Author: Lyta Padfoot
Category: General, Angst
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling. Characters and situations are used without permission, no infringement is intended.
Summary: A dying Rowena Ravenclaw looks back.
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She was dying. No one told her, but she knew. She could feel her spirit beginning to disentangle itself from her bones. It wasn't a painful sensation, rather it reminded her of the first days of spring after a long and hard winter. If she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift into memory, she could almost feel again the wonder at the bright green leaf buds after so many months of trees that were little more than tall dark sticks.
Memories could be a danger to the elderly, Rowena Ravenclaw discovered. As the candle of her life burned ever quicker she often found the past more real to her than the present.
Salazar Slytherin always loved the spring; Godric Gryffindor the winter. Her dear friend Helga cherished the myriad colours of autumn. Rowena professed to love summer, but in her soul she loved the change. There was something in the shedding of one season and the beginning of another than fascinated her. In one of his more perceptive moods, Godric once told her that she was in awe of forces even their magic could not control. She suspected he was right.
"Magic has limits," Godric would say, staring across the great hall at his students. The youngsters were clustered around Helga for a history lesson. The early evening sunlight spilled through the stained glass ceiling that Salazar would shatter years later in his departure from the school. Godric had it replaced by an ordinary roof and spells that played the ever-changing sky across the rafters. He cited her as his inspiration.
"Does it?" Salazar asked. Rowena sensed the beginnings of a familiar argument.
"We die," Godric reminded him. "Magic cannot extend life indefinitely."
"Perhaps we only die because no one has found the key to immortality," Salazar retorted. His long fingers curled around his goblet and he stared into his ale as though it somehow held the answer.
"Immortality does not suffer from a lack of seekers," Godric mused, a thoughtful flame in his ice blue eyes. "But I would not want to live forever. Its a lonely road."
This surprised Salazar, but not Rowena. Salazar convinced himself that he could thrive alone; Godric understood that no human being could flourish in solitude.
As she lay dying, Rowena wondered what her choice would have been had she been presented with the option of living forever. To trade the whirl of seasons for the deepening centuries; to see for herself the slow effects of time. To never be able to grow close to others for they would die, leaving her once more without friends.
Death was the better choice. She wondered if Salazar realized that at his end.