The night in London seemed to hang over the rooftops like a heavy velvet veil. The clouds, thick and unmoving, concealed the moon with an almost superstitious zeal, as if nature itself preferred not to witness what was about to happen. There was no breeze — and yet, Meredith Crane, standing by the window of her small apartment in Bloomsbury, felt something in the air. It wasn't the cold. It was something denser, a kind of invisible unease, as if a persistent, unwavering gaze was fixed on the back of her neck.

With an abrupt gesture, she pulled back the curtain and peeked at the street below.

Nothing.

The yellowish light from the lampposts formed puddles of brightness on the damp sidewalk, revealing only urban stillness — closed shop windows, motionless facades, a solitary taxi in the distance. No suspicious silhouettes, no worn coat moving between shadows. And yet, she knew.

Yes, she knew.

She closed the curtain more firmly than necessary. The sound was dry, final. She turned to the desk where piles of parchment were arranged with a precision that betrayed the nervousness of whoever had organized them. In the flickering light of a candle — already in its dying breaths — the names leapt before her eyes.

Selwyn. Burkes. Vaisey. Rosier.

Names she knew well. Names belonging to powerful men or men with a past, shrouded in secrets. And all of them, inconveniently timed... dead.

Except for Adrian Rosier. Technically alive — but in a deep coma for years now, under the responsibility of the Department of Mysteries. And in that state, he was as useful as the others. Perhaps even less.

Meredith rested her elbows on the desk and buried her face in her hands. Ever since she left the Department of Mysteries — a quiet exit, no fuss, no farewells — she had been trying to live a modest, almost invisible life. A used bookstore in Notting Hill. Letters rarely sent. Lonely dinners. A name no longer appearing in official records.

But there are things that don't vanish with a resignation request.

At first, she had attributed the anomalies to mere coincidence. A missing file here, a suspicious whisper there. And then... footsteps. Always behind her. Footsteps that stopped when she stopped. That vanished when she turned around. But they were there. Oh yes, they were there.

Meredith Crane was not a woman easily spooked by shadows. She knew how the Ministry's backstage worked. But the constancy of the fear had begun to wear her down. And that night, she knew. Whatever had been following her — whoever it was — had finally arrived.

With slightly trembling hands, she pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and wrote with nervous speed:

"If something happens to me — if I disappear — go to..."

But she never finished the sentence.

Something had changed. In the air. In the room.

The silence, once merely uncomfortable, had become sepulchral. The temperature dropped — not like a winter breeze, but as if the very essence of the room had been drained.

The candle flickered. Meredith looked up.

A soft creak came from behind her, like wood yielding under an invisible weight.

She didn't turn around. Not yet.

Instead, with the automatic precision of someone trained to keep a cool head, she slowly and discreetly reached for her wand on the table. Her fingers brushed it...

And then, the attack came — silent, brutal, invisible.

It was as if all the air had been ripped from her lungs. A sudden pressure gripped her chest, her feet left the floor. She tried to scream, but no sound came. Her hands moved frantically, searching for support, but nothing responded to her touch.

The wand fell, spinning through the air until it hit the floor with a dry crack.

Her body floated — or was it being lifted? — as the room around her began to darken. Not in a natural way. The shadows seemed to devour the light with animalistic hunger. The candle was the first to vanish, swallowed by a blackness that moved like smoke, but without a scent. Only silence. Only cold.

And then, the voice.

An inhuman, icy whisper, far too close.

"It's time."

It wasn't just sound — it was an intrusion. As if Meredith's mind itself had been opened from the inside. A searing pain sliced through her skull, and for an instant, she glimpsed something. A faceless figure. A circle of ancient symbols. A name she dared not utter.

Her mouth opened, but the scream was swallowed before it was born. Her wide eyes froze in pure, absolute horror.

And then came the darkness. Complete. Irretrievable.

~HP~

Meredith Crane's apartment remained untouched — at least at first glance. No sign of violence, no lingering spells in the air, not even the faintest trace that someone had fought for their life. It was as if the very existence of the resident had simply... evaporated.

The neighbors noticed her absence with the kind of quiet suspicion only the English know how to cultivate. Meredith was a woman of meticulous habits — the sort who boiled water at the same time every day, whose footsteps could invariably be heard at seven-thirty in the morning, and whose lights went out, without fail, at ten o'clock sharp. When the whistle of the kettle ceased, when the curtains remained closed for days on end, and no silhouette appeared against the windows in the nights that followed, a certain Mr. Elderberry from the second floor decided to write to the Ministry.

Shortly after, two Aurors — seasoned, cautious men, already well-hardened by the job — arrived discreetly at the scene. The door opened without resistance; it wasn't locked from the inside. Inside, a thick silence hung like an old veil, guarding the stillness of a place that shouldn't have been silent.

Everything looked... normal.

Too normal.

The kettle rested on the stove, empty. The winter coat hung impeccably on the hook by the entrance. The dried flowers in the window vase — lavender, by the scent — remained in an orderly arrangement. It was a home where time seemed to have stopped at the very moment the hourglass should have turned. No chair was out of place. No book misplaced. Just a sharp absence, the kind that turns your stomach.

The Aurors proceeded with method and caution. They checked the cupboards, the cellar, even the baseboards. They searched for traces of residual magic, signs of forced Apparition, hidden enchantments. But the space only returned the echo of their own footsteps.

That's when the younger of them — a certain Higgins, still young enough to hold onto a thread of hope in people — crouched beside the desk. The furniture, polished with care, was covered in neatly stacked parchments. But what caught his attention wasn't on the table — it was on the floor, slightly folded under the leg of a chair.

A parchment.

Dropped, abandoned, as if left in haste. The quill still rested on it, at an angle that suggested interruption — not completion.

Higgins picked it up gently. There were no stains. No scratch-outs. Just a white surface, smooth as freshly fallen snow.

"Curious…" he murmured, holding it up to the light.

The other Auror, a middle-aged man named Dallow, approached, eyes narrowed.

"Hidden message?" he suggested.

Higgins frowned, turning the parchment between his fingers as if the candlelight might reveal some concealed spell.

"Maybe. There's no visible ink... but... wait."

He froze.

For a fleeting instant — perhaps less than a second — something seemed to shimmer beneath the surface of the parchment. It wasn't ink, exactly. It was more like... the suggestion of ink. A ghost. A trace that had never been fully written. Like words buried beneath the skin of the paper, about to emerge.

Dallow, already used to the tricks of the trade, wasn't impressed.

"Optical illusion. Maybe a camouflage spell. There are plenty of those. Some take days to reveal themselves. Others, only with the right wand. I've seen it all."

But Higgins didn't respond. His eyes remained fixed on the page.

And then, he saw it.

One word.

As clear as a whisper in the dark.

Run.

That was it.

The word appeared for an instant and vanished just as quickly, as if it knew it had been seen. Higgins blinked, his heart racing.

"I... I think I saw…" he began, hesitant.

But he never finished the sentence.

The air in the room, until then still, suddenly grew colder. Not like a draft from a poorly closed window — but a cold that came from within. An old cold. A cold that knew.

The two men exchanged looks. Higgins, still holding the parchment, stepped back. Dallow instinctively reached for his wand.

"Time to go," Dallow murmured, with the firmness of someone who knew when they were no longer welcome.

From the hallway, the door closed behind them with a nearly polite click.

A/N:

On my P4tr30n page, updates will follow a more consistent schedule.

Support me on P4tr30n: /writerofether

Follows, favorites, and reviews are deeply appreciated!

"And in case I don't see you — good afternoon, good evening, and good night."