Practice

The two boys maintained an eerie silence, but the occasional twitch at the corners of their mouths was enough to show that they were nowhere near as calm as they appeared about Hermione turning herself into a "mermaid."

Hesitantly, the three of them came to the riverbank. After cautiously looking around and making sure no one was nearby, Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak over his head.

The endless roar of waves filled their ears, and the cold, damp air blowing at them made all three of them shiver involuntarily.

Over the past few years, sneaking around the school after lights-out had become nothing new to them. In the first half of last year, they had even slipped into the Forbidden Forest in the dead of night with Hagrid, Sirius, and Snape to fight a Werewolf. But they truly rarely came to the edge of the Black Lake at midnight.

There was no moon tonight. Only a few dim stars were scattered across the boundless night sky, and even straining their eyes, they could see only faint starlight.

The Black Lake had become black in the truest sense. Standing on the shore, Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at the lake just a step away, all seized by the illusion that what rippled before them was not water, but pitch-black ink.

Harry looked at Hermione, whose lips were pressed tightly together. He hesitated, but ultimately said nothing. Ron, on the other hand, crouched down and dipped his hand into the lake. He immediately shuddered violently, the bleak chill making his scalp tingle.

"Madness."

Ron pulled his hand back and wrinkled his nose. "Even if you don't drown, you'll definitely freeze to death."

"You both saw it."

Facing the abyss-like Black Lake, Hermione tried to calm her nerves through breathing. Now she