Bang—!!!
The massive impact sent the mast flying, crashing sideways into the ship's gunwale. It smashed against the side, splinters flying everywhere, before sliding into the water and kicking up a towering splash.
The students who had just been clutching their heads and waiting for death looked up. They stared at the mast now floating in the water, then at the figure suspended in mid-air, every single one of them stunned.
Lynn paid no heed to their stares.
His wand flicked rapidly, sending invisible blades slicing through the air.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!
The already battered ship became even more dilapidated.
A massive section of the deck was forcibly sliced off by Lynn. Along with the several students standing on it, it was lifted by an invisible force and steadily tossed into the Black Lake.
Smack! Splash!
Water splashed everywhere as those students surfaced, gasping for air, faces filled with the relief of having survived.
Lynn didn't linger.
He looked down through the large hole he'd cut.
Thick smoke billowed inside the cabin, flames leaping between the gaps. Through the smoke, he spotted two trapped students.
They were huddled in a corner, nearly unconscious from the smoke, still coughing desperately. One of them looked up, meeting Lynn's gaze directly.
A light of hope burst into those eyes instantly.
Following the principle of seeing a good deed through to the end, Lynn jumped straight in without a word.
His feet landed on the scorching deck. Flames still burned all around him, but Lynn was wrapped in a faint barrier keeping the heat and smoke at bay.
The student who'd just spotted him was now trembling with excitement.
Judging by Lynn's performance in the Triwizard Tournament, he knew he was saved today, no question.
In his excitement, he even found the nerve to crack a joke.
In broken English, he stammered to Lynn, "Mr. Lynn... I can't swim... Can we negotiate—don't just throw me into the lake..."
Lynn ignored him.
His attention was on the other student.
A young boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, slumped on the floor, one leg twisted at an unnatural angle. His calf was bloody and mangled, flesh torn back, the bone faintly visible beneath.
He was howling, his voice shrill and piercing.
Lynn didn't waste words.
He stepped forward and, without a word, delivered a knife-hand strike to the boy's neck.
The screaming stopped abruptly. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped limp.
Lynn hauled him up off the floor and slung him over his shoulder.
Then he turned to the student who'd just spoken to him. "What did you just say?"
The student swallowed hard.
He looked at his unconscious friend slung over Lynn's shoulder, then at Lynn's calm face, his mind racing.
"I... I didn't say anything."
The answer came out crisp and decisive, without a hint of hesitation.
Lynn nodded.
"Oh."
He freed one hand and waved his wand.
A thick jet of water erupted from the tip, instantly enveloping both of them, and then—
Whoosh!
The two of them launched straight into the sky.
They traced an arc through the air, and then—
Splash! Splash!
Two impacts against the water.
Lynn didn't spare them another glance, turning to head deeper into the cabin.
—
This Durmstrang ship really had some quality to it.
Lynn marveled internally as he pressed further in.
Along the walls of the cabin corridors alone, there were no fewer than seven or eight kinds of defensive charms layered on. Fire-Freezing Charms, Anti-Explosion Charms, Strengthening Charms... and a few kinds of alchemy material he couldn't place at a glance.
If not for those holding it together, the ship would have burned to cinders under the Fiendfyre long ago.
Lynn kept moving deeper down the corridor.
Along the way, he found several more students trapped in the cabins.
Some were pinned under fallen cabinets, some stuck in warped doorframes, others fainted from the smoke. Lynn pulled them all out without a word, and then—
Splash! Splash! Splash!
One by one, they all went into the lake.
Whether they could swim wasn't something he bothered considering.
There were already plenty of people in the lake anyway; one more or one less hardly mattered. Besides, surely Durmstrang students weren't all landlubbers.
—
While Lynn was still fishing people out of the cabin, small boats were finally arriving out on the Black Lake.
They were the kind used to ferry first-years across—not large, but there was no other option at the moment.
The boats were already crowded.
The champions had finally arrived.
Fleur stood at the bow, her long silvery hair fluttering in the night wind, her wand waving again and again as jets of water pushed the flailing students in the lake toward the side of the boat. Cedric and Harry stood at the stern, hauling those pushed toward them up onto the boat.
Ryan and Thomas leaned over the gunwale, reaching out to grab a sinking Durmstrang student. Jordan shouted from behind, "Hold on! Don't let go!"
Amina stood in the center of the boat, hands moving rapidly as she Transfigured floating wooden planks into makeshift rafts for more people to cling to.
Krum, Louis, and Katya were on the boats too. Their expressions ranged from grim to grimmer, but their hands never stopped as they desperately hauled schoolmates aboard.
Before long, the small boats were packed.
The rescued Durmstrang students huddled together, soaked through and shivering. Some cried, some coughed, others sat in silence, hugging their knees.
The boats turned and began pulling away from the burning ship.
The students aboard finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ah—!!!"
A terrified scream tore through the night, and everyone turned toward it.
Chaos broke out on the boats at once.
On the still-burning ship, a mass of Fiendfyre suddenly burst from the cabin!
The flames condensed rapidly in the air, and in the blink of an eye, a massive black dragon appeared in the night sky!
It was wreathed in pitch-black fire, its wingspan over ten meters wide, two spheres of blazing red light burning in its eye sockets. It circled once in the air, then suddenly dove, lunging straight toward the small boats!
A long tail of fire trailed behind it, carving a scorching path through the dark.
The scene looked like hell descending upon them.
The students screamed in terror; some crouched clutching their heads, some shrank down into the boats, others simply shut their eyes and waited for the end.
The dragon drew closer.
The oncoming heat was already making their skin sting.
At this critical moment—
Vroom—!!!
A deafening roar, like an engine, tore across the horizon!
Everyone instinctively looked up.
And then they saw—
Lynn, carrying an unconscious student, hovering on a broomstick in mid-air, right between the dragon and the dozens of small boats, facing down the oncoming behemoth.
Firelight flickered uncertainly across his face.
He raised his wand high.
"Finite Incantatem—!!!"
Ripples appeared in the air, like waves on water.
Lynn held his wand aloft; the light at its tip didn't fade but grew brighter and brighter, condensing and spreading out in front of him until it formed a massive, mirror-like surface.
That surface wasn't ordinary glass—it was condensed from pure magic, perfectly transparent yet reassuringly solid.
It wasn't small; large enough to fully shield the dozen or so boats behind it. But it wasn't enormous either—compared to the burning Durmstrang ship, it looked almost modest.
Still, it was enough.
The black dragon dove straight down.
It opened its massive jaws, revealing a mouth full of pitch-black fire, and slammed headfirst into the mirror.
Boom—!!!
A dull, massive explosion tore through the night sky.
Visible ripples surged outward across the mirror's surface from the point of impact, like a boulder thrown into a still lake. The whole surface shuddered violently, letting out a strained humming sound.
But—
it didn't shatter.
The dragon thrashed, tearing with its claws, biting with its teeth, buffeting with its wings. The mirror stayed motionless, blocking its path.
Thick smoke rose everywhere at once.
Black smoke billowed from the point of impact, swirling and churning around Lynn like countless venomous snakes writhing wildly. It carried a scorching heat, nearly swallowing him whole.
The gale tore through Lynn's hair.
His robes snapped loudly in the wind, his hair blown into disarray, but he stayed perfectly still. He gripped his wand with both hands, his whole arm trembling slightly.
And then—
he pressed down, hard!
The black dragon's head was forced down by that pressure!
The dragon let out a furious, unwilling roar, its head dropping, its entire massive body forced downward by that overwhelming strength. It struggled frantically, wings flapping wildly, tail lashing out, but it simply couldn't lift its head back up.
---
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