Chapter 5: The File

The college had sent each of them the other's file, and Draconia had read Harry Peverell's twice before breakfast.

It ran to one page.

She brought it to the table in the great hall on Friday morning and set it beside his plate.

"Interests: none stated," she read aloud. "Conduct: no complaints. Distinguishing features: glasses."

Harry went on buttering his toast.

"Is that the whole of you?" she asked. "Do you actually do anything?"

"I read your file," he said. "It said you were shy."

"It was a clerical error."

"I've decided that too."

Vivienne choked on her tea and Georgina, beside her, thumped her on the back with real force.

Draconia picked up the file, folded it in half and put it in her sleeve.

She was winning, she thought, by a small margin.

She would have said so, if her stomach had not turned over at the sound of the great clock.

Friday had arrived, and the clerk of the Board was coming up the aisle with a long ledger under his arm.

The first reading took place on the dais, in front of the whole first year.

The clerk set the brass cradle on a low table at the front.

The Warden stood behind the clerk with his hands clasped.

Sixty faces turned up, and Draconia felt every one.

She walked up the steps with her wand ready and her mind arranged.

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