Lizzie stood stock still, trying to catch her breath. She’d always been a bit surprised by the stick moving the way it did, but this was ridiculous. The stupid thing had actually hurt! It scared her, slightly. “It’s nabut a piece of wood, when al’ said an done,” She reassured herself and taking a deep breath she stepped back over the chain.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t a chain, because this time she could see it. The dowsing stick trembled in her hand, and she could see a kind of narrow, red corridor stretching out before her. It was as if she were standing between two thin sheets of red glass, with the light coming in from outside.

Outside? She was outside! But there was Professor Flitwick talking to Cora Blair. Only Lizzie couldn’t hear them. She couldn’t hear anything but her own heart beating and her breath coming in short gasps.

What kind of magic was this? She took a step and then another, carefully keeping within the bounds of her strange red world. It ran straight as an arrow across the rough patch of ground where they were dowsing and through the trees. Somehow she looked beyond the trees to where a hill stood silhouetted against the sky. There, right in front of here was the Auld Bale, an isolated hill on the far side of Hogsmeade.

Did it go behind her as well? As Lizzie turned, her dowsing stick passed through the glassy “wall” of her red alley, and it vanished. Suddenly the sounds of the other students, the birds and the teachers rushed in on her, and before she knew what was happening, the world turned black.

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