Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick. The clock stopped moving. At least, the second hand did. I had been sitting at the last desk, reading something about animals taking over a weird farm. As I looked up, I saw a strange, green fog emerge from the clock. It seemed as though every time the needle moved a bit, a little bit of the strange gas escaped from within it. Not being able to control my curiosity, I got up, and edged along a few of the desks, to be greeted by a warm, fuzzy smell coming from the gas.

I couldn't believe it. It smelled of my mother's homemade apple pie, my favourite food in the world. I could feel my senses being overpowered, as though whatever it was behind that clock was trying to lure me in with that powerful smell, one that meant so much to me. The smell became stronger, and stronger, until.... I was standing a few inches away from the wall of the clock. I looked up. Whoever, or whatever, was behind that clock had sensed my presence, as the next moment, a hideous blue hand had knocked the clock onto the ground with force. A tall, ghostly figure stepped out of the hole, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of the disturbingly tall figure of Lord Voldemort. I didn't dare look further up than his hands, which were so pale and long that it felt like they didn't fit in with the rest of his body. Voldemort tilted his head to one side, as though trying to get a better look at my terrified face. He raised a hand, and there lay the biggest slice of Apple pie I had ever seen in my entire life. The smell of my mother's baking was getting so much stronger, as was the nauseous knotted feeling of disgust, that I though I might faint. And so I did. But not before I heard Voldemort's deep, drawling voice, far, far away, whispering in my ear...

"Albus Severus Potter, the Cursed child. Come for pie..."

He laughed his menacing laugh, and edged towards me, the pie he had been holding having turned into a wand in split second. But before he could shout, "Avada Kedavra!", I heard the sound of rushing footsteps behind me and I knew I was safe. I heard voices, saw a bright green flash of light. Then I slumped to the ground, exhausted and terrified of the ordeal I had just witnessed.

I woke up at First Aid the next morning, my friends and family all crowding around me. They told me everything. How Voldemort had been hiding in the clock for several weeks, just like he had in professor Quirrell's turban at Hogwarts. How one day, the clock had stopped working, much to the dismay of Voldemort. It was a sign that the clock was no longer a suitable hiding place for him as it could not hold him inside. Soon, there would be muggles coming in to fix the clock, and his hiding place would be revealed. He had decided that the time had come that he must find the boy that he had come all the way here for, which was me. He had wished to turn me into one of his horcruxes, as an ultimate reminder to the wizarding and muggle community of the dangers of challenging Lord Voldemort's abilities.

So one day, when I was alone in the classroom, and no one was in any of the neighbouring classrooms either, he had decided to attack. He had obviously used occlumency to find out about my love for my mother's pie, and then had proceeded to lure me towards him using that green fog. But before he could do anything help had arrived, and professor Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks had managed to disable and finish Voldemort using my wand, of course. And, for some strange reason, the clock had not broken in any way, and was untouched, safe in the room of C26, as though none of it had ever happened... No one can know, they said. The mess had been cleaned up and the wands hidden. If anyone found out, the Ministry of Magic and the muggle government would make a huge ruckus of it, and muggle and wizard relations would be permanently ruined.

And so, a finger put to my mouth, and the memory zapped out of Lupin and Tonks, I went to class the next day, in C26, and sat opposite the wall. That was when I realised why everyone was pointing up at the place where the clock should have been. In it's place, there was carved a symbol so powerful, so eloquent that I could not take my eyes of it, and neither could anyone else. I could tell it had been carved out of someone's blood, fresh and strong. It was the face of a skull, with a body of a snake. The Dark Mark. Lord Voldemort had returned.