Chapter 253: Harvesting Moonflowers! Neville: You Maniacs, Do Not Drag Me Along!
At Luna's words, Ethan thought, "Did not expect it to draw in a water demon."
Neville bobbed his head like a pecking chick, face gone white. "Y-yes. Maybe we should go back tonight and find a professor…"
"What a delightful surprise," Ethan said.
Neville: "??"
Ethan clapped his hands, delighted. "We can harvest flowers and see a rare magical creature at the same time. Worth the trip."
Neville: …
Right. He really should be used to Ethan's way of thinking by now.
At the same time, Neville let out a breath. If Ethan was so relaxed about it, he must be confident he could handle a water demon. He would not be in danger. He hurried to keep up.
On the other side, Ethan was thinking: A Kelpie that drowns riders on its back. What does it feel like to ride one? It must be interesting.
He and Luna traded a look, and both smiled with anticipation. They glanced at Neville and saw him smile too. Ethan nodded in sudden understanding.
I see. You want a turn as well, do you?
No more needed to be said.
They crept over fallen branches and thick mats of pine needles until the three of them and the dog reached the lakeshore.
A wide, beautiful lake spread out before them, no end in sight. The moonlight rippled across the water like a silver road to another world.
Along the shore lay a field of milky white flowers.
"Wow," Luna breathed. Her blue eyes glittered like the lake. "They were not in bloom last time. Beautiful."
"Yes," Ethan said. He drew in a long breath of the delicate, magic-rich fragrance.
Fist-sized white blooms swayed in the night breeze. It was like an ocean ground from pearl powder, wreathed in pale yellow fireflies, shedding a misty white aura of magic. A hidden glade of fairies made real.
In the living world, moonflowers should have been extinct. And yet they had brought them back. By changing the past, they had preserved the seed, and through the hands of a gardener of rare talent, Neville Longbottom, at last they bloomed again in the current of history.
Ethan's heart surged. He turned to Neville, who stood fidgeting, and smiled. "Want to give Professor Snape a surprise? Let that sharp-tongued black bat see that preparing potion ingredients is just as important."
"E-Ethan…" Neville's eyes brimmed. He was overwhelmed.
"From now on, make Professor Snape kneel to teach you," Ethan declared.
Neville's smile froze. All his emotions turned to horror at once. He reached out a pleading hand, and before he could cry, "Ethan, no," the lake exploded with a great splash.
A massive shadow rose. A long-necked creature covered in trailing, dark green kelp-hair loomed above them. Bright eyes glared through the gaps in the "seaweed," filled with rage.
It threw its head back and roared. Birds burst from the trees in a flurry.
"E-Ethan!" Neville shrieked.
The Spotted Dog lowered himself and growled a warning.
"A big one," Ethan said. "Looks like it has decided we are intruders." Compared to the dragon he had handled in his first year, this little water demon still had growing to do.
"Circle of Confinement."
His wand became a paintbrush as he flicked his wrist and drew a circle in the air. A ring of golden barriers rose around the Kelpie and sealed tight. No matter how it hurled itself at the walls, they did not even quiver.
"Luna," Ethan said.
"Mm," she answered. Her pale hand lifted her wand and painted the air. A wash of deep blue magic flowed out like the gentlest pair of hands, cradling the tender flowers all along the shore.
Gold and blue. Sun and moon. In the blink of an eye, the raging water demon was neatly contained.
They were each smaller than one of the beast's claws.
"A-amazing," Neville whispered, eyes glazed. "So this is the power of magic."
His fear fell away completely. The greatest threat was done. Now all that remained—
"Now we can ride it," Ethan said.
"Harvest the moonflowers—what," Neville blurted.
Ethan turned back. In the cold moonlight, he flashed a sun-bright smile at Neville's stricken face, grabbed him by the shoulder, and caught Luna's hand in his other.
"Ready to go."
"Wait," Neville yelped.
"Come to me, Kelpie," Ethan said.
In an instant, the Kelpie slammed into the barrier, stuck fast. The three of them were flung upward by a great recoil and arced as one toward the beast, landing with perfect accuracy on its seaweed-shaggy back.
The barrier vanished. The Kelpie, carrying three stowaways, plunged into the lake in a rage.
"Help, glub glub glub," Neville cried.
Ethan and Luna, by contrast, had been prepared with Bubble-Head Charms. Clutching the Kelpie's streaming manes, they cruised through the underwater world, admiring strange, scaled stones and chuckling at schools of tiny fish whirling past.
"This is fun," Ethan murmured. He squinted in a smile at Luna. Her gold hair streamed silk-smooth behind her.
"Glub glub glub, puh-hah, help, help me," Neville sputtered.
Luna tucked a strand from Ethan's forehead with her fingertips. Her eyes sparkled. "It is. Better than midnight visits to villagers' houses."
"E-Ethan, please," Neville begged.
Ethan chuckled, nostalgia warming his face. "We were so young back then. The arterial spray effect was so raw."
"Glub glub glub," Neville gurgled. His eyes rolled back as he clung to the Kelpie's mane by pure survival instinct. He already looked a little dead, which made a stark contrast with Ethan and Luna beside him.
The lake boiled on the surface under the Kelpie's thrashing. Sirius sat on the shore and listened to screams and laughter scatter across the night.
"Youth," he sighed. Meeting Ethan felt like the luck of a lifetime. He pictured a candle lit for that kind of luck.
"Heave-ho," Ethan said as he hopped off the exhausted Kelpie and caught Luna down into his arms. He stretched luxuriously and felt his whole body open like a bow pulled true.
"As expected, a Gryffindor adventure is sometimes quite nice," he said.
He turned and saw a sodden sack flop off the Kelpie's back. Neville's eyes spun as he mumbled, "Gran… that magazine really belongs to my classmate…"
"Spirited," Ethan nodded.
The Kelpie snarled and glared at him, still itching to swallow the two-legged invaders whole. Ethan glanced at it, light as a leaf. In that instant, the Kelpie felt the regard of something unspeakably terrible and shrank like an eel into the dark. Silence spread over the lake.
"Good," Ethan said with a faint curl of his lips. Time to harvest moonflowers.
According to the old records, like unicorns, moonflowers can only be approached by those of a pure heart, preferably a maiden. If someone cruel comes near, the blooms will wither at once. What is purity, though? There is no standard. I would say I qualify.
He rolled up his sleeves to do it himself, then turned and froze.
Luna stood in the field of white with fireflies floating like a veil around her. Her gold hair stirred in the night wind. Her blue eyes curved, brimming with simple joy. In her hands lay a single wide-open bloom, tender and fresh.
"Ethan," she said, smiling. "Got it."