The lawn was dark as the clouds had just rolled over the moon. The wind had a cold chill to it, an icy thrust from the north. The weather was turning to freezing rain and muddy Quidditch fields.
One tiny light sparkled out of the window of the girl's dormitory, a single candle held by a girl staring out on the grounds. She had her legs close to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, one hand holding the light blue candle steady.
The other girls lay in their bunks, sleeping soundly as they were wont to do. But this one girl could not sleep. And when she could not sleep she often gazed out of windows, looking down below her for no particular reason. She wasn't really looking for anything; she was simply looking at the beauty of nature.
In a distant dream where she had lived an entire lifetime separate from this one she once saw faeries as she gazed out of a window on a sleepless night. She had been no older than seven years old and they had terrified her. They were dark and small with white hooded cloaks, carrying candles and walked double file down the street where she never really lived.
That had been her first encounter with the unsellie court, except that she didn't know that's what they were. It was November 11, Hollantide, the day that the fey move from one mound into another. She had witnessed a mound moving at only seven years old, something most people never see in their entire lifetime and though it had only been part of a dream she really had seen it.
She sighed deeply, pulling the night air into her lungs. She had seen a cloak swishing in the darkness below and knew that someone was stealing away from the castle. Who it was she could not be certain, nor did she understand that this person would have a hand in her future.
She looked to her bed, blew out her candle and crawled under the covers.