At eye level, the Great Hall almost never changed. It did not change when viewed from above, either, but if you looked up, the Great Hall at Hogwarts was changing all the time.
Its ceiling was enchanted to match the weather outside.
Thunderstorms raged outside just then, so the ceiling was also covered in dark clouds and pouring rain. It was just that none of the rain would actually fall.
The room was warm. The young wizards who had been caught in the rain and felt a little cold, even shivering, immediately felt much more comfortable once they entered the Great Hall.
Harry and the others came to the Gryffindor table, exchanging greetings with the students around them. Their seats were fairly near the front, and a little farther away was Hogwarts' ghost, Nearly Headless Nick.
"Hi, Sir Nicholas. How were your holidays?" Harry asked with a smile.
Compared with the other soaking-wet young wizards, Harry and his friends were much drier and more comfortable. They were therefore still in the mood to greet a ghost.
"Hi, Potter." He was very pleased that Harry had called him Sir Nicholas rather than Nick. "The holidays? Much the same, really. My application was rejected again..."
The application Nick meant was to the Headless Hunt, a club of ghosts made up entirely of unfortunate souls who had had their heads chopped off.
At first, Harry had not quite understood why Nick could not be accepted when only a tiny strip of flesh still connected his head to his neck. But on Halloween in his second year, he had attended Nick's Deathday Party with Ron and Hermione.
There, they had seen the headless riders' performance-throwing their own heads around like balls.
Well, Nick really could not do that, so it was quite reasonable that