Evelyn had only been awake for a few hours but she was already ready for Halloween to be over. The sky was gloomy. Students were happily chatting about parties happening later in the evening. Pumpkins hung from the ceiling, their happy faces taunting her from where she miserably sat below.

She stirred her porridge with a sour expression on her face. She didn't want to eat it. She didn't want to eat anything. Her last meal was when Mattheo ate lunch with her. The boy seemed worried about her habits but she lied and said that she ate in between her classes. For some reason unbeknownst to her, she didn't want him to tell Tom. He probably didn't care anyway. Making sure that a seventh-year was eating three meals a day probably wasn't part of his commitment to take care of her, a commitment he only made because a brusque professor cornered him in a hallway while he was healing her broken rib.

But then why did he heal it? Probably all part of the act. It always was. Pretend to care about the girl with no parents, pretend to notice her in the back of the room, pretend that she mattered.

The only one that wasn't pretending? Mattheo. Ever since she had agreed to be his "family", he had hardly left her alone. Between listening to him tell her all about his friends—a group of pureblood Slytherins who were headcases by themselves—hearing him complain about his homework (apparently one assignment was one too many), and eating meals with him in the Great Hall, she hardly had any time for herself. Evelyn rarely spoke back to him but he didn't seem to care; it was like watching him talk to a brick wall. A wary yet bemused brick wall. Still, it meant that her routine—the thing helping her forget about the way Tom Riddle confused the life out of her—was disrupted by chocolate brown curls and a wicked grin. Her book—the one about a vampire stealing a woman to be his bride—sat mostly untouched by her bedside. Mattheo had even infiltrated her time in the library.

At first, she thought the boy was scared of his brother, constantly being with her once she allowed it—because, apparently, she was "almost as terrifying as Tom" with "a sense of darkness just like him", whatever that meant. It seemed that he and his friends were too scared to approach her because they thought she would hex them. To be fair, she might have once the shock wore off. The only thing that saved him from her telling him to beat it at first was just the fact that he called himself her cousin. Now... blimey, did she really like him now?

Evelyn had a feeling that the elder Riddle didn't ask Mattheo to spend every waking moment with her. The boy chose to be with her, treating her like the family she never knew she had. It was nice. It felt almost... normal.

Except today, Mattheo was nowhere to be seen. She wasn't surprised—he told her several days ago that he would be spending the holiday with his friends—yet she found that she was strangely disappointed.

Merlin, my only companion is a thirteen-year-old. A chatty, somewhat obnoxious thirteen-year-old who was impossible not to like. Well, impossible for everyone but Nora Rosier, whom Evelyn heard a lot about.

Now, she sat alone at the breakfast table, pushing around a bowl of pathetic-looking porridge while she waited for the day to be over.

Evelyn hated Halloween. It wasn't that the holiday was necessarily bad—she wouldn't know, she'd never celebrated it—but it did bring up bad memories of a young girl at the tender age of six learning how awful her existence was.

She was sitting in the drawing room while she waited for her grandmother to come and get her. It was Halloween, the night the Blacks held a ball for all of the other pureblood families. This was the first Halloween since Voldemort's demise, a reason to celebrate with lavish food and wine and adults who got too handsy with each other. Sometimes, they would find a muggle to torture, telling them that witches were real and that they must pay the price for their mockery. They always obliviated the victim after, though even a memory charm couldn't erase scars.

Evelyn sat in a pretty black dress with white lace around the edges and a black ribbon tied around her neck, her hair in an updo done by Kreacher. It looked horrible but she didn't know that. At age six, a girl doesn't know ugliness. She just knows how wonderful it is to put on a dress and feel pretty.

Her grandmother's eyes turned sharp the moment she walked into the ballroom. She laughed it off with her friends and told Evelyn to wait in the drawing room. Evelyn waited for hours, first listening to the music, then the sounds of laughter and toasting glasses, and finally the sound of people saying goodbye and leaving. The whole time, she waited and waited for the minute her grandmother came and she was finally allowed to rejoin the party. She was excited. She was happy. She was naive.

Evelyn loved Halloween. The costumes, the music, the pumpkins, the cinnamon treats that Kreacher made, the macabre atmosphere. She felt at home on the dark holiday. She didn't quite know yet that she didn't have a home.

When her grandmother entered the room, she was clutching the beater's club with a firm grip that almost snapped it. Evelyn's eyes widened, though she didn't move. At this point in time, she had no reason to fear. "Grandmother—"

She heard the slap before she felt it. Her face was so small, her body so malnourished. It bled instantly. It was the first time her grandmother hit her. Or perhaps it was the first time she remembered it. Knowing her grandmother, it was probably the latter. Evelyn remembered seeing many deep bruises on her body as a child; her mind must have blocked out the way she got them.

"You just couldn't keep your little rat nose out of things!" she hissed before slapping her again. This one didn't hurt as badly. She was already used to it. "It was a lovely party before you showed up!"

"I'm sorry." She had not yet learned to be quiet. "I wanted to meet everyone and—"

"MEET everyone?!" she shrilled. Her hand clutched the club even tighter. "You aren't even supposed to exist! You're a sorry replacement for your father—my precious Regulus would be even more disappointed in you than I am!"

Her breath hitched at the mention of her father. Surely that wasn't true. Surely all fathers loved their daughters. Surely it was just a lie, something said in anger that had no merit.

But that dream was shattered when Evelyn realized that grandparents were supposed to love their grandchildren too. Not give them marks that could never fully heal.

"Thanks to you, everyone now knows about the child that we have worked so hard to keep hidden!" Another slap, this time on the other cheek. "You were supposed to be a secret!" Slap. "You're a scandal!" Slap. "You should have died!"

This time when her grandmother hit her, it was with the club. Right in the spot she loved to strike. Her lower left rib. It left Evelyn breathless, the wind gone with the strike. That didn't stop the woman from hitting her again just to be sure.

Her grandmother hardened, straightening her spine and flashing her cold, grey eyes. They looked like bars of steel. "I will make sure you never forget your place in this house."

When Evelyn finally reached the safety of her bedroom, her rib was broken, her eye was swollen, and her heart hurt more than any of the injuries combined. Kreacher tried to fix the pain and, for the most part, he did. He fixed all of it except for the pain of realizing how completely alone she was. Even he couldn't speak to her or he would get worse treatment.

Evelyn didn't leave her bedroom for eight days. The house elf brought her scraps of food until she was well enough to walk again and even then, she was far too afraid to cross the threshold. She was starving, she was battered, and she was frightened.

Every year after that, her grandmother made good on her promise. She starved Evelyn in the days leading up to Halloween, withholding her meals and making sure there were no scraps for Kreacher to give. Then, on Halloween night, she would walk into the room with the club and hit her until her body gave up. It was the worst abuse she had ever suffered at the hands of the woman. Honestly, her mind forgot most of it, throwing out every strike, every curse, every angry fist. But the fear stayed. The trauma lingered.

Neither of them had ever really left her.

Evelyn's first year at Hogwarts, she was terrified the woman would appear in her dormitory. She ended up staying awake all night, watching the doorway with a shuddering heart. After her fourth year, she finally learned that her grandmother wasn't coming. Halloween was safe again.

But that didn't mean she ever loved it. Even now, she refused to eat. Call it habit or call it paranoia that her grandmother would hear that she'd been eating in the days leading up to the holiday. She would spend most of the night locked in her room, going insane with visions of her past that haunted her like the memories were freshly made last night. She knew her classmates spoke of the weird girl who went crazy on Halloween night, of the woman who refused to attend a party if it was even remotely close to October 31st. But she didn't care. She had long stopped caring about them when she realized that no one would ever care about her.

Finally realizing that she would never eat it, Evelyn pushed away the porridge and began to stand up. Her stomach was so torn up in knots that she wouldn't be able to do anything else but lay in her bed and wait for the nightmares to recede again.

Cheeks stinging. "Hey, Evie, where ya going? Why are you in such a hurry?" Mattheo's voice was coming from behind her but it sounded like he was in a tunnel, far and only getting further.

Stomach aching. "Evie, are you okay?"

Ears ringing. "Are you about to cry?"

Tears burning. "Evelyn?! Oh shit, hold on—I'll go get someone."

Head throbbing. "Hey, Matt— Woah. What's going on here?"

Side pulsing. "Astoria, Daphne, oh thank Merlin, someone competent. Can you watch her and make sure that she doesn't die or something? I'm gonna write Tom and tell him to get his vampire ass back here."

Memories fading. "She's not going to die, Mattheo, she's in shock. Just help me get her to her bedroom and she can sleep it off."

Never leaving.

Everything left her. Her father. Her mother. Her grandparents. Her home. Her family. Her dreams. Her friends. Her hope. Even Tom. Everything left Evelyn.

Everything left but the memories.

. . .

It was dark now. Evelyn didn't know what time it was. She spent the rest of the day lying in bed, waiting for this bloody holiday to be gone. Her arms wrapped instinctively around her side and she lay curled in a ball on her soft bed in her empty room because no one wanted to room with the sad, weird girl. No one wanted to hear her whimpers as she fought back nightmares that she never asked to have. No one wanted to listen to her cry every October 31st because of her crippling fear of a woman whose hands hurt her beyond healing. No one wanted her.

Mattheo and two girls she didn't know helped her up to her dorm and left her on the bed with a glass of water she wouldn't drink and an apple she wouldn't eat. Evelyn vaguely remembered taking a bath and sitting in the cold water. She didn't like hot baths—didn't like the hot at all, really—just the cold. She stayed there until her waves were straight across the water like black vines and her skin pruney and hard.

Pruney skin was better than purple skin.

When her hair was wet, it reached her bottom. Evelyn scrunched the strands until they were loose waves below her waist. As they dried, they would shrink up to her waist. It was heavy but not too heavy, curly but not very curly, more wavy like her father's. Pretty, like his. Because no matter what her grandmother said, she could never deny the resemblance between the father and daughter. Both beautiful. Both sad. Both not meant to be a part of this world.

She sighed. Perhaps it was her last Halloween. It would be nice, she supposed, to not live in this fear anymore. To not be afraid of every hand that reached towards her, to know the soft embrace of death more than the hard grip of life. Death, Evelyn thought, would be much like lying on a soft bed after a long day. Dark, cold but not too cold, and gentle, like a warm caress. Finally, her body and mind would say. I can rest.

Evelyn dressed in a black nightgown and crawled on top of her bed, not getting under the covers. She would never lay underneath the confines of a blanket, not Halloween. She wasn't sure she would ever be able to relax on October 31st, not until either she or her grandmother were six feet underground. Only then could she feel safe. For now, while Walburga still lived, she would sit on top of the bed every Halloween and always be prepared to run.

Except for on this night, everything changed. Everything became different.

She should have known that this Halloween was not like the others when she fell asleep. Evelyn rarely fell asleep, usually spending most of the night plagued by nightmares that would probably never go away, fueled by clouds of trauma that repeated itself when she woke. But tonight, Evelyn slept. She didn't dream of past Halloweens or of her grandmother.

She dreamed of him.

She dreamed of a swift man wearing a black cloak that covered his entire body and face. She dreamed of him sauntering into the castle and taking her to a room she didn't recognize, a room with towering pillars made of marble and wood and the giant statue of a man she didn't know. She dreamed of cold touches, of aching burns in her body, of the sound of screams that weren't fearful. She dreamed of dark curls and even darker eyes, of a soft mouth that whispered her name.

"Evelyn. Awake."

Her eyes opened automatically. She looked around the room to find it empty, everything untouched. The voice she heard wasn't there, just another figment of her imagination.

And yet it felt real.

She knew it wasn't. Well, a part of her inside knew that it wasn't but that wasn't the part that controlled her body. As Evelyn looked away and made note of her surroundings, she realized that something felt off. It was as if a thick cloud oversaw her mind and her muscles had also fallen victim to this fog. She felt controlled, puppeteered by a voice she was sure she hallucinated.

The hallways were quiet. Even on Halloween, that was rare. It must have been the middle of the night after all the parties were done and the other students were too drunk to be awake. Even Filch would be asleep in his bed, dreaming of his cat or punishing students or whatever it was that Filch dreamed of.

Evelyn grabbed onto her loose waves and pulled them. Hard. Pain. She was awake. So why did it feel like she was still asleep? What was going on? Why did she not feel afraid? Why was she not remembering years of painful memories? Why was the voice the only thing she could think about? Evelyn, it had said as if it were standing right next to her.

"Evelyn." There it was again. She stood and looked around the room but still, it was empty. What... what was she doing? What day was it? Why was she standing? Thoughts ebbed and flowed through her mind but she couldn't grab onto any of them. It felt like someone was controlling her, looking through her mind to the dark and empty room, taking away her ability to rationalize and remember in the process. Why was she wearing a nightgown? Why did her stomach hurt? Why—

"Come." It was the voice. It sounded like a soothing caress, soft and deep. It whispered into the depths of her mind, pulling at her soul in a way she couldn't explain. Suddenly, Evelyn's mind emptied of anything but the voice. It controlled her every thought, dragging her closer and closer until she could hear its tendrils of darkness again. "Come."

Suddenly, listening to that voice felt like the most important thing in the world. Nothing else mattered but the rich sound in her mind that told her what to do. No one was there; the room was empty. Somehow, the voice was inside of her. But the fog on her brain was too thick for her to question it, too thick for her to do anything but listen.

She grabbed a thin peignoir—a flowing, translucent robe falling to her mid-thigh that matched the thin, satin nightgown she had on underneath. Evelyn tied it loosely, her fingers numbly acting on instinct.

Then, she walked over to the door. But when she reached out to the handle, she hesitated. Should she really leave to the safety of her bedroom? Should she truly follow a voice that was completely inside her head?

"Come," the voice cooed in a soft whisper that echoed through her mind. "Come to me, Little Dove."

So she did.

Evelyn descended the dungeon stairs leading to the boys' dormitories in a trance. Her fingers ran over the cold stone but it didn't feel like her fingers. It felt like a phantom gripping her mind with its talons but for some reason, she didn't fight it. She wanted to listen to it. In a way, this mysterious voice felt more like herself than she did.

Slowly, she walked. Step after step, each one slower than the last. Part of her felt like she was walking to somewhere very dangerous and another part of her knew that the danger would somehow protect her.

"That's it, Evelyn. Come to me. Come to me."

Before long, she reached a rich mahogany door in the farthest corner of the hallway. Her hand reached up to touch the wood but it disappeared before she could touch it and she was pulled into the dark room by a force she couldn't quite explain. Almost as if something pulled on the strings in her soul and brought her to the center of a room that felt vaguely familiar, like she had been there in a dream.

Evelyn gasped when the barest whisper of a cold hand caressed her jaw in the tenderest of ways. She heard the smile in his voice when he whispered.

"Hello, darling."

Okay, is it just me or were you guys getting Phantom of the Opera vibes from this chapter? Ahhhhh I've been wanting this scene to happen ever since I thought of the book. Hopefully you all like it as much as I hope. I just feel such a deep connection to this story.