The suspended glass lamps in the Charm classroom flickered erratically as Draco adjusted the strap of his dragon-hide gloves for the third time. When Professor Flitwick demonstrated the Mirror Charm, his wand slipped in his palm. The green light from last night's nightmare still lingered in his retinas, leaving burning traces.
"The most brilliant defense is to confuse reality with illusion!" Flitwick stood on tiptoe to touch the armillary sphere suspended from the ceiling, where three hundred prisms simultaneously refracted points of light.
Draco's Adam's apple bobbed. He stared at his trembling fingertips, remembering the blood-red countdown that had appeared on the wall of the Chamber of Secrets three days ago. When he waved his wand, the ice-crack pattern was half a second sluggish compared to usual, and the corners of two phantom mouths among the seven mirror images were twitching.
Chapter 253