"When the soul is wholly absorbed in one sense by an impression of pleasure or pain, it plainly ceases to attend to the others. Thus, when something heard or seen powerfully draws our souls, we fail to notice the passage of time."
Pomona read the Divine Comedy while eating a Licorice Wand, a faint creaking continuously sounding beside her ears.
"I had a true experience of this while listening intently and watching that spirit speak; for when we reached a certain place, the Sun had already risen fifty degrees, and I had not noticed."
At that moment, she looked up toward the source of the sound.
Snape sat in a rocking chair with a fresh Daily Prophet in his hands. The front page showed the rebuilt Gringotts, with Goblins shaking hands with Draco Malfoy because he had just deposited a large sum of money in the bank.
"I have great faith in Gringotts's security now," Draco told the reporters, imitating his father. "For centuries before that dragon was captured, Gringotts protected our property properly as well."
Pomona took another bite of her wand, slipped off her shoes, and gently rocked Snape's chair with her foot.
She wanted him a little closer to the floor so she could see what the tiny print in the newspaper said.
"Stop making trouble," he said in the tone he used to warn students, though his eyes remained on the paper.
That only made her want to "make trouble" more, so she rubbed her ankle against his right leg—the one Fluffy, the Cerberus, had bitten.
In Dante's time, heliocentrism had not yet become widespread. According to Ptolemy's theory, the Sun revolved around the Earth, moving fifteen degrees each hour. From its appearance over the horizon at dawn until Dante appeared in Purgatory, it had risen