On Mattheo Riddle's four-poster bed, nestled in the center of a nest of dark green blankets, a girl was blinking awake. She was small, slight, with a mess of soft hair and—most notably—a pair of fluffy white bunny ears twitching at the top of her head, and a matching puff of a tail pressed into the mattress beneath her.

She stretched, one hand patting the empty space beside her, fingers searching for warmth that wasn't there.

The fire crackled. A quill scratched somewhere in the darkness of another bed. The dormitory was quiet, the other Slytherins either asleep or pretending to be.