just left. Draco, not particularly used to walking in such terrain, kept his eyes fixed on the stones, trying not to lose his balance.
‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Cedric, somewhat nervously.
Draco glanced at him, only to see him furiously trying to wipe something off the map. Given the shifting ground and the march itself, marking anything on a piece of paper was no easy task and required concentration. The dragon shook his head slightly and was about to go back to watching the ground, but his gaze shifted to the terrain ahead of them. The reptile tensed and leapt forward, grabbing Cedric by the shoulder and pulling him towards himself. Slipping on the small stones, they both tumbled backwards, making quite a racket in the process. Draco was back on his feet almost immediately and, holding on to the nearest large rock, looked down into the bottomless chasm from which he’d pulled his commander.
Cedric, who at first had been swearing like a sailor and preparing for a proper tirade about the new cadet’s stupidity, looked at the expanse before him and fell silent. The chasm began abruptly, without any warning; one might even say it had been concealed by the small rise they had just climbed. Vertical walls plunged downwards, only to vanish after a few metres into a white haze resembling mist, though it was certainly not mist. The rocky slope appeared to offer no handholds for climbing. The chasm was several hundred metres wide, but as the opposite bank lay lower down, they hadn’t noticed it before.
The dragon leaned out a little further and looked in both directions. The crevice stretched from the base of the cliff to, more or less, the edge of the pine forest. It also appeared to narrow as it approached the centre of the Crater. The bottom was not visible along its entire length, though the artificial nature of the haze suggested it was meant to simulate its absence.
‘What a surprise,’ the reptile said grimly, trying to get a better look at the walls of the chasm.
