Arms laden with the papers to be recycled, she stepped out into the windy night barefoot. There were cement and tile walkways, but she deliberately ignored them. They were cracked and scattered with gravel in places, the tiny grains treacherous and invisible in the dark. She was familiar with the soft crunch and pinpricks of pain when she trod on them. There were also patches of moisture and mud, the feeling of which she hated under her bare feet when she chanced to tread over them and couldn't see what she had walked in. No, she preferred the soft carpet of grass, dry in the gusty September night, littered with fallen and dying leaves, little crinkles of texture under her feet.
Her bare feet sink in the grass. It tickles her arches, making her hop and twirl around. The wind blows her hair in her face, light and cottony soft. She turns to face the wind, depositing the papers and dropping her arms, palms out, their burning warmth erased by the fresh air. It pushes her hair off of her face, and it hangs back as though suspended and gently sways in the breeze. It is a black halo surrounding her face, a common sight for young women on windy days, but imbibed with its own charm.
Her cat slips out through the open door, and a shaft of moonlight strikes him, illuminating his steel-grey fur. He freezes, his feline senses far more astute than the girl's, his eyes two reflective disks of green-grey metal. His muscles tensed, the little silk-soft peaks of his shoulders bunched and visible under his long-haired coat. A sudden motion or a noise, perhaps, sends him to the base of the nearby tree in a single leap. She doesn't know what prompted his behaviour, she cannot see what he sees.
Perhaps it was her shadow, smokey grey but still substantial in appearance, that frightened him. It lies prone on the grass surrounded in moonlight and the insubstantial, wispy shapes that compose the shadows of the other things around her. Her shadow alone is solid and firm, almost solid enough to touch. It moves smoothly, every action a smooth gliding movement that mirrors her own in every aspect except grace. Her own movements have none.
Her cat's source of fear steps out from the shadows and beckons to her.
"Tom."
"Minerva."
She felt that they had grown distant from her prolonged absence, but then again, the more she thought on it, they had never really been close. Her family's vacation in London during the summer holidays made their meeting very possible, and it was happening now, the day before her return home. Letters had never been exchanged between the two either, despite implied promises of writing often.
"What were you doing, just now?"
She shrugged. "Dancing like a complete moron, I suppose." She twirled, her skirts flying out around her. "Care to join me?"
"No."
"Fine then." She resumed, her shadow her only partner. Her hair left traces of her scent in the displaced air around him, as did her hands and dress. She dimly heard him ask a question, and she stopped, blood pounding in her ears from the exercise.
"What was that?"
"Where are you staying? You live in Scotland, don't you?" Tom was as impassive as ever, but strangely eerie in the night.
"We're on holiday," she said. "Oh, I'm glad you didn't join me just now. That's the cliche of just about every Muggle movie I've seen. The two are outside at night, they dance, you know..." She trailed off and resumed dancing comically, only to stop after a few moments. "Have you seen my cat? He has a bad habit of sneaking out. We very well can't leave without him, but we leave tomorrow."
"No, I'm afraid I may have frightened him away." He smiled, cynically. "I don't have the best effect on animals."
"Pity, Tom." She tried to imitate her shadow, fully aware of how ridiculous and impossible that was. "You always did have a way with snakes." He smiled.
"You have no idea."
A single cello began to play Chopin's Nocturne with expressive vibratto. Tom looked at her. "I feel like enacting a cliche. Specifically, I want to learn how to waltz."
"It's a ballet piece, Tom."
"It could still be a waltz, if you count it." He did so. "Enact a cliche with me. We'll parody it."
They waltzed together, Minerva leading. He learned quickly, and they soon became wraith-like shapes in the hotel garden, performing an amateur dance for London's nighttime spectators. She thought with amusement how silly they must look with their clumsy dancing, combined with expressions of fixed concentration. "Everyone watching probably thinks we're romantic fools, imagining ourselves to be magnificent dancers."
"Yes, and isn't it nice to know that it's the exact opposite?"
"Very."
They returned to the hotel garden where she had initially been, and she was thrilled to see her cat on the porch of the hotel. He had returned after a nighttime rendezvous of his own, but again he tensed when her companion left her at the porch. Moonlight and lamplight were reflected from those silvery disks, expressionless and round under scrutiny. She buried her nose in his fur, lavishing attention upon him until he purred loudly enough for Tom to hear as well. She combed her fingers through the luxurious coat, gradually accumulating thick rings of the fur around her fingers. "I think you make him nervous. I'll see you at school; we leave tomorrow."
"You already told me," he replied. "Good night."
"Wait." He paused and turned. "Why are you out here anyway?"
"I'm... reminiscing, if you will."
"Reminiscing about what?" she scoffed. "You're sixteen!"
"Don't stay out too long, Minerva," he admonished. "You don't know what goes on in nocturnal London. Your cat is smart. Good night."
*.*
Tom examined his hands. He hadn't imagined animals to be able to sense immorality as if it were a scent. He would have to be more careful if she brought that cat to Hogwarts. He'd also purchased the diary without being detected by the inhabitants of the orphanage. He could begin cataloguing the events of the school year immediately. But first, a test.
Hello. You probably already know this, but you are to be the project for the year.
The ink seeped into the pages and disappeared. He smiled. All he needed now was a method to encapsulate himself in the pages. In the gusty September nighttime, he smiled. He felt ready to pay a visit to the Chamber again once school began- and this time, with a purpose.