The horizon stretched on forever — a pale line of blue-gray sky over endless hills. The air felt strange here. Not cold, not warm. Just off. Like the world forgot how to be itself.

You walked alongside Luna Lovegood and Cho Chang, your wands out, but not really expecting to find anything. Cho was deep into a rant about Harry, hands waving as she half-giggled, half-vented.

“And then he acts like he’s saving everyone all the time,” she scoffed. “Like — ‘oh look at me, I’m Harry Potter, Defender of the Underdog.’ Honestly, sometimes I could just—”

“Shh.” Luna looked up from the tattered book she’d been reading aloud from. The Compendium of Mischievous Forest Folk and Their Dietary Preferences.

“What?” Cho frowned.

“The nargles are here.”

You and Cho exchanged a look.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Luna,” Cho groaned. “There’s no such thing—”

Rustle. Snap. Whisper.

A chill danced up your spine as something moved in the grass. Dozens of tiny shapes, quick and darting, too fast to focus on. One brushed past your ankle — cold and slick like a snake wearing a sock.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” you yelped, nearly dropping your wand.

“Nargles,” Luna said serenely, as if she’d just announced the arrival of tea and biscuits.

“Okay — I swear, they’re not real—”

Before Cho could finish, the swarm came. Invisible things pulling at your hair, tugging at robes, knocking your wand hand. You swatted wildly, Cho shrieked, and Luna just sighed like a parent watching toddlers fight a curtain.

“The only way to get rid of them is to feed them a page of a book,” Luna chirped five minutes into the chaos, as if remembering the solution was in the back of her mind the whole time.

“Now you tell us?!” you and Cho shouted together.

Without hesitating, Luna ripped a page out of her book and held it up. The air shimmered, and in seconds the Nargles swarmed the paper, leaving the three of you alone in a battered circle of trampled grass.

Cho glared. “I’m never doubting you again.”

“Wise choice,” Luna smiled dreamily.

Heart pounding, you pointed. “There — an exit!”

Sure enough, just beyond a crooked row of trees, a flickering light marked the path. The three of you bolted for it, bursting out into the clearing where the other houses had gathered.

Faces were grim. Fred was crumpled, hollow-eyed. Neville wouldn’t look up. And there was no George.

Your stomach sank.

But at least you were out. For now.