I am called the Gray Lady, now. Only the Sorting Hat knows who I am, though I wonder if Dumbledore suspects. I know the others don't—students or ghosts. I've heard a few of the history-fans among the older ones wonder if I was from that time period. I suppose they judge from my dress.

Because I was there, a thousand years ago—at the founding of Hogwarts, and the fall of its founders. When I was alive, my name was Rowena Ravenclaw.

I miss my friends. Helga, with her brilliant smile and constant cheer—though after Salazar left, it was dimmed. Godric… I must be honest. When we were parted in death, he made his choice, the brave choice, to journey to the beyond. I wanted to stay. Stay and keep learning, keep watching this school that we had built. Our love was strong—but not strong enough to hold us in one eternity or another.

Of Helga and Salazar I do not know. He too, abandoned her—and all of us, but most of all, her—to pursue what he perceived as his calling. Left her with his child. I wonder if Tom Riddle, now Lord Voldemort, knows that he is heir of both Slytherin and Hufflepuff?

I often wonder if they all found each other in the afterlife. Perhaps there they can reconcile,though their houses cannot.

As the years passed, I became less and less the woman I was. Students, new ones, began to call me the Gray Lady. It fit, and I did not dissuade it. I am only a shadow, now.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have followed them. But, if I am not happy here, then I am content. There is still much, even for me, to learn of life, death, and acceptance.