The Last Horcrux/Bedroom/Emily Wakes before Voldemort

You awaken, and it is really you. The thing that has kidnapped your mind and body must be sleeping. It will not sleep for long. You cannot call it a man, for no man would have the memories that you have caught glimpses of and recoiled from.

You feel your heart beating in your chest like a drum. You want nothing more than to run and run and run. Yet you know this is an evil you cannot flee. You want to cry out for help, Ute who could help you? Not your Nanny, not the cook or the gardener, not Servus your House Elf, not even your aunt Bellatrix. Especially not Bellatrix! She knew what was happening! That means there must have been a plan, ahead of time, to possess you.

You remember the Time Turner. It has always just sat there on the mantelpiece above the fire in the sitting room. For as long as you could remember it just sat there. You remember seeing it as a child and wondering what it was, but not being tall enough to reach it. You remembered the first time you could reach it, and how you marvelled at its intricate mechanisms. And then you woke up in the night yesterday and found it broken in your hand and your mind possessed by a monster. Had it always been a trap? A golden clock with an evil spirit lurking within? How long had it been left in your house, so that this thing might one day possess you?

You reach for your diary and tear out a page. You don’t know who you are writing to, but you know you have to ask for help somehow. You begin to write:

Please help me.

A horrible thing has happened. I am a victim of Dark Magic and of a curse I didn’t know existed. I am possessed by a monster. An evil spirit is controlling me and I can only act when it is sleeping. I am Emily Lestrange and I will be at my home, or at Hogwarts school.

Please help!

You scrawl the last two words in a hurry, sensing that the thing is awakening within you. You realise that you have to hide the note and pretend that you were asleep the whole time. You quickly place it down the side of your mattress by the headboard and lie on your side with your eyes closed. When you feel the monster awaken, you decide to let it believe that it awoke first all along.

The last thought that goes through your mind before the monster enters it was why you didn’t write its name in the note. It was because not a single soul would believe you if you had.

• The Monster believes it woke first