Pluto Projector.

Chapter Eighteen.

"What?" Leanne and (Y/n) asked at the same time. Katie took a package out of her coat and held it up. Leanne eyed it nervously.

"What is it, Katie?"

"I don't know. I was told to give it to bring it up to the castle," said Katie.

"Wh— No way! What if it's cursed?" Leanne protested, immediately growing off-put.

"As if!" Katie argued.

"Who gave that to you?" Leanne demanded.

"It's none of your concern!"

"You can't be that careless, Katie, not in times like these!" Leanne said furiously. (Y/n) looked back and forth between the two, feeling like a child whose parents were arguing. "Give it here, Katie, we can go dispose of it—"

"No way! Back off!" Katie said.

"I will not be backing off when my girlfriend could get herself cursed!" Leanne said angrily.

"It's nothing to do with you, Leanne!" Katie shouted. Leanne made to grab hold of the package Katie was holding; Katie tugged it back and the package fell to the ground.
At once, Katie rose into the air gracefully, her arms outstretched as though she was about to fly. (Y/n) and Leanne stumbled back in surprise and Leanne bumped into (Y/n), who nearly lost her balance. Katie's hair was whipped around by the fierce wind, but her eyes were closed and her face was quite empty of expression. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, all of whom had rounded a corner at the very moment Katie dropped the package, had stopped in their tracks, just as Leanne and (Y/n). They all watched, shocked.
Six feet above the ground, Katie let out a terrible scream. Her eyes flew open but whatever she could see or whatever she was feeling, was clearing causing her terrible anguish. She screamed and screamed; Leanne and (Y/n) started to scream too and seized Katie's ankles, trying to get her back to the ground. Harry, Ron, and Hermione rushed forward to help, but even as they grabbed Katie's legs, she fell on top of them. Harry and Ron managed to catch her, but she was writhing so much they could hardly hold her. Instead, they lowered her to the ground, where she thrashed and screamed, apparently unable to recognize any of them.
Harry looked around; the landscape was deserted.

"Stay here!" Harry shouted at the others over the howling wind. "I'm going for help!" He began to sprint toward the school, hurtling around a bend in the lane before colliding with what seemed to be an enormous bear on its hind legs.
"Hagrid!" Harry panted, disentangling himself from the hedgerow into which he had fallen.

"Harry!" said Hagrid, who had sleet trapped in his eyebrows and beared, and was wearing his great, shagging beaverskin coat. "Jus' bin visitin' Grawp, he's comin' on so well yeh wouldn'—"

"Hagrid, someone's hurt back there, or cursed, or something—"

"Wha'?" said Hagrid, bending lower to hear what Harry was saying over the raging wind.

"Someone's been cursed!" bellowed Harry.

"Cursed? Who's bin cursed— not Ron? Hermione?"

"No, it's not them, it's Katie Bell— this way..." Together, they ran back along the lane. It took them no time to find the little group of people around Katie, who was still writhing and screaming on the ground; Ron, Hermione, Leanne, and (Y/n) were all trying to quiet her.

"Get back!" Hagrid shouted. "Lemme see her!"

"Something's happened to her!" sobbed Leanne. "I don't know what—" Hagrid stared at Katie for a second, then without a word, bent down, scooped her up into his arms, and ran off toward the castle with her. Within seconds, Katie's piercing screams had died away and the only sound was the roar of the wind.
Hermione hurried over to the wailing Leanne, who (Y/n) was trying to comfort through her shock.