Harry Potter; Fic; That Which We Cannot Learn; Helga/Rowena; PG
Title: That Which We Cannot Learn
Author: gyzym
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Rowena/Helga (unrequited)
Author's Notes: Written for peskywhistpaw over at femmefest.
Summary: Some days Rowena feels she has spent every autumn of her life chasing after Helga.
All logic aside, some days Rowena feels she has spent every autumn of her life chasing after Helga.
It is ridiculous, of course. Rowena knows it is ridiculous. First and foremost, Rowena has not known Helga her whole life--less than half of it, really, insofar as these things can be quantified with dates and calendars, with sundials and moon cycles--and as such could not possibly have been chasing her for every autumn therein. Then there is the amount of time it would take, to spend the entirety of every autumn of her twenty-four years doing anything. Three months to a season, give or take, twenty four times over: six years, which seems like far more time than she means, and, conversely, not near as much.
And then, of course, of course, there is the word "chase," a word that implies the pursuit of something that maintains some distance ahead. Helga, Rowena knows, has never been far off enough to chase.
Still, the emotion of the thing is inarguable, despite the hours Rowena has spent trying. She feels, in spite of herself. She feels as though she has been running after Helga, miles behind, catching her breath around the chilling autumn air, for as long as she has lived.
It is the same now, planning this school with her, as it was following her through the brambles outside her home at twelve years old. "Make haste," Helga would call, laughing, letting her dress trail in the muddied leaves, "we sup at noon," and Rowena would follow, knowing nothing better to do. She had marveled at Helga's ease, her casual grace, her ability to let the cares of the world pass through her without marring her, or even causing her pause. As though she was permeable and ethereal at once. As though she was goddess rather than girl.
Of course, even then, Rowena had been fascinated too by Helga's body, so different from her own. At twelve Helga had been softening and swelling in places that for Rowena would remain flat and hard; at twelve Helga had been discovering things Rowena wouldn't consider for years. By the time they were thirteen, fifteen--by the time they were seventeen and marrying, Rowena knew what it meant, the long guarded stares she tossed at Helga across the leaves. But at twelve it was just a fascination, a lack of understanding, a case study.
Of the two of them, Helga has always been thought of as the stupid one--it has made her approachable where Rowena is intimidating. It has made her lovable where Rowena is harsh. It has also, always, been a lie; Rowena could teach Helga every scrap of book-knowledge she has ever garnered, given enough long afternoons without distractions. But there are things Helga has been trying to teach Rowena for years without success; how to laugh gently, without that sardonic, mocking edge. How to smile without being condescending. How to touch, and be touched, with casual abandon, with the grace that benefits intermingling members of the upper class. They are lessons Rowena has attempted, and failed, to learn, despite all the study she's put into them.
And now--
"Darling," Helga murmurs, stooping down to speak in her ear. Rowena, bent in the delphinium of Helga's sprawling garden, is emphatically, distractingly aware of all the ways she could touch from this angle. She feels herself stiffening, knows Helga will take it personally, and cannot stop it--the proximity, the heady rush, is unbearable. Helga pulls away at once and Rowena wants to keen at the loss of her, the warmth of her breath inches from Rowena's cheek.
Instead, she snaps "What," and Helga titters nervously.
"I just," she says, haltingly. Rowena turns to face her, eyes blazing (Helga will think it is at the distraction from planting and Rowena will know the truth). She is coated with soil, the Mandrake seeds she never lets Helga touch snapping hungrily at her hands. She explains it away, the concern about the biting seeds, with the entreaty that Helga's hands have always been the softer; she does not say that she cannot imagine a torture worse than Helga's tiny gasps of pain, and what they sound like to the unfocused ear.
"What," Rowena repeats. Helga slants one of those open, genial smiles at her and Rowena feels her heart still it its cage.
"In your condition," she murmurs, "I'm just not sure if you should be--" she stops, and sighs. "Not that you ever let anything stop you," she adds, ruefully, "but I really do think--"
"What fresh nonsense is this?" Rowena asks, appalled. "What condition?" Her mind is already spinning, considering who could have cursed her, when, why--
--when Helga laughs again, a genuine peal this time. "Oh, honestly," she chuckles, "the child, of course. Did you think you could hide it from me? I am not, I will admit, the most astute of companions, but--
"I do hate it when you talk yourself down," Rowena replies, unthinkingly. Then what Helga has said catches up with her, nearly knocks her over. The child. The child.
She hadn't known; she knows now. A dread certainty is creeping up her veins, icy and terrible--she recalls with sudden frigid certainty her mornings in the forest, being quietly sick amongst the leaves. She almost wants to laugh; that she, lauded above them all as brilliant, as untouchable, should miss something so obvious as this!
Another of the skills Rowena has tried, and failed, to learn from Helga is the ability to read faces. Before Rowena is sure of her own thoughts--before she can sort through the howling agony of shock and doubt and things she has never, never wanted--Helga has settled onto the garden floor, has placed a hand on Rowena's trembling arm.
Rowena looks up at her; the autumn morning is shining golden and maroon around her barely managed hair, and there is a high flush on her too-round cheeks. She is the most beautiful thing Rowena has ever seen.
"To bear children is the greatest gift of the gods," Helga says, her voice soft and reassuring. Rowena, who is six months older and insufferably superior about it, takes no umbrage at this offering of wisdom; she merely turns her face into the smooth expanse of Helga's neck and shuts her eyes.
Always quick with a kind word or a gentle touch, Helga wraps her arms around Rowena's shaking frame. She mutters nonsense, platitudes that Rowena would normally find grating and tiresome; in Helga's gracious alto they are comforting. She does not want a child, does not want to be forced to carry the weight of that with her. She had not wanted to be married, either, but Helga had smiled and comforted and wheedled her into it, just as she will do with this.
For now, Rowena takes quick, careful breaths against Helga's shoulder, trying to keep herself from losing control. "There, now," Helga murmurs, obviously mistaking Rowena's erratic breathing pattern for one of panic--she's not wrong, exactly. It is just that here, with her feet tangled amongst the dying vestiges of the season, with the junipers and the belladonna arching up around them, Rowena is consumed with the ideas of what could be. She has spent so many autumns chasing and now Helga is pressed against her, warm and only friendly, but it is almost enough.
Rowena pulls away with a shaky gasp, and for a moment, Helga is far, far too close to her. There is a hair's distance (an impossible chasm) between their lips, and it would be so easy to lean close, to disassemble these years of want and have, for once.
In another world, Rowena does it. She presses her lips to Helga's in a chaste, and then not so chaste, kiss, and Helga responds. They lean back onto a bed of juniper and belladonna and dirty their dresses in discovery, tasting of sharp, nearly-chilling air.
In another world, Rowena does it. She walks back to the site that will someday, someday soon, be a castle; she sends Helga the kind of sly smile she has been trying to learn for her whole life, and goes about her business. In seven months, a child is born to a mother who does not resent her, who does not see her as the physical embodiment of everything she has wanted and lost. The child grows into a woman who does not steal from her, does not hide a diadem Rowena has filled with the only kind of knowledge she can master in a forest in Albania.
In another world, Rowena does it, and there is no Voldemort, no boy who lived to fight him. There is no schism that ends with Salazar and Godric but starts with Rowena's own inability to bite her increasingly vicious tongue. Intelligence and bravery and loyalty and ambition; these things cohabitate with the same gracefully elegance that Rowena uses to slip into Helga's rooms after hours.
In another world...but not in this one.
Rowena bites the inside of her cheek and turns away from Helga; she smiles shakily and stands, brushing the dirt from her dress. "My condition," she says, wryly, when Helga glances at her, and she runs from garden down into the wide brambles of the forest.
She finds once she is out there that she does want to be sick, after all. The future swelling in her stomach is attacking her, violent, unbridled, and she retches quietly, controlled. When she straightens and stands, she feels the first cold wind of winter wash over over, chilling the blood in her veins. She turns her face into it, knowing that she will spend every autumn of her life chasing Helga, whether she wants to or not. She turns her face into it and is resigned.
Author: gyzym
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Rowena/Helga (unrequited)
Author's Notes: Written for peskywhistpaw over at femmefest.
Summary: Some days Rowena feels she has spent every autumn of her life chasing after Helga.
All logic aside, some days Rowena feels she has spent every autumn of her life chasing after Helga.
It is ridiculous, of course. Rowena knows it is ridiculous. First and foremost, Rowena has not known Helga her whole life--less than half of it, really, insofar as these things can be quantified with dates and calendars, with sundials and moon cycles--and as such could not possibly have been chasing her for every autumn therein. Then there is the amount of time it would take, to spend the entirety of every autumn of her twenty-four years doing anything. Three months to a season, give or take, twenty four times over: six years, which seems like far more time than she means, and, conversely, not near as much.
And then, of course, of course, there is the word "chase," a word that implies the pursuit of something that maintains some distance ahead. Helga, Rowena knows, has never been far off enough to chase.
Still, the emotion of the thing is inarguable, despite the hours Rowena has spent trying. She feels, in spite of herself. She feels as though she has been running after Helga, miles behind, catching her breath around the chilling autumn air, for as long as she has lived.
It is the same now, planning this school with her, as it was following her through the brambles outside her home at twelve years old. "Make haste," Helga would call, laughing, letting her dress trail in the muddied leaves, "we sup at noon," and Rowena would follow, knowing nothing better to do. She had marveled at Helga's ease, her casual grace, her ability to let the cares of the world pass through her without marring her, or even causing her pause. As though she was permeable and ethereal at once. As though she was goddess rather than girl.
Of course, even then, Rowena had been fascinated too by Helga's body, so different from her own. At twelve Helga had been softening and swelling in places that for Rowena would remain flat and hard; at twelve Helga had been discovering things Rowena wouldn't consider for years. By the time they were thirteen, fifteen--by the time they were seventeen and marrying, Rowena knew what it meant, the long guarded stares she tossed at Helga across the leaves. But at twelve it was just a fascination, a lack of understanding, a case study.
Of the two of them, Helga has always been thought of as the stupid one--it has made her approachable where Rowena is intimidating. It has made her lovable where Rowena is harsh. It has also, always, been a lie; Rowena could teach Helga every scrap of book-knowledge she has ever garnered, given enough long afternoons without distractions. But there are things Helga has been trying to teach Rowena for years without success; how to laugh gently, without that sardonic, mocking edge. How to smile without being condescending. How to touch, and be touched, with casual abandon, with the grace that benefits intermingling members of the upper class. They are lessons Rowena has attempted, and failed, to learn, despite all the study she's put into them.
And now--
"Darling," Helga murmurs, stooping down to speak in her ear. Rowena, bent in the delphinium of Helga's sprawling garden, is emphatically, distractingly aware of all the ways she could touch from this angle. She feels herself stiffening, knows Helga will take it personally, and cannot stop it--the proximity, the heady rush, is unbearable. Helga pulls away at once and Rowena wants to keen at the loss of her, the warmth of her breath inches from Rowena's cheek.
Instead, she snaps "What," and Helga titters nervously.
"I just," she says, haltingly. Rowena turns to face her, eyes blazing (Helga will think it is at the distraction from planting and Rowena will know the truth). She is coated with soil, the Mandrake seeds she never lets Helga touch snapping hungrily at her hands. She explains it away, the concern about the biting seeds, with the entreaty that Helga's hands have always been the softer; she does not say that she cannot imagine a torture worse than Helga's tiny gasps of pain, and what they sound like to the unfocused ear.
"What," Rowena repeats. Helga slants one of those open, genial smiles at her and Rowena feels her heart still it its cage.
"In your condition," she murmurs, "I'm just not sure if you should be--" she stops, and sighs. "Not that you ever let anything stop you," she adds, ruefully, "but I really do think--"
"What fresh nonsense is this?" Rowena asks, appalled. "What condition?" Her mind is already spinning, considering who could have cursed her, when, why--
--when Helga laughs again, a genuine peal this time. "Oh, honestly," she chuckles, "the child, of course. Did you think you could hide it from me? I am not, I will admit, the most astute of companions, but--
"I do hate it when you talk yourself down," Rowena replies, unthinkingly. Then what Helga has said catches up with her, nearly knocks her over. The child. The child.
She hadn't known; she knows now. A dread certainty is creeping up her veins, icy and terrible--she recalls with sudden frigid certainty her mornings in the forest, being quietly sick amongst the leaves. She almost wants to laugh; that she, lauded above them all as brilliant, as untouchable, should miss something so obvious as this!
Another of the skills Rowena has tried, and failed, to learn from Helga is the ability to read faces. Before Rowena is sure of her own thoughts--before she can sort through the howling agony of shock and doubt and things she has never, never wanted--Helga has settled onto the garden floor, has placed a hand on Rowena's trembling arm.
Rowena looks up at her; the autumn morning is shining golden and maroon around her barely managed hair, and there is a high flush on her too-round cheeks. She is the most beautiful thing Rowena has ever seen.
"To bear children is the greatest gift of the gods," Helga says, her voice soft and reassuring. Rowena, who is six months older and insufferably superior about it, takes no umbrage at this offering of wisdom; she merely turns her face into the smooth expanse of Helga's neck and shuts her eyes.
Always quick with a kind word or a gentle touch, Helga wraps her arms around Rowena's shaking frame. She mutters nonsense, platitudes that Rowena would normally find grating and tiresome; in Helga's gracious alto they are comforting. She does not want a child, does not want to be forced to carry the weight of that with her. She had not wanted to be married, either, but Helga had smiled and comforted and wheedled her into it, just as she will do with this.
For now, Rowena takes quick, careful breaths against Helga's shoulder, trying to keep herself from losing control. "There, now," Helga murmurs, obviously mistaking Rowena's erratic breathing pattern for one of panic--she's not wrong, exactly. It is just that here, with her feet tangled amongst the dying vestiges of the season, with the junipers and the belladonna arching up around them, Rowena is consumed with the ideas of what could be. She has spent so many autumns chasing and now Helga is pressed against her, warm and only friendly, but it is almost enough.
Rowena pulls away with a shaky gasp, and for a moment, Helga is far, far too close to her. There is a hair's distance (an impossible chasm) between their lips, and it would be so easy to lean close, to disassemble these years of want and have, for once.
In another world, Rowena does it. She presses her lips to Helga's in a chaste, and then not so chaste, kiss, and Helga responds. They lean back onto a bed of juniper and belladonna and dirty their dresses in discovery, tasting of sharp, nearly-chilling air.
In another world, Rowena does it. She walks back to the site that will someday, someday soon, be a castle; she sends Helga the kind of sly smile she has been trying to learn for her whole life, and goes about her business. In seven months, a child is born to a mother who does not resent her, who does not see her as the physical embodiment of everything she has wanted and lost. The child grows into a woman who does not steal from her, does not hide a diadem Rowena has filled with the only kind of knowledge she can master in a forest in Albania.
In another world, Rowena does it, and there is no Voldemort, no boy who lived to fight him. There is no schism that ends with Salazar and Godric but starts with Rowena's own inability to bite her increasingly vicious tongue. Intelligence and bravery and loyalty and ambition; these things cohabitate with the same gracefully elegance that Rowena uses to slip into Helga's rooms after hours.
In another world...but not in this one.
Rowena bites the inside of her cheek and turns away from Helga; she smiles shakily and stands, brushing the dirt from her dress. "My condition," she says, wryly, when Helga glances at her, and she runs from garden down into the wide brambles of the forest.
She finds once she is out there that she does want to be sick, after all. The future swelling in her stomach is attacking her, violent, unbridled, and she retches quietly, controlled. When she straightens and stands, she feels the first cold wind of winter wash over over, chilling the blood in her veins. She turns her face into it, knowing that she will spend every autumn of her life chasing Helga, whether she wants to or not. She turns her face into it and is resigned.