"Sweet, why have I never spent the night here with Leonora before?"

Harper yawns right next to me. She brushes her hair out of her face, while I need a moment to realize where I even am.

Whether I'm alive, what day it is…

"Excuse me, Sleeping Beauties," Elliott continues, casually leaning against the old spiral staircase he'd just come down. "I really hate to wake you up on this beautiful May 23, 1944, but it's Tuesday – the morning after new moon – and we're all still alive. Therefore, we have to attend classes in about an hour."

Harper just groans, hiding her head under one of the pillows again. She truly is no morning person …

But then, out of nowhere, it suddenly hits me.
I'm dying of hunger.

More than awake, I turn to Elliott. "Have you had breakfast yet?" I ask that as seriously as though my life depended on it.

"No." He raises a brow at me. "Why? You're not really hungry for the first time in weeks, are you?"

"Elliott, I would kill for one of your toasts right now –"

"Ah no, no – no need to," he merrily chuckles. "I'll make you toast à la Elliott even without the dead!"

"He's scaring me yet again," Rouvenia whispers to Ell, deliberately loud. "How many was it?"

"I've stopped counting," Elliott admits as he spreads jam on two more pieces of toast, handing Leonora one of them.

"Eleven," I say, in no way too shy to grab the twelfth one.

"Let's also not forget the cake," Leonora says. "Four pieces, I saw it."

Rouvenia can't help but shake her head. "At least it was about time he stopped surviving on coffee and black magic only."

"That's likely why he was in such a bad mood," Leonora chuckles, taking a bite of her toast. "Food is comfort …"

"It's a means to an end," I protest, only to be corrected by Harper.

"You wish. Just look at yourself …"

"Right now," I admit, "I swear it feels like I'd drop dead if I didn't keep eating –"

"More?" Elliott asks in nonchalant amusement, reaching for another toast as I all but shrug. I'm still starving. "I might need to use more butter, I see …"

"Your body's taking revenge for everything you've done to it recently," Harper speculates. But not without a hint of gloating in her voice, since I only have myself to blame for this misery.

"What a low," I sigh, "from tangible immortality back to reality, where I have to impatiently wait for Elliott to spread jam on a toast …"

"You can make your own toast if I'm too slow for you," he retorts in mock reproach. "Here," he then says, "number thirteen …"

"Riddle having breakfast?" we suddenly hear Dean Hornby sneering behind us. He has Myrtle in tow, already eyeing me disparagingly from a distance. "Well, if that isn't a rare sight, Myrtle – he's even eating, almost as if he were human like us …"

I'm actually much too tired for that circus, but rhetoric is unnecessary anyway – I simply lean back a little so that his gaze can immediately fall on Harper right next to me.

"Sully?"

The minimal effort doesn't fail to have its maximum effect – and it makes me smirk. His face, usually so friendly for her, is immediately screwed up.

Harper knows full well that I'm just using her to upset him now, but she's used him just as much after all …

Dean frowns. "So you two made up, and now you're eating a piece of cake together?"

"One?" Rouvenia's promptly giggling with Leonora.

Harper, however, sighs. "Oh, Dean …" I get a reproachful glare before she's standing up to appease him. "Shall we go to the Ravenclaw table? I'll explain –"

"What is there to explain?" he grumbles, slowly shaking his head.

"Brillant question, Hornby," I agree to his visible surprise, winking at Harper. "Why even bother?"

She tilts her head and I just raise my hands in defense before I grab yet another toast …

"He doesn't deserve you," Dean dramatically claims, "but you just can't be mad at him for too long, can you? I knew this would happen."

"Oi Hornby, attending Divination as an elective like Leonora's stupid brother?" Elliott asks, trying hard not to laugh when Leo elbows him in the side.

"Stop it, Ell, and Tom – you, too!" Harper urges us, turning to Hornby again, and far too kindly in my opinion. "Dean, believe me, you don't know Tom like I know him –"

"Oh no, I know exactly what he's really like!"

"No, you don't," she firmly rejects. "And I've never made a secret of my feelings for him. You know that you and I were always just –"

"He cast a Cruciatus curse on me, Harper! He –"

"Wait, wait, Dean," I interrupt this good conversation with a groan and finally also grant him some of my attention. "Let's examine that claim for a minute, shall we? You were suddenly standing in the prefects' bathroom." I glare at Myrtle in exasperation … "By the way, remarkable how very well you kept the password to yourself – bravo!" Then I look back at Dean in mock-regret, and his eyes narrow more with every word I say. "So while I'm completely shocked by your sudden presence and being grimly threatened by you, I'm simply using magic out of pure intuition and for self-defense only. What an unfortunate faux pas, huh? Almost like your unauthorized presence in the bathroom …"

"That wouldn't stand up for a second in front of the Wizengamot, Riddle," he growls while folding his arms. "Even in self-defense, it is illegal to make use of an Unforgivable. But your parents probably didn't teach you that."

"No, Dean, they had completely unique priorities – but it's thrilling to hear that your father could at least raise you so well before he passed."

"Tom!" Harper hisses.

"At least," Dean growls, visibly hurt, "he can be proud of shaping my character for the better!"

"Congratulations," I say, nodding. "Your character was of great use to you when you were on your knees."

"I should have just returned the curse," he whispers, his angry eyes trying to pierce into my soul. But the joke's on him.

"Should – could." I shrug my shoulders. "You're welcome to try at all times."

"The whole school has heard about your Fiendfyre by now," he snaps. "Does that make you proud? Huh? Is it perfidious joy when people are forced to fear you? When the first years whisper about whether it's true – whether the one that's likely to become Head Boy is really experimenting with black magic?"

"Perfidious joy?" I can't help but smile. "You do have courage, Dean. Because if that were the case, who would I have the most to gain from?"

"That's enough now," Harper decides. "Tom, stop being a loose canon – and Dean, either we talk in peace or –"

"No need to," he interrupts her, eyeing her like a stranger. "It's all said and done. I've never understood how you could excuse and tolerate his behavior, but for a few weeks I really thought you might have finally gained a clear view of the facts. I was obviously wrong … Maybe you deserve each other."

"We do," she gravely confirms. "Your idea of me was never my truth."

He snorts and walks away with Myrtle, all while Harp sits down next to me again, clearly not as relaxed as she would like to be.

Rouvenia and Leonora exchange pitying glances, Elliott simply hands me another toast.

"Do you enjoy your meal?" Harper eventually asks acidly.

"I'm starving, darling –"

"Did you really have to talk about his dead father again?" she's more direct this time. "He's grieving, and you just hurt him by –"

"He wished to talk about parents – I was just going along."

"Why are you doing this?" she asks. "Why do you always use such neuralgic weak points that cruelly?"

I take in a deep breath, then I do put down the toast to look at her. Fine then. "Whoever makes wild claims that imply that my intentions with you are of 'obviously physical nature' – which indirectly also casts a completely distorted light on you – should be glad that my cruelty is limited to words."

"He said that?" She gulps. "Really?"

"He knew from Myrte that we were alone in the bathroom before Christmas and –"

"Just the two of you?" Rouvenia grins at us. "Oh, oh, pretty daring, huh?"

"Hornby thought so, too," I say and let another piece of cake float over to me before I continue. "And he also made do with his vivid imagination, jumping to wrong conclusions."

"Nicely put, Tom," Elliott begins with a wink, "but we do happen to know for a fact that there is a certain mortal sin that you two actually did commit together –"

"Bryant!" Rouvenia immediately scolds him. "None of your business!" She turns to Harper and me, shrugging. "But it's quite interesting, in fact – so if you wish to chat about it after all …"

"But they certainly weren't that close in the winter," Leo assumes, "I bet it was more likely around Easter –"

"If only I'd suffocated in the seventh circle of hell," I groan.

"Are you really telling the truth?" Harper quietly asks me, not even bothering with the girls' change of subject. "About Dean?"

"Indeed, Harper, I am – look into my head once more for all I care," I offer her and take another bite of my toast. In a slightly lighter voice, I imitate Dean's Scouse accent, "It's a shame she trusted you. You were just using her."

"The Unforgivable was still unacceptable," she finds after thinking about it for a moment. "So I say you should apologize to Dean."

At these words, Elliott involuntarily snorts into his orange juice – I just look at her in amused disbelief.

"No, Sully," I begin, "I say you shouldn't have used Dean in the first place, how about that? You gave him a spark of hope solely to get on my nerves. So deep down we both bloody well know that I'm by no means the person he wishes to hear an apology from …"

She gives me a gloomy look, then, after a few heartbeats, she sighs and rolls her eyes. "Damn it, you're right …"

"However I don't judge any of it – it was skillful, nuanced manipulation, and feeling guilty about collateral damage is not quite doing it justice," I tease with a weary smile. "We can still work on that."

"No, darling, we're working on you developing a conscience. Because if you really want to have a little Faye some day, you need to raise her well."

"But maybe little Faye doesn't want to be raised an angel, could be she'd much rather become a cunning force of nature."

"Hardly," Harper grumbles. "If you don't talk her into it, that is …"

"May I be little Faye's godmother?" Rouvenia asks, already thrilled by the very idea of it. "If you don't get permission to, I can put the thing about the force of nature into her head …"

"The solidarity of Slytherin house knows no bounds, does it?" Elliott rejoices, grinning at Leonora.

"Neat," she also chuckles.

"What a breakfast," Rouvenia sums it all up after emptying her cup. "We need to make this a habit, Leo and Ell are like too much sugar in coffee and you two already behave like a funny old couple."

"Perhaps then you also wish to invite your beloved cousin – or shall we rather call him your future husband?" I ask Rou and only get a kick to my shin from her.

"See?" she immediately complains. "That's exactly what Harper meant by neuralgic points. Do you really need to remind me that I'm supposed to marry that odd bird next year?"

"I can make him disappear for you," I quietly console her. "We'll banish him to Maryland, he can join Harper's odd bird of a cousin, yeah?"

Rou sighs, sadly indeed now. "Anything but a wedding with Nicolai …"

Harper takes her hand with utmost concern as she scolds me. "At least apologize to Rouvenia now …"

"I apologize, Rouvenia," I mock, "for eventually making your cousin disappear."

She really doesn't mean to laugh, and yet it's all too contagious …

"Tom, it seems rather late to take Ms Sullivan out in the corridors."

Running into Albus Dumbledore at the height of his suspicious sneer on the second floor just before entering the girls' lavatory – and thus our actual destination, the Chamber of Secrets – was definitely not part of the plan.

"Good evening, Professor," I reply as politely as ever, nonchalantly nodding to Harper. "I only keep her company on her way to the tower." After that, I just can't help it anymore. "And as you know, sir, I'm Slytherin's Prefect. I am not forbidden from walking the corridors after sunset."

"Of course, Tom, since the key to being a Prefect is trust," Dumbledore says, dully smiling at Harper first, then at me. "Such a profound word, isn't it? Difficult to live up to. It's got to be earned …"

He always wants to play.

"Sir?" He who asks, leads, so I better ask …

"It's very dutiful of you to escort Ms Sullivan to her house," Dumbledore says, looking over the half-moon glasses on his nose. "However, as Ms Sullivan certainly knows, the tower is in the completely other direction."

"I asked Tom for a quick detour," Harper chimes in, as calm as a saint when she points to the toilets in theatrical shame. "Do I need to say more, Professor?"

"Oh, I see." Dumbledore immediately winks, nodding urgently at her. "Please, Ms Sullivan, don't let us stop you. Tom and I are happy to wait for you."

Each of us three is probably groaning inwardly. But Harper just nods and excuses herself. I briefly watch her leave as her heels echo through the corridors and Albus Dumbledore begins with yet another interrogation.

"I don't mean to be overly curious, Tom," he then claims, despite the ridiculousness of the irony in his statement. "Still I can't help but notice that the two of you have apparently made up again. Whatever was vexing you – it must have taken a toll. Since you look much healthier again, if I may say so."

"Thank you, sir," I retort, "I'm feeling better indeed."

"Good to hear that." Dumbledore's feigned sympathy irritates me to my core before he permits himself to be even more openly cautious. "Tom, you surely are aware that our decisions inevitably affect those closest to us. Perhaps that was part of your conflict over the last few weeks?"

Now would be the opportune moment to lay the cards on the table, but unfortunately, Dumbledore's timing is a rather inconvenient one. Rouvenia and Hagrid are already waiting down in the chamber …

"Well, you seem to be of one heart and soul again." He pauses so noticeably after the word 'soul' that I finally see confirmed how much he suspects. But I don't bat an eye. Not today. "And you shouldn't actually know where the Ravenclaw common room is," Dumbledore continues, "but of course I'm aware that Hogwarts' students have always had problems with secrecy. However, I would like to point out – just for the sake of form – that Ms Sullivan and you must part ways in front of the tower."

I have to concentrate to relax my jaw and simply say, "Of course, sir."

"So I gather it's just a rumor that you were recently seen together in the dungeons?"

Damn it, Orion …

"Must've been a misunderstanding for sure, Professor," I reply, probably almost too quickly so.

"Tom," he sighs, for once letting on how much I bother him, "the staff of this school, myself included, has the duty and responsibility of supervision in place of the parents while their children are here."

The staff, including him, seems incredibly bad at doing this, given the fact I was repeatedly able to perform occult rituals in secret catacombs that nearly killed me.
Then again, perhaps the duty mentioned only applies to students with parents.

"Professor," I hear myself say, a tad impatiently by now as well, "what exactly concerns you?"

"Let me put it this way: Would Ms Sullivan's parents feel at ease knowing about the time you spend with their daughter?"

That was surprisingly direct and calls for a similarly blunt answer.

"Sir, Polly and William Sullivan welcome the fact that I wish to marry their daughter immediately after we've achieved an Outstanding in every exam we take for our graduation. Does that answer your question?"

We are interrupted by the door hinges of the girls' toilet, screeching before Harper hurries to approach us again.

I can see it in Dumbledore's eyes. He fears I have corrupted her, manipulated her into becoming a loyal accomplice – when in fact the opposite is the case. She keeps me in check.

"Congratulations are in order, I'm glad to hear that," Dumbledore eventually says to me before Harper reaches us. His gaze wanders to her still with quite some visible concern, but his interrogation seems to have come to an end – he's already moving on. "Have a joyous stroll to the tower, then …"

"Sir?"

He turns around yet again, clearly skeptical.

"Yes, Tom?" he asks just when I begin to hesitate.

"Are you free tomorrow night, Professor?"

All his doubts now give way to honest surprise. He cannot hide how little he had seen this question coming.

"Why, Tom?" he asks. "Do you wish to come by?"

I simply nod.

"Of course," he immediately says. "Always. Tomorrow night is fine."

Harper takes my hand as we watch him leave for another moment only to then pretend to be on our way to the tower.

"What did you talk about?" Harper whispers to me as she suddenly pulls me into a bow window of a corridor. "Let's just wait here for a bit and then turn back to the lavatory?"

I nod, then say, "Just the usual, doubts about me, supposedly innocent questions …"

"And what are you going to talk about?" She gulps and crosses her arms over her chest. "Tomorrow?"

I lean into her, stealing a quick kiss. Then I say, "About the possible uses of Echidna's poison, and maybe I'll proactively ask where I may graduate in case I'm expelled from here straight away."

"That's not funny," she moans. "Don't you want to wait a little longer?"

"If the poison doesn't work, I have no time to lose and need to keep looking."

She nods with a heavy heart. "True."

"I rarely ever lie," I reply with a smug grin.

"Sure, Tom – the honest Riddle …" She gives me a tired smile. "Down into the catacombs?"

I nod. "After you …"