Chapter 6: What the Enchanted Ceiling Burned

The Great Hall smelled of porridge and woodsmoke and the particular cold that came off ancient stone in the small hours before the heating charms had properly taken hold, and it was into this smell—familiar, almost comforting in its density—that the first glyph appeared.

Holmes was on his third cup of tea.

He had arrived at breakfast eight minutes before any student, having spent the preceding hour in the corridor outside his guest quarters reviewing his case-notes by the light of a wall-sconce that pulsed with a faint luminescence he had catalogued as bioluminescent but not yet explained to his satisfaction. The Great Hall had received him without ceremony. He had selected a seat at the far end of the nearest long table—the one that ran along the room's northern wall—and had positioned himself with his back to the stone so that the entire length of the hall fell within his sightline. He had noted the house-elves before they became invisible again. He had noted the precise placement of every pepper cellar. He had catalogued the enchanted ceiling—a vault of rolling grey cloud and pewter dawn-light, methodically impossible, representing an external sky that he calculated must be approximately three hundred yards above his current position—and had made a note to return to the question of its mechanism at a later, less pressing juncture.