Harry Potter and the Surprisingly Competent History of Magic Professor Chapter 142 142: Thief's Chronicle I - The Burden (Read Afte

What could go wrong with wearing a diadem that turns you into a genius, made by your mother, no less?

Well, everything. Everything can go wrong.

It began a little before I ca into possession of the item. My intention was not to wear it, I promise. My intention, although, in retrospect, my actions suggested otherwise, was pure.

Others didn't see it. They thought it suited her. Thought it made her sharper. Brighter. More... herself. But I saw it.

She was breaking. Slowly, at first. A missed al here. A forgotten na there. Her lips moved before the words ca out, like her mind was always ten thoughts ahead of her tongue. The diadem shimred on her head, smug in its glow, like it had all the answers and none of the rcy.

Rowena Ravenclaw had always been logical. That wasn't new. For her, feelings were accessories, tolerated at best, dissected at worst. She was the mind behind every plan, every enchantnt, every structure in this castle. Emotions didn't get a vote. Truth did.

Maybe that's why no one else noticed the shift.

But I did.

I wasn't my mother. Maybe it was Father's softness that lived in , that ache to look beyond the brilliant mind and see the woman behind it. Or maybe I just wasn't clever enough to ignore what I saw.

Her eyes had changed. They didn't rest anymore, they flicked, scanned, calculated. Even when she looked at , she was still reading sothing else in the air.

At night, I'd pass her study and see the light still bleeding under the door. Always writing. Always muttering. Once, I heard her talking to herself in a language I didn't recognise. Runes maybe. Or sothing worse.

So I tried. Gods, I tried.

I brought her tea. I rewrote her reports. I sat beside her hoping she'd see . Not the helper. Not the scribe. .

But the more she wore that diadem, the further she drifted.

It was ant to make her smarter. More efficient. More brilliant.

It made her hollow.

I wanted to save her. Of course I did. I loved my mother. Even if that love didn't have much room to grow under her roof. Still, love's a stubborn thing.

But how could I? She was Rowena Ravenclaw. The smartest person I'd ever known. Uncle Godric used to laugh, said Father would grumble for hours, trying to find a coback sharp enough to keep up with her. He never managed it.

So, yes. Convincing her? Not happening. Rowena Ravenclaw didn't listen to suggestions, especially not from people she considered... less sharp. Which, to be fair, was most of the world.

That left with limited tools. I had to use what I had. Emotions.

***

I found Morgana in the garden, sat under the hawthorn tree with three girls curled close to her. Two sisters. Quiet. Eyes too old for their age.

They'd been through hell.

Their mother was a muggle, burned alive after her arm healed overnight. A snapped bone from so "punishnt" their lord thought fitting. She thought it was a miracle. The villagers didn't.

Morgana found the girls just in ti. Both were muggle-born witches, barely ten.

The third girl sat apart, knees drawn up, silent. Always silent. Mute. Couldn't cast a spell yet. Mother said she would, eventually. Said so witches needed more ti before they could cast silently.

I sat next to them. The ground was damp. I didn't care. One of the girls, the older one, offered a crushed bit of honey bread. I took it.

"What is it, Helena?" Morgana asked. She shifted slightly to give space, her cloak brushing the grass. She was older than most of us, graduated but still haunting the castle, chasing mastery. She and rlin were the bright pair everyone pointed at. Lately, though, her patience with Muggles had been thinning. I understood why, even if it bothered a little.

"Is it that bloody leech again?" she added, aning Edric. Morgana didn't smile as easily these days, can't really bla her after what she'd seen lately.

I shook my head. "Can I speak to you in private?"

The girls didn't wait for her word. They stood and drifted off together, all three of them sticking close as they crossed the lawn.

When they were out of earshot, I let out a breath. "I'm worried about Mother."

Morgana's expression eased, though not much. "Is she ill again?"

"No." I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve. "It's the diadem. She barely sleeps. She forgets things, simple things. She talks to herself. And she hasn't taken it off in weeks. She looks straight through . Even when I'm in the room, I'm not... there."

Morgana's eyes shifted toward the castle, the upper windows glowing faintly. "Rowena Ravenclaw losing herself is no small thing. Especially now."

"I know," I murmured. "And no one else sees it. They think she's being herself. But she's slipping. The diadem is feeding sothing in her, and it isn't good."

Morgana leaned back against the tree, arms folded. "Why are you telling ? Why not her?"

"Because she won't listen to ," I said. "And you understand her better than most."

Morgana's mouth tugged sideways, not quite a smile. "Do I?"

"You were her student," I said. "You know how her mind works. You know how it... bends things."

She didn't argue.

"I don't want to lose her," I whispered. "I don't want her to beco soone I don't recognise."

Morgana looked down at her hands. "Power taken in the wrong way cuts deep. Your mother has always walked close to that edge."

"That's why I ca to you," I said. "You're strong enough to talk to her. She respects you."

Morgana let out a low breath. "Strong, yes. Respected? Questionable. Your mother respects answers, not people."

I swallowed. "Then give her one."

She studied for a long mont, hair shifting in the breeze like dark silk. "I can try," she said, getting up.

I watched her go, cloak sweeping behind her. I hoped she could talk sense into Mother, hoped she'd manage what I hadn't. She had a better chance than I ever did.

I turned to leave as well when a voice slid in from behind. "Helena, I was looking for you."

I stopped. Of course he was. Turning slowly, I let every ounce of distaste show on my face.

There stood the bloody leech. Edric of Hallowre, draped in silver-threaded robes like a moth waiting for candlelight. Tall, pale, and always just there, as if he thought proximity might eventually count as affection.

"Edric," I said, flat as stone.

He gave that ever-wilted smile, eyes too eager under his dark brows. "I hoped we might walk together."

"I'm walking the other direction," I said, already turning.

"Please. Just for a mont."

He stepped closer, hands clasped as if he thought that made him look thoughtful instead of rehearsed. "I only wish to know how to help."

"Help?" I let out a sharp breath. "You want to help? Stop lurking behind doors. Stop showing up wherever I breathe. And stop talking to my father about weddings."

His face flickered. "You exaggerate."

"No, I don't. You're like a ghost with too much perfu. Haunting and nauseating."

He didn't answer. Maybe he didn't know how. Or maybe he thought silence made him mysterious.

Then, his face shifted. The fake softness dropped, leaving sothing sharper underneath.

"Helena, don't confuse my affection with submission. And don't forget how your father and mother ca to beg mine for the land this school stands on."

I almost lost it.

Breathed in through my nose. Counted to three. Breathed out.

It wasn't true. Or at least not the way he made it sound.

Edric's father, the so-called Baron of Hallowre, had stord up after the school was built, shouting about boundaries and ancestral rights, waving old deeds like he expected one of the Founders to blink.

Uncle Godric was ready to flatten him right there in the courtyard. Probably would've too, if Father hadn't stepped in. Said it was unwise to start a feud so close to our gates. They let the man posture, showed him the wards, offered him a seat on so made-up board to keep things civil. A "founding quota," Father called it. Political fluff.

Either Edric's father had boasted that the Founders ca crawling to him, or Edric had made up his own little tale and convinced himself it was gospel. Hard to tell with n like him. Their egos tended to breed stories faster than rabbits.

I wasn't in the mood to sort out which version he'd heard, or invented. I turned to leave.

"Helena, can you give a minute."

"No." I didn't even stop. "Not today."

His footsteps, that soft, pathetic patter he thought sounded courtly, stopped dead.

Why rlin befriended him, I had no idea. From what I knew, rlin had been making the rounds of certain Muggle families, ones with armies, land, enough steel to march at a mont's notice. For what? No clue. He never said. He and Morgana played everything close to the chest these days.

Edric, anwhile, was absolutely the last person on earth rlin should've befriended. Or stood near. Or acknowledged.

I kept walking. There were bigger problems than Edric of Hallowre.

***

Morgana failed. She looked shaken when she told Mother wouldn't hear a word of it. Said it like she'd hit a wall. And the look in her eyes... like sothing had gone sour.

But I learned sothing new. Mother's working on sothing. Sothing big. Sothing she says will secure prosperity for years. What it is, Morgana had no clue. She didn't stay to guess either. She left quick, muttering that things were getting worse. Said she had people to find. Trouble was spreading and she couldn't spare more ti dancing around Rowena's pride.

I didn't press. Unlike , Morgana actually did things. She saved children. Won. Anyone caught between wand and pitchfork. She saw magic differently now. Sharper. Less forgiving. The softness she used to carry, her smile, her warmth, was going. Or gone.

Still, I was grateful she tried.

Father had left a while ago. Aunt Helga was sowhere deep in greenhouses, half-buried in soil, more focused on which breed of hen laid friendlier eggs than what her niece was spiralling into. And that new pet project of hers, the little ones she said would 'keep the hearths alive' long after we were gone. Aunty always saw further into the future than she let on. Sotis I wonder if she knew what she was shaping. Uncle Godric might as well have vanished into mist, he was always at the front, swinging swords and chasing skirmishes that kept getting closer.

So who was left?

No one.

No one but .

And with no one else left to ask, ideas I wasn't proud of started turning over in my head. Things I'd never have said out loud. Like maybe I could steal it. The Diadem.

She'd be furious, of course. Possibly worse. But maybe, maybe, if it was gone, and she had to go without it, she'd see. She'd feel it. Notice the difference. See what it had done to her.

A week. Maybe two.

But how?

Even Father couldn't sneak close to her. Let alone .

She barely let pour tea without flinching like I might jostle the ink. Her wards were subtle, but I'd tripped two of them by accident last month. One of them had turned my fingertips blue for a week. The other one nearly sent a spike through my boot.

***

Chance showed up like a stain. The last face I wanted to see.

Edric.

Of course.

But this ti... this ti I looked at him differently.

Could I use him?

The idea lodged sharp behind my teeth.

He wanted to be helpful. Wanted to be needed. Maybe he'd jump at the chance if it ant being closer. Closer to , to my family, to anything with a shadow of power.

I could ask him to fetch sothing. Distract her. Ask for counsel. So excuse to get her attention off the study for an hour.

He wouldn't even question it, not if I dangled it the right way.

He stopped a few feet away, wearing that sa lopsided, hopeful smile. "Helena—"

"Wait," I said. "You wanted to help."

He blinked. "Yes?"

I stepped closer. It made my stomach twist to even consider it, but desperation is a quiet corrupter. "Then listen carefully."

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