Rowena squinted at the large sundial in the garden. She stared at it for a moment, then looked up at the sky. She looked back down at the dial. Sighing in defeat, she turned to walk away. Helena exited the garden door and leaned against the house, looking at her. "Are you still having trouble reading the time?" she asked.
Rowena glared at her for a moment, but answered truthfully. "Yes." Helga walked up to her side at the sundial.
"Look." she said patiently, pointing to the shadow cast onto the smooth sandstone. "See this point here? It points toward the forest. When the shadow is here, the time is high noon."
Rowena kept watching Helga as she moved her hands and pointed to other key spots on the sundial, but none of it made sense to her. She groaned, interrupting Helga mid-sentence.
"There's no use in trying to teach me." She said sullenly, turning around and leaning her back against the dial. Suddenly, her expression turned angry. "Why, Helga?" she yelled, frustrated. She pushed a hand through her long, thick hair. "Why can I not do something so simple?"
Helga put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's not as simple as you think. Children spend a long time learning this-"
"And eventually master it." She pointed out. "How am I to lead a group of intelligent young wizards if I cannot get to my own lessons on time?"
Helga frowned. "Rowena," she said gently, "having trouble reading a sundial does not make you unintelligent." Rowena cursed herself for being so obvious. She had not come out and said it, but of course her true emotions had been discovered. Helga had a gift for seeing the things people would rather not admit.
"Of course not." Her voice came out more snappish than she intended. "Why should it hold me back?"
"Now say it with more conviction." Rowena hesitated.
"It will not hold me back." she repeated, but her friend still did not appear to be convinced. "I do believe it! It won't hold me back."
Helga raised an eyebrow. "Then what do you believe will?"
Immediately the sundial came to mind again, and she looked at the sky dejectedly. "I don't know."
"You are the brightest witch I know, far more so than Slytherin or Gryffindor, although they're manly desire to better than us lowly women won't let them admit it." It wasn't often that Helga had anything bad to say at anyone. Rowena giggled, half in humor and half in shock that she would say such things, and about her friends no less. "I don't love them any less for it, but…" she trailed off and tucked a piece of hair that had escaped the loose bun she had drawn it up into. "My point is that you are allowed to have a weakness. And it hasn't hurt you any, has it?"
"Well-" Rowena started, but was quickly interrupted.
"It hasn't. You have always done just fine, even if you aren't certain exactly how long there is until noon-time meal or the exact minute you must be in any one place." This was true, she had to admit. Yet still…
"What would I do if I were to lose that ability? When I become an old woman and my mind is no longer as sharp as it is now and I cannot exist solely on instinct?"
"Then," Helga said, putting her arms around her friend and pulling her in for a tight hug, "You will have friends to help you." Rowena smiled and hugged her back. They stood their for several long moments, swaying gently, each taking comfort in the presence of the other. "Now, why don't we head inside and I'll make you a cup of chamomile tea to calm your nerves?" She hiked up her skirts and marched inside, and after a moment of sullen staring at the time piece she would never understand, she wiped the whole matter from her mind and followed after.
