Charlie sketched three different small drafts with his pencil.
Lely picked the second one and made a few more tweaks and additions.
By the time they finally locked it in, three whole hours had passed.
That was actually pretty fast.
He set up the frame, laid down the base coat, sketched the outlines, and shaped everything. The rest of the day just flew by.
The only break he took was when Lely insisted he go eat dinner. Other than that, he didn't leave the Room of Requirement once.
He kept working until midnight—well past curfew—before finally heading back to the dormitory.
The next day, after seeing Anthony and Hector off, he returned straight to the Room of Requirement and got back to work.
Three hours later, staring at the canvas with all the dark tones filled in, Charlie rubbed his eyes.
"I'm gonna grab lunch, Lely. Want to come?"
"No thanks, sir." Lely stared at the painting like a kid waiting for a present.
"Don't rush it," Charlie said, patting the frame with a smile. "After lunch I'll probably take a nap. The paint needs time to dry anyway, and my eyes could use a break."
"That's fine. I'll just wait right here," Lely said.
"Alright, see you soon."
Charlie left the Room of Requirement and rubbed his eyes again. This was turning into a massive project.
He'd better bring some chocolate with him when he came back this afternoon.
The next three days, Charlie threw himself completely into the work.
There were a couple of small mistakes along the way, but he powered through the bumps and finally finished the painting.
Tuesday morning.
The Great Hall.
Owls soared in through the big doors and dropped off copies of the Daily Prophet.
The paper was normally delivered straight to subscribers, but Hector hadn't wanted an owl showing up at his house every morning. It would look weird, and the neighbors would start talking.
His parents were already getting enough side-eye—people saying the couple didn't love their kid, didn't want him around. They made decent money running their business but still shipped him off to some random boarding school in the middle of nowhere instead of a proper private school in London.
Just listening to it secondhand gave Charlie a headache. Being Muggle parents of a young witch or wizard came with its own set of headaches they never asked for.
The usual questions were the worst:
"Where does your child go to school?"
"Uh… a boarding school in the countryside…"
"How's your child doing in classes? What's their best subject?"
"Uh…"
To keep his parents from dealing with any more of that, Hector had changed the delivery address for the holiday break to Hogwarts before he left.
Charlie unfolded the paper but skipped the front-page Christmas fluff.
Yeah, the lead story was Christmas—what else? The wizarding world was tiny, and sometimes the Daily Prophet had less actual news than a city paper back home.
He quickly flipped to page three and found what he was looking for.
[Due to the June eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the red moon arriving at midnight on the twenty-first of this month is expected to be one of the most unusual events of its kind in recent years.
The Pinatubo eruption was the second-largest terrestrial volcanic event of the century and is also believed to have been an extremely serious act of terrorism carried out by goblin and werewolf groups.
The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes are monitoring this red-moon event closely.
All wizarding communities and individuals may proceed with their Christmas celebrations and red-moon observations without concern.]
So a red moon really could affect magical creatures?
A red moon—also called a blood moon—had always been seen as an ill omen. That superstition existed even in the Muggle world.
And when you factored in how werewolves went feral at the sight of a full moon… a blood moon probably hit them even harder.
Yes—this was the rare opportunity Charlie had been talking about: the red moon on the twenty-first.
Of course, he'd known about it longer than the Daily Prophet report. Professor Sinistra had mentioned it last Wednesday night in Astronomy.
She'd only brought it up in passing, suggesting any interested students keep an eye on it.
Charlie was definitely interested.
A red moon would carry its own unique natural elements, no question. He had to collect some. If autumn wind and winter snow were seasonal materials, a blood moon was practically a rare treasure.
The article even helpfully listed the best viewing window: between 2:32 a.m. and 6:03 a.m.
If it was the early-morning hours of the twenty-first, that left him only two days.
He had to finish the magic painting stall within those two days.
A sense of urgency hit Charlie hard. He stopped reading the rest of the paper, wolfed down breakfast, grabbed two extra rolls, and headed straight for the Room of Requirement.
Inside the alchemy studio, a beautiful little shop had already taken shape inside the frame. Flowers and green vines framed the window, and on the counter a tiny music box spun slowly.
The music box sat on a small square base with a pull-out drawer. The surface of the drawer shimmered with the mixed glow of gold and silver powder.
After all the time he'd spent in Alchemy class, Charlie now understood exactly how to give a painting storage properties and the theory behind it.
Gold's incredible malleability carried the concept of a flat "container" space.
Silver's affinity for the spiritual perfectly supported the magic and runes.
After sitting overnight, the paint on the canvas was completely dry. Charlie took a deep breath, drew his wand, and aimed it at the music box in the painting.
"Capacious Extremis—"
The spell landed. The gold flecks on the painting twisted and flickered almost imperceptibly.
A moment later Charlie carefully picked up a small wooden ruler, lined it up with the canvas, and gently pressed the edge against the music box.
Visibly, the ruler sank slowly into the painting.
"It worked!" Charlie let out a long breath of relief and quickly pulled the ruler back out.
The spell was still unstable. If it collapsed even for a second and the ruler fused with the canvas, the whole painting would be ruined.
He had to stabilize it right now!
Charlie set the frame on the workbench, fitted the multi-lens microscope, and picked up a fine engraving knife.
He was already an old hand at stabilization runes and spatial-stabilization runes.
But precisely because he knew them so well, he refused to get careless.
Complacency and sloppiness always led to disasters.
With that in mind, he set the knife down, popped a Moon-Thunder chocolate into his mouth to overload his focus, and took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves while mentally reviewing the two runes he was about to engrave.
Thirty seconds later he opened his eyes, picked up the knife again, and locked his gaze on the lens with razor-sharp concentration.
His eyes looked sharper than the blade itself.
Let's begin!