After breakfast, there were already many wizards hurrying back and forth through Hogwarts' broad corridors, and the students had to push through them with some difficulty as they made their way to their respective classrooms.
"The current uniforms are elegant and luxurious enough, and being able to maintain a constant temperature is very practical, but I still kind of miss the old uniforms..." Ginny said with a sigh as she watched the long hem of Parvati's robes, who had just hurried past them, nearly drag along the floor.
"If you put on the hood and gas mask, everything gets covered up... though the protection is good..." Ron nodded blankly in agreement. "The main thing is that witches don't show their legs anymore."
"And you can't show off that fine Quidditch-player body of yours anymore either, Ron." Lavender pitched her voice higher, glanced sidelong at Ron, and tugged at the lion-fur stole on her cloak, baring the skin of her neck as she spoke to him in a sickly-sweet voice.
Harry quietly glanced at Ginny, who was looking nauseated and rolling her eyes beside him, and with an extremely strong instinct for survival, he chose not to pick up that thread.
A clanging, crashing sound came from the corridor ahead. Several portraits on the wall fell down, and the figures inside fled in panic into other frames. A suit of guard armor rolled apart across the floor with a clatter.
Hermione, who had still been thinking about how she had caused the first Dark Lord to end up hospitalized, was startled by the sudden commotion. She looked over and saw a Gryffindor and a Slytherin dueling beneath the corridor with wands in hand. The spells they sent flying struck the decorative portraits and guards in the corridor, yet neither of them