Silence echoed between us only broken by our short, heavy breathing. Apathy had let me blot out the shadow on her soul, but no longer. Now she glared at me in anger, as though I'd done her wrong, I just stared back in shock. Time was frozen there; her standing over me, her wand aimed at my throat, me thrown to our bedroom floor, nearly defenseless without my own wand – everything was so wrong.
Angelic, curly, white-blonde hair hung in her face as she finally spoke to me, "I should have known you would be the one to find me out. Quick, witty, beautiful Rowena, yes, she'd be the one of us to figure it out. Ah, but I had to let myself believe I could keep it from you by playing your emotional harp. Seems you've proven me soft." Her words came as spits of venomous fire that stung me beyond all compare.
"Hel… How… Why..." Words simply evaded me as I struggled with what I'd discovered.
"Well how? That's easy." She pointed her wand at a spider crawling across the hardwood floor. "Engorgio," and it grew to about ten times it's small size. It took a few more tentative steps before she cursed again, "Crucio!"
The poor creature twitched and wreathed in pain and it's screech was deadly. In Helga's eyes, a sick delight sparkled, sending chills down my spine. My eyes kept flying from Helga to the spider, appalled at what was happening before my eyes. At last Helga released the beast from her curse, and the enlarged spider relaxed.
She watched it for a little while, without a sound, as it recovered. It began to move away from us and a sickly green bolt of light shot from the end of her wand at her command of, "Avada Kedavra!" The spider lay still on the ground, never to move again.
My mouth hung open, speechless at the horrific sight – Helga seemed to enjoy it.
"And why?" She said breaking the silence once more, "Because, as you know, I'd done it before, and," up to this point her voice was calm and steady. She took a slow breath and screamed, "because he knocked you up!" I jumped with a tiny shriek and shrank away, knowing exactly what she was talking about.
"But Helga…" I said, brushing a red hair out of my face, trying to straiten myself with the bedpost. "Helga, how could you… bring yourself to…? Your own parents? And all those students? It was you?"
"My parents were muggle-born fools; they believed that they deserved more respect than they were treated with. I don't. They shouldn't have been, and then they created me. They taint our society, and they kept going to that church – I knew that they were going to confess about us, about what we are. All mud bloods are like that. Guilt about what they are drives them crazy! I had to get rid of them.
And I thought that with this school, we could stop that, but it was the only way I could drive that Slytherin away! Don't you see Row?"
She sounded almost like she was begging me to understand her, like she didn't want to hurt me. I almost wanted to believe her, but… how could I just shrug off everything she'd done, all she'd been hiding?
There was a look in her eye that was a combination of begging and fear – she didn't want to be caught, she wanted to go on being innocent "muggle-born" Hufflepuff, it was a cover story for her, and she wanted to leave all the blame on Salazar. I knew what she wanted from me, she wanted me to forget, forgive and forget, she wanted me back to herself, she wanted to believe that it was all Salazar's fault for my unborn child, even though she knew somewhere inside that it was partly me too.
"Helga… I can't keep it a secret from them. You know that you'll have to leave. I've got to tell them what you've done." I hung my head in slight pity and in shame, "I'm sorry." And I was. I was sorry that I'd cheated, I was sorry that I'd driven her to do such things, and I was sorry that I couldn't let her get away with it.
The emotion seemed to drain from her face, and then it flooded with anger. "Then I just can't let you remember, can I?" She raised her wand and before I had a chance to reach for my wand, her wrist flicked as she said, "Obliviate!"
"Ow, my eyes!" I rubbed my eyes and shook my head before looking up to the person in front of me. Everything was blurry for a bit, and as my head cleared, Helga appeared before me. "What happened? How did I end up on the floor? Or… even in our room? Last I remember I was leaving the Great Hall after dinner…"
Her eyes full of concern she knelt down and caressed my cheek. "Oh Row, you fell and hit your head, you've been there for a while, I was just going to go get Godric to help, but you started to wake up."
"Oh… I see. Well my head does hurt."
"Well let's get you onto the bed and get you some rest." Helga helped me up, got me into bed, kissed me, and then left the room.
I turned on my side and felt something in the pocket of my robes. I reached for it and pulled out a piece of parchment; a news article from 10 years ago.
At first I thought to read it, the headline was, "Young Witch Orphaned when Muggle-born Parents Are Murdered" and with so much buzzing in my head, I gave up, throwing the old news into the trash as I feel to sleep.