Because of their absolutely wild, adrenaline-fueled midnight raid, the five of them were completely exhausted. Add in the Starlight Sanctum's mysterious hyper-focusing effect, and they ended up sleeping straight through until 10:00 AM.
When they finally woke up, they felt incredibly refreshed and completely energized.
"Morning!"
"Morning."
"Mornin'~"
After greeting each other, they scattered to use the restrooms and wash up before quickly filtering back into the Sanctum.
It was almost time for lunch. Heading down to the Great Hall to start on their massive pile of homework right now didn't really make sense, so they decided to stay in the Sanctum and figure out their next move.
Clearing the textbooks off the table, Richie unrolled the scroll and pinned it down. The others crowded around it, analyzing the riddle.
"If the fourth puzzle piece is really in the Black Lake, doesn't that mean we need to know how to swim?" Neville rubbed his chin, looking extremely nervous. "Because... I don't know how to swim."
Hearing that, Ventis smirked confidently. "I'm a fantastic swimmer. I actually took second place in the Wizarding Two-Mile U7 Swimming Championship." She gave Neville a nod. "If you want, I can teach you."
"Whoa, seriously? That is so cool!" Neville's eyes lit up.
"Count me in too!" Seamus quickly raised his hand.
While they were getting hyped about swimming lessons, Hermione immediately brought them back down to earth. "Actually, just swimming isn't going to cut it. The fourth piece is almost certainly at the bottom of the lake."
"Which means we need to know how to dive, and we have to actually be able to move and survive down there!"
Hearing Hermione lay it out like that, the group's excitement vanished.
Diving was a completely different animal than just swimming. For a group of eleven- and twelve-year-old wizards, trying to execute a deep-water dive was basically a pipe dream.
But just as the panic started setting in, Hermione smiled. "However, if we can get our hands on some Gillyweed, it won't be a problem at all."
"Gillyweed?" The group looked at her, completely confused.
Seeing their blank stares, Hermione proudly tilted her chin up. "I read about it in Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean. It's a magical plant that temporarily induces an aquatic mutation in the user."
Seeing that Neville and Seamus still had no idea what she was talking about, she elaborated. "It's basically a plant that forces your body to grow gills on your neck so you can breathe underwater, and webbed webbing between your fingers and toes to help you swim. And it changes your eyes so you can—"
"Okay! Okay, we get it!" Neville and Seamus immediately clamped their hands over their necks, both looking physically nauseated.
Hermione's description made it sound like a full-blown horror movie mutation. They were basically going to turn into swamp monsters.
Seeing their horrified reactions, Hermione's lips twitched into a smirk. But she didn't tease them any further. Instead, her expression turned serious. "The problem is, Gillyweed is a heavily restricted magical substance controlled by the Ministry. There is zero chance we can just buy it ourselves."
"Hey, Richie, didn't you say your sister is an investigator for the Ministry? Richie?"
Richie wasn't paying attention. He was currently deep-diving through his own mental encyclopedia.
When Hermione brought up diving, it triggered a memory. Richie remembered reading about a specific spell in a book called The Mad Brain: the Bubble-Head Charm.
It was an advanced piece of Transfiguration that generated a massive bubble of breathable air entirely around the caster's head, allowing them to breathe normally underwater or in highly toxic environments.
According to the book, the spell relied purely on the caster's willpower and intent; there was no specific incantation or wand movement required.
"The bubble is a pure manifestation of will—thought dictates the form, and will warps the laws of reality."
That concept had genuinely surprised Richie. At first, he thought the spell literally transfigured a person's consciousness into a physical bubble.
But didn't that directly violate the fundamental principle of Inalterability in Transfiguration? Food, living organisms, purely magical substances, consciousness, souls... none of those things could be permanently transfigured.
Eventually, he found a much clearer explanation in A Guide to Underwater Charms.
While the Bubble-Head Charm didn't have a standardized verbal incantation, it was still fundamentally an advanced Transfiguration spell. The "no incantation" part just meant it strictly required non-verbal casting—meaning the wizard still had to mentally recite the spell in their head.
To put it bluntly: the spell simply transfigured the surrounding air molecules into a massive bubble.
The whole "manifestation of will" nonsense was just flowery language describing extreme precision in advanced Transfiguration. From a purely scientific perspective, the wizard was using magic to restructure oxygen particles into a semi-permeable, transparent polymer membrane that physically blocked water while filtering in oxygen.
But because most wizards had absolutely zero understanding of molecular physics, that level of micro-manipulation just looked like "pure willpower" to them.
It was a total misunderstanding of the mechanics, but it had led Richie to discover the spell.
Now, if they were actually going to raid the Black Lake, the Bubble-Head Charm was undeniably the best option. The only problem was that it was incredibly difficult to learn. Plus, they would still need to know how to actually swim before they tried it...
"Richie?"
Hermione's sharp voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Oh, sorry. What were you saying?"
Seeing that he had completely spaced out, Hermione sighed and repeated herself. "Could your sister, or that Auror she works with, help us get some Gillyweed?"
Richie obviously knew what Gillyweed was. Hearing her request, he blinked. "Gillyweed... I don't know. I'd have to write her a letter and ask."
"Also, she's actually my aunt, not my sister."
The group stared at him, completely thrown off.
"Whoa... really? But she's so pretty! I didn't realize she was that old," Neville said, his jaw dropping.
"Neville, use your brain for a second!" Hermione rolled her eyes. "Being an aunt doesn't automatically mean you're old!"
But even as she said it, Hermione frowned. "But... how does that relationship even work?"
If she was his aunt, that meant the generational hierarchy was completely different. Did Richie's aunt just... not care that he called her "sister"?
Hermione's highly logical worldview was starting to short-circuit.
Having grown up on the internet in his past life, Richie didn't think the dynamic was weird at all. He shrugged. "It's just a title. It really doesn't matter as long as you know who she is."
Unable to argue with that logic, Hermione just nodded.
While Hermione was stuck on the family tree, the others quickly circled back to the Black Lake problem.
"Alright, here's the plan," Ventis clapped her hands together. "Richie writes the letter to see if we can get the Gillyweed, and while we wait for an answer, I start teaching the rest of you how to swim. We tackle it from both sides."
"Besides, the professors dumped an insane amount of homework on us for the Easter holidays. We shouldn't rush the Black Lake raid anyway. We need to take this one step at a time."
Everyone immediately agreed with Ventis's plan. They really did have a mountain of homework, and if they didn't want to get slaughtered by the professors when classes started back up, they needed to prioritize their academics first.
Before long, it was lunchtime. The group finally packed up, left the Starlight Sanctum, and headed down to the Great Hall to eat.