A/n: Written for the "Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition" Round 3: Rare pairs! I was supposed to use a Ravenclaw, so here it is. Edited by lozipozivanillabean!
Optional Prompt 1: #1 "When a war ends, what does that look like exactly?" - Sleeping, Andrea Gibson
Optional Prompt 2: #6 Naked
Optional Prompt 3: #4 "He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words." - Elbert Hubbard
A Thousand Years Waiting
There is a time and a place when grief is appropriate, a set amount of time seen to be healthy for one to grieve. And when this set time is surpassed, you are considered to be stuck, wallowing in your sorrow. If only people truly understood what sorrow was.
War- one of the most disgusting things Helena had ever witnessed during her long stay at Hogwarts. Rivers of scarlet red that tampered with the intricate floors, disturbing the work put into each tile. The bodies that remained behind, crippled after death. And those who walked from the struggles of war, who could continue to live on after all the death and blood, would not be the same after all they had gone through.
When war ends, what does it look like? Was it a time full of joy and glee for having been victorious, or months of sorrow for losing the ones you were close to? Could war ever really be a victory, or was it always a tragedy?
Helena didn't much like the topic of death. Her life was a tragic one, and her rash decision as a teenager decades ago cost her her life, and a heartbroken fiancé as well. The events that led to their deaths was troubling, if not a bit mundane, for at the time the diadem was nothing precious, not until after their deaths at least. Even in the afterlife, she was haunted by the pain of her would-be husband, the very man that had ended her life.
Hogwarts was strikingly quiet without the presence of students or staff. Usually a few people remained all year round, befriending even the quietest of ghosts. But everyone needed a break from the routine after what happened there, leaving the place feeling naked. Gone was the comfort of a living presence, bringing life to Helena's dreary days. Gone were the people that distracted Peeves and who studied in Professor Bins' class. They all tried to speak to her or antagonize her after the war, but Helena would not have it. She wanted to be alone.
The floors had been red, red, like the red splotches on the Barron's clothes from the night he committed murder, and suicide. Red, like the roses he once brought to her. Red, like the tip of the knife that had plunged into her unarmed body again and again. Red, like her dreams, her nightmares.
With a lack of people in the school, he sought her out more than ever, sometimes chasing her through multiple walls and rooms until she finally relented, stopping someplace to gaze out the window. He would never speak to her; only stare on at her with sorrowful eyes. Helena hated him for that more than anything. Didn't he have anything to say to her after all those centuries they had been dead?
One would think he would have a great many things bottled up after all those years, but he never said a word, and neither would she. He was the one that killed her, that caused her to drop her red rose and twist the colour into a completely different meaning for them, any faith and trust that she had in him was banished from her that day. For that, she wasn't sure she could forgive.
But Hogwarts was empty, and Helena was growing tired of being stalked. If he wanted to say something to her then he should go on and do it, instead of following her like a heartbroken puppy. She would not pity his remorse, not when he personally stripped away her trust in others, striking uncertainly and fear into her very soul.
And one day, she broke. The Bloody Baron might terrify the first years that entered the school, embody the treachery expected in Slytherin's, but she knew what he truly was underneath the stains; a regretful man, searching for forgiveness, lost in a pool of grief.
"Baron if you follow me anymore I shall give you a piece of my mind!" she cried, spinning around to face him one night as he looked at her with wide eyes. "You always follow me, yet you refuse to speak to me. I am tired of it! For years, you have done this, and every so often I snap at you and you turn away, never saying a word to me. It's always the same! It's been centuries and you still won't speak to me! Don't look on me at me with those big, sad eyes of yours, for you are the one who did this! You are the one who snapped and killed me, not the other way around. Your inability to control yourself started this years ago!"
He said nothing as she had expected, merely floating in front of her with the same, tormented look in his eyes. Helena sighed, shaking her head at him, his silence speaking volumes, as it had for many moons.
"You say nothing because you do not regret your actions," she scolded, looking out the window of the school again. "You think time can erase things such as pain, but it doesn't. It doesn't take away the sting Baron, and it does not erase what you have done. Someday, you must talk, and I'll keep waiting for that day, for your apology."
Huffing, she phased through a wall and then another behind that, angrier at him than she thought she would be. He got so close to her sometimes, so close that she felt an apology was on the tip of his tongue, yet he kept his silent facade intact. All she wanted was to hear him say he was sorry for what had happened.
But it was too much to ask of a man, soaked in his own blood, as well as his lover's.
The Baron wasn't the coldhearted figure everyone had him pegged for. Slytherin's thought he was mighty because he was adorned in blood, but most of them didn't know the reasoning behind his crimson robes. And those who did often had mixed feelings about the ordeal. It happened to be something she personally preferred not to share, but the Baron had been close to a select few former students, and told them the horrors of their living romance, and traumatic story. More often than not, she wished he would keep the topic secret, for it was their unfinished story, one which had not yet been able to close due to his remorse and her stubborn attitude. If only they could break away from old habits and speak in a different manner, something might actually happen between them.
And he was tired of chasing Helena, constantly sealing his lips from speaking even a word to her. She desperately wanted answers, and he desperately wanted to love her again, but his own inability to muster up the courage to look back on his past actions and move on held him in place, in the same constant circle of disappointment. She thought he did not speak because he regretted nothing? Oh, how wrong sweet Helena was.
He could see her again, floating alone down a large empty corridor. He knew she missed the children, loitering the hallways and making too much noise, crowding the entire building with their growing bodies. She liked it when the place was full and populated, as it made it easier to avoid him. But with the temporary closure of the dwelling, she couldn't avoid him as well.
If he could only muster up the courage to speak to her, maybe things wouldn't be so hard. Maybe, just maybe, she would understand his angst, and not see him as a heartless, ex-lover. What he had done was out of desperation, hurt and rage all those years ago, and it was a mistake he had paid for throughout the centuries. Someday he would make it up to her. He just didn't think it would be today, for she didn't understand his need to be silent. And how would she ever understand his words, if she couldn't understand his silence first?
Helena was dense like that. She couldn't see past his supposed betrayal from when he killed her, but didn't understand that she betrayed him as well by running away. That was why her mother requested he bring her home in the first place right? Lost in his thoughts, he didn't see the witch drifting closer to him, watching him through slitted eyes.
"What are you thinking of?" she asked, catching him off guard. The Baron flew back a few inches, marveling at the witch before him, at Helena, who for the first time in years had gotten close to him first by choice. He couldn't fathom what had made her do that.
"Us," he admitted, watching the interest disappear from her eyes. She tilted her head up and away.
"I thought you were actually thinking about something worthwhile for once, my mistake. Oh! But at least I was able to get you to talk!" Irritated that he only spoke to her that single time after all of those years, she turned away and started to leave. He had looked haunted for the briefest of moments, and despite her distaste for the subject, she had wanted to ensure that her dear finance was alright. Despite popular myth, she did not eternally hate him. She was merely hurt by the past, to a point where it seemed to overshadow her future because she could not let go. When they finally learned to let go of the past and mend old pains, they would be given the choice to enter into the beyond or not. She wasn't sure what she would do if that choice was presented.
"Don't go," he called, and she stopped briefly, surprised that he dared to yell after her. "Oh please Helena, do not leave me again."
"I never left," she huffed. "You made me leave when you killed me!"
"You ran away first," he countered, his voice sounding strange to him. He so rarely spoke that when he did the sound was unfamiliar. "Please Helena, do not go now. I have waited a thousand years to speak with you again."
Turning back, she narrowed her eyes. "And why haven't you spoken to me beforehand?"
The Baron shook his head, at a loss of words now that she was so close to him, her beauty radiating off the walls. "What would I say Helena? How would I tell you of my pain, when you are so unwilling to listen? I do not come to you; I do not bother you, because I know that what I did is unforgiveable. My tainted robes shall always remind me of this."
She narrowed her eyes, tilting her head. "Do you regret it? Do you regret killing me so irrationally? It has gotten us stuck in this same castle for the past thousand years."
He looked down. "I have regretted it every day of my life Helena. I see you wandering these halls, looking lost and pained, and it causes my heart to ache. I have done this to you, and I am the only one to blame for your misery. If I controlled my temper long ago, if I did not permit my emotions to get the best of me, you would not be so sad today. Nay, we would be in the afterlife together, living in peace."
Never before had the Grey Lady heard the Barron speak in such a pained tone, in a way that reflected nothing but sorrow. Though he hadn't spoken to her in a long time, she could hear the sincerity in his voice. And for the first time in over a thousand years, she looked at him with something other than resentment; she looked at him as a regular man, a man she once loved.
A/n: This is the end of the story for the Fanfiction Competition. Thanks for reading :) There's a possibility that a short little addition might be added to this story, but it's something I'm unsure about at this point. Let me know your thoughts!
This was my first time writing for Helena and/or the Bloody Barron at all, for I don't use them even in my regular stories. Care to let me know how I did?