Princess of Sapphire

Summary: My 50th story! This is the story of the life of Helena Ravenclaw, the Grey Lady, the daughter of one of the Founders of Hogwarts. This is how she coped with being in the shadow of one of the most astaunding witches in history, her own mother, Rowena Ravenclaw, but how they loved each other and coped all the same. At least, they did until that one fateful day in history when everything changed.

Disclaimer: Naturally, everything belongs to the magnificent JK Rowling and not to me.

Chapter One

Intelligence. It was the most important characteristic in the world to the woman lying in her bedroom, deep within the corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the quality she was most famed for and one that she had brought to her own students, yet Rowena Ravenclaw could not think of one other time she had ever been as stupid as then.

As a young woman of barely twenty-one years old, Rowena had yet to find herself a husband. The possibility of marriage had not even crossed her mind. However, that had not dettered the woman from meeting a man of her own age, a kind and caring man named Xenagoras Ansgot and had within moments fallen in love with him. The two had courted for a long while and one thing had eventually led to another and... well, you truly did not have to be of Ravenclaw House to deduce what had occured between the two.

However, just after this occurance, Xenagoras had been called to war, a Muggle war which he had been chosen to fight in, owing to his Muggle father's blood. Rowena did not want him to go, of course, but had eventually come to terms with the idea and had decided that it was far better to allow him to go with no further worry inflicted on his mind, from her not believing in his cause to fight. So she had let him go. And she so soon after wished that she had not.

Xenagoras was killed by a Muggle soldier, while trying to defend an innocent village from attack. The news had come so long ago, yet the wounds the realisation had inflicted were much harder to forget than the mere time of day, much harder by far. It was later that evening that Rowena had realised how much trouble she was in. She was going to have Xenagoras' child.

Suddenly, a cry from the room beside hers brought Rowena from her memories momentarily. Barely hesitating, the witch swung her legs out of bed and hastened to the source of the noise, her hem of her midnight blue nightgown catching slightly around her feet due to the speed she was moving at. She pushed on the door, hearing a slight clicking noise as it opened and walked through it, closing it softly behind her.

She quickly crossed the room to a celeste-curtained bassinet, golden swirls and flowers embroidered upon it. Brushing the silk hangings to the side, Rowena sighed at the sight. Lying there, with arms flailing, skin reddening and tears streaming down their face was a young baby. A baby girl with waving brown hair and deep chestnut eyes. Rowena's daughter. Both her's and his child.

Although her appearance was entirely her mother's, the sparkle behind the girl's eyes belonged to her father. That much Rowena could see very clearly. Shaking away the thoughts in her mind, she bent down through the hanging and lifting the wailing baby from her cradle.

"Shh, my darling, it's alright. Mother's here. Oh, Helena, my darling, shh." Eventually, after two dozens minutes of being rocked in her mother's arms, Helena Ravenclaw was lulled back into the comforting clutches of sleep.

Helena was the light of Rowena's life, she would not change her for the world, but she was also a reminder of how much had been taken from the woman and how much her life had truly cost her.

But still, Rowena Ravenclaw had her young daughter, the most perfect little girl in the world, and, at least for the two of them, that would always be enough. Wouldn't it?

A/N: Here begins another of my 'Life story' writings. Please review and tell me what you think!