The students of Hogwarts froze into a tableau of diverse postures. Neville's bottle of Bubotuber pus slipped from his hand, its juice splashing into the snow to leave dark green streaks. He thought of the vacant gazes of his parents in St. Mungo's Hospital; the healers always said the curse's source could not be traced, leaving healing endlessly out of reach, something to be begged of the heavens.
Hermione's Quick-Quotes Quill was scribbling frantically on parchment, the ink automatically translating the ancient magic runes pieced together from the chains in the sky: "We have been worshiping gods all along...?"
Ginny pressed a hand to her aching neck, where the darkness once implanted by the Riddle diary was now resonating with the upstream river of blood in the sky. Lower-year students huddled together and wept, while someone's pet owl ruffled its feathers in a sudden start.
Chapter 266