Spectre: The Dark Riddles #1

Prologue--Fourth Year

The first time I discover what is concealed beneath a boy's clothes is late into the spring of my Fourth Year. And it's an accident, too.

I'm skipping to the Slytherin common room with exciting news for my brother. The halls are nearly always empty this time of year—everyone enjoying the spring air or cramming in the library for exams—and so my skipping footsteps echo across the stone. I love that sound. It makes this castle feel extra big.

I don't hesitate to step into the Slytherin common room, even though they're strict about who they let in. As a Hufflepuff, I shouldn't be allowed, but being Draco Malfoy's twin sister had its perks. The room is empty. Luckily, I know where his dorm is located and have no problem running through the halls to reach it.

My heart is pounding wildly, madly. My parents had just sent me a letter that morning. It isn't often that I hear from them, so any mail is a pleasant surprise, but their news is even more unexpected. We're going to spend the summer in Italy! The!! Whole!!! Summer!!!! We'll be dining at coastal Michelin-star restaurants, yachting on the Tyrrhenian Sea, visiting the Italian Ministry of Magic. My father has been sent there for work, and Draco and I are due to leave school a week early to go with him and our mother. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get to see some merpeople.

Later, when the years have passed like flipping pages through a book, I'll look back on that summer vacation as the catalyst for my interest in magical creatures. There's nothing like witnessing the beauty of Rome firsthand to make you fall in love with magic itself. Because if it isn't for that trip, I'll never spot the first glimpse of powerful hippogriffs, or the terrifying dragons—or the thestrals.

Draco's dorm is unlocked. I step inside just as I call out his name—and freeze. There is one boy in here, but it isn't my brother.

And he isn't exactly clothed.

Form-fitting underwear outlines his faintly muscled legs, but he wears nothing else. Long limbs, the barest definition of muscle—a boy's body, stretching towards the fate of becoming a man. His skin is pale and... I'd never seen so much of it before. Skin. And muscle. And freckles. Not on anyone. Not like this.

He looks over his shoulder when the door opens. Neither one of us move, suspended in a moment of shock. A momentary staring contest.

"I-I'm so sorry, I'm just looking for my brother—" I slam the door shut and hurry back to the common room.

Voices bounce off the walls of the dungeon common room, and I feel strangely guilty, like I've done something wrong, like what I did was mean. Several boys enter the room, the source of the voices. It's the Slytherin quidditch team. They've returned from their daily practice.

I spot Draco and pull him away from his teammates. He frowns at the look on my face. "Ella? What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you, but I walked in on a boy in your room—" I can't meet his gaze.

Draco crosses his arms. My nose wrinkles, his sweat and dirt-caked uniform finally hitting me. He needs a shower—bad. "Mattheo?" he guesses, listing off his dormmates. "Or Enzo?"

I shake my head. "No, I didn't recognize this one."

Enzo is our distant cousin, but when school began, he clung to Draco and his group of friends quicker than he'd latched onto me. Still, I'd know him anywhere.

Mattheo Riddle is no stranger to me, either.

"He was..." I had been so focused on trying not to picture the boy's body that I struggled to find words to describe him. "Tall. Thin, but strong. Probably on the quidditch team. Black hair..." My voice trails off, a realization halting my speech. I like talking about him, I realize. Like it the way I will soon come to like talking about magical creatures.