Masquerade¹ → Tom Riddle [Rewritten] ✓

CHAPTER THREE

As much as Evelyn had wished the evening would only get better from there, she was very much mistaken. Almost instantly after she had stepped into the common room, she felt an all too familiar hand sweep past her chest. "Daniel!" She shouted, forgetting that there were first years present. She turned her attention back to them momentarily, "right, so you should all make your way to your dormitory now and get some rest."

Once the first years had left the common room, Evelyn let the rage from within her unleash. "Daniel if you dare touch me again I will hex you badly that Madame Truckle won't even be able to fix you!" She pulled her wand from her pocket, pressing it into his abdomen. "And let's not forget that one of us actually has the intelligence of a Ravenclaw and not just the curiosity." She twisted her wand before pulling it away. "Now, if I hear complaints from any girl at Hogwarts about you, I will hunt you down and hex you and that is a promise."

"It was just a joke," Daniel laughed it off, surprised at Evelyn's serious tone.

"Do you see anybody laughing?" She looked around at the empty common room.

Daniels eyes followed the same pattern as Evelyns around the bronze and blue common room, "well no, but-"

"Exactly!"

With that, Evelyn made her way into the girls' dormitory. "If Daniel bothers any of you this year, let me know and I will crush him like the bug he is." She threw herself on her bed with a sigh.

"Does someone need a kitten cuddle?" Lily asked in a singsong voice.

"Wha-?" But before Evelyn could even question what Lily was doing, she felt the paws of Midnight digging into her shoulder. "He's finally awake!" She exclaimed as he began to dig his paws deeper into her shoulder in a rhythmic manner.

"I think he appreciated the custard tart I brought back for him, I know a custard tart would wake me up." Lily looked as though she had zoned out again at the thought of another custard tart.

"Are cats even allowed them?" Sara sat up from her bed, glancing over at Lily and then Evelyn who shrugged her one free shoulder. "Anyway, we should all get to sleep if we're going to survive tomorrow."

Sara was right, the first day of OWL year was bound to be a complex one. Evelyn had many things about the terrors of OWL year but she hoped it was all just a scary story, she didn't want another bad year, it could just possibly be the thing to tip her over the edge.

After Evelyn had been able to pry Midnight off of her shoulder, she changed into her blue nightdress and jumped into bed. She leant over the side of her bed and grabbed the spine of her favourite potions textbook, much to the dismay of her friends.

"Evelyn! You do not need to read up on potions we haven't even learnt how to make yet!" Lily exclaimed as soon as she saw the dreaded textbook in Evelyn's hands.

"We haven't studied them yet?" She thought back to the summer holidays in which she had spent far more time than her grandmother would have liked practising fifth-year potions. "I think you mean you haven't studied them yet." She smiled devilishly at Lily before cracking open her textbook.

Evelyn was by no means falling behind in potions, but she wanted to be quite the opposite. She wanted to be the star pupil, or at least as close to the star pupil that she could be considering the golden boy Tom Riddle was in her class.

She spent half an hour reading up on how to correctly brew a Strengthening Solution before her eyelids became so heavy she knew she would be unable to even finish another page. "Good night!" She called out to her friends after she slid her textbook back into her trunk.

"Night Lily, night Evelyn."

"Goodnight girls and Midnight."

And with that, the lights went out and Evelyn fell into a bumpy sleep.

Evelyn found herself alone. Alone and in a dark corner of a room. With very little light, she was relying heavily on her other senses, taking a deep breath in she smelt something familiar, but what she couldn't quite put her finger on. As she took a step forward, the smell didn't change. Every step felt exactly the same, her surroundings felt as though they were not changing but she was certain that she was moving.

It felt as though Evelyn was being puppeteered, she had no control of her limbs, only her mind was her own. As though a piece of invisible string was pulling her forward, she moved further into whichever room she was in, deeper and deeper until she reached a door. It was unlike any door Evelyn recognised, it looked out of place for Hogwarts, out of place for her old home and even out of place for her seaside cabin.

Evelyns hand reached out towards the door, her fingers tracing the raised wooden outline that surrounded the brassy knocker. Her fingers grasped the metal knocker, causing her to flinch as a shiver ran down her spine, and she pushed open the door. "Hello." She finally spoke, her voice coming out raspy and hoarse as though she had never spoken before.

"Hello?" She called out again, unsure if hearing an answer would even slight put her mind at rest.

She took another few hesitant steps forwards but this time it felt different. Her previously loud shoes no longer clashed with the cobblestone flooring, instead, the collided with some form of liquid. Evelyn was certain it wasn't water, but other than that she was clueless about the liquid. It felt heavy, each footstep becoming harder and harder the deeper into the room she went.

Once she was in what felt like the centre of the room, she could finally see. Whatever little light shone through the window was enough for Evelyn to be able to make out where she was and when she did, she still felt none the wiser. She was in the girls' bathroom, one she rarely ever used but had stumbled across during her third year whilst wandering the castle.

Uncertainly, Evelyn crouched closer to the floor, reaching her hand out towards the liquid. With a deep breath, she submerged her hand, pulling it back in disgust almost immediately after. "It's slimy." She noted, furrowing her brows.

Evelyn wanted answers, she wasn't sure what they might be but she was certain she wanted them regardless. "What is going on?" She whispered to herself as she stood herself upright once again.

As soon as she did, Evelyn noticed the damage that surrounded her. Evelyn could not see a single bathroom stall left unharmed, each one looked as though it had been beaten with full force. Sections of the wooden stall lay around the bathroom, scattered like a tiresome jigsaw puzzle thrown in anger. "Well, at least I didn't trip on one of those."

Evelyn wondered silently around the bathroom for a few moments until she came across an anomaly; a single bathroom stall had been left untouched. Not a single scratch on its wooden surface, but as Evelyn approached closer, it started to become clear as to why. From the side of the cubicle, a single leg protruded out, so small Evelyn could have easily missed it. A child was dead.

Evelyn knew now would be the time to leave, but she simply couldn't, she had to find out who it was, she simply couldn't resist. As she leant closer to inspect the body, she felt a warm breath on the back of her neck, somebody else was here.

Evelyn shot up from her bed, screaming. "Murder in the bathroom!"