Midmorning

ii. eighteen days

I was far from as brave as I thought. In my trek back to my dorm, my head spun like a ballerina, wind lashing against me like punishment for not trying harder, for not convincing him. My knees gave way several times, and not in swoon like the girls that knew (or thought about because nobody knew) him, but rather in complete and utter terror. No matter how badly you wanted to die, instincts could not be stopped.

             Maybe I need to clarify why I asked him. Or, you're in the same boat, and you would've even forced the wand to your chest, breathing hard against it until he said the words.

             To save you time, the simple narrative exposition would detail my home life—kind mother, no father—my friends—Wren, a few other girls I'd forget after graduation—and maybe, if the narrator was blunt enough, tell you the insignificance of the aforementioned. There was a void there, a limitless source of triviality. It was all over once you died, and had you been immortal, people would come and go and come and go while you stood and attended every grave with a new bunch of flowers. Soon it becomes a game, and you bring a red bunch and an orange bunch until you finish the rainbow and then go backwards, violet to indigo to blue to green and soon the game wears out and there's no one left.

             And if you had no one, why be immortal at all?

             Snap.

             'You listening?'

             Wren clicked her digits so close to my eyes it blurred her skin until she pulled back. The structure of my drawing contorted, pencil dragged right off its axis.

             I sighed. 'Who the fuck names their child "listening"?'

             She swatted the back of my head with the Prophet. 'Shut up, I'm being serious.' Which typically meant she wasn't being serious at all. 'A girl was murdered last night.'

             Lucky her. 'Who?'

             'Melanie North,' Wren's voice then reduced to a whisper, 'She was a Muggle-born.'

             I leaned in closer, eyes now skimming the Slytherin table just next to ours. 'So they suspect the Heir of Slytherin?'

             'That's right,' she nodded, and I spotted Riddle talking to Lestrange. 'Hogwarts will probably be shut down after we leave.'

             And from there I knew the kill was a warning. It told me he'd do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, no morality to sway him into the opposite. That nothing about where my true fear lay deterred his ability to hurt.

             Though Riddle chose avert his gaze, Abraxas Malfoy didn't. In fact, his trance lingered too long before snapping out of it when Avery spoke to him. He knew, and I could only imagine all Riddle's friends knew. But they weren't truly friends, and if not friends, where did they stand between the lines of association? Then I remembered that they did not string across any of those lines at all—it was an alliance. A filthy, glory-ridden alliance with one mutual desire: purity. It was funny how they lusted for something so holy whilst attaining it in such a godless way.

             I didn't stop looking for the boy even after the bell rattled with its vigour and students poured into the halls, some darting north to Divination and some south to Potions. Luck swathed me when Malfoy went the same direction. I probably should've remembered he was in my class, but I usually paid little attention to who was.

             He was quick. I caught up.

             'Malfoy.'

             He wore the same irritated countenance as his allies. 'I forget you were smart enough for Potions, Valois.'