It was late at night. Although almost the entire school had gathered in the Great Hall of Hogwarts Castle, it was utterly silent. Everyone held their breath; you could have heard a pin drop, or thought time itself had frozen...
The students had their eyes wide open, their heads tilted slightly upward and their mouths agape. Their eyes were filled with disbelief, as if they were witnessing something utterly horrifying. Some of the more timid girls even covered their eyes, then turned away with quiet sobs, clearly unable to bear seeing any more.
As time passed, the "screen" above the Great Hall that had represented Krum, one of the four champions, finally began to fade. In the end, it left behind only a huge gray portrait of a handsome, short-haired young man, as though this were its way of telling everyone what had happened without a word.
At that moment,
all the professors had instinctively risen from their seats, staring in shock and disbelief at the terrifying scene they had just witnessed... Some had even drawn their Scepters, apparently intending to do something, but in the end they realized there was nothing they could do. They could only helplessly turn their gazes toward a certain little girl professor, seemingly waiting for her answer.
They could already see that Headmaster Dumbledore of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Headmaster Karkaroff of Durmstrang Institute, several Ministry of Magic officials, Mr. Bagman, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and others had gathered around the little girl and were anxiously arguing about something.
"No..."
"We can't just..."
"Dumbledore, look..."
"Arguing about this now..."
"Quiet!"
"??"
"..."
The voices over there were so noisy that people at a distance couldn't make out what the headmasters and the others were saying. But if there really were something they