Chapter 134: Rowena Ravenclaw
Chapter 134: Rowena Ravenclaw
This was a beautiful but stern-looking witch who seemed more like a living person than a mere memory.
If Felix hadn't seen her materialize from thin air, he would have thought Ravenclaw had survived all these years!
The witch's gaze seemed unfocused, but when she saw Helena, her eyes sparkled with life.
Her features softened, and her eyes grew sharp. She was Rowena Ravenclaw, one of the four founders of Hogwarts, a legendary wizard from a thousand years ago.
"Helena, welcome home", she said.
"Mother", Helena choked, silver, translucent tears streaming down her face.
Rowena Ravenclaw's sharp gaze swept over her body and then glanced at Felix, who stood quietly to the side.
"Can you tell me how much time has passed, sir?"
"You can call me Felix, Felix Hep", Felix bowed slightly. "A thousand years have passed, milady."
"A thousand years..." Ravenclaw repeated the words, walking to Helena's side and gently wiping away her tears.
"To see you again after a thousand years, what more could I ask for?" Ravenclaw said tenderly.
"Mother, it's all my fault! I shouldn't have stolen your diadem, I shouldn't have run away from home, and I shouldn't have ignored the barrow... I didn't even get to see you one last time..." Helena sobbed mournfully.
"You are my child; how can that be considered stealing?" Rowena Ravenclaw said lovingly. She gently lifted the cloak from Helena's chest and looked at the black wound. "Does it hurt?"
"It hurts, Helena hurts all day and night", Helena said, clinging to her mother's arm with a hint of a pout.
Rowena Ravenclaw lifted her daughter's hand, and without any visible action, Helena's transparent fingers quickly turned white and full, then extended upwards. In less than a minute, Helena had transformed from a ghost into a solid form.
Her clothes also changed into a deep blue gown.
It was then that Felix noticed Helena's hair was a vibrant wine red.
"Mother?" Helena looked at Ravenclaw in surprise. She suddenly fell from a height of two inches, stumbled a couple of steps, and nearly toppled over, but Ravenclaw caught her—time had been too long for her to remember how to walk normally.
She took a tentative step, then another, but her body tilted, and she fell to the ground.
Rowena Ravenclaw helped her up, and Helena leaned heavily on her.
"Try again, you haven't even put on your shoes yet, and you're already falling!"
"But I haven't walked in so long."
Felix watched all this without interfering. It was all like a mirage, at least he didn't believe that Lady Rowena Ravenclaw had the power to bring the dead back to life.
Besides, she was just a memory.
Moreover, he could see clearly that Helena's smile was becoming brighter, her eyes curved into crescents, a sign that her heart was finally at peace.
'Isn't everything just as I expected? You should have been prepared, Felix.'
Helena and Rowena Ravenclaw were enjoying the game of "helping each other walk", completely ignoring Felix.
After about half an hour, the two women stopped and tidied their slightly disheveled hair.
Helena emitted a soft, gentle white light, making her look like a princess.
"Mother, you forgive me, right?" she asked, still a bit uncertain.
"I have never blamed you", Rowena Ravenclaw smiled.
Helena wept with joy, her face radiating a pure and holy light.
After a moment, Helena leaned close to her mother's ear and whispered something. They both looked at Felix, who was standing nearby.
They walked over together, their arms linked.
"Mr. Hep?" Lady Rowena Ravenclaw said.
"Rowena Ravenclaw, Helena, congratulations", Felix said.
"Thanks to you, Felix. Otherwise, I might have been alone forever", Helena said with a smile, gently tugging at her mother's sleeve.
Rowena Ravenclaw looked at him with a soft gaze. "Thank you very much, Mr. Hep. You've saved my daughter."
"I'm friends with Helena, and Barrow too. I hope they can both find peace..."
"Barrow? He's not dead?" Rowena Ravenclaw's expression froze, her gaze sharper than ever, almost intimidating.
Helena said with a hint of schadenfreude, "That annoying ghost is still around, but he's not having an easy time. He's always carrying a blood-stained chain. You don't need to worry about him."
"Is that so?" Rowena Ravenclaw's gaze drifted into the distance.
Felix felt the Magic within Rowena Ravenclaw surge, as if she was doing something he couldn't understand.
Outside the Room of Requirement, intricate and extremely subtle magical runes began to light up, spreading from the eighth floor outward.
The tower, the seventh floor, the sixth floor—expanding downward and outward...
In the Headmaster's Office, Dumbledore put down his quill, looking very puzzled. He seemed to have been stripped of some of his Headmaster's powers?
No, not stripped, but temporarily borrowed, and rather forcefully without consulting the owner.
Who had that authority? Dumbledore stood up with a serious expression.
The spiral stairs in the castle began to twist violently, and some suits of armor creaked.
In a remote and abandoned classroom in the underground of Hogwarts, Baron Blood floated expressionlessly in mid-air.
A gust of wind startled the gaunt Barrow, who scanned the area with a blank expression but found nothing.
Inside the Room of Requirement, Rowena Ravenclaw sighed.
"It was my mistake. I shouldn't have sent him to you."
"It's all in the past", Helena said softly.
Felix let out a sigh of relief. He was relieved that nothing had happened; he had feared that Ravenclaw might seek revenge for her daughter and make Barrow disappear.
While disappearing might seem the same, being self-liberated and being obliterated into a mist are entirely different.
"But—I seem to have found something familiar", Rowena Ravenclaw said. In the puzzled gazes of Felix and Helena, a tattered diadem appeared out of nowhere, landing on the white floor.
"Is this your diadem?" Helena asked in surprise. "How did it end up here?"
Rowena Ravenclaw stared at the diadem. "If you don't know, how would I? I found it in a trash heap... What do these young wizards think of my laboratory?"
Felix's eyes were fixed on the diadem. He shifted his perspective—just like the diary, it exuded a deep, evil Magic, as silent as death.
This is a Horcrux!
"It contains a piece of soul... A despicable magic left by Helbo, right?" Rowena Ravenclaw frowned. "I remember it being called a Horcrux?"
"You know about this?" Felix asked.
"Of course. Helbo was quite famous in my time, and many of his spells, though evil, were widely known. However, a Horcrux is indeed quite rare."
Rowena Ravenclaw turned her gaze to Helena. "Who did you give the diadem to?"
(End of Chapter)
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