The sight of the Durmstrang students bowing together to Lynn shocked everyone present.
Breakfasts were set down one after another as students stared, dumbfounded, at the scene.
Someone's fork froze in mid-air, oil still dripping from the sausage on the prongs, entirely unnoticed. Someone's mouth hung open, a half-chewed piece of bread nearly slipping out. Someone else stood up without thinking, craning their neck forward, worried they'd misread what they were seeing.
The Great Hall went terrifyingly quiet.
Every eye landed on Lynn.
Lynn stood at the entrance, looking at the bowing Durmstrang students, his expression rather subtle.
He'd traveled far and wide across the wizarding world; what grand scenes hadn't he seen by now?
Trolls, werewolves, Death Eaters, dragons, octopus monsters—which of these hadn't he already run into?
But this particular scene, he genuinely hadn't seen before.
An entire school's worth of students bowing to him at once. Honestly, this was a bit much.
Still, even if he'd never eaten pork, he'd at least seen a pig run.
Lynn's mind raced. He knew he couldn't let the mood turn awkward now; he had to say something.
So he just went with whatever came to him.
"Ahem."
He cleared his throat, a perfectly calibrated smile settling onto his face—humble, yet magnanimous.
"Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and the many other magic schools gathered here all share the same roots. We're brothers to one another."
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly through the silent hall.
"When a brother's in trouble, how could one simply sit by and do nothing?"
He paused, sweeping his gaze over the Durmstrang students still bent in their bows.
"If it were Hogwarts caught in a crisis, I have no doubt the students of Durmstrang would rush to our aid just the same—"
Blah blah blah...
The longer he spoke, the smoother it flowed, and the more he rambled on. A string of pleasantries poured out effortlessly, sounding deeply moving.
Lines like "the wizarding world is one family," "true feelings show in times of crisis," and "we're not competitors, we're fellow travelers"—
one after another, all clichés he'd picked up at International Magical Conferences, now poured out in one go.
He couldn't help how sincere it sounded, though.
That tone, that expression, those perfectly timed gestures—anyone who didn't know better would swear he actually meant every word.
Dumbledore, seated at the High Table, felt his eyes go red halfway through.
He raised a hand and wiped the corner of his eye with his sleeve, the gesture heavy with emotion.
Professor McGonagall, seated beside him, was utterly stunned. She looked at Dumbledore, then at Lynn, then back at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore didn't notice her staring, too busy sniffing hard.
Professor McGonagall's expression grew rather complicated.
Could Dumbledore really not tell these were just empty pleasantries?! she thought to herself.
But she said nothing.
Because cheers had already broken out across the hall.
Sparse at first, coming from a handful of Durmstrang students. Then it spread to Beauxbatons, to Ilvermorny, to Uagadou and Castelobruxo.
Finally, the Hogwarts students joined in too.
Applause, cheers, and shouts of approval blended together, rattling the entire Great Hall.
Lynn stood at the entrance with a proper, composed smile, waving to the crowd around him.
That posture, that grace—he looked exactly like a politician who'd just wrapped up a major speech.
Edgar stood behind him, utterly dumbfounded.
He looked at Lynn, then at the wildly clapping crowd, then back at Lynn.
"Lynn," he whispered, "you really know how to put on a show."
Lynn ignored him and kept smiling and waving.
...
As June rolled in, the final task of the Triwizard Tournament drew closer by the day.
The hedge maze by the Black Lake grew taller with each passing day, now nearly twenty feet high. Seen from a distance, those dark green walls of foliage layered upon one another, dense and airtight, like a giant green fortress.
The mood in the castle grew more charged as well.
This event, co-hosted by six schools and stretching across an entire year, was finally about to crown an ultimate champion.
The students were beside themselves with anticipation.
In the corridors, common rooms, and the Great Hall, it was all anyone talked about.
"Who do you think's going to win?"
"Gotta be Lynn—he's leading by so many points."
"Not necessarily. The maze isn't like the last two tasks; there are way too many variables."
"I'm betting on Lynn."
"I'm betting on Cedric."
"I'm betting on Fleur."
"Well, I'm definitely not betting on Harry."
Bets, predictions, and heated arguments played out day after day.
But amid all this excitement, some jarring scenes cropped up from time to time.
Those were the moments when students clashed over which competitor they supported.
Interestingly, this friction wasn't happening between the competing schools—it was happening within Hogwarts itself.
In other words—
Hogwarts was having its own little civil war.
The reason wasn't hard to guess.
The other three houses—Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw—all had champions of their own.
Only Slytherin had none. Not a single one.
The Slytherin students couldn't stomach the insult.
So, guided by the logic of "settle internal affairs before resisting outside forces," a good number of them decided to—back Durmstrang.
After all, Durmstrang also only admitted pure-blood wizards, which fit rather neatly with Slytherin's own house philosophy.
This move certainly opened some eyes among the other three houses.
"Out of every school you could've picked, you go with the one that's finished last two tasks running?!"
"Isn't this just to annoy people at this point?"
"Durmstrang? The Durmstrang sitting on a grand total of ten points?"
"Have you Slytherins completely lost it?"
The Slytherin students, of course, weren't about to back down.
"Durmstrang just had bad luck!"
"They're really strong!"
"Krum's an international star!"
"Who we root for is our own business!"
That wasn't even the worst of it—some Slytherin students went even further.
"I hope the Hogwarts students all get wiped out!"
"Better if not one of them even makes it out of that maze!"
"We should help train the Durmstrang champions ourselves! Get them the win!"
This kind of blatant treachery sparked instant outrage.
The Gryffindors were the first to blow up.
"Excuse me?!"
"Helping outsiders beat your own school?!"
"Are you even Hogwarts students?"
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff piled on soon after.
Several fights broke out in the corridors as a result. It started with heated back-and-forth arguing, neither side willing to give ground.
Then it turned into shoving and minor scuffles, curses flying.
Then it escalated straight into a full-blown mass brawl.
Spells flew everywhere, fists and feet joined in, an absolute mess.
By the time the professors arrived, the corridor floor was already littered with fallen students.
In the end, more than a dozen ended up in the school infirmary, groaning on their hospital beds.
Madam Pomfrey's expression was grim as she worked.
While bandaging students, she muttered under her breath, "Fight! Fight! Keep it up! Fight yourselves right into the hospital! If there's a next time, I'll have Dumbledore expel the lot of you!"
The incident also gave students from the other schools a full appreciation of just how combative Hogwarts students could be with each other.
An Ilvermorny student remarked, "Are they always this brutal to their own?"
Ryan nodded in deep agreement.
"You get used to it."
When Lynn heard the news, he was sitting by the Black Lake, sighing as he watched the water.
He listened to Edgar recount the whole thing and stayed quiet for a long while afterward.
"Was that really necessary?"
Edgar shrugged. "Who knows. I honestly can't make sense of how those Slytherins think."
Lynn kept sighing at the lake.
Mid-sigh, something suddenly occurred to him. "By the way, Durmstrang's ship burned down. Where are they staying now? I haven't seen any of them around Hogwarts lately."
Edgar paused for a moment. "Uh... I think they moved to Hogsmeade? Heard Karkaroff booked out an entire inn there."
Lynn nodded. "Still too extravagant. Can Hogsmeade really be as safe as Hogwarts?"
---
Enjoying the story?
Read up to 40+ chapters ahead on Patreon.
Patreon: patreon.com/mrfanfiction140
Be sure to leave a review!!! And read my other novels as well.
[ Naruto : Multiverse Adventures. ]
[ Hunter x Hunter : The Alchemist. ]
[ One Piece : Reincarnated As A Genderbent Charlotte Linlin. ]
[ Warhammer 40K : Bounty Hunter. ]
[ DC : Dio Brando. ]
Happy Reading!!!