November 3rd, 1975
Ignotus, the Potters' owl, had sped out of the window of the boys' dormitory at five fifty-six in the morning, according to Remus' watch. This was no doubt prompted by the bout of screaming seconds earlier, which had woken Remus, and if not for the silencing charms on the dormitories, probably would've woken half of Gryffindor Tower too. They were the shouts born of a birthday, though they didn't come from the birthday boy. Nor did the squeaking mattress.
The shouts and the squeaks alike came from James and Peter, who were jumping on the birthday boy's bed.
They still had the nerve to ask why Remus had kept his birthday a secret all through first year.
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!" Peter shouted, each line punctuated with his feet hitting the bed.
"You look like a hippogriff's asshole!" James sung, rushing the words to try to fit them into the tune.
"That's not right," Dale grunted from under his covers.
"And you smell like one too!" Peter concluded. Peter and James paused for a moment, exchanged looks, and then jumped into the air. They pulled up their legs and leaned, meaning that they crashed onto the bed, and the birthday boy, rather haphazardly.
"You've broken my fucking arm!" Sirius Black howled, his first words as a sixteen-year-old.
Remus tilted the pumpkin juice gently into Sirius' mouth, who looked extremely cross. Both arms were in splints, resting atop a crisp white blanket. Rain lashed the windows of the nearly-empty Infirmary. Sirius swallowed and pulled his head back. Remus set the cup on the side table.
"Well, Madam Pomfrey reckons it'll be all mended by lunch," James said, flashing a forced, far-too-toothy smile. "You might have to come back every few hours for a potion for the pain, though. Apparently she doesn't trust us with healing potions. Bullshit, I reckon." Sirius glared at him.
"You're telling me I get to trudge up to the Hospital Wing every few hours to drink painkillers? Best birthday present ever, you two have outdone yourselves," Sirius said. Remus barely suppressed a laugh.
"Only the best for you, mate," James said, reaching out as if to pat Sirius on the shoulder. Remus and Peter both opened their mouths and started to warn him at once, and he froze at the last second, and then withdrew his hand. "Forgot," he said. "Sorry."
Sirius looked down at each of his broken arms. "Which one did you forget about?"
The potion Madam Pomfey had essentially force-fed him began to work, and Sirius dozed lightly. Remus looked up at the others, who shifted in their seats.
"Excellent job," he told them. "This was the smartest idea you've had all week." James grinned.
"Thanks. I wanted to make sure none of us were late for class. This has certainly got us up in time, right?"
"Your concern for my timeliness flatters me. Now Sirius is going to miss all his morning classes."
"Exactly. That's part of his present, isn't it?" James said brightly.
"Lucky bastard," Peter muttered.
None of them had any particular ideas entertainment-wise, on account of them all being in their pyjamas and entirely unprepared for a trip to the Infirmary. Briefly, they batted about the idea of heading back to the dorm to get changed, but they were lazy, and it was still earlier than it had any right to be (unless you were James, who swore up and down that quarter past six was exceptionally normal. Too much Quidditch training wrecked your circadian rhythm, Remus supposed), and it was Sirius' birthday, and it was in poor taste to abandon your friend on his birthday after breaking both his arms. Remus had never broken anyone else's arms, or any bone, for that matter, but he was condemned just as the other two were. Something about being part of a team.
"I'm resigning if I have to deal with the consequences of you two all the time," Remus said, leaning back in his chair. Peter fell asleep, or else became very good at ignoring James' attempts at keeping them awake. James then gave up on sitting and began stretching and jogging the length of the hospital.
"John's going to murder us if we lose again, and I like being alive, so I have to get my practice in whenever I can," James explained cheerfully, knees nearly touching his chest as he ran along. The next time he passed, his feet kicked his arse with each step.
Remus turned over in his chair, crushing his arm beneath his weight. At least it wasn't broken. The rain came down even heavier, until he could scarcely hear James' quick steps, and cast a deep grey hue across the starch-white beds. Sirius' porcelain skin looked paler in the dreary morning light. The mole by his chin seemed darker. His brows weren't knotted when he slept, or arched, or doing anything in particular; and his mouth didn't form a barking laugh or a smirk or a grimace or a frown. It was strange, seeing his face at rest. Blank. A dark curl trembled when he exhaled, quivering right beneath his nose like a deranged moustache.
His thoughts were interrupted by a soft bang, dulled by the rain hammering the windows. James stopped his exercises. A tiny girl scurried over to Madam Pomfrey's office and knocked on the door. Miraculously, Madam Pomfrey seemed to have heard her, because the door opened. In an instant, James was back in his seat, scratching his head and examining his pyjama sleeves. Remus couldn't make out any of the conversation taking place, but then Madam Pomfrey came bustling over to them. Remus looked back out the window, feigning interest in the racing raindrops.
"I have to go," Madam Pomfrey said loudly. Remus and James both looked up at her. "Go back to bed. Come back at lunch. Out you go. Now." Remus sighed, and started to stand. James didn't. He pointed at Sirius, and then the three of them.
"It's his birthday," James half-shouted over the rain. "We can't leave him."
"He's asleep, he'll hardly know the difference, Potter. Out."
"Would you abandon your best mate on his birthday?" Madam Pomfrey eyed him, and then turned her harsh gaze to Remus, who did his best to send her his best 'I'm-sorry-I-don't-want-to-cause-any-trouble-but-it-would-be-really-nice-if-we-could-stay-please' look. She looked back at the little gigl, and then shook her head.
"Keep out of trouble," she ordered, and strode back towards her office, grabbing a warm cloak and a red briefcase. The doors of the Infirmary thudded closed.
"I dunno what she thinks we get up to, but it's never trouble, is it, Moony?" James asked. Remus looked at him, and he shrugged, poking Peter in the stomach. Peter stirred, grumbling. James poked him again. Was that how they usually passed the time?
It was odd, being one of the people sitting in a chair, waiting for his friend to wake up - usually the roles were reversed, after all. He knew all too well the sort of dreams one had under the influence of a strong Sleeping Draught. It was as if the pain realised it couldn't hurt you physically, so launched a psychological attack instead. There was a reason that the sleeping potion most often given was Dreamless Sleep, even if it wasn't as adept at keeping you asleep. Sleeping Draughts were only used for particularly painful injuries (see Remus' transformations), if nothing else was available (they were cheaper than Dreamless Sleep potions and easier to make at home, as he had learned in his childhood), or if specifically requested, as Sirius had, telling Madam Pomfrey that if he was awake before lunch, he'd be in Azkaban for murder. Sirius' eyelids fluttered as he dreamed. Remus frowned. God knew there were more than enough things in Sirius' life that a bad dream could use to its advantage. Remus wished he'd taken the Dreamless Sleep instead.
"I'm up, I'm up!" Peter grumbled, swatting at James.
"Good," James said. "I was doing all of my warm-up exercises, and Moony wasn't a bit interested. I was very insulted." Remus rolled his eyes.
"Get Lisbete to watch you, then," he said. How James had come to date a third year, he still couldn't fathom. Well, that wasn't entirely true; Lisbete liked James, as did half the girls in the school, and James liked being liked. And for all their jokes, she was fourteen, and James was hardly the most mature fifteen-year-old in the world. It was just that James didn't date; he snogged, far more than Remus cared to hear about, but he'd had one girlfriend for about five minutes in second year and that was it. And Lisbete wasn't the girl he expected to break the casual-snog habit; while her name did start with 'L', she was neither red-haired, green-eyed, or a prefect, and to his knowledge, had not once suggested James perform fellatio on himself.
"Wormy's got the adoring gaze down pat, though," James said. Peter threw his hands in the air.
"Fuck you," he said. "I'll go back to sleep."
"I meant it as a compliment," James insisted, slinging his arm around Peter's shoulders. "No, but I have to show you something. Come on." He got to his feet. Remus sighed, and got to his. Whatever they were going to do, the prefect badge at least made it seem a touch more licit.
James stopped, giving him a funny look.
"What?" Remus asked.
"Er - I just thought, it's a dick move to leave Sirius on his own on his birthday. How about you stay here with him, and I'll go show Wormy this thing. Too many detentions and they'll have to make someone else prefect, won't they?"
"I feel secure in my position," Remus said, crossing his arms. "Who else would they make prefect?" But he wasn't going where he wasn't wanted. He sat back down, James gave him a thumbs-up, and they headed to the cupboards by Madam Pomfrey's office. Remus looked back at Sirius.
He was grateful for his friends. Honestly. But sometimes, he wondered.
November 4th, 1975
She'd hoped the stairs wouldn't seem such a challenge today, but that was just naive. The loomed, tall and winding as ever, and her knees crunched on each one. At least this week, Dorcas' bag wasn't so heavy. She'd pruned her supplies. And parchment wasn't half as heavy as thick tomes. Professor Nicholl had been rather vague on how much she ought to practice each night, but that had not stopped Dorcas from creating her own regimen, complete with detailed notes. Deepnita Varma's lectures on the importance of a well-maintained study schedule had planted deep roots within her mind, and likely many other Ravenclaws'.
Perhaps Deepnita Varma, the seventh year prefect from Ravenclaw, would end up as part of her mindscape. Truthfully, it wouldn't seem right for her to be excluded, if ever Dorcas managed to master Skill Seven. So in a hundred years, if she was lucky.
At last, she reached the trapdoor. Her hands went to the rungs of the ladder, and she pulled herself up and through fairly easily. Professor Nicholl turned and smiled at her, already nursing a cup of tea.
"Good afternoon, Professor," Dorcas said, heaving herself onto the floor.
"Good afternoon, Dorcas," Professor Nicholl said cheerily, setting her teacup down on her desk. "Prompt again, as always. Muchly appreciated, as always." A wet breeze blew through the open windows, and the room smelt strongly of patchouli and rain. Incense burned on every table, shrouding the room in thick smoke. Dorcas coughed. Generally, she liked Divination, and its professor, but she'd never been a fan of candles or strong smells. Springtime was a nightmare for her allergies.
"If you could sit here," Professor Nicholl said, indicating the spare seat by her desk. Dorcas nodded, and slid into it, putting her bag at her feet. The desk was situated in the front corner of the classroom (well, it wasn't much of a corner, given that the room was circular, but it felt like one), tucked away from the board and where most of the actual teaching occurred. Dorcas ran her eyes over it, and found it unlike the other teachers' desks she'd had the opportunity to examine. For one thing, the customary quill had a bright pink feather - it just couldn't be real - and the ink bottle seemed to be made of opal, shimmering different colours beneath the candlelight. A misty crystal ball sat atop a lime green stand that resembled the stems of a plant. Scattered stones, marked with runes, acted as paperweights for everything from letters to passes out of class to lesson plans. Her fingers itched. There was no discernable order to any of it.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an offer of tea. Soon enough, Professor Nicholl sat opposite her, and each of them held a china teacup.
"And how have you been progressing, Dorcas?" Professor Nicholl asked. Tea swirled in her throat, and she coughed again, clamping her lips together to prevent anything unfortunate. She'd spent at least an hour each night, doing her best to clear her head of homework and curriculum and O. and her roommates, trying to See that box. Wood, with latches. Or was it one latch? Regardless. But could she really say that? She was alright at Divination, sure, but there were others in her year with just as much promise, Dorcas thought. That wasn't even considering the sixth and seventh years. You couldn't pour all your energy into a fruitless project - Professor Nicholl would know that, as a former Ravenclaw. And if Dorcas' efforts were fruitless - well.
"I've set aside an hour each night for it," Dorcas said. Her tea was a gentle shade of light brown, now only half-filling the cup. "I've been visualising that box."
"And?" her teacher asked eagerly. Dorcas grimaced glumly, and braced herself. If Professor Nicholl decided to stop the training, that was fine, really. If her attempt was doomed, it was doomed, and there was no point persisting with it. Occlumency was a difficult skill. It'd be fine. She could use that hour to read or something. She could take those books back to the library and borrow something fictional.
"I've been trying," she said. "Really hard. It's just…" Words tangled around her tongue. She focused her gaze on her tea. Professor Nicholl sipped hers. Dorcas furrowed her brows, trying to think. Why was it so hard? She dreamed every night, and richly, too. When she read a novel, she could picture each scene, could see where each character stood. But the images were always up there, in her head, not behind her eyelids. That was the problem, she decided. The transferral from her imagination to Seeing it. She bought the cup to her lips and drank deeply, reflecting. She set the cup back down lightly. "I get frustrated," she confessed, "sitting there and trying, and trying, only to feel like nothing's working. Nothing is working, but any hope of it dies once I get worked up."
"That's an astute observation," Professor Nicholl said. "Do you find yourself getting worked up often? Day-to-day?" Dorcas' lips scrunched and twisted to the side.
"Mostly," she admitted. Was that a disqualifier? She tried to read her teacher's face. "I always have a lot on my mind," she tried to explain, "and I don't want to mess any of it up."
"Mmm. You are quite involved, aren't you? Between you and me, there's already talk of the candidates for head students for your year...you've definitely got a good chance." Dorcas flushed. Generally, the Head Girl was picked from the four female prefects in the year, so she'd known there was a chance...but Augusta Gamp had better connections outside of school, and Lily Evans was one of the most popular girls in the year, if not the school.
"Thanks," she said. "I'm not just in the clubs because I want to be Head Girl, though. I mean, I would want to be - but it would be a lot of pressure - I don't know, I'd have to see how I go with my N.E.W.T classes," she blurted out, worrying with each word that she sounded more arrogant, and that her chances of Head Girl were slipping away in seconds.
"You've got years to think about it," Professor Nicholl laughed. "I just want to know what else is rattling around in that brain of yours."
"Well," Dorcas started, seeing her schedule clearly, as if it was in front of her. She could read her curled handwriting, noting days and times and what she needed to bring. "I have prefect duties, of course, and with those there's reports to file. I have Charms Club twice a week, and Astronomy Club on Mondays, and I'm taking Magical Theory after school on Thursdays. I have these meetings with you, and I go along to all the Ravenclaw study sessions, because we prefects organise them, and it'd be wrong not to go. There's other people that do more, but I'm not very sports or musically inclined," she concluded. She'd tried to join the choir in her first year, and had only embarrassed herself, regardless of what Professor Flitwick told her.
"Do you find that you're good with keeping track of everything?" Professor Nicholl asked.
"Er - I guess so," she said.
"How do you do it?"
"It's - habit, a lot of it. But I also keep a detailed schedule that I always update. It's sort of just - I can picture it."
"Hmm." Professor Nicholl had picked up her quill, and tapped the pink feather against her cheek. A moment passed. Dorcas shifted her eyes away, though she could feel the professor's gaze raking over her. Suddenly, she clapped. Dorcas looked back. Professor Nicholl was on her feet, flicking her wand. From all areas of the classroom, cushions flew towards her. When they nearly hit, she expertly redirected them. They nestled together on the floor, forming a long rectangular shape, rather like a bed.
"Would you mind laying down?" Professor Nicholl asked, tucking her wand back into her robes. Dorcas blinked, and stood uncertainly. Were they starting now?
"Okay," she said, and laid on the cushions. Surprisingly, they were fairly even in height across, and more comfortable than she would've expected. Nevertheless, it was strange to be laying on the floor in a classroom. It gave her a different view of the world. For one thing, she could spot a great many multicoloured wads of gum stuck to the underside of tables. It made her almost feel sorry for Filch.
She tilted her head upwards, turning her attention back to Professor Nicholl. She rolled her wand between her fingers, staring into the distance. Dorcas frowned. What was that about?
"Should I close my eyes?" she asked. Her teacher shook her head quickly, wrenching her eyes away from whatever she'd been looking at.
"Oh, yes. Yes, please do." Dorcas complied. The permeating patchouli fumes weren't as strong on the ground, thank goodness. It made it easier to take deep breaths. She focused on filling her lungs with as much air as possible, and then exhaled, feeling herself sink into the cushions. This part of the preparation took up nearly as much time as the Seeing attempts themselves. It seemed to be against her very nature to relax or clear her mind. Again, she wondered if she was the right candidate for this.
"Now Dorcas," Professor Nicholl said, interrupting her breathing exercises. "I want you to try something different today."
"Oh?" She stopped the focus on her breaths, wondering if she should open her eyes.
"We'll come back to the box, but I had a thought. I don't know if this will work. I want to try it, though. Using the same techniques you did for the box, I would like you to attempt to See your schedule."
"My schedule?" Dorcas repeated, opening her eyes. Professor Nicholl wrung her hands together.
"Yes, your schedule. If you wouldn't mind." Her thoughts raced. That was definitely more complex than a box. The box was just wood and a bronze latch, but her schedule - it had cramped handwriting and a tiny tear in the corner and a blotch of ink staining the second half of the word 'Wednesday'. Her heart sunk. Was this a test?
"Okay," she mumbled. "I'll try." Her teacher beamed.
"Thank you very much. Now, do continue."
Dorcas reclined and settled once more. She shut her eyes. In. Hold. Out. In. Hold. And Out. Her legs grew heavy. She began to lose a sense of time, but she pushed that worry away as best she could. Not the point, at the moment. In. Hold. Out. The pattern sunk into the depths of her mind like a memorised passage from a textbook. Once her breaths were appropriately regulated, she recalled her schedule. It firmly planted itself at the forefront of her mind. She focused harder. She studied it religiously each morning and night, and the formation of it came easily to her. The days in their neat lettering. The bumps of the parchment. She inhaled the scent of parchment and Florence Diggory's floral perfume that seemed to cling to everything in the dormitory. Only the faintest scent of patchouli reached her nostrils. 'Thursday', she read, and then beneath it, '6-7am. Prefect Meeting. Take school supplies.' Wind roared in her ears. That was odd. Her eyes skipped to Friday. '5am.'
Her fingers shook violently. Her eyes flung open, and she sat up, gasping for breath. Her stomach burned. The schedule was gone. A wave of nausea hit her. Her head spun. Her head hit the cushions again. Each breath singed her lungs. Weights dragged her eyelids down. Aches consumed her. The wind in her ears screamed; Professor Nicholl said something, but it was very distant. Ice brushed her lips and something cold slithered across her tongue. Her throat seized and she coughed, barely managing to sit up as she did so. Shapes swam before her eyes, none of them familiar.
"Dorcas? Dorcas?" Stop. Just...quiet. Her eyes watered. Her shoulder felt warm. "Dorcas!"
Her vision cleared, and she saw that Professor Nicholl was leaning over her, dark hair swinging. She groaned in recognition.
"Professor," she managed weakly. Professor Nicholl shut her eyes, loosening her grip on Dorcas' shoulder, and sighed.
"I should never underestimate the power of Pepperup," she said. Dorcas groaned again, trying to steady her swirling head. Exhaustion swept into the very marrow of her bones. It took a few minutes for her to gather herself, though she managed a weak assent each time she was asked if she was alright.
Finally, she found the strength to sit up, albeit with her hands steadying her. Realisation dawned on her slowly, beginning in her fingers and creeping up her arms infinitesimally.
"Professor," Dorcas said, cutting through her teacher's worried questioning. Professor Nicholl stopped.
"Yes?"
"I Saw it."
"Saw it or saw it?"
"Saw it."
The world teetered. And then Professor Nicholl clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide. Confidence bloomed through Dorcas. She'd done it. She was capable. After only a week of studying, she'd Seen something - even if it had completely exhausted her.
"I didn't expect that," her teacher admitted.
"Neither did I," Dorcas said. Of course, she'd wanted to - the sooner the better, right? Professor Nicholl got to her feet and went to her desk, wriggling her fingers. She grabbed her pink-feathered quill before she even sat down, and immediately began scribbling. Dorcas blinked, and put more weight on her feet. The thought of standing sent another wave of nausea through her, and she groaned. The Divination professor muttered under her breath as she wrote, dark ink spattering the desk, but she was too distant for Dorcas to make out her words.
Rare pride warmed her chest. Maybe that poor first lesson had been just a fluke. Bad luck, a bad day. She craned her neck, trying to decipher Professor Nicholl's face. Her heart sank. Her teacher's lips were completely vacant of a smile. Instead, she looked almost - angry? - as she wrote. Dorcas didn't think she'd seen anyone write so fast in her whole life, and she was in Ravenclaw, typically the home for quick-thinkers. For a moment, she pondered the quill's enchantment, but it didn't seem right. As quickly as her elation had come, it disappeared, disturbed by the air. Dorcas shifted. Everything had gone still once more, save for the manic scrambled ramblings of her teacher. The wind ceased entirely, and the clouds withheld their rain - with a shudder, all of the incense stopped burning. The scent of patchouli winked out of existence.
Professor Nicholl's head snapped up. "Go to bed," she ordered, her voice low. Dorcas looked at her; her legs still felt like lead weights, and her stomach had started to roll.
"Professor-"
"Now." Her eyes were wild. Dorcas clambered to her feet, shivering. An icy chill coated the room, and ran its nails down every inch of her bare skin. Each step seemed to need a minute of its own. She was tired. She was so, so, so tired. Her bookbag, tucked beneath a chair, made no effort to come closer - instead, it seemed as if the distance between herself and her bag elongated with every breath. Finally, her fingers fumbled around the strap. Professor Nicholl kept writing, tearing holes in the parchment as she did so. Hogwarts was never truly silent, but nothing reached Dorcas' ears now other than the scratch of quill on ink. No birds, no wind, no rain, no shouts from the stairwell, no lost cats meowing, no portraits chattering.
She hated it. All her time at school, she'd searched for quiet, but this was wrong. Unspeakably so.
Grunting, she got her bag over her shoulder, and made for the trapdoor. Her heart pounded; in spite of the exhaustion, she felt as though she'd had a second wind. This was her body reverting back to what her ancestors had been before they'd been wizards. Primal. Her dark gaze flitted from object to object, ready to run, to fight. But that was the thing; nothing moved. It was as if they'd been frozen in time.
"Professor, I -"
"To your common room. And anyone you see with you." She swallowed. Prefects more than any other student couldn't disobey a direct instruction from a professor - it meant the potential loss of a badge in addition to the usual punishments. Part of her, the curious part, the part that kept her up until all hours digging through mountains of ink to find the word she was looking for, wanted to stay there, to observe, to wait. The other part, the very much only-fifteen part, primed her body to run. It knew what her mind didn't, couldn't.
Dorcas did as she was told.
Her hands tore at the trapdoor and she couldn't get herself through the hole quickly enough, not bothering with the rungs. Pain burst through her feet as she landed and stumbled into one of the stone walls. Before she could think, she was running, hurtling down the twisting staircase and she slammed through the doorway onto the seventh floor. Eerie silence still reigned, though it was broken by the whispers of clusters of students. One tiny first year squeaked loudly at Dorcas' sudden appearence.
"What's going on?" a younger Ravenclaw girl demanded. "Even the Whomping Willow's stopped moving!" Drawn to her badge like moths to a flame, younger students seemed to flock from random parts of the corridor, crowding her. The portraits were frozen.
"Everyone needs to go back to their common rooms," Dorcas said, as loudly as she could.
"It's nearly dinner!" shouted a Gryffindor boy.
"I've got orders from a teacher!" This was enough for some of the crowd to disperse, and she pushed through the crush. Where were all the older students? Why wasn't anyone her age around? Her shoes pounded the flagstone floor.
Fortunately, she was well-versed in the route from the North Tower to Ravenclaw Tower, and soon enough she found herself at the knocker.
"What on earth is going on?" it asked her. She blinked. What sort of riddle was that? A gaggle of younger students lingered behind her, having followed her from where she'd been surrounded in the main seventh floor corridor, or joined the ranks along the way. They looked at her with large eyes and pale faces. It was her job as prefect to answer the riddle. To get them to safety. She took a steadying breath.
"I don't know," she said quietly. "I don't know the answer."
The door swung open. Never before had it done such a thing - if you said 'I don't know', it would merely wait until you came up with some semblance of an answer. Out of everything, that was what frightened her most. The frozen portraits, the crowding children, the whiff of patchouli vanishing without so much as a gust of wind - perhaps that could be explained. But the castle stayed strong and steadfast in its traditions.
She stepped through the door, and at once surged forward, caught in the crowd trying to get through. Her eyes darted across the scene, rapidly widening. It seemed most of the senior Ravenclaw students were here - but not all. Dorcas found the gaps as quickly as she processed who was present.
"To your dormitories," May Walker cut in, the sixth year prefect. But it was directed towards the hordes of first and second years. It was rare for everyone to be in the common room at once - while it certainly had the capacity, there were usually students in the library or at class or upstairs, asleep in their dormitories or in the Hospital Wing. Eudrew Moult stood with her and ushered them upstairs. Dorcas spotted her classmates amongst the chaos - Adrian Stebbins furiously cleaned his glasses, and Glen Vane stood - he'd seen her, he was saying something -
"It's Flo!" Cynthia slammed into her, enveloping her in her arms. Dorcas wilted at the sudden contact, her bones remembering their aching.
"Cynthia!" Glen shouted. Tears rushed down her roommate's face, which had twisted into a cruel approximation of its usual self.
"It's Flo Diggory!" Cynthia shrieked, not letting go. Her nails dug into Dorcas' shoulders. All eyes were on her, the younger children stopped on the stairs to their dorms, Glen Vane frozen, his mouth still hanging open, a stillborn warning on his lips. Cynthia howled, her tears flooding the silent common room.
"What?" Dorcas asked.
"It's Flo," Cynthia repeated, her voice lower. It made no difference. The world was deafeningly quiet, waiting. Waiting. "Flo Diggory's dead."