Rosier was a villain. Part of his whole bit was threatening to off people at the drop of a hat; she should've seen this coming. It should have come earlier. Eden had been making jokes about killing muggles and muggleborns all term.

But...it felt like everything inside her had become sand and was slowly draining through a little hourglass opening in her stomach. Falling down to become a weight in her toes. Away from her brain, didn't need that, thanks.

She registered screaming in the background. Crying, too - never a good look, for anybody, at any time. Eden didn't cry. She just stood there - shocked, transfixed, numb. She watched Nemesis Upstead - were they sniffing the fallen man to see if he was dead? She couldn't really see. Everything was blurry. But she wasn't crying. Tears did not fall, so she was not crying.

Eden walked away, and then she picked up the pace and ran across the grounds. A tear fell. Just one. Except just one broke the entire Hoover Dam of emotional repression she'd been building up for a long time, and before she could stop herself tears began rushing down her cheeks.