It was a pleasant day at Hogwarts, the day that the zombies came. The sun was shining and the hippogriffs were frolicking as Dean Thomas took his final breaths in the Hospital Wing, fevered brow burning and eyes glassy with pain. The bed in which his body lay was surrounded by solemn faces wracked with sorrow and bewilderment as to how someone who had been spouting a mild head ache and temperature a matter of hours ago could deteriorate into a shaking mess of sweat and death. A doleful Madam Pomfrey lent forward to confirm what they all dreaded, in the process brushing the sleeve of Dean's robe and revealing a large bite mark burning crimson against the dark sheen of his skin. This the point when Dean opened his eyes and lunged.
If Dean had been alive, at least in the true sense of the word, he could have described the strange incident that he had met this morning. Dean, being a sixth year, had taken advantage of his free period to sneak out of Hogwarts through a secret passage and visit a place simply known as 'The Cottage'. The Cottage was a small, secret set up in which some of the more tech-savvy students had managed to place a working television, computer and PlayStation, and was frequented by many of the students raised by Muggles who missed the comforts of Facebook, television and video games, as well as some of the... less savoury pursuits of the internet. Dean had recently cajoled his younger brother into mailing him a copy of the new Grand Theft Auto V and had been so absorbed in the world of cars and girls with not very much clothing on that he didn't notice the rustling of the leaves outside of The Cottage. He didn't hear the strange noise of a figure staggering across wooden floor boards, and indeed he didn't notice that he wasn't in fact alone until he breathed in the wretched odour of death. Dean had spun around, his controller clattering on the floor. Directly behind him, its savage face contorted with lust for his flesh, was something that had once been a man, though what it was now Dean wasn't sure. The humanoid's skin was grey, decorated with scarlet lashes of blood and its eyes were yellow and vicious, gleaming with hunger. Moans and growls escaped its mouth, along with drips of blood. It raised its arms, and brought Dean into its clasp. Dean writhed, screaming as the thing took a huge bite out of his arm. With a sharp jab with his elbow, the creature faltered, its grasp weakened slightly, allowing Dean to spin free. He ran faster than ever before, his bitten arm throbbing and the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto V growing fainter and fainter.