The young girl ran through the deep northern forest of Albania. Her breathing was already shallow from the effort and her not so long ago lush lips were chipped from the cold. She was pushing herself over her own physical limits, she knew this well, but she knew also that she couldn't apparate. She herself had casted what was stopping her, so there was no other way than to leave the place that had served as her woodland home for the last year. She needed to get off the spell's area; she needed to escape him… He was so close by now.

Her long dark hair billowed behind her, as did her torn cloak. The thin leather shoes covering her feet were thinning, letting damp and sticks and stones further maim what was already blistered. Her eyes were tear-stained and her heart was dry… but this had happened a long time ago. Her knuckles were whitened by the pressure with which she was gripping the diadem; Ravenclaw's diadem; her mother's diadem.

Her thoughts drifted away, to another place, another time. She recalled the first time she'd seen it as if had been yesterday.

…

Summer was just only receding in Inverness. Scotland was slowly but surely drifting into its merciless winter. In a thatched house, cautiously concealed in a forest, a girl around nine years of age opened a wooden door with utmost care. She didn't want it to creak at all. Her silken hair was braided and stored away in a sky-blue net.

"Mother!" she called out, entering.

"Helena!" Rowena Ravenclaw replied as she turned her back to her worktable and faced her only child. "Darling, I told you I'm working!"

The little girl's eyes were wide and pleading as she approached with a wooden bowl in her delicate hands.

"I brought you some venison stew, Mother" she explained "I knew you wouldn't come for supper"

Rowena smiled tenderly at her daughter's intent. She took the dish and left it on the corner of her worktable. She took young Helena in her arms and after giving her a kiss, she sat the girl on her lap.

"It smells divine, dear, thank you"

"I used plenty of carrots" she chirped in, proudly.

Her mother kissed her again, as Helena took the chance to scan every detail on the worktable, until something called her attention: a crown-like silver piece of jewellery with a glistening blue stone.

Rowena began to speak.

"You know the castle is almost finished" she said taking off the net and running her hands through Helena's hair, unbraiding it "We'll be moving there next year and you will be learning together with other witches and wizards in the first class of our School"

Helena nodded, still entranced by the diadem and having heard about this several times before. Her mother noticed and followed her gaze, picking up what kept her girl so attentive. "Pretty, isn't it?" she said.

"What is it?" asked little Helena, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice. She could feel that thing was magical.

"Well…" began Rowena "I need to be even cleverer now that I'm going to be around such powerful people. So I'm enchanting this to make me so"

There were several spell books opened and complex incantations written out. Even that mouldy potions' book Salazar had got them.

"Can I get one, too?" the young one asked "What if I'm not as intelligent as other children are?"

Rowena chuckled.

"You will be" she assured "You are a Ravenclaw. You won't be anything else!"

…

Her foot hit a root in her flight and she tripped, landing hard on her shoulder on the freezing ground. She let her fury and current self-hatred merge in a growl that turned to a roar in her throat. Tears streaming, she turned to face the sky and tried to get back on her feet. Her right arm was useless and her ankle had sprained. There was little left to do. She stumbled until she found a hollow tree nearby and began digging into it. She needed to hide it now and it glistened so bright…

…

Ravenclaw's diadem glistened so bright on her mother's brow in the broad windowed charms classroom, Helena could barely stand to look at her. Even as she showed the students a protective enchantment, Helena couldn't be bothered.

A few nameless, faceless girls swarmed around the respected Professor's daughter giving endless praises and excited comments. She was the best in her class and she didn't need those girls to remind her that. She wasn't paying attention again. She could do this blindfolded.

The girls giggled in awe as Helena demonstrated a perfect spell. Flawless. Rowena wasn't paying attention to her either. She was helping another student that was clearly finding this troublesome.

The girls and Helena laughed openly at him but were quickly shushed by Rowena's stern gaze.

"What?" asked the young Ravenclaw defiantly, under her mother's look. Rowena remained frowning for a second in silence but then looked away. Helena made a derisive movement with her hand and that sent the girls off chuckling some more.

He had joined them by now, to some of the maiden's delight. They said he was the son of a Baron. They said he owned land and riches and that Master Slytherin thought greatly of him. Helena thought he was a wigged clown with a head much too big for his mediocre achievements. She never hesitated to voice so, in as flowery a vocabulary as she could muster, which was saying something.

She repeated the contemptuous gesture his way and giggles ringed like raindrops around them.

He looked deeply embarrassed and she looked smug.

She usually did.

…

She casted the protective spell as perfectly as she had that day so long ago. She tossed some dead leaves on the spot to cover her trophy some more and began her now limping escape.

Not much further, now, she reckoned, but soon enough there was a loud snap, like a twig, under her. The searing pain told her it was no twig but her ankle.

She fell to the floor again, now hitting both knees and the side of her face to protect the sore shoulder. She tasted blood on the mud and yelled in a mix of utter fury, helplessness and pain. She only recalled feeling this bad once.

…

"You can't always tell me what to do, old hag!"

"Helena! I'm your Mother!"

"And cursed I am for that!"

She was shaking in her rage, completely blinded by it.

"I was always much more than you could appreciate in a daughter, do not deny it, yet you never glanced twice at my greatness, too busy with your studies and beloved students! I will have no more of you! I will show people I am much better than you ever were!"

Rowena's face was ruptured by sorrow.

"Darling, you are not thinking clearly, love, you don't mean any of that…"

"I very much mean it, mother" she pronounced the last word as if it was poison. "You shall not hear of me ever again, I will not be underestimated or held back!"

Rowena's frail figure cracked as she broke into sobs while Helena stormed out of her office at Hogwarts.

Of course she didn't mean that, but she would never admit it. She was much too proud. She needed to hurt her mother as she felt she'd been hurt by her. She would take what she thought was dearest to her, not knowing that would be herself.

…

A crack and he was there, hunting knife in hand and all. She quickly cleared her tears; he was the last person she'd have seeing them.

"Lady Ravenclaw, what's happened?" he began rapidly kneeling next to her, trying to help her. He didn't know she'd been escaping him this frantically.

"Don't touch me" she roared fiercely.

He frowned "How about you show some respect, you insolent lass?" he said harshly "I've come to…"

He was interrupted.

"I know why you came, Lord Baron" she replied acidly "Still yapping like my Mother's little lap dog to earn her graces and my hand"

His hand moved on its own accord, as he slapped her with the back of it across the face.

"She's dying, you fool!" he hissed.

"Nonsense!" she snipped back "She's only acting! She's in perfect health and will be for far too many years!"

He shook his head "Listen to me, Helena" he begged…

…

"Can I sit with you?" he'd said with the same imploring tone some long years before.

She'd always favoured that bench in the courtyard in Hogwarts and she sighed deeply before replying "Isn't the castle big enough for you to sit elsewhere, Baron?" Her eyes didn't ever leave the book she was reading.

His lips pursed. "I was just wondering, Milady, whether you had received my last…"

"I have" she interrupted "All of them. All the flowers, all the gowns, all the perfumes, all the jewellery and I have spat on them and returned them. Was that message not clear enough for the likes of you, dear Baron? Do you need it spelled out?"

"How dare you…!" he started, blushing profusely but her voice began clashing his.

"How dare YOU insult my intellect with…"

"… my blood line goes further back to…"

"… not to mention your dismal poetry and…"

"…not one muggle for generations so…"

"… narrow-minded and slow-witted…"

"… conceited little wench…"

"… I WOULD DIE BEFORE I MARRIED YOU!"

Her final bellow had him snap and he gripped her wrist with all his might. His eyes were black burning coals and she'd been very scared of him then.

She forgot how so later on…

…

Her eyes were wide open, staring right into his dark, burning coals same as that day. Only now, she could also see the blood spluttered over him. Her blood.

His lips trembled and his teeth were clenched tight as was his hand over the knife. He blinked several times, tears finally dousing that fire in his stare. He muttered some sort of apology while Helena's eyelids fell heavily closed forever.

She thought she'd feel peace. She thought there would be a white light and she thought she'd get to see her mother again. She thought she would be able to apologise. To right her wrongs… but this was not the case.

Over two centuries have flown by, and she still sits on the same bench, in the same courtyard, under the same moon. The Grey Lady reads, still so many books to be read. It keeps her mind busy.

As usual, the chains of penitence carried by The Bloody Baron ring on the back of the courtyard announcing his presence. The silvery bloodstains all over him shine in the moonlight as he slowly makes his way to the bench again. She doesn't look up but one of her hands goes down from the book to rest beside her. He takes a seat silently. Words aren't needed between them anymore. He lets his hand fall on top of hers, but as every day, it goes right through it.