Nick walked down the Entrance Hall's staircase, dressed to the nines along with the other Hogwarts students attending the Yule Ball.

He scanned the crowd for his date, Emily. A fellow Hufflepuff and fourth-year.

She was there, waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase. The light hit her black and gold dress in a way that made the leaves on it shine.

As Nick approached the bottom of the staircase, the location started to shift. The crowd started to dissolve. Soon, he found himself in the great hall, dancing the night away with Emily.

The orchestra played a steady waltz as everyone looked on.

"You look beautiful tonight," Nick smiled.

Emily blushed. "You don't look too bad yourself, love." She rested her head on his shoulder.

Nick could feel his heart racing as he held her close.

Emily sighed happily. "I'm glad you asked me to the ball, Nick. Honestly, I thought I'd have to ask you myself." She held his hand and started to twirl.

But then, it's as if all time had just stopped.

Nick blinked and looked around. Everyone had frozen in place, including Emily, mid twirl.

"What's going on here?" The boy asked, letting go of his date's hand. "Guys, this isn't funny!" He started running towards the door and slipped on someone's dress, landing flat on his back.

The Great Hall's ceiling started to collapse in on itself as cracks formed. Pieces started raining down. He closed his eyes, bracing for impact.

But it never came. And he opened his eyes again, he was greeted by the familiar yet dark sights of... the Hufflepuff Common Room.

The fourth year quickly sat up in bed, panting. "Wait, that— no. How could the story just end there?" He muttered and looked around his dorm.

Everyone else was still sound asleep, save for him.

I've got to figure out what went wrong, he thought while slipping out of bed. He made sure to grab his wand before heading out to the main area of the common room. "Lumos," he whispered.

A faint ball of light illuminated from the tip of his wand.

Suddenly, a pair of footsteps could be heard from the girls' dormitory upstairs.

"Just like that?" The voice called. "The story stopped?" A girl stepped out, her orange hair in a messy bun.

Emily Jones stood on the second floor balcony, dressed in a pajama set. She noticed a figure standing in the center of the main area and rushed down to investigate.

"Nick?" She gasped. "Why are you up so early? It's half past—"

"Midnight. I know. I just... the dream randomly stopped." He lowered his wand a bit so as to not blind the girl. "Any ideas on what we could do?"

Emily sighed. "Well, we can't be the only ones that noticed—" A sudden noise on the stairs made her instinctively grab Nick's hand. "Maybe it's another student." Her eyes landed on his again as she felt her cheeks getting warm.

Nick chuckled and smiled back. He and Emily had always been close friends. But lately, they'd been closer than normal.

"S-sorry." Emily sheepishly pulled her hand away as the noise came again. She quickly whipped out her own wand and cast Lumos.

To their surprise, it was only Emily's tabby cat Milo, who'd followed her downstairs. It completely ignored her and rubbed against Nick's ankle before letting out a soft meow.

He knelt down and stroked the cat's back. "We should probably check on the other houses."

The pair walked out of the common room and up to the entrance hall, wands lit. They stopped near the bronze statue of the Hogwarts architect.

Meanwhile, Jenna, a 4th year Gryffindor, had journeyed out of her own common room, running into a fellow 4th year, a Ravenclaw named Raven.

They trekked downstairs and ran into Nick and Emily near the statue. "Hey, guys? Did you hear what happened?" Jenna asked. She'd been best friends with the two Hufflepuffs since they met at the Start-Of-Term feast during their first year.

"Yeah," Nick replied, scratching his head. "How could the story just stop?" He sat down on a nearby bench. "Everyone has dreams, right?"

Jenna nodded. "Yeah! And Hogwarts..." the girl looked down at her feet. "Hogwarts lives on stories."

"I do have an idea. We could get people to daydream," he suggested. "But, that'd be risky and result in students not paying attention."

"Well, I personally didn't have any dreams last night," Jenna admitted. "But... I did experience a vision."

"A vision?" Raven repeated. "Like what Professor Trelawney has whenever she looks like she's having a fit?"

She nodded.

Just then, another 4th year Gryffindor named Katie popped around the corner. "Hey, did any of you guys stop the story?"

"No," the group said in unison.

"I've a theory, though," Jenna said. "What if the dreams haven't stopped? They're simply being contained?"

Raven looked at her. "But... no, that doesn't make sense. Who would even have the power to do that?"

"The headmaster, possibly." Emily took a seat next to Nick. "But he'd have no reason to."

The other students either leaned against the wall or simply sat on the floor.

Raven sighed. "We gotta find someplace else to sit."

"The Great Hall is literally right in front of us." Katie nodded towards the big double doors.

The group followed her into the Great Hall and sat at one of the tables.

"Right, so..." Emily sat next to Nick once more, their shoulders touching slightly. "I'd been thinking about something on the way over here." She looked at everyone. "Maybe the answer is hidden in what was left."

"What do you mean?" Raven asked.

"What do you guys remember dreaming about before everything stopped?"

The group looked at each other.

"Well..." Nick cleared his throat. "I wrote all my dreams down in a journal. But I left it in our common room 'cause I didn't think we'd need it."

Emily smiled and nudged him. "Go get the journal. There might be something in it that can help us."

A soft smile played on Jenna's lips. "Ooh," she teased and pointed at the two Hufflepuffs. "I see what's going on here." While it was all in good fun, seeing them together made her sad.

"What?" Emily blushed and hid behind Nick. "This is a serious matter, Jen!"

"Aww, come on!" Jenna cooed. "I know you two have a thing for each other! I just know it..." she could sense the sadness in her own eyes.

Nick frowned. "Is everything okay?"

The girl silently shook her head. "I... don't wanna talk about it right now."

Emily broke away from Nick slightly and laid a comforting hand over Jenna's. "We're your friends, Jenna. You can tell us anything."

She looked from Nick to Emily and bit her lower lip. "Nick, why don't you go grab that journal? I've gotta talk to Emily about something."

He nodded and slipped out of the room, racing back downstairs to the Hufflepuff common room. "Okay. Now... two from the bottom... middle of the second row..."

Meanwhile, Jenna and Emily broke away from the other two students so no one could hear their conversation.

Jenna sighed. "Okay. The truth is, I have a crush on someone," she whispered. "The problem is... I think his crush likes him back."

"Wait, what?" Emily whispered.

Jenna slowly nodded. "Yeah..."

Emily cocked her head to the side. "It's not Nick... is it?" She hoped that she'd jumped to the wrong conclusion. They could forget the story for now. This was a problem they needed to solve.

The Gryffindor bit her lower lip again. She wanted to confess that it was Nick. That she'd had a crush on him for a long time. But she saw the way he looked at Emily whenever the three of them hung out together. She saw the way Emily loved him back.

"Jenna?" Emily asked. "Are you—"

"You know what? Never mind." Jenna sighed, blinking away tears. "I used to. Not anymore."

"Oh... are you sure?" Emily frowned. "You seemed pretty upset before."

"I'm sure," she assured her. "Anyway, why don't we get back to the story business?"

The pair headed back towards the table.

At that moment, Nick came back with the journal. "Got it," he said, taking a seat next to Emily again.

"Okay. Now... Let's see where this goes." Emily flipped to the first page and silently read the dream:

"Emily and I rode off into the sunset with the wind in our hair—"

"N-not that," Nick stammered. "That's nothing." He immediately flipped to the second page.

Emily's cheeks turned as red as her hair. "What was that?" She teased. "Some fantasy of yours?"

"Uh... maybe," Nick laughed.

Jenna snickered. "Why don't we just read the next—"

The door to the great hall opened as yet another 4th year, a Slytherin named Michael, stepped into the room and approached the group.

"Lemme guess," Raven called. "You're here because the story stopped?"

"Uh, yeah. Isn't it obvious?" He saw Jenna and his heart started to flutter. "Hey, Jenna."

She smiled. "Hey, Michael! Come sit with us?"

He looked around at everyone and grimaced when he saw Nick. "Oh. You're here too..."

Jenna and Emily looked at each other.

"Damn, I forgot they hated each other," Emily groaned.

"Nice seeing you again," Nick replied, walking up to him. "Looks they didn't do a good enough job of fixing your nose when you took that bludger to the face. Don't worry. I can fix that."

The girls immediately intervened with Jenna stepping in between the boys and Emily grabbing Nick's arm.

"We've enough problems as it is," Emily said. "Let's just get back to the main issue, please."

Michael sighed and pushed past Nick as the four of them sat down.

"Right. So, Nick... let's get back to that journal," Katie said.

"The..." he let out a soft yawn. "Right. Sorry. Not used to being up this early."

The six of them all huddled around the table, searching the book for answers.

"...It stops right here while you and I are on the dance floor."

"So, the last thing you remember dreaming about was the Yule Ball?" Emily asked.

"Yeah." Nick closed the journal.

"Wait a minute. That's one year ago to this day," Jenna and Emily said simultaneously.

Emily sighed. "Hang on. Nick, do you think that might have anything to do with it? Plus, you and I couldn't have been the only ones there. All of us had to be there at some point, right?"

"I—" Nick's eyes diverted to a goblet on the table that was slowly fading away. "Uh... am I going mad, or do you guys see what I'm seeing?"

Michael reached over to pick it up, but his hand slipped right through. "What's going on? Is this some kinda joke?"

"Hogwarts is fading away," Katie said.

The others looked at her, dumbfounded.

Raven gasped. "Katie, what did you just—"

"Honestly, guys. I said that at the beginning of the conversation," Jenna sighed.

"We better not fade away before the ball," Nick sighed. "We gotta do something."

"You're joking, right? We're only fourth years." Michael looked at him.

"And why is this happening?" Emily asked, her voice trailing off.

"Hogwarts feeds off of our dreams as its source of energy. And since the stories stopped... the castle is losing its will to survive," Katie explained.

"And if I remember Dumbledore saying correctly, the stories never really stop," Jenna added. "I think they really are being contained."

Just then, a flash of light seeped through the giant stained glass window in front of them, followed by a high-pitched ringing noise.

"Guys? What is that?" Michael gasped.

"No idea," Jenna said, hiding behind him.

Meanwhile, Emily grabbed onto Nick's arm for protection.

The group shielded their eyes and grimaced as the light shined brighter, and brighter...

Until their world went black.