Shortly before midnight on June seventh, Scorpius left the Slytherin common room and went up to the entrance hall to wait for Rose, carrying a plant-transport basket he had borrowed from Professor Longbottom; this basket had a tall handle that flared out on both sides to accommodate the height and bushiness of a plant. He had thrown a cloth over the basket to conceal the rose, and clutched the handle through the cloth. Back in the greenhouse, a little cutting was already beginning to take root. Scorpius had started it at the same time he had repotted the rose bush because, on further reflection, he had not been able to believe that Professor Sinistra would decline his offer of a little rose bush as a gift.
Rose appeared, descending the marble stairs, dressed in a warm wool cloak against the cold Scottish night. She smiled when she saw the covered basket.
–Are we going to have a picnic on the top of the tower? A midnight feast? Is that the surprise?†she asked merrily.
–No, nothing like that. It’s not going to be a picnic,†Scorpius answered, laughing. –You’ll see. Are you ready to go?â€
Rose yawned a little yawn and said, –I guess so. I tried to take a nap after dinner so my brain wouldn’t be so foggy for Professor Sinistra’s inquisition, but I couldn’t sleep much. I’ll have you know, Mr. Malfoy, that I wouldn’t be doing this for anybody but you.â€
–And I wouldn’t do it without you,†he replied. Of course not. Her presence was an integral part of the event.
They went back up the stairs and proceeded through the long, dim, silent corridors lit only by torches in sconces on the walls, up a few more staircases, heading towards Professor Sinistra’s office at the base of the Astronomy Tower. The basket, though not heavy, was awkward to carry because of its bulk; it wanted to bump against Scorpius’ leg unless he held it away from his body, and he did not look forward to carrying it all the way up to the top of the tower.
At Professor Sinistra’s office they stopped and rapped sharply on the door, which opened automatically. Professor Sinistra was standing in her office, dressed in a warm-looking cloak like Rose’s, and on the desk next to her lay the telescope, its tripod legs shortened up and neatly folded into a compact bundle beside the body of the telescope itself. Scorpius did not know how long she had been waiting for them, but the hour was the stroke of midnight and Scorpius was inwardly thankful they had not been late.
–Good evening, Professor,†he said as they stood at the door.
The professor eyed his covered basket suspiciously and said, –Are you bringing some special accoutrements necessary for viewing the stars, Mr. Malfoy, or is that a picnic lunch I see? Has it been that long since dinner?â€
Scorpius did not dare to laugh, not being able to judge Professor Sinistra’s mood with confidence. –No, ma’am,†he said seriously. –Rose asked me the same thing. I have brought something special as a remembrance of the event tonight, but I don’t intend to take it out of the basket until we are finished. Until then, it will sit quietly to one side.â€
–Now you have piqued my curiosity, young man,†Professor Sinistra said in rejoinder. That was a good reply, Scorpius thought. She’s not angry about the basket.
–Can I help you in any way with your telescope?†he inquired politely, but the professor answered, –No, I will Levitate it, thank you. That way I can be sure of its safety, and you seem to have encumbered yourself with enough already. Shall we go up?â€
–I will go first,†Rose said, and she walked the short distance to the end of the corridor and began to ascend the winding stone stairway, holding the skirts of her cloak up to avoid treading on the hem.
It was not many steps up to the next level, one floor above the professor’s office, where the side of the tower was still connected to the main body of the castle. Here there was a landing and a door that opened into the celestial sphere classroom. There they stopped, and Professor Sinistra opened the door. –After you,†she said, and they all entered the dark room.
–Illumino,†Professor Sinistra said, and the light came up faintly in the room, which Scorpius and Rose remembered from previous years. The room was spherical, with a transparent floor bisecting the sphere, so that there was a half dome above the floor and another half dome under their feet. The surface of the domes was blue, and positioned over the surface were all the major stars as points of light of varying intensity, the northern celestial hemisphere over their heads and the southern celestial hemisphere below their feet. In the center of the room was suspended a globe of the earth about two feet in diameter, hanging, apparently without support, in the air.
Adhering to the globe was a curious object, a little human figure about three inches tall, holding one little arm pointing directly over its head. The figure had a magnetic base and attached itself by magnetic attraction to the surface of the world globe because underneath its outer skin that depicted the continents and oceans, the globe had a sheath of iron-bearing material. The magnetic figure could be moved over the surface of the globe by hand, entirely non-magically, even by first years who had not yet learned to move objects by use of their wands. Over the generations it had become customary to call the figure –Magman†and to always move him by hand, even after the students had gained the capability to do it magically. Occasionally Magman had been seen to sport a tiny hat or to hold a tiny flag, flower, or wand in his upraised hand. When he was activated, a beam of red light would shine directly upward from his upright hand; where the beam struck on the surface of the celestial dome indicated what Magman could see directly overhead from his location on the globe.
Right now Magman was standing in the middle of the north Atlantic Ocean. Scorpius slid him up to the North Pole and turned on his lights; the red light from Magman’s upraised arm struck the North Star at the peak of the dome. Magman also had secondary lights, a set of green lights that shone from his base and spread out horizontally to create a circle of green light that made a green ring all around the surface of the celestial sphere. This ring indicated what Magman would see at the horizon, where his view of the sky touched the edges of the earth. With Magman standing on the North Pole, the green ring, at about waist height for Rose and Scorpius, cut throughout all the zodiacal constellations on the walls of the celestial sphere.
Scorpius did not know what Professor Sinistra was going to ask him and Rose, but he began to speak anyway. The celestial sphere room was actually fun, and he had never before been in it without a whole class of students, but now it was just the two of them, and he could play with Magman all he wanted.
–If we lived at the North Pole,†he began, –the North Star would always be directly overhead, and the constellations of the zodiac would always be at the horizon, hard to see. All night long, all year long, that would never change. It would be hard to see much of Scorpius or any zodiacal constellation. On the other hand, if we moved to the equator, like Ecuador or central Africa,†and here he reached out and slid Magman down the side of the globe to a location in Africa, –the constellations of the zodiac would form a giant arc directly over our heads, and the North Star would appear on the horizon.†In his new location, Magman’s red light rested on the constellation Leo and the green lights made a vertical circle encompassing the North Star and passing down into the southern celestial hemisphere beneath their feet.
–But we live in Scotland, which is fairly far north, – Scorpius continued as he slid Magman back up the surface of the globe and positioned him on Scotland, –so the North Star is not exactly overhead and the ring of zodiacal constellations is not exactly at the horizon, but a little tilted. As the earth rotates,†and here he pointed his wand at the globe with Magman standing on it and said, –Roto,†and the globe began to rotate slowly, –the constellations of the zodiac appear to rise in the east, skim westward a little above the horizon, and then sink again in the west.â€
As the globe rotated, the red light from Magman’s hand traced a small red circle overhead, centered on the North Star, while the ring of green lights, slightly atilt, circled around the celestial sphere like a child’s spinning top that is running down.
Scorpius felt mesmerized. It was the very first time he had ever been able to operate the celestial sphere mechanism by himself and to do exactly what he wanted with it. I wouldn’t be a bad Astronomy teacher, he thought. This is cool. In the back of his mind was the faint idea that it was very odd for Professor Sinistra to let him do this, but as neither she nor Rose spoke, he continued on.
He pointed to the lowest part of the moving tilted green circle and said, –Everywhere that the green horizon circle is below the zodiac, those are the zodiac constellations that are above the horizon for Magman.†He read them off as the globe and Magman slowly revolved. –Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius…â€
–Stop!†said Professor Sinistra suddenly, and the globe stopped revolving, with Magman’s circle of green lights skirting under the constellation Scorpius on the wall of the celestial sphere. –Rose, tell me what we are seeing here.â€
Rose was startled, not having actually expected to be quizzed by Professor Sinistra about anything in this room because this trip to the Astronomy Tower had been entirely Scorpius’ idea, not hers, and she still wasn’t sure what it was all about.
–Um, it shows the constellations of the zodiac that are visible above the horizon at a certain time of day, that is, a certain time within a twenty-four-hour day…†She trailed off, not knowing what Professor Sinistra was fishing for.
–And what determines whether we can actually see these constellations at that time?†Professor Sinistra pressed her, gazing pointedly at her.
Rose’s brain searched rapidly for the answer, while silence hung in the dim air between them. Suddenly it came to her.
–It depends on whether these stars are up during the daytime or during the night,†she answered, certain that she had given the desired response.
–Or whether the sky is covered with clouds,†Scorpius interjected with a hint of irreverence in his voice. Professor Sinistra shot him a warning glance, and he protested, –But it’s true. That’s a real consideration in this region.â€
–Luckily for you,†Professor Sinistra remarked drily, –Scorpius is a nighttime constellation in June, when your view of the heavens is less likely to be obscured by clouds.â€
–When is Scorpius above the horizon in daylight?†she asked suddenly, and Scorpius and Rose answered instantly, in unison, –December!â€
Professor Sinistra appeared to relax, her facial expression softened, and she said, –I see you have not forgotten everything I taught you in your first year. I’m glad to know that some of it has stuck. One more question. Why do you want to view this constellation from the tower instead of merely walking out onto the grounds and looking up?â€
–Because the trees and hills rise above the true horizon,†Scorpius answered slowly, constructing his explanation as he spoke. –Scorpius doesn’t rise very high, and these things can hide it.â€
–If we were on a very flat surface, such as a calm ocean to the west of us, we could see it easily,†Rose added.
–Yes,†Scorpius agreed, –but here we must rise above the hills.â€
–How else could you do that, besides this tower?†Professor Sinistra continued.
Merlin’s beard! It’s like the O.W.L.s all over again, Scorpius thought. I never intended to go through this interrogation, just to look at a little constellation. It’s like we’re her captive audience and we have to earn the right to go up to the platform.
–Well, any tall building, like a tower, church steeple, a tall building in London…â€
–But the bright city lights might block out the stars,†Rose reminded him. –How about on a treeless hilltop or ridge?â€
–That’s a good idea,†Scorpius agreed. –Or go high in the sky on a broom.â€
–Or in a hot air balloon,†Rose offered eagerly.
–Maybe it would be easier just to travel south,†Scorpius concluded. –We could go to Spain for the summer and stand on the Rock of Gibraltar facing south. That should do the trick.â€
–Yes,†Professor Sinistra agreed, smiling. –It’s plain you understand these principles and can apply them in a practical sense. I thing we’re ready to go up to the platform.â€
Finally, Scorpius thought. He had the feeling that Professor Sinistra had been having fun with them, in a professorial way. He wondered if this trip was worth having to go through this gantlet of questions and decided that it was, just barely. It was something he really wanted to do, and he felt pleased that he and Rose had been able to acquit themselves so well. Besides, he had gotten to play with the celestial sphere, which most students didn’t get to do.
Professor Sinistra turned off Magman’s lights, made the floor opaque again, and said, –Lumos rubescensâ€.
They all used their wands to produce red light, left the celestial sphere room, and ascended the stone steps to the top of the spiral staircase, bringing the telescope and the shrouded basket with them. White light would have obliterated their night vision, and it would have taken their eyes as long as an hour to re-adapt fully to the darkness, but red light did not do that. When they reached the wooden door, Professor Sinistra asked Scorpius and Rose to step back a short way so that they could not see her wand movement or hear the spell she spoke softly to unlock the door. It was a particularly strong door-locking spell, for the students’ own safety, and Alohomora could not reverse it.
On top of the tower the air was cool and fresh, and a slight breeze carried a far-away tang of the sea. Scorpius set his basket next to the parapet and asked, –Can I help you, Professor?†as Professor Sinistra began efficiently extending the legs of the tripod.
–This will take me just a minute,†she answered, –but thank you for offering.†Scorpius reflected that she must have set up and taken down the telescope so many times over the years that the motions were second nature, so he did not feel guilty about letting her complete the task on her own. He and Rose both tilted their heads back and stared at the black sky adorned with what seemed like millions of stars, some brilliant and fat, others just tiny points of light, mere pinpricks. From this height, the highest point of the castle, the surrounding hills and trees looked tiny, almost without stature, and the celestial hemisphere over their heads was huge. Both Scorpius and Rose had been here countless times before, in the busy crowds of the Astronomy classes in their younger years, their attention always captured by the milling masses of all the other students and the necessity of completing their night’s assignment while managing their own telescopes and avoiding tripping over the tripods of the others.
This night was different. Tonight the black stillness was overwhelming, and the realm of stars seemed endless. Scorpius easily picked out the Big Dipper, then took a one-hundred-degree bearing off the last two stars of its handle and, craning his neck way back, followed the imaginary line across the dome of the heavens until it reached a bright star, Vega, in the constellation of the Lyre. Then it was a quick matter to pick out the other two bright stars, Deneb in the Swan and Altair, closest to the horizon, in the Eagle, that formed the hallmark feature of the summer night sky, the Summer Triangle. The Swan, its great wings outstretched, was flying down the Milky Way, which formed a wide, whitish band across the sky. Everything was familiar, everything was where it belonged, and he took great comfort in that. Rose too was gazing overhead, rapt by the sight.
–Are you ready to look at Scorpius?†Professor Sinistra’s voice broke the silence, and Scorpius re-oriented himself to the moment.
–Yes,†he said.
–Then find it for me,†the professor ordered, and Scorpius quickly turned himself around to face roughly south and scanned the sky above the horizon for a bright star with a reddish hue.
–There it is,†he announced, pointing in its direction. –I see Antares, and there are the two big pincers arching out above it and to its right. Do you see it, Rose?â€
–Yes,†she said, standing at his shoulder. –It’s the red one, right?â€
–And you see the pincers?†he continued. –Shaped like this?†He held his arms up at shoulder height, each arm curved into a C-shape, and tilted his upper body to the right.
–Yes, I see them, and its body going downwards, but look,†she said with disappointment in her voice, –we can’t see the lowest part of the body. It’s below the horizon.â€
–But I think we can see the tail where it curves up again,†Scorpius said, –Isn’t that right, Professor? Are those two stars just above the horizon on the left — are they the end of its tail?â€
–Yes, they are,†Professor Sinistra answered. –People call them the Cat’s Eyes because they are so close together. Their names are Shaula, on the left, and Lesath, on the right. Both names mean ‘sting’. Let me focus the telescope on them.†She put her eye to the eyepiece and soon said, –There, you can see them.â€
Scorpius motioned to Rose. –You go first,†he said gallantly, and she stepped up to the telescope.
–Oh, my!†Rose exclaimed. –They’re so big and bright, like liquid fire.†She gazed a few seconds longer, then stepped back. –Now you go.â€
Scorpius took his place at the telescope, acutely aware that he was touching it for the first time in his life. Shaula and Lesath leaped into view, looking like two burning orbs. Scorpius was entranced. They’re millions of miles away, he thought. I’m looking at something millions of miles away. The cosmos was so unimaginably vast.
–Imagine a line running from Lesath to Shaula and continuing on towards the upper left,†he heard Professor Sinistra’s voice say. –Move the telescope slowly in this direction and you will come to something we call the Ptolemy Cluster, a close cluster of stars that have condensed from a cloud of gas, new stars. You can see it with your naked eye, Rose. Look hard.â€
Scorpius slowly moved the telescope, hoping he was going in the right direction, and all at once a closely clustered mass of brilliant stars like fuzzy-edged diamonds sprang out of the dark field of view, their sudden gleaming beauty far greater than he had expected, taking his breath away. New stars, all close together like a family…
Star after star they looked at, Professor Sinistra telling them the stars’ names and meanings. Many proved to be double stars when seen throughout the telescope. Antares was a red giant, many times larger than their own sun, she told them, with a little star cluster just to the right of it. Another star cluster, the Butterfly Cluster near the scorpion’s tail, actually had the shape of a butterfly as they viewed it throughout the telescope.
Scorpius and Rose spent the better part of an hour on the platform, taking turns looking at first one star, then another, as Professor Sinistra repeatedly repositioned the telescope, until there was nothing more to see of the constellation. Finally they all straightened up and Professor Sinistra began to pack up the telescope.
–I expected we would see the whole thing, being up on the tower here,†Rose said. –It was a disappointment that part of the body was missing.â€
–I guess we’ll have to go up in that hot air balloon after all,†Scorpius joked.
–You must understand,†Professor Sinistra explained to them,†that much of Scorpius is below the ecliptic. Do you remember what that word means?â€
Rose shook her head, but Scorpius answered, –The line that separates the northern and southern hemispheres of the sky.â€
–Yes,†Professor Sinistra said. –Actually, more of Scorpius hangs in the southern hemisphere than extends up into the northern hemisphere. Our friends in Helsinki, only a little closer to the pole than we are, are lucky even to see Antares, much less the scorpion’s body or tail.â€
Scorpius was not disappointed. He had seen as much as one could see in Scotland, and he felt content.
–Well, Mr. Malfoy,†Professor Sinistra continued, –have you accomplished what you set out to do? Was tonight a success? What insight have you gained about your name?â€
She sounds as if she is challenging me, Scorpius thought, as if she doubts I really learned anything. But I did. He looked his professor calmly in the face and began, –Antares means a counterpart of Ares, the Greek god of war, because it is red like the planet Mars. But what does that mean, ‘counterpart’? Is Antares the trusty right-hand man of the war god, eager to join him in waging war, or is he the opposite of Ares, opposing war and seeking peace? Are they like twins or like rivals? I am Scorpius, so Antares is a part of me, and I must take a stand, make a choice between violence and peace.
–I learned that Scorpius dips farther south into the southern celestial hemisphere than the other zodiacal constellations do. It really is an inhabitant of both hemispheres, part in the north and part in the south. To see it, you need to travel south. It beckons you to leave the comfort of your familiar world and go far away. If you are in the north, you must go south, and if you are in the far south, you must go north.
–If I am Scorpius, then I am standing in a field of stars being born. All around me, fantastic new things are being created. I need to glory in everything that is fresh and new, maybe even create something of my own.
–And Scorpius is a plain, straightforward constellation. It really does look like its name. So many constellations, well, to tell the truth, they could be anything. You could connect the dots in any of a dozen different ways to draw different figures. But Scorpius is unambiguous; what you see is what you get. People should be that way too. I should be that way.â€
He paused, asking himself if he truly was that way. He had not been straightforward about his adventure in the beginning, playing a game, trying to manipulate people into believing that he was something he was not. And it had backfired on him. It had turned him into what he had only pretended to be. When did I stop being Scorpius the Clever Player and become Scorpius the Serious Amateur Astronomer and Deep Thinker?
He looked toward Rose and then back at Professor Sinistra. They were staring at him in the pool of dim red wand light as if surprised. They were accustomed to the clever and fun-loving Scorpius, but not the Scorpius who spoke like this.
–You’ve become quite the philosopher, Mr. Malfoy,†Professor Sinistra finally said. –Frankly, I was expecting to see more of the Earthworm and the Beetle-bug here tonight, but it looks as though those characters have finally been banished, and the Scorpion has come into his own.â€
Rose looked at him quizzically. She doesn’t know what Professor Sinistra is talking about Scorpius thought. Beetle-bug? Earthworm?
–You’re right, Professor,†he said, –and I’m truly gratified for this opportunity, right before I leave school forever. It was worth losing a night’s sleep for, at least it was for me, and I hope for you too.â€
–I’m sorry you didn’t take N.E.W.T. Astronomy, young man,†she said. –You would have been an interesting student.â€
Me too, he thought. Me too.
Scorpius took a deep breath and assumed a more jovial mood. –Before we call it a night, there’s one more thing.†He walked over to the edge of the platform, picked up the covered basket, and brought it back to the two women. –Here’s the basket I hauled all the way up here tonight at great inconvenience to myself, and I’m sorry to say there’s nothing to eat in it. Come to think, that was an oversight on my part, but it can’t be helped now. It is a present, a remembrance for tonight, something that I know Rose will like, and maybe you will like it too, Professor.†He pulled the cloth off the basket and pointed his reddish wand light at the little rosebush thus revealed.
–It’s a rosebush,†he said, –and I know it doesn’t look like much in the red light, but maybe we can switch to white light now since we’re done with stargazing, and you can see it better.â€
–A rosebush?†Rose exclaimed. –Oh, let’s see it in the white light. Is that okay?â€
–I think it would be,†said Professor Sinistra, –but why a rosebush? What is it for?â€
–I bought it special for tonight,†explained Scorpius, switching his wand light to white as the others followed suit. –Its name is Antares, and the blooms are a beautiful red, like the star. I got it first for Rose, but there’s a cutting from it growing in Professor Longbottom’s greenhouse for you, Professor Sinistra, if you’d like it. I didn’t know if you’d want a rose or not. But if you do, Professor Longbottom says you can leave it in the greenhouse until it grows bigger, and then whenever you look at it you’ll remember us.†He felt himself talking like the Clever Player again, but maybe it wasn’t all an act, not anymore. He did hope she would like the rose and remember him after he was gone.
–Oh, how pretty,†Rose exclaimed. –Look how red it is.â€
–How thoughtful of you. I’m touched,†Professor Sinistra said warmly. –I didn’t expect this. Certainly I will remember you both whenever I look at my rose. It’s lovely. Thank you.â€
Upon hearing her words, Scorpius felt the tension drain out of his body, and he belatedly realized the extent to which he had been apprehensive about what Professor Sinistra’s reaction would be.
–Yes, thank you,†Rose chimed in. –But what about you? Is there a rose for you?â€
–Oh.†He had not thought of that. The simple –rose for Rose†plan was expanding into a horticultural house party. –I’ll take a cutting from yours after it’s grown a bit bigger. I don’t want to do it now; you’d have nothing left.â€
–It’s been an enjoyable and informative evening, but we should be going down now. I think we are finished here, isn’t that right?†Professor Sinistra reminded them.
–Please, could we stay just five minutes more?†Rose pleaded. –I’d like to just look at all the stars one last time. This is probably the last time I’ll ever be up on this tower, and we’ve mostly been looking at Scorpius tonight.â€
–We can take five more minutes,†Professor Sinistra, agreed, –but then we must go down. It’s late, and it’s getting chilly.â€
–Thank you,†Rose said. Moving closer to Scorpius, she put one arm around his waist and pointed toward the west with her other arm. –Look, there’s Arcturus. I always find it by drawing my hand along the handle of the Big Dipper and then just continue the curve to the next bright star.â€
–And over there,†said Scorpius, pointing east, –is the great sweep of stars,†and here he made a sweeping motion with his arm, –that I always associated with coming back to school because they rose in the evening about eight or nine o’clock in the east in September, and if you follow the sweep down to the end, and then drop down just a bit off the curve, it’s Capella, in the constellation of the Charioteer."
–Do you know which constellations are included in your so-called sweep?†Professor Sinistra asked.
She never stops teaching, Scorpius thought to himself. –Uh, Pegasus, Andromeda, and Perseus,†he answered.
–Oh look!†exclaimed Rose suddenly. –Did you see that shooting star? It was a really bright one. It made a big trail.â€
–No, but maybe I’ll see another one,†Scorpius said. And a moment later, –Yes! Did you see that one?â€
Watching a few minutes more, the three stargazers saw several more shooting stars, points of light streaking across the sky. Turning their heads to look in different directions, they spotted meteors in every quadrant of the sky.
–Wow, this is quite a display,†Scorpius said. –Do you suppose they did it just for us?â€
–I’m very surprised,†Professor Sinistra remarked. –There is not any expected meteor shower at this time of year. The next one is the Perseids in late July and August. June is normally a quiet month for meteors.â€
–Well, not this year, evidently,†Scorpius replied.
–I’m noticing that some of the meteor trails are long and pretty spectacular, but some are rather short,†Rose observed. –Is that because some of the meteors are smaller and burn up faster in the atmosphere?â€
–That’s one reason,†Professor Sinistra replied. –But there’s also another reason, which would apply to two meteors of the same size. Can you think what it is?â€
–Is this a quiz again?†Scorpius asked.
–Yes, it is, Mr. Malfoy.â€
Scorpius and Rose searched their brains for long seconds but couldn’t think of anything.
–We weren’t taught this in astronomy class, were we?†Scorpius asked in desperation. Please say no.
–Perhaps you weren’t. Here, I’ll demonstrate. Say my fist is the earth,†and Professor Sinistra held up a fist, –and the meteor travels like this…†tracing a line with a fingertip of her other hand passing tangentially past the fist.
–Oh, that would be a long trail,†Rose said, excited by suddenly understanding.
–And if the meteor traveled like this…†and Professor Sinistra’s fingertip moved directly toward her fist.
–Oh my,†Rose said. –That would be a short trail. It would be headed straight toward the earth. Is that what we’ve been seeing tonight?â€
–Perhaps some of the short ones are,†Professor Sinistra answered.
–But they burn up in the atmosphere, don’t they?†Scorpius pressed her. –They’re not going to hit the earth, are they?â€
–Oh, that would be fun,†Rose exclaimed. –Just imagine, a big old meteor crater right in the middle of the Quidditch pitch.â€
–You’re daft,†Scorpius jested.
They turned their eyes to the sky for one last view.
–Look,†Scorpius exclaimed, –there’s a really bright one.†They stared toward the eastern sky. The shooting star was not moving very rapidly across the sky, and as the moments passed it seemed to be getting even brighter, brighter, brighter, until it rivaled a full moon. Colors of yellow, red, and green danced across its brilliant surface, and a low rumbling sound began to penetrate their hearing as they stared, transfixed. Within seconds the top of Astronomy Tower was lit up as brightly as if by daylight, and Professor Sinistra suddenly moved next to Scorpius, threw her left arm around his shoulders, and instantly cried out "Protego!". The infinitely brilliant light filled all their vision. They could not look. Scorpius squeezed his eyes shut, clung to Rose with his left arm, and braced himself for whatever would happen next. There was a tremendous crash, the loudest sound he had ever heard in his life, and a shock that threw him to his knees. He put out his right hand to break his fall and collapsed onto the stone pavement of the tower, pulling Rose down with him. The clatter of falling debris was everywhere. He could hear Rose next to him, screaming.