April 2nd, 1944
Lina Fawley felt uneasy as she made her way through the dark and deserted corridors of Hogwarts Castle. Her pocket watch tucked neatly into her robe told her it was nearly 10:20, meaning her responsibility as a School Prefect only mandated she patrol the corridors for ten more minutes, but she grew more and more nervous as turned the corner of yet another cold and silent hallway, illuminated only by the dim and flickering light provided by the old torches bolted to the stone walls.
She fiddled with the Hufflepuff Prefect badge pinned flimsily to her cloak, stopping briefly at the bottom of a staircase to adjust it. She sighed, looking up to observe her surroundings. As always, it was quiet. Lina wasn't quite sure what she was expecting; after all, she had never seen with her own two eyes the exact cause of her uneasiness. Still, its obvious absence made her all the more anxious.
Within the past month, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had fallen victim to an epidemic of petrifications. Three Muggleborn students had been found cold and unresponsive in empty corridors, frozen in place and stiff as a corpse. They weren't dead, of course; Lina knew this. One of them was back to normal already after being administered a Mandrake Restorative Draught by the school's nurse. But, it unnerved her still; just like it unnerved everyone else at Hogwarts, students and staff alike. A cloud of paranoia and fear had effectively descended upon the castle, never letting up. It was all the more present here, Lina felt, alone and patrolling the empty corridors of Hogwarts, making sure no students were outside their dormitories and breaking curfew.
She checked her watch again. 10:23. Only three more minutes had passed, and 10:30 still seemed so unbearably far away in comparison. She decided to head down to a lower floor; that way, when it finally was time for her to end her patrol, she was close enough to the kitchens that she could hurry back as fast as she could to the Hufflepuff Common Room
When she met the bottom of a staircase and was about to round the corner and descend another one, she heard a deep, resounding thud break the silence. Lina froze, a chill beginning to course through her veins. Moments passed, and just as she was about to chalk it up to her imagination...THUD. There it was again.
Lina was at a loss for what to do. She wanted to run away, sprint back to the safety of her dormitory and leave whatever it could be for someone else to discover in the morning...but she knew she couldn't do that. What if someone was in trouble?
Her hand closed slowly around her wand as she drew it from the confines of her robe, brushing away a stray curl of hair as her other palm finally left the safety of the staircase railing. She was on the second floor, that much she knew, but the corridor forked in two different directions, and she wasn't sure which hall the noise had come from.
There was a deserted classroom door cracked slightly ajar at the very end of the hallway to the left. A brief flash of light suddenly spilled out from the room and onto the stone tiles, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came. Lina slowly crept toward the doorway, trying to keep her breathing as even as she possibly could as she neared her dreadful destination.
Finally, she reached the entrance to the classroom, peering inside for anything out of the ordinary. It was unnervingly quiet, but nothing seemed out of place. The room was dark, but a window near the back was open, its curtains billowing softly as a breeze moved swiftly into the room. The moon suddenly broke through a mess of murky clouds, and moonlight spilled out onto the floor once more.
Lina sighed. It was nothing. Yet, as she turned to leave, something happened. The wooden cabinet in the corner of the room began to shake, vibrating in place. And then, at all once, its doors burst open, as a figure came flying out of it with a screech. Lina shrieked.
