Thursday evening I spent apologising to all the Professors whose classes I skipped. Since I look like the walking dead anyway, and my diagnosis of dragon pox has long since made the rounds, they're all only too willing to accept that I still suffer from certain after-effects from time to time.

Everyone, except Dumbledore …

I bump into him on my way to the dungeons, almost on the verge of fainting from fatigue – and of course he doesn't miss it.

"It is not wise wandering around at this late hour, Tom."

What is it about being a Prefect that this man doesn't wish to understand? I realise that I'm the last person on earth to whom Albus Dumbledore would apply the concept of trust to, but it seems rather crude for a man of his intellect to frequently question my very presence in the corridors given my role.

"Sir," I force myself to say politely, "I've just had a conversation with Professor Slughorn …"

I would also like to tell him that I recently sat in a church with his former lover Gellert Grindelwald to exchange vows – but he will not hear that out of my mouth nor in my thoughts.

For years he's never quite given up trying to read my mind ever so casually, but for the longest time my paranoid skepticism served me well.

"To apologise for my absence during his classes," I eventually add. "Which is also due for not attending Transfiguration, sir."

"Not that I'm worried about your academic performance," he replies, "your achievements are quite excellent, Tom. But what was the reason you were unable to attend? I'd like to know."

I nod, trying my hardest to act friendly. "I'm afraid I assumed Professor Dippet had informed you that –"

"You were suffering from dragon pox? Oh, he did indeed. Tom, do you know what worries me, though?"

I hold my breath – he's about to throw logic at me, I can sense it …

"Nobody remembers treating you at St Mungo's. How could you overcome this treacherous disease all on your own?"

The feigned interest, the unspeakable hubris, is so much worse than Grindelwald's all-encompassing madness …

"Sir, unfortunately, I couldn't be transferred anymore. But as luck would have it, a healer that studied at Beauxbatons Academy took good care of my condition in London."

"So you were in the right place at the right time after all, Tom?"

"I was, sir."

"Nevertheless," he almost whispers, lowering his eyes to me with apparent concern, "you seem rather … worn. Are you all right?"

I give him a mirthless smile. "I'm just a bit tired still, but thank you …"

He slowly nods while squaring his shoulders, silent for a couple of breaths before asking, "Is there something you wish to tell me?"

No way into my thoughts, but information during a nice chat? Over my dead body.

"No, sir – nothing."

He hesitates, I can tell he'd sigh if he wasn't so composed. "Very well then, Tom. Off you go."

"Good night, sir."

He knows I'm lying.
The fact that he can't do anything about it and lacks evidence is my only advantage. But from now on, he'll probably follow my every move …

Not least because of that, Friday night when I meet up with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest, I'm constantly checking if we're really alone. But Echidna's hungry, and she deserves a proper food ration when I return to the catacombs. The fact that I still have to attend the Slug Club later on that night is highly inconvenient and will surely raise questions, but I have no choice.

Somehow it has to work out, maybe the second ritual won't be such agonising torture like the first one. However it could just as well be worse …

I can already feel the resistance in my very core. The closer I get to the spot with the pentagram in front of Salazar Slytherin's huge statue, the more my whole body detests standing there to perform an occult ritual. A purely physical reaction, as if embedded in my trauma memory …

"It's still alive," Echidna rejoices, a mad gleam in her yellow eyes as she glides past me and towards the deer hovering in the air.

"Barely alive, a bit like me," I mumble and take a deep breath as I turn away from the horrific sounds of her devouring her prey.

I still can't bear to look at blood.
That, too, seems to be a body reaction. I feel sick just by the thought of it …

I let my neck crack and move from left to right, then I try to collect myself. I light the torches above the snake statues along the chamber with my hands raised – and I set fire to the Eternal Candles.

"You don't have to go on," Echidna hisses, the noise of breaking deer bones through her tight stranglehold much too loud in my ear.

I briefly close my eyes.
She is so wrong.

I do have to go on. I can't look back, I need to make progress, partly so I can safely fulfill my vow to Grindelwald.

Taking a step into the pentagram, the diary firmly in my hand, I fill my lungs once more before I begin reciting the incantation for the waning three-quarter moon phase over and over again.

It doesn't take too long before the searing pain forces me to the ground again, and if I didn't know any better, I'd assume that my ribs were breaking into a thousand pieces – just like those of the deer behind me now.

Images of tearing flesh, bleeding tissue, bursting tendons and splintering bones flash through my mind as I suffocate miserably on my own soul.

I gasp, it's so pathetic that even Slytherin's supposed monster glides over to me to lay her huge head down in front of me again, as though she was trying to watch over me.

More than Merope has ever done …

As I continue to voice the incantation in utmost defiance of my soul's crushing, I soon cough. As if my lungs could burst open at any given moment, but then it finally happens – light released from my innermost core floats towards the darkness of the diary in exchange.

I feel as though I can't work up the strength to even absorb the black fog, but if I don't wish to collapse here and now, I need to pull myself together and breathe.

Just breathe.
We all do it every second without even consciously realising it. Even in our sleep, whenever we blink …
I just have to breathe. But even lifting a finger feels like a feat of strength.

"Don't die," Echidna whispers, "breathe …"

My head wants to.
But my body fears the darkness – and yet I finally force it to discipline.

As the shadows take up the space in my body where formerly light was, the life in me feels so cold – even colder than before. All the strength I had left in me evaporates into the universe and I simply have to lie down on the cold, damp ground.

I can't possibly counter the lack of energy in my body, but how exhausting can it be to stand up? Maybe if my nerves weren't throbbing that much …

After a while that feels like silently dying, I clench my teeth to stop myself from trembling as I stare up at the stalactites in the Chamber of Secrets.

How bleak.

My eyelids are so heavy, it's as though eternal sleep was calling me.

"Echidna," I whisper at some point, lost between space and time, "you can't let me fall asleep …"

I want to move, but I can't. Like I'm no longer in my body, trapped inside my mind, unable to make but a sound.

"Can you hear them?" Echidna eventually hisses, likely in an attempt to keep me awake, "their screeching?"

"Bats?"

They swirl through the chamber frequently, swift and mysterious like the Count. Even Dracula himself would look more lively next to me if he had to attend the Slug Club as well.

The Slug Club!
Bloody hell …

I have to go to the Slug Club, and if I crawl there …

"You look … absolutely awful," Elliott claims in a poor attempt to not sound too concerned.

And yet I keep on dragging myself through the dormitory to organise fresh clothes.

He was reading a book, but now he sits right up – apparently oblivious to our argument – to watch me closely.

I notice his book's title.
Magical constructions. The book that Harper and I read at the Black Lake, that helped us find the name of Corvinus Gaunt.

If only I had the energy to put him in his place. But likely, if I don't go into it, his well-intentioned research will probably be futile anyway …

Still I wrinkle my nose and look over to him in irritation. "Does anything in here smell like vinegar?"

"No," he says far too quickly for me to believe him. "Do you smell vinegar? I don't smell vinegar."

"Yes, I do," I reply. "I smell a bloody large amount of vinegar. On you …"

"It's just in your head, trust me." He waves it off, and I'm too tired care. "I, on the other hand, am not only imagining that your hands are shaking. Is that normal?"

The buttons of my fresh shirt really demand the patience of a saint. Hence cufflinks are already out of the question.

"Oh, you have to attend the Slug Club – hasn't it already begun?"

"Elliott, stop asking questions, can't you hate me a little longer?" I immediately regret speaking. My voice sounds terribly gruff – I'm quite clearly a patchwork held together solely by fanatical ambition.

"You're not well at all," Elliott states. "You should be in bed, Tom, you can't possibly –"

"Good night, Elliott," I cut him off as I already leave the dormitory again. And soon the dungeons, too.

I can barely stand on my feet when I arrive outside Slughorn's hallowed halls just before midnight, but I have no choice. I need to be there.

Even before the door is opened for me, I can hear music from a gramophone, and as foggy as the office seems upon entry, there's not only drinking but also a lot of smoking going on here tonight.

"You're very welcome," Cassia acidly remarks since I completely ignored her opening the door for me.

"Too kind," I lie, still not looking at her, I read the room instead, "did Slughorn miss me?"

"Of course he did!" She crosses her arms over her chest and surely rolls her eyes. "He's been waiting for you all evening long –"

"Tom, my boy!" My headache intensifies, and there the old bat comes … "You've made it!"

"Sir – I need to apologise for my tardiness yet again," I claim with the last glint of motivation in me and follow him as he waves me along.

"Oh, no worries, it's fine, my boy, just come – come with me now," he giggles. Two drinks or three already, I'd assume. Everyone around us is chatting, having a good time, laughing, dancing – to Keely Smith and Louis Prima singing Charley My Boy.

This whole scenario is the exact opposite of my evening so far. Like a gentle wink from life and its shallow pleasures …

"Have a Whisky with me and Professor Dippet, Tom," Slughorn chortles while I secretly look for Harper among those present, but in vain. "You frankly look as though you could do with a drink."

Oh, he has no idea …

Whatever the side effects of Whisky and cigarettes may be in my dire condition – it can hardly get any worse.

Slughorn's information finally makes it into my immediate consciousness. "Sir, Professor Dippet is here tonight?"

"Oh indeed, an ideal opportunity – I'm gather you plan to be Head Boy next year," Slughorn says, already maneuvering me into an alcove a little further away from the young crowd. He hands me a glass the very next moment, he fills them up generously and winks. "It's the expensive one, I wouldn't be serving you Mr Tadpole's moonshine …"

"Thank you, sir," I hear myself say, unfortunately with the last bit of willpower.

"So, Tom," he hums as he puts the bottle back into his secret drawer, "let's toast with Armando – we were just about to play cards. Ms Sullivan showed us this Muggle game the other day, blackjack they call it, and I'm almost addicted to it …"

"Well, Ms Sullivan and potential for addiction are quite congruent to each other," I hear myself say and would gladly slap myself for it at once. The ridiculous, paralysing pain that keeps spreading through my whole body after the second ritual seems to profoundly lower my inhibition threshold.

Slughorn just chuckles. "We're also all quite fond of what the Muggles call Swing …"

"I see," I force a laugh with nonchalance, "that genre radiates its unique magic, doesn't it …"

"Indeed, indeed." Slughorn guides me to the headmaster's round table right next to the dancing mob. I wish I could just walk away.

"Mr Riddle, there you are, good evening!" Dippet greets me with a ready smile. "We'd already assumed you'd miss the club tonight."

"Sir, I'd never forgive myself," I assure him as charming as can be. "But I must have completely forgotten the time while writing an essay for –"

"Tom, you feed your mind with academic matters like no other, but let me remind you to also enjoy life now and then," Dippet chortles as we sit down.

Professor Merrythought has also made herself comfortable at Dippet's table. She smiles at me, unlike two moderately gifted students with incredibly rich parents from Hufflepuff right next to her, and – it couldn't get any better – there also are Wolburry and Dumbledore casually leaning back in their chairs, neither of whom trust me.

Marvellous prospects …