Post by The Grey Lady on Oct 28, 2017 13:43:50 GMT -5
The Grey Lady
(Helena Ravenclaw)
(Helena Ravenclaw)
by Steph
uNCERTAIN
1000+
1000+
age
WOMAN
gender
winter solstice, UNKNOWN YEAR
birthday
blood status
Unknown, likely half-bloodsexual orientation
"I find myself not fond of men."
epidemic x status
NOT IMPACTED - GHOST
occupation
RAVENCLAW HOUSE GHOST
general appearance
Tall, with waist-length dark hair. as benefits a ghost, she's translucent, and a rather pearly gray-white at the best of times. She is what she'd died in: a dress of some color lost to both death and memory, covered by a long cloak-- and most importantly, the cloak covering her death wound.
former school
Hogwartsformer house
Ravenclawachievements
- ONE OF THE FIRST STUDENTS SORTED BY THE SORTING HAT
- ONE OF THE FIRST GENERATIONS OF HOGWARTS STUDENTS
- ATTENDED CLASSES AS A CHILD
- ONE OF THE FIRST GENERATIONS OF HOGWARTS STUDENTS
- ATTENDED CLASSES AS A CHILD
university
NONE, TECHNICALLY
university major(s)
HAS NOT LEFT HOGWARTS SINCE SHE ARRIVED AS A GHOST
years attended
skills
ANALYZING, LEARNING, EXPLORING, STRATEGIZING, STARGAZING, THEORIZING
weaknesses
GUILT, SHAME, ROWENA RAVENCLAW, SUSCEPTABLE TO FLATTERY AT TIMES, THIRST FOR IMPORTANCE AND NOTABILITY, WANTING TO BE LOVED AND LOOKED UP TO, THE BARON
positive traits
CULTURED, CURIOUS, CREATIVE, EDUCATED, ELOQUENT, HIGH-MINDED, INTELLECTUAL, LITERARY, PAINSTAKING, SCHOLARLY
negative traits
ALOOF, EMOTIONAL, ENVIOUS (of her mother), CRITICAL, DISCONCERTING (she is, after all, a ghost), REMORSEFUL
hobbies/interests
LEARNING, EXPLORING, STRATEGIZING, STARGAZING, THEORIZING
accomplishments
MANY IN HER THOUSAND YEARS IN HOGWARTS
character history
This is what she knows: she has been around as long as Hogwarts. She might have been growing when Rowena had the dream of the hog, or she might have been conceived as the walls were being re-erected, or as Hogwarts flung open the doors in the completed castle. This is what she does not know: who her father is, who cared for her as an infant as her mother taught. Her first memories are pulling on crimson sleeves, sunglow skirts, emerald robes, and chasing after elusive wisps of blue from a corner.
Helena Ravenclaw was one of the first generations of students to attend Hogwarts, one of the first students to try to map the moving staircases, the shifting dungeon floors, and the vanishing entryways with her feet. She'd never known a life without the castle in the background, never known a life without one of her four parental figures guiding her around. She was aware that she was, theoretically, was a favored pupil-- after all, she was the daughter in blood of one (if not two) of the Founders, loved and cared for by all. She was a child of Hogwarts and magic, and often sat in the small classes when she was younger, before it was even known for sure she would demonstrate the skills needed to learn in the school. That was where it began and ended-- she often felt as if her mother paid no mind to her, and would spend months praying that it would turn out Helga was the mother who birthed her, or that Godric or Salazar would claim her as his own and raise her further.
Sometime around the first millennium CE, she started her years in school. It was the Sorting Hat who placed her in the House of her mother's, to the surprise of none. Helena was considered a younger sister to many at the school, who had watched her grow up. The start of her years was not as peaceful as it was thought to be-- Salazar had started growing suspicious of mages born from Muggle blood, and all of the 'preventative kidnapping' in the world couldn't ease the worry of the families. Godric had differing opinions, and Helga and Rowena mixed each other up.
The school fractured among House lines, and then further into more personal views. Those of magic, it was a wholehearted opinion, were to be trusted not to leave those who were also magic to fire. But what of the families who were nonmagical? Arguments continued, and Hogwarts seemed fit to break apart. Helena awoke one morning to silence instead of flashes and bangs to realize one thing: Salazar had left, had abandoned them. She hadn't believed he would-- he was a father to her, a father to his students, and a partner to Rowena, Godric, and Helga.
The school survived, and began to heal. Helena felt the hole in her heart, and saw the-now-trifecta of her parents begin to rockily stutter along past to attempt to bind together the school again. After all, it wasn't merely the Founders who fought, but the other mages they brought in, and their students. Hogwarts seemed to feel as if it was about to shatter for the next few years.
Helena was young. She knew she was living among legends, but she never did expect their names to loom so large in history as the giants that they were. She was growing, coltlike and gangly, said to have a softer look of her mother's, and there were those who sought after her friendship or her hand for her name. It was glorious to have friends, friends who she thought she'd spin into as tight of friendships as her four parents had. Some fell away, however, as they found the seeming-distance between Helena and Rowena. There was one who was consistent, but Helena was never comfortable around him-- he'd always put her on edge and she felt uneasy. He'd been one of Salazar's favored, but she didn't have enough trust in him that he would treat her as well as Salazar, Godric, or Helga treated Rowena.
She was never good enough for her famed mother, it seemed. If Helena had discovered something, Rowena had found that out years earlier, when she was three summers younger. It seemed as if all her mother did was find fault with her, and Helena would strive to fulfill expectations she never quite understood.
She tired of it one day. Envious of other students earning praise that felt denied to her, envious her mother's wisdom that had not been passed down to her with the rest of Rowena's looks, furious of the way that she was sought after for her mother--
when she was younger, she had wished and hoped to be like her mother, yearned for her mother's approval. She was forever reminded of how much she had to learn, and forever finding out it was never enough, never going to be enough. She wanted to be cleverer, wiser, more known.
So she stole what her mother had claimed bestowed wisdom, and she escaped. She was clever enough-- it wasn't discovered until the next day, at which time Helena had made it to down to Wales. She continued her way into hiding, evading whispers, setting on false trails, and guising herself-- but not well enough. In one small village, she thought she found freedom and peace-- but there were whispers of a man who called himself high-blooded asking about a young maiden. When she could run no more and she heard his heavy footsteps, she stowed the diadem she had stolen in a hollow tree, hoping that it would be enough, that she could escape.
But that was when he found found her. He had always been hot-tempered-- she had never known if she feared his anger or his claimed love more. He implored her to return, and not wanting to face her mother, she refused. He tried by logic, by reason-- appealing to logos and pathos and ethos with the silver tongue of a Ravenclaw well-versed in Aristotle. She refused them all, spitting back in equal. He tried next with force and she still escaped him. Finally, he tried to compel her back with claims and love, and she laughed, rejecting that most of her.
He was hot-tempered, and in that moment, she had feared his love more. She had been overconfident. She had been frightened. She had not expected him to draw a knife and stab her. She had not expected to die; she was only sixteen.
This is what she knows: When the Baron saw that he killed her, he became overwrought, and killed himself with the same knife. She was drawn to Hogwarts, and was dismayed to find that he had followed her. She was one of the first ghosts to stay in Hogwarts, and she adopted her mother's House, and for the next decades tried to settle into a routine. This is what she knows: he followed her still, and even in death, she was not free of him. This is what happened: over the next century, memory of Helena Ravenclaw faded into nothingness as she left behind her name, and those who had known her died. She gave herself a new name and a new background. Helena of Colneceastre was born in 1035, and died when William came to England. She spent a handful of decades teaching a class in the 1200s, and read the Hogwarts library by the 1400s. She was a quiet ghost, who was known as the Grey Lady for her ghostliness as well as her demeanor. She rarely talked to any who were not of her and her mother's House, and most likely for those who were lost or had lost items.
Decades and centuries blended across each other. Every hundred or so years some hungry Ravenclaw pieced together what they presumed her identity from scraps in the oldest books, from talks with portraits and other ghosts and sought after her for the diadem. Helena of Colneceastrewas, after all, still in Hogwarts for the last of the Founders. She refused them all, refused her identities. They left, and none talked about her beyond what they had seen her do. She was a quiet ghost, in the background of lessons and libraries and meals and deathdays-- that was, until she'd see male students harassing female students, and then the Grey Lady was no longer passive and silent, but in the full fury of a ghost who had grown up in the castle. She knew Hogwarts best of anyone, and portraits, secret walls, her mother's doorknocker, and Helga's barrels could be convinced to listen.
She was in Hogwarts, and the most that was truly known about her by those who cared was that she avoided the Slytherin House ghost for an unknown reason. Not many knew about her, but she knew of them. She kept half a hidden eye on the descendants of those she called parents, half an eye on the known Slytherin-Gaunts and Hufflepuff-Smiths-- they were Helga's children and their ancestors were near her siblings, those she had watched over the most when she started out as ghost. She was half aware of what went on outside the walls, as she did make an effort to gain news of going-ons, to not be forever locked within the school. Like many Headmasters, she enjoyed chatting with the Sorting Hat even if all their conversations were out loud.
When the Chamber of Secrets was opened, Helena found herself surprised. She had not known every bit of the castle, it seemed. Salazar had kept that from them, had kept that from her. A student died, and the Grey Lady took her under an arm to try to help. Perhaps she was not Salazar's daughter in blood, but he had been a father to her. He had feared those born of Muggle blood, but she was fairly certain he didn't want them dead.
Perhaps it was that that let one student get through to her. He flattered her, he sympathized, he understood; he made her feel special in a way no other had done. He sought knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and she could almost see Salazar in him. Perhaps that was why she let out her greatest secrets: the acknowledgement of her name, and the diadem.
Years passed again, and the Chamber opened once more, and Salazar's creature was killed. She half-mourned it-- her father had loved the Basilisk, and the snake was one of the few that might remember him. It was sentimentality, and foolish, but true all the same. A dark lord (for she'd existed through the rise and fall of many) took power again, and like all times before, the Grey Lady did not support them. She was a ghost; she was insubstantial, she could do little but beg portraits and passages to heed to her, drop temperatures, and make gusts of wind. When his followers came to Hogwarts, she supported what students she could. She was known for not often talking to many, or many outside her House, but these were exceptions. Like many who knew Salazar, she was well-versed in exception clauses.
During the Battle of Hogwarts, a boy with eyes as green as Salazar's banners caught up to her, and demanded information about Rowena's diadem. When he pressed her, she let it go-- her name, the story, and when he had what he wanted, he ran off. She did what she could to help students and protect the truest home she'd ever known, advising duellers on strategy, on passageways, carefully leaving ectoplasm.
This is what she knew after: the boy who talked to her then destroyed her mother's diadem, realized what the charming boy had done so many years ago, what and who he had became. This is what she knows: Harry Potter defeated Salazar's last grandson.
This is what she knows: history is repeating itself, tugging in slightly different ways. This is what she knows: all things come to an end.
This is what she does not know: if Helga, Godric, or Salzar ever knew exactly what happened to her. This is what she does not know: if Salazar ever knew she died. This is what she does not know: if as a ghost, she saw her mother before she died. This is what she does not: if she had talked to her living mother since the diadem was stole. This is what she does not know: if she made it back before her mother faded.
This is what she does not know: if her mother ever forgave her.
Helena Ravenclaw was one of the first generations of students to attend Hogwarts, one of the first students to try to map the moving staircases, the shifting dungeon floors, and the vanishing entryways with her feet. She'd never known a life without the castle in the background, never known a life without one of her four parental figures guiding her around. She was aware that she was, theoretically, was a favored pupil-- after all, she was the daughter in blood of one (if not two) of the Founders, loved and cared for by all. She was a child of Hogwarts and magic, and often sat in the small classes when she was younger, before it was even known for sure she would demonstrate the skills needed to learn in the school. That was where it began and ended-- she often felt as if her mother paid no mind to her, and would spend months praying that it would turn out Helga was the mother who birthed her, or that Godric or Salazar would claim her as his own and raise her further.
Sometime around the first millennium CE, she started her years in school. It was the Sorting Hat who placed her in the House of her mother's, to the surprise of none. Helena was considered a younger sister to many at the school, who had watched her grow up. The start of her years was not as peaceful as it was thought to be-- Salazar had started growing suspicious of mages born from Muggle blood, and all of the 'preventative kidnapping' in the world couldn't ease the worry of the families. Godric had differing opinions, and Helga and Rowena mixed each other up.
The school fractured among House lines, and then further into more personal views. Those of magic, it was a wholehearted opinion, were to be trusted not to leave those who were also magic to fire. But what of the families who were nonmagical? Arguments continued, and Hogwarts seemed fit to break apart. Helena awoke one morning to silence instead of flashes and bangs to realize one thing: Salazar had left, had abandoned them. She hadn't believed he would-- he was a father to her, a father to his students, and a partner to Rowena, Godric, and Helga.
The school survived, and began to heal. Helena felt the hole in her heart, and saw the-now-trifecta of her parents begin to rockily stutter along past to attempt to bind together the school again. After all, it wasn't merely the Founders who fought, but the other mages they brought in, and their students. Hogwarts seemed to feel as if it was about to shatter for the next few years.
Helena was young. She knew she was living among legends, but she never did expect their names to loom so large in history as the giants that they were. She was growing, coltlike and gangly, said to have a softer look of her mother's, and there were those who sought after her friendship or her hand for her name. It was glorious to have friends, friends who she thought she'd spin into as tight of friendships as her four parents had. Some fell away, however, as they found the seeming-distance between Helena and Rowena. There was one who was consistent, but Helena was never comfortable around him-- he'd always put her on edge and she felt uneasy. He'd been one of Salazar's favored, but she didn't have enough trust in him that he would treat her as well as Salazar, Godric, or Helga treated Rowena.
She was never good enough for her famed mother, it seemed. If Helena had discovered something, Rowena had found that out years earlier, when she was three summers younger. It seemed as if all her mother did was find fault with her, and Helena would strive to fulfill expectations she never quite understood.
She tired of it one day. Envious of other students earning praise that felt denied to her, envious her mother's wisdom that had not been passed down to her with the rest of Rowena's looks, furious of the way that she was sought after for her mother--
when she was younger, she had wished and hoped to be like her mother, yearned for her mother's approval. She was forever reminded of how much she had to learn, and forever finding out it was never enough, never going to be enough. She wanted to be cleverer, wiser, more known.
So she stole what her mother had claimed bestowed wisdom, and she escaped. She was clever enough-- it wasn't discovered until the next day, at which time Helena had made it to down to Wales. She continued her way into hiding, evading whispers, setting on false trails, and guising herself-- but not well enough. In one small village, she thought she found freedom and peace-- but there were whispers of a man who called himself high-blooded asking about a young maiden. When she could run no more and she heard his heavy footsteps, she stowed the diadem she had stolen in a hollow tree, hoping that it would be enough, that she could escape.
But that was when he found found her. He had always been hot-tempered-- she had never known if she feared his anger or his claimed love more. He implored her to return, and not wanting to face her mother, she refused. He tried by logic, by reason-- appealing to logos and pathos and ethos with the silver tongue of a Ravenclaw well-versed in Aristotle. She refused them all, spitting back in equal. He tried next with force and she still escaped him. Finally, he tried to compel her back with claims and love, and she laughed, rejecting that most of her.
He was hot-tempered, and in that moment, she had feared his love more. She had been overconfident. She had been frightened. She had not expected him to draw a knife and stab her. She had not expected to die; she was only sixteen.
This is what she knows: When the Baron saw that he killed her, he became overwrought, and killed himself with the same knife. She was drawn to Hogwarts, and was dismayed to find that he had followed her. She was one of the first ghosts to stay in Hogwarts, and she adopted her mother's House, and for the next decades tried to settle into a routine. This is what she knows: he followed her still, and even in death, she was not free of him. This is what happened: over the next century, memory of Helena Ravenclaw faded into nothingness as she left behind her name, and those who had known her died. She gave herself a new name and a new background. Helena of Colneceastre was born in 1035, and died when William came to England. She spent a handful of decades teaching a class in the 1200s, and read the Hogwarts library by the 1400s. She was a quiet ghost, who was known as the Grey Lady for her ghostliness as well as her demeanor. She rarely talked to any who were not of her and her mother's House, and most likely for those who were lost or had lost items.
Decades and centuries blended across each other. Every hundred or so years some hungry Ravenclaw pieced together what they presumed her identity from scraps in the oldest books, from talks with portraits and other ghosts and sought after her for the diadem. Helena of Colneceastrewas, after all, still in Hogwarts for the last of the Founders. She refused them all, refused her identities. They left, and none talked about her beyond what they had seen her do. She was a quiet ghost, in the background of lessons and libraries and meals and deathdays-- that was, until she'd see male students harassing female students, and then the Grey Lady was no longer passive and silent, but in the full fury of a ghost who had grown up in the castle. She knew Hogwarts best of anyone, and portraits, secret walls, her mother's doorknocker, and Helga's barrels could be convinced to listen.
She was in Hogwarts, and the most that was truly known about her by those who cared was that she avoided the Slytherin House ghost for an unknown reason. Not many knew about her, but she knew of them. She kept half a hidden eye on the descendants of those she called parents, half an eye on the known Slytherin-Gaunts and Hufflepuff-Smiths-- they were Helga's children and their ancestors were near her siblings, those she had watched over the most when she started out as ghost. She was half aware of what went on outside the walls, as she did make an effort to gain news of going-ons, to not be forever locked within the school. Like many Headmasters, she enjoyed chatting with the Sorting Hat even if all their conversations were out loud.
When the Chamber of Secrets was opened, Helena found herself surprised. She had not known every bit of the castle, it seemed. Salazar had kept that from them, had kept that from her. A student died, and the Grey Lady took her under an arm to try to help. Perhaps she was not Salazar's daughter in blood, but he had been a father to her. He had feared those born of Muggle blood, but she was fairly certain he didn't want them dead.
Perhaps it was that that let one student get through to her. He flattered her, he sympathized, he understood; he made her feel special in a way no other had done. He sought knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and she could almost see Salazar in him. Perhaps that was why she let out her greatest secrets: the acknowledgement of her name, and the diadem.
Years passed again, and the Chamber opened once more, and Salazar's creature was killed. She half-mourned it-- her father had loved the Basilisk, and the snake was one of the few that might remember him. It was sentimentality, and foolish, but true all the same. A dark lord (for she'd existed through the rise and fall of many) took power again, and like all times before, the Grey Lady did not support them. She was a ghost; she was insubstantial, she could do little but beg portraits and passages to heed to her, drop temperatures, and make gusts of wind. When his followers came to Hogwarts, she supported what students she could. She was known for not often talking to many, or many outside her House, but these were exceptions. Like many who knew Salazar, she was well-versed in exception clauses.
During the Battle of Hogwarts, a boy with eyes as green as Salazar's banners caught up to her, and demanded information about Rowena's diadem. When he pressed her, she let it go-- her name, the story, and when he had what he wanted, he ran off. She did what she could to help students and protect the truest home she'd ever known, advising duellers on strategy, on passageways, carefully leaving ectoplasm.
This is what she knew after: the boy who talked to her then destroyed her mother's diadem, realized what the charming boy had done so many years ago, what and who he had became. This is what she knows: Harry Potter defeated Salazar's last grandson.
This is what she knows: history is repeating itself, tugging in slightly different ways. This is what she knows: all things come to an end.
This is what she does not know: if Helga, Godric, or Salzar ever knew exactly what happened to her. This is what she does not know: if Salazar ever knew she died. This is what she does not know: if as a ghost, she saw her mother before she died. This is what she does not: if she had talked to her living mother since the diadem was stole. This is what she does not know: if she made it back before her mother faded.
This is what she does not know: if her mother ever forgave her.
parents
ROWENA RAVENCLAW and. . . It's all very uncertain. Likely Godric or Salazar.
Otherwise, Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor, and Salazar Slytherin were her parents much as the witch who gave birth to her..
Otherwise, Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor, and Salazar Slytherin were her parents much as the witch who gave birth to her..
siblings
NONE
children
NONE
partner
MOST ABSOLUTELY NONE
other family
There are none, though there is some. . . Fondness for those whose ancestors attended school with her, and moreso for those descended from her other parents.
family history
Ravenclaw is the surname of a wizarding family that existed circa one thousand years ago in Britain. It is unknown if they were pure-blood, or if they had Muggle as well as magical heritage. The Ravenclaw family's earliest-known member was Rowena Ravenclaw, a prominent witch in the wizarding world and one of the four legendary founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, along with Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin. Rowena eventually had a daughter named Helena by an unknown man.
Helena attended Hogwarts, where she captured the fancy of a Baron in Slytherin house.
Distinctions between half-blood and pureblood were little in the times that Helena could remember. They had magic, and Ravenclaws had been there for generations, that was all that mattered. The name, however, died with its most famous bearer.
Helena attended Hogwarts, where she captured the fancy of a Baron in Slytherin house.
Distinctions between half-blood and pureblood were little in the times that Helena could remember. They had magic, and Ravenclaws had been there for generations, that was all that mattered. The name, however, died with its most famous bearer.
other
Her true name and heritage is known only to those she canonically told, and her cover story has been in place for centuries.
face claim
ANNA POPPLEWELLstatus of application
completehave you read the rules?
YEShow did you hear about us?
SAW IT IN MY APLHABET SOUP
roleplay sample
"ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A RP SAMPLE."
