It was a gloomy day. Ginny Weasley was having a particularly hard time focusing on muggle studies. They were being lectured about how peanut butter was made, and it was uncommonly dull. Every now and then Ginny would glance to her side to get a glimpse of the girl near the window.
It was Nadalie Hallownore, the only known Slytherin to take muggle studies.
Hallownore seemed to be the only one interested in the lesson, with her however, looks can be deceiving. Though, it wasn't her unnatural enthusiasm for peanut butter production that brought Ginny's gaze back to her so many times, it was the rumors.
Ginny had heard it many times before, since her first year. Everyone seemed convinced that Hallownore was a monster disguised as a student, and had been there to gobble them up in their sleep. It didn't help that Hallownore always played along with it all.
Ginny looked too long. Hallownore had peered back.
Everyone knew you were doomed if you met Hallownore's void-like eyes, and Ginny had accidentally met them. She could feel the pull, as if she was falling into them. The pale girl's toad-grin made itself known. All Ginny could do was manifest horror onto her face and pray her soul would be safe.
Hallownore giggled faintly, then looked down at her desk and scribbled something with her quill. Ginny didn't waste the opportunity, she averted her eyes as far from Hallownore as she could. After Hallownore's quill stopped she gasped disappointedly, but nothing more came out of her.
The Weasley girl's skin filled with blood and labored breaths beat at her ribs. She'd survived, for now. As she recovered, Ginny recalled when she'd first heard people talk about Hallownore's evil nature. It was Luna Lovegood who'd told everyone back in first year, suggesting that Hallownore was responsible for the attack on Filch's cat.
She'd said, "My father said they were real, and nobody believed him. She's a graveyard ghoul. They're worse than the normal kind, much worse. They have human blood, and they eat people. She'll probably kill us all before the year's end."
Nobody had believed Lovegood more than during those trying times. Of course, being the true perpetrator, Ginny had known of Hallownore's innocence. However, Ginny couldn't help but assume some truth about Hallownore's nature, it was all just too fitting.
When the class had ended Ginny was the first to rush out the door. She wasn't fast enough. A pale hand clasped her shoulder from behind and a cheek pressed against her ear.
"Haaa…" Hallownore sighed.
Ginny's skin had never developed goosebumps so fast as then. She stood there frozen under a spell of fear. Hallownore's free hand eased around her with a folded paper clutched in her hand. She placed it into Ginny's hand and folded her fingers closed around it.
Ginny blinked, and Hallownore was gone, disappeared into a shadow somewhere. The note in Ginny's hand felt as cursed as Tom Riddle's diary. Against her better judgment, she opened it up and read the contents. It was one sentence long.
"Creevey is a peanut head," it read.
Ginny shivered. There wasn't much that she remembered from the lesson, but she did remember one thing; peanuts being mashed into paste. A sudden image of Hallownore crushing the head of her fellow Gryffindor Colin Creevey flashed in her mind.
When Ginny had returned to the Gryffindor common room, she took Creevey aside and showed him the note. He went pale. He didn't need Ginny to tell him it was from Hallownore, he knew. He'd had a letter like that before.
"I've-gotta-protect-him," Creevey said in a panic.
"Who?" Ginny asked, but Creevey was already rushing off to his room.
A minute later Creevey came back down and ushered Ginny over into a corner. He looked nervous and paranoid, checking for any lingering eyes. Ginny got close, she noticed he was holding something in his hand covered by the other. When he revealed what he was hiding, Ginny gasped.
"Shh!" he hushed her.
Inside Creevey's hand was an animated mini-figurine of Harry Potter. It resembled Harry during the triwizard tournament, likely a souvenir from the event. Creevey then whispered to Ginny.
"Last year she kept stealing him. I was going mad without him," he said.
"Well you," Ginny started, but she was urged to lower her voice to his level. "Well, you got him back at least."
"Yeah, and every time I found him he was naked. I've had to order five replacement clothes –not cheap on a limited figure like this one."
Ginny stared at the Harry Potter figurine with wide eyes. "Is he… Is he sculpted down there?"
"Course…" Creevey stopped his reply. His face got hot enough for Ginny to feel. "...not. Point is, she just wanted Harry Potter to find him all nudey and think I'm some stalker pervert."
Ginny said nothing.
"Well, anyway. That'll be the least of our worries," Creevey said.
Ginny nodded respectfully.
Creevey took another look around the room to make sure nobody was watching, then leaned in really close to Ginny before speaking again.
"I've heard a lot of people are fed up with her, not just us Gryffindors. Even Slytherins are starting to get nasty around her. She deserves it though, being a flesh eating ghoul and all."
Something about what he'd said didn't sit right with her. It sounded like what people said about Hagrid after he was ousted as part giant. Ginny thought that while Hallownore might have been a monster, unless she'd actually eaten anybody, she wasn't a criminal.
"Well, nobody's seen her kill anything, have they?"
Creevey looked away. There was apprehension brewing about him, but then he spoke what was on his mind.
"I heard a story from your brothers, Fred and George. They asked that I not tell you, but it's important."
Ginny focused in. If Fred and George thought it was serious enough to hide from her, then that alone was enough to peak her interest.
Creevey began to tell her nervously. "Hallownore once came up to them, said she wanted to get involved with their inventions."
Creevey placed his fist over his mouth as if holding back nausea, then he mustered the courage to finish.
"She showed them a cat stuck in a circle of itself, eating its own body endlessly from the tail. Kittyboros, she called it. Put it on the door like a reef. Fred and George were so utterly stunned that their grins froze in place with their bodies. They spent the next few days making sure everyone still had their pets."
Ginny covered her mouth at the grotesque description. Hallownore's toad-grin flashed in her mind like a waking nightmare. Tears ran down Ginny's face and a mixture of fear and fury made itself present on her.
"Kill her!" she said harshly through her palm, a little too loud. A few curious eyes landed on her.
Ginny went to her bed after that and didn't say a word to anybody. Creevey kept silent as well, glaring with distrust at those who asked and kept his hands hidden beneath his robe.
The next day Ginny had made up her mind. As soon as she had a free period she tracked down Luna Lovegood.
"Hallownore, Luna. How do we prove she's dangerous?" Ginny said. Creevey apparently had the same idea, because he'd already been there when Ginny arrived.
"Ah, the graveyard ghoul. You're interested again? Is it perhaps because of those rumors floating around?"
Neither Ginny nor Creevey replied. It felt wrong to say it was true.
"That's alright. I'd been feeling like she was getting worse, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed." Lovegood said calmly.
"So what do we do about it," Creevey said impatiently.
"Nothing, for now. Unless you want to risk being her next meal," said Lovegood. "Keep an eye on her, but try not to meet hers. I'll continue doing the same."
Hearing the warning again made Ginny's heart pound. Hallownore's eyes haunted her thoughts. There was a lingering fear that their brief visual exchange had been enough to curse her. She couldn't just sit and wait, not after being targeted. Now was the time to be proactive. Hallownore had to disappear, before she could make Ginny vanish.
By that afternoon Ginny's mind had delved deeper into conspiracy. She was noticeably bothered during quidditch practice, and Potter had grown anxious. When Potter waved his hand over Ginny's face she jumped.
"Get it together Weasley," said Potter.
"Yeah, get a grip Weasley," repeated her brother Ron Weasley with a snarl.
She looked them both over and weighed telling them that Hallownore had eyed her.
"H-Hallownore," she started, but shook her head, having changed her mind.
She wouldn't want them to worry. She vanished her anxiousness, though right as she was about to smile and say it was nothing, that moaning sigh came from behind.
"Haaaaa…"
All eyes turned to the ghoulish girl. She had a broomstick in hand and goggles on her forehead. Some poor Slytherin's stolen quidditch uniform was loosely thrown over her and that toad-grin stretched across her face.
Hallownore's voice became sore and strained, the telltale that she was about to mimic Voldemort. "Harry Potter… ...I've heard you're quite the dweeb of a quidditch player. I, on the other hand, am second to none… haaaaa… Challenge me, Potter. If you're not too cowardly. Ha, ha, ha."
It was a terrible laugh, as if made by someone who'd never done so before.
"Go diddle a door knob," said Ron as rudely as he could.
Harry Potter on the other hand, was flaring his nostrils and marching up to the girl. Just hearing her name out of Ginny's mouth was enough to make him aggressive. Hallownore quivered slightly, but maintained her wicked grin. Potter raised his hand, a golden snitch was between his fingers.
"I'm about one second away from shoving this down your throat," said Potter, but by the time he'd finished she'd snatched it from his hands.
"Heh…" she cackled, then darted off with her broom between her legs.
A blood vessel pulsated on Potter's forehead. A moment later he was chasing her down like a troll. The silent girl was too quick on her feet to be caught. She circled him with the snitch held out in front of her, and she continued laughing badly.
Potter had enough. The broom in his hand swung between his legs and he kicked off and into the air. Hallownore stopped, a hint of worry battled her smile. Potter looked like a bull ready to charge, a bullet ready to kill. Hallownore turned away and sprinted with all her speed. It wouldn't be enough to save her.
Luckily she wasn't his target, the golden snitch was all he desired. Potter's broom launched with the boom of a rocket and came upon her in an instant. The girl made one last maneuver to defy Harry's hands. She pulled the snitch down and thrust her broom into Potter's face. It struck him, and with him moving at such a tremendous speed it knocked him into the ground.
"Foul, that's a foul you scaly bastard!" Potter spat angrily, seemingly too immersed in the girl's role play to remember she wasn't Voldemort.
Hallownore back-peddled away from Potter. "What?" she said sorely with her hands splayed in false innocence. "Dunno what you mean. Didn't do a thing."
The girl turned to everyone and she shrugged her shoulders as if anyone would buy her story. Nearest to her was Ginny, and she was furious. Every moment the toad girl spent acting like she hadn't hit her beloved Harry Potter boiled her further. Everything that she'd experienced over the last day came rushing at her at once. It welled within her, turning into an urge for violence.
Whack!
Hallownore fell to the ground. In Ginny's hand was the nearest beater's bat she could get her a hold of. There was a small stain of blood on it. Hallownore clutched her head and groaned a bit, but Ginny wasn't finished. She turned the girl over onto her back with the bat and stared her down.
The goggles on Hallownore's head had cracked and they left a cut above her brow. She looked back at Ginny fearfully. Her elbows dug into the grass and tried to pull the rest of her out of reach.
Whack!
Hallownore fell flat again. This time Ginny mounted her to prevent an escape.
Ginny lost any will to restrain herself. She wanted to kill Hallownore. Everyone else, Harry included, winced with each strike that Ginny dealt. Ron was mortified, imagining himself in Hallownore's place. Nobody dared say anything, fearing her wrath would fall upon them if they had.
Hallownore shivered and whined with blood and tears. Another hit came that made the girl yell in pain. One of Hallownore's hands rattled in front of Ginny pleadingly, begging for her to stop, but Ginny had no mercy.
"You bloody cat killer!" Ginny shouted, and with both hands clasping the bat she made one last strike.
Whack! Hallownore went limp.
The moment of rage had lifted. Now there was only confusion. Ginny stared at Hallownore's motionless body and tried to contemplate what she'd done. When she saw the bloody bat in her hands she squealed. It fell to the ground and Ginny leapt away. The same feeling of dread fell over her as she'd had during much of her first year. Nervous eyes fell upon Ginny. She met each of them one by one. Ron Weasley had moved so far back that she could barely make out the pale horror on his face.
"Oh hey, she's alive," came Potter's voice. He had his hand on Hallownore's neck. "Better take her to Madam Pomfrey, Ginny."
Ginny snapped her head at Potter with alarm.
Potter squeaked nervously, "-You know, so you can explain… the 'accident'. That she…"
"-Fell down some stairs," said a member of the Gryffindor quidditch team, and everyone nodded nervously in agreement.
Ginny was pale and panicked. One look at her robes, and she could tell there was no way to explain the blood that covered her.
"It's alright. D-Don't worry," Potter said softly. "She's just a slimy Slytherin. It's not like you bloodied someone who matters." He gave a weak smile and chuckled anxiously.
Potter's eyes seemed to signify he was attempting to lessen the gravity that Ginny felt weighing her, so she did her best to act as if it had worked. She hoisted Hallownore into her arms and made her way to the hospital wing.
When she'd told the hole-filled story to Madam Pomfrey, the matron accepted it without question.
"Yes, well, whatever. Just make sure the privacy curtain is drawn. She might still be a danger-" Pomfrey stopped herself. She put her hand on her lips and hurried away. She looked embarrassed.
Ginny realized the rumors might have traveled further than just the students. Perhaps even the staff considered Hallownore might want to eat them. The Weasley girl decided to stay for a bit, as it didn't seem like Madam Pomfrey would be keeping much attention on Hallownore's vitals. It all made Ginny feel a bit guilty, having been the person to put her life in jeopardy.
Ginny ended up taking care of Hallownore's wounds, washing and bandaging them. The ghoulish girl didn't seem at all scary in that state. Ginny thought perhaps it was easier to look at her when her eyes were closed. In that bed she couldn't hurt anything, not like how Ginny had hurt her.
Before she knew it, an hour had passed. As Ginny feared, Madam Pomfrey never returned. She was about to get up to leave, but the curtain opened first. Another Slytherin girl stood there, one that Ginny recognized.
"Oh, Gwendolyn. Why are you here?" Ginny asked.
The girl blinked a surprised expression onto her face and took a seat beside Ginny. "To take care of my sister, of course."
Ginny's eyes widened. She'd forgotten all about the relationship between those two. Gwendolyn Hallownore just didn't give off the same energy as her evil looking sister. Most simply saw Gwendolyn as a normal girl from a normal wizarding family, completely disregarding the Hallownore name from her. When you put them side by side it was obvious, though every detail shined differently on her.
Students would call her skin doll-like, rather than ghastly. Her eyes were charming dots rather than voids. Even her long clumpy hair felt right on her, rather than wild. It was likely the other things, things that set them apart, that made Gwendolyn fit in so naturally where Nadalie stood out.
"She's always getting into trouble, isn't she," said Gwendolyn Hallownore. Then she pulled out a jar and unscrewed the lid.
Her voice was soothing and gentle, and her concern looked genuine. Cut by cut she lifted the bandages and lathered the contents of the jar over the wounds.
"I've had to do this so many times. Last year was particularly rough on her. Poor girl's destined for the noose, I'm afraid," Gwendolyn said casually.
Then she kissed her sister's cheek.
Ginny spoke up after that. "You're a good sister, Gwendolyn. You deserve better than her."
Gwendolyn closed her eyes and dropped her head down. Ginny rubbed her shoulder understandingly.
"It's not her fault. It's just her nature," Gwendolyn said weakly. "This is what Hallownore girls really are. Viscous, playfully cruel, and without a hint of moral judgment. I've tried so hard to distance myself from all of that."
Gwendolyn pressed her hands against her face and began to weep. Seeing such a sweet girl cry made Ginny's hatred for the one in bed deepen. Ginny thought, if Gwendolyn could do better than to become a monster then Nadalie had no excuse. Ginny wished Nadalie would be cast out of the school like the spider she was, sent to Azkaban if need be.
Gwendolyn's wet hand fell on Ginny's, bringing the Weasley's attention back to her.
"I've tried to love her, but I can't ignore the truth. I don't care if Dumbledore's too scared to expel her, we have to make him see reason before somebody dies," Gwendolyn said quietly.
Ginny nodded, then wrapped her hand around Gwendolyn's to hold it.
"Do you think she would? Eat someone, I mean," Ginny asked nervously.
Gwendolyn's eyes widened with surprise. She flicked her eyes at Ginny and back to Nadalie.
"So, you've heard the rumors. I won't deny that the Hallownore's practice some odd things. I'll just say that among us, Nadalie's a particularly… inhuman girl," Gwendolyn said, just as nervously as Ginny.
Ginny understood that it was a difficult topic for Gwendolyn. She was probably such a good sister that she wouldn't rat her out so easily, even one so wicked as her. Worried that she'd upset Gwen, Ginny said her goodbye and took her leave. The curtain closed and Ginny's footsteps faded.
As soon as things were quiet, Nadalie opened her eyes. The little black dots beneath her lids met Gwendolyn's. Neither girl looked happy to see the other. The softness that Gwendolyn had shown Ginny turned into deathly cold scorn. Nadalie's white face was meeker, but just as menacing.
"Trying to make friends again, Nana?" Gwendolyn said harshly, then she pulled a paper out of her sleeve. It was the one given to Ginny that called Creevey a peanut head.
Nadalie didn't say a word. She rolled away and buried her furrowed brow beneath her sheets. Gwendolyn moved to sit on the bed and she placed a cold hand on Nadalie's shoulder.
Gwendolyn went on. "When will you understand? You don't belong here. These people will never like you –I don't like you."
Nadalie closed herself off more by curling into a ball. Gwendolyn denied her security, slithering herself over the girl like Voldemort's snake. Within those white curtains their roles were reversed. Only in the safety of solitude did Gwendolyn reveal the Hallownore nature she held within.
Gwendolyn's white hand moved beneath the sheets and clasped Nadalie's wand from her clothes. She drew it out so both of them could see it. It was a cherry wand with a dragon heartstring core. Gwendolyn twirled it around in her fingers longingly while whispering in her sister's ear.
"You never could do well with it. Maudie shouldn't have given it to you, wasn't hers to give."
Gwendolyn flicked the wand and silently cast a spell on her sister's cheek. The girl winced with pain and Gwendolyn trembled with pleasure. She hadn't been able to harm her since summer break, and she longed for it like nothing else.
"It likes me so much more, does what I want. Don't you feel bad keeping it for yourself? Selfish, greedy. You'd only have to die and it'd be mine."
Nadalie pulled out a piercing gaze from over her shoulder.
"Come now, I wouldn't kill you. I'd get in trouble, Nana. Mother would Hang me."
Gwendolyn returned the wand beneath the covers and pressed it into Nadalie's hand. She gave her sister another kiss, then kicked her shoes off to join her for the night. The way she cuddled close contrasted with her words; it was oddly affectionate. She said one more thing before closing her eyes.
"The others, though. Can't predict what they'll do, what they'll fear. Madness can make a killer out of anyone."
Nadalie's last thoughts were of Ginny Weasley. The memory of her standing over her burned in her mind. The hatred on Ginny's face haunted Hallownore like few things had. She wondered if that was what Malfoy, Potter, and everyone else wore beneath their fear, if they were all one bad day away from killing Hallownore.