I was still shaken from the attack. I smiled and acted as if I was okay, but every night I felt that pain as I writhed around in the sheets. I remembered my heart racing as my friends screamed and cried, begging for mercy, begging for forgiveness. I remembered how I shouted until my voice went hoarse, tears streaming down my face as I witnessed that terrible sight. I felt the excruciating pain again as I recalled the moment that curse hit my body. My screams intensified. I yelped and cried. I wished to die rather than bear that pain any longer.

  And it would always end the same way. I'd bolt upright, sweating, crying, screaming. My mother was trying to help me, but I told her they were just nightmares. I didn't want to worry her.

 
  I feared for Zoey too. I didn't know- I didn't know what her parents would do to her. I knew they were very pro-pureblood but I didn't know it had been so... extreme.

***

  "We need to look somewhere important to Voldemort," Zoey said urgently. "So we need to go over what we know about him."

"Which isn't much," I interjected.

"Right," Nadia said, pulling out a book. "According to this, Tom Riddle was an- an orphan, I think..." We gave her inquisitive looks.

"I took this book from the Restricted Section at Hogwarts," she said sheepishly. "So, the text is a bit hard to read."

I gaped at her. 

"Alright," Zoey said. "Who are you, and what have you done with Nadia?"

I laughed. "Okay, but really. We should probably start in places more connected to the magical world. After all, he hated that he was half-blood, so I doubt he'd want to highlight his Muggle upbringing."

 "Okay, sure," Steven replied, hunched over a book. It was the six of us- Zoey, Nadia, Nick, Steven, Alex, and me- in Nadia's room. 

"Hogwarts was obviously very important to him," Nadia replied. "It was his introduction to the Wizarding World."

"Yeah," Zoey replied. "Or maybe-"

Zoey didn't have time to finish her sentence as a crash came from the nearby window.