The Baron And His Lady
The Year 1995
"The blood, as red as a wilting rose and as thick as mud, oozed from the gash in his chest, trickling down his front until it pooled around his feet like an incarnadine ocean. Congealed blood dripped from the jewel-encrusted hilt of the dagger he gripped, his eyes as wide as the full moon that hung above—luminous, opalescent, instilling him with fear.
"His assailant's eyes, as cold and black as his heart, are glassed over with a sudden state of terror. The cloud's drift apart, and the last thing he sees before he transforms into a slavering beast, all teeth and claws, is that gentle stillness of the moon reflected in the dagger's blade, as it slips from his hand into the pool of blood."
A dramatic pause followed the story whilst he awaited a reaction.
"Utter rubbish!" Pansy Parkinson eventually scoffed, screwing her nose up in disgust.
"I… don't quite understand," Daphne Greengrass said in a much kinder voice, her perfectly angled eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
Blaise Zabini ignored Pansy and instead focused on the blonde.
"You're saying the Bloody Baron was a werewolf?" Daphne inquired.
Blaise sighed. "He wasn't a werewolf—the guy who stabbed him was."
"But then, why would he stab him if he was a werewolf? I mean, if it was really a full moon like you said, wouldn't he just wait to transform and kill him then?"
The boy paused and frowned. "Well, n—no," he stuttered, struggling to think of a decent explanation.
"Blaise, your theory is stupid," Pansy mocked, giving him a scathing, gloating look. "Now, my theory—"
"What's so stupid about it?" he interrupted, angry at such a cruel dismissal.
"Your overdramatic storytelling," Pansy said. "Why did the blood have to be the colour of a wilting rose? How the hell can congealed blood drip? And why—"
"What does incarnadine mean?" Daphne interrupted in a vacant, dazed sort of way.
"What about the chains?" Pansy demanded. "Everybody knows the Bloody Baron wears chains—how does that come into your stupid, little werewolf theory?"
"Look, I don't know," Blaise sighed, exasperated by such a grilling. He refused to look at either of them, distracting himself by taking a bite of his bagel, and sulkily scanning the Daily Prophet as though it would offer him a triumphant explanation.
Nothing.
Not unless you counted the front page news that the Holyhead Harpies had just had their first loss of the Quidditch season, or that a revolutionary new herb had been discovered that could potentially be used to instantly cure Dragon Pox.
Which he didn't.
Blaise's eyes rolled over to the Prophet's publication date—the thirty-first of October —Halloween—the only reason they were even sharing theories about the circumstances of their house ghost's death in the first place.
"Nobody knows what really happened anyway." Blaise refused to look back at Pansy's taunting smirk. Like she could think up a better, and more gruesome, story for the Baron's death.
"It's been speculated for years; not a single student or teacher knows. The portraits don't know. The ghosts don't even know. Nobody bloody knows how the Bloody Baron died, and—"
"And nobody ever will."
Pansy and Daphne both emitted high-pitched shrieks as the smoky form of a sinister and long-deceased baron rose from the Slytherin table. Even Blaise gave a start.
The Bloody Baron hovered amidst the wooden table from the waist up, surveying the trio of Slytherin students with a cold, discerned scowl that sent shivers up each of their spines. Up close, the distinguished ghost was even more unnerving—the silvery blood on his translucent robes gleaming in the candlelight, and the ghostly shackles appearing both solid and vaporous in the eeriest way possible.
Blaise had never seen Pansy pale quite so much. "We, err, we were just—" she squeaked.
"Pondering the circumstances of my death," the Baron answered bitterly, staring at them in turn with a condemning scowl.
Pansy gulped. "Well, err, now you mention it, we were wondering how you…"
"How I died?" the Baron finished for her, his eyes seeming to pierce her very soul.
Pansy nodded warily.
"Listen here, girlie," the Baron hissed, "The gruesome tale of my murder is no concern of anybody's other than mine, and that witless bastard who struck me down in the prime of my life."
"You were murdered?" Daphne squeaked.
Blaise looked up interestedly. "By a werewolf?"
"By a monster," the Baron growled. "Not a werewolf, but something much worse. A monster so heartless and grotesque you wouldn't sleep for a month if you'd seen into the depths of its soulless eyes."
All three gulped in sync.
"But—but you said that you were murdered by some witless, err, bastard," Blaise pointed out uncomfortably. "Not a monster…"
"Oh, he was a monster alright," the ghost mumbled in disdain. "Diseased, twisted, heartless—lurking in the woods, destroying that which could have flourished."
"But what?" Pansy asked, eyes wide.
"Not what, but who," the Baron corrected. His ghostly eyes had glassed over with all the seething anger and harrowing sorrow that any living human's could. "I will never speak of my murder," he assured them in a threatening, hostile whisper. "Some stories are so horrifying—so traumatic—that they must never be relived."
Blaise hadn't known it was possible for a ghost to look so haunted. But as the Baron's ghostly head turned to survey something in the distance over by the Ravenclaw table, there could be no other way to describe his expression. Blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and centuries of remorse.
Slytherin's sinister ghost, shrouded in mystery in the same way the heavy translucent chains were hung from his blood-stained robes, was haunted by his death.
By his past.
By himself.
The Year 1002
"Helena!"
The multitude of emotions within me—anger at such a reckless pursuit, bitterness over the years of her spurning my honourable advances, desperation at the thought that I might have been too late—were all drowned in the wave of delight that engulfed me as I found myself, after weeks of hopeless and exhausting searching, in her presence once more.
All of it was overshadowed by the sheer, unadulterated joy I felt at recognising the brunette plait that trailed down the back of the girl I had longed for since my gaze had first settled on her all those years ago.
Had I been in anybody's company other than hers then I would have been sickened by the youthful optimism my voice seemed to have adopted of its own accord. But it was her. It was actually her!
A light seemed to emit from her, like she was basked in the silvery light of the moon. I couldn't be sure whether it was formulated by my own desire for her, or whether she truly was glowing.
But then again, what did it really matter; Helena Ravenclaw always glowed to me. She always shone through like a beacon in a storm, and I truly believed it was this transient, metaphorical light that had drawn my presence to hers.
Like moths drawn to a light. Like two halves of a heart reconnected.
She turned her head sharply, a look of breathless caution on her pale, sculpted face, and at once I felt my heart swell. For too long I'd had to dream of those beautiful features, sculpted surely by the angels themselves. And once more I was looking on them in the flesh—real, and genuine, and beautiful.
She looked as breathless as I felt.
"Helena," I breathed more gently, still in complete disbelief that it was actually her. She'd fled weeks ago with no warning, no indication of where she was going or what she intended to achieve. Rowena had singled me out specifically, granting me the honourable quest of returning her daughter, and the prized diadem Helena had stolen, to her bedside where she lay, quite ill.
Even if the dying woman had not been in such a state of urgency and despair, I would have gone. For Helena, I would have scoured the earth. And sure enough, Albania had presented me to her.
Helena backed away from the tree in alarm. So entranced by her beauty, and by the striking resemblance she bore to her mother, I was quite distracted from whatever she appeared to be doing—unbeknownst to me at the time, but hurriedly stuffing the legendary diadem into the hollow of a tree where it would reside for centuries.
I made towards her—to hold her, to embrace her, to welcome her home.
"Do not take another step towards me," Helena hissed, taking me by such surprise that I stopped immediately. She'd turned around, her elegant body poised like she intended to attack me.
"I beg your pardon?" I stuttered, too shocked to articulate anything of the joy I'd felt at rediscovering her.
She was dressed in her house colours, a stunning gown of the deepest blue, contrasting beautifully with the slightly bedraggled plait that fell over her shoulder. Her hair was lighter than her mother's, much like her demeanour, and I was momentarily distracted by the way it so elegantly draped along her exposed collarbone, fragile and delicate, and trailed even further to emphasise her ample breast.
Soft flesh, so pale and tempting. Something of an animal urge stirred inside me, my lust for her quite overwhelming the tenderness my heart held.
"Do not take another step towards me," she repeated, injecting venom into every syllable.
So amused was I by her attempt to be, what I assumed was threatening, that laughter escaped my lips, which only seemed to further enrage her.
I took in our surroundings, barely visible through the inky shadows that nightfall provided. The moon was enough to illuminate the gnarled, twisted bodies of barren trees, their branches lurching out at us like claws. I was not fearful of such trivial settings, and yet there was an eerie chill throughout the woods, giving off a most unsettling sensation. Everything felt cold, and dark, and dead.
This was a place of darkness and death—surely the reasoning for Helena's unladylike hostility. The darkness was rotting away at her mind, corrupting her, violating her.
"Your alarm is quite understandable, Helena," I humoured her, obeying her wish not to take another step towards her. Best to play along with it until her sanity had returned, I decided. "I am here to recover you," I announced. "To return you to your ailing mother."
"I'm not going back," she spat at me, like I was some unlawful vermin.
"Of course, you are," I insisted firmly. "Your mother has fallen drastically ill—'tis her dying wish, and your duty, to see her before she passes. I have been tasked with recovering you and returning you to her bedside," I announced a little smugly. It was impossible not to feel smug at such heroic authority as I had been granted. Helena's appreciation of me—her rescuer—was certainly going to make up for all those coy years of her rejecting my romantic advances.
Her problem was that she was too ill-tempered. Fortunately for her, I was a patient man, and more than willing to wait for her innocent, doe-like eyes to open to what an honour it was to be pursued by a man of such nobility and stature. As her hero, she would no longer feel the need to teasingly run from me.
Her newfound respect and affection for me would quite overshadow all those years of refusal. And quite frankly, after what she'd put me through, I more than deserved it.
I held a gloved hand out to her. "My dearest, Helena, let us please depart these ghastly woods. I assure you you'll be quite safe in my company."
The way she looked at my outstretched hand garnered a response filled with no more disgust than if I'd offered her a used handkerchief.
"I have no intentions of returning to my mother," Helena announced rather indignantly. She continued to look down her nose at me. "And I certainly have no intentions of accompanying you, Baron."
A smile crept out at her use of my noble title. "Come, now, Helena, we've been companions for years. You needn't address me so formally. My dear, you are quite—"
"I am not your dear," Helena interrupted in an accusatory whisper.
I retracted my hand, thankful the darkness concealed the blush that must have filled my cheeks at such offence. "Do not be childish," I found myself snarling a little more aggressively than intended. Her reluctance and frank stubbornness were starting to run my patience rather thin.
She was irresistibly infuriating, but I was flattered that I would be the gentleman to tame such a crass, stubborn girl. Like those woods, she had been allowed to grow wild and unruly—nothing a little control could not ease her out of. The sooner we returned, the sooner I could start moulding her into the respectable, submissive woman she would need to be in order to satiate my needs.
"We must depart immediately—"
"I'm not going back," Helena cut across me again, the steely glint in her eye hardening with each new refusal.
"This is no time for games, Helena. You will return with me to you mother's bedside, and henceforth you will willingly obey whatever else I so happen to ask of you."
"I will do no such thing!" she protested.
I was aghast by her continued stubbornness but decided to humour her once more before resorting to force. One way or another, she was returning to Britain with me. If I had to stun her and drag her there then so be it.
"I have no intentions of returning to Britain, nor to see my wretched mother," Helena insisted in a shrill voice. "And as for henceforth obeying your every command, I can but laugh!"
She scoffed at me in such a degrading way that, as the darkness seemed to enclose on our little clearing in the woods, a stirring anger enveloped the core of my very being. "Helena," I said through gritted teeth, "if not for your mother, then return for me. You have always been somewhat unruly—a complication that most men find exhausting rather than charming—but I hereby promise I will overlook this nature of yours and take you as my wife."
She was my most desired prize, and I could not pretend betrothal to her had not frequently played on my mind. My proposal of marriage was not something I had intended in such dank, unpleasant conditions, but it was my only chance of having her obey me. Once she realised what was being offered, she would readily return, no more exhausting games.
Imagine my surprise when her look of disgust only deepened. "Your wife?" Helena repeated in what could only be described as an incredulous manner.
"You would be a lady of luxury—a baroness. It would be quite fitting for your background, and I can assure you I'd—"
"I have no such desires to marry you!"
I felt my hand twitch by my side. "It is improper to so constantly interrupt your superiors," I said bitterly, struggling to retain my calm attitude. "I will overlook this impropriety, however, due to the befuddlement this wood has clearly inflicted upon you. This is no place for a lady, Helena. Return with me and we shall not dwell on this encounter ever again. Our engagement will be—"
"Our engagement will be non-existent, Baron!"
"Do not interrupt me again," I said coolly, my hand twitching by my side again. I could feel the wrath bubbling up inside me, longing to burst free with leonine fierceness. I forced calmness into my body, took a breath, and addressed her once more. "As I was saying, our engagement—"
"Will never exist."
My gaze pierced hers. She did not blush or look away. Some men would find that impertinent.
I was one of them.
"You will do as I say," I growled, advancing on her as the ferocity began to burst free. "You will return with me, you will marry me, and from this day on you will do anything and everything that is proper and expected of you as a baron's wife."
Helena was trembling from head to toe, fear gleaming in her eyes as she backed up against the tree she had earlier been concealing something in.
I could feel her body shiver as I leant in to her, terror having engulfed her whole being. "Do I make myself perfectly clear?" I asked in a low voice.
She was unable to speak—to even so much as utter a meek response. Instead, she nodded, as jittery as a mouse. Up close her skin was like marble. She was a porcelain sculpture, beautiful to behold, but cold and fragile.
I could so easily shatter her, and finally, she was starting to realise that.
I looked down at her coldly, revelling in the dominance I now asserted over her. Lips parted breathlessly, so innocent, so irresistible, another urge, stronger than that of the anger, overwhelmed me. She awakened in me such longing it was not possible to refrain.
I took what was mine, kissing the lips that had enticed me more than should have been acceptable.
I could feel her surprise at my move. I could feel her struggle beneath me. And before I knew it, she had succeeded in pushing me away from her, unleashing a force you would not have believed possible from such a fragile vessel.
"I will never be your wife," Helena hissed at me. "I have spent my whole life running from you, and I will continue to do so. You repulse me, you disgust me, you—"
An animalistic urge so violent and so dominating had overwhelmed me that neither of us were quite prepared for the dagger that was plunged into her stomach. I watched, horror-struck, as the life drained from her eyes, as what little colour seeped from her cheeks, and as she crumpled to the floor like a paper doll, her last look of innocent shock plastered eternally on her face.
The blood, vividly crimson, seeped from her stomach like a rose blooming in the spring—a sickening parody.
In that moment, I knew nothing but sheer, overwhelming horror.
I peered down at her lifeless body, morbidly beautiful in death, her lips still parted, her eyes still wide in shock.
And I peered down at my hand—the bloodied dagger gripped by white knuckles, caked in blood.
Caked in her blood.
Of all the monsters that inhabited the world—of all the monsters that lurked in those woods—there was none more terrifying than the one I had become. Stricken by the grief of desperate, unrequited love, and a violent impulse I would never recover from, I found myself overwhelmed by paralysing remorse.
There was nothing to do but turn the dagger on myself. Gripping the hilt with surprisingly steady hands, the last image I saw was her doll-like face, as pale as the moon that basked us both in cruel, silvery light.
And then the pain engulfed me.
Originally written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 3—Round 6
Team: Holyhead Harpies
Position: Captain
Task: Write in a lesser used genre (Horror)