"He will return soon," the gruff voice informed her as she paused in the hall. Her eyes turned to see Mad-Eye Moody standing in an aclove, his eyes watching her as he clutched his staff. She fought the roll of anger and disgust that washed over her at seeing the man. She hated him with every fiber of her being, it was no secret. She loathed him in class and refused to answer or participate unless she was given no other choice. None of her friends understood why, but she just informed him that she got a bad vibe, though it wasn't the truth at all. He was an Auror, a very good Auror, that had murdered her only parent left in the world. "And you best be ready when he has, girl."

"When?" Sophie returned. "Don't I get to know when?"

"You'll know, girly. You'll know." He had laughed - one that didn't belong to him. Sophie gathered her things and walked quickly away from him, towards the Gryffindor Common Room. She knew he wasn't Mad-Eye. She had seen the ticks of his tongue and the way he took almost an unhealthy interest in Harry. It wasn't because he wanted to train him to be the next best Auror. No, it was because he wanted Potter for something else - something that didn't seem right.

"Third task," someone whispered in the corridor. Sophie walked by quickly, her ears having heard it all before. It was all they had been doing - her, Ron, Hermione: train Harry. She was already worried sick for him. He was a dangerous friend to keep, and even more dangerous one to lose. If he died in this tournament... he almost ran out of air the second task. They couldn't afford mistakes like that again.

So if he came back... If Voldemort came back, they were all screwed. But when? The Third Task was tomorrow and Hermione had been trying to brew him a calming draught so he could sleep through the night. Sophie had disappeared to steal the last ingredients from Snape's stores - with which she was successful.

"I've got it," Sophie stated when she entered the Common Room. Everyone was up, frittering about, wanting to just show their support for Harry.

She passed over the dogweed and sank down across from Hermione as she brewed. Harry was pacing, obviously nervous for tomorrow. "Harry, for Christ's sake, sit down before you wear a hole down to McGonagall's floor."

"I can't. We have no idea what's going to be in the task, what the task is. There was no clue," Harry glanced at her, his worried eyes making her look away quickly. He always seemed to spot any hint of emotion from her, any spec of anything. He trusted her, but he knew something was... wrong. She was more reserved than the rest of their friends. She didn't explicitly talk about her past to her friends, their family, etc. He was good at figuring stuff out on his own. "What if it's a set of ... of zombies or something?"

She gave him a blank look. "Inferi are forbidden by the Ministry. None will be present."

"But we don't know that. Gabrielle Delacour would have died under the Ministry's watch if I hadn't have-"

"She didn't," Sophie reminded him. "So, just calm down, Harry. They won't do anything to kill you, if you're diligent."

He huffed and turned away, resuming her pacing. She watched as Hermione forced him to drink a calming draught and a dreamless sleep potion in one go, before he nearly collapsed on the chair. "Woah, mate," Dean Thomas caught Harry's arm, saying. "Up to bed, then."

"I need to train-"

"You can't train dead on your feet, mate," Seamus spoke up. So with the help of Ron, they pulled the Chosen One up the stairs and the rest of the house was left worrying over his state of mind and how long he had left to live. Sophie glanced at Hermione, her hands worrying in her blonde hair.

"Got any heart attack preventative? We might need it tomorrow." Hermione gave a worried smile before packing up the cauldron and throwing it in her bag. Sophie stood and shifted nervously. "I'm heading up to bed. Uh, night, guys."

"Night," a few people around her muttered. Sophie rushed up the stairs as though she had seen a million spiders crawling along the floor towards her. Her eyes darted to the corners of her dorm room - finding it empty, before she collapsed on her bed and secured the curtains around her. She didn't fall asleep. Instead, she sat at her pillows with her bag spewed in front of her, and she stared at it for longer than she thought was necessary. She heard others approach their own beds and go to sleep, but still Sophie could not.

"Harry?" she whispered to herself. "Or father?"

She knew as soon as Cedric Diggory's dead body appeared that the signal had been transmitted. He was back. Hermione stood, horrific shock on her face as she stared at the scene below their seats in the stands. Ron grabbed her arm to prevent the girl he obviously had a crush on from rushing to Harry's side. Sophie sat there, staring at Diggory's dead body with a hint of fear in her eyes.

"Sophie?" Hermione asked, nudging the girl. Sophie glanced at her sharply, before looking at Harry, who was sobbing and shouting something at the same time. She couldn't chose. Not here.

"I-I can't," she whispered. Sophie rose, her blonde hair blowing in her eyes as she turned towards her two best friends. "I'll see you in the boys Common Room. Bring Harry, too... I ... I think it's best we talk there. Have the other boys go to the Seventh Year dorms." Sophie didn't wait for a response as she rushed away and her eyes darted to the crowd as they gossiped over a classmates death. It was like Cedric didn't walk the halls of the school, like he didn't go out of his way to make friends with people and help the first years get around. It was like he was a piece of news and not a dead person.

As soon as she reached the outside of the stands, she took off running blindly for the castle. It took less time than she thought and then she was in the silent castle. The shadows swirled around her as she climbed staircases and turned in the twisted corridors. All the while, she breathed heavily and panted as she came to a dead end with a large window overlooking the castle courtyard below. She walked towards it slowly, trying to quell her beating heart, but to no avail. Tapping her forehead to the cool glass, she clenched her eyes closed.

It was expected of her to return to him, to her father. The Dark Lord wasn't one to keep waiting. She would have until everyone got off the train to decide where to go. She would return to the Orphanage, making her easier to find, or she'd ask Ron to go to the Burrow, once she explained everything. Once they understood who she was, and if they wanted to associate with her, that is.

Opening her eyes, she was confused as she saw a figure that looked like Harry, and another that looked like Mad-Eye, hurriedly walking across the corridor, but thought nothing much into it. He was probably getting him away from the celebration, the chaos of Diggory's death, the sorrow of Amos as he grieved for his son. She let out a deep breath and watched as it created a mist on the glass before she turned away and tried to find her way to the Gryffindor Common Room. The castle was sometimes ginormous. When you felt like a small bug in the world with a magnifying glass watching your every move, the castle felt like a large and opposing figure, the petri dish... the sun.

She muttered the password to the Fat Lady and then rushed up to the boy's dorm. She didn't want to sit in any of their beds, less they don't trust her. She didn't want to invade their privacy. She settled in the chilly window between Ron and Harry's bed, her legs tucked to her chin. How would she do this? How should she even start?

"My name is Sophie Mia-" She stopped and shook her head. She couldn't tell them. The door opened and a distraught Harry was thrust inside, Ron and Hermione trailing, and the door shut, sealing. She looked up and rested her head on her knees as she watched Harry sink down on his bed.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked. "You looked like you saw a ghost-"

"How did Cedric die?" Sophie asked Harry. She needed the confirmation first. Her voice was quiet and it was obvious she had been crying.

Harry stiffened at the question but waited a moment to answer. "The cup was a portkey... It took us to some graveyard... Voldemort killed him. He's back."

Sophie squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip to keep from hissing in pain as her arm burned her skin with more of a fervor than every before. With Harry always saying his name, she had learned to hide her reaction, to block the sound before she heard the words, but it was too unexpectedly expected for her to do that.

"He's dead... He should be dead. I want him dead," Sophie told them after a moment. "What I'm about to tell you has been told to no one. I couldn't help it... I - I know you'll probably hate me afterward so know that I love you all with all my heart and I couldn't ask for better friends." She blinked away tears.. "I had no idea what was happening today. I swear that - wizard oath. I had no idea Cedric was going to die, or about this portkey and I want you to believe me, but you won't." She ran her hand through her hair and looked them all in the eye. "My mother wasn't a good person. She was to me at the time - I loved - still love her - with everything I have. Fifteen years ago, just after I was born, she was in Prague and bitten by a vampire. She turned." Sophie blinked rapidly. "She raised me with my father and we were... a happy family. When my father died, my mother had to do what she could to protect me from the Order. She raised me on her own, with her sister and a few other Death Eaters." Harry's eyes jumped at that.

"My mother was murdered by Mad-Eye Moody when I was five. I was sitting right beside her, the Death Eaters and her sister having escaped to safety as the house burned. Mad-Eye rescued me as my mother screamed and screamed... That's why I hate Mad-Eye. I hate him for what he did to her." She swallowed. "I was given to Wool's Orphanage immediately after, to be raised in a Muggle environment. It was one I loathed and loved at the same time. When I got my letter to Hogwarts, I had learned of the atrocities my mother and father cast around the world. They murdered hundreds and hundreds of people and..." Sophie choked up. "I still love my mother despite it. But she's dead. When I got to Hogwarts, I made wonderful friends. You guys are amazing and I wouldn't trade you for anything." She rested her chin on her knees. "I knew nothing of any attempt made on this school. I swear that. I was just as oblivious as you lot."

"Who was your father?" Hermione asked.

"Not Snape, right?" Ron prayed.

"I don't remember him," she reminded them. "I remember a voice, though, when I was a baby. It's so hard to make distinct, but my mother had told me extensive stories of the pair of them. He went by Tom back then."

"Voldemort," Harry supplied icily.

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. She pulled her jumper sleeve back and showed them the dark tattoo that was embedded in her skin. "My mother created this for me when I was barely born. I've had it all my life." Harry stared at it with hatred. The mark wasn't like the dark mark. Instead, it was like a serpent that constricted around a rose. It writhed and Sophie closed her eyes to the pain. "It only appears when you-know-who's name is spoken. It's extremely painful and... and if spoken enough, this... this voice takes over and it's not me anymore." She looked to them, begging them to believe her. "I'm so sorry. I wanted to tell you, I tried to so many times... but now I can't not tell you. I'll have to leave now, go to him." She swallowed and pressed her forehead to her knees. "He'll search for me and people could die."

"So after all this you've said to us, you'd just return to him?"

She glanced at Ron, and he winced when he saw her tears. "You think I have a choice? He'd hunt for me until he found me. And then he'd kill all those that tried to keep me away from him." She ran her fingers over her tattoo. "He can track me with this, but only so far. Only if the tattoo is active, only if I'm outside of warded areas when it's not. He'll find me at my orphanage."

He glanced at Hermione, seeing she was processing something. "The voice. You said you're possessed by a voice."

"From midnight to dawn, until you see the sun, you will have the voice of your mother and you will think like a daughter of the dark," Sophie explained. "It controls me every night and I have to immobilize myself before I go to bed so I don't do anything horrible... I cast my wand to stick under my trunk so I don't get to it." She tightened her arm around her legs. "And when his name is spoken three times, the voice takes over. It's so hard to control. I try, I really do." She dropped her legs so they hung from the ledge of the window, her body facing them as she watched them look to each other. "I'll sleep in ... in an abandoned classroom, if that makes it more comfortable for you. We only have until the end of term... Mad-Eye told me last night, when I was getting the ingredients for your calming draught, that my father would return soon. I didn't know how soon... I didn't know what he meant. I thought he was just harboring the same hatred for me as I did for him and he was just trying to scare me... But now I know he was telling the truth and... I won't be returning next year, or the year after that, or any other year. It would be dangerous for me, with so many people wanting to kill me when truth gets out this summer."

Sophie paused a moment. "I'm so sorry. I hope one day you'll forgive me."

She stood and moved towards the door when Harry's voice called. "Why does Voldemort want you to not return to school?"

Sophie gasped in pain and stumbled until her side was pressed against the door. Three. Three times. "Stop, stop, stop," Sophie whispered pleadingly to herself as she squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the chill creep into her blood and the fire on the skin. It always felt the same, yet every time was electrifyingly new. "Please-"

She fell to her knees, cutting herself off and tried to bite her lip so she couldn't speak.

"Sophie? Are you alright?" Hermione whispered.

Sophie's head snapped up against her will and she stared at the three in front of her, standing, wands out, concerned but cautious. "The Princess of Darkne-ne-" Sophie clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes. She had two minutes and forty five seconds for it to go away on its own. Her fingers unclenched around her wand and she rolled it towards them. The voice was nothing like her own. It was cold, hard, flat, and horrifying. She hated it. It was nothing like the mother's voice she knew. Her mother had been warm, bubbly, kind... Not this cold hearted monster. She began to count in her head to keep the voice that floated around at bay. It wanted her to murder them, to snap their necks and run. How no one would know. But she would.

"Sophie?"

"Sophia Mia Orion does not talk to Mud-Mud-" Sophie clamped her teeth down on her lips and she tasted a metallic twinge of blood. They knew how she'd finish the sentence. She bit down harder until she felt pain. Pain she could concentrate on. Pain she didn't quite understand, but knew.

One minute and ten seconds.

One minute seven seconds.

One minute three seconds.

"Sophie, should we get someone?"

She shook her head and breathed deeply through her nose.

"She's bleeding," Hermione whispered. "A lot... Sophie, stop biting-"

"The Princess of the Darkness has awakened. The powers of the night are unbound and the-" Sophie whimpered and bit her lip again but she couldn't stop herself from speaking. "The journey of the light has just now begun to fall. When darkness sounds and darkness rise-ris-" Eighteen seconds. "-Rises, true love will cast surprises-" She sucked in a sharp breath and bit her tongue. Stop, stop, stop. "In the- On the-For-" She clamped down again and felt her chin becoming sticky with blood, as well as her mouth. Three. Two. One.

She sprung up and grabbed her wand before grabbing the door handle. She glanced back at them. "I'm sorry," she whispered before she darted down the stairs and out into the night of the castle.

She ignored the looks she got from others around her. She had to calm down. She had to get her lip healed. She had to escape, disappear, before the ones she cared about got hurt, too.