You’d stood up from the Slytherin stands so fast your scarf had fallen. You didn’t pick it up. You just left, the roar of the crowd fading behind you as you marched back to the castle, your chest tight.

Twenty minutes in the silent, green-lit gloom of the Slytherin common room had turned the hot anger into a cold, sick upset. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. You always got what you wanted. You’d had him.

So you went back. The path to the Quidditch pitch was now a river of students flowing the other way, chatting and laughing, bundled in house colours. Slytherin victory, then. You pushed against the current, your jaw set.

The pitch was almost empty, the stands echoing with the last cheers. The goal hoops stood skeletal against the grey sky. And there, near the base of the Ravenclaw stands, was a scene that stopped you dead.