HP: The Wizard Who Paints with Magic

Chapter 298 - 299: Moonlight Purifies All; The Second Task Ends

Fleur stared blankly at Luna.

She could not understand how this girl remained so calm. She could not understand why Luna had stepped in to help her at all.

Her eyes flicked sideways toward the Hogwarts side of the lake.

Their families had all been rescued and were now facing off against the Durmstrang champions.

"Stand up and raise your wand, Miss Delacour."

The voice, clear and musical like a song, pulled Fleur back.

She looked up into Luna's clear blue eyes. There was something in the words themselves that tugged at her.

Almost without thinking, she pushed herself to her feet and tightened her grip on her wand.

"Good," Luna said, smiling, sudden and bright. "Then please hold out a little longer."

Blue light rippled from her.

Like a veil of night being unfurled, it spread around them, weaving a river of stars and moons.

It was the same spell she had begun in the Great Hall before Dumbledore interrupted.

Fleur's pupils shrank.

She watched Luna rise again.

The slight body curled in on itself, eyes closing as if she were sinking into a cradle of darkness. Power thrummed in the air, and a mantle of silver light bloomed around her.

"What is she trying to do…?" Fleur whispered, voice raw.

"She said she would show me a miracle. Does she really think she can fix something I cannot even touch?"

Do not overestimate yourself.

Fleur bit down hard on her lip, neat white teeth leaving dents in the red.

A shriek split the air.

Twisted faces coalesced in the black mist ahead, howling and clawing toward her.

They rushed her like a flood.

"Boom!"

Red light burst within the dark.

Through the clearing fog, Fleur's face showed, set and fierce.

Her chest heaved. She held her wand high, its tip blazing scarlet.

"I do not need saving," she panted.

"I can blow that foul thing to pieces myself."

"Prison de glace!(Ice Prison)"

She slashed her wand.

Spears of ice burst from beneath her "sister's" feet, freezing the clinging mist and locking her limbs in place.

Her "sister" roared, writhing, black fog boiling from her skin and gnawing at the ice.

But the ice only climbed higher, thickening, cold so deep it seemed to freeze magic itself.

Frost crept over exposed skin.

It was all right. Ethan had said her sister would not truly be harmed.

So it would be fine.

Fleur's jaw clenched. Sweat streamed down her forehead.

For the first time in her life she poured everything she had into a spell, every last scrap of control.

If Ethan's aim really had been to force them to grow, to train their magic, he had succeeded.

These two tasks had done more for her than any training at Beauxbatons.

A web of cracks raced through the ice.

The Obscurus ate at it, and Fleur's wand hand shook under the strain.

"Damn… I cannot hold it… Ah!"

The ice shattered with a bang, hurling Fleur backwards.

The raging black fog surged after her.

Too fast.

Fleur's eyes flew wide.

There was no time to react, no time for anything.

The mist's screaming faces lunged in, jaws yawning.

So in the end… I still could not…

Silver light crashed down.

Moonlight poured like a falling river, obliterating the black faces in an instant.

"What… what happened?"

Fleur blinked up, dazed.

And saw something she would remember for the rest of her life.

A full moon.

A perfect disc of silver‑white, edged in faint blue, descended from the star‑strewn sky overhead.

At some point she had stopped seeing the lake and the stands at all.

Night wrapped the world.

Stars like diamonds burned in the water's reflection, scattered on the ripples.

Luna's golden hair floated in that darkness.

She hung there in the moon's glow, like a spirit born from its light. Her face was pale as carved jade, hair spilling like liquid gold, the corners of her mouth lifted in the smallest smile.

The full moon rested in her arms as it sank.

For a few heartbeats, there was no pain, no screaming.

There was only the slow, inexorable fall of that moon.

It drifted toward Fleur's "sister," still shrouded in black fog.

The mist rushed to block it.

The moon brushed it aside like dry leaves, shattering every tongue of darkness that dared reach for it. Each burst of contact wrung another howl from the Obscurus.

"So strong… what magic is that?" Fleur whispered.

She sat down hard, eyes fixed on the silver light.

Her body trembled.

Not even at Beauxbatons—nowhere—had she seen magic that could do this.

It was like watching the sky itself change colour.

Had she never had a chance from the very beginning?

Her mouth tightened, yet a strange calm settled in her chest.

Maybe that was what it felt like to see the true distance between herself and the golden‑haired girl inside the moon.

The world fell silent.

Cedric and Krum both broke off their scuffle, bruised faces turning toward the light.

They stared, forgetting to fight.

In the stands, students lowered their telescopes in unison.

They watched with their own eyes, wordless, held by the sight.

"So beautiful," a Muggle‑born student whispered. "Is magic really something this beautiful?"

Tears blurred the view.

At last, the full moon's light reached Fleur's "sister."

Light exploded.

Silver poured across the lake, like a tide stirring all the stars in its depths.

Countless pinpoints of brilliance spun and wheeled, laughing in the radiance.

"Wow…"

Fleur reached out without thinking.

When her fingers brushed one of the blue‑white motes, a coolness flowed up her hand and through her entire body.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

It felt as if something inside her had been scrubbed clean.

The sky overhead was black velvet. The lake below shone like spilled mercury.

The two mirrored each other, making the world feel like a dream.

As if Luna had reached up and carried the moon down to earth.

This was ancient magic.

Luna's own Moon Magic.

Gentle—and overwhelming.

A scream, thin and raw, split the night.

The pure light pressed the blackness out of the "sister's" body, forcing it out in gouts like mud.

It spewed from nose and mouth and ears, only to be shredded to nothing by the same light.

In only a few breaths, the Obscurus‑born curse was gone.

The girl collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, eyes empty, looking half‑dead.

No one saw the black door that irised open beneath her.

No one saw the almost identical body swap places in a heartbeat.

This girl's sleeping face was peaceful.

Slowly, the moonlight thinned.

The strange night overhead faded. The sparkling sky vanished, leaving only the usual grey.

Luna began to fall.

Her strength was gone; she was going to crumple.

Fleur reached out on instinct.

Before she could touch her, a pair of arms closed around Luna from behind, holding her steady.

Ethan.

One of the architects of this mad, magnificent task.

Fleur's eyes widened.

She watched the unconscious girl rest against his chest, and—for the first time—saw something almost human flicker across Ethan's face.

Her teeth sank into her lower lip.

Her hand clenched.

"You did very well, Luna," Ethan said softly. "Better than anyone expected."

He brushed a stray lock from her forehead, then glanced at the rose under glass in his hand.

Several petals lay on the bottom of the dome.

He lifted his head.

His clear voice rang out over the Black Lake.

"Time's up."

"I declare the second task of the Triwizard Tournament… officially over."