She prodded her mashed potatoes with a fork, pushing them into careful ridges that held their shape.
Tobias watched the steam curl from his shepherd’s pie—too hot yet, always too hot—and waited.
“Professor Flitwick said my *Incendio* was almost passable,” Hannah said, apropos of nothing.
Tobias nodded.
“Better than mine.” Hannah sighed, then stabbed a carrot.
“Justin got his to work last week.
Before—” She stopped.
Before the petrification.
Before the frozen stillness, the stiff limbs, the terrified eyes locked open.
Before the hospital wing.
The Great Hall murmured around them—nervous laughter, hushed conversations, the scrape of cutlery on plates.
A first-year Ravenclaw dropped a spoon.
The sound echoed.
Tobias blew on his pie.
“You want to go back early?” Hannah shook her head.
“Prefects will just ask why we’re alone.” They’d instituted the rule after Halloween—no student traveled corridors without at least one other.
First-years paired with second-years.
Prefects checked the routes twice between classes.
Curfews tightened.
The castle felt like it was holding its breath.
Tobias ate a careful bite.
Still too hot.
After lunch, they walked back to the common room together, shoulders brushing in the narrow corridor.
The torches flickered.
Somewhere, a portrait muttered about drafts.
The barrels swung open with a muffled thud, revealing the common room in a state of suspended animation.
A third-year girl Tobias didn’t recognize was curled on the nearest sofa, shaking silently into her robes.
Near the fireplace, the seventh-year prefect had his hand clamped around the shoulder of a fifth-year boy whose face was slick with tears.
Hannah froze in the doorway.
Tobias felt her fingers tighten on his sleeve before she let go entirely, stepping forward as if pulled by wire.
The sixth-year prefect—Maisy, her name was Maisy—broke away from her huddle by the hearth and crossed to them in three quick strides.
Her mouth opened, closed, then opened again.
“It’s Justin,” she said, too loud in the quiet.
“They found him—him and Sir Nicholas—on the second floor.
Petrified.” Hannah made a small, punched-out noise.
“He’s alive,” Maisy added hastily.
“They took him to the hospital wing.
Pomfrey says he’ll—he’ll be fine once—” Her voice cracked.
Hannah went white when the prefects told them Justin had been petrified.
Her fingers twitched once at her sides, then curled into fists.
Tobias watched the slow tremor work its way up her arms before she turned abruptly and crossed the common room to her usual armchair—the one by the window with the uneven stuffing—and started to cry properly.
Tobias followed.
He perched on the arm of her chair, thighs pressing into the worn upholstery.
Hannah leaned toward him without looking, forehead coming to rest against his shoulder like a sinking ship listing into port.
Her breathing hitched twice before evening out into something steady and wet.
The common room murmured around them—sniffles, murmured reassurances, the occasional stifled sob.
Someone threw another log on the fire.
Sparks popped.
Tobias kept his arm around her shoulders, his palm flat against her back where her robes bunched slightly at the spine.
Across the room, Tonks appeared at the base of the girls’ staircase, her hair a dull brown for once.
She caught Tobias’s eye over Hannah’s head and mouthed *Gryffindor cousin says they’re voting tomorrow* before vanishing into the cluster of older students near the hearth.
Hannah didn’t ask.
Tobias didn’t tell.
They sat there for about an hour without much being spoken between them, just the occasional shuddering breath from Hannah and the distant sound of Ernie Macmillan arguing with a fourth-year about whether mandrakes could scream loud enough to rupture eardrums.
The fire burned low.
Shadows stretched long across the floor.
Tobias kept his arm around her shoulders without trying to say anything useful.
The platters arrived silently—covered silver dishes carried by unseen hands, deposited on the long oak table near the fire with neither clatter nor announcement.
The sixth-year prefect lifted the first lid with careful fingers.
Steam curled upward in slow spirals, carrying the scent of chicken broth and thyme.
Hannah stirred against Tobias’s shoulder.
“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled into his robes.
He nodded, watching the seventh-year prefect portion out sandwiches with methodical precision—ham and cress, egg salad, something with chutney glistening between slices of rye.
A first-year boy took two and immediately dropped one on the floor.
No one scolded him.
Tonks appeared at the edge of Tobias’s vision, sliding onto the bench across from them with her elbows planted on the table.
Her hair had darkened further—not brown anymore, but the grey of old newspaper.
“They’re saying it might close,” she said quietly, tearing a crust from a sandwich without looking up.
Hannah stiffened.
Tobias felt her breath catch against his collarbone.
Tonks flicked a glance at them, then lowered her voice further.
“My cousin says the governors are meeting tomorrow.
Emergency vote.” She split the sandwich down the middle with blunt fingers.
“Parents are pulling kids from the train stations already.” Across the room, Ernie Macmillan dropped a soup spoon with a clatter.
The sound echoed oddly in the quiet.
Hannah exhaled slowly, her fingers curling tighter around Tobias’s sleeve.
He watched Tonks grimace as she chewed—not at the taste, Tobias thought, but at having to be the one to say it aloud.
The fire popped.
Shadows shifted on the ceiling.
Somewhere near the dormitory stairs, a fourth-year girl began crying in sharp, hiccuping sobs that no one went to comfort.
Tonks wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood abruptly.
“Eat something,” she told Tobias, not unkindly, before turning toward the cluster of older students by the hearth.
Her hair darkened another shade as she walked away—charcoal now, nearly black.
Tobias reached for a sandwich.
The bread was soft under his fingers, slightly damp from condensation.
He held it out to Hannah without speaking.
After a long moment, she took it.
She chewed mechanically, staring at the fire without seeing it.
The sandwich tasted like nothing—just texture, just something to do with her hands.
Tobias watched her swallow twice before giving up entirely, setting the remains on the armrest between them.
The seventh-year prefect cleared his throat by the door.
“Bed checks in fifteen,” he announced, too loud in the quiet.
Hannah stirred.
“We should—” Tobias nodded.
They stood together, his sleeve damp where she’d pressed her face.
The walk to the second-year dormitory felt longer than usual—each step muffled by the thick carpet, past hushed conversations that died as they approached.
The prefect on the stool by the entrance—a fifth-year girl Tobias didn’t recognize—looked up as they stopped in front of her.
“We’d like to visit the hospital wing,” Hannah said, too quickly.
The prefect shook her head before the words were fully out.
“Pomfrey’s orders,” she said gently.
“No visitors until morning.” Hannah’s jaw tightened.
Tobias felt the tremor in her fingers before she clenched them.
The prefect hesitated, then softened her voice further.
“Come back after breakfast, alright?
If anything changes, someone will tell you.” They sat on the floor outside the common room anyway, backs against the cold stone wall.
The castle groaned around them—pipes settling, distant footsteps, the occasional muffled sob from a portrait.
Fifteen minutes passed in silence before Tobias nudged Hannah’s shoulder.
She nodded without speaking.
Justin’s bed was empty and made and the dormitory was quieter than it had ever been.
The window above Justin’s bed showed nothing but December-dark glass, the faintest reflection of Tobias’s own drawn curtains flickering back at him when the fireplace in the common room below pulsed.
Ernie had gone to bed without speaking, curtains sealed tight with what sounded like three separate locking charms layered over each other.
Tobias had counted the clicks—one for the charm Tonks taught them, two more he didn’t recognize.
He performed his own curtain-lock slowly, wand tip brushing the fabric as he murmured the incantation.
The charm took on the first try, as it always did.
The small click came softer than Ernie’s, barely audible over the distant creak of pipes in the walls.
He lay back, staring at the canopy above him until the embroidered badger crest blurred into a shapeless yellow smudge.
Justin’s pillow was fluffed.
His quilt was smoothed.
His bedside table held nothing but a thin layer of dust and the faint indentation where his glasses case usually sat.
Tobias turned his face toward the wall and counted the uneven stones until his eyes burned.
He understood the second year was going to teach him what standing back from things cost.
If Hollow at Hogwarts has caught your eye and you’d like to keep going, the full story lives on the usual site under TransmigratorTales, alongside my other ongoing serial.
More on the way, and I’m really glad you’re here reading this.