Slightly AU, especially since Pottermore, but oh well. Hope you enjoy.
.
For the Love of Helena
.
"Garrick, we're leaving,"
.
Rowena sighs. It hurts her so much, but Helena can't grow up here. There isn't any money to be had in wandmaking, at least not now. She doubts that Ollivander's (Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.) will last much longer. Helena, still an infant, can live in poverty, with a father, or in wealth, luxury, happiness, and ignorance without one. The obliviousness was painful once it was made known, but her childhood will be better because of it. Eventually she could have the knowledge.
.
He doesn't look up from his intricate work, although all she can wish is that he would. He's been expecting it for a while, seen her appraising her belongings and looking at his sideways, and yet the pain comes all the same. And he's not making any sound, but, God, doesn't it hurt? Another sigh escapes her lips as she sees his eyes focus downwards and she thinks maybe she should stay, but she can't. She, Rowena Ravenclaw the Great, is close to tears, or, God forbid, heartbreak, but what can she do? She supposes this is how the world goes. She is cruel, this she knows, but it really is for the betterment of Helena (isn't it?).
.
She bends low and kisses him on the cheek. He grimaces as she does so, wishes her worthless pity and his internal agony will end. Those few seconds make the departure all the more painful. The kiss burns on his cheek and he doesn't know how much longer he can stand this. She's holding Helena's (his Helena, his baby daughter Helena) basket and a handbag full of shrunken necessities, one in each hand. "Goodbye, Garrick," she's whispering, but he really doesn't want to hear her anymore.
...
Ollivander is lounging there, in his library, contemplating. Today marks Helena's birthday and she's oh-so grown up at twenty-one, married, maybe expecting her own child (can he already be a grandfather?), and not thinking of her poor, poor father. This is all right, as he thinks enough for the both of them.
.
He's also thinking about immortality, about how lonely an existence it must be, how he never wants to feel alone. All he wants to do is remember her, remember them, but it won't leave him alone, the memory of the day before.
.
He had gone to the tavern to have a pint of Firewhiskey (the best way to commemorate, he had learned from years of repetition) and the wench had sat across from him, cleaning bottles and flirting heavily, bored. He says he doesn't want to be alone, but, really, all he wants is the way it was, his Rowena, his Helena, and this woman won't leave him be. He had said something to her, commanded her to stop this, then she's cursing him and going on with rambling words, and he makes out that she's saying an incantation, but he feels no different. He had heard her laughing, muttering about if he wants peace and time, he shall have such an excess of it.
.
Then he's back in his seat, and the air is heavy with dust motes, and he's wondering if her words could be a spell that's been lost in the years (he doesn't quite recognize it, but things have been hazy as of late) or just a mother's cursing for a fool. He idly hopes the latter, but he's been past caring for years.
.
A boy knocks on the door, his round face peering through the grimy window pane of the door, hoping to see if the occupant is home. It wasn't as if the barmy old man had anywhere else to be, he thinks; after all, he doesn't work, hasn't since his wife (some high and mighty lady, wasn't she?) had gone off with their baby girl. His story is the most common of gossips passed around the village. When Ma had heard the news, she'd told him to visit and inform him. In a sorrowful, small whisper she had said that he would find out anyway. "Sir, Sir?" the boy calls out. And he can hear the old man impatiently asking what it is, then the boy is talking too fast."The Ladies Rowena and Helena are dead. Lady Helena by murder and Lady Rowena by heartbreak. My ma wanted me to tell you-"the boy calls nervously, not sure if Ollivander can hear him.
.
With a churning mind, Garrick grips the desk. In the moments before truth overturns all else, he notices how spidery and feeble his fingers look (like a corpse's) on the wood of the table, how old he has become. "Leave me be, boy," Garrick yells after a moment. With a frightened sort of backwards glance, the boy bolts from the cottage. Even through the closed door, the boy can hear Ollivander's screams quite clearly. He's sobbing and choking and screaming out a series of "no, God, no"s. The boy only has an inkling of the anguish he's caused, but all he can do is run with Ollivander's words. His footsteps become lost in the wails.
.
Garrick reaches for a wand, any wand. He's not quite thinking, not quite aware, but he knows he's screaming the death curse at himself, yet no emerald light. None. Wand after wand, no avail. Goddamn that wench and goddamn her curses and goddamn what he's become and goddamn being alone. He's sobbing but he knows nothing is to be done and he eventually becomes quiet and just sits, slumped, there.
...
Mr. Ollivander awakes from his memories to the tinkling of the door's bell—customers. "Hello, going to Hogwarts?" he asks with a vacant gaze.