Helena and the Baron

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, I could afford to go to London next summer.

Author's Note: I'm really really sorry. It's been, what, two years? I was in Middle School the last time I published and now I preparing for junior year. Brill. To anyone still waiting for this update: I love you and I'm sorry. Enough talking, you've waited long enough. R&R!

My heart beat faster as I rushed through the woods. He was right behind me, I could hear him. I had seen him from a distance from my makeshift tree house, but he was too fast for me. I should have known my mother would send him to find me. He was not only an expert at tracking spells but he was the only person in the whole of the world who cared enough not to give up looking. My own mother even gave up.

The footsteps became louder and my hands flew up to my brow. The diadem. I had worked too hard for too long to give it up now. I ripped it off my tangled black hair and searched the area. There was a large oak with a hole in it about ten feet away. I looked at the metal ring in my hand for just a moment before rushing it to the tree and throwing it in the hollow. I breathed a quiet protection spell just as the Baron caught up to me.

"Helena, my love! How I have longed to look upon your face once more. And how radiant it is! Everyday you have been gone you have grown more in beauty, so that now you may put the dawn to shame." the man puffed out his chest, stretching his arms toward me.

"Forgive me if I do not return the sentiment, Baron. Has my mother sent you?" I asked scornfully.

"My dear, indeed it was your mother. Your astuteness never ceases to amaze me. Do not think I had forgotten you though. I have searched all of the British Isles for you."

"I am sorry you have wasted your trip then. I will not accompany you back just to see my mother lord her knowledge over me again. I wish you a safe journey back."

"No, dear Helena! You must return. Your mother is dying. She yearns to see you once more. Please, darling, return to me." the baron begged, grabbing my hand. I quickly pulled it away.

"I will not. Now if you will excuse me, I need to return to the village before nightfall." I turned swiftly on my heel, swept up my robes and began to leave. The baron did not release my hand.

"Then we do not have to go back. I will stay here with you. I have asked you a million times and I will ask you a million more. Marry me, Helena." I balked. A million proposals and she still wanted to slap him as she had the first time.

"No." was all I said, my mind still focused on escaping.

"No? My love what have I done wrong?" he asked, gripping my hand tighter.

"You are forceful and angry and hold me up the same expectations as my mother. Do you not understand that I am not the perfect woman you think me to be? Is the idea that I simply do not love you enough of a reason? Or does the elite blood you hold in such high esteem demand a logical reason? That is what my mother would say. Love is not logical, which is probably why she never loved me. So please, Baron, just leave me in peace because I tell you plainly I do not nor I cannot love you." I exploded, pulling ferociously from his grasp, breathing heavily.

Looking back I should have run right then, but I waited for his response. I waited to see if he truly understood what he was asking of me. When I saw the flash of anger in his eyes I was already too late. His hands pushed me into the tree behind me and he drew out a hunting knife. I watched as he raised the knife far above him, and time seemed to slow as he pulled it down into my breast.

My mother would tell me I was selfish, because I had no regrets as I felt my heart begin to stop. I did not wish I had been kinder to my mother. I did not wish I had given the baron a chance, or even that I had found someone else. In fact, all I thought as I slid down the tree and my hands grew cold was that the diadem was safely hidden. My mother would never win back her prize and she would die knowing that I had outsmarted her. She would lay there waiting for me to return her crown so that she could die without shame, without people knowing her disgraceful daughter had outsmarted her. I faded away with a satisfied smirk. But somewhere deep inside I suppose I must have been afraid of seeing her in an afterlife because a moment later I was back in the forest, feeling half-asleep and oh so cold.

I never meant to kill her. It was a knee-jerk reaction that will forever haunt me. I can still see her beautiful grey eyes fading before me. I still remember the knife slipping from my grip and my body falling down to slow her fall. She was so young. So beautiful. If only she had understood how lovely she was. How intelligent and passionate and full of life she was.

I loved her from the moment I saw her but what did that matter. She rejected my every advance, looked past my every line, and fled from my very presence. Even as she lay dying she looked at me with hateful eyes. Cruel and beautiful grey.

As I stared into the cold and lifeless eyes of my love, I knew what I had to do. Life without her would be no life, merely an enduring death that I could find no happiness in. So I did what any man in my predicament would do. I gently laid Helena across the damp forest ground and picked up the knife beside her.

"I will return to you, my love. I am so so sorry." I cried out as I plunged the knife into my own heart. There was not much time between the suicide and the death, but what time there was focussed on a single face. Sharp grey eyes, angled nose, sarcastic smile, and flushed cheeks. Dark hair framed her face and as I faded he imagined those harsh eyes turning to me and changing to eyes full of love. I imagine her forgiveness and her kisses and a new life of never-ending love. As long as I am with her, wherever I go will be heaven.

I suppose it is her that made me become a ghost. All I wanted was her, and if she became a ghost then I had to follow. Everyday for a thousand years I would search across the castle looking to meet her eyes, but never once in those thousand years would she look at me with those beautiful grey eyes.