Harry Potter: I am the Legend

While talking, the two of them arrived at the edge of the school's Black Lake.

The winter of 1939 was truly bitter, with temperatures likely dropping to around minus 20 degrees Celsius—so cold that Hoffa even began to miss the greenhouse-like climate of the future.

At this moment, the Black Lake was completely frozen, its surface as solid as tempered steel, utterly unbreakable.

Standing on the edge of the frozen lake, Hoffa could see the bright white moon hanging over the distant mountains. Under its light, the entire world seemed cloaked in a dull gray hue.

When reading novels in his past life, Hoffa hadn't given much thought to this setting. But now, standing here in reality, he truly grasped the sheer expanse of the lake, which spanned at least several dozen kilometers in diameter.

"Where are those ancient people buried?" Hoffa asked, tilting his head.

"The island at the center of the lake," Osivia said, pointing toward a barely visible speck in the distance. "Do you know how to skate?"

"What?" Hoffa was taken aback.

"We can skate over," Osivia said calmly. "Walking there would take too long."

"I can roller skate," Hoffa replied dryly.

Osivia tapped the ice surface with the tip of her boot, and instantly, a sharp blade emerged beneath her black leather boots, making her already tall figure appear even taller.

Seeing those ice skates, Hoffa facepalmed.

"Alright, fine, I can't skate."

"I'll teach you. Once you learn, we'll move much faster."

Without waiting for a response, Osivia crouched down and tapped Hoffa's feet with her wand.

Ice blades appeared beneath Hoffa's shoes, instantly adding a centimeter to his height.

With another wave of her wand, the snow covering the lake scattered to the sides, revealing a smooth, glossy surface.

Standing on the ice, she called out to Hoffa.

"Come on."

Seeing how effortlessly she moved, Hoffa thought it didn't look too hard. He stepped onto the ice.

The next second, he fell hard onto the ground, sliding toward Osivia like someone slipping on soap in a bathhouse.

Osivia's lips twitched slightly as she suppressed a laugh. "For someone with Eastern blood, your sense of balance is terrible."

"I'm not Russian," Hoffa snapped, annoyed, grabbing a snowball and throwing it at her.

"Russian?" Osivia easily slid to the side, dodging gracefully. "What are you talking about? Strictly speaking, I'm Ukrainian."

"Is there a difference?" Hoffa grumbled as he got up. "It's all the Soviet Union."

Wobbling, he cautiously took a step forward on his skates.

Immediately, he lost his balance again, his legs flailing as he nearly fell over. Osivia reacted quickly, gliding over and grabbing his arm.

"Besides transformation spells, you don't seem to be good at much else," she remarked, scrutinizing him.

"Shut up," Hoffa retorted, struggling to push her away. "As if you learned to skate perfectly the first time you tried."

Thud!

Hoffa took another loud tumble after two steps.

Ten minutes later, after falling at least a dozen times and getting covered in snow, Hoffa finally managed to stand upright, albeit hunched over with his arms stretched out for balance, awkwardly shuffling across the ice.

Osivia, meanwhile, glided gracefully beside him, leaving elegant marks on the ice with each stride. Her black hair flowed gently behind her, and the pristine snow scattered under her feet.

She seemed to be in a particularly good mood today—perhaps because they'd found a clue, or perhaps because watching Hoffa's clumsy falls amused her. She was talking more than usual.

"Want me to help you?" she asked. "If I hold onto you, we'll move much faster."

Hoffa replied, "You helping would mean staying silent."

"I have a younger brother. You remind me of him," Osivia said suddenly.

"Wow, what an honor," Hoffa muttered.

"Stubborn, arrogant, but not inherently bad," Osivia remarked.

"Is he at Durmstrang?" Hoffa asked, wobbling slightly.

"He's dead."

Hoffa almost lost his balance again. "I'm sorry," he said.

"It's fine. It's been a long time. I can barely remember what he looked like," Osivia replied, her voice dropping as she returned to her usual cold and serious demeanor.

The two skated further along the lake. Hoffa was slowly getting the hang of skating, picking up speed. He finally managed to straighten his back somewhat.

"What about your family?" he asked after a moment.

When Osivia didn't respond, Hoffa pressed, "Other than your father and brother?"

"There are a few distant uncles," she said casually.

As they spoke, they moved farther from the shore. The outline of Hogwarts' towers gradually faded into the distance.

"And your mother? Was she okay with you coming to Britain?"

"She's dead. She died giving birth to my brother. Don't ask irrelevant questions."

"Oh…"

Hoffa's skating skills improved bit by bit, and he could now manage to walk steadily on the ice. But his eyes kept darting to Osivia's face out of the corner of his vision.

Noticing his gaze, Osivia sternly reminded him, "Focus on what you're doing."

At that moment, a flash of light appeared behind them, followed by the faint sound of explosions a few seconds later.

Hoffa turned and realized that the Hogwarts castle was setting off Christmas fireworks. Vibrant colors burst into the distant sky, adding a touch of liveliness to the otherwise white and gray world.

Hoffa pointed back and said, "Look, a snake-shaped firework!"

Osivia glanced back but didn't see any snake-shaped fireworks. All the explosions were the typical spherical kind.

"There aren't any… Hmm."

As she turned back around, Hoffa suddenly grabbed a handful of snow from the ice and smeared it across her face.

He grinned and said, "Merry Christmas, Senior!"

Osivia froze, now covered in snow, her face looking like a clown's. Even her meticulously tied hair had been messed up, strands falling over her forehead.

Her expression twitched a few times before she calmly gathered the falling snowflakes into a ball in her hand. With a swift throw, the snowball hit Hoffa squarely in the face.

"Call me Professor," she said coolly.

Hoffa wiped the snow off his face, took a deep breath, and used his mental powers to gather the surrounding snow into floating snowballs hovering around him.

"No, only exceptional people deserve to be called professors."

With that, he snapped his fingers, and dozens of snowballs shot toward Osivia like lightning.

Osivia pushed off the ice, sliding over 20 meters in one smooth motion, dodging the snowballs with ease.

But Hoffa's mental powers kept the snowballs locked onto her, like heat-seeking missiles.

Smirking, Osivia shook her head. "Too weak."

With a flick of her hand, all the snowballs exploded mid-air into a shower of snowflakes.

She disrupted Hoffa's mental powers, then gathered the falling snowflakes into a massive snowball under her control.

"Uh…"

Hoffa stared at the enormous snowball forming above him, stumbling back a few steps. He quickly entered a meditative state.

The snow around him trembled and spread outward, forming a thick snow wall in front of him in an instant.

Boom!

The giant snowball, nearly two meters in diameter, crashed into the wall, creating an avalanche-like mound of snow.

Laughing, Hoffa manipulated the snow pile as if it were alive. It transformed into a towering six-meter-tall snowman, which thudded across the ice toward Osivia.

Osivia narrowed her eyes. The snowman's legs abruptly collapsed, sending it tumbling to the ground and disintegrating. She had once again disrupted Hoffa's transfiguration spell.

Clapping his hands together, Hoffa quickly reshaped the scattered snow into dozens of tiny snowmen, each about the size of a house-elf.

The small snowmen began rolling snowballs of their own, hurling them at Osivia.

However, when those snowballs hit Osivia, they passed through her body effortlessly.

Just an illusion.

"Uh-oh."

Realizing he had hit a phantom, Hoffa turned and bolted. The real Osivia came charging at him from another direction.

Hoffa made a sharp turn, stumbling as he began a frantic escape across the ice. At first, he managed to keep a little distance between them, but his clumsy skating skills quickly gave Osivia, who was much faster, the upper hand.

She swiftly caught up and firmly grabbed Hoffa's shoulder mid-glide. Balancing on one leg, she used her other leg to trip him, sending Hoffa tumbling onto the ice. Osivia raised an eyebrow and let go.

But Hoffa, quick as ever, countered by grabbing her forearm.

Osivia's expression changed in an instant.

Hoffa burst out laughing as he fell, pulling her down with him. The two rolled over each other several times on the icy lake before finally coming to a stop.

Hoffa ended up pinned under the snow.

Osivia abruptly sat up, covered in snow and panting, her breath visible in the frosty air. She pressed her hands against Hoffa's shoulders, straightening up as she said, "You'll have to call me Professor now."

"Not a chance, Senior," Hoffa replied with a grin. "You only won at skating, not transfiguration."

At that moment, Osivia's disheveled black hair hung down, brushing against Hoffa's face. Shaking her head, she said, "I wasn't even using my full strength."

"Neither was I. Besides, I'm six years younger than you," Hoffa said with a tilt of his head. "Were you stronger than me when you were twelve?"

Osivia froze for a moment, then slowly shook her head. "I became an Animagus when I was thirteen."

"Ha, so it's nothing impressive after all."

Hoffa sneezed and added, "By the way, your hair just went up my nose."

"Nothing impressive indeed," Osivia replied, brushing her hair aside. She gazed at Hoffa, the dimples on her face gradually fading.

"Merry Christmas, Hoffa Bach."

"That's easy to say, but you always look so gloomy," Hoffa teased.

After a brief silence, Osivia straightened up, kneeling in the snow. Looking off into the distance, she asked, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Ghosts? You mean the specters? There are plenty at the school."

"In the past year," Osivia interrupted him. "Whenever I think of my family again, sometimes I even feel... relieved for them. War, conspiracies, killings—they were spared from all of it. Sometimes, I'm thankful that when they left, it wasn't painful."

"Ahem," Hoffa coughed awkwardly, completely at a loss for how to respond.

"Uh, I think we should focus on the task at hand."

Crack.

A faint, strange cracking sound reached their ears.

Hoffa turned his head and saw a small crack forming on the ice beside his face.

"Huh?" Hoffa blinked.

The crack quickly grew from one to two, from two to four, and then to eight. The spiderweb-like fissures spread rapidly, accompanied by incessant cracking sounds.

Sweeping the area with his mental field, Hoffa, still lying on the ice, looked back at Osivia in shock.

"Senior, can you swim?"

"What?"

Hoffa's face went pale as he said, "This ice is only five centimeters thick."

Before the words had fully left his mouth, the ice beneath him suddenly shattered completely.

Hoffa plunged into the dark, frigid lake below.

The raging waters engulfed him instantly, dragging him down. Unable to swim, Hoffa sank straight toward the depths. The sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced—utterly terrifying.

(End of Chapter)

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