Prologue
O god. It hadn't worked again, and they were getting all the more suspicious of me. I could feel glares burning into my back. They erupted into quiet little fires when I turned. Whispers followed me everywhere. They never stopped. I was alive in my own private hell.
I hadn't minded so much when it had been the Trio, and their obnoxiously naïve Gryffindor followers. Now, though, some of the teachers were starting to pick up on me. First it had been Dumbledore's friends, but I could tell the feeling had spread. Even Proffessor Trewlaney could tell I was acting differently. She had come up to me yesterday on the stares, in a drunken stupor, muttering things to me about how traitorous actions often stab you in the back. She wanted me to consult the stars with her. I graciously declined, but her point had been made.
It was already March, and my mission was supposed to have been completed by January. Wandering the halls, late at night, just as I had so many nights before, I could actually feel myself sinking into despair. I needed to try harder, to make up my mind, lest I exploded in self-pity. I could feel something rising, from the pit of my stomach. I felt vile and awful. I was on the second floor now, pacing back and forth.
No! it wasn't just the feeling of something awful in my stomach, it was really there. I rushed to the closest bathroom. I could hear my trainers sloshing in the water on the floor as I ran to the sink. It felt like a century that I stood poised at that sink, just staring and panting. Some of the pressure I was under seemed to have disappeared. Eventually, I wiped my hand on my sleeve and tried to turn on the tap, which didn't budge. "Fuck!" I swore.
"Excuse me?" It was a girl's voice. I had thrown up in the broken sink of a girl's bathroom. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I looked into the mirror. A ghost was floating, about mid-air. I had never seen this ghost before, and I hoped to never see her again. She looked about my age, maybe a year or two younger. She wore glasses and her skin was sallow, and she generally appeared to be an unattractive school-girl, only set apart from the massive hoards by her death.
I sprinted out of there as fast as I could, all the way back down to my dormitory, and into my bed. I lay there for awhile, just breathing, and thinking about the strange girl in the bathroom.