Midmorning

iv. sixteen days

I'd hoped my see you never had begun the moment he left, tension in my shoulders dissolving as I dozed off into the warmth of midmorning. I'd prayed it started there, but I also prayed that the challenge surpassed a sick joke and he committed to it. There were two ends of the spectrum of what I wanted—homicide at one, suicide at the other—and he had to be at one end, I relied on that. Not that there was reliance on him alone—I could do it myself. It was just preferable I didn't.

Then again, see you never sounded crueler than it really was. It sounded abrupt. Harsh, cold, slapdash—but it was only half-monosyllabic bullshit, for see you never just meant see you when the absence of dialogue is inconvenient for us again. Then, yet again, we part.

See you never!

The next time silence proved itself powerless was against a pure-blood elitist—and to my greatest surprise, it wasn't Riddle himself.

Classes drew longer, but we'd only pray for them again when exams were slotted in their place. It was as if only half of the seventh-years truly cared for their N.E.W.T.s, the other half scrambling for their torn exam timetable three minutes after breakfast. I knew Riddle was part of one half, tending to the precious welfare of his reputation. I wavered between caring and not caring; corpses hardly needed qualifications.

Wren, however—she couldn't have been more terrified. She had vomited countlessly, and only ate so her brain could work. She drank a lot, but little enough so she didn't get distracted by a full bladder halfway through an exam.

And today, an exam had ended, and Wren left just as nauseous as she was when she entered. We'd left together so soon after that the hall was still dead, and that was when Avery chose to be the same stupid cunt he always was.

'I don't know why you bother wondering if you'll pass, Ivchenko,' He'd said at her side, 'You're bound to fail.'

My skin boiled and I nearly told her to ignore him but then he laughed and said: 'Mudbloods always do.'

I couldn't help myself.

'Crucio!'

And suddenly he was convulsing on the floor, and students were beginning to pool at the exit door so I had to stop no matter how fucking badly I wanted him to suffer.

But it was too late and his friends had gathered and Merrythought had scurried over and I knew I'd fucked up so terribly that I may as well have died right there and then. Not that I wasn't already trying.

'What's going on?'

Gathering himself to his feet, Avery spluttered his words: 'She used the Cr—'

'Knockback Jinx, Professor.'

My eyes shifted to the voice. When I met the face, it must've been a cruel—or kind?—dream.

'Ignore Avery, he's easily startled.' And Riddle had the audacity to smile when he'd just witnessed torture like it was rain. Avery just stared at him, tremors still rolling through him.

He said nothing.

Merrythought slowly blinked at me. 'Is this true, Valois?'

I blinked back. 'Yes, Professor.'

And a detention was set in stone and everyone spilt out into the hallways again. I walked to the throb of my pulse, reminiscent of Lovegood, and Wren couldn't keep her stare from me.