WRITTEN FOR THE HOUSES COMPETITION, YEAR 7, ROUND 9
House: Ravenclaw
Class: Potions
Drabble
Prompt: [Colours] Blue and Bronze
Word Count: 699(google docs)
TW: canon murder-suicide
Note: "Roman" is the Bloody Baron. I named him for a 20th-century Mongolian Ruler nicknamed the Bloody Baron.
Thanks to CK and Abby for the beta!
She always dressed in blue. Always.
Roman had often wondered why as he admired her from afar. Of course, it was easy to imagine it being a nod to her mother's House, but Roman had never believed that. If it were a way to honour her heritage, why not wear bronze as well? Roman couldn't help but dwell on the question past the point where every sane man would have stopped.
Why blue? It suited her perfectly — her eyes always a shade off, her black hair curling over her shoulders… But Helena had never struck him as the type of woman who'd hold silks against her skin to select the most flattering colour.
And around and around his mind turned. Why blue and not bronze?, he thought as he caught a glimpse of Helena leaving the castle. He imagined asking her. The scene appeared fully formed in his mind: Roman would follow her on the grounds, approach silently, surprise her with something… flowers maybe. Then Roman would ask and Helena would say, "Bronze? It doesn't complement my eyes as well, does it?"
Even in his imagination he could do nothing but get lost in her blue, blue eyes…
But of course, she wouldn't say that. Firstly, because it would be far from true.
Roman would know. He had contemplated the matter long enough. Her fair complexion mirrored in a shiny bronze medallion would be simply divine. He wished to gift one to her. He had gone as far as to buy one.
But how could he ever present his token? Every time the thought even entered his mind, he was assaulted by doubts. What if she never wore bronze in protest? Like many who had been at Hogwarts at the time, Roman knew too much of what had happened between Lady Ravenclaw and her husband to discount the possibility.
Perhaps, if questioned, Helena would say, "After what that cur did to my mother? I'd never! I don't know how she can stand for her House to be represented by his colour as well!"
Roman presumed that the subject would be enough to move even Helena, who often looked cold as the Black Lake in winter. Imagining fire in those cool, blue eyes kept him awake at night.
But it was nothing more than a fantasy. In truth, Roman knew that Helena wasn't prone to fits of pique.
He would never ask, but if he did, he was sure that Helena would look down at her robes with a blank expression only to say, "They're blue? ...I suppose I have many blue garments," in that infuriatingly cool way of hers. Because Helena didn't care about things. Not food, or clothes, or seasons, or gifts… Sometimes she cared for knowledge — she could do nothing else, with Lady Ravenclaw as a mother. But Helena mostly didn't care. Until she did.
Until she cared so much about her mother's regard that it consumed her with the force of a thousand suns. And Roman could do nothing but stare from afar as fire melted the coldness in her heart so quickly and thoroughly that it scorched the tender meat beneath her icy walls.
That was when Helena fled.
And of course Roman went after her, how could he not? Lady Ravenclaw didn't even have to ask.
In the cold forest of Albania, her blue cloak stood out amid dark trees and half-dead shrubs. That was the answer to his question, wasn't it? Helena wouldn't wear that colour to honour her mother after the way they had parted. Would she?
Roman tried to talk to her. He did. He always did, in his mind or imagination. In front of his mirror, occasionally. He tried.
But when the words finally, truly, left his lips, what Helena said was… no.
Roman stabbed her.
He drove his sword into her soft belly, parting silk and skin like nothing. He stared wide-eyed as dark blood marred her blue dress. It would turn bronze like rusty blood, he thought, before looking into her blue, blue eyes. Roman spared a thought for the bronze medallion in his pocket that he'd never give her, and turned the sword on himself.