I woke up, groggy and slightly disoriented, the next morning. My alarm clock sat in its rightful spot, next to my bed, red glowing numbers displaying that it was noon already. I groaned slightly, reaching under my back to pull out a plastic hanger that was poking me.

It was then I noticed my upper arm. Four small purple bruises were forming. Twisting my arm around, I saw the fifth bruise on the back of my arm. Bruises in the shape of a hand.

Alarmed, I jumped out of bed and plopped down in front of my computer. Jiggling the mouse to stir the computer out of sleep, I held my breath as I searched for the story I had written the previous night. I had writer's block and had tried to cure it by writing up a meeting between myself and some characters from Harry Potter.

However, the only word document on the screen was completely blank. The cursor still blinked in the same spot it was in several hours ago.

I gulped. Had my feeble grip on reality finally been broken? I had only imagined the confrontation, hadn't I? Imagined it and then dreamt it when I fell asleep…Or had I lived that, and imagined typing the story?

If that was the case…I jumped up and in three steps, stood in front of the closet. Hands shaking, I reached out and pulled open the door. As expected, empty hangers and some forgotten clothes met my eyes. No muses hiding in my closet. …Of course there isn't anyone in your closet, you weirdo! You make all that stuff up! But was it really possible to imagine bruises on your arm and make them come real? No, I don't think so.

I sat around for a bit longer, fighting with my mind to try to straighten out my memories of the previous night. …And maybe wondering just a bit if all of my "creativity" had turned to insanity. Gee golly whiz, I sure hoped that wasn't the case.

Eventually I was forced by the gurgling of my stomach to go out and get some breakfast…er, lunch. It was summer semester, so campus was pretty much dead. I was free to wander along the sidewalk, mumbling to myself like some sort of deranged lunatic, rubbing the purple bruises on my arm.

I entered the student union dining hall and got a bowl of cereal. I sat in the mostly empty sitting area, watching the nearest television, which had been left on ESPN. I was never one for sports, so eventually I got bored.

I finished eating my banana, ignoring the creepy guy mopping the floor who was watching me, and dumped my dishes on the conveyor belt. Then I walked back to my dorm, pausing in the hallway outside my door to peer into my room, making sure no one was there.

Wow I really was getting paranoid. I came back in, showered up and did some homework. For the rest of the day, nothing unusual happened. Unless you count doing your laundry and bringing it back to your room only to find a thong that doesn't belong to you unusual. I went out that night with some friends, and came back a little tipsy.

I stumbled back into my room, making sure to carefully turn the lock, then going to the bathroom. I came back out to check the lock again, before going to get a bottle of water. Then I checked the lock again.

Utterly bored, I sat there looking out the window at the pretty lights in the night around campus and chugging my bottle of water. I am one of those people that can't sleep after drinking, it is a curse. It was about that time I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

I jumped, spilling the water everywhere as I spun around. A young, really irritated Tom Riddle was sitting on my bean bag. "Wo, you scared me," I accused, grabbing a towel off the drying bar and throwing it on the puddle of water.

Too lazy to bend down, I moved it around with my foot, thinking it would absorb most of the water. Tom Riddle was watching me, eyes narrowed. He then seemed to realize something.

"Are you…intoxicated?" he asked in disbelief.

"Is alcohol toxic?" I asked, surprised. I was a science student, I should probably have known about that, right?"

"I mean are you drunk?" he clarified, standing up to come closer. I did my best to stand straight, even as he peered in my eyes. "You are, you are drunk!"

"So?" I retorted smartly, shoving past him to go to my mini fridge. "It is a Friday night, some of us have better things to do than hang around creeping on someone. …Which reminds me, why are you back?" I left the door on the fridge open, staring in confusion at him.

He raised an eyebrow. "I assumed you were to blame."

"Me? I didn't do anything," I insisted. "Now why did I come over here…Oh!" I pulled out my bottle of strawberry vodka and some orange juice. I shut the fridge, thought twice, then got out some Monster energy drink too.

"If you didn't do it then why am I back here? I thought you said I could leave?" Riddle pressed, visibly upset.

"I said I thought you could. Sorry I was wrong," I shrugged. I made a screwdriver, tasted it, then decided it could use some more. "I dunno why but looks like you're stuck with me for the time being…"

"And how long is that?" Riddle plopped down on my futon, pissed off.

"Until I sober up and figure out if I am hallucinating….You are asking a lot of me. But I'll do it, because you're cute," I announced truthfully, grinning.

He didn't look amused. At all. "You are even more annoying when drunk. If that's possible," he announced.

I shushed him. "Only the sober people say that," I insisted. By the way, he happened to be correct. I am very annoying when drunk. But at that time I was happily pouring him a shot. "Take that, it will help."

He looked at me like I was a slug. "I will not drink that."

"Why not? Scared of a little tiny shot? Wow you are a wimp…" I shook my head, unimpressed with the future dictator of wizard kind. He seemed to take it to heart.

"I am not a wimp, I just do not like to cloud my judgment with alcohol!" he insisted.

I shook my head. "Nope. Wimpy wimpy…"

Aggravated, Tom Riddle's arm shot out. He took the shot glass, put it to his mouth, and tipped his head back. With a clink, he put the glass back down empty. "Now please do shut up."

I grinned mischievously. Peer pressure: not just a theory.

"If vodka were water…And I were a duck," I poetically started to sing about half an hour later. "I would swim to the bottom and never come up…But vodka s'not water, and I'm not a duck…So save me a bottle and shut the fuck up!"

With that, I pulled out the bottle of cherry vodka I had under my bed. I am not sure what exactly happened to the last bottle, all I knew was that Tom Riddle was giggling a lot more. Wait…He was giggling, period. He never giggled before.

"What's tha funny fizzy stuff?" He asked, pointing at my drink.

"Pop rocks, they make it awesome!" I exclaimed. He laughed, slowly leaning to one side until he fell off the futon with an "oof".

I sat the bottle down. "Oh, don't fall!" I said, pouting, and tried to push him back up. He brushed my hand off.

"I am fully capable of pickin myself up," He announced indignantly, slurring his words together. He got back on the futon. I clapped.

"Yay!" I plopped down next to him. "What will it be, then?" I asked, settling a serious gaze on him. He contemplated that.

"Another one of those monstrous shots things…Whatever," he waved a hand, then stopped. Then he squinted his eyes, waving his hand again. "No…No, my hand!"

I stopped pouring the vodka, sitting it down and cracking open a can of Monster. "What's wrong with your hand?" I asked, only half interested.

"Its blurring! Why is my hand blurring what's wrong with it!?" Riddle sounded absolutely terrified. I laughed, shaking my head.

"You, good sir, are drunk!" I announced. "And your hand is not blurring, your nervous system is simply depressed, meaning you are registering everything slower than normal…So your hand seems to be blurring!" I concluded, pretty impressed with myself.

Riddle stared, mouth slightly open. Then, he asked, "What?"

"Er…never mind, it made too much sense," I told him, sitting another shot down. "Take that."

He did as he was told. I finished my last drink, about to make another screwdriver. Then I found the carton of orange juice was empty. I jutted my lower lip out.

Concerned, Riddle asked, "What? Why are you looking like that? Stop it!" He reached out and tried pushing my lip back in. Laughing, I swatted his hand away.

"Nothing, we're just all outta juice," I explained.

"That…is unfortunate," he said, pointing. I am not sure what he was pointing at, it was above and to the right of me.

"Indeed," I agreed, taking a shot instead. "So, Tom…Did you really kill people?"

Riddle sighed, falling back on the futon. His head hit the metal bar with a loud noise and he cocked his head to the side. "That should have hurt, right?" he asked, confused.

I nodded. He furrowed his brow, eyes twitching. "But it didn't at all," he said in a wonder filled voice.

"It is a miracle," I told him seriously.

"Yes. And yes, I killed people…" He trailed off, shrugging then hiccupping.

"Why?" I asked, confused. "I mean, it can't have been fun?" I took another shot, knowing somewhere that I should stop us both soon.

"It wasn't," he insisted, shaking his head fervently back and forth. "No, you…Shouldn't ever kill someone," he told me, eyes watering. "It breaks you inside." He stared off out the window.

"So then why did you do it?" I asked stubbornly.

"What doesn't kill you…" he began, but then got a funny look on his face. "Why is your room spinning?"

I stared. Then it sunk in. "Uh oh, Tom get up, come with me…" He obeyed, getting up and leaning on me as I practically dragged him to the bathroom. He got to the toilet just as he threw up. "Wow, I'm good…" I muttered, getting a glass of water ready on the sink and grabbing some paper towels.

"Ugh, stupid funny spinning room!" he groaned, hanging onto the bowl. I wrinkled up my nose, getting out the hand sanitizer too.

"It's not the room spinning, its actually rapid movements of your eyes-" I started to explain, but he waved a hand angrily.

"No more talking, duck woman!" he ordered. Then he threw up once more.

I stayed quiet, hanging onto the sink to stay upright. I was drunk but I evidently had a higher tolerance than the poor kid hanging on my toilet right now. I waited until he quieted down, falling over to lay on the rug around the toilet.

"Come on, Tom," I said soothingly, dragging him away and leaning him up against the wall.

"My head hurts," he whispered. "I'm thirsty."

I felt guilty, knowing he had probably never been drunk before. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have made you drink so much," I apologized, spilling a little water down my shirt as I handed him the glass. "Here, drink this."

He took it, gulping down some before shoving the glass back in my hand. "Ugh…" he moaned, his head rocking back against the wall.

I washed his face and arms off, feeling rather like a mother. I fell over trying to stand up, smacking my funny bone quite painfully. I figured it was karma.

"Is this going to last forever?" he asked, wincing in pain and pressing on his forehead with his hands.

"No," I answered, biting back laughter. "Come on, you can sleep it off." I helped him up, taking him to my bed since it was a shorter distance than the futon.

He collapsed on top, so it was impossible to get him under the covers. Instead I pulled out a blanket and put it over him. I shuffled over to the futon, crashing down on it. Then my anxiety acted up again so I got the trashcan and put it right by the edge of the bed by his head. Just in case.

I tried sleeping but got up once more to check the lock on the door. Then I got very tired.

For some reason I woke up the next morning slumped against the door. Let me tell you, not the best position to wake up in. I think my back is permanently bent like that.

I lay flat on the floor, trying to stretch my back out, thinking. When the memories of the previous night finally caught up to me, I bolted straight up. There were glasses and empty shot glasses all over, an empty bottle of vodka with a sad drawing of a duck on it in permanent marker, and Monster cans all over my room.

And Tom Riddle passed out on my bed. Oh thank heaven I'm not completely nutso! I could have giggled in relief. He was real.

It was then I noticed the time. And swore. I was due in at Starbucks in half an hour. I got up, brushing my teeth and washing my face. I tied my hair back, changing into my uniform in the bathroom just in case.

I grabbed my bag and keys, but felt bad leaving him like that. He wasn't even moving, he was in a dead sleep. Paranoid I checked his pulse point just to make sure it was sleep. Rolling my eyes afterwards, I got out a bottle of aspirin. I sat two on the desk next to the bed, along with a bottle of water and donut.

Content, I finally left, locking the room after me.