PAPER CONFINES.
03. / Hatchling

✶

At dawn, Amoret crept from her bedchamber to the common room, clinging to the spiraling walls of the staircase like a girl on Christmas morning. It was a narrow reminder of home—rushing downstairs at first light, her cat Petra trailing behind with her tail between her legs—but the nervous thrill of what awaited her was different. She scratched behind Petra's ear with a sigh. When had she stopped anticipating midnight traipses with her sisters into the moorland? And when had she become another girl likely mislead by the guile of Tom Riddle? She might have been a fool for thinking her position made her an anomaly; that the head girl was above being tricked into easy credence. Maybe there were plenty of others he pulled for clandestine evenings in his library, waxing poetic about their abilities and telling stories of whatever folklore he liked best that week. Maybe the viper had learned his script, and played the role of doe.

Or maybe she was stupidly untrusting.

The morning in the library passed without incident or excitement. Amoret kept her eye on the door for Tom, barely focused on her textbooks, which she'd surely memorized twice already, and her anticipation grew at every footstep that pattered by.

After what felt like a decade of flipping pages and lazily scrawling tidbits of information into her notebook, a pair of shoes stopped behind her desk.

Amoret spun in her seat.

"Morning," said Nadya.

Two pairs of shoes, then. It made her feel horrible to be disappointed.

Colette was physically nonpareil beside Nadya, blonde curls rolled to her chin, cheeks flushed with autumn cold or the rouge she'd borrowed from her aunt and never given back. It was uneven across her pale cheeks, but suited her pink peacoat. Her hazel eyes were thinned by a smile, and even with her weight leaning on her right leg, she was at least half a head taller than Amoret in a pair of last year's sling-backs.

She pressed a kiss to Amoret's cheek. "Banks! I have missed you this week."

Nadya snorted. "She didn't go to war."

"She may as well have! Those meetings are too much work. And with all the students turning up in the hospital..." She wiped a stray curl from Amoret's face. "They say the mandrakes will not be ready until spring. I can't imagine the difficultness."

"Difficulty," Amoret corrected, smiling a bit.

"I hope I'm next," Nadya said with a yawn. "I've got four exams before Christmas and I wouldn't mind sleeping through them without consequence."

Colette gaped. "They nearly died!"

"And? Nothing like a near-death experience to earn a bit of respect around here."

"You suppose fear is the same as respect."

"Fear and faith, my sweet Colette."

"She's so lovely when she's hungover, isn't she?" Amoret joined in.

Nadya shuffled through her bag. "I'm always lovely."

"Are you here to study?"

"No," said Colette, "Nadya was supposed to give this to you yesterday, but—"

"But I was busy making a mockery of Keenes in chess. Slipped my mind." Nadya handed a small tin to Amoret.

"He actually showed up?" Amoret rolled the jar over in her palm. More tea. "Oh, Colette, thank you."

"My aunt was supposed to send me more jars this last week, but she has been busy. I apologize, the container is very ugly."

"It tastes the same regardless, doesn't it? Really, thank you. You're keeping me sane."

"By a thread," Nadya quipped. "What you need is to go outside. This library would drive anyone mad if they sat here long enough."

Well, she could always go to another library. Though Nadya would like that even less. "I'll go outside when I ace Transfiguration."

"Graduation, then? It's a practice exam. You're really going to spend our last year of school stuck in this place?"

"My last year, Nadya, in case you've forgotten we aren't one entity. And I like it here."

"You're an awful liar."

"I think it's admirable," said Colette.

"You would, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I would! What does that mean?"

"It means you've probably inducted her into your cult of righteousness. Soon you'll have her knitting for sad children and playing Runok Ko on Saturday nights."

"I like Runok Ko!"

Nadya gasped dramatically. "No, you?"

"And you know I cannot knit."

"Maybe that's why the children are so sad."

Amoret blinked, focusing past their bickering.

Tom was entering the library, clad in school robes once again, that promised book in hand. He caught her eye unmistakably, and Amoret stiffened. Not in front of Nadya, not in front of Nadya, not in front of Nadya...

Tom Riddle didn't abide by her unspoken rules. "Good morning," he said on approach.

It was like a knife had sliced Nadya and Colette's conversation in two.

"Good morning," said Amoret.

Nadya stared between them, eyebrows furrowed and lips downturned, but said nothing.

"Colette, how are you?" he asked.

She looked up from where she was plucking a seemingly detrimental piece of fluff from her robe. "Oh. Ehm, good, and you?"

"I'm well, thank you. Nadya... nice to see you."

"Nice is certainly a word."

Tom turned to Amoret, not an indication on his body that he cared at all what Nadya had to say. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

"Oh, no, it's all right."

Nadya squinted. "Is it?"

"Well you're only here to argue with Colette, aren't you?" Amoret spoke between her teeth. Go away, she said with a glare, I can wreck this well enough on my own.

Colette gave Nadya's arm a little tug. "We can argue on the way out! Just as fun, hm?"

Nadya grumbled, pushing Colette's hand away but following her retreat. They walked away, paces matched, Colette's cane clicking on the wood.

"She doesn't like me," Tom remarked, watching Nadya turn the corner.

"One person in the whole castle doesn't like you. I'm sure you'll never recover."

Something flickered on his lips. Never quite a smile with him. He was always withholding. "You like me?"

Amoret scoffed. "I don't despise you as much as Nadya does, if that pleases you to know."

"As much?" he asked with piqued interest, "Do you only despise me on weekdays? Does it change with the weather?"

"You're consistently neutral to me, Tom Riddle."

"I'm sure I'll never recover."

Amoret, somehow, sat up straighter. The constant challenge to her pride was wondrous for her posture. "And what did you bring me?"

Tom placed the book on the desk, arm over her shoulder, near enough that she felt a small exhale on her neck. He had to have been doing it on purpose. She had half the mind to knock him off his feet—her wand was in her hand—only she was alarmed to find it was nice to be that close to him. To anyone. She could still find ways to rationalize this.

She cleared her throat. "Divinity and Damnation... I saw this last night. I thought it was misplaced."

"It was," Tom said, a healthy distance away again. "I caught you eyeing it. I think sometimes these things get misplaced for a reason."

"You're more profound than I am, in that case. But thank you."

"You're welcome."

"So." Amoret placed the old book atop the morning's stack. "Any abnormally large cats visit you in your sleep?"

"Not that I know of. And you?"

"No, but I think if one did find itself in my dormitory it would be satisfied with the riddle I left it. No saucer of milk though; I didn't want to siege the kitchens."

"What riddle?"

"I can't tell you that. It would be like telling you the wish I made on a birthday candle."

"And how many of those come true?"

Zero was a phenomenally easy number to remember.

"It's muggle magic," Tom said, "A comfort to some, I suppose."

Amoret felt herself make the face Nadya always told her she made before correcting someone. "It's pagan, actually. I mean, it is muggle, but... at the Greek schools they still use candles in rituals, so it must be worth something."

"Do you think a muggle could use them in the same way?"

Silence clung to them for a moment.

"I don't know. Magic has to come from somewhere, right? You're muggle-born, aren't you? Maybe it's scattered. Maybe it's just dormant in some people but it can still be accessed in limited ways."

Tom's expression wavered when she said muggle-born. She winced. She knew it wasn't easy, especially for Slytherins, but Tom was well-liked and insurmountably respected.

Then again, she could remember a time when he wasn't.

"It's an interesting question," he offered, "I suppose I haven't given it the same thought."

"Sure."

His careful smile affixed itself again. "Take your time with the book. I've got to meet with Dippet for something to do with Halloween, but I'll see you in Potions tomorrow?"

There and gone, like always. Amoret wanted desperately to peer into his mind for a change. She wasn't sure she believed he'd never pulled back the curtains on hers—and was half-offended at the possibility that he'd never found her interesting or challenging enough to want to.

"See you," she said quietly.

He smiled and turned curtly to the open doors. She watched him fade into the corridor.

━━━━━

Saturday next, Amoret heard the tap of Colette's cane on the hardwood outside her door. She sighed and stretched out of bed. The room was buzzing with moonlight and girls dizzy with liqueur-induced sleep; the typical aftermath of a night like this. Lillian's pet toad croaked. Circe's tabby squinted its leonine eyes. Priscilla tossed and turned under her covers. Whatever RRI antics they'd gotten up to tonight were enough to leave them undisturbed by the commotion coming from Amoret's side of the dorm. In fact, she was more surprised they hadn't woken her up with the mess they'd made. Bed curtains were in heaps on the floor like pools of navy silk, clothes were strewn carelessly across dressers and candles flickered dangerously without watch. Amoret thought of the Cat Sìth and waved her wand past them, watching the flames cough up smoke. She wasn't taking any chances.

"Banks?" Colette tried, barely above a whisper.

Petra hissed. She enjoyed interruptions to her sleep even less than Amoret, which was rich for a once-matted stray from the sticks. Left to fend for herself, it seemed entirely possible that Petra would be eaten by mice before she got her paws dirty to catch one herself.

Amoret smoothed down her fur and marched to the door.

Colette was pristine at the turn of the handle, but if Amoret squinted, she could see that her face was splotchy and a pink stain was blooming on her white sweater. Turnip wine, Amoret suspected. It had a distinct smell.

"Sorry," Colette whispered. "Did I wake you?"

"No, I was gazing out at my window at the stars."

"Oh... I thought you quit Astronomy last year."

"I did, I was being—" She sighed— "How did you get in this time?"

"Claude allowed me in."

"I can see that."

Claude Ozanich managed a meagre wave from behind Colette, his dark fingers stained with chalk pastels. There was a sketchbook in his hand and Amoret couldn't work up the energy to get angry with him for staying up all night drawing again. It's a Saturday, she reminded herself, at least he isn't feeding Petra food from the kitchens. But the boy really did look a mess. He was dressed halfway in pyjamas: loose-fitting plaid pants and a half-buttoned school shirt with a tie hanging lazily from his collar. There was a tear in his sleeve and a quill tucked behind his ear and Amoret just knew the pretentious bastard was wearing it as an accessory. His nose was blue with paint, and she wondered if he'd gone to scratch it and had forgotten his hands looked like a children's classroom after arts and crafts. It bothered her that he had more money than she'd know in her lifetime and chose to dress like... that.

"Banks," he nodded.

"Claude. Why are you both here?"

"Oh!" Colette exclaimed. "Right, well, I went to the meeting with Nadya, and then—"

"You went to an RRI meeting?" Amoret assumed she'd only showed up as rescue.

"Yes! May I finish?"

"Sorry."

Claude snickered.

"I went with Nadya, because she was acting strange about it, and Antonin and the others were there and—well—he started saying things. Things that Nadya did not like, and you know how she gets."

"She got in a fight again? With Antonin Dolohov?"

Colette nodded.

"Is she mad?!" Amoret stared in disbelief, shutting the door behind her.

Colette's grim expression seemed to agree. "I didn't know where else to go; you are the best at healing magic, and I couldn't bring her to Madame Codde like this."

"She's here?"

"No, in the dungeons."

"She got sent to the dungeons?!"

"No! No—her dormitory! The Slytherin dormitory, in the dungeons!"

Amoret's chest heaved with a sigh. "Colette, please be more specific. It's late."

"Early," said Claude.

"Sorry," mumbled Colette.

"Just... show me where she is."

Colette pressed a grateful kiss to Amoret's cheek. "Thank you."

"And you." Amoret poked a finger into Claude's chest. "Get to bed."

"What? I was taking care of... prefect things."

"Really?" She snatched the sketchbook from his hand. The parchment was strewn with flowery corners and summer skies, spilled ink and smudged pastels. On the most recent page, tabbed with today's date, there was a portrait of a freckled boy with skin like gold, feathers blooming from his arms like white blossoms, brown-eyed and tall—but surely not as tall as Claude himself. Wings loomed behind him. His hair was whitish-blond, stark against bronze skin, blown wild by winds Amoret couldn't see. The drawing was yet to be animated, but like most of Claude's works, it would likely be done by the end of the week if his schedule was forgiving enough. Amoret traced over the artwork, feeling the waxy residue on her fingertips. It wasn't until Colette's chin was over her head to get a look that she snapped out of it.

"Prefect things, hm?"

Claude made a face. "What? This is a metaphor for the... divine gift of responsibility. The wings, the sunshine—can't you tell? Don't you have an artist's eye, Banks?"

"Go to bed." She smacked his arm and he grinned, shaking his head.

Claude took his sketchbook and traipsed his obnoxiously long legs to the boys dormitory above.

"Goodnight," he crooned, peering his head from behind the wall.

"Decent morning."

His eyes glinted at her stolen correction. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

Amoret pointed curtly in the direction of his dormitory and took Colette's arm.

Moving through the corridors, they stuck to the walls as much as possible. They braved the darkness, footsteps pattering in the eerie silence, their shadows dancing along the walls with every dim torchlight they passed. Amoret turned to Colette for assurance, but Colette seemed too focused on getting to Nadya to be concerned about anything else. Amoret shook away her nerves and ran through excuses in her head in case they were seen—anything that would sound natural coming from the head girl—I heard there was trouble in the dungeons, or, students out of bed, or, students drunk on firewhisky. But no professors came in their path, and, thank god, Headmaster Dippet didn't either.

Finally, they reached the lowest levels, the smell of wet stone and salt lamps, and Colette pulled Amoret with utmost urgency to the Slytherin common room entrance.

"Filius aurorae," Colette said in an awkward accent.

"Lousy password."

"Nadya says Tom is in charge of them."

"Oh." She knew there was no retraction of words to undo the little smile that had quirked at the corner of Colette's lips for the first time that night, so Amoret shut up.

Thankfully, the door slid open and greenish light poured out.

The Slytherin common room was built like an old hostelry, dark and damp but rich all the same. Colette and Amoret stepped through the doorway and peered up, and no matter how many times they visited, it was always a sight to behold. The ceiling was intricate stone, sculpted with 10th century molding and adorned with gothic chandeliers. The light emanating from them was scarce, and there was no sunshine to make up for it. The walls danced with ripples from the Black Lake, lightforms like technicolour prisms, making the entire room feel as if it were submerged in water. Through the windows, which must have been enchanted glass, bulrushes and gilliweed and cattails swayed at the bottom of the lake.

Nadya was to the side, drunkenly pacing the coffee table with a swab of bloodstained cotton pressed to her nose. It was a miraculous shock she hadn't cultivated an audience.

"Ah, Banks, so nice of you to come," she said with a wave, her words slurred.

"So nice of you to launch your fist in the face of a boy twice your size."

Nadya grinned through crimson teeth. "This one deserved it."

"Where is he, anyway—Dolohov?"

"Not here. Otherwise I'd be—" Nadya hiccoughed— "wringing his sorry neck out with his stupid, untucked tie."

"I'm sure you would."

"I—" another hiccough— "would!"

Amoret sighed. "Come here."

Nadya grumbled but obeyed, hopping from the coffee table and nearly falling over in the process. Colette steadied her with a hand at the small of her back, and for a moment Nadya didn't seem to notice, but it was clear when she did because she slapped Colette's wrist away like it was the thorn of a wasp. Colette withered slightly, but straightened herself to appear unaffected.

Amoret removed the cotton from Nadya's nose, tilting her head to halt the blood flow.

"Deep breath," she instructed.

Nadya obliged, forced her eyes to stay open and steeled herself. Playing tough even when no one was around to watch almost made Amoret roll her eyes at the absurdity. Instead, she raised her wand. Nadya didn't look fazed, but she always was when it was done.

"Episkey."

A crunch, cartilage rearranging, and then a distinct snap back to place. Nadya bit down and her teeth grinded together. Colette was clearly restraining the urge to reach forward again to help, which was painful to watch.

"Better?" Amoret asked.

"Sobering," Nadya answered. She sounded like her nose was stuffed with the beginnings of a cold. An effect of the spell. Amoret knew from using it on her so many times.

Colette sighed in relief, and then smiled. She was flushed and her mouth was slanted always a little bit to one side. Nadya looked away. "Thank you, Banks. You are the best."

"Don't worry about it. Without me, I think Nadya would live the rest of her life with a nose broken eight times over."

Colette laughed, and Nadya turned to her again to glower.

"What? It's true."

"Right," Amoret said, "I'm going back to bed. Next time you go out drinking, try not to get punched in the face."

"Next time come with me."

"I'll think about it."

"No you won't."

"No, I probably won't."

Nadya's tipsy grin returned. "So Colette's prudishness can wash off on someone. I didn't realize it was possible."

"Prudishness?" Amoret and Colette said at the same time. Amoret went on, "Because I don't consider drinking a free solution to my problems? You're funny."

"It's not free."

How that managed to be her takeaway was impressive.

"Yes it is," said Colette, "you make all of the Gryffindor boys bring you drinks."

"I'm building their character."

Amoret ignored the both of them. "I have responsibilities."

"So do I, and I manage to stay on top of my classes without being... eaten alive by them. The duality is possible, Banks."

"Yes, but you aren't taking five N.E.W.T level classes, Nadya, and you're not head girl. There are certain expectations—"

"You can be successful with a hobby! Colette has piano and baking and whatever she does with her Hufflepuff friends, I've got Potions and chess and a horde of people fighting for a chance to lose a game to me, and you have... what, a grouchy old cat? An astrolabe you haven't touched in months?"

"Petra is not grouchy."

"She hisses at me every time I approach her," murmured Colette.

Amoret crossed her arms. "She doesn't like French accents."

"I thought that everyone liked French accents..."

"Oui, of course," Nadya said in a horrible imitation of Colette's voice.

She was still drunk, Amoret reminded herself, but Merlin, she was awful when she was. "I'll be going now."

Nadya groaned, slumping on the couch.

"We will see you tomorrow?" Colette asked hopefully.

Amoret smiled back in sympathy. She knew Nadya hadn't asked Colette to stay. She also knew Nadya rarely asked her to leave.

"Monday. Goodnight."

Amoret peered into the hallway before leaving, the soothing swivel of water in the Slytherin common room fading behind her.

When she was halfway up the great staircase and sore in the eyes from sleepiness, there was a sudden grating beneath her, and the stairs began to change.

"No, hey—" She patted the railing as if that would mean anything, her voice an irritated whisper as she tried still not to draw any unwanted attention. "Please don't—just move—"

But the stairs didn't move. Not the way she wanted them to. They yawned again with the sound of charmed mechanics, and Amoret watched the chasm close before her feet as they stopped at the entrance to a seventh floor corridor and the stone stairs clicked in place with the floor. She cursed, closed her eyes and pleaded, but still they didn't oblige her.

Wretched, irksome magic, those stairs.

Amoret knew they wouldn't cooperate, so she abided their wishes and stepped off.

The hallway was quiet and the candle sconces on the wall didn't flicker. Their flames were as solid as a still photograph, like time had frozen around her. The shadows of silhouettes grew long-legged and shrunk again as she passed, and she thought of that night in the Slaughters when she imagined her sisters with stilts. Her imagination still stretched, and she saw in her tired eyes the Cat Sìth, prowling in the dark, shapeshifting, fangs out. But she turned, and despite her breath getting caught somewhere between the staircase and her chest, the corridor was empty.

Amoret kept her wand clutched tight in her fist regardless, her cardigan fluttering behind her with every step, bare legs puckered with goosebumps. She knew where she was being led, but why—why, she didn't understand. There was a strange feeling. Some nagging curiosity like a pang of hunger. Merope Gaunt... dead... descendant of Salazar... hysteria... bewitchment...

She hadn't yet begun Tom's book. The week had been rife with prefect meetings and exam preparations and summons to Dippet's office, but it didn't matter. She wanted more than Valerian Krowe's immortalized philosophy.

Taking a breath, Amoret turned the corner and the great blank wall gazed decisively at her. It was calling. Her name: every moniker, sweet-voiced, mothering and lovely. She ran her fingers over the stone, feeling the ridges, the peaks, the hollows. If she closed her eyes, she was home, memorizing the patterns in her bedroom. Practicing spells with Sybil's wand under the covers before she had her own. Taking sips of warm ale from Dad's cup while he wasn't looking. Throwing rocks in the river, tapping sap from the trees, collecting feverfew and soapwort and bilberries. Making them into hand lathers and medicine. When she opened her eyes, reality settled. Reid was gone, Sybil was lost, her father was dead and her mother was soon to join him.

If home was a mausoleum then Amoret was the gravedigger. She wondered who might bury her head when she was the only one left.

No burial need be, the voices cooed. A cocoon, not a coffin.

They sounded nice. Warm.

Her name echoed again beyond a door that hadn't formed yet, but Amoret knew it would. She closed her eyes again, and this time her focus was on Tom's library, the rolling ladder and the black walls and the smell of book lignin like old vanilla. It wasn't the first time Amoret had stood before the Room of Requirement to ask something of it, but this felt different. It had something to show her without being asked. The echo hummed, and she could see behind curtain-closed eyelids—spidery limbs wrapping her in wisps of night-black smoke. They were cold, wretched, wrong, but welcoming. She wasn't supposed to be here and she wanted to be anyway. The shadows whispered to her in a dulcet caress, a kiss at her tired temples, a hiccough in her wanton heart.

She wanted to let them in. She was, sometimes, nothing but her want.

And then someone screamed.

A girl's voice like shattering glass. Amoret's eyes snapped open and the echo was gone as though it had never been there at all.

Something hit the floor with a wishbone snap and a wet thud, and the screaming stopped.

Amoret readied her wand, though her hands shook, and walked slowly toward the new quiet. It dragged on so long—it crawled—that she prayed if she moved slower she'd hear a sudden commotion and a chorus of laughs at a successful prank. She did not.

When she reached the end of the corridor, any lull of the Room of Requirement had vanished, any of that strange pull severed like an invisible string.

Ruby Belahue, fifth year Gryffindor prefect, was splayed on the floor outside the girl's lavatory, and she was dead.

Her jaw was slack, riddled with still-gathering blood. It pooled around her head like a crimson halo, down the length of her arms in half-spread wings. Her mouth hung open, the black maw of a cave, beckoning for flies and other death-drawn things. Her head rested—no, not the right word; it slumped—it stuck—between the floor and the rough lip of the wall. The base of her skull was soft where it met the stone. Concave. Bludgeoned. Red, like the rest of her. Her hair matted with still-wet blood. Some teeth strewn before her, some still in her mouth. Knifed through her upper lip. Her eyes were puffy, milky cataracts on either side of her face, and her skin was glossed over like the plastic sheen of a new magazine. No, Ruby Belahue was worse than dead. Death had laughed and taken her and made a toy of her.

Amoret felt her legs drop first, and her vision went black.

[ . . . ] ( tw: death, graphic description of gore ) in conclusion, uh oh!  /  word count. 4483

©  Crierayla  ✶  2020