Posters in deep emerald and silver proclaimed the date in elegant script. A cluster of fourth-years giggled by the Transfiguration corridor, clutching swatches of fabric and debating the merits of midnight blue versus deep crimson.

Tom Riddle walked through it all with the measured grace of someone who belonged to the castle as much as the castle belonged to him. His robes, immaculate and dark, brushed against the flagstones with each deliberate step. His mind drifted—not to the ball itself, but to the tedious parade of admirers who had approached him since the announcement. Each one had been politely—coldly—dismissed.

None of them are sufficient, he thought, the words familiar as a second heartbeat.

Then he saw you.

A flash of dark hair, a figure tucked onto a stone bench in the alcove of a disused classroom. A book spread across your lap, your brow furrowed in concentration. You didn't look up. You didn't notice him. You simply sat there, utterly absorbed, as if the world and all its Winter Ball grandeur meant nothing at all.

He knew who you were, of course. The rumors had reached even him—the new transfer from a distant school, clever and quiet, a sixth-year whose presence had already started shifting allegiances in the Great Hall. A girl who seemed to glide through the castle like a ghost made flesh, untouchable and unknowable.