She is gone, her inner voice said, even as Rowena struggled to push it away into a corner of her mind. It was simply not possible, was it? Her own daughter...could not possibly have betrayed her in this manner.
Her own little Helena, the dreadful voice whispered again, causing her heart to ache terribly. Her traitorous mind chose that moment to bring forth all the images of the times she had been a proud mother.
The first time she held her, saw her, thrilling at her child's touch the way only a mother would understand. Her silver eyes reminding Rowena that her father was a man she now despised, and the silent vow she made to never let that man-turned-monster lay a finger on Helena.
Every time she protected her daughter, who she had raised alone, in a cruel world where a child with a missing father would have been outcast and called names...yet she never let a shadow of those possibilities touch her little girl. Helena was never to never feel the loss of a father. Her mother was her friend and her guide, and that ought to be enough.
Helena, outshining all her peers in her age at Hogwarts, making even Godric and Helga marvel at her intelligence. Rowena, secretly pleased, telling her daughter somewhat sternly that she did well, but she ought to do better.
Coming back to the present, Rowena sighed. Perhaps that was where she had gone wrong. Could she not have been more encouraging? Could she not have appreciated her daughter's achievements a bit more? No, she told herself. They were not questions, anymore. They were facts. She should have been a better mother.
Tears escaped her eyes at the thought, and she was glad none of the other Founders were there to see the break in her poise. They could not, must not, know about what had happened. As she closed her eyes in sorrow and despair, she found her vision filling with harsher, more recent, memories.
Helena screaming at her, tears streaming down her face, accusing her of never being there for her. Rowena defending herself with arguments so shallow even she herself does not believe them.
The house elf running up to her at dawn, with a piece of parchment in his hand. A letter, from her beloved daughter saying she had left the castle, left her mother, forever, but also saying why, indirectly. Her daughter knew she would figure it out, of course.
Rowena rummaging through her chests and drawers and trunks, despite knowing what she feared was true. The diadem was gone, just as her daughter was. Her two most precious prizes...gone at once.
She held the cream-coloured parchment which had torn her world apart, close to her heart as she swallowed the lump in her throat. Helena had not left her a long message. It was short, curt, and sharp enough to cut her where she was most vulnerable. Nine words, in fact. Just nine.
Why was I never good enough for you, Mother?
Notes: For the Mother's Day Event at The Golden Snitch! Prompt: Rowena Ravenclaw.
School: Brinwell, House: Chepi.
Also for the Through the Universe Challenge. Prompt: cream