Friday 28 May, 1993:

Harry and Ron were pacing around the staff room when Professor McGonagall's voice, magically magnified, echoed throughout the corridors of Hogwarts.

"All students to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please."

Harry wheeled around to stare at Ron. "Not another attack? Not now?"

"What'll we do?" said Ron, aghast. "Go back to the dormitory?"

Harry considered this for a second. He and Ron had just visited Hermione, and had found the answer to the centuries old question of 'What is Slytherin's monster?' scrunched up in a ball in her hand. Pieces of the jigsaw had started to fit together for Harry, so he and Ron had gone to the staff room to tell Professor McGonagall what they knew. But the room, alas, had been empty.

"No," said Harry, glancing around. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to his left, full of the teachers' cloaks. "In here. Let's hear what it's all about. Then we can tell them what we've found out."

They hid themselves inside it, listening to the rumbling of hundreds of people moving overhead, and the staff room door banging open. From between the folds of cloaks, they watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then Professor McGonagall arrived.

"It has happened," she told the silent staff room. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be sure?"

"The heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber for ever."

Professor Flitwick burst into tears.

"Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall.

Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him.

"We shall have to send all the stu–"

"Wait, Minerva." It was Snape who had interrupted, in an odd voice that Harry had never heard the Potions Master use before. "When did this happen?"

"She was not present when I was about to start her Transfiguration class twenty minutes ago," said Professor McGonagall. "And none of her classmates recalled seeing her in the five minutes prior to that."

"But she was there until the end of her Herbology class this morning," interjected Professor Sprout.

"So it must have been sometime between an hour and half-an-hour ago," concluded Professor McGonagall, frowning. "Why, Severus?"

"Because just one hour ago," said Snape quietly, "Lena Lestrange left my classroom. And she didn't return."

The whole staff room went so quiet that Harry was worried the teachers would be able to hear his heart thudding in his chest. A sick feeling was starting to overwhelm him. What was Snape implying?

"Why," said Professor McGonagall icily, her voice barely above a whisper, "did you not inform me of her prolonged absence immediately?"

Snape opened his mouth to reply, but a female teacher whose name Harry didn't know beat him to it. "You can't blame Severus for not being concerned straight away when Lestrange didn't come back to class, Minerva," she said. "It's not something that's really out of the usual. Sometimes Lestrange doesn't turn up for class. And she's often not in the Great Hall at mealtimes."

"Perhaps it's just a coincidence, to have not been seen since the same time as young Miss Weasley," said Professor Flitwick anxiously.

"I don't believe it's a coincidence at all," said Snape darkly.

"You think she was also taken by the monster?" cried another teacher Harry didn't know.

"The message from the heir said 'Her skeleton', not 'Their skeletons'," said Professor McGonagall, looking at Snape with a troubled expression. "But that's not what you were saying, was it, Severus?"

"No," replied Snape. "What I'm saying is that Lena Lestrange just revealed herself to be the heir of Slytherin."

There were horrified gasps and sharp intakes of breath around the room, but Harry didn't really notice them. He had gone cold.

The girl who he had come to think of as a friend was the same person who he had spent the whole year trying to find. The same person who had been attempting to kill Muggle-borns.

He didn't want to believe it, but as memories of their conversations raced through his mind, everything was falling into place. Things she had said to him were taking on new meanings.

So, what's your next move?

She had been so eager to hear about his, Ron and Hermione's attempts to discover the heir's identity. Not because she had wanted to know, but because she'd wanted to know how much he knew.

Potter, my cousin might be a little shit, but he's not Slytherin's heir. He certainly doesn't have the drive or the patience to carry out these attacks. Or the competence.

She had said it in such a disgusted way; he'd just thought she was disappointed in his deductive skills. Now, he realised she had been insulted by the idea that Malfoy could be capable of what she was.

You're a Parselmouth... Obviously, I realised that you were giving the snake a command, and it obeyed, but everyone else had never heard Parseltongue before...

She had been so shocked to find out he was a Parselmouth. But not because he was a rarity – because she hadn't expected to encounter another like her. For surely if she was Slytherin's heir, she was a Parselmouth too.

It's supposed to be hereditary...

Harry's heart skipped a beat as another realisation struck.

It's not a well-known fact, but yes...

She had said Voldemort was the last known – albeit 'not well-known' – descendant of Slytherin. And if Lena thought that being a Parselmouth was hereditary...

Yes, I knew him.

Don't ask me to talk about it. About him.

Harry had assumed from the pain he had seen in Lena's eyes that the reason she didn't want to talk about Voldemort was simply that knowing someone as evil as him when she was just a young child had been a horrible and traumatising experience.

Because he once told me the same thing.

But from the little Lena had let slip, it didn't sound like Voldemort had just been her parents' boss. There had been more to it than that.

She wasn't afraid of him like everyone else – she called him by his name. The only person Harry knew other than himself who did that was Dumbledore. Even Lucius Malfoy, once a follower of Voldemort, called him the 'Dark Lord'.

Harry could only conclude one thing: Lena was Voldemort's daughter.

For the first time in his life, Harry felt truly betrayed. He had been certain there was something between him and Lena – a bond, a connection that he had never shared before. But it hadn't been real. She had just been manipulating him.

If all he had known about Lena were the stories that Percy had told him at the beginning of his First Year, then he would have suspected her from the moment that first message from the heir had appeared on Halloween. Ron and Hermione had suggested it. But after she had told them who Flamel was, after she had helped Harry find his way out of Knockturn Alley, Harry had been positive it wasn't her.

Because I thought it was the right thing to do.

It had been the right thing to do – the right way to avoid suspicion and carry out her plan.

Harry had never felt broken before – not even during the ten years the Dursleys had made him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. But now all he wanted to do was just curl up and stop fighting.

Desperately, he wished Dumbledore was still at Hogwarts. He'd know what to do.

At that moment, the staff room door banged opened again. For a wild moment, Harry thought his wish had been granted and it was Dumbledore, and that everything would be sorted out. Instead, it was Lockhart, and he was beaming.

"So sorry – dozed off – what have I missed?"

When Lena finally regained consciousness, the first thing she noticed was that she wasn't lying on carpet. Usually when she passed out, she woke up on the carpeted floor of her dormitory. But this time, it was stone.

The second thing she noticed – or rather, felt – was that her head hurt. A lot.

She winced as she slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. Blearily, she held her hands up in front of her and squinted. They were grazed and bleeding. Her whole body felt like it had been dragged around like a ragdoll.

"Oh good, you're awake. Finally."

Lena's head snapped to her right, from where the voice had come. Standing about ten metres away from her stood a boy. Or a young man. It was hard to tell; her vision was still blurry.

She shook her head slightly. No, it wasn't just her vision – the mystery boy's outline was blurred.

Lena quickly surveyed her surroundings. She was in a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. At the end of the chamber, only a few metres from where she was sitting, loomed an enormous statue. From other portraits she had seen, Lena recognised its likeness as that of the founder of her house.

Now, she knew where she was – the Chamber of Secrets.

"I was hoping you'd wake up soon, you've been out for hours." The hazy figure spoke again, drawing Lena's attention back to him. "It's really been quite dull – even when she was still conscious." He carelessly motioned towards something – no, someone – lying behind him. He shifted slightly, and Lena saw the bright red hair splayed out on the ground.

Everything that had happened that morning suddenly came flooding back to Lena, and she hurriedly scrambled to her feet. It was a move that was more difficult than she had anticipated, and she almost fell straight back down again. She was feeling very lightheaded. Her first thought was that she must have hit her head hard. But it was more than that – her whole body was weak. Perhaps it was the effect of whatever spell she'd been hit with back on the first-floor corridor...

Then something else occurred to her – when was the last time she had eaten anything? A quick glance down at her watch told her it was after nine p.m., which meant it had been at least over thirty hours.

Swaying slightly on her feet, Lena internally cursed her lack of regard for her well-being, and reached into her pocket for her wand.

But it wasn't in there.

"Oh, I took your wand as soon as I was solid enough to properly hold things," said the boy, holding something out in front of him. He appeared to be inspecting it. "I must say, it's really quite a work of art."

The distance between them, combined with the dim lighting of the chamber, meant that Lena couldn't see the boy's face clearly. But there was something familiar in his voice – a certain timbre, a pattern in the way it rose and fell.

She started to slowly walk towards him, hoping that her lack of speed would come off as a calm confidence, not a deliberate attempt to stay upright.

"Then it's a good thing I don't need a wand," she said quietly, her right palm flat. It took a couple of seconds longer than usual, but the familiar ball of blue flames appeared, allowing her to see around the Chamber more easily.

Her wand's captor was staring at the flames. "Well," he said softly, "I was afraid that you were going to be a disappointment. Now, I don't think I need to be concerned about that." He raised his gaze to Lena's face, his eyes meeting hers.

Lena was now only a few metres away from him and, with the light in her hand, was able to get a clearer look at the mystery boy.

He appeared to be about the same age as her, give or take a year. He was slightly taller than her, and slender, although not quite as skeletal as Lena. But like her, his skin was pale, which only served to make his raven black hair darker in its contrast.

However, it was his face that Lena couldn't tear her eyes from. Another person might have called it handsome, but the word that sprang to Lena's mind was beautiful, almost ethereally so. Lena had never been one to fixate on aesthetics, but even she found it impossible to ignore: unblemished by any of the usual marks that plagued teenagers, high cheekbones that could have been sculpted from marble, a mouth and nose so perfectly proportioned.

Then there were his eyes: dark, and intently staring into Lena's. And much like his voice, there was something in them that felt so familiar –a confidence, an intelligence, a curiosity.

A curiosity about Lena.

She froze, and for a moment the only sound she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her chest. The fire in her hand went out, but Lena barely noticed. It didn't matter – she'd seen everything she needed to.

"You're him," she whispered, telling herself that it couldn't possibly be him, but at the same time being certain of it.

He cocked his head, and although she couldn't see his eyes as clearly as before, she knew the curiosity within them had intensified. "You recognise me?" he asked, taking a step closer to her.

Not trusting herself to say anything else at that moment, Lena simply nodded.

Slowly, a smile formed on the face of the young Lord Voldemort – or Tom Riddle, as he would have been known at this age. "So you do know me – the older me, I mean," he said, still gazing at her with fascination. "In the future. My future. Ginny wasn't sure, she only knew that–"

"Ginny?" Lena's voice cracked slightly, but she had at least been able to formulate a whole word, a skill she'd been uncertain of possessing at present.

Riddle jerked his head towards the small, redheaded girl lying on the ground behind him, who Lena, caught up in the discovery of the boy's identity, had temporarily forgotten about. "Her," he said. "Ginny Weasley. She's been quite obsessed with you these past three months, trying to find out whatever she can about you. And what she did find out..." he paused, slowly running a finger up and down Lena's wand. "Well," he continued with a slight shrug, "you have me intrigued... Lena Lestrange." He said her name with such relish that it almost made Lena shiver.

She recalled the vacant expression Weasley had had before Lena had shut her eyes. "You've been Possessing her," she said. "The whole year."

"Yes," replied Riddle, taking the last few steps to close the distance between Lena and himself. Still, neither removed their gaze from the other.

"How?" asked Lena, barely daring to breathe now that she was in such close proximity to him.

Riddle smirked, an expression that to Lena was so familiar when it graced his older counterpart's face. "Do you mean how did I Possess her," he said softly, "or how am I here at all?"

"Are you here?" Lena blurted out. "I mean, really here? Because you don't..." she swallowed, trying to maintain at least a semblance of composure. "It's like you're here, but not really here," she said finally. "Like a reflection that's walked out of its mirror."

Instead of answering, Riddle simply stared at Lena. Then he slowly held his left hand up in front of him, spreading his fingertips a little. The outline was still blurred, but now less than a foot away from Lena, it looked solid.

Hesitantly, Lena raised her right hand, bringing it to only an inch away from Riddle's left. For a moment she held it there. Then she took a deep breath and closed the distance.

There was a sharp intake of breath from both of them when their hands met. To Lena, it wasn't like she was touching his hand – it was like she was touching his very being. His soul.

It wasn't a conscious decision she made, but somehow her fingers interlocked with Riddle's. And at that moment, there was only one thing she wanted to say to him.

"Hello."

The smile returned to Riddle's face, and Lena immediately recognised it as the one Voldemort used to give her when she had successfully completed a task. "Hello," he said too.

Emotions crashed over Lena like a tidal wave. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to throw her arms around him and never let go. At the same time, she wanted to scream at him, to hit him, to hate him. Then she pushed aside all the conflict that was raging within her to focus on her one certainty: that although this was Voldemort, he wasn't her Voldemort.

So instead of doing any of the things she wanted to, she reluctantly let go of Riddle's hand. "What are you?" she asked him.

"Memories, at present," he answered.

Lena frowned. "Your memories?"

"Of my sixteen year old self."

"From when you opened the Chamber fifty years ago?"

"Precisely," said Riddle. "Did you just figure out it was me, or did–"

"My grandmother told me. Years ago."

For a few seconds, Riddle appeared to think this over. At last, he nodded slowly, saying, "Irina Dolohov, I presume. You have her eyes."

Lena didn't acknowledge this – something else had occurred to her. "They were going to close Hogwarts back then, so you closed the Chamber. But you were worried about the possibility of the secret being lost forever. Somehow, you created another version of yourself from your memories..." she trailed off, confused. "But how? What magic is there that could possibly achieve something like that?"

There was an unmistakable arrogance in Riddle's demeanour now. "Impressed?" He smirked. "Well, I suppose I wasn't completely honest before, when you asked me what I was."

Lena folded her arms. "Go on."

"I was just memories," began Riddle, "recorded in a diary." Using Lena's wand, he pointed at the bottom of the statue. Lena hadn't noticed before that a small book lay there, open. "That was until last August, when I came into the possession of young Ginny. She started to write in me, you see." He smiled broadly. "Poured out her soul to me."

Looking over at the diary, the answer finally formulated for Lena.

It was like she was touching his soul.

"You're a Horcrux."

Riddle's eyes lit up. "Oh, you are good." He sounded pleased. "I was wondering if you'd figure it out."

"You said 'at present'," recalled Lena. "That means what? You're–" she struggled to find the right word, "– evolving?" Riddle opened his mouth to reply, but Lena had already arrived at the answer. "Ginny. You haven't just been Possessing her, you've been – been – absorbing her. Her life."

Riddle didn't just look pleased now – it was like he'd had a religious experience. He was staring at Lena with something between admiration and adoration.

"Incredible," he breathed.

"What is?" asked Lena, confused.

"You."

Lena desperately hoped she wasn't blushing. "I'm not–"

"But you are," insisted Riddle. "Don't you see?" He leaned in closer, and Lena could almost feel something akin to breath on her face. "Other people are so slow. But you and me? It's–"

"Like living in a world where everyone else is standing still."

Riddle gazed at Lena, enraptured. "Exactly," he whispered.

A lump was forming in Lena's throat. For over eleven years, she had longed for the opportunity to prove to Voldemort that she was every bit as clever and as powerful as she had promised to be when she was little. Now it was really happening – or at least, sort of.

In some ways, he was so alike her Voldemort. But there was so much this young version hadn't done yet, hadn't lived. So much he didn't know. He didn't even know her – as much as it felt like it.

"Why am I here?" asked Lena finally, taking a step back from Riddle. "There was no way you could have predicted I would turn up in the corridor at the time I did, so it can't have been part of your plan. I mean, you obviously couldn't have just left me there, but you could have tried Obliviating me, or putting me in a Body-Bind and stashing me somewhere. So why deviate from the plan at the last minute?"

Riddle's expression lost some of its intensity, becoming more thoughtful. "I was going to visit you," he said slowly. "After I'd... finished, with Ginny. That was always my intention, ever since she started writing about you."

Lena cut in. "Why did she start writing about me? Earlier you said she'd been obsessed with me recently."

A darkness flashed across Riddle's face so quickly that Lena almost missed it. Then he smiled again. But Lena could see a malevolence in his eyes that hadn't been there before. "Well," he replied softly, "here's the funny thing. Ginny has quite the crush on a boy named Harry Potter."

Although Lena's heart skipped a beat, she managed to retain a neutral expression under Riddle's pointed gaze.

"An infatuation, really," he continued. "So one day, three months ago, she saw him leaving the castle and decided to follow him at a distance as he crossed the castle grounds. And he wasn't alone. But to her surprise, he wasn't with either of his two best friends, but an older girl."

The memory of turning around to see a small figure watching her and Harry walk to the edge of the Forbidden Forest flashed in Lena's mind.

"Now, Ginny knew the girl's name, and that she was in Slytherin, but she didn't know much else. So she started asking around about her, and she found out some fascinating things." Suddenly, Riddle dropped the smile from his face. "But the one thing I'd really like to know about you right now, Lena, is what you were doing with Potter."

Lena remained calm, but tightened the protective barrier around her mind. She wasn't exactly sure how capable a Horcrux was of performing Legilimency, but she'd rather be safe than sorry. "I take it you're aware," she said levelly, "at least to some degree, of how your future is connected to his past."

The bitterness in Riddle's face was now unmistakeable. "Ginny filled me in, yes."

"And presumably, if Ginny is as infatuated with Potter as you say, she would have told you that Potter is a Parselmouth."

Clearly, Riddle had not been expecting her to say this. He raised his eyebrows, then frowned. "Yes. That was certainly... a surprise."

"It was a shock," agreed Lena. "The last time I'd heard anyone speak Parseltongue was you." This little titbit of information appeared to interest Riddle, but she kept going. "Well, I'm sure you can understand my curiosity in Potter after he revealed that particular... talent."

"I see," said Riddle after a long pause. "And I don't suppose you've found out how he possesses the ability?"

"Not yet," admitted Lena, allowing annoyance to creep into her voice. "Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much written on the subject of Parselmouths, or at least not in the Hogwarts Library." She decided to direct the conversation back to her previous question. "So what Ginny wrote about me intrigued you enough to want to meet me?"

Riddle chuckled. "I think it would be enough to intrigue anyone. But yes, I knew I had to meet you. And then I was making Ginny write that final message on the wall, and there you were."

"How did you know it was me?" inquired Lena.

"Although Ginny didn't have control over her mental faculties when I Possessed her, I had access to her memories," explained Riddle. "So I saw you, and, well..." he hesitated, before saying in an almost suggestive voice, "it was like fate had brought us together."

"What about the other you?" asked Lena.

Riddle frowned. "What do you mean?"

"What happens to the–" she stopped herself from saying 'the real you' just in time, "–the older you, the one I know from when I was younger? If you become a – a – a fully independent being, how will that affect him?"

Riddle took a step back and folded his arms. After a pause, he said, "From what Ginny's told me, there's not much of a him left to affect."

Lena had to admit he had a point. From what Harry had said, it sounded like there wasn't much more to Voldemort than there was to this fragment of his soul. Was it possible this version could become independent from the original?

Surely this was uncharted territory in the magical arts. Even if Lena disregarded her personal connection with Voldemort, what Riddle was trying to achieve was utterly fascinating. She had always been interested in the nature of magic itself, and this was something so new, so unheard of, that she desperately wanted to know what happened next.

Just as she thought this, the still body of Ginny came into focus for Lena again, and she remembered the price that would have to be paid.

As indifferently as she could, Lena walked over to where Ginny lay – very aware that her every movement was under close scrutiny from Riddle – and knelt down beside the girl. First, she felt Ginny's forehead. It was cold. Then she checked her pulse. It was weak.

There was no doubt about it – she was dying. Slowly, to be sure, but by Lena's estimation, the young Weasley had no more than an hour or two of life left in her.

Keeping her face hidden from Riddle, Lena bit her lip, unsure of how to proceed. Ginny was an innocent young girl – and probably quite a lonely one, if she had taken such comfort in confiding in Riddle's diary the past year. And that was something that Lena could understand all too well. It was unquestionably wrong, Lena knew, that Ginny should have to die to allow Riddle to live.

But the possibility of having him back... everything Voldemort had done for her as a child made it impossible for Lena to entirely discard the notion. And while this wasn't exactly the same man from her childhood...

'He had a chance,' thought Lena savagely, unconsciously clenching her fist. 'He had a whole year to just let me know he was in the same fucking castle as me, and he didn't.'

But sixteen-year-old Voldemort had taken the chance, and he hadn't even met her before. And the way he looked at her, talked to her – now Lena had him, she didn't want to let him go.

"What if there was another way to achieve this?" asked Lena, trying to keep her voice neutral. "A way for you to... to come to life fully, but without killing Ginny?"

She looked back around at Riddle, who had slightly narrowed his eyes. "Why do you care about what happens to her?" he said, the attempted nonchalance in his tone tainted by suspicion.

Because sacrificing the life of a Pure-blood for the benefit of a Half-blood like yourself is a direct contradiction to the ideology that you claim to fight for.

That's what Lena wanted to say. But she knew trying to reason with Riddle wouldn't save Ginny – it wasn't logic that motivated him, it was emotion.

So that was what she tried to appeal to. "If she dies, Hogwarts will close," said Lena matter-of-factly. "With immediate effect. Which means I won't be able to complete my final year here. And that's something I'd actually quite like to do, because I believe there's still more I can do here." She stood back up, wiping the grime from the stone floor off her hands. "That's why you closed the Chamber fifty years ago, isn't it? So Hogwarts didn't close."

As she walked back towards him, Riddle, the suspicion in his expression gone, appeared to be considering this, twirling Lena's wand in his hands.

Finally, he said, "What would you suggest, then?" His voice was quiet and calm, but his eyes were once again filled with curiosity.

"Let me take your diary," said Lena softly, barely managing to conceal her desperation. "And over the summer, I'll find a way. And when you're back, you can stay at the Lestrange Estate – it's mine now, no one else will be there–"

"But you don't actually know how to do it," interrupted Riddle.

"Not at this moment," said Lena quickly, "but I will. Just give me the opportunity to research, to experiment, and I will." She took a deep breath, and looked straight into Riddle's eyes with all the intensity she could muster. "I swear."

Riddle tilted his head, and took a step closer to her. The strength of his gaze matched hers as he asked, "Whatever it takes?"

"Whatever it takes," repeated Lena firmly.

"And if that means taking another's life?"

Lena moved closer to him, until their faces were merely inches from each other. "Are you asking if I'd kill for you?" she whispered.

There was silence for a few seconds as Riddle simply stared at her. Then he murmured, "What was I to you?"

Lena drew in a shaky breath. There were so many things she wanted to say, answers she wanted to give building at the tip of the tongue. But in the end, there was only one word she needed.

"Everything."

For a second, they were both completely still. Then Riddle slowly moved his hand towards Lena's face. He hesitated, before gently pushing back a lock of her hair. But instead of removing his hand after he'd done this, he lightly cupped her cheek.

The intimacy of the gesture made Lena shiver. Still, she didn't tear her eyes away from his, not even when she felt him rest his other hand on her waist.

And before she realised she was doing it, Lena lifted her right hand, and lightly pressed it against Riddle's chest, right over where his heart should have been. But there was no beat.

'He's not real,' Lena told herself. 'Not alive, not truly. Not yet, anyway.'

But he could be. And soon.

Riddle was the first one to break their eye contact when he glanced down at Lena's lips. Almost imperceptibly, he began to close the distance between them.

I wish you were my father.

Lena froze as the memory of her last words to Voldemort – the real Voldemort – surfaced in her mind.

'This is wrong,' thought Lena desperately. But she said nothing aloud. She didn't move.

At that moment, all she wanted was to be close to him. In any way he would let her.

His lips were little more than an inch away from hers when the sound of footsteps began to echo around the Chamber.

Almost in synchronisation, Lena and Riddle's heads snapped in the direction of the Chamber's entrance.

"An interesting proposal," murmured Riddle, and Lena looked back at him. "But too late, I'm afraid."

Lena felt her pulse quicken. "You know who it is?" she asked him in a low voice.

"I can make a confident prediction," he replied, before taking a step back from Lena. "I'm very curious to see how he responds to seeing you here. In fact, I wouldn't want to intrude. At least, not at this point."

He smirked, then, without warning, disappeared.

Lena's eyes widened in surprise, but before she could fully register what had happened, the sound of footsteps came to an abrupt stop. Standing between the last set of pillars was Harry.