The bell rang for the evening feast.
In the Great Hall, candlelight spread like a sea beneath a flowing river of stars.
At the staff table, the atmosphere was like a potion left brewing without being stirred: calm on the surface, seething with undercurrents below.
Igor Karkaroff sat right beside Dumbledore, deliberately leaning toward him, as though Dumbledore's robes could form a protective barrier.
A full five people separated him from Douglas at the other end of the long table.
Even so, he still felt that casual gaze could pierce through everyone like a searchlight and pin itself to his back.
He had barely settled into his seat when his peripheral vision happened to sweep over the corner.
Mad-Eye Moody sat there alone, with no plate before him, only a silver flask he kept raising.
Karkaroff's Adam's apple bobbed violently.
It was the instinctive reaction of a rabbit glimpsing a fox's shadow in the grass.
He looked away like lightning, as quickly as though he had been burned.
Moody's magical eye, however, paid no attention whatsoever to anyone else at the table.
Like a hunting dog whose master had unfastened its chain, it swept past the milling figures.
Finally, it locked firmly onto the back of Karkaroff's head.
Moody raised his flask and took another long swig.
His scarred mouth twisted into a silent, cruel sneer.
Snape was slowly and methodically cutting the steak on his plate with his knife and fork, making faint, regular scraping sounds.
He ignored everything happening beside him, as though Karkaroff and Moody were merely two patches of air unworthy of his attention.
"Relax, Igor."
Dumbledore spoke softly, his voice as gentle as though he were soothing a frightened cat.
"This is Hogwarts. You're safe here."
Far from offering any comfort, those words only made