Allison had mostly kept to herself over breakfast. For some reason, she still felt like she was getting phantom pains in her right wrist after she'd taken a Bludger to the radius in their last game, which had taken her out of the game just as she'd made a lunge for the Snitch. At the back of her mind, she knew that had cost them the match, and she still blamed herself a little, even if she knew there wasn't a whole lot she could have done about it.

And then, from down the table, someone went and threw out the symbol that she'd been raised to fear. The sudden appearance of the Dark Mark made her freeze. For some of the students, obviously the significance of the apparition wasn't that clear to them. But after what the people who followed it had done to her family, she had every reason to be scared.