McGonagall closed the path beside the lake. Students complained about the longer walk to Hagrid's hut. Percy took the longer path without complaining.
At night he heard waves in the pipes. He got out of bed once to check the washroom. The taps were shut.
He told Flitwick at his next lesson. He had no useful answer when the professor asked where the sound began.
Classes continued. Ron turned his teacup into coal and had to start again. Snape made Percy repeat a potion because he had missed a step. At Hagrid's lesson, Neville moved away from a crab before its claw closed around the fence.
Percy wanted one lesson in which he could make an ordinary mistake and finish it.
Harry had shadows under his eyes. Hermione carried copies of her notes for the professors, and sometimes stopped writing to steady her hand. Ron walked with them to meals. He no longer pretended he was only there because he was hungry.
At dinner, Percy reached for his pumpkin juice. The liquid spun inside the goblet.
He set it down. A narrow column of juice rose above the rim.
"Percy," Hermione whispered, eyes wide.
He tried to lower it. The column split and reached toward the other goblets on the table.
"Oi—what's going on?" Ron yelped, ducking as a stream of pumpkin juice shot past his ear.
Students pulled away. One goblet broke against the table. Percy heard someone cry out.
Percy slammed both hands onto the table. "Stop!"
The liquid collapsed, splattering across the wood, harmless once more.
Percy looked down at the broken glass. His hands shook. Across the table, Neville was checking Seamus for cuts.
Professor McGonagall's lips thinned. "Mr. Jackson. With me."
No one said a word as Percy was marched out of the hall, but the whispers began before the doors even closed.
McGonagall took him to an empty classroom and closed the door. She asked him to sit before she spoke.
"Tell me what happened before the juice moved."
"I didn't mean to," Percy said quickly. "It just happened. I couldn't control it."
She listened without interrupting. "This is a change from the incidents we reported earlier. I will send for Professor Dumbledore and Professor Flitwick."
Her words chilled him more than anger would have.
"Is there a cure?" Percy asked, quieter now.
"We do not know yet," she said. "Until we do, stop your practical spells outside supervised lessons. If water starts moving, call a teacher and move people away."
Percy nodded. He wanted to ask whether he should stop drinking as well. He could not make the joke come out.
Harry was waiting when he returned to the common room. He kept rubbing the skin beside his scar.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Harry asked without preamble.
Percy stiffened. "Saw what?"
Harry leaned closer, voice low. "The shadow. In the storm. In the water. You saw it too."
Percy swallowed hard. The memory of that vast coiling form in the clouds shivered through him. "I thought… I thought I imagined it."
Harry gripped the chair. "It sounds like what I saw. Did it have an eye?"
Hermione looked up from her notes. "The next lines describe a binding through connected water. If I have translated them correctly, damage to one place can affect another. That might explain the cups and the pitch."
Ron, sprawled on the couch, groaned. "Brilliant. So we're all going to drown in our beds."
"Ron!" Hermione snapped.
Percy kept his hands in his lap. The juice had moved toward the other cups after he tried to stop it. He could not explain why.
That night, Harry dreamed again.
This time, he was underwater. The surface shimmered impossibly far above him, silver with moonlight. He didn't need to breathe. His body floated easily, carried by gentle currents. For a moment it was peaceful.
Then the darkness stirred.
Something enormous moved below him. The current changed, carrying him toward it.
Harry tried to swim up. The current held him. A voice sounded so close that he turned to look behind him.
"The land forgot. But the sea remembers."
Harry twisted, shouting into the water. "What are you?"
"I am what was before."
The current yanked him downward. The darkness rushed closer, a mass of coils and shadows that never fully took shape, but in its shifting bulk Harry glimpsed a single, glowing eye.
He screamed—
—and woke gasping, the sheets of his four-poster soaked through, salt burning his lips.
The next morning, Hermione was waiting in the common room with a sheaf of parchment and dark circles under her eyes.
"I wrote these in my sleep," she said. "Madam Pomfrey has the originals. Professor McGonagall let me keep a copy." Percy reached for the pages, then stopped when he heard a faint whisper from them.
"What does it say?" Harry asked, still pale from his nightmare.
"Some lines look like instructions to open a route," Hermione said. "I do not want anyone to read them aloud."
"Burn it," Ron said immediately.
"The original would not burn," Hermione said. "Professor McGonagall tried after I showed her."
Ron moved his chair away from the copy. Hermione folded the pages and put them back in her bag.
Percy spent practical lessons beside a professor. He still checked each glass before he passed it. Once, Flitwick asked him a question twice before he heard it.
By the time evening came, he wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and forget the world.
But as he passed the window overlooking the Black Lake, something moved.
A broad ring moved across the water. Percy had seen the squid surface before. This ring reached much farther.
Harry froze beside him.
Neither spoke. They just stared, hearts pounding, as the ripple spread until it kissed the far shore and vanished.
Harry stepped back from the window.
"Find McGonagall," he said.
They found Hagrid near the entrance and told him what they had seen. He took them down the open path to check from the upper bank. McGonagall had gone to fetch Dumbledore. The four students stayed behind Hagrid as the water rose.
Another ripple swelled. Then another.
"What is it this time?" Ron muttered, his voice tight.
Harry stood beside Ron. He wanted to leave, but his eyes stayed on the place where the ring had begun.
The surface of the lake bulged outward. Not like a wave, but like something beneath was pressing to escape. A ring of spray exploded outward as the water broke.
And then it rose.
A column of water rose twenty feet into the air. Dark shapes formed inside it: an arm, a mouth, two hollows where eyes should have been. Water ran down its sides without reducing its height.
Hermione stepped back. "It is making a body from the lake."
A low vibration struck Percy's chest. Hagrid shouted for them to get up the slope.
"Go!" Percy shouted. He pulled Harry away from the edge as the column leaned toward the bank.
Its arm struck the path. A tree snapped and fell between Hagrid and the students. They dropped behind the bank as mud flew over them.
"Wands out!" Harry yelled. He raised his own and shouted, "Stupefy!"
The red spell entered its chest. Percy saw the light spread through the water, but the arm kept moving.
"That did nothing!" Ron shouted.
Percy raised both hands. Water rose between them and the arm. He held it long enough for Harry to pull Hermione farther up the bank.
Then the thing pushed back.
Percy fell to his knees. Pain ran from his wrists to his shoulders. He could still feel the water pushing through his hands.
Hermione raised her wand. Marks from the copied pages appeared in the air. She stared at them, then at her wand. "I did not mean to do that. Percy, give me a moment!"
"I can't!" he shouted.
"Harry, help him!"
The marks brightened and struck the column. Water fell from its chest, exposing a dark shape inside.
Harry aimed at the gap. "Expelliarmus!"
The spell passed through the opening. The column bent away from them.
It howled, the sound shaking the earth.
Ron pulled Percy up the slope. "Move! Hagrid is coming around!"
Hagrid forced his way past the fallen tree. A sweep of water struck the mud beside him. He stayed on his feet and reached for the students.
But the creature wasn't finished.
The column drew water back into its chest. Its arm hit the bank beside Ron. He fell and lost his wand in the mud.
"Ron!" Hermione screamed.
Percy saw Ron reaching for his wand. He dropped to the water's edge before the arm could strike again.
The water obeyed.
A jet rose beneath the column and lifted it away from the bank. Percy held it there while Hagrid pulled Ron clear.
Percy lowered his hands. The jet broke, and the column fell back into the lake.
The surface detonated with a crash of waves, spray drenching them all.
A smaller shape rose from the spray. Percy had to brace one hand on the bank to stay upright.
Harry's chest heaved. "We can't keep this up forever. Hermione, whatever you're doing, finish it!"
The marks formed again above Hermione's wand. "There is a word missing," she said. "The pattern stops here. I think it needs the name from the next line."
"And what was that?!" Ron coughed, spitting mud.
She shook her head. "I cannot remember it."
The shape lunged. Percy raised a wall between it and Hagrid. The impact drove him back against the mud.
"Read the line you remember!" Harry shouted.
Hermione's eyes flew open. "Aequor!"
Percy heard the word clearly above the water.
The shape stopped reaching toward them. Its arm dropped, and water ran back into the lake.
Percy lowered the wall around it. He kept the current moving away from the bank.
Harry held Hermione steady as the last marks left her wand. Ron found his own wand beneath the fallen branches.
The column lost its shape. Its shadow sank beneath the returning water.
Silence fell.
Hagrid called each of their names. Percy answered on the second attempt.
Percy knelt in the mud. He could not stop his hands shaking.
Harry staggered to his side, offering an arm. "You all right?"
Percy shook his head. "Help me stand."
Hermione sat down beside him. "The word stopped it reaching us. I do not know what else the pattern did."
Ron limped over, covered in mud, face pale. "Bloody brilliant. Nearly drowned in dirt, but sure, let's call it a win."
Ron laughed once, then winced as Hagrid helped him sit. Harry checked his ankle while they waited for the professors.
The lake lay still once more.
Percy looked back before Hagrid moved him up the slope. A faint glow opened deep below the surface. It looked like an eye.
The glow closed.
To be Continued...
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Idk what this guy shld be called, any ideas?