"Luna was cursed?" Harry looked incredulous.
"Yes, last Saturday afternoon. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were making up an earlier Flying Class. Then, after class, she suddenly fainted at the Castle entrance. There were only first-year students around her at the time, and everyone was terrified.
"If Madam Hooch hadn't been heading back to the Castle too, not far behind them, and found Professor Flitwick in time, it could have been very dangerous. I heard it seemed to be an extremely powerful curse. Even our Head of House took quite some effort to break it!"
On Monday afternoon, in the library, Padma Patil told Harry what had happened, still shaken by the experience.
"How is Luna now, then?" Harry asked with some concern.
Although they could hardly be called close, he and Luna did know each other, after all. Luna had even kindly warned him once.
"She should still be in the Hospital Wing, I think? I visited her earlier, but she was in a separate ward. I don't know whether she's woken up yet." Padma shook her head and said uncertainly:
"It seems they aren't sure who cursed her, so they have to isolate her for protection for now, to keep her from being targeted again."
"I was thinking, could she have attracted something while researching some bizarre magic herself?" Sally Turpin, who was beside them, clearly had a different opinion:
"That little girl is always going on about strange things anyway. And I heard her mother died in a magical experiment because she was researching some peculiar magic."
"I don't think so." Padma did not quite agree with her friend's opinion. "She's only a first-year. What magic could she possibly research that would bring a curse down on her?"
"Who knows?" Sally spread her hands and said casually:
"Some demons