It was late in March when the woman appeared quite suddenly, grasping Isabella's shoulder as the girl walked down the spring-melted pathway in the Enchanted Woods.
"The goblet! Ah, the goblet! Woe to ye, sweet friend, entombed in lande of dragons!" the woman lamented. "Tis cursed, the drinking vessel. Tis cursed, the crowne of mine. Tis cursed the stone. The wakened stone!"
"Tell me more!" Isabella pleaded and, for the first time, she reached towards the woman and made to grab her hand. "Let me help you!"
"The Roome of Hidden Things, lyon-notte-lyon!" the woman told her, dark eyes intense and warning. For the first time, Isabella though of Juno Moneta, the one who warns, from Roman mythology.
"Is that where the goblet is?" Isabella asked.
"Nay! Tis where mine crowne, mine glory, lies," the woman said, shaking her dark hair. "Heirloom of the Golde Ravin, artifact of lande of lyons. Nay, not the goblet of the good lady from the dragon land."
"Crown? Gold Raven? Land of Lions?" Isabella said, suddenly overwhelmed by everything clicking together. "You're Ravenclaw?"
"Wit beyond measure, tis man's greatest treasure," the woman, Rowena Ravenclaw, nodded, but it was too late, she was fading out again. Though she opened her lips to say more, Isabella could no longer hear her.
Isabella stumbled to the side of the path and sat at the foot of a fir tree, shaded by its massive boughs.
"The good lady from the dragon land?" Isabella muttered feverishly. "Didn't the Sorting hat call her 'Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad'? Dragon land - that's Wales! Hufflepuff's home. And the Room of Hidden Things, wasn't that another name for the Room of Requirement? Wait a second... the goblet! The portrait of that woman from the classroom on the fourth floor - she was holding a cup!" Isabella remembered the smiling woman's picture as though from a long-forgotten dream.
That left the stone and the crown. "But, Ravenclaw is known for her lost diadem!" Isabella told herself. "Wit beyond measure, remember? You saw it everyday for the past five years on her statue!"
It didn't matter that the names of the goblet and the diadem had changed over the years, Isabella knew they were the same artifacts the two female founders had possessed.
The Gold Raven of course meant an eagle. Isabella had always wondered why their house was called Ravenclaw if their symbol was the eagle. Now that she thought about it, the eagle in the crest did look a little like a golden raven.
"Woe to ye, sweet friend!" Rowena had lamented. All the legends mentioned the strong friendship between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, so if her friend's last remaining possession was cursed...
But the trail ended abruptly here. Cursed? By whom? Did anyone even know where the goblet was? And this stone that had awakened, is was cursed as well.
Why was she a lion, but not a lion? Isabella hated that name. She loved her lioness form, did that mean she wasn't supposed to take that form?
But what was the use of any of these epiphanies? They solved a personal mystery, yes, but beyond that...
"To mine home, the lande of lyons, go now," Rowena's voice whispered. Isabella couldn't be sure if it was just her memory summoning up the shade's request, or if the founder of Ravenclaw House stood next to her, invisible. Ravenclaw House... Isabella felt a surge of pride at belonging to the wise and beautiful founder.
"Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind." Isabella recited to herself.
"What was that?" someone asked. Isabella jumped and saw Mariano and Zala coming down the path towards her.
"Nothing," Isabella said quickly. "Were you looking for me?"
"Yes. The VI meeting's about to start," Mariano told her, looping his arm through hers companionably and steering her towards the lodge. "You okay? You haven't really been talking to anyone lately."
"If only you knew who I was talking to," Isabella wanted to say, but knew she couldn't.
"I'm fine," she shrugged.
"Everyone okay back in England?" Zala asked. There was no easy answer to that. Terry had become her only correspondence, seeing as Fred and George rightly believed an augury flying to and from their hiding spot (wherever that was) would attract attention, Luna and Alex were still missing, and Morgan seemed far too busy trying to evade capture by the Carrows and Snape while she performed mad stunts with the DA. Terry had followed Neville into the Room of Requirements (the Room of Hidden Things, Isabella should say) to hide. She wondered if he knew how close he was to the last relic of their House's founder.
"No worse," Isabella said at last in answer to Zala's question. She fingered the fake Galleon in her pocket. "No worse."