Saturday and Sunday I spent in Nirvana, not asleep but too tired to move without cause – partly in the library in quiet corners, a lot of the time in the Chamber of Secrets. I'm starving, but still too annoyed to walk into the Great Hall in such a miserable condition to change it. It got to the point where Echidna offered me a poisoned rat … She's becoming quite motherly, insisting I stop killing myself – but she can't possibly understand what's at stake.
Yet I have to admit that her concerns are not too easily dismissed. I feel unwell. My skin is tight, my bones are aching. I'm terribly nauseous, I got used to cold sweat on my forehead. And no matter where I look, regardless of where I go – souls are lurking everywhere, asking me politely how I feel. It conjures up nothing but resentment, and what the hell would I say in response when the answer is so obvious?
So I avoid everyone, at least on weekends.
But Mondays never wait too long to arrive, and this one happens to be the day of an advancing moon phase and hence the day of the third ritual after nightfall.
My mind is wildly determined, but my horrors reach new heights at the mere thought of once again spitting soul light onto the moldy ground of the catacombs.
"Will you be attending Herbology, Tom?"
Myrtle proves time and again, with ease at that, just how incredibly enraging her voice can be. But I need to focus and stay calm – not least because we're in the corridors and surrounded by countless others. And also because she's approaching me with Leonora in tow.
I force a vague smile for Myrtle and let them both catch up to me for lack of options.
"You always walk so fast –"
"Memento Mori and Carpe Diem, Myrtle …"
"For you, it's probably more Carpe Noctem, as tired as you look," Leonora remarks rather cynically by her standards. "Where were you last night? Elliott missed you in the dormitory. Again."
Hot flush … A ridiculous heat wave hits me like a shot in the dark, likely caused by the fact that I just can't seem to get any peace and quiet.
"Leonora," I murmur, short of breath, "won't you distract Elliott from me at least at night?"
"How dare you?" she whispers, taken aback. "What do you think we're doing, huh?"
"I just –" I pause and notice her indignant mimic. "Forget about it …"
"We're neither engaged nor married!" she hisses. "I would never, ever –"
"Course not," I cut her off and ignore Myrtle's sensationalism in a practiced manner. "Just an unqualified assumption, forgive me, will you?"
"Is that why Harper and you are fighting?" Leonora anxiously ask while hurrying to keep pace. She quietly adds, "Tom, are you pushing her? Listen, if you're pushing her –"
"No, Leonora, I am not," I reply in utmost exasperation. "Good to know, though, that your animosity towards me provides for an assumption like that …"
"I'm just saying –"
"Don't bother," I sigh as we step outside.
The bright light of this day is blinding me at once, still I see her not far away. The sight of her puzzles me.
Outside the greenhouse, Harper is already chatting to Olive, Avery and Gryffindor's Prefect Eric Johnson. Apparently, the houses really are fraternising now. But what's really bothering me – there's something different about Harper …
What's different about her?
Before she even notices me, Dean Hornby places himself demonstratively next to her, crossing his arms while staring at me.
I take a deep breath and groan inwardly, and only the fact that Harper now sees me and hurries to approach with utmost concern makes my desire to help him leave the world fade a bit.
Olive and Avery are already heading into the greenhouse with Myrtle, Leonora and Eric – but I bet we can't get rid of Hornby …
"You disappeared for two days after the Slug Club, Tom," Harper whispers to me, Hornby still out of earshot, "bloody hell, do I really have to follow you into the Chamber of Secrets to your eerie monster to make sure you don't take yourself out of existence?"
"Help me," I say, all perplexed. Her angry expression immediately gives way to one of sorrow. "What's different about you?"
Her face freezes for a moment, then she frowns again.
"Are you being serious, Riddle?" Dean simply doesn't know what's good for him, bravely joining us now. "You think you're smarter than everyone here, but it doesn't occur to you that Leonora cut off half her hair?"
"Sure, thank you," I reply, genuinely relieved, since I wouldn't have thought of that for the life of me, "that's it indeed, Harper – your hair –"
"It bothered me," she claims. And on the tip of her tongue she'd love to add that it was just an unpleasant reminder of my attempts to untangle it in Little Hangleton.
Although that's one of my most peaceful memories …
"She wants to close the chapter with you," Dean now kindly translates the supposed meaning of a new haircut for me, drawing closer. "My mum did the same when my father passed away."
"Oh, my condolences – for your foolish misinterpretation," I reply. "And I can't help but notice once again how you're still so tired of life you wish to follow your father to the grave – I thought we'd made clear you were staying away from her."
"Tom," Harper moans, "it's not up to you to decide who stays away from me, Dean and I are friends!"
"That's right," Hornby is quick to confirm, "Sully, tell him to stay away from you, or I will."
"Sully?" I grimace as though Myrtle was talking to me again. "Dean, spare us your poor attempts at gallantry … And what exactly are we so brave for today, huh?"
"I'm not afraid of you, Riddle," he claims, moving in front of Harper.
"In company," I say, glancing at him with amusement as he swallows, "that's one of the easier exercises …"
"You," Harper hisses and taps me on the chest, "stop the threats, it's so out of place! Oh, and … keep in mind that it's Rouvenia's birthday today."
I raise my eyebrows. "That's today?"
"Yes, today," she acidly confirms. "And you …" She taps on Dean's arm with a tired smile. "You'd better stop interpreting hairstyles – come on, let's get into the greenhouse."
A last dirty look only for me, then he triumphantly nods.
He follows Harper, right after my much too friendly smile visibly infuriates him.
Heavens.
He's nowhere near as presumptuous as I am, he's polite, attentive, courteous and genuinely concerned for her. It'd be so much easier with him for Harper.
So why am I sabotaging it?
I couldn't even feel sorry if he went straight up in flames …
"Young Mandrakes," Professor Beery announces my worst nightmare, levitating several pots to each of our spots in the greenhouse, "and lots of them! Come in, everyone, hurry – and welcome to today's class!"
The lanky professor should be pursuing his secret passion, theatre, rather than garden with his loud voice that early in the morning. How am I to endure two entire hours of screeching on top of my soul splitting?
"Mandrakes?" Eric Johnson also sighs in disbelief. "Sir, we've already dealt with those in our second year, can't we learn something new –"
"Mr Johnson," Beery shouts ever so dramatically, "we cannot! The Ministry just brought in a large number and is trusting us to take good care of them. They're still young, the time is now!" At least he chuckles himself, given his theatrics … "All my classes will have to repot this week, all while the cries are still reasonably bearable. Hence we must."
Why can't I just drop dead? My head is already throbbing with a migraine – how am I supposed to be patient enough not to let all the pots shatter into pieces once we start …
"Get to work, alone or in pairs, the main thing is just to be quick, if you please," Beery demands, clapping his hands, but even that makes me flinch. Like a reflex.
Harper notices. She tries to hide her worries, but I see her whispering to Leonora immediately.
Doesn't matter though – I need to focus on not fainting as the first morons start chortling and pulling the Mandrakes out of their pots.
"Johnson, Riddle," Beery calls us out pretty soon, "what about you, Gentlemen? Will our esteemed Prefects be a good example and get on with it, eh?"
"Sir, I have a pounding headache," Eric moans with typical Gryffindor transparency for feelings. But I get it, Rou's right. Even while he grimaces in agony, his even dark skin and handsome features stand out. "And Riddle doesn't exactly look healthy either," he adds, shrugging at me. "No offence …"
I turn my gaze to Beery, too. Couldn't the world have mercy on chronic pain sufferers just this once?
"Mr Johnson, come on," Beery protests, shooing him into my direction already. "Over to Tom with you now, and if you need to, hold hands to get through it together for all I care. But you will participate. If you show up to my class, you're healthy enough to take part. Come, come, hurry!"
Johnson has no choice, he's practically maneuvered around the huge rows of tables and thrust towards me.
"If that isn't a duo," Beery finds, "Slytherin and Gryffindor united in suffering, snakes and lions in harmony – quite poetic!"
"Were you perhaps Shakespeare in another life?" Johnson mumbles, but Beery already moves on to motivate others.
"Migraine?" I ask as we reluctantly get to work with our pots.
"I want to scream. Wish I could crawl out of my own body."
"I know that."
"Yeah, I get it," he sighs, smirking with a tad of annoyance. "That's likely why you're always so obnoxious …"
"For a Gryffindor," I say, grabbing my gloves to loosen the soil, "you're also not exactly courteous …"
"It's what pain makes us act like," he sums it up languidly, closing his eyes at the unbearable Mandrake screams in front of, besides and behind us.
I concentrate and soon realise, much to my displeasure, that I'm going to need my wand. I'm too weak to catalyse magic with my bare hands now – if that's not irritating …
"Restagno!" I say, drawing an air bubble around Johnson and myself with a circle of my wand until we hear ourselves – and almost only ourselves – as if underwater.
"That's …" He groans with relief. "That's so much better …"
I catch my breath, too. Now it'd just need to be dark as well, then it could actually be bearable.
Not only Beery, but also the other bystanders look at us with great interest. And even if we can't hear their words, it's easy to guess that they've probably come to the conclusion that necessity is the mother of invention.
"Can't they hear us either?" Johnson asks.
"No."
"Well then – I was in the Room of Requirement on Thursday. You set up those exercises, didn't you?"
"For Slytherin," I reply as we prepare the new pots. "But by now, half the school's started to gather there."
"Gryffindor was definitely underrepresented," he claims, mischief as well as reprimand lacing his voice. "And you favoured Hagrid over me. After we've avoided each other for years as Prefects?" He chuckles. "Hurt a bit."
"It's easy reading Hagrid."
He puts on gloves in quite some amusement. "Well, Riddle – your usual manipulation tactics are going to fail with me … But I'm not interested in exposing those meetings, I want to learn. How are we supposed to keep up with a world full of Grindelwalds and other madmen if we don't even know about the magic they use?"
I nod. "Crux of the matter …"
"Riddle, Riddle," he softly laughs, shaking his head as we prepare the soil for our larger pots. "I never bought your model student masquerade. You might well wreak havoc on us all one day."
"Is that so?" I groan, clearly rhetoric.
"Plenty of people trust you will," he admits. "But nobody says it to your face. I do."
"Then that is – if plenty of people trust I will – either foolish or –"
"Transparent," he says, calmly standing his ground. "Rouvenia and Harper, though," he adds, "are both smart. And they trust you. That speaks in your favour. Well, or against them … Do they know you better than the rest of us, or are they even more blind to who you are?"
"Only time may tell," I assume. "Just as it will tell whether the exercises in the Room continue to fulfill their purpose or degenerate into pointless amusement."
"It was a bit uncoordinated on Thursday, indeed," he informs me. "I think that without your presence, most of the participants don't approach things with the ambition required."
"Hearing you speak like that, I'd almost come to think you got sorted into the wrong house."
"Hearing you speak like that, I'd almost think you have prejudices against Gryffindor mainly because of Raymond and the history of our houses."
"Who doesn't have them for precisely those reasons …"
He shrugs. "Anyway, I'm excited to see how the practices go this Tuesday."
"Wait. Tomorrow?"
"Yeah, that was scheduled by Rouvenia, I'm not sure why."
He can't have such a bad headache if he's already thinking about the plans in the Room of Requirement …
"I won't join," I decide. "But have a lot of fun with that lazy crowd …"
"Every crowd is only as good as its leader, and every leader is only as good as his confidants …" He's immediately delighted with my reaction, knowing exactly how much the fact that he's right bothers me.
And yet we can't avoid it any longer – we glance at our Mandrakes and the larger pot behind them.
"Ready?" I ask, taking a deep breath in.
"You don't happen to know a spell to silence them as well?"
"Wish I did."
"Good, then ready when you are. Let's get this over with …"
No sooner said than done, with my ears bleeding and my brain pounding against the top of my skull, we bury the Mandrakes in their new, larger pots. But by the time I put the last bit of soil in, I'm miserably sick.
Even now, with no more cries audible, my head is ringing and my nausea at an all-time high – so much so that I actually have to lean against the table.
"Are you alright?" Johnson asks despite clearly being troubled himself.
But he's not additionally tearing his soul to shreds at the moment …
I can't get a word out, I just nod – but it's probably not very convincing.
"Next pot?" he simply asks.
I nod again, but this will be a long class …