The Captivating Darkness

[Placid Blythe]

Placid didn't need his wand. He didn't need a candle. He didn't need light. Placid could see just find without it. At this point, those blue eyes of his had already been used to the darkness that surrounded him in the dungeons. It was almost soothing; knowing that he was basically nothing more than a mere lonely shadow whenever he was there.

How did his little walk come about? Simple: Placid was bored. He was in no mood to read. Friends were out of the question, and he had already studied. He wasn't at all hungry, so he had nothing left to do but walk around without a purpose.

Quietly Placid sighed to himself. Not a soul in sight... He thought, stopping to look around. It was becoming clear to him how his walking was utterly pointless. He sighed again, and looked to the right. Placid walked over to it, and leaned against it in the shadow. Now all he had to do was wait for someone to walk by, and things could get interesting.

[Tabitha Lawson]

It was very dark in the dungeons that evening, and if it weren't for the fact that she needed to pick up her grade for an essay from Professor Austin, Tabitha Lawson would not have been there. The dark didn't bother her, and neither did the silence or the eerie whistling sounds from the pipes. It was the seclusion that got to the fifteen-year-old the most, for she hated being away from the light of the common room fire and the laughter of her friends.

With her long, dark hair trailing behind her and her dark school robes, Tabitha's pale face made her look dead in the scant light of the dungeons. It was even plausible that one might think her just a ghostly face floating down the hallway -- if it weren't for those vivid green eyes. They were the one feature, in this bleak lighting, that gave the fourth year's face any sign of life, and the one feature that Tabitha couldn't rely on at that precise moment. As the torches that usually lit the walls seemed to have been put out, only those with exceptionally keen eyesight could see at all. Tabitha happened to have very good eyes, but trying to make out the shapes in the darkness strained them, and so the fifteen-year-old navigated more by memory than by sight.

Just as she was turning a corner in the pathway, and as she passed a column, partially set into the wall, that helped to support the ceiling and the floor above it, Tabitha noticed a figure in the shadow. By instinct, she dropped her school bag immediately and drew her wand from a pocket of her robes. It was perhaps five seconds before she realized that the figure was a Slytherin who, for some reason, had stopped in the middle of the corridor.

"Oh -- I'm sorry," Tabitha said slowly, lowering her wand. "I saw something standing behind the support column and I wasn't sure what to expect." She retrieved her bag from the floor and looked back to the Slytherin, wondering what his response would be.