Harry Potter: The Golden Viper

0642 Frozen

In the bleak chilly world, fierce and savage winds howled, swirling snowflakes across the barren, frozen land in chaotic, turbulent whirls. The young wizards gathered by the shore of the Black Lake could barely lift their heads against the relentless assault of the freezing wind and snow.

They squinted and shielded their faces, struggling against the pain of being nearly blinded by the blizzard. Still, they endured, trying to find a spot on the now-frozen surface of the lake where they could join in a feast and participate in ball to celebrate the festive season.

However, despite their efforts, peering through the faint, flickering light emanating from the distant castle windows, the young wizards discovered nothing but a vast, dull stretch stretching across the lake's chilly, icy surface.

No tables filled with mouthwatering treats, no cheery bonfires around which to warm their numbed hands, no melodious notes of music riding upon the gale to tempt them into dance. Only an eerie emptiness met their searching eyes.

"What is the meaning of this, Albus, Bryan?" Even the normally composed and well-mannered Madame Maxime could barely contain the seething undercurrent of anger in her voice as she focused on the two men, and her eyes seemed to be flashing dangerously. "Explain yourselves at once!"

"Well, ma'am, you see--" Bryan smiled charmingly, not appearing the least bit concerned by her intimidating demeanor. "Initially, we had planned to decorate the Great Hall and gather there together to spend this memorable day in warmth and comfort. But then I got to thinking, and it seemed to me that such a traditional approach might lack a certain...novelty, shall we say?"

His eyes twinkled as he continued, "I also learned about some of the unique Christmas traditions practiced at Beauxbatons, and I heard of the especially icy environment that our friends from Durmstrang are accustomed to. So, putting two and two together, an inspired idea came to me--"

"Don't keep us in suspense a moment longer, Bryan--" Karkaroff growled, speaking in a tone that could barely be considered civil. "Otherwise, I'm afraid that the hospital wing at Hogwarts will not have sufficient capacity to accommodate so many frozen young wizards at once! And that would be most... unfortunate, indeed!"

"Patience, Headmaster Karkaroff, patience--" Bryan nodded, seemingly unfazed by Karkaroff's words. He turned to look at Dumbledore with a gleam in his eye. "Together, Headmaster? I fear the task would prove a bit much for me alone--"

"Oh, of course, of course--" Dumbledore smiled, his silver beard fluttering as he nodded.

Then, to the joint astonishment of everyone present, without any further fanfare or any word, Bryan and Dumbledore nimbly leapt onto the ice. Before anyone could voice a proper question, the two men had each drawn their wands with a flourish and begun walking towards the center of the lake with their backs turned to the confused, shivering crowd gathered on the shore.

Within moments, their retreating silhouettes had been swallowed up entirely by the swirling snow, vanishing from their sight.

"Have they gone completely barmy? Do they have some sort of bloody death wish?!" Ron shouted, his face pale with shock as he stared out at the oppressively dark, menacing stretch of the lake. "In weather like this, if they were to fall through the ice into that bloody lake, they'd be dead in minutes! What the bleeding hell are they playing at?"

No one could answer Ron's question. Even Hermione was completely baffled. She huddled inside Ron's cloak, shivering with cold, and even her eyelashes were frosted over with tiny crystals of ice.

The five-minute wait was unprecedentedly excruciating. Although reluctant to get too close to Fleur, the shivering Harry instinctively huddled together with her. Of course, he had no romantic notions in mind, only hoping that whatever outlandish idea Dumbledore and Watson had, they could end it quickly.

Just as the young wizards were about to give up, Neville, who was supporting Ginny, seemed to sense something and suddenly cried out.

"Pay close attention now, everyone!" Neville's voice was particularly loud amidst the monotonous howling wind and snow. The young wizards immediately perked up their ears, trying to discern any movement from the Black Lake.

"Look there, the ground is shaking!" Dean confirmed Neville's words, stretching out a trembling, numb finger to point at the vibrating earth beneath their feet.

More and more of the shivering students began to notice the peculiar phenomenon. The land upon which they stood had begun to tremble slightly, sending ominous vibrations through the soles of their boots and up their frozen legs.

Along the lakeshore, a row of weeping willows that had previously stood motionless except for the occasional sway of their drooping branches in the frigid wind now shook violently under the steadily increasing intensity of the inexplicable tremors. The accumulated snow that had blanketed their limbs fell towards the ground under the force of the unnatural quaking!

Now the entire world seemed to shake and tremble violently in everyone's field of vision, as if in the throes of some great cataclysm. The tremors had grown so intense that they nearly rivaled those experienced during a severe earthquake.

"Severus, what is going on? What are they trying to do?"

Karkaroff's eyes flashed with something bordering on fear as he drew his wand in one swift motion, thrusting it almost accusingly in Snape's direction as he spit the words out from between clenched teeth. But Snape didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to him but was squinting towards the center of the Black Lake himself!

Then, with a suddenness that caused more than a few watching students to cry out in alarm, an intense flare of icy blue light burst into in the very center of the vast lake, momentarily shattering the darkness with its glow and illuminating the dense falling snow from inside. The strange radiance pulsed once, twice, three times, growing brighter and more intense with each pulse, before finally exploding outwards in a massive, rippling shockwave.

Like the clanging of summer thunder, a sonorous, rumbling roar spread out in all directions from the epicenter of the strange phenomenon, echoing across the lake's frozen surface and causing the air to tremble with its force.

Sudden, sharp gusts of wind, radiated outwards from the dazzling blue light at the center of the lake, crashing into the prevailing air currents like invisible battering rams, disrupting the original trajectory of the wind-borne snow and sending it swirling off in chaotic, unpredictable spirals.

BOOM! BOOM!

The unrestrained roar of the unnatural phenomenon grew to a deafening crescendo. The pulsing icy-blue glow at the center of the Black Lake had swelled to a truly staggering intensity, painting the previously gloomy scene with an eerie monochromatic radiance.

Through the stinging, wind-driven tears that blurred their vision, the watching crowd could just barely make out the wavering, indistinct outlines of two human figures - one tall and thin, the other short- standing upon the ice nearly a hundred feet apart, their sparkling wands seemed raised high above their heads in an unmistakable gesture of invocation!

"There's a... a pillar of some kind--" Cedric gasped out, struggling to force the words past his chattering teeth as he clutched Cho Chang tightly against his chest, doing his best to shield her from the worst of the shrieking, frigid gusts with his own body. He poked a hand in the direction of the impossible scene unfolding before them, his eyes were wide with amazement but not a little bit of fear. "A pillar, thrusting up out of the ice like a...a giant's spear!"

"No, not a pillar--" Harry interjected, squinting fiercely as he too fought to peer through the swirling blowing snow, his keen Seeker's eyes were straining to cut through the darkness.

"It's a tower - the spire of a castle, growing up from the surface of the lake!" His voice rose in volume as he turned his head from side to side, guiding his words to Ron and Hermione on his left and right, almost shouting to make himself heard over the eerie noise.

As if his words had been a trigger of some kind, the commotion unfolding out on the ice abruptly intensified to a degree that none of the watching students could ever have believed possible few moments before.

The icy blue glow emanating from the areas where Dumbledore and Watson stood suddenly flared to a truly unimaginable level of brightness, bathing the entire scene in a stark unicolor radiance so intense that it forced the onlookers to shield their watering eyes behind their raised arms and tightly-clenched eyelids, in case they be blinded by its intense brilliance.

Pulsing waves of bitterly cold, prickling energy rolled out from the heart of the phenomenon in a steadily-expanding sphere, rushing over the blasted, frozen landscape like a flash flood and giving the previously pitch-black, desolate scene the surreal appearance of brightest day for one brief, dazzling instant.

BOOM! BOOM!

As the echoes of the latest thunderous roar began to fade into uneasy silence, something utterly extraordinary happened. Before the stunned, disbelieving eyes of the watching students and faculty, the entire span of the Black Lake - from shore to icy shore - began to shake and convulse violently, as if in the grip of some massive seismic spasm.

Jagged cracks and fissures zig-zagged across the previously smooth, polished surface of the ice, racing outwards from the spot where Dumbledore and Watson stood like bolts of dark lightning.

But before the horrified onlookers even had time to scream, to shout a useless warning to the distant duo, the unthinkable occurred.

From the center of the web of spreading cracks, a massive structure began to rise slowly from the tortured ice, growing with breathtaking speed before their stunned eyes!

BOOM! BOOM!

The entire Black Lake was shaking, but now, no young wizard cried out in shock anymore, because they had been stunned numb by the unimaginable scene before them!

Another castle, identical in shape to the main Hogwarts castle, was growing out of the ice like a crop--

With almost every breath, the castle on the lake surface rose dozens of feet higher. The walls of this castle were entirely composed of transfigured ice blocks. It was not as intricate as the real Hogwarts castle, with that many carvings and windows on the walls, but its shape was still breathtakingly beautiful!

Each wall of this ice castle was incredibly pure, and moreover, exuded an icy blue flawless luster, as if not resembling a real object at all.

Boom! Boom!

The tremors continued. The young wizards' gazes followed the 'growing' castle, unconsciously raising their heads high.

At this moment, the other Hogwarts staff on the shore also sprang into action.

Professor McGonagall, with a proud smile, was the first to take out her wand. Under her deft twirling wrist, the solid ice by the lakeshore began to 'melt', forming exquisitely shaped animals one after another: the lion representing Gryffindor, the eagle representing Ravenclaw, the badger representing Hufflepuff, and the snake representing Slytherin.

In addition, Professor McGonagall also created many reindeer, squirrels, unicorns and other creatures. After taking shape, these ice creatures immediately galloped towards the ice castle with their hooves pounding the lake surface.

"Oh, my turn!" Professor Flitwick excitedly shouted in his high-pitched voice. He had taken out a pouch at some point. When he opened the pouch, swarms of little fairies wrapped in pink flowing light and cupid-like sprites converged into a river of stars in midair, rushing towards the ice castle.

"Off you go, off you go – there is plenty of room for you to stretch your roots out there!" Professor Sprout said, grinning. She scattered what looked like plant seeds onto the ice. As soon as these seeds touched the surface, they began to grow. Seeming to sense the powerful magic nurtured by the castle's main body, they madly rushed towards it, clinging to the icy walls, then they bloomed many purple flowers.

Snape reluctantly took out a glass bottle from his robe, which contained a silvery-gray liquid. He tapped the bottle mouth with his wand, and that silvery-gray liquid suddenly expanded, squeezing out of the bottle in an endless stream, forming a lake in midair.

This silvery-gray liquid exuded a pleasant fragrance. It also flowed towards the castle and formed a fountain in front of the castle gates.

Almost every professor showcased their unique skills.

Professor Sinistra used her wand to conjure meteors one after another. These meteors streaked across the night sky and embedded into the flawless sky-blue ice walls of the castle. Those stars, glittering with golden light, made the magnificent ice castle even more fantastical.

Whoosh--

At this time, from the real Hogwarts castle, a large crowd of ghosts poured out of the entrance hall one after another - Peeves, Nearly Headless Nick, the Fat Friar, the Grey Lady - and many ghosts who never left the castle. They flew over the grounds and the heads of the young wizards, laughing merrily as they darted into the ice castle.

The tremors finally gradually subsided, but the young wizards, gazing up at this castle on the ice that dyed even the night sky an icy blue, remained dazed beyond words.

How wonderful, how amazing!

Everyone watching this scene, including the creators of the castle, sighed with this thought in their hearts. This ice castle was simply an exquisite work of art. Looking at it, it was as if they saw the light of a fairy tale shining into reality!

"I love magic to death." Watching Professors Dumbledore and Watson walk back into everyone's view, smiling kindly, Harry said with a heartfelt sigh.

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