Hogwarts's morning was swept up in Lockhart's golden storm. Every inch of corridor wall was plastered with giant posters of him winking, while Filch angrily tore down one that covered the directions for the moving staircase. "Forbidden! This is vandalism!" he howled, only to be interrupted by Lockhart's dazzling entrance.
"My dear Mr. Filch!" Lockhart flashed his trademark smile, his gold-trimmed cloak billowing with the motion. "These posters are visual teaching materials for Defensive Magic! Look at this stance—" He turned sideways, bent one knee, and pointed his wand at the sky. "The perfect opening posture for resisting dark curses!" Filch's face turned purple with rage, but Lockhart had already turned to the younger students crowding around him. "Children! Remember! An elegant posture is the first essential of defense!"
Hermione clutched her copy of Gadding with Ghouls, her gaze wavering between fanaticism and doubt. Lynn suddenly caught her wrist and pulled her close just as Lockhart's waving wand narrowly swept over her head.
"The first essential of defense," he murmured by her ear, his warm breath brushing her earlobe, "is staying away from moving sources of danger." Hermione snorted with laughter. When Lockhart cast an annoyed glance their way, she quickly buried her face against Lynn's shoulder to hide her smile, her shoulders trembling like a butterfly's wings.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom had become a disaster zone. Thirty violet Chirping Sprites, a variant of the original Cornish Pixies, shrieked and rammed their cage, their beating wings whipping up gusts of wind. Yet Lockhart spread his arms in delight. "These adorable little fellows? A frequent topic on Merlin-level exams! Today, we shall put the Elegant Taming Technique into practice!"
The instant the cage door opened, shrieks tore through the air! The sprites burst forth like exploding magical fireworks, yanking Neville up by his ears and hanging him from the chandelier, shredding Seamus's homework into fluttering snowflakes, while two others fought over Lockhart's golden wig as they darted around the room!
"Come now! Watch me demonstrate!" Lockhart flailed his wand in panic. "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!" The spell struck the chandelier chain, and Neville screamed as he plunged toward a corner piled high with cauldrons!
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Hermione's Levitation Charm caught Neville first. At the same time, Lynn pressed one hand toward the lectern—
Buzz! An invisible force field rippled outward from him, and the air instantly congealed like gel! Every darting sprite was like a mosquito caught in a spiderweb, its wings buzzing uselessly as it struggled without moving an inch! Seizing the chance, Hermione fired off freezing spells with precision. "Immobulus!" Icy-blue light burst one after another, and the sprites turned into comical Ice Sculptures that clattered to the floor.
The classroom fell silent. Lockhart crawled out from beneath the lectern, his wig hanging crookedly across his forehead. "Ex... excellent teamwork!" he said with a strained smile, dusting off his robes. "Just as Chapter Three of Dancing with Banshees states: cooperation between companions is the strongest shield!" Deliberately ignoring Lynn's icy stare, he turned to the shaken students. "Homework: read Chapter Three and write a twelve-inch essay on my taming technique!"
As they left, Hermione pressed close to Lynn and whispered, "That wasn't a standard spell... Did you use the same power as on the train?" Her warm brown eyes shone brilliantly, the excitement of discovering new magic overwhelming her doubts.
"Magic Resonance Field," Lynn explained briefly, but his gaze remained fixed on the back of the classroom—Ginny was gripping that black diary tightly, her nails digging into its leather cover. Web-like black mist seeped from its edges, carrying a chill that only the Star Stone could sense.
At dinner, Hermione slipped a note into Lynn's palm beneath the long table. "Midnight, Astronomy Tower. Best view for observing Venus transit." A tiny Orange Cake was drawn beside the ink.
The castle sank into sleep, and Lynn climbed the Astronomy Tower beneath his Invisibility Cloak. Hermione sat beside the telescope wrapped in a thick wool blanket, with a wicker basket at her feet holding a steaming pot of hot chocolate and heart-shaped slices of Orange Cake. "The Venus transit is fake," she said with a sly smile, pressing the hot chocolate into his hands. "But the plan to monitor Lockhart's office is real—look!"
The telescope was aimed at the window of the Defense Against the Dark Arts Office below. Lockhart was practicing his signature in front of a mirror when he suddenly snatched up a stack of fan letters in horror. "Merlin's beard! The Hungarian Horntail Breeders Association is accusing Voyages with Dragons of fabricating details?!" He frantically searched through the bookshelf and pulled out a copy of Essentials of Memory Modification Charms.
"Every Wednesday at midnight, he burns complaint letters." Hermione's breath condensed into white mist in the cold air. "The danger House-elf Dobby warned us about... perhaps it lies within those truths that were erased." She shivered from the cold, and Lynn unfolded the blanket and wrapped her in his arms. The coarse wool transmitted warmth through their pajamas. Hermione stiffened for a moment, then relaxed against his shoulder.
The vault of stars revolved above them. As Hermione turned the telescope to trace Sirius's path, the ends of her hair brushed Lynn's neck, surrounding him with a citrus scent mingled with parchment. He pointed to a flickering red star in the southeast. "Mars's path has shifted."
"Professor Pythia said in Divination that it was an ill omen..." Hermione's voice trailed off. Lynn felt her fingers unconsciously twist around his sleeve—something she always did when nervous.
"The paths of the stars have remained unchanged for a thousand years." He took her cool hand and guided it toward the tail of Cygnus. "So-called omens are nothing but illusions people project in fear." The instant their fingertips touched, the Star Stone and Moon White Stone pulsed together, and a warm current like electricity shot through their clasped palms. Hermione looked up at him, starlight from the Astronomy Tower falling into her eyes and shattering into a flowing galaxy.
The incident occurred three days later in Potions Class. Snape's black robes billowed like storm clouds as he sneered at Neville's dried-out Glimmerworm. "Mr. Longbottom, perhaps you ought to donate your cauldron to a Troll as a feeding bottle?"
A piercing scraping sound suddenly rang out from the back of the classroom! Ginny knocked over a brass scale, and black beetle eyes rolled across the floor. Her face was as pale as a ghost, and her fingers nervously clawed at the rim of her cauldron—where fading dark-red words written in potion residue remained: "Kill... must..."
"Miss Weasley!" Snape swooped to her desk like a bat, his bony fingers seizing her wrist. "Disrupting the class, Gryffindor will lose—"
"She has a fever, Professor!" Hermione sprang to her feet, speaking as quickly as rapid-fire spells. "Madam Pomfrey said this morning that she needed observation! I was just about to take her to the Hospital Wing!" Without waiting for Snape's response, she supported Ginny's trembling body and headed out. Lynn rose after them. "I'll move the potion ingredients, Professor." He deliberately knocked over a jar of armadillo bile, splashing the viscous liquid onto Snape's robe hem.
At the turn in the corridor, Ginny suddenly exploded with terrifying strength and shoved Hermione away. "Don't touch me!" she screamed, curling up in the shadow of a gargoyle spout, her nails clawing bloody marks into her arms. "It's laughing... Something in the walls is laughing!" The diary slipped from her arms, its cover leaking tar-like black mist that gathered into a phantom of the teenage Voldemort, visible only to Lynn!
"Lumos!" The brilliant light erupting from Lynn's wand pierced the black mist. The instant the phantom vanished with a shriek, Ginny collapsed unconscious. Hermione dropped to her knees and gathered her into her arms. When she looked up, her lips trembled. "That black mist... was it the diary?"
Lynn picked up the diary. Its leather cover pulsed violently in his palm like a living thing. The Star Stone sent forth a blade-like chill—the Basilisk had fully awakened, and Ginny's soul was being eroded at an accelerating rate. "The plan moves ahead." He crushed the Fangweed leaf juice staining the hem of his robe, and green liquid seeped into the cracks between the stones. "We need bait to lure the snake from its nest."
That night, beside the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room, Hermione handed Lynn the revised surveillance plan. The parchment's edges were densely marked with a timetable of Ginny's abnormal episodes, but at the bottom of the page she had drawn an entwined symbol of stars and moon. Lynn's fingertips brushed over it before he looked up and met Hermione's worried eyes.
"If the bait plan requires someone to take a risk..." Her voice caught in her throat.
"It won't be you." Lynn pulled away the quill she was gripping tightly, its shaft still damp with sweat from her palm. "The Basilisk's target will always be the 'impure.'" He dipped the quill in fresh ink and drew a map of Magic Nodes across three corridors on the back of the plan. "Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris—it always lingers near blood-purity bigots."
Hermione suddenly grabbed the hand he was using to draw. Firelight danced on her lashes, casting trembling golden shadows. "Then you have to promise me..." Her fingertips pressed against his chest, touching the place where the Star Stone rested beneath his clothes. "No matter how urgent things become, don't use that life-draining Magic Resonance again. On the train and in the classroom... your body temperature dropped sharply after every use."
Lynn covered the back of her hand with his and pressed that cool hand firmly over his heartbeat. The crackling of the fireplace, Ron's snores in the distance, and the rustle of parchment all faded away. Only the young, steady pulse beneath her palm traveled through bone after bone, once, then again.
"Okay," he promised hoarsely. Hermione suddenly leaned forward and pressed a kiss as light as falling snow to the corner of his lips, carrying the sweetness of Orange Cake and the scent of wet ink. The Moon White Stone at her neck suddenly grew hot, its glow spreading through her wool sweater in a small patch of warm white, illuminating the breaths between them.
Outside the window, Hogwarts Castle lay beneath the ink-blue night. Somewhere within its walls, snake scales scraped against ancient stone bricks.
Within the warm glow of the Common Room, the starlight and moon-white radiance in the clasped palms of the boy and girl silently merged, weaving the first line of defense against the darkness.
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