The potions classroom door creaked when you pushed it open, the sound echoing down the empty corridor like a warning. Yeah, yeah. You knew you shouldn't be here. But your favorite quill—the one with the little honeybee charm that your gran gave you before you got on the train—was still on one of these stupid tables, and Professor Snape would have your head if you showed up to tomorrow's lesson without it.

A draft slithered across your ankles, making you pull your robes tighter. For a potions classroom that's supposed to be all boiling cauldrons and steamy ingredients, this place is freezing. Like, properly Scottish-Highlands-in-December freezing. Did someone leave a window open? Or is Hogwarts just haunted by the ghost of central heating?

Your footsteps echoed as you moved between the rows of empty desks. There—your quill, peeking out from under a discarded essay about the properties of moonstone. Finally.

But as you bent down to grab it, your shoe hit something hard.

Not a desk leg. Not a dropped textbook. Something that scraped against the stone floor with a sound that made your stomach tighten for no reason you could name.

You looked down.

A diary. Black leather, pristine, like it had never been touched. No house colors. No doodles on the cover. No name on the outside—but at the bottom, in sharp, elegant lettering that looked almost engraved, was a name.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

First thought: Why the hell is this here?

Second thought: Who the hell is Tom Marvolo Riddle?

And third thought—the one that made the tiny hairs on your arms stand up—was that just looking at it made you feel like you were being watched.

The room was empty. You knew that. Your footsteps had been the only ones echoing off these stone walls since you walked in.

Still. You couldn't shake the feeling.