Collaborative Writing

[Cecily Rambolt]

Hello, and welcome to HNZ's Birthday Celebration Collaborative Writing event!
I have posted the beginning of a story, now it's up to you, the members of HNZ, to finish the story! You may all reply to this thread and add one paragraph to the story. Eventually, we may allow you to post a second time in the thread, but for now it's one paragraph per member. You're asked to keep this a sesnical story, as we plan to compile it and post it in the FanFictions forum on the board.
As we're celebrating a birthday, we thought it would be ironic to have this event be for the writing of a Death Day. Who's Death Day? Why Lady Helena the Brave's, of course.
Keep all paragraph additions in Helena's character and from her prospective. Make the event as exciting as you'd like! Just keep it sensical. Want to post a giant plot twist in the story? PM me for permission, first!
This is Helena's biography, so you have some information about her.
What are the rules for this event? Well, simple:
[ul][li]Each member may only post once in the thread, and only have one paragraph in their post, unless otherwise stated.</LI>
[li]You may not begin to post in this thread if you see that another member is posting. If another member, somehow, posts before you do - edit yours so it makes sense!
[li]Your post should only include the paragraph you've written for the story (so don't copy and paste the rest of the paragraphs in) and stick to Helena's character/prespective!
<LI>[li]Going to mention another character? They should be on this list![/li][/ul]
That's it! There might be some sort of award in this for the best written/most well thought out/most interesting paragraph added!
Thank you all, and good luck! I'll start us off.

---

After the dinner meal had been served to students and the Great Hall of Hogwarts was empty and still once more a great buzz of magic swarmed the large room. Today was the day of a great celebration to not only those of the living but to the underworld as well. Ghosts and mortals alike would gather and celebrate Lady Helena the Brave’s One Hundred and Eightieth Death Day. The room was decorated within moments by helpful house-elfs. Black tapered candles sputtered out eerie light from their red flames, black gold and red streamers lined and decorated the ceiling and walls. The small creatures had gathered all the leftover rotten food just for this day during the week; it sat in an unappetizing array along one of the large tables. The other three tables had been moved aside for the guests to be able to mingle.

Standing or floating rather, in the large doorway was the Lady in question. Helena brought her hands down the front of her skirt in an unconscious gesture of calming her nerves. Her dear husband Henry had often joked that she had nerves of steel. She hoped he was happy wherever he was. It was a cruel jest of irony that a witch with ‘brave’ in her title would be terrified of death. “Never mind,” she whispered, focusing on the celebration ahead. She approached the podium in front of the head table and smiled as the ice blue light engulfed her. From behind her she heard someone coming into the Great Hall.

 

[Aurora Merrythought]

Helena turned around to see a young woman about to walk into the Great Hall, the woman whom she understood to be one of the newer staff in the school "you must be Professor Merrythought?" Helena stated looking at the woman, Aurora looked rather confused and briefly looked around her "erm, am I missing something?" Aurora asked, trying to look behind the ghost. "Oh sorry, it's your birthda- sorry deathday today isn't it?" the young professor added. "Yes is it is" Helena smiled. "Sorry mind went blank" Aurora stated, Helena glided along to the drinks table and showed Aurora the way. "You look parched dear, need a drink?" Helena asked, she did indeed look parched, her thirst was obviously not quite quenched. "Yes, thank you" Aurora smiled back at her, rubbing her head, she took a goblet and filled it with some pumpkin juice, Helena smiled towards her.

 

[Nicolas King]

After helping the young professor out, Lady Helena started to float amongst her guests, recollecting a hundred and eighty years prior. It was hard to believe that she had died a hundred and eighty years ago; it seemed like only the day before that she had been a great symbol of bravery and a happily married woman. Then the incident occurred - her final act of bravery, resulting in her death. It seemed odd to her to be celebrating her Death Day. It was her bravest moment, arguably, facing what she feared most, but it also exemplified just how afraid she had been - too afraid to move on, choosing to remain on Earth. How could she have chosen that? How could she have been so fearful? Those weren't the traits she'd expressed in her life, but they'd come to their fruition in her death - hadn't they?

 

[Andromeda Fiorelli]

Helena watched the smiling faces, heard the chatter growing incessantly louder and wished they would all just go away. How could they want to come and celebrate when they knew nothing obviously of what they actually celebrated? As much as she loved Henry she cursed him at that moment, why did he move on and leave her behind? Or had she been the one to remain while he left with no choice? She watched the prefects wandering about, mingling intentionally obviously keeping a close eye on the silly brats who had been playing such horrendous pranks but then again, Helena had found it all amusing. So little amused her nowadays, it had been so long. She eyed the punch greedily yearning for a mere tipple on her day but sighed as only a spectre could for lack of the means to hold a glass not much less be able to drink. The werewolf entered and kept pretty much to herself, Helena smiled at the young girl she showed great bravery most days and all went unseeing. It wasn't easy. Helena straightened the skirt of her dress once more, as if it actually needed straightening and floated to the staff table. Sighing she hoped someone would offer a decent conversation.