The Devils Mark.
It had been a month.
Thirty days.
Thirty days without visions. Without cold whispers curling at the edges of his dreams. Without her.
And Harry let himself believe—just for a moment—that she was gone.
But good things never came without a price.
It was past midnight when he woke with a start.
His dorm was quiet. The steady rise and fall of Ravenclaw’s sleeping students filled the air. The moon’s pale glow cast long, silver streaks across the floor.
But something was wrong.
The air felt… thick.
Like the space around him had shifted.
Harry swallowed.
It was nothing. Just a dream.
But then—
His breath hitched.
The door.
The dormitory door was open.
His stomach turned to ice.
He hadn’t left it open.
Slowly, carefully, he turned his head toward it—toward the shadowed hallway beyond.
And then—
He saw her.
The Nun.
Standing just past the threshold. Watching.
Not moving.
Not breathing.
Just there.
A scream clawed at his throat, but it wouldn’t come out. His limbs were locked, paralyzed in suffocating, primal terror.
She isn’t real. She isn’t real. She isn’t real.
But then—
She moved.
Or rather—she didn’t.
Because one moment, she was standing in the doorway—
And the next, she was inside the room.
The air turned to ice.
She had not walked. Had not stepped. Had not moved like something human.
She had simply—been there.
Harry’s breath came in short, panicked gasps.
Then he noticed—
The candles.
The ones he knew had been unlit were now burning—casting long, flickering shadows that twisted against the walls like clawed hands.
The temperature plummeted. His breath curled in white puffs.
She took a single step forward.
The wooden floor did not creak.
The light did not touch her.
And then—
A whisper.
Low. Breathless. Like wind howling through a crypt.
"You are marked."
Harry’s heart nearly stopped.
His body burned—not with fire, but with something far, far worse.
Something cold.
Something inside him.
His hand shot up to his chest as if trying to claw it out, but there was nothing there.
Nothing except the slow, creeping realization.
She had never left him alone.
Not really.
Four years. Four years in that church.
Four years of her watching.
And in that time, something had bled into him.
Something had tainted him.
A piece of her had been left behind.
And she had come back to claim it.
Harry’s fingers snapped to his pocket—gripping the rosary beads like a lifeline.
The cross was freezing to the touch.
The shadows shuddered.
For the second time, the Nun reacted.
Her head tilted—sharp and unnatural, like a puppet with its strings cut.
The candlelight flickered.
A hiss. Low. Seething.
His ears rang.
The pressure around him grew crushing.
Then—she lunged.
A blur of darkness, of rotting cloth and bloodless skin and teeth.
Harry screamed.
And then—
The candles exploded.
And he woke up.
Gasping.
Drenched in cold sweat.
The dormitory was normal.
The door was closed.
The rosary beads were still in his pocket.
But his body—his skin—his magic—
It didn’t feel the same.