Easter Fright Night

I had hit a bottleneck.

I had been trying to make the Wolfsbane Potion, but unfortunately, with my current magical power, I was nowhere near capable of it. So I settled for the next best thing: I hoped to develop a potion that could at least make the scars fade, so he wouldn't have to hide the injuries on his body every day.

It was fine while it was winter, but once summer came, he couldn't keep wearing a scarf every day, could he?

I had written out the formula many times, but either it was too advanced for my magical power, or I thought it would work at first, only to find no change at all after secretly putting it in Remus's food.

I had fed Remus so many times, though, that now whenever I approached him with food, he would open his mouth with practiced ease. For some reason, it reminded me of the Pavlov effect.

Throughout the process, Sirius kept losing affection for me for some reason. I thought he suspected I was trying to poison Remus.

"Sigh, still no good..."

After James's birthday, I tried again, but it still didn't work. After starting over so many times, all I had probably gained were perfect grades and knowledge far ahead of everyone else's. Now, for the first time in my life, I couldn't even make a potion, the thing I was good at. I was so depressed that I was listless even at the Easter feast, and Mary asked why I wasn't feeding Remus.

Honestly! Now it was as though I was the one who had been conditioned!

As I walked along, muttering and wondering whether the things I'd ordered from Borgin and Burkes had arrived, something suddenly flashed past my eyes. I looked up absentmindedly and saw a head floating in midair, silently staring back at me.

"Holy shit!"

Normally, a jump scare like that shouldn't have frightened me. After all, Peeves scared people every day. But I had been lost in thought, and I was alone in the corridor. Under those circumstances, it was really hard not to be startled. I jumped, drew my wand, and pointed it at the head, nearly hitting it with an Avada.

"Hey, hey, hey! It's me!"

Just before I could spend a hundred days working hard to get into Azkaban, James fumbled the Invisibility Cloak off, revealing his and Sirius's faces, their hair mussed by the cloak, and abruptly stopping me from casting. "You can't murder your classmates!"

I knew he was exaggerating, but if I'd had enough magical power, I really might have sent him off to restart a second ago.

"What are you two doing...?" I was even more surprised. "Weren't you in the Great Hall?"

"Just now Sirius saw you leav-ow!" Sirius punched James, who gave him a puzzled look before continuing, "It was such a shame we didn't pull a prank on Halloween, so we decided to make up for it."

"You were the only one who left early," Sirius scoffed. "Besides you, there's no one else who could be such a killjoy."

"It's fine if you don't make up for that." I patted my chest and ignored Sirius. "Good thing I stopped myself, or this time next year I'd probably only be able to remember you two from Azkaban."

That silly boy James thought I was joking and burst out laughing.

"We definitely wouldn't do this to anyone else," James said confidently. "If we're going to cause trouble, we're going to cause chaos!"

I thought of Gryffindor's already pitifully low point total and grew deeply worried.

"You haven't scared Lily like this before, have you?" Thinking of Lily's growing dislike of him, I was full of concern. "No wonder there hasn't been any progress between you two, even though nothing happened to bring you into conflict."

"Evans?" James froze for a moment and raised a hand to smooth down his hair, which the cloak had made even messier. "No, I haven't..."

"That's good." I breathed a sigh of relief. "You mustn't play this kind of prank on Lily. Avery and his lot played a similar but worse prank on her. If she saw this, I couldn't guarantee your safety."

With that, I proudly thumped my chest. "Of course, I can play that kind of prank on Lily. After all, I'm not you, and I sent Avery and his lot to the Hospital Wing afterward."

James: "..."

Seeing James fall silent, Sirius actually laughed even louder than I did.

"But pranks can work, actually." I began racking my brains for ideas for James. "For example, next Halloween, you could..."

"I don't need your ideas." James cut me off as soon as I began. He looked distracted. He really was the sort of person who wouldn't listen to other people's advice. "Besides, I won't need them."

[Sirius's affection -1]

I almost thought the system had made a mistake and reported "Sirius" instead of "James."

So why on earth was this happening?!

After saying goodbye to James in complete bewilderment, I continued wandering around Hogwarts.

Most people were in the Great Hall now, and there were few students to be seen along the way. Come to think of it, I clearly wasn't the only one who had left, and Headmaster Dumbledore had said we were free to do as we pleased. What gave Sirius the right to say I'd left early?!

The formula still needed revising, and I needed somewhere quiet. With that in mind, I went back to the Black Lake.

This was a forbidden area of Hogwarts. I liked coming here whenever I had something to think about. It was quiet and deserted, especially at night. Even though it was outdoors, the sense of being hemmed in by the world on all sides was strangely wonderful. At times like these, I always felt at ease.

But today was a little different.

The trees and mountains surrounded the place in silence as usual, the ink-black lake was perfectly still, and not even the moonlight was easily visible in the sky. I had sat down by the lake, but soon got back to my feet.

I had the persistent feeling that someone was watching me.

I used to like sitting close to the edge of the Black Lake, quietly staring into its abyss-like surface, which reflected nothing. But now, whenever I stared at it, I kept feeling that something was hidden beneath the surface, watching me.

...Maybe I shouldn't stay here today.

I turned to leave, only to find that Remus had appeared not far from me at some point. His face was full of shock, and he raised his wand toward me.

What's Remus doing?

Before I could react, something icy suddenly pressed against my ankle, and the bone-deep chill nearly froze me stiff. I hurriedly looked down and found that a tentacle had silently emerged from beneath the water and wrapped itself around me!

"!!"

By the time I looked down, it was already pulling me under. It was so strong that before I even had time to struggle, I was falling into the lake.

"Lumos!"

The tiny glow was especially dazzling under the circumstances. The spell, which looked useful only for lighting, actually made the tentacle release me, but I still fell into the water.

"Merlin!"

Remus shouted my name and rushed over, grabbing my hand as I flailed at the surface.

"Cough, cough, cough!" Everything had happened so suddenly that I hadn't properly held my breath, and I swallowed some water. Fortunately, whatever had grabbed me seemed to have left. I scrambled onto the bank and quickly pulled Remus several dozen meters away.

"I read in a book that there's a giant squid in the Black Lake." Even after we had run a long way, Remus was still shaken. He looked even more frightened than I was. "Was that it?"

"...Maybe." Fortunately, I could use Scourgify at my current level. After tidying my clothes, I frowned and glanced back at the lake, which had gone still again.

"The Black Lake is a forbidden area, after all. It's probably best to stay away from places like this in the future."

On the way back, Remus kept trying to persuade me not to run off to dangerous places like this at night. He also mentioned that he had come because I usually gave him something to eat or drink almost every day, but there had been no sign of it tonight. When he looked over, he saw that I had left and looked preoccupied, so he followed me, worried. He hadn't expected that something really would happen.

"Of course. At the very least, I won't be coming near here for a while..."

I answered him, but my mind kept returning to what had just happened.

That definitely wasn't the Giant Squid. I had seen it more than once. Though enormous, it was surprisingly gentle. Once, at the start of term, a student had accidentally fallen into the water, and the Giant Squid had brought him ashore. In all that time, I had never seen it hurt anyone.

Besides...

I seemed to feel that unpleasant sensation around my ankle again, even through my clothes. I patted my robes and recalled the brief glimpse I had caught when I looked back.

I seemed to have seen a pure black behemoth hidden beneath the lake's surface.

─────

[Author's note]

★Tips★

Romance events only occur on major holidays. Now that relations with everyone have been sorted out, the characters who appear in events are still often determined by romance achievements and affection levels, but unexpected events sometimes occur that keep some characters from noticing what is happening here;

Martin is the most unusual of all the characters. When interacting with him, it is quite possible to accidentally trigger a BE ending that is not a BE in the broad sense.

★Side quest reminder★

*Congratulations on achieving Martin's main romance route achievement: [Another Posture]