AN: Written for Round 7 of the QLFC

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Beater 2

Beater 2's Prompt: Take inspiration from the plot of Halloween Resurrection

Optional Prompts used:

(object) letter

(emotion) envy

15. (genre) Angst

Word count (excluding AN): 2166 words (according to FanFiction)

***It's also a Muggle!AU.

Just Another Night

"Celebrate Halloween this year by spending it with Tom Riddle himself! The self-proclaimed "lord of death" is celebrating his twentieth year as a corpse, and he wants YOU to be there!"

Hermione Granger, pre-law student and president of the student council at Bridgeton University, scoffed at the piece of paper in her hand. "Seriously? Skeeter is practically asking for a lawsuit!"

Beside her, Ron Weasley, goalie for the school's football team and general studies major, was gaping at his own letter. "But Hermione! This is the Tom Riddle house! No one has stepped foot in it since…" He then looked up at his best friend. "Uh, yeah, Hermione. I agree. We should toss this." The second Hermione looked away, though, Ron looked longingly at the letter they had received from Rita Skeeter, editor of the trashiest gossip magazine in Europe.

"Don't dampen your enthusiasm on my behalf. I know what type of opportunity this is." Harry Potter, best friend of both Ron and Hermione, smirked sadly. "Just because he took out my parents before offing himself doesn't mean we can't check it out." Ever the mediator, Harry looked back down at his law book. He had spent his life missing his parents and hearing about that fatal night twenty years ago, when a maniac with a knife had heard voices telling him that James and Lily Potter, friends of the Riddle family, were plotting his demise. He had killed the young couple, but couldn't bring himself to kill baby Harry. He returned to his home, then took his own life. It was later discovered that Riddle had also killed his father and grandparents, believing they were responsible for his mother's death.

"You can't be serious, Harry!" Hermione gasped. "He killed your parents! Why would you want to visit that terrible place?"

"It's just a place, Hermione." Harry looked at her kindly. Hermione always put his feelings first. "Can't let it keep us from having a good time."

Ron grinned. "I agree, Harry! Now, who else got one of these letters?"

On October 31st, six college students stood waiting outside the dorms for transport to the Riddle house. They had been briefed the day before by Rita Skeeter who told them that two cameramen would be accompanying them inside. Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan pulled up in a large van and waved the group in.

"Dean, Seamus, you two are the cameramen?" Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister, laughed. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Dean shrugged. "We've been bugging different magazines for work, and Skeeter finally found something for us to do. It'll be all shot live from different angles. Man, Ginny, we hit pay dirt with this one!"

Neville Longbottom, botany major, shuddered. "I'm still not sure about this. How are you so calm, Harry? This guy and his buddies orphaned the two of us!" Riddle's friends, Bella LeStrange and her husband, along with her brother-in-law, had gotten high on cocaine and put both Frank and Alice Longbottom, Neville's parents, in comas. The two were still unresponsive, but no one had the heart to take them off of life support.

Harry just stared out the window. "Why not, Neville? It's not like my mom and dad know what I'm doing. I just want to see where the bastard killed himself."

Hermione laid a hand on Harry's arm, but he ignored it. He didn't need Hermione's pity today.

"You know, we'll probably see the spirit of Tom Riddle himself. Maybe then you can talk to him, Harry." Luna Lovegood spoke up from the back. She considered herself to be a sort of medium, able to communicate with the dead. If she could be believed, she held a weekly tea for her dead mother. Hermione just rolled her eyes.

Pulling up to the house, the eight just stopped and stared for a minute. The house was in severe disrepair. The rumor was that the caretaker had died a couple of years ago under suspicious circumstances. No one had truly entered the house since Riddle's suicide twenty years prior — and certainly,no one would even consider buying it.

"Well, Halloween is only for eight more hours, guys." Harry started to walk onto the porch. Skeeter's crews had come to open the house for the students a few hours earlier. Harry turned around. "Dean, Seamus, don't you two need to set up?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, just give us a few minutes. Wait out here."

About twenty minutes later, all cameras were placed around the house with live feeds leading back to a computer in the van. Seamus was responsible for staying outside to monitor the feed. Dean would be inside making sure everything ran smoothly at the computer he was setting up.

"Now, the camera will begin its live feed at seven. You'll be live on the Net, and everything you do or say will be fair game. There'll be no editing. You good?" They all nodded in agreement.

The students immediately split up, looking throughout the large house for hints of Riddle's journey to insanity. Ginny and Neville took off toward the second floor, claiming they had heard a noise from that level. Luna and Ron headed towards the kitchen and dining area, Luna already trying to communicate with any remaining spirits in the house. Harry and Hermione wandered towards the living area. Police reports stated that this was where Riddle took his own life, bleeding himself dry to rid himself of the demons haunting his blood.

Harry looked around the room disinterestedly, lazily taking note of the out-of-date design of the room. "My Aunt Petunia would love this ghastly décor. It's abhorrent." He smirked a bit.

Hermione, though, wasn't fooled. "Harry, are you truly okay? I don't want to be pushy…" At Harry's laugh, she smiled guiltily. "Well, any more pushy than normal. I just know you, and you haven't been yourself these last few months."

Harry was quiet for a moment. "This is it, Hermione."

"What do you mean?"

"After this year…This is it for me. I've been with you guys for a few years, but after we graduate, I may never see you and Ron again! You have your families to go to, even Neville has his gran, but me? I have the damn Dursleys, and they told me on my eighteenth birthday that I was no longer welcome at their home. I'm alone, Hermione. "

"Harry, no!" Hermione reached out and grabbed his hand. "You'll never lose me. I can't speak for Ron and the others, but I know they'd say the same." She moved closer. "You mean the world to me, Harry James Potter. Don't ever forget that."

Harry sighed and pushed back an errant curl from Hermione's face. "If you say so. We'll just have to see." The two moved around the room, looking through bookshelves and examining a suspicious dark spot on the wooden floor. Harry was looking at a book when Hermione exclaimed, "Harry, come look!"

In her hand was a faded-looking letter with his name on it. He grabbed it and carefully opened the still-sealed envelope. Inside, he read:

Harry Potter,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left you without parents. I had no choice. They were plotting against me, and if I hadn't taken care of them, they would have surely killed me.

Don't think you're off the hook, though. I couldn't kill you tonight, not as a baby. But when you're old enough, I'll be back for you.

Tom

Just then, a scream echoed through the house. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Luna rushed up the stairs to find Neville leaning out the window screaming Ginny's name. He turned to look at the others, panicked.

"She...she just went crazy. She lunged at me with a cricket bat, then decided to jump." He looked back out the window, and the others' eyes followed his. Surely enough, Ginny's crumpled body lay on the ground, a broken bat beside her. Harry looked down at the letter in his hand, then to Hermione.

"You...you don't think…?"

Hermione, still shaken, shook her head quickly. "No, Harry. This isn't some ghost out for vengeance. Someone is responsible for Ginny's death." Taking a shuddering breath, she looked around. "Where's Dean?"

Neville shrugged. "He was up here for a bit, then said he was going to check on the feed downstairs."

Harry gripped the letter in his hand. "Hermione, come on. Let's go look for him to make sure he's okay."

Ron stepped up. "Mate, what do you have there?" indicating the letter in his hand.

"Just something I found downstairs. No big deal."

Luna frowned slightly. "I wouldn't call a letter from Riddle himself no big deal, Harry."

Ron's eyes grew wider. "It's a letter from Riddle? What's it say?"

"It's an apology written the night he killed my parents. To me."

Neville looked wary. "And that's it?"

Harry nodded. "That's it."

The group hurried back down to find Dean and to call emergency services. However, when they reached the computer, no one was there.

"Where could he be?" Neville wrung his hands together. "He has the only phone with service out here!" Noticing the cameras still recording, he exclaimed, "Hey! Maybe someone will see this and call for help!"

Harry shook his head. "This is supposed to be entertaining, remember? Maybe they think we're acting or something." He stuffed the letter in his pocket and looked to the door. "I'm going to check on Seamus and see if Dean's outside." He reached the door and tugged. It didn't even budge. "Damn, it's locked. I guess they wanted to make sure we stayed in tonight, huh?"

The group searched the house for Dean, finally splitting up to cover more ground. Ron and Luna were the unlucky duo to locate Dean Thomas's headless corpse lying in the basement. At Ron's yell, the other three made their way to their location quickly. Realizing that Riddle's threat may not be empty, Harry came clean.

"He threatened me, guys. Tom Riddle said he'd be back for me." Harry looked into his friends' eyes, feeling guilty for getting them into this bloodbath.

Hermione shook her head again. "But Harry, how did he know you'd come here? It makes no sense!"

Luna intoned, "The spirit world is not governed by our mortal guidelines, Hermione."

"Would you please just shut the hell up, Luna? We have a crisis here, and you're worried about ghosts? I just can't see—" Hermione was cut off suddenly, a sharp blade jutting from her throat. The others looked up in surprise into a pale, shapeless face with dead-looking eyes. The figure stared at Harry as he slowly retrieved his bloody knife from Hermione's still twitching body. Harry watched her slump to the ground, then finally grow still, her blood pooling around her.

The group sprang into action and ran from the room, splitting into pairs. Harry and Neville ran to the front room, looking for a tool to open the front door or the boarded windows. When nothing available presented itself, the two rushed back to the back of the house where Ron and Luna were headed. Stopping short, they saw the pale figure drop both of their friends to the floor, throats slit effortlessly. Finally, Harry had had enough.

"What do you want from me?" he yelled. "Tom, or whoever you are, if you have a problem with me, take it up with me!" He moved closer, shaking off Neville's hand on his shoulder. "You've already taken everything else from me; why not my friends as well?" Grabbing a broken piece of wood from the floor, he moved even closer. "You don't think I never wanted to be like my friends, to have families who cared about them? You, you son-of-a-bitch, took away the only family who did care: my friends. Take me! Please, just end it all!"

"And...that's a wrap!" an annoying voice penetrated Harry's monologue. "Great job everyone! And Harry…" Rita Skeeter grinned at the angry young man, "you might have just won me an award with this. I loved the passion, the emotion...the—ugh!" Harry had finally cracked. In a moment reminiscent of Hermione's "murder," Harry jabbed the broken piece of wood through Skeeter's long neck. Neville gaped from behind the crazed young man.

Harry turned to Neville. "Now that that's dealt with, let's get the hell out of here!"