Penny, who understood nothing of what she was watching, was catching our nervousness like an illness.
I activated the ritual.
The room blazed with light, and then, perhaps ten minutes later, the light went out.
"I... where am I?"
"Hello..."
"Mother!"
Helena's ghost threw herself over the portrait, drinking in the sight of it as though she had been starving.
"My daughter? You're... dead? Wait. How?! Where are we?!"
"What does this mean?!"
Helena spun on me in an instant, fury blazing in her voice.
"Helena, if you had waited two minutes, you would have understood, since I intended to explain everything to Rowena in any case."
"Daughter, calm down. And you, young man, come closer, where I can see you."
I gave a quiet snort and stepped past the retreating Helena with complete composure.
"My greetings, Founder of my house. My name is Draco Black. I am an Apprentice in Charms and Enchantments, and tonight I carried out your daughter's request to animate your portrait."
Rowena's eyes widened slightly.
"A great deal of time has passed since your death, far more than you can currently recall. Your memories will return gradually over the next month. I regret I could not do otherwise, as any swifter restoration would have required not merely costly ingredients, but legendary ones."
"So I am dead."
I nodded.
"...dead for a long time."
I nodded again.
"...and you spent a great deal of money to animate my portrait and bind my soul to it, at my daughter's request?"
There was anger in Rowena's voice.
"Not your soul. I am not foolish enough to meddle in Death's domain, and in any case, given how many years have passed since your death, your soul has almost certainly been reborn by now. You may well have children, a husband, a life that makes you happy. I would not dream of tearing apart your new existence. What I used was an imprint of your soul and personality, as preserved in the planet's informational field."
"Ahem."
It seemed Rowena was briefly taken aback.
"I beg your pardon for my hasty conclusion. That said, I doubt you would have done this without reason. What do I owe you?"
"Not you."
I shook my head.
"Your daughter. Last year, when we agreed that I would prepare and carry out the ritual, she promised to take me to the place where your diadem is kept."
"My diadem? What do you want with it?"
"Some time ago, a wizard shattered his own soul."
"Eek!"
Penny took several sharp steps back from me. I winced. I had simply forgotten she was there. But now that I'd said that, there was no avoiding the rest.
"...and he hid a fragment of his soul inside your diadem. I wanted to retrieve it, so that when I am ready, I can destroy all the fragments of this wizard's soul at once."
"A madman."
Rowena shook her head.
"Even Salazar, and he was hardly averse to the Dark Arts, never dared to shatter his own soul. And this wizard, if I understand correctly, shattered his into several pieces?"
"Yes."
I nodded.
"I know of six, possibly seven, fragments, in addition to the primary piece."
"A lunatic. After doing something like that, he can barely be called a creature, let alone a thinking being or a human."
"Quite."
I shrugged.
"Several fragments are already secured and waiting for their time. But destroying them one by one is too dangerous. He might sense it and begin to act."
"Daughter, show him where the diadem is."
"I... can't."
Helena's voice was very small. My stomach dropped.
"Daughter. You made an agreement, and young Mr. Black has fulfilled his part. Now you must fulfill yours."
"Mother, I didn't say I wouldn't. I said I can't."
"Daughter."
"The diadem was still in its place at the beginning of this year. But when I went to check on it in mid-September, it was gone. I simply don't know who took it."
I closed my eyes.
I wanted to swear. To shout. To kick something.
*Breathe in. Breathe out.*
I turned sharply, summoned my bag with a silent spell, and walked toward the door without a word. I had no desire to speak. No desire to do anything, or rather, no desire to do anything I would regret. The thought of destroying the portrait crossed my mind with entirely too much energy. I kept walking.
"Young man, wait."
Rowena's voice reached me. I heard it. I did not stop. I walked out of the room and headed for the common room.
Behind me, Penny's small heels clicked in quick pursuit.
"Draco."
I half-turned.
"...I'll say nothing. But I hope you'll find time to tell me more at some point, because what I learned tonight... it frightened me."
I gave a short nod.
"Was that really... her?"
I nodded again.
"I see."
She asked nothing else. When we reached the common room, I dropped into an armchair and stared blankly into the fire.
*Rowena Ravenclaw.*
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