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Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back.
They're waved inside with backslaps and slightly heartened grins, pointed towards the Room of Requirement (Dumbledore's express orders - anyone not fighting is to stay here, under guard).
Outside, the atmosphere soon tenses again, and it's not long in spreading through the castle, particularly anywhere there are north-facing windows. In the distance, nestled between the dark masses of two harsh Scottish hills, there is a faint red-orange glow against the dusk; that's where Hogsmeade used to be.
And between there and the castle - almost to the gates now, though with a long trek across the lawns afterwards - another glow. Except this one, this one is a sickly green, and comes not from one source, but from many, far too many wands, held aloft above a solid swarm of black robes. Behind these tight-serried ranks, a still larger horde crowds the narrow roadway, some figures slow and shambling, some switching freely between two feet and all fours, and some, silhouetted against the ghostly light, horrifyingly, stomach-clenchingly huge.
It seems strangely cold - colder than it should be, for a midsummer's evening. There are slow tendrils of mist sneaking and snaking their way out from the Forbidden Forest.
It's nearly night.
It's nearly time.
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