Ida didn’t clock the fingers at her waist as more than Cliff being irritatingly in-the-way like always. Instead she elbowed him when she felt him shrug against her shoulder, and scoffed at his sentiment about blowing it up. Cliff was a very abnormal human, she decided. Maybe not even fully human? She wouldn’t be surprised. Normal people back away from a smoking dangerous cursed object. (Ida didn’t apply to this, obviously - her interest here was purely academic, nothing to do with fun like he said.)

She already ducked a bit lower to give Cliff room to peer overhead, though, and for a second she spared a look up at him. He was grinning like a lunatic, actually, which made Ida grin a bit too. Then she frowned as soon as she caught herself. Because honestly. What was she doing here with him? This was interesting, for sure. But Hogsmeade wasn’t safe, and she had work to do, dinner to make, not to mention the risks of being seen by someone she knew, people that mattered more than these mean girls, and finding a way to explain… this man, and his existence, and why she tolerated it, and why they had matching bubblehead charms on, without sounding just as mental as he was…

One of the girl’s electrifying shrieks shocked Ida out of her endless thought. It sounded – so much like Queenie, that night. Enough to make Ida’s heart stop, and she couldn’t muster an answer to his question. Of course she was seeing it – her eyes were riveted on what she saw. It was not nearly as… bloody, but horrific still, flashing images in her mind of the young man slicing off his own skin—

Ida couldn’t speak, couldn’t move actually, was shaking like a leaf as she utterly lost her nerve. The mean girl that turned to an animal looked much better than the former scene, but Ida couldn’t look anymore. So she glanced off to the side, where she could see their own reflection. And eyes widened a bit when she did, noticing their scene was quite different. She didn’t notice what was happening to Cliff – but her reflection made her look pale, white, and waterlogged. Drowned.

“Cliff,” she finally managed to hiss out, and she recoiled from her reflection. “Cliff, this is bad. This makes terrors seem real. We don’t feel like it’s actually happening to us right now because we can’t breathe it -- it's only a visual hallucination.” Let’s go, she left unsaid, but maybe the edge in her voice and pallor in her face said it anyway.

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