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"Are you the Grey Lady?" Hermione asked, rushing over. Justin cautiously cast a Muffling Charm, then stood on high alert, scanning their surroundings.
The ghost nodded but said nothing.
"You're also the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?" Hermione clarified carefully.
"That's right," she said, her tone utterly unwelcoming.
"Please, we need your help," Hermione said in one breath. "We need you to tell us everything about the missing diadem."
It was as if only saying it aloud could ease the terrible unease in her chest.
"I'm afraid," the ghost said, her lips twisting into a cold smile as she turned to leave, "I can't help you."
"Wait!" Hermione panicked for a moment, but anger and tension were crushing her. The ghost hovered right in front of her.
"This is urgent," she said anxiously.
"You're not the first student to covet the diadem," the Grey Lady said contemptuously. "Generation after generation has pestered me—"
"We found it! Well, no—Sean found it!" Hermione said. The moment she spoke his name, her panic melted away like snow.
The ghost's gaze immediately fell on the young wizard beside her—or rather, she'd been watching him all along.
"You... found it?" the Grey Lady asked.
"Yes, Miss Helena," Sean said.
The atmosphere grew still. The Grey Lady studied Sean carefully. Many complicated emotions flickered in her eyes before finally settling into calm.
"Would you like to see it?" Sean asked quietly.
"Lead the way," the Grey Lady said, drifting to Sean's side.
She didn't spare Hermione or Justin another glance.
Ten minutes later, the Room of Requirement welcomed visitors once more.
The Grey Lady looked at this room that could change at will, and her grey-white eyes dimmed.
"I have some questions. In exchange, I'll answer yours," the Grey Lady said, looking at Sean.
"Please, go ahead," Sean said, waving his wand. The diadem reappeared before them all.
"How did you find it?" the Grey Lady asked.
"Voldemort hid it in the Room of Requirement," Sean said.
"Your turn to ask," the Grey Lady said.
"Do you... want to move on?" Sean asked carefully.[1]
"Sean—" Justin said quietly, his and Hermione's faces both confused.
"We're here to solve the curse on the diadem so we can use it, right?" Hermione repeated, even more confused.
Before Justin could respond, the Grey Lady's voice came low and soft.
"She chose you—she's always like that, and that's why I resented her—if she'd been more ruthless, I—"
Grey-white tears fell from the ghost's eyes as she murmured.
After a long while, the Grey Lady's voice reached Sean's ears: "I—I lost my honor long ago—"
"I understand. Your turn to ask," Sean said, lowering his eyes.
"How did you learn my name?" the Grey Lady asked.
"Mr. Owl told me," Sean said quietly.
"Raven? Ha—he never spoke to me. Of course, you're the one she chose, the one they both chose together, but not me—"
The Grey Lady's lips curved into a mocking arc. She glanced at Sean but ultimately said no more. "Ask your question, young wizard. You may ask me three more."
Sean was about to speak when Justin exchanged a glance with Hermione and quietly approached.
"May I ask one question?" he said.
"Alright," Sean said, looking at them. He knew they must be anxious.
"Lady Helena, do you know how Ravenclaw's diadem was found and then turned into a Horcrux?" Justin asked.
The Grey Lady became expressionless, drifting in the air, looking down at Justin.
"It's a very old story—once, I stole the diadem from my mother."
"You—you did what?" Hermione's eyes widened.
"I stole the diadem," Helena Ravenclaw repeated, looking past the two of them to Sean. "I wanted to be smarter than my mother, more renowned. So I ran away with it."
Justin and Hermione were stunned, forcing themselves to listen carefully as the Grey Lady continued: "They say my mother never admitted the diadem was gone. She kept pretending it was still there.
She even hid the loss from the other founders of Hogwarts—hid my terrible betrayal.
Later, my mother fell ill—gravely ill. Despite what I'd done, she desperately wanted to see me one last time.
She sent a man to find me—a man who had loved me for a long time, but I'd rejected him. My mother knew he wouldn't stop until he found me."
She took a deep breath and threw her head back.
"He found me hiding in a forest. When I refused to return with him, he flew into a rage. The Baron was always hot-tempered. He hated that I'd rejected him, was jealous of my freedom, and so he... stabbed me to death."
"The Baron? You mean—?" Justin and Hermione felt like they'd stumbled into something terrible, hearing some awful secret.
"The Bloody Baron, yes," the Grey Lady said, lifting her cloak to reveal a dark wound on her snow-white chest. "When he came to his senses, he was consumed with remorse. He took the weapon he'd killed me with and took his own life. All these centuries later, he still wears his chains in penance—and he deserves it."
She added that last part with a cold laugh.
"Then—what about the diadem?" they asked together.
"When I heard the Baron stumbling through the forest toward me, I hid it. It stayed there ever after. Hidden in a hollow tree."
"A hollow tree? What tree? Where?"
"In a forest in Albania. A desolate place—I thought my mother could never reach me there."
"Albania—and then? How did it—"
"I—I don't know!" The Grey Lady showed terrible resentment. "I could never see clearly! Of course it was my stupidity, and she knew it all along—"
After her terrible anger passed, the Grey Lady said absently: "Voldemort—he was very charming. He seemed understanding—compassionate—
He tricked the information out of me, defiled the diadem in the most vile way—it's irreversible—and I'll never forgive him. If anyone's going to kill him, I'd give anything for that."
"You're not the only one Riddle fooled with sweet words, ma'am," Justin said consolingly. "When he wanted to, he could make himself very charming. My mother said a person's heart is the hardest thing to predict."
Hermione had already sunk into dejection.
They'd gotten the worst possible answer.
"Perhaps—you have two questions left," the Grey Lady said with a low, mocking laugh.
"What's life like as a ghost?" Sean asked, just as Justin and Hermione had no idea what else to ask.[1]
"Lonely. Full of regret. This is the shameful life I deserve—what other answer did you expect?" the Grey Lady said mockingly.
"Perhaps you should move on," Sean said with an almost inaudible sigh.
Ravenclaw's diadem had, of course, been irreversibly damaged.
Sean had expected as much.
The reason he hadn't immediately destroyed it was because he'd seen something extra in the Book of Ghosts: [Wizards who become ghosts all have obsessions beyond ordinary imagination, but these obsessions need support. If, in the world of souls, there's no one waiting for them to linger, then ghosts will also become lost. This manifests in their increasingly vague intelligence and emotions.]
In other words, at death's end, on the other side of the veil, Ravenclaw was very likely still silently waiting. At the boundary where dawn couldn't break, she might have been wandering for over a thousand years.
"You have one question left," the Grey Lady said absently. She'd been immersed in grief and shame for a thousand years.
She'd grown accustomed to despair and didn't need anyone to intrude on this terrible hopelessness.
"I have no more questions," Sean said.
At the same time, he slowly raised his wand. A massive stone guardian rose once more, taking the basilisk fang that floated from his grimoire, ready to destroy the diadem in a flash.
Just then, a white owl returned from the snowstorm.
It tapped at the window, clutching in its talons a sword embedded with rubies.[1]
"A dignified ending," Sean said. With a flick of his wand, the stone guardian followed Sean's will and, under everyone's astonished gaze, cleaved the diadem in two with the sword.
Something blood-like, black and viscous, was seeping from the diadem.
They felt the diadem vibrating violently, then it shattered into pieces inside the wooden cabinet.
As it split open, they all faintly heard an extremely weak, extremely distant shriek of pain—not from the castle or grounds, but from the thing that had just been destroyed.[2][1]
A black, smoke-wrapped head burst from the diadem, lunging straight at Sean.
Justin didn't hesitate—he tried to throw himself in front of Sean.
But another surprise occurred. The black head, after shrieking and thrashing, dissipated into smoke and ash.
"You—Green, that was Ravenclaw's diadem!" the Grey Lady cried out in shock.
"A wizard's wisdom was never in a diadem," Sean said calmly.
The Grey Lady was first shocked, then dazed. She suddenly realized something.
Perhaps that was what set him apart from everyone else.
Beside the Grey Lady, Hermione stood frozen in fear.
The Room of Requirement fell silent, except for Helena's sudden burst of low, joyful laughter.
She rejoiced at the destruction of a piece of Voldemort's soul: "The basilisk fang—a sword soaked in venom—substances that can destroy Horcruxes. In any case, I must thank you, Mr. Green, for correcting my mistake and—for giving it a dignified exit."[3][1]