Starry skies and Gardenias

Chapter 151

When Remus reached the Astronomy tower, he saw the Gray Lady drift away slowly and gracefully.

"Excuse me!" he cried, running after her. "Please wait!"

She consented to pause, floating a few inches from the ground. Remus supposed that she was beautiful, with her waist-length hair and floor-length cloak, but she also looked haughty and proud.

"You're the Gray Lady," he said. 

She nodded but did not speak.

"The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"

"That is correct."

Her tone was not encouraging.

"Please," Remus said. "I need some help. I need to know anything you can tell me about the lost diadem."

A cold smile curved her lips.

"I am afraid," she said, turning to leave, "That I cannot help you."

"Wait!" Remus cried. "Please! I really need your help. If that diadem's at Hogwarts, I've got to
find it,"

"You are hardly the first student to covet the diadem," she said disdainfully. "Generations of students have badgered me —"

"This isn't about that!" Remus said. "Didn't you hear? A students' been taken into the Chamber. She's my friend. Would you rather I let her die?"

She could not blush, but her transparent cheeks became more opaque, and her voice was heated as she replied, "Of course not, I — how dare you suggest — ?"

"Well, help me, then," Remus said. 

When she didn't give a reply, Remus decided to prod more.

"How about this?" he said. "I'll tell you my secret and you tell me about the diadem,"

The Grey Lady frowned disdainfully but Remus ignored it. 

He clenched his fist and lowered his gaze to the floor. Felix Felicis was telling him that this was the right choice and he was following it.

"I'm a werewolf," he blurted out. 

The Grey Lady stared down at it, but her gaze was no longer cold. It was obvious that the boy did not want to reveal that secret of his. 

Yet he was so determined to save his friend.

Her composure was slipping.

"It — it is not a question of —" she stammered. "My mother's diadem —"

"Your mother's?" Remus blurted out, looking up sharply.

She looked angry with herself.

"When I lived," she said stiffly, "I was Helena Ravenclaw."

"You're her daughter?" Remus gasped. "But then, you must know what happened to it!"

She remained quite still, floating in midair, staring down at him.

Then finally, she spoke again.

"I stole the diadem from my mother," she said in a small voice. 

"You — you did what?"

"I stole the diadem," repeated Helena Ravenclaw in a whisper. "I sought to make myself cleverer, more important than my mother. I ran away with it."

Remus didn't say anything but listened intently.

"My mother, they say, never admitted that the diadem was gone, but pretended that she had it still. She concealed her loss, my dreadful betrayal, even from the other founders of Hogwarts," she said. 

"Then my mother fell ill — fatally ill. In spite of my perfidy, she was desperate to see me one more time. She sent a man who had long loved me, though I spurned his advances, to find me. She knew that he would not rest until he had done so."

Remus waited. She drew a deep breath and threw back her head.

"He tracked me to the forest where I was hiding. When I refused to return with him, he became violent. The Baron was always a hot-tempered man. Furious at my refusal, jealous of my freedom, he stabbed me."

"The Baron?" he said unable to stop himself. "You mean — ?"

"The Bloody Baron, yes," said the Gray Lady, and she lifted aside the cloak she wore to reveal a single dark wound in her white chest.

"When he saw what he had done, he was overcome with remorse. He took the weapon that had claimed my life, and used it to kill himself. All these centuries later, he wears his chains as an act of penitence . . . as he should," she added bitterly.

"And . . . and the diadem?" Remus urged.

"It remained where I had hidden it when I heard the Baron blundering through the forest toward me. Concealed inside a hollow tree."

"A hollow tree?" repeated Remus, trying to think of all trees he had seen in the Forbidden forest with a hole in it. "What tree? Where was this?"

"A forest in Albania. A lonely place I thought was far beyond my mother's reach,"