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Лес шумел угрюмо (мрачно? огорченно?). Лесные звери имелись в лесу том повселесно. Тем временем человек и человечица (человейка? человечка?) шли по речью (речейку?) к речке. В лесу встретились им лес и лесица, волк и волчица, лось и лосица, медведь и медведица (медвежка?). "Съем-ка я вас,человеки!" - произнес медведь. "Не питайся нами, Михаил (Виктор? Григорий?), мы хотим живать-поживать!" ©Вадим Шефнер

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Chapter 33, in which Stahna comprehends fine points of English, while St. Valentine’s Day brings many surprises and disappointments.

The boys from Griffindor’s 5-th grade sat at the table incapable of even looking at food. They would not come have down to the Great Hall at all, had Professor MacGonagall not instructed them to behave as if nothing had happened. Having no alternative, Dean, Seamus, Harry, Neville and Ron obediently went downstairs and took their seats at the Gryffindor table. They could not bring themselves to eat anything - there was no torture instrument on earth cruel enough to force them to do so. Ron was still shivering. He sat, trying not to raise his eyes: just one look at the chops and cream jam made his stomach twist in a knot as if it was trying to liberate itself from its owner. It appeared to be fluttering somewhere in his throat¹.

At dawn, while scouring the floor with his bare feet, in the search of slippers, he unexpectedly touched something large and cold. Looking down, he froze dumbstruck for a split second then started to shriek. The cry was so fierce that it broke his voice in an instant; but was echoed momentarily by awakened Neville, Harry, Dean and Seamus as they saw a man’s corpse on the floor of the bedroom. Sparse hair was glued together by gore while dim fish eyes stared up at them. A black, dry crust was forming over a stream of blood that stopped just under the chin. Deep purple puddles on the rock floor spread out under the already boggy carpet. A metallic, stuffy, heavy smell filled the room.

The teachers came rushing in (Flitwick was muffled up in a chequered dressing gown and MacGonagall’s hair was held in a hair-net) and threw the boys from the bedroom, still in their pyjamas, without giving them a chance to dress. They were left in the corridor, treading the flow², chilled and trembling from the shock, waiting for the moment when Snape and MacGonagall would call them for a talk hot on the tracks³. Harry was studying his ankles sticking out from the pyjama bottoms with clenched teeth. He noticed how the colour of his feet changed from pink into dark blue and then into milky white. Judging by the sensations, they would transform into ice in a minute. Ron had long since acquired the greenish tone of young grass shoots and seemed to be having difficulty controlling the waves of nausea washing over him.

’Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, do you know the man whose body was found in your dormitory this morning?’ Snape’s officious voice rasped with a false tone. Harry looked into his eyes, concentrated pulling himself together. He opened his mouth.

A warning look, an elusive motion of eyebrows.

’I ask you again, did you know this person?‘
’No, we saw him for the first time’, Ron was all trembling, but his eyes flared up with understanding. ‘No idea who he might be. Never met him before.’⁴

MacGonagall sighed with relief and raised her hand to her chest as if to calm a sudden heart flutter. Snape’s look softened, filled with anxiety. For the first time in his life, his eyes did not burn with hostility for the frightened boys.

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