Chapter 293: The Garden of Moonlit Visions, The Second Task Begins
"Professor Moody" was drenched in sweat.
Barty Crouch Junior had never imagined that Mr Lamp would turn out to be Ethan in disguise.
Forget raising his wand. He had nearly ended up in the far worse position of having to explain why his wand was pointed the wrong way.
He felt like a stray dog minding its own business on the roadside only to be kicked out of nowhere.
Ethan Vincent. Had he done that on purpose or by accident?
Trying to patch the blunder, Barty hastily put on an air of cool certainty. "Hmph. Knew it was a fake from the start," he rasped.
Under the nervous stares around him, he even rapped his spinning magical eye with a knuckle.
Several girls in elegant dress robes recoiled, faces wrinkling in distaste.
The act was thorough.
No one noticed the sweat beading at his temple.
He had not "seen through it" at all. That had been a lie. The enchanted eye had not shown him any difference between Ethan and Mr Lamp.
It was nowhere near as miraculous as the rumours claimed.
He did not dwell on it. Rumours always grew wilder in the telling. They could not be completely false, surely.
At least Dumbledore seemed to have swallowed the performance. The Headmaster looked away, turned, and patted Crouch Senior, who had been struck dumb by Ethan's question, in a soothing gesture.
Then he smiled at the students. "Vigilance can wait until tomorrow. Tonight, let us celebrate Christmas."
At his signal, the lights shifted.
Green‑tinged candle flames sprang up and the Weird Sisters exploded onto the stage with a slash of strings and a boom of smoke.
The mood went from tense to electric in a heartbeat.
Students roared, raising mug after mug of Butterbeer, letting foam splash over faces and robes, glittering like powdered diamonds in the air.
Amid the revelry, Barty finally let out a long breath.
He shot a cold look at his father, filled with disgust.
To be cowed by a child's words. Worthless.
"Cast Avada Kedavra at me," was it?
As if anyone but Mr Lamp could withstand the Killing Curse.
"I have already pumped that idiot Bagman for every detail of the second task," Barty muttered to himself, a vicious gleam in his eye. "Every angle accounted for."
"As long as nothing unexpected happens, this time, Ethan Vincent dies."
The first task had been pure luck.
For the second, he would be playing for keeps. He would be going in himself.
Better safe than sorry, though.
"Still, I should write to Mr Lamp as well," he thought. "Once he hears how Ethan mocked him tonight, Mr Lamp will be furious."
He could already see it: victory and the Dark Lord's praise beckoning just ahead.
His smile stretched wide.
He was sure of it.
Out in the gardens beyond the Hall, night lay still and quiet.
A patch of lawn and evergreen bushes, cleared specially, whispered and swayed in the light breeze.
Ethan and Luna strolled along the gravel path hand in hand.
He toyed with a new card between his fingers, dark power coiling from it like black mist.
"What is that?" Luna asked, tilting her head, blue eyes bright with curiosity.
Ethan flipped his hand and made the card vanish.
He pressed a finger to his lips, all mock‑solemn secrecy. "A special little tool for the second task."
He had done it: created an Obscurus egg.
A fresh horror for the second task, something no one had ever seen before.
He wondered what the old man would do when he saw that energy.
The night he had first entered the hidden place, Ethan had gone straight to the library afterwards and looked up the name Ariana.
Ariana Dumbledore.
Dumbledore's sister.
Her entire entry in the book had been one curt line:
"After a tragic experimental accident, young Albus Dumbledore lost his sister forever."
Unofficial histories hinted that she had been an Obscurial and embroidered the story with a great deal of melodramatic nonsense.
"Hmph."
Luna's mouth turned down. "You always have secrets."
Ethan laughed, eyes crinkling into crescents.
He looked at her and said softly, "You will know them all, one day."
"Good," Luna said serenely. "I am very good at waiting."
Then she bounded off like a fawn.
Ethan followed at an easy pace, polished shoes crunching on the pebbles, the wind ruffling his fringe.
He wore nothing especially lavish: a well‑cut black suit, a deep blue tie, and a falcon brooch at his lapel inlaid with gemstones.
With nothing more than a rake of his fingers through his hair, he was still impossible to overlook.
Like a walking, self‑propelled love potion.
When he had pushed through the packed crowd leaving the Hall earlier, several girls' knees had actually gone weak.
"Ahh."
He breathed out, lifting his face to the round white moon above, and felt a rare, deep calm settle over him.
Without really noticing, they reached the little fountain at the heart of the garden.
Ethan stopped and watched Luna leaning over the stone rim to trail her fingers in the water.
He stepped forward, offered his right hand, and bowed slightly in a courtly gesture.
"May I have this dance, Miss Lovegood?"
Luna blinked.
Then she slapped her hand into his without a second thought for etiquette, her smile blooming brighter than any flower.
"Until forever!" she said joyfully.
"Hehehe."
Ethan's grin widened.
He drew his wand and flicked it.
A violin appeared from thin air and began to play a mournful tune, joined soon after by tambourine, clarinet, and piano.
Birds fell silent. Crickets stopped mid‑chirp.
To the music's slow rise and fall, Ethan's arm slipped around Luna's waist. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder.
They swayed together in the ivory light.
Not far away, Hagrid and Madame Maxime crouched in the grass on what was very obviously a "secret" date, staring, dumbfounded.
"Hogwarts teaches demon summoning rituals now?" Madame Maxime whispered, swallowing hard.
Even the shadows on the ground looked ready to fly off.
Hagrid thought for a long moment.
Did Ethan really need to summon anything?
He rubbed his sausage‑thick fingers together and changed the subject desperately. "Er… d'ye want t' come see the Blast‑Ended Skrewts? They do backflips."
So the Christmas feast passed in an oddly peaceful way.
High above, an owl carried a secret letter in looping arcs away from Hogwarts and then, after a long diversion, straight back again, to the top of the highest tower.
It drifted through a window.
A severed hand on the desk snapped up and caught the envelope with precise, gentlemanly grace, setting it before its master.
In the unnoticed depths of the night, the letter was opened and read.
A quiet chuckle sounded.
A single line appeared in reply:
"Do not worry. Leave everything to me."
Mr Lamp.
As plans clicked into place on all sides, the second task of the Triwizard Tournament began.
This time, the arena was the Black Lake.