Title: Like Misty Forgiveness
Prompt: Written for 'HedwigBlack's Weekly Challenge - Ghosts' and the 'Secrets Competition' on the HPFC: 'I never told you, but I forgave you a long time ago.'
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is a trademarked brand owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers. Any material used belongs to the aforementioned parties. This material is only used in recreational purposes and I receive no monetary or material rewards from using it. Please don't sue me.
Helena Ravenclaw is a ghost.
That statement was obvious and probably didn't need to be written down for all to see, but sometimes people need reminding.
(Is it surprising to know that she never wanted it like this?)
Helena Ravenclaw.
It's her full given name and as a child, it's all the young girl ever responded to.
Helena Ravenclaw.
(Her mother's name is what gives her respect.)
Silence.
This is expected of all children, because children should be seen, not heard.
This rule was never meant to apply to Helena though, because she's Helena Ravenclaw, and with a mother like that, surely she must be just as wise. But long ago, when the sunlight tickled her skin into warmth and daisies existed just to be thread into her hair; Helena Ravenclaw was just as silent as many people believe her to be today.
Born from foolish dreams of worship and grandeur, Helena once believed that speaking was beneath her, because if she shares her knowledge, someone might stand the chance of becoming cleverer than her.
(There's a difference, after all, between wisdom and cleverness.)
Clever.
Helena's always hated to be ignored.
It doesn't take much for her jealousy to rust into bitter resentment, and eventually, Helena Ravenclaw turned her back on her own mother.
And Helena is clever: clever enough to steal her mother's diadem, clever enough to keep the secret long enough to make it to Albania.
It was not much later that The Grey Lady came into existence. And really, this situation is entirely of her own making, and it's only then that Helena realizes her stupidity. It takes her many years to work up the nerve to come back to Hogwarts; by the time she gets there, it's already too late.
(Her stay at the castle is her unspoken apology.)
(Helena Ravenclaw was clever, not wise.)
The Grey Lady.
It's not her given name, but as a ghost, it's the only moniker that Helena Ravenclaw responds to.
There's something terribly sad about existing after warmth has left her; knowing that her spirit should have left this Earth long ago.
Is she grey?
Well, Helena supposes that 'grey' is a fitting description for the pearly translucence that defines her ghost form, (The Ravenclaw students she chaperones are nothing if not accurate) but most days, Helena thinks that 'Grey' fits her better than most people could ever fathom.
(It's with great shame that Helena now bears this great burden: alone by choice. Not a soul alive knows the story of Helena Ravenclaw, because people always were, and still are to this day, much more concerned with her mother, Rowena.)
Tentative.
Helena Ravenclaw was not in the habit of making conversation and the Grey Lady is no better versed in such pastimes.
(The difference is that she's making the effort.)
She intended to start slowly, but she never manages to make it past step one. The Grey Lady only ever talks to those who honestly seek knowledge for knowledge's sake.
Helena knows that her faults of life included hoarding information.
(Rowena never believed in such a practice. It's just coincidence that those she deems worthy only ever happen to wear her mother's emblem.)
Enlightened.
Maybe that's a bit more accurate: enlightened by death, enlightened by watching.
At the time of her death, Helena didn't know much about ghosts besides the fact that she never expected to become one.
It's the hurt, the shame, the anger she felt as her spirit faded that has tied her to this existence; that is how people become ghosts by accident. It should be simple enough then, to let go of the anger and pass on.
It's the fear of death that allows beings to become a ghost on purpose.
(She doesn't want to be here, yet she defiantly exists anyway: Helena Ravenclaw is too ashamed of her actions to forgive herself, and it's not death she fears, but the dead themselves. Or, more specifically, one person whom she never got to say goodbye to.)
Helena Ravenclaw is a ghost.
That statement was obvious and probably didn't need to be written down for all to see, but sometimes people need reminding.
(It would sicken her to realize that all her worrying was for naught.)