The idea for this short story was ghosting through my mind since I read up on the background lore of the Ravenclaw diadem. Family intrigue, unrequited love, homocide followed by suicide and a magical artifact in the center of it all - I couldn't resist.
This is my personal headcanon, sticking to the few facts JK dropped about Helena Ravenclaw and the Diadem. I took some liberties for naming the Bloody Baron. I think the Founder's Era is a very intersting concept to play around with and I might come back to it.
Helena died on a beautiful night.
Silence surrounded her, the only accompaniment to her harsh breathing the tinkling of the frozen branches rustling in the cold wind. The sound reminded her of delicate glass bells. No animals called, no wolves cried and no owls hooted. Helena felt alone and watched at the same time.
The inky night sky stretched above her head, deep blue and endless like the ocean. Only pale light illuminating her path, courtesy of the full moon which hung heavy and pregnant in the sky, surrounded by the blinking dots of a million stars. Everything around her was dipped in its molten silver while the snow crunching underneath her flimsy shoes glittered like a blanket of diamond dust.
Diamond dust which gave under her weight, leaving traces she couldn't afford. Helena glanced behind her, her breath misting up the view of her footprints in the snow, a clear indication of where she had run. Tiredly she waved her wand, magic leaking from the tip and drawing from her arm. Her footprints were taken care of in one sweep, but the tightness in her throat didn't ease. Some instinct told her it wouldn't be enough. He wouldn't give up so quickly.
He was always eager to find her.
Icy slush had soaked the hem of her long blue wool cloak and the thin fabric of her shoes, her toes numb to its freezing touch. Helena had thought she would be safe here in this faraway land, so far from Scotland, from her home and from Hogwarts, far from everything she had ever known.
But it seems like it hadn't been far enough.
There was a sharp tug on her scalp, pain shooting down her spine and forcing her to stop in her stumbling flight. A branch had hooked a curl of her long black hair.
The thin wood almost looked like skeletal fingers clutching the dark strands.
Helena turned around to free herself - and froze.
A tall man was standing in the clearing just behind her. He was illuminated by the same moonlight that drenched everything around her but his black robes were swallowing the light as if he didn't want anyone to see him clearly.
Helena didn't need the moonlight to recognize him. Her heart fluttered as if it was a small bird imprisoned in the cage of her ribs.
It fluttered, not in exhilaration, but in fear.
He held himself as straight and self-assured as always, his posture the result of a childhood spent with strict rules. His hair was carefully coiffed, making Helena aware of how unruly her own tresses had become between the mistreatment of the biting wind and grasping wilderness. He should have looked out of place but somehow he appeared as comfortable in this unforgiving land of snow and ice as he would in a lavish banquet hall with his fellow nobles.
Only his eyes, black as tar, gave him away for what he truly was: a beast. They glimmered with barely hidden greed and obsession. And all that was reflected in their depths was Helena.
Only her, always.
"Baron Basing." Helena's lips were numb and chapped. They hurt when she talked.
"Please." The man's deep voice was a smooth glide, like scales whispering over marble.
It's no wonder he is one of Salazar's favorites, Helena thought. He sounds just like him.
"For you, Helena, I will always be Hugh."
She opened her mouth but the name stuck in her throat, burning with the cold air at each inhale.
Hugh. No, she wouldn't say it.
Helena took a step back, her scalp twinging in protest, a few hairs sacrificed to the silver tree. "How did you find me?"
He sighed and walked towards her, negating the distance she had tried to put between them. The snow dipped under his thick leather shoes with an audible crunch but wasn't able to penetrate them as easily as her own.
She suddenly felt vulnerable.
"Isn't the why more interesting than the how, love?"
Helena didn't think so. The why was quite obvious to her - he was here because she was here. Even after she had fallen so low, even after everything she did, he simply refused to give up on her.
Helena knew that she had a prestigious pedigree that made her very enticing for the wizarding nobles. Not only was she the only adult heir of one of the Founders, her mother was also ... renowned. So renowned that everyone saw Helena as perfect breeding stock. After all, her bearing a magical genius for someone's pureblood line was quite likely.
Only it was about more than blood and heirs for the man now in front of her. He hungered for Helena. He wanted to possess all of her, blood, magic, mind and heart.
And Helena just wanted to be free. Free from all the expectations, free from her mother's shadow, just free to spread her wings. Which is why she had made a big mistake.
"Your mother sent me."
A shiver raced down her back. Helena swallowed but a strange mix of feelings was making her tongue dry and heavy. Embarrassment, guilt, inferiority and remorse. And most of all: shock.
"You lie."
"Oh, I do no such thing, beautiful Helena. Your mother begged me from her sickbed to find you."
Sickbed? Mother wasn't ill when Helena had fled.
"She wouldn't ... she knows ..." that you're dangerous.
"Your mother is very intelligent, truly a remarkable woman worthy of all the titles bestowed upon her."
Helena did her best to ignore the twinge of discomfort that pierced her chest at his words. Her mother, a genius, an exceptional woman whose mind was sharper and more agile than anyone else's. Rowena Ravenclaw, the smartest witch of all time. Rowena Ravenclaw, who birthed a daughter that shared her appearance but not her brilliance. A daughter who was never good enough.
A daughter who had sought a solution through theft.
He took another step forward. His eyes glimmered low and deep, never once wavering from Helena's pale face. "She knew I would never give up until I found you. She knew that I was the best person to ask for this favor."
"Why would she - ?"
"Oh, I think you know why." He smiled, a polite smile without visible teeth, perfectly suited for court. Somehow he still managed to make it look cruel on his sharp face. "Your esteemed mother of course wouldn't confide in just anyone, but it has been noticed that her hair goes sadly undecorated as of late. One can't help but wonder why."
For a second Helena was back at the castle, back in her mother's chambers high in the tower. Sunlight was caught in the big blue gem set into her mother's diadem, winking at her from its place atop the dresser.
She hadn't resisted its call. And now it weighed against her hip, hidden inside a pouch underneath the folds of her cloak.
He took another step closer, so close that Helena could smell him in the clean and cold air; a mix of clover and leather, not repulsive in the slightest but Helena still flinched as if she was smelling Hell's brimstone.
He reached up and his gloved hand slowly started to untangle her hair from the branch it had been caught on, his movements gentle and careful. His coat rode up and Helena spotted his wand, next to a ceremonial dagger, its handle consisting of carved horn.
He's dressed for a hunt, she thought and felt her fingers prickle in panic.
"If you come with me, Helena, I can make all your crimes disappear."
Her heart beat faster. His eyes snared her own, swallowing the light as effectively as his heavy coat.
"You'll be safe with me, Helena. No one would dare to cross you."
"That's not what I want," she whispered. Helena didn't want to be feared or revered. She just wanted ... to make her mother proud. To be worthy of being called her daughter. Of living up to the name of Ravenclaw.
Her hair slipped through his fingers. She was freed, but Helena felt more trapped than ever. Like a bird with a broken wing, she didn't have any hope for escape.
You're not smart enough, a voice whispered inside her mind. It sounded like Mother. If only you were clever, you could turn this situation around.
The diadem was cold against her fingertips. The touch of metal shot through her skin straight to her heart.
Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem was said to enhance the wisdom of its wearer, Helena knew. It was the reason she had taken it.
Maybe now it was her only chance.
He watched as she pulled it from her pouch, an indulgent little smile dancing across his lips. The diadem settled on her head, the blue sapphire a reassuring weight falling against her forehead. And with it a sense of calm descended on Helena. Her breath stopped shuddering and her fingers stopped twitching. The silence of the forest filtered into her mind, clearing it from all the cluttered panic and unnecessary emotions.
A light laugh escaped him. "So you truly have it. Brave of you, Helena, and very cunning as well. Maybe you were wrongly Sorted from the start."
"No. The House of Ravenclaw is where I belong, as its heir. It's the only logical choice."
He hummed. "It looks pretty on you. Come with me, Helena, and you can keep it."
Why would she go with him? She hadn't done anything wrong so she had no need for his protection. The diadem was her birthright, it belonged to her. It wouldn't make sense to agree to him.
"No."
His fingers clenched around the long hair in his grip.
"Come with me, Helena. I will not ask again."
"No." He couldn't offer her anything of worth. His riches paled in comparison to Helena's prestige. Especially now that she was the smartest witch thanks to the diadem, just like her mother.
A slight pain burned across her scalp. Helena watched quietly as he wrapped her hair around his gloved fingers, hopelessly entangling it.
"Why, Helena? I will give you everything you desire. Why do you continue to reject me? Why did you run away from me?"
His eyes were red, burning like the devil's while Helena's own were tranquil and cool like the precious stone dangling on her forehead. There were no ripples in their blue depths, nothing reflected in them.
Helena pondered the man in front of her, his hissing breath and tense shoulders. There was no reason to be so agitated - the answer was simple. Why couldn't he see it?
"Because I do not love you."
Logic was a clear construct, input and output determined by set rules with a number of variables that were easy to calculate. He was an obsessed, emotionally unstable man who had fixated on her. And the object of his fixation had refused his claim. An outburst was the logical result. So Helena wasn't surprised when she saw his features morph into rage. She wasn't surprised when his hand fisted her long tresses, pulling her face towards his, teeth bared and gleaming in the cold light.
What did surprise her was the knife he stabbed her with.
A swell of warm blood washed over her stomach and trickled down her legs. Helena was too numb to feel anything beyond that. She simply watched as her life's essence soaked her washed-out dress. The once sky-blue fabric was quickly turning dark and heavy underneath her gaze.
There should be pain, Helena knew, but her brain was too occupied to try and find the mistake in her calculations. What did she overlook? This was not the outcome she had accounted for. He shouldn't be willing to harm her.
How had she still made a mistake, despite the diadem now on her head?
Some part of her realized that she wouldn't be able to stand for much longer, but she was unable to do anything about it. Her knees gave way while her head was busy trying to figure out why he had chosen to use his dagger to harm her instead of his magic. Was magic not visual enough? There would have been no blood smearing his skin, no traces of him on her body.
Strong arms caught her before she hit the ground and cradled her against a heaving chest. The fine golden stitches decorating his coat itched against her sensitive skin. Emotionlessly Helena studied the face of her murderer, hovering above her own. It was skewered into a mask of pain as if he was suffering the wounds instead of her. A scream wrecked his tall stature, a scream of pure, animalistic anguish.
How illogical.
He hastily pulled her head up when Helena's neck went slack. His abrupt motion loosened the diadem and it slipped from her crown.
The second it thumped into the snow, emotions crashed into Helena like a tidal wave escaping a dam. Her spirit was swallowed and drowned in despair, fear, anger and hurt. Helpless tears ran from her burning eyes, too hot against her frozen skin.
What had happened? How could this be?
The diadem had been supposed to be her salvation, not her doom. Helena knew to treat him with care, like a starving animal. But under the influence of the diadem instead of feeding him, she had kicked him.
And he had retaliated.
The snow around her was greedily swallowing her blood, turning a sated, bright red. Her breath was quick and flat, not reaching her lungs the way it should. Helena was light-headed and desperate.
And lying innocently in the scarlet snow was the diadem, the sapphire winking in the moonlight. Regret echoed through her empty heart. Helena regretted her greed. She regretted that she had thought to rely on something like this.
The diadem hadn't made her wiser. It had simply suppressed all her emotions, everything that couldn't neatly be calculated. Everything that was considered a hindrance to a purely logical mind - everything that made her human.
Images flashed through her mind, the softly rolling hills of the green Highlands, the tall stone-walls of Hogwarts. Her mother's eyes, unfathomable and blue like the sea. Like the night sky stretching above her head. And just as cold.
Faintly Helena could hear her murderer cry in despair, hoarsely begging her to stop bleeding, begging her to not leave him. Apologizing. But his voice turned fainter while the moon grew dimmer.
How could dying be so ... simple and so quick? She didn't want to go like this, in this strange land, hugged only by ice-crusted blood and the man who had stabbed her. Helena wanted to go back home, she wanted to see her mother again, to apologize for her stupid mistake ...
Helena had always assumed her mother's coldness stemmed from disappointment. But now she knew ... her eyelids grew heavy but she forced herself to keep looking at the diadem.
It wasn't a treasure, it was a curse. A curse that needed to disappear, so it could never rip another family apart, never lure anyone into death again.
A big ash-tree was towering above her still form, its spindly branches hiding her from the cheerfully blinking stars. Its roots broke through the snow and ice just beside her, forming deep dark furrows into the heart of the earth.
"Locomotor"
The whisper escaped on Helena's last breath. Darkness encroached on her vision but she kept watching as her magic dragged the diadem through the frost. She kept watching as it was tipped into the open maw of the forest, where it would be swallowed for all eternity.
And with that image in mind, Helena finally closed her eyes.