The second last day of October came in cold and clear, the lake flat and dark under a sky that had the specific quality of autumn ending — not quite winter yet, but the warmth gone from the air in the decisive way that meant it was not coming back.
The entire student body was at the grounds by evening. He understood this — the particular pull of an event that had been announced and anticipated and was now finally about to become real. He did not pretend to be immune to it. He positioned himself in line after the final lesson of the day and then watched the lake.
The Beauxbatons carriage came first — enormous, pale blue, drawn by twelve winged palomino horses the size of small houses, moving through the October sky with the specific unhurried grace of something that had been doing this for centuries and saw no reason to perform urgency. It descended toward the grounds with the quality of a very large thing landing elegantly, which required either excellent design or considerable magic, and was probably both.
He had his camera out.
The photograph he took showed the carriage at the moment of descent — the horses' wings fully extended, the pale blue against the October grey of the sky, the castle behind it. He developed it that night and it was exactly what he had wanted: the scale of the thing made visible, the castle not diminished by it but given context by it, two old institutions occupying the same frame.
The Durmstrang ship was different in every quality. It rose from the lake rather than descending from the sky — the dark water churning, the masts appearing first, then the hull, the whole thing surfacing with the deliberate theatricality of something that had been doing this entrance long enough to understand what it was for. The ship was dark-hulled and low, and the skull figurehead at the prow had the quality of a statement rather than a decoration.
He photographed that too. The ship at the moment of surfacing, the water falling from its hull, the last light of the October afternoon catching the masts.
Then he went down to the entrance hall, where the school was assembling with the contained excitement of people who had been waiting all term for something to actually happen.