A/N - This one was also written for the Laughing Hippogriffs Game at the Hogwarts Fair - Founder's Era

And the Cooking Club Challenge on HPFC - Prompts used - Gathering (Apple), Stress (Baking Powder), Founder's Era (Flour), Bright Red (Strawberries) and Morning (Oats)

Characters - Rowena Ravenclaw, Helena Ravenclaw, Bloody Baron, Helga Hufflepuff

Rating - T

Word Count - 3110

Thanks for reading!

"It is not possible, Helena," Rowena said again. Her daughter fumed beside her.

"And why is it not possible?" Helena demanded. "Because you did not think of it? Because your daughter could certainly not be more intelligent than you are?"

"No," Rowena snapped. "Because it is not possible."

"Did your crown tell you that?" Helena retorted.

"Why does it always come back to the diadem?" Rowena asked tiredly.

"Because it artificially elevates your intelligence," Helena replied angrily. "Perhaps if you had to think for yourself you would not be so quick to judge me incompetent."

"As I have told you many times before, the diadem does not create intelligence which does not already exist," Rowena said, her voice tight with anger and frustration. "It simply allows the wearer a higher concentration in order to use knowledge one already has by removing distractions and allowing one to focus fully." Her voice had risen as she had been speaking and she was now nearly shouting.

"But as I can see that you still need convincing," Rowena continued, pulling the diadem from her head and slamming it down on to the table in front of her. She stood and stared at her daughter for a few moments. "You are still wrong."

"I am always wrong," Helena replied. Rowena sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger.

"Helena," she said her voice quiet. "I do not understand why we must always argue so. I am trying to make you understand that your first theory is not always the correct one. That many times we must research further, practice harder, refine more. There are few spells and charms that worked perfectly on the first attempt. It is a process my daughter. You must understand that." Helena said nothing, continuing to stare at a point somewhere over her mother's shoulder.

"I understand that it is not always easy for you to be my daughter," Rowena said with a sigh. "But I have given you everything that I can. I agreed to help found this school with you in mind. I wanted to impart as much wisdom to you and other students like you as I could. You have a home here for as long as you like it. But if you are no longer content here then I shall not stand in your way if you choose to leave."

"It is not as if I have anywhere else to go," Helena said. "You made sure of that when you went against Father's wishes." Rowena looked at her in confusion. "You do not think that I did not hear the two of you when you thought I was asleep? Father never wanted you to build this school. He did not want to live here with you. It is what killed him in the end. If he were here," but Rowena interrupted her, Rowena's eyes blazing.

"If your father was here, you would be married to the Baron right now," Rowena spat. "He put in a contract for you just before he finished school, but I rejected it because I knew it would make you miserable. I knew that you did not love him despite his very apparent affection for you. Your father would not have allowed you the freedoms that I have. He would not have allowed you to make your own choices. He would have seen the Baron's proposal as an advantageous match and you would have had no say in the matter."

"That is not true," Helena protested.

"It is true," Rowena insisted. "Your father doted on you, yes. But he was also a traditionalist." Helena stared at her mother for a few moments longer before she whirled and ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Rowena flinched at the resounding bang the door made against the stone then dropped into the chair next to her. She stared at the diadem where it sat on the table. It had caused so much grief between them. Most of it was jealousy on Helena's part, Rowena was certain. But she also suspected that her daughter, while arguably the most intelligent student that had come through the school up to this point, was more than a bit insecure. Rowena sighed. For all her knowledge and cleverness, he had no idea how to fix what was broken between them.

"Things will look better in the morning," Rowena said quietly to herself as she rose and prepared for bed.

Unfortunately, things did not look better in the morning. Rowena had made her way to her daughter's rooms after she had risen, but either Helena was not there or she had refused to answer the door. Rowena had checked the library and a small, quiet nook on the fifth floor that looked out over the lake which Helena liked to frequent. Her daughter had not been in either place.

Huffing in frustration, Rowena realized the number of students in the halls had increased which meant it was time for the morning meal. She followed behind a number of them to the Great Hall, expecting that her daughter would be there as well.

When she looked over the gathering of students, however, Helena was not among them. Having just finished school the year before, Helena still often frequented the Ravenclaw table and sat with the older pupils. Rowena looked up to the table that sat on the dais in front of the room where she, Helga, Godric and Salazar sat for meals. They were sometimes joined by students with questions or other visitors and the table would enlarge or shrink accordingly. Helena occasionally ate with them, but she was not seated there either.

"Something wrong, Rowena?" Helga asked as she walked into the Hall.

"Nothing unusual Helga," Rowena replied as the two made their way to their table. "Helena and I have had another disagreement."

"Ah," Helga replied knowingly. She glanced around the room as Rowena had. "And she is punishing you by not attending breakfast." Rowena couldn't help but chuckle.

"Yes, I suppose so," she agreed. Helga patted her friend's hand and the two sat down to eat.

But Helena did not appear at the midday meal either and Rowena had no luck in finding her when she had time to search for her. When night had fallen and there was still no sign of her daughter, Rowena began to worry. Helena had gone off to sulk before, but she had never stayed away this long.

The sheer size of the castle made searching for her difficult and Rowena was not inclined to get anyone besides Helga and Godric involved. Salazar had been acting quite oddly lately and given the arguments that had occurred between the four of them, she chose not to add to her irritation by informing him of what happened. He would only side with Helena anyway, out of spite if nothing else.

It was not until Rowena returned to her quarters that night that she realized she had not been wearing her diadem, nor had she ever put it away the night before. She walked to the table where she had laid it in a fit of pique the night before but it was not there. Her brow furrowed. Perhaps in her distracted state she had already put it away in its case, but it was not there either. She nearly tore her rooms apart looking for it, although she was already quite sure that it was not there. As she sunk into her chair near the fire, she put her face in her hands. Helena and the diadem were gone.

Helena hurried quickly towards the copse of trees ahead of her. She wanted to be hidden by the time the sun rose. Helena was sure that as soon as she awoke, her mother would find that the diadem was missing and immediately send someone after Helena to find it. Helena had walked most of the night, not familiar enough with any location that her mother would not immediately think to search, to Apparate.

She reached the forest and walked until she felt she could not be easily seen and sat down beneath a tree. She leaned back against the trunk and pulled the pouch that held the diadem from her belt. She took it out and stared at it. This seemingly innocuous piece of jewelry had caused most of the grief in Helena's life in the last few years.

Everyone she spoke to asked her about it. They all wanted to know how it worked, how intelligent her mother was without it, why Helena never wore it herself. They all talked about her mother as if she were the wisest being to ever live. No one spoke about Helena that way, even though she was nearly as intelligent. No one looked at her twice. She was simply Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter.

Well, now she had it and she could prove them all wrong. She would show them just how clever she could truly be and just what she could accomplish. Her mother had helped found a magical school, true. But that did not mean Helena could not do something even greater. Smiling, she tucked the diadem back into her sack and then leaned back and closed her eyes. She would get far from here and then show them all.

The months passed with no word from her daughter. At first, Rowena was asked often about the diadem, by students and her fellow founders alike. She would never admit that her daughter had stolen it out from under Rowena's very nose and so she made excuses. Eventually everyone stopped asking, but that did not stop the furtive glances both Godric and Salazar gave her from time to time. She was quite sure that they suspected what had actually happened.

Tension between Salazar, Rowena, Helga and Godric grew. Godric and Salazar particularly, argued often. Threats were made and Rowena and Helga had to step in to prevent a duel from breaking out between the two more than once. When Salazar finally left the school for good, the relief Rowena expected to feel at no longer having to deal with his animosity toward their stance on Muggle-born students never came. Instead, she just felt empty and tired. So tired.

She was never sure if it was the stress of Helena's disappearance and Salazar's departure that caused it or just hastened its course, but Rowena fell ill a few weeks later. Nothing that Helga or Godric tried seemed to help and Rowena eventually came to the realization that she was not going to survive whatever this ailment was. Her thoughts were constantly on Helena and making amends with her only child before it was too late.

With her ill and Salazar gone, neither Helga nor Godric could leave the school. They had already begun searching for new teachers, albeit reluctantly. There was only one other person that Rowena knew would not rest until Helena was located and so she wrote to the Baron and asked him to come.

Helena hurried into the woods toward the small cottage she had been staying in. She had gotten word from some of the villagers that there was a man looking for her; a man that Helena very much suspected was the Baron. She was not sure how he had tracked her here or how he even knew that she had left Hogwarts, but Helena intended to be long gone before he arrived.

She rounded a bend in the well-worn path between her cottage and the village and stopped in her tracks. The Baron was standing in front of the cottage, trying to open the door with his wand. Helena quickly hurried behind a tree and peered out from behind it. Perhaps he would see she was not there and leave. Then she could go inside and retrieve her things and flee.

But it did not appear that the Baron would give up that easily. When he finally realized he could not break her spells in the door, he sat down on a stump in front of the cottage and waited. Helena watched him for quite some time, the sun sinking lower in the sky. When she finally accepted that he planned to remain until she returned she decided that she would have to leave without her things. At least she still had the diadem.

Turning, she made to sneak off through the woods, but she stepped on a stick lying on the ground. It broke with a loud crack. She turned and saw the Baron jump up from his seat and look in her direction. Too late, she ducked behind a tree, but he had already seen her. She ran and he followed.

While Helena was fast, the Baron was faster it seemed and she knew he would eventually catch up to her. She pulled the diadem from the pouch on her belt and stuck it inside a hollow tree before she continued to run. He caught her soon afterward.

"Helena," he called. "You must return home with me."

"No," she replied. "I will not."

"Please," he gasped clearly out of breath. "Your mother sent me." Helena's eyes narrowed. Her mother would never send this man after her.

"I do not care," Helena said. "I am not returning to her." Helena turned to walk back toward her cottage.

"But you must," the Baron insisted. "Your mother is ill. They say she is dying." Helena stopped and slowly turned around.

"What?" she nearly whispered.

"They do not know what is wrong with her," the Baron explained. "Both Hufflepuff and Gryffindor have tried everything they know, but nothing has helped."

"What about Salazar?" Helena demanded. Certainly with his vast knowledge of potions he could have been able to help her mother.

"He has left the school," the Baron reported. Helena stumbled back and leaned against a tree for support. She knew that they had been having disagreements before she left, but he had left the school?

The Baron walked closer to her, but Helena did not move. She was too busy trying to process all that he had just told her.

"Your mother wishes to see you," he said. "You must return with me." Helena looked up at his statement and found that he was very close to her; much too close for her liking. But her shock at the fact that her mother was dying did not allow her to move.

"You are still so very beautiful," he said quietly. He brought a hand to her cheek and leaned forward. Just as he was about to touch his lips to hers, Helena gasped and shoved at him.

"Get away from me!" she exclaimed. He had reared back and she managed to twist away from him. But as she darted out from between him and the tree, he grabbed her arm and hauled her back.

"Your mother sent me here for you and you will return with me," he hissed.

"I do not believe you," Helena spat. "My mother would never send you for me."

"Oh but she has," the Baron replied with a smirk. He pulled a letter from the pouch on his belt with his free hand and showed it to her. Helena's vision went red as she realized that her mother had indeed sent this man, this man that her mother insisted she would never force on Helena, to find her.

It was about the diadem, she was sure. Finally after all these months, her mother had sent someone after her, not for Helena, but for the diadem. This mysterious illness of her mother's was probably the reason. With the diadem she could find a treatment to cure herself. She didn't care about Helena at all. She just wanted her precious crown.

"I am not going with you," she spat. "You can tell my mother that I never intend to set eyes on her again." She wrenched her arm away from the Baron's grasp and began to walk toward her cottage once more. For a moment, it seemed that he was going to let her go. But then she heard movement behind her and the next thing she knew, he had her around the waist, a dagger held to her throat.

"You will return with me to Hogwarts," he said in her ear. "And your mother will be so thankful that I found you and returned you to her that her dying wish will be for us to be married. She will sign the contract and then you will be mine." Helena stood stock still for a moment, her breath coming in heaves, her heart pounding wildly.

"I will never be yours," she hissed. "I despise everything about you. You are beneath me and not fit to breathe the same air as I." As she expected, the Baron roared in his temper and his grip on her loosened. She struggled to pull away from him and as she spun, his arm that held the dagger fell.

She looked down at the bright red that bloomed on the front of her dress in disbelief. She brought a hand up to touch it and the red transferred to her fingers. She held her hand out toward him, almost in supplication. He gaped at her, the dagger clattering to the ground from his numb fingers.

Helena slumped to the ground, but he was there to catch her.

"Please," he said as he held her head in his lap. "I am sorry, I am sorry. Helena, please." He fumbled for his wand and mumbled a few spells, but nothing could control the continued flow of red from her body. She looked up at him as he sobbed and rocked her in his arms. Her eyes went unfocused and instead of the Baron holding and rocking her, it was her mother. Helena smiled and reached up to touch her mother's cheek.

"Mother," she whispered. "I am sorry." And then she breathed her last.

Far away, a pale and thin figure lay in bed. Her breathing was ragged, her brow clammy. She tossed and turned in her fevered sleep, until her eyes snapped open. She stared off at seemingly nothing, tears beginning to run down her cheeks. The woman sitting by her bedside reached out and took her hand.

"What is it Rowena?" Helga asked. But Rowena did not answer, just continued to weep silently. Her breath became more labored, her grip on Helga's hand weaker.

"Helena," Rowena whispered, anguished. "I am sorry." Rowena's hand fell from Helga's and her eyes closed. She took one last shuddering breath and then went still.