"I do not know. I may never know. I scream. Not from pain, but because my ears can't hear what I say. And so, I scream louder. I'm shouting. I'm telling myself to shriek. Any pitch, any frequency that might penetrate my dead ears. But I hear nothing. Maybe I never screamed at all. Maybe I never stopped screaming."

━━ INTERCEPTS

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

An ominous, unnatural silence echoed in the Great Hall, broken only by Armando Dippet's unusually grave voice. The students of Hogwarts seemed to have the utmost respect for the news of their deceased classmate— the irony was almost sadistic. A lot of them had despised Myrtle Warren; the ugly, mudblooded blemish on a magical school's refined and shiny surface. 

Many eyes were glazed over, some with tears, though most with boredom, as Dippet droned on and on, spewing tainted lies about her tragic yet unexpected demise, because the wretched truth was that Hogwarts was not as safe as it was acclaimed to be. 

"We urge all students to join the vigil which will be held this Thursday, to show solidarity to Myrtle's family," the Headmaster concluded. Her family. A prostitute for a mother, and an unknown father. Fate truly had dealt the Ravenclaw a cursed hand of cards. 

Dippet took a deep breath before continuing. "The safety of our students remains, as always, of utmost priority," he said, and Inkeri almost laughed derisively. "As it currently stands, the person responsible for this heinous crime has not yet been caught."

Inkeri's gaze roamed over all of the Slytherins. All of them appeared completely disinterested— except, surprisingly, Riddle's followers, who were listening with rapt attention. Lestrange's hands were turning white from how tightly the clenched the edge of the table. Next to him was Dolohov, watching the speech intently, and twirling his pocket knife in his hands. 

Beside Dolohov, was Riddle himself. He looked as though he were on the verge of death; purple circles forming under his eyes, his usually perfect hair now messy and dishevelled and falling over his eyes, and the top button of his collar undone to reveal taught veins creeping up his neck. 

His head tilted upwards suddenly to look her dead in the eye, and she jolted back to look at the podium, blue eyes widening with alarm as shivers of fear spiked up her back. She still remembered what the pain felt like when his dagger tore through her. Inkeri touched the rune on her arm absent-mindedly. 

"Unfortunately, if the culprit— the monster— is not caught, then we will no longer be able to continue as a school," Dippet stated now. "And it is with a heavy heart that I must inform all students of the closure of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with immediate action. All students must return home by Saturday. Thank you, and may our thoughts and prayers be with Myrtle always."

Blood rushed in Inkeri's ears, as everyone began to stand to exit the hall. Return home? If Hogwarts closed, all of her efforts, all of the pain she'd been tolerating would prove utterly futile. She needed more time, to prove to her conscience that she was chasing the right person. 

Inkeri followed Adrielle out through the door silently, her mind spirally in loose circles. Once they were out, chatter broke out among the students, and Asha was by their side in an instant. 

"I cannot believe it," she said breathlessly. Her hair was tied back in a bun, held in place by a pin which adorned blue, metal periwinkles. "Poor Myrtle, she was a sweet child." 

"Yes, and look where her kindness got her," Adrielle sneered, but she was looking at Asha with a degree of warning in her vivid green eyes. "In a mortuary, a senseless corpse at thirteen." 

Asha narrowed her eyes as they turned the corner, where they had to split up to go to their respective House dwellings. "You do not always have to be heartless," she hissed, with a foreign animosity that Inkeri had not thought she was capable of. "It does not make you better than anyone." 

"I am better than you," Adrielle spat, "snivelling pathetically over the death of a stupid, useless mudblood." A gasp escaped Asha's lips, and she made to speak, but then just turned around and left, leaving the Slytherins there.

Inkeri swallowed. "I have to go to the owlery,"  she said apologetically to Adrielle, who snapped out of her trance and shrugged as though nothing had happened. 

"Do not get murdered on your way there," she said broodily, leaving and heading for the most dimly lit of available corridors. 

Once she was out of sight, Inkeri practically ran to the castle's West Tower, and tore up the steps, almost losing her footing multiple times. 

The floor of the owlery was grimy and the air chilly, a cacophony of hooting echoing around the tiny room. Inkeri pulled out a piece of crumpled parchment and ink, and began writing frantically, trying to keep her awful handwriting somewhat legible. 

Everything is in jeopardy. Respond urgently. 

No greeting or sign off, concise, no specific references just like she had been told. She scanned the owls. selecting the most healthy-looking one to make the treacherous journey North. She tied the letter to its leg and it took off, magnificent black wings standing out against the bleak grey landscape. 

Inkeri leaned against the windowsill, teetering on the edge like she always used to and sucking in a lungful of cold air. Even though so much was going on, life seemed to have come to a standstill, almost as though she were viewing herself from an aerial perspective.

Tom Riddle was toying with her— but now, she was growing numb to it. Naivety could only prevail for so long before it morphed into stupidity, and Inkeri was not stupid. She had learned the hard way not to hold him to moral standards, and though she still could not understand him, she had learned how to tug at the right emotions to make them all cascade into a tumbling avalanche, which broke right through his perfect façade. 

As she made her way back down the stone steps with more composure this time, at the bottom, a strange occurrence caught her eyes. More than four dozen tiny black spiders were crawling out of the open window, in a straight line and almost perfunctory manner. 

She didn't hesitate for a single second. Grabbing the upper ledge, she swung herself out of the window, landing with a thud on the grass outside. The wind moaned and nipped at her exposed face, while a thick grey fog hung over the atmosphere, cloaking the trees with obscurity. 

The trail of spiders was long, and she followed it, right up to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where they disappeared into the tall grass. She could hardly see a foot in front of her, only the trees poked out of the mist, overgrown and foreboding as they creaked in the harsh gusts. 

"It's off limits." A voice startled her out of her wits, and she let out a cry of surprise, swivelling to see Niklaus Rosier leaning against a tree and smoking a cigarette. "The forest is off limits to students," he repeated boredly, breathing out smoke. 

"How are you lot everywhere!" Inkeri exclaimed. "What could you possibly be doing out here, on the edge of the Forbidden Forest in the middle of this storm?" 

Rosier shrugged. "I just wanted to smoke," he admitted. "The teachers don't take kindly to it." He surveyed her for a minute, and she crossed her arms. "What are you doing on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, in the middle of this storm?"

She didn't take kindly to the imitation. "Taking a stroll," Inkeri snapped, dragging a hand through her hair. There was no way he could have followed her here, which meant her luck was just terrible.

"Relax," he said, rolling his eyes and taking another drag from his cigarette. He placed it between his lips, taking another one from the pack and holding it out for her. "If I wanted to kill you, I would have tried by now." 

Glaring at him slightly, she took it. Igniting a tiny flame from the tip of his wand, Rosier lit it for her. The burning taste of tobacco filled her throat when she inhaled from the cigarette. 

They stood in silence for a few minutes, staring off into the woods, listening to the wind and the occasional howl of some unknown creature. Inkeri felt as though this were the most unexpected thing to have happened yet; smoking in the grounds with Niklaus Rosier while someone had just been murdered. 

"This is strange," Inkeri murmured, before she could stop herself. "Hogwarts is guarded so heavily by ancient magic. How could a girl's life slip past it?" 

Niklaus sighed. "Her death was wrong," he said with a surprising degree of sincerity. "But life is a fragile thing. Even the most powerful wizards cannot cling to it for longer than is written in their destiny, no matter how hard they always try." 

Inkeri watched him carefully. "You believe that?"

He crushed the tiny remnants of his cigarette beneath his shoe, and smiled thinly. "I count on it." 

She continued to look at him, as he pulled out another cigarette. It took him three tries to light it, as the wind repeatedly tried to extinguish the fire. The smoke mixed with the fog. 

"Well, I think that's a very morbid outlook on things," Inkeri countered. "Believing that you should just give up the reins, because nothing is your control? It's enough to make a person despair."

Rosier hardly reacted. "Maybe," was all he said, and that was the abrupt end to the conversation. Inkeri didn't mind; the silence gave her time to unravel her thoughts. 

In the distance, she could just about see a figure. It was hazy, but slowly, she could make out the outline. At first she thought they were levitating, but then she realised that it was hanging from the tree. By a rope. 

Wide, bulging blue eyes which gleamed through the distance stared back at her, stringy blonde hair falling around pale skin. The neck was broken at an angle, bare, scarred feet and hands poking out from underneath a white lace dress. Inkeri brought her hand to her mouth in shock, and so did she. Inkeri lowered her hand, and the other girl mirrored this too. 

"Is everything alright?" Rosier questioned, raising an eyebrow. Inkeri looked at him, and when she looked back, the girl in the lace dress was gone. Inkeri squeezed her eyes shut. The Hiisi* are playing tricks with my mind, she thought. 

"Yes," she replied, trying to keep her voice from breaking. "It is getting too cold for me, I'm going inside." He nodded, and gestured for her to go on, claiming he had and entire box of cigarettes left yet to finish. 

As she headed back to the castle, Inkeri's eyes did not leave the tree, where the frayed rope was still swinging in the wind. 

When she got inside, Inkeri found that all of the corridors were practically deserted. Students had been ordered to stay in their House Common Rooms for the single week left aside from lessons, and nobody was dumb enough to disobey them with a potential murderer on the loose. Well, almost nobody. 

Inkeri went hurriedly toward the Slytherin Common Room, only walking in the larger, brightly-lit corridors, until she heard voices. The girl froze, paralyzed with fear, until she recognised whose the voices were. Hesitantly, she went closer. 

"Do not play games," Riddle snarled, and Inkeri flinched at the sheer rage in his voice, even though she could not see him. "The only reason you are not writhing in agony right now is because I am yet to regain my full strength."

"R-Riddle, I—"  Lestrange was cut off abruptly, and he let out a loud, piercing cry.

"Where were you," Riddle demanded in a venomous hiss. "Look at the mess of everything, the complications, all because of your failure." 

Inkeri edged closer, pressing herself flat against the wall so that they could not see her. She clamped a hand over her mouth to hide the sound of her heavy breathing. On the opposite wall, candlelight reflected their shadows.

"I apologize for my failure!" Lestrange said, his voice rising on the end due to panic and repressed anger. "I just needed more time."

"Nobody else needed more time," Riddle spat. "You have had nothing to offer me, no talent to display— I wonder often if there is even a use for you among my ranks." 

Lestrange began to splutter something, when a voice cut him off. "Koskinen!" Triton Nott said loudly, and she spun to face him, as he nodded at her cordially, but there was something serpentine about his smile, and she no longer found it genuine. "What are you d-doing, roaming about so late? It is d-dangerous, you know." 

Inkeri waited for a minute before responding, but Lestrange and Riddle had gone silent. "Just... taking a stroll," she lied for the second time that evening. She was wary not to let Nott know that his spell had failed. 

Triton sighed, almost amicably. "Of course you would be taking a stroll when someone has just been killed,"  he said teasingly, and she feebly painted a false smile on her own lips. 

"Nothing like a good murderer to fuel my exhilaration," she grumbled, tapping her fingers impatiently against the wall. Her hatred for Nott in that moment almost surpassed that of her hate for Riddle— she'd had a clear chance to learn the truth and he'd impeded on it so casually. 

"You know, I have a feeling they will catch the monster very soon," Triton mused, twirling his wand between his fingers. She watched him carefully; this time was not a coincidence. Nott knew exactly what he had done. 

"Well let's not hinder them them," she said tautly, "I was just heading back."

When she turned the corner, Lestrange and Riddle had disappeared. 

｡･:*˚:✧｡

The storm over Hogwarts had somewhat died down by the next morning. Another assembly was being held; rumours were circulating that the killer had been caught, others claimed that another person had died. 

It turned out, the former had been correct— Dippet delighted in telling the students that there would be no need to close the school now. Inkeri breathed out deeply, feeling as though a crushing burden had been lifted from her shoulders. One question however, pestered the back of her mind. 

"Do you know who it was?" Inkeri whispered to Adrielle, who just shook her head and went back to reading a large leather book with blood-red pages. 

Malfoy, who had been inspecting her with his grey eyes, leaned forward. "It was some stupid half-giant Hufflepuff oaf," Abraxas said lowly. "He brought an acromantula into the school and tried to raise it like a pet of some sort." 

Inkeri pondered this. So it had been an accident, all along? She refused to believe it. Riddle had something to do with it, whether directly or indirectly, she certain of that much. 

"Now, it is with great pleasure that I present this award to the brave Prefect who caught the person responsible, and in doing so, granted peace to Myrtle's soul," Dippet said proudly. 

Adrielle leaned toward Inkeri. "She's a ghost now, haunting the bathrooms. Peace is definitely not an accurate way to describe it, she is horribly loud, and so whiny." 

"Tom Riddle!" Dippet announced. Applause resounded through the students as he stood to retrieve his award, looking slightly healthier than he had yesterday. Inkeri abstained from joining in the clapping. 

The only other person not celebrating Riddle's achievement was Albus Dumbledore, the man who seemed to see right through anyone. He met Inkeri's own eyes amidst the crowd, and a sort of agreement flashed between the two. 

Neither believed that Tom Riddle was the hero of the story. 

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Hiisi— " mythological creatures, most commonly believed to take form as goblin-like. Hiisi could be seen as demonic or magical, with trickster-like traits. They were also prolific thieves, and would raid any home that left their doors open."