The silver light along the eastern ridgeline grew brighter and brighter.
It was not a gradual change.
It was seeping through.
An immense silver radiance shone from behind the ridge.
Light spilled through a gap in the ridge, one strand, then two, before merging into a sea of light.
The outline of the ridgeline was swallowed completely.
The upper edge of the moon appeared.
A silver arc pushed up from behind the black ridge.
It rose very slowly.
Slowly enough for everyone to see its edge clearly-not round, but a pitted arc cut by the jagged ridge.
Then the jagged edges vanished.
The whole moon sprang clear of the ridge.
A full moon.
An enormous, pristine full moon.
Silver light poured down.
Moonlight swept over the hillside, over the gravel path, over more than two thousand upturned faces in the seven rows of seats on the viewing stand, and finally spread across the entire Moonlight Field.
The valley was lit up.
So brightly that the dewdrops on every blade of grass glittered, so brightly that every face on the Moonlight Field was clearly illuminated.
On the viewing stand, more than two thousand people held their breath.
Thirty seconds.
Moonlight completely covered the Moonlight Field.
Dozens of students in silver-gray robes stood where they were, motionless.
Some closed their eyes.
Some looked up at the moon.
Some bowed their heads, their hands clenched into fists, their knuckles white.
Not one of them fell.
Not one of them trembled.
In the front row of the viewing stand, Fudge's fingers pinched tightly at the creases of his trousers over his knees. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Scrimgeour lifted his gaze from the detector screen. For the first time, he did not scan the surrounding shadows, but stared straight at the