"Myrtle?" I immediately hesitate. Entering the Room of Requirement for the first time in weeks, I wouldn't have expected my gaze to rest on her of all people. "What are you doing here?"

She giggles. "Leonora invited me."

It's as if all the projective parts of my experiences over the last month finally implode, I can barely hide my annoyance at these words, at the chaos in here – and everyone can tell, immediately.

What had previously been a cheerful inter-house get-together of headless youths suddenly becomes a very silent classroom.

"Did she now." I eventually reply to Myrtle. "How very kind of her! And will she also vouch for you?"

"Vouch?" Leonora asks in surprise. A little nervous at my bad mood, she adds, "Since when have we been vouching for each of our members?"

"It's terribly overdue – look around." Still dangerously calm I continue, "Remember how Harper once vouched for you?" I pause at that, since the one person I secretly wish to see is not even here. "Speaking of her – where is she?"

"She is … she's probably not going to make it today, Tom," Leonora informs me, no doubt she's suspecting more about our situation than she'd ever let on.

"I see." Gesturing to Myrtle once again I continue, "Back to the topic at hand, then – will you take responsibility for your guest?"

"No, she won't!" Elliott joins our good conversation before she can answer for herself. "Tom! Come on, what are you doing?"

"What I'm doing?" I hiss. "We should always be aware of the consequences of our actions, don't you think?"

"You just make up a rule as you go and simply expect us to –"

"Indeed. That's exactly what I'm doing, Elliott."

"And why?" he pushes back.

"Why not?"

"That's just arbitrariness!" He's upset at last. "But fine. Fine! All is well. I will vouch for Myrtle if you so badly wish to set an example."

The glance Elliott and I exchange is unlike any other ever so far. For the first time, as he should, he sees me for what I truly am. Potential danger.

"Or is that no solution for you either?" he asks me in more defiance than I'd ever seen coming.

"It is." I nod, a nonchalant smile on my face. "Myrtle – just for the record, though – do you know what awaits Elliott as the one vouching for you if you happen to gossip out there?"

She shakes her head in nervous excitement, so I do let her know. "Hell."

"Hell?" She bites her lips and flutters her eyelashes. "Tom, what do you mean, hell?"

"How would you imagine it?"

"Well, I guess …" she mumbles, "very … warm?"

"Warm." I nod in amusement. "Among other things, sure. But certainly we don't even have to have this conversation? Since surely you will …" I shrug and regard her intently. "Never do or tell a thing outside these walls that will raise hell?"

She gulps. "I … don't think so?"

"She doesn't think so." While Elliott frowns, I still smile. "Reassuring, isn't it? And she certainly won't, like your Leonora, tell anybody else about this once secret meeting, will she now?"

Myrtle is quick to confirm, "No, I definitely won't, I promise!"

"I certainly won't invite anyone ever again either," Leonora says, meekly blowing out of her cheeks.

"Good," I growl, letting my gaze wander around the room. "Does anyone else wish to introduce a new friend?"

Obviously, none of those present venture a reply. In Rouvenia's look, however, there's a little too much challenge for my liking, so I approach her and ask, "Something on your mind, Rouvenia?"

"Why, what makes you think that?"

She proudly holds my gaze for a couple of heartbeats, at least until she can't stand it any longer and snorts in irritation.

"Why are in such a bad mood, Riddle?" she finally asks, but almost more in concern than in anger.

"Did these heels," I say after examining her impractical outfit, "seem all that suitable for practising complicated magic to you?"

"No, but for kicks of all kinds," she hisses – and it even makes me smirk.

"Seriously, Tom," she whispers, "what's wrong with you?"

"I'll tell you," I claim, letting my temper rise just like my voice. I turn to face everyone and spread my arms wide while stating, "I'm gone for a couple of weeks and instead of academic exercises you all let this become some useless circus? Does anyone here have but an ounce of ambition in them? Avery, tell me, what are you drinking?"

Caught off guard, he pauses before he can take a sip from his flask. "It's … pumpkin juice?"

I shoot him a warning glare.

"Firewhisky," he corrects himself for better or worse. "That … yes, that's firewhisky. I'm sorry."

"What are you here for, Avery?"

He raises his eyebrows, then he admits, "To practise spells, I wanted to –"

"Improve?" I point to the flask. "Like that? You're talented, you could be a force. But instead, you're wasting the potential of your talent and this room with larmoyant hedonism."

He stares down at his flask, a tad of embarrassment flashing across his features.

"Nott," I call out. "What did you learn in the last few weeks? Can you brew the Draught of Living Death by now? Can you levitate bodies, do you stop but one person in the castle from ridiculing you?"

"No," he confesses hastily, "but I … I'm working on it …"

"Work harder, you have to believe in yourself before anyone else can follow suit," I say and continue to look around.

"Mulciber," I shout next, "per aspera ad astra – how's your Latin?"

"It's … not very good," he admits. "What does that mean?"

"You'll never know if you can't prioritise your education!"

"I'm only here so I can learn to fly like smoke," Black calls out to me. "Nothing more, nothing less. Why don't you just show us how that works?"

"Why, Orion, would I show any of you? Who can barely walk doesn't need to fly. This school consistently fails to equip its students for real success – and as indifferent as I am to yellow, red and blue – I'll see to it that those who wear green won't ruin Slytherin's reputation with sheer incompetence!" I take a deep breath before glancing at Hagrid. "But while we're on the subject of red – Hagrid! Follow Hagrid's example!"

"What, mine?" He blinks a couple of times, genuinely surprised.

"Yes." I nod. "You're reliable, and you know how essential punctuality is –"

The iron hinges of the room's huge gate behind us clack.

"Essential?" I'm abruptly interrupted by the same bright voice that usually calms my anger. "No, never mind punctuality …"

Harper's heels – just as high and impractical as Rouvenia's – echo on the stone floor in the room's tense silence until she takes her place next to Hagrid, her arms crossed over her chest. "It's quite overrated," she reveals to him with a wink, just to then look at me. With suppressed rage, just waiting to go for my throat. "I'm often late at the moment. Maybe not necessarily by weeks, but a few minutes here and there can happen …"

"We're all aware about that by now, and yet you've made it here …"

"Why, yes – a stroke of luck! What are we practising? Arrogant scoldings?"

"This group is in dire need of it," I confirm and come closer to her. "It surely also occurred to you that this is no longer serving any academic purpose."

"Why exactly does that bother you?" She shrugs. "Because we had fun? You should try that, too – you seem a bit … tense …"

"He's in a terrible mood," Rouvenia whispers loud enough for me to hear. "He's probably also about to tell you that you're not allowed to wear heels when practising complicated magic …"

Harper literally purses her lips and, with wide eyes, mocks, "Are these real classes? Because I was under the impression this was our free time. In which I happen to wear what I want. Ties so loose that no black magic in the world could ever suffocate and heels so high I don't have to look up to anyone."

"Have you lost your mind?" I almost whisper.

"Certainly no more than you," she hisses. "Shall we get started or do you wish to keep scoring sympathy points with those present?"

It's unhealthy how mad she makes me.
And everything about her – the stupid tie, the wide Marlene trousers, her messy blonde hair – inappropriately adds to it.

"I have one more question," Myrtle calls into the silence. "Am I now officially a member of your club?"

"Thanks to Elliott, I guess so," I say, and it seems enough for her to entirely misinterpret the situation.

"Then we're sharing secrets now anyway, right? So, Tom, I simply have to know – what were you doing in the girls' lavatory earlier?"

I literally stare at her. "Come again?"

"You were in the girls' lavatory. On the second floor." She giggles. "Was that a mistake, a wrong turn due to confusion?"

"Myrtle," I mumble in exasperation, "the only one who's confused is you, you certainly didn't see me –"

"No, no," she chuckles, "it was definitely you –"

"Myrtle, for heaven's sake," Harper let's her voice cut across hers, "do you really have to embarrass Tom and me like that?"

I'm perplexed for a second there, but I immediately catch myself.
That's a ridiculously good alibi …

And the mere suggestion is enough to let whispering arise in no time at all, those present are amused and hungry for sensation in equal measure.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Myrtle lies, suppressing a laugh yet again, "you were looking for a bit of privacy, yeah? Excuse me, I didn't mean to give you away …" A bit too late, her conclusion, as the oh-so-holy saints in this room find the implication most audacious already.

"Shut up!" Harper calls into the Slytherin corner in particular.

"He's playing with her, said so for years," I hear Black mumble between the excited voices, but before I can ensure his silence, Harper whirls him through the air with an Everte Statum. Then she points her wand at me. "Do not curse in my name!" She drops her arm and looks around. "Does anyone else have anything to say?"

"Yes, I do." Rouvenia puts her hands on her hips all while giving us a pained look. "If Myrtle's right, you should both be a bit more relaxed …"

"None of anyone's business," Harper grumbles.

Rouvenia raises her hands as though she's giving up. "Well, are we finally going to start then?"

"But we still don't have a name!" Leonora says. "Weren't we all supposed to think of suggestions?"

"True," Rouvenia confirms. "So let's hear them!"

"What do you think of Walpurgis Knights?" Elliott asks the group. "As a twist on Walpurgis Night."

"Do you even know what Walpurgis Night is?" Rouvenia retorts, circling Elliott. "What supposedly happens there?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Not in detail …"

"Only witches are present."

"No, then I guess we're not Walpurgis Knights," Elliott admits.

"But that gives me an idea, Bryant," Rouvenia says. "St Walpurga was praised to the heavens by the church, while the alleged witch Walpurga was brutally burnt as such. Women have been subjected to the arbitrariness of their environment far too often."

Avery nods. "In the name of faith, if necessary."

"We all know how that comes," Nott adds. "Pious Christianity was to blame –"

"Get your facts right, Christ himself," I interrupt, "saved a woman from being stoned to death with mere rhetoric, after all, and while most men in Samaria had already labeled her as a whore, he spoke to an outcast without prejudice. Hence whoever claimed their witch pogroms were rooted in that clearly didn't understand the theological principles preached."

"Oh, who'd have known," Harper whispers to me while a lively discussion arises in the rest of the room, "have you been studying religious scriptures? And the history of other whores while you've been away?"

No one is listening to us right now. So I whisper, "If you've actually just insulted yourself as that, then –"

"You just disappeared like I was one!" She frowns, almost bursting with anger.

"Harper," I take a deep breath, "you're anything but a –"

"Save it, Riddle," she growls. "Bite your tongue off for all I care, but I don't want to hear it."

With that, she turns back to Leonora and Rouvenia, who are trying to moderate the discussion about a name – and probably at just the right time.

"Our real problem?" Lestrange huffs. "Muggles and Mudbloods!"

"Certainly not!" Harper yells. "The problem is ignorance wherever we look!"

"So let's all be Knights of Walpurgas to fight that," Rou suggests. "Against injustice!"

"Selfish purposes are not acceptable?" I groan, but the ladies are already in their element.

"Knights of Walpurgas," Leonora repeats, nodding. "Rouvenia, that's it!"

"Tom," Lestrange whines in agony, "they can't be serious!"

"We had good suggestions, too!" Mulciber says.

"Ridiculous ones with unicorns and whatnot," I remind them, massaging my temples. "Groundbreaking …"

"That means," Elliott exclaims, "Knights of Walpurgas sounds better than anything that's ever been suggested."

"There you have it, Lestrange," Rouvenia gloats. "You and the other gentlemen here should learn to see yourselves as responsible for a better world, also for the benefit of your future daughters. Alright?"

"Riddle," Black murmurs, "you can't agree to that unless you have nothing on your mind but daughters with your raven!"

"Oscausi!" I curse under my breath, just like I did with Raymond. "You wish to fly? Learn how to speak to me first. And if you ever have another remark about said raven on the tip of your tongue, remember that I can and will tie that in a knot for you, too."

"I said," Harper mutters, "that you ought to refrain from cursing in my name!"

"It's like a reflex." I wave it off as Black touches his mouth in panic, much like his friend did back in the Slug Club – until he stares at Harper.

"Oh no, I'm not helping this time," she says. "Have fun in the counterspell section of the library, Orion. And you'd better hurry – there's a full moon waiting on Monday, some say it solidifies curses like that …"

It's fictitious, but his face is priceless.

"All right, Knights," Rouvenia calls out in amusement, "let's practise! Orion, you may go to look for counterspells …"

"Harper, wait," I ask before she leaves the Room of Requirement, too. Most of the others have already gone, but I can see, or at least I'd like to believe, that unlike this morning with Wolburry, she doesn't even want to run off immediately.

She pauses for a moment, then just nods to Leonora and Rouvenia so that they don't wait for her.

"Mulciber," I groan to stop him from hiding behind the pillars, "get out of here before I force you out with fire – move …"

Caught off guard, he all but nods to pass us until we are indeed alone.

All alone.

And her glance for me is one of utmost disgust.
How wrong and right that seems, all at the same time …

"What could be on your mind?" she acidly asks.

I don't know myself. Didn't I plan to stay away from her? Avoid her so that she can hate me in peace? Why do I find it so difficult, why can't I let go?

"I was afraid you'd hurt yourself," she suddenly says, as quietly as she's angry and worried. "I was so afraid you were dead, I thought –"

"I wasn't exactly in heaven, if that's what you mean …"

"I wasn't either," she retorts, letting our words fade into the high room. Until she adds, "But at least I didn't have to invent dragon pox –"

"It's the perfect free pass –"

"Tom, what have you done? Where have you been?" Concern shimmers right through, unmistakably, and it's as if she's reaching out to me while I drown in the ocean. "And why the hell did you ask Myrtle if I was all right? Last night, at the tower window …"

I can't help but stare at her, heartbeat after heartbeat. "I just … wanted to hear it."

"Why?" She can't figure it out. "What went on in the last weeks? Talk to me!"

I can't possibly tell her. And if Edwin has even the slightest sense of what's good for her, he didn't tell her anything after we left Albania either …

"You'd rather choke on it, sure – never mind," she mumbles, about to leave again, but I hold her back by grabbing her arm.

"Wait – are you my alibi now?"

"What?" She impatiently pulls her arm back.

"You're distracting Myrtle – and everyone else – to give me an excuse for the chamber. At the expense of your reputation."

"No, certainly not for that," she firmly says, "but so that Myrtle won't follow up any further just to get killed by your basilisk out of sheer curiosity! Her life is more important than my reputation. And everyone already knows what you and I are anyways." She corrects herself. "What we were."

We glance at each other, and her hatred for me hits me so unexpectedly that I'm literally hanging on her lips. She finally realises what I am. Who I am, what I'm capable of. After all my attempts to explain it to her, she finally realises that I'm no good for her.

The perfidy of this is that I want her all the more now.

I swallow and yet a relentless, oppressive heat rises within me because she's so close – and yet so far. And when I think that I can't possibly go on any longer without kissing her, without touching her – she turns round and leaves me in the empty Room of Requirement.

"Were," she calls out again, without looking back. "Past tense, Riddle."

I watch her leave, the sight of her silhouette in those high heels being outrageous.

I can't help but think that an eternity without her will probably be damn long.

A huge thank you to the kind Guest reviewer, your words really made my day! And yes, despite fluctuations here and there, I think Tom might be an INTJ, and Harper probably an INFJ? I didn't shape their dynamics around MBTI on purpose, but its theory would often provide a good guideline :)