In my fifth year, I got my nickname. Heartbreaker. In my sixth year it changed. Queer, faggot, cocksucker. I started staying shut up in my dorm reading while everyone else was out having fun and visiting Hogsmeade. I took to throwing myself further into my studies. I stayed at school for winter holiday, my butt in a chair in the library, bent forward, nose pressed into a musty old tome. I drank in the information, and when I began to grow bored with everything I had learned, I began practicing. I started with simple things. Shattering a vase by pointing my wand and muttering "Dirumpo." When my housemates were asleep, I would summon the frigid winds of the north to the tower with a whispered "Arctos."
Janet Clearing caught on first. When she confronted me, it was my wand pointed between her eyes and a shout of "Pavor!" that drove her into a fit of terrors. It took her weeks to recover, and even then, she has avoided me like a plague.
The second to catch on was Henry Shoemaker. I was swimming in the lake when he came out to me, hands on his hips, his robes flapping about his ankles in the breeze. "It was you. You're the one that hurt Janet, aren't you? Is that how you treat someone who was your friend?" But Janet was never my friend. She sneered and laughed at me like the rest of them. I swam to shore and gathered my things, truly trying to avoid this confrontation. But Henry would not have that. He pulled his wand, but I was faster, pointing at his ear and whispering "Strepo." A deafening BOOM rocketed through the air and he fell to the ground clutching his ear, blood gushing out between his fingers. The blood fascinated me as I watched it paint the grass crimson. I shoved him into the lake and walked back to the castle.
They found his body the next day and the entire school shut down. No classes, no leaving, no trips to the village. I had my books to keep me company, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make the images of Henry's blood leave my head. I could see it whenever I closed my eyes, calling to me, promising to paint everything red.
That night, while the officials were finishing up their investigation, I consulted on of the forgotten books I had stolen from the library. It was about the tides, the seas, and how to control them. I went up to the top of Ravenclaw Tower, after sealing the door to the common room by striking the eagle knocker dumb. Standing there in the night air, my wand pointed down into the darkened doorway, I smiled. "Parata Neptunium Profundum." Water, black and icy rushed out of the end of my wand, pouring down the stairs at several thousand liters a second. I ended the spell several minutes later, after hearing the first screams. I could see the water at the foot of the ladder below me and pointed at it. "Gurges." The water began to move, rapidly swirling and spinning, everything drawing to a fixed point in the center of the dorm.
The first ones to brave the icy waves had trudged to the ladder, and were holding on for dear life. I smiled down at them, waving my wand. "Somnus." As one, they fell to the floor, deep in their dreams. I kicked down the trapdoor and pointed at it for another spell. "Claustra." With a sickening squeal, the wood melded into the stone, sealing itself shut. Screams continued to sound from the tower, crying out for help, begging for their lives. It was music to me, beautiful music that lulled me to sleep.
They came for me that morning. Professors Flitwick, Snape, and McGonagall. I was sitting on the stone ramparts, watching the sun rise over the mountains when them made it to the top of the tower. All three of them were pale and soaking wet, and looked exhausted. "I was wondering how long it would be. I expected you here sooner, and yet, I did not expect you here yet either." My voice was no longer truly my own. My lips, tongue, and throat moved, but the sound that issued forth was not my voice. It was darker, colder, evil, and I think that I was happy with it. "The girl, Janet, she as a warning. Henry was an accident. He found out too much, had to be dealt with. But it isn't to happen like this."
I didn't have to point my wand to harness the magic within me, I was beyond that now. The voices in my head screamed out as one, a resounding cry that echoed through me, power spilling down my arm and out of my fingertips. Occaeco. All three of them fell, clutching their heads as my spell clouded their memories, darkening them, making them forget. I stood and walked to the shattered remains of the trapdoor, wanting to see my work's progress.
The bodies were everywhere, in various poses of terror and death. Bloated, greenish-purple corpses that were soaked to the bone. Tongues lolled, eyeballs bulged, and skin was stretched taught, as if it might burst at any moment. I was delighted, I think. I held my hand out to a corpse and said in a sing-song voice, "Hortor." The corpse shuddered and rose up, starring at me with blank, glassy, popping eyes. I pointed to the Common Room door. "Go, sew chaos amongst them." The corpse turned and shambled away, tripping over the doorjamb and crashing down the stairs, bursting into a pool of seawater, blood, flesh, and bone at the foot of the stairs.
I moved among the other corpses, animating them the same way, and sending them down the stairs. The second round were smart enough to step over the jamb, and make it down the stairs before they spread out, looking for people to attack. I went to my dorm, which the water had left untouched, and gathered all of my things in an enchanted knapsack. It was time to leave Hogwarts, time to go somewhere else and find better people to work with.
I went down the stairs and turned back to them. "Detero." The stone began to age, growing thousands of years in seconds, weathering away until it was a pile of dust at my feet. I turned on my heel and walked away, stepping around the remains of my first corpse. I met only one person on my way out of the castle, the rest locked away in the Great Hall for safety as my zombies roamed the halls. "You don't have to do this." His voice was soft, the way it had been all those months ago as he breathed into my ear, his chin resting against my shoulder. It sent shivers down my spine, made me long for the time before I had lost myself in my pursuit of this personal darkness.
I turned to face him, his smile reaching his golden eyes, his golden waves tucked behind his ear, nearly blending in with his golden skin. He was sunlight given a human form, but he was like the rest of them. He had hated me after that, wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me. Brave little Gryffindor a coward like the rest of them all. He made me sick, and I could do the same to him. Io raised my hand, my long nails gleaming black in the light of the Grand Entrance Hall. "Caries."
Jonathon screamed in pain as the skin of his face fell away, leaving his now rotting, black and pus-filled veins underneath on display. He screamed and I watched him rot away until he was a mass of thick, slimy goo. I smiled down at what was left of him and continued on my way, my boots clicking against the marble floors as I made my way across them. After sixteen years of waiting, of wishing and dreaming, I was finally free. I strode out into the sunlight and smiled, taking a deep breath. The darkness in my heart had fled to my mind, now it filled me up, gave me strength. I could feel the sunlight leeching that strength away. My pale skin began to crack and split, black blood flowing from the fissures. I could feel it, that release, on the edge of my grasp, eluding me. I reached for it, and watched in ecstasy as y arm crumbled to ash, the rest of me following suit.