What You Never Knew

Helga Hufflepuff: The One to Blame

1. She was born a servant.

Hard-working and blind as a bat, Bess Hufflepuff gave birth to her first and only child on the 16th May in the Year of Our Lord 947. She and her fellow cooks raised young Helga from the moment she could walk that hard work was the key to success. The young girl grew up knowing the social classes (it was hard not to, working in a castle and all), and knowing that they meant about as much as a steak meant to an elephant. She was taught that she could do anything if she put her heart into it.

So she couldn't help but find it a tad contradictory when the older women wouldn't let her do anything but cook, cook, cook.

2. She was eleven years old when her occupation changed.

Guests were visiting the Royal Family of Wales, and so the kitchens were in a state of panic. The sugar was nowhere to be found, and so who was sent to get it but young Helga, red-haired and red-faced, nimbler than the rest of her companions.

She was running as though her life depended on it- which it very well could have given the urgency of the situation- not looking where she was going until, quietly suddenly, she slammed into someone, and they both fell down.

"Oh, I'm so, so sorry!" She exclaimed immediately, pushing herself up to her feet and pulling up the person who had fallen down with her. "'Twas an accident, I assure you!"

"It's quite alright, though I daresay my mother will be in a right state about my clothes," the other person said in a Scottish voice. Helga blinked; that voice was young. As in, her age. For the first time, she really looked at the other girl… and gulped, her throat going dry.

There was no way this girl was anything less than nobility.

Topped by a shining tiara, her thick black hair was flawless, pin-straight and flowing to just above waist-length, shining in the light. Pale, blemish-less skin only made dark, deep eyes stand out more. The dress she wore looked to be made of silk and a thousand different shades of blue.

Well, Helga, the servant thought to herself, you've done it this time.

Gathering up the hems of her skirts, she prepared to curtsy when the girl's voice stopped her. "Please, don't. It's not necessary."

"But it's my duty, m'lady," Helga protested, a tad bit shocked. "You're nobility!"

"Royalty, actually," the girl corrected with a graceful shrug. She stuck out a soft hand. "Rowena Ravenclaw, Princess of Scotland. Pleasure to meet you, Miss-?"

"Helga Hufflepuff. Kitchen servant." The girl blushed a deep, dark red.

"Miss Helga Hufflepuff, then. But I'll call you Helga, just as you'll call me Rowena. Okay?"

Helga frowned, more than a bit confused. "But aren't I supposed to call you 'Princess' or 'Your Highness' or something of the sort?"

"Of course you are, but that's what everyone does," Rowena said as if it was obvious. "Besides, we're the same age- or at least, I think we are. I'm ten. And you?"

"Eleven."

"Close enough," Rowena smiled. "This is quite lovely, Helga. I've never met someone my age before; we'll be great friends, I'm sure."

"I live here, though!" Helga exclaimed. "And you live in Scotland! We'll probably never see each other again, unless you visit the palace often."

"True," the Princess frowned. Then, she got a sparkle in her eye, and asked Helga, "Would you like to be my lady-in-waiting?"

"What's that?"

"It's my assistant and closest companion. You would help me dress and such, and accompany me to my lessons and balls and all other sorts of things. Oh, it would be so fun, don't you think? Mother told me that I need a new lady-in-waiting anyways, and she said that I should be good friends with mine. What do you say?"

Helga blinked for a few moments, stunned. She had just met this girl a few minutes ago, and yet she was being offered the job of her lady-in-waiting? She couldn't just leave her family- the only people she'd ever known- behind; what would they do without her to get in the tiny places?

And yet… would she ever get this opportunity again? As a lady-in-waiting, she would be able to go to balls… she would be able to see what palaces were like outside the kitchen, how life as a princess was…

She needed to talk to her mother.

"Could I give you my answer later?" She asked tentatively. "It's just that I want to talk to my mum about this. Make sure she's okay with it."

"Of course," Rowena smiled. "Shall I meet you here again in an hour?"

"Sure. See you then, Rowena!" With that, Helga rushed away.

As it turned out, Bess thought her daughter was silly for even considering refusing Rowena's proposal, and sent her back an hour later with about a dozen kisses, all her things, some small cakes, and more than a few tears.

And then, she was on her way.

3. She found out that she was magical by accident.

At fourteen years old, Rowena Ravenclaw had already shown that though she had the classic beauty and grace of a true princess, it was her brains which set her apart from the rest. With her intelligence, so indisputably higher than everyone else's far and wide, she had made the most astounding discovery:

Magic.

She didn't know quite how, or when, or even why her, but she had a dream, and when she awoke, it hit her like a slap to the face. From that point on, she made it her goal to find out how to use magic herself: how to wield it, how to produce it. Her sole helper was Helga, the only person who knew about the princess' revelation at all.

One day, Rowena was using her knowledge about witchcraft in legends to aid her search. Sitting at her gold-embellished desk, she was surrounded by different samples of different woods on her left side, and on her right, by various random objects. Threads, vials of liquids, feathers, and more. Using tools stolen from the royal carpenters, she was carving a piece of holly into a long stick, leaving the tiniest possible hole in the center.

"What do you think I should try this time, Helga?" Rowena asked, surveying the right side of her desk curiously. "I'd say the liquids are all no-goes, they just fall back out of the wood."

"Hmm… how about that feather there?" the lady-in-waiting suggested, pointing to a thin piece of plumage the color of fire. Neither girl had been able to identify what bird it came from, but they agreed that there was something special about it, and to not collect it while they took their monthly walk in the woods would have been just stupid.

"I agree," Rowena nodded, delicately picking up the feather by the tip. With the utmost care, she eased it into the hole in the holly until it was as tightly packed in there as possible. Then she used a sliver of wood to close the hole and set the now completed wand down, watching to see if anything would happen.

After five minutes, both girls sighed. "Useless again," Rowena murmured angrily under her breath. "What am I doing wrong?"

"Nothing, Rowena," Helga assured her friend, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. "You're the brightest girl of this age; you'll get it eventually, you will."

"We can only hope you're right, Helga," the princess muttered sadly. "Would you mind putting the wand in the pile with the others that didn't work?"

"Of course," Helga said, picking up the wand.

And then, it happened: sparks, straight out of the wand's tip.

Immediately Rowena jumped up, her eyes going from Helga, to the wand, and back again. For a full two minutes, the girls were silent, gaping in shock. Then, finally, Helga broke it.

"You made a wand," she breathed, her voice quieter than a whisper, her skin as pale as her friend's from shock. "You made a wand… That must mean you're magical, Rowena. You're a witch."

"And you… The wand worked at your touch," Rowena followed. "That means that you're a witch, too."

4. They made the hardest decision of their lives when Rowena turned seventeen.

The Royal Family of Scotland- the King, the Queen, even Rowena's brother and heir to the throne, the Prince- openly despised witchcraft. To anyone who listened, they spoke of how evil it was, how all magical beings would be condemned.

So the night after Rowena's seventeenth birthday, she and Helga packed up all their best necessities and left.

5. During the next three years, Helga and Rowena met the boys who would change their lives forever.

First was Godric Gryffindor. It was the dead of winter: cold, tired and wet, Helga and Rowena had knocked on the door of the largest, most comfortable house they had seen and asked, with their best manners and most pathetic expressions, if they could spend the night. A man with a broad, boyish grin that was surrounded by a thick red beard had immediately allowed them in. They had got to talking and, after finding out that each of them had magical powers, came up with an idea: Why not create a school for people like them?

So Gryffindor entered their brigade.

Then came Salazar Slytherin. Gryffindor refused to leave without the man who he had been best friends with since before he could remember, and who, as he assured Helga and Rowena, had powers equal to theirs and would be of great use to them. Upon meeting him, the two women had to agree: Cunning and ambitious, Salazar seemed to fill the missing piece of their jigsaw puzzle.

And so Slytherin joined in on their plan, too.

Last was Marcus Mugglus: a non-magical man who had tried to rob the foursome one night while they stayed in a shabby seaside inn. He was found by Rowena, whose intelligence wasn't limited to books; he was saved by the men's wrath by the ever-peaceful Helga. They would have left him behind, but he had, as it turned out, overheard some of their plans to create a school for magical people, and the four witches and wizards hadn't created a spell to wipe peoples' memories yet.

Thus the group gained the person who may have been the most important in the grand scheme of things of them all.

6. While Hogwarts was being built, Rowena and Marcus fell in love.

It was unforeseen, of course, but not protested. Marcus, despite being a poor Muggle (as they now called non-magical people, after Marcus himself), had "a wealth of untapped intelligence," as Rowena had once put it. Not to mention that unlike most other men Rowena had known in her life, Marcus didn't fall at her feet: He treated her as an equal, while at the same time respecting her as the lady she was.

She loved that.

Helga watched all this happen, wondering why it was so hard to be happy for her oldest friend.

7. She figured out the answer a few years later, when she was Rowena's Maid of Honor at the former's wedding to Marcus.

Helga saw the way Marcus looked at Rowena. Perfect Princess Rowena, who always got everything without working for it. His eyes were so full of affection, so full of love- Helga wanted that.

That in itself wasn't bad. No, it was the fact that Helga- sweet, hard-working, innocent, loyal Helga- wanted to snatch Marcus away from her best friend and have him, no other guy, give her that exact same look that made it so very terrible.

8. Salazar felt the same way Helga did.

He didn't love Marcus, of course; no, his desires were for Marcus' wife. Neither he nor Helga meant to find out about the other's secret feelings; in fact, both were quite content keeping them as just that. Secret. Yet by the time Hogwarts had established itself as the best Wizarding school for miles, the two Founders knew of their respective loves for Rowena and Marcus.

Salazar- amazingly- didn't pursue Rowena at all. Not in the least bit. He wanted her, more than anything; and yet he wanted her to be happy, so he left her be. Helga, too, did nothing.

Nothing on purpose, at least.

Comforting Marcus after he and Rowena had a fight was a perfectly innocent deed, done only out of kindness of Helga's part. Sure, they met up sometimes after that to talk, but that was it: They were just talking. Just friends. And Helga did nothing to change it.

It was all Marcus' fault.

What was Helga supposed to do when he came to her after his daughter, Helena (named after Helga- oh, how it burned), ran away from Hogwarts? She talked to him; she did her best to make him feel better.

She didn't ask him to kiss her mid-sentence.

She didn't ask for it to escalate so much further.

She didn't ask for it to go on for so much longer than that one night.

But she never pulled away, either.

9. Rowena found out.

Helga and Marcus hid their tracks well, but even without her diadem, Rowena was still the brightest witch of their age. She still noticed things that no one else did; she still had the rare ability to just know when something was wrong.

Having known her the longest and the best, Helga should have expected Rowena to burst into her room one day, her face streaked with tears, and to be slapped in response to her question of "What happened?"

"You're what happened," Rowena screamed. "You- You- You scarlet woman!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about! You slept with my husband!"

Helga's heart stopped beating for a moment. She and her best friend- were they even that anymore?- stared at each other, both with broken eyes. Finally, Helga spoke, in a cracked whisper.

"I- I'm so sorry, Rowena."

"Why did you do it?" Rowena asked in response, her voice choked and quiet. "Were you doing it for revenge? Did I wrong you in some way that I don't know about?"

"No, Rowena, you did nothing wrong-"

"Then why?"

"Because I love him!" Helga cried back, tiny water droplets dripping from her eyes. "I love him, I have for just as long as you, and I tried not to, I really did, but it just wouldn't go away-"

"Then you should have said something!" Rowena screeched. "If you've loved him for as long as I have, then you should've done something about it in the beginning, not now, when he's mine!"

"Everything's yours!" Helga yelled in response. "You've always had everything, Rowena! You were the Princess of Scotland, with the money to prove it; and as if that weren't enough, oh no, you had to go the extra mile and be incredibly beautiful and talented and brilliant, too! You've always gotten anything you wanted; well, guess what? The rest of us don't! We aren't all as pretty as you, or as virtuous, or as smart, or as rich, or as lucky and just plain perfect as you! So excuse me for wanting to get something that I want, that I love, for once in my life!"

Silence, louder the any of the screams were. It stayed that way for quite awhile: the women just stood there, one with eyes that didn't once move, the other's shifting guiltily. When one of them spoke at last, it was in a voice that was so cracked, it barely sounded human.

"Well," said Rowena. "This has just been the- the most lovely month for me. First, my daughter leaves me. But I still have my husband, Marcus, and I still have my best friend, Helga- that's what I thought, at least. It turns out that I was- I was- wrong," she spits out the word like it's a disease. "Apparently, those two people don't give a damn about me, otherwise they never would have- have betrayed me like this.

"Apparently, I'm alone."

With that, Rowena left the room, letting Helga cry out after her.

10. Helga never forgave herself for what followed.

Rowena refused to eat. She wouldn't drink. She wouldn't even leave her bedchamber, and she certainly wouldn't allow Helga to get past her office doorway, no matter how hard the witch tried.

Salazar visited her every day, almost ritually. Helga knew that he was trying to persuade Rowena to live again; he was trying to teach her that she did have something to live for, that she couldn't leave, that they needed her.

He failed.

After Rowena's death, Godric tried his best to comfort Salazar. He tried his best to keep the remaining three Founders together, but it was tasking. It took its toll on him; it tired him so much, being the sole Founder who hadn't gone through a dramatic change in his life, that his hopes backfired, and they all just grew more and more apart.

Salazar's changing views didn't help anything. He blamed Marcus for everything, and decided that all Muggles were as bad as him, and therefore no people of Muggle descent should be allowed into Hogwarts.

Godric and Helga disagreed. Salazar left, leaving behind only his House; his hidden Chamber and whatever was inside it; a painstakingly accurate painting of Rowena Ravenclaw, complete with her personality from before everything had gone so wrong; and the dead body of Marcus Mugglus as reminders that he was ever there at all.

XxxxX

There's not a person in the world without something to hide, and Helga Hufflepuff- remembered only for her hard work, her loyalty, her openness- was no exception. Her secret was that Rowena Ravenclaw died far too young and Salazar Slytherin developed a loathing for Muggles so large that he left the school, and she was The One to Blame, because it was all her fault.

Two updates in two weeks. You should be VERY proud of me (but don't be too hopeful about it happening again).

I realized the other day that no one ever does anything about the Founders. And then I realized that, in particular, no one ever does anything with Helga. Then I remembered that heartbreak was rumored to have controbuted to Rowena Ravenclaw's early demise, and it wasn't necessarily just because of Helena... and the rest just came to me. (Even if it's not all quite in accordance with what we know; I did my best to keep it canon, and I basically did, but I might have tweaked some minor things here and there. My memory's not working today, so I'm not sure.)

By the way: this marks the thirtieth chapter of this story! :D Quite the milestone, eh? I'm 26 reviews short of having 300, which was my secret internal goal, but I'm okay with that. :) Who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky and get a lot of reviews for this chapter... (A girl can dream.)

I hope you like this one; I actually think it's one of my more creative chapters. Please, please, PLEASE review!

Thanks so much,

Joelle8