Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Written for the IWSC Season 2 Round 5: Hogsmeade
School and Year: Mahoutokoro, Year 3
Special Rule: Incorporate the assigned color and the meaning behind it: Grey = Depression
Theme: Zonko's - Fun/Pranks
Main Prompt: [Colour] Baby Pink - the meaning and symbolism behind the color pink is most often understood as tenderness, caring, acceptance, sensitivity, etc. And if this doesn't describe my characters perfectly then I don't know what does.
Additional Prompt: [First line] "Looking back, she could not tell you how she had got here."
Word count: 2801
More extensive theme/special rule usage explained at the end of the story.
Liz, thank you for beta reading this. Your brainstorming and editing is absolutely brilliant. Also, huge thank you for the beautiful cover picture. It's gorgeous :)
Looking back, she could not tell you how she had got here. Helena Ravenclaw drifted in place in a corner of the Hogwarts library, turning the pages of a well-worn book. After hundreds of years of traversing the castle, gliding through its walls, and watching its occupants, Helena had the layout of the castle engraved in her mind. Therefore, she could glide along its corridors, lost in thought or remembering a dream, and reach her destination without realizing it.
Though she knew the entire castle as well as the back of her hand, there were really only two places she frequently visited. One was the Ravenclaw Common Room, where she was always welcomed by its students, while the other was the library.
Centuries ago, when she'd been no older than eight years old and living at her mother's school, Helena had created a nook under a shelf in the corner of the library, which she proceeded to fill with all her favorite books. Over the many years, she had added books to its shelves whenever she found one she particularly enjoyed. Her own personal library that nobody knew about but herself. It was a very large and expansive collection; some were fiction, others weren't. Some were lighthearted stories about princesses and castles, others were dark and filled with the supernatural. Some were about transfiguration, others were about the future or the afterlife.
Many curious students had asked how she was able to read books and turn their pages when she was a ghost, since the book should've fallen straight through her pale hands.
Her constant reply, the only one she ever gave, was empty and plain. "It's a magic castle," she would say, as though it answered every question ever asked. Then the students would leave, some looking more puzzled than before.
Helena like to keep the real explanation to herself: some ghosts, if they'd been powerful when living, were still able to harness magic once dead. Especially if they had returned still in possession of their wand as Helena had. She had been able to cast a charm upon her private library so that she able to still hold them, turn their pages, and even smell the ink they bore. And whenever she found a book she liked or wanted to read, she could cast the same charm and continue expanding her library even beyond her life. She had also charmed journals, parchment, and quills so she could continue to write stories, notes, or poetry.
It was there, in her corner of the library, that Helena had met one of the most unique people she'd ever encountered. And she'd encountered many people.
It was late autumn of 1982. A new year at Hogwarts had just begun, bringing in a fresh group of students along with many old ones. A cold and rainy October afternoon found Helena in the library, having just left the doorway of a particularly interesting Transfiguration lesson on Animagi. As she glided through aisle after aisle of books, heading towards her corner, a soft sound stopped her. It sounded… sad. Like a stifled sob. She retreated a couple of feet and looked down an aisle. There, sitting at the window seat, staring out at the wet grounds and the rippling lake, was a young girl. Helena recognized her as one of her own first-year Ravenclaws. Her blonde hair fell around her shoulders and down her back, framing her face like a curtain.
Helena could see the girl's reflection in the window; her face was wet with tears, mirroring the raindrops on the glass.
"Pandora?" Helena murmured softly.
The girl jumped and turned, her bottom lip trembling and grey eyes bearing a tint of red.
"You know who I am?" she asked, looking surprised. She rubbed the tears away and blinked.
"I do." Being the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower, Helena always took great care to memorize each face that entered her home. She may have been the shy ghost people rarely remembered, but she would always take care of her own as best as she could. Likewise, the Ravenclaws were all kind to her. They understood her in a way the other houses' students didn't, nor the other ghosts. Even her mother and the students Helena had studied with had never understood her. Aunt Helga was the only person who had ever made her feel welcome and comfortable, but she had been gone for a long time now.
"Pandora Parageia*, isn't it?"
Pandora nodded.
"You – you're the Grey Lady, aren't you?" Pandora said, rubbing her eyes and blinking.
Helena nodded. "That's what they call me, yes."
Hesitating, she drew nearer, so that she hovered only a few feet from Pandora. "What's the matter?"
The girl was staring out of the window again and didn't reply.
"Pandora?" she prompted after a moment. She had her suspicions about why the girl was crying, but she wanted Pandora to speak for herself.
Pandora mumbled a response, but Helena didn't catch it.
"What was that?"
"Stupid boys," Pandora repeated louder. "Some stupid Gryffindor boys were teasing me because I was talking about Crumple Horned Snorkacks."
"And what are those?" Helena asked curiously. She'd never heard of Crumple Horned Snorkacks before.
"Magical creatures in Sweden," Pandora mumbled. "Who cares, they're not really real, are they? Some mean sixth year girl told me so, told me to stop blabbering about fake creatures."
Helena didn't really know what to say in response to that, but she knew she'd be tracking down this sixth year and giving her a piece of her mind the next day, as well as the Gryffindor boys.
"People are always bullying me for being different," Pandora continued. "Believing in things other people don't, preferring books over people. You'd think that the other Ravenclaws would understand me but I'm guess I'm just a bit too weird even for them. I mean, I have one friend named Alice. She's a Hufflepuff and she's really nice, but even she doesn't really understand me, you know?"
"I'm gonna guess you don't really like being around people much," Helena said.
Pandora looked up at her and smiled. "Yeah, not really. They're just too loud sometimes. That's why I love books and stories so much. They're so much easier to understand than people. And they don't judge you or look at you differently than other people. That's why I like to write too," Pandora went on. She took a journal out of her bag and showed Helena all the pages she's filled with words.
"Stories, poems, just whatever I feel like writing when something's happened. Or if I'm just bored," she added with a light laugh.
"I understand that," Helena said. She hesitated for a moment. She never spoke about herself, so this was unknown territory for her, having always been so private.
But then she thought about how lonely she'd been recently. She had all of her books, of course, but there was something about talking with a living and breathing person… something that had been lost to her for a long time. Her fear of being hurt or misunderstood was so deeply ingrained, that it kept her from treading anywhere past cordial conversation.
Helena bit her lip as she stood across from Pandora. She sensed that there was something different about this girl. Something that told Helena she was with a friend, that Pandora would understand her and wouldn't say how Helena felt was stupid.
Pandora was clutching her notebook tightly as she pulled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees, eyes back on the falling rain.
"Do you ever wonder why the sky cries?" Pandora asked. Her voice was soft and light, almost singsong.
Helena followed Pandora's gaze out of the window. The storm seemed to be weakening, for the rain wasn't as heavy as it had been, and the rumbling of thunder had faded.
The sun was just barely poking out from behind the dark grey clouds, but it was enough to give the lake a glimmer as the thousands of tiny ripples continued to flutter across its surface.
"I have wondered that before," Helena said softly, honestly. They watched the rain silently for a few minutes until Helena started to speak.
"I've always been shy and anxious, ever since I was young. I was never understood by people, not my classmates, not my teachers, not even my own mother."
Pandora was watching Helena, her eyes still sad; Helena recognized the look. It was a look of pain and hurt, one that her own eyes had so often bore. The look of sadness when you realize that people don't understand you or welcome you. That they don't accept you.
"I found my solace in books similar to you," Helena continued. "Their stories and characters were able to give me homes and families that I'd never had. And then I started to write. I'd escape the laughter and rambunctiousness of my peers and come to the library or go to a corner of the Common Room and write how I felt. I'll admit, I don't have the best way with words. A lot of my poetry I hated, but I wasn't too terrible at writing stories." She let herself smile and was glad to see Pandora smile too
She bit her lip again. "Don't let people make you something you're not," she said after a moment. "Pandora, you are talented and special and creative and, might I say, smarter than others. Sometimes, imagination is more important than knowledge."
Pandora nodded. "Yeah, that's what my mum said. But sometimes I just want to be normal, you know?"
Helena looked at her sadly.
"Yeah, I do know. There was a time when I wanted to be normal like everyone else too. When I wished I could just be a normal girl who went to school and had a normal family. But that wasn't me. My family wasn't normal, and on top of that, my imagination made anything normal relatively impossible," she said, laughing in spite of herself. "But then I realized that there really is no 'normal'. Everyone's different, some just more than others."
Pandora smiled too, and this time the smile finally reached her eyes.
"Do you ever regret it? Becoming a ghost, I mean," she asked suddenly.
Helena was taken aback at the question. Nobody had ever asked her that before, yet immediately, the answer on the tip of her tongue.
"Yes," she replied, her voice ever quieter.
Pandora didn't prompt her, only looking curiously at her.
"I do wish many times that I had 'gone on' as they call it. I was scared of death back then, all those years ago when I had been young and naive. So I refused and instead, stayed here at the castle. I enjoyed it for a while, but as the years went by, I had to see everyone I'd ever had a relationship with die. Now, it's just hard. I hated hearing about death after death of people I'd known, so I stopped myself from growing close with people."
Pandora nodded, a look of understanding far beyond her years entering her gaze.
"Can I ask what –– oh –– never mind," Pandora said, shaking her head.
"What?" Helena asked.
"I –– I was just wondering, what's your real name? But it's okay if you don't want to tell me. Prefect Watson told me you don't usually like to share it."
Helena smiled. "My name's Helena," she said. "Helena Ravenclaw."
Maybe two decades later, Helena sat beside a similarly blonde-haired, grey-eyed girl, also crying because she had been taunted and teased about being different. Her name was Luna, and she was Pandora's daughter. Helena had known that immediately when she saw the eyes and the look they held.
When Luna told Helena about how her mother had passed, a mere two years earlier, Helena couldn't help but cry ghostly tears that had nowhere to fall.
Luna noticed her reaction to the news and asked her if she had known her mother.
"I did," Helena said with a sad smile. "I did. I knew her well. We met here, in the library. We become good friends and ended up having many long talks during her years here."
Luna smiled slightly before looking back out of the window. It was a light rain, beautiful yet sad.
Luna sighed as she watched the drops fall. "Do you ever wonder why the sky cries?" she asked softly.
Theme/Special Rule explanation: Okay, so I used the special rule and theme like this: Helena and Pandora are both suffering from depression and loneliness. They're both outcasts, not understood or accepted. But living in a castle full or magic means they're constantly surrounded by people having fun, something neither of them are familiar with. I believe this fulfills the theme of depression and fun. Hope the judges agree ;)
*Also, it isn't necessary but if anyone wants more information on my portrayal of Pandora Parageia, you can read my other story called Pandora's Odyssey. I'm not incredibly proud of it but if you wanted to know more about her, it is an option.
Any reviews ya'll want to leave will be greatly appreciated.