After a short whistle, the champions walked into the maze entrances in front of them, accompanied by applause and cheers.
The applause and cheers lingered behind them like a tide, dragging on for a long while.
But the moment Lynn stepped inside, all that sound was instantly swallowed up—everything went quiet at once.
Only his own footsteps remained, echoing through the narrow corridor.
Lynn stopped and looked back.
The entrance was still visible; he could see stars twinkling in the night sky outside, the dense crowd of figures on the distant stands. But the clamor, the cheers, all the noise—none of it reached him.
It was as if some invisible barrier had split the maze's interior and exterior into two entirely different worlds.
Lynn pulled his gaze back and kept walking forward.
He hadn't gone many steps—
when a curtain of light suddenly descended from above.
It appeared out of thin air, glowing faintly green, hanging from the top of the hedge all the way down to the ground, blocking his path completely.
At the same time, the hedges along the walls began to squirm. Dense branches and leaves, as if alive, wove themselves together, forming a line of text right beside the light curtain:
"You still have one last chance to leave. Take the advice, or the consequences will be more than you can bear."
Lynn stared at the light curtain, studying it once, then again.
He looked at the text formed by the hedge beside it.
Then back at the light curtain.
Honestly, this thing looked fairly intimidating—that eerie green glow, that grave tone. Anyone else might have hesitated.
Still, as the saying goes, what great storms hadn't Lynn already seen?
He stared at the light curtain, spotted no danger, and simply stepped right through it.
Turned out, that was exactly right.
The whole thing was just for show.
Lynn glanced back at the still-glowing curtain and shook his head.
Surely no one was actually scared off by this, right?
He mused to himself and kept walking.
—
Continuing down the corridor, he hadn't gone far before the light from the curtain behind him could no longer reach the path ahead.
The surroundings dropped into total darkness. Only the rough ground beneath his feet and the towering hedges to either side confirmed he was still inside the maze.
Lynn raised his wand.
"Lumos."
A soft glow lit at the tip, pushing back the dark.
He felt his way forward cautiously.
After walking a few minutes—
the maze ahead suddenly began moving on its own.
The hedges rustled, slowly shifting, rotating, rearranging themselves. The sound of branches and leaves rubbing together was startlingly clear in the silence, like countless snakes slithering past each other.
Lynn stopped and watched.
The hedges picked up speed, faster and faster, until finally seven different paths opened up in front of him.
Each one wound off in a different direction. The entrances all looked alike, pitch black, impossible to see into.
Lynn glanced left, then right.
He'd never really trusted his own luck. After all his years of fishing, he'd long since accepted that anything relying on chance had nothing to do with him.
So he simply picked the path that looked the least appealing and walked in.
At least that way, if it turned out to be the wrong one, he wouldn't feel quite as bad about it.
He walked forward a few hundred meters.
The path stayed narrow, the hedges on either side still towering overhead. The silence was so complete that only his own footsteps and breathing broke it.
Then something suddenly appeared ahead.
A piggy bank.
Locked with a small brass padlock, sitting quietly in the middle of the path, gleaming faintly in the light of his Lumos spell.
Above it floated a wooden sign.
The sign read a single line:
"There is no treasure here."
Lynn: "..."
He stared at the sign for a long moment, saying nothing.
Shouldn't something like this be aimed at Harry Potter's side of things? He's the Gryffindor—naturally curious, loves adventure, would absolutely fall for a "nothing buried here" trap like this.
I'm from Hufflepuff!
Lynn shouted internally.
But... he had to admit, for a moment there, he really was curious. Not about what treasure might be inside, but about what exactly the person who designed this trap had been thinking.
Lynn took a breath and approached the piggy bank.
He raised his wand, aiming at the small brass lock.
"Alohomora—"
Before the spell finished, a Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder-style jolt suddenly triggered.
Lynn was ready for it; he turned and ran without a moment's hesitation.
The next second—
Boom boom boom boom boom!!!
A deafening roar erupted behind him.
The walls on either side slammed inward with tremendous force.
Again and again.
The force behind the compression, and the speed of it, shook the whole corridor violently.
The truly outrageous part was that there was actual metal embedded in those walls.
Lynn ran, glancing back over his shoulder, unable to hold in a curse: What kind of grudge is this—putting composite metal in there?! That afraid of not crushing someone flat?!
The two walls kept slamming together, a "clang clang" ringing out with each hit. Every collision shook the ground, sent gravel flying, absolutely relentless.
Lynn ran a good distance before stopping.
He looked back—the walls were still clanging away, over and over, like some perpetual motion machine.
He waited a bit.
Waited a bit longer.
Still clanging.
Lynn's patience ran out.
He raised his wand, aiming at the two still-thrashing walls.
"Finite Incantatem!"
Light shot from the tip of his wand and sank into the walls, freshly slammed shut.
Their crushing motion stopped dead.
Then, slowly, they drew apart, settling back into their original places.
Lynn put his wand away and kept walking.
When he reached where the piggy bank had been, he stopped.
It had been smashed to pieces by the walls, fragments scattered everywhere across the ground. But among the debris, something small and shiny caught his eye.
Lynn looked down.
A dozen or so Galleons lay scattered quietly among the wreckage.
Lynn: "..."
He crouched down, picked one up, and weighed it in his palm.
Real.
He looked at the debris again, then at the coin in his hand.
What is even going on here? Putting actual money into a trap?
Meanwhile, at the commentary box.
Ludo Bagman was scrambling frantically in front of a bank of control equipment.
His face had gone red, sweat beading on his forehead, muttering under his breath—
"Damn it!"
"Put the wrong piggy bank in!"
"My Galleons—"
...
The scene shifts to one of the earlier victims of Lynn's antics in the first two tasks—the Durmstrang champion, Katya.
He walked alone down the maze's narrow corridor.
Silence all around, only the faint glow at his wand's tip lighting the path a few steps ahead.
Katya moved slowly, cautiously.
He'd already developed something of a psychological scar from Lynn over the last two tasks, and he'd made up his mind: the farther from Lynn, the better.
Winning was a lost cause anyway. If he could just make it through the maze safely, without running into any monsters or ghosts, he'd count himself lucky.
Katya thought this over as he crept forward.
Then—
turning a corner, he froze in place instantly.
Not far ahead lay an open, circular space.
At its center, on a stone platform, sat something familiar—the Goblet of Fire.
It burned steadily, conspicuous against the darkness.
But Katya's gaze wasn't on the goblet.
It was on the figure standing beside it.
Black hair, Asian features, a hair-raising, gloomy smile on his face.
He stood beneath the Goblet of Fire, arms crossed, looking straight at Katya.
Lynn.
Katya's pupils shrank instantly.
He stood there, stunned, and the audience in the stands were just as stunned.
"What's going on?!"
"There's two of them again?!"
"No, Lynn's on a completely different path!"
Ludo Bagman's voice rang out too, laced with deliberately feigned confusion. "Dear audience, it seems the maze has thrown up something rather special. Mr. Katya appears to have run into a 'Lynn' of his own?"
Inside the maze.
Katya stood frozen, unmoving.
His lips trembled, teeth chattering, all the color drained from his face.
"Ly... Ly... Lynn..."
He stammered, unable to get out a full word.
The "Lynn" watched him, his smile deepening further still.
"What's wrong?" he said, his voice eerie, the tone crawling with something that raised the hair on the back of your neck. "Durmstrang's champion, can't even speak at the sight of me?"
Katya swallowed hard.
"Lynn! How could you possibly be here?!"
The "Lynn" stared back at him, his smile growing steadily more twisted.
Then—
"Hehehe—"
A burst of unrestrained laughter rang out, echoing through the narrow space, chilling in a way that was hard to shake.
"Wasn't it you who put my name into the Goblet of Fire?"
"Lynn" took a step forward.
Katya instinctively stepped back.
"Are you really that afraid of me showing up in front of you?"
Another step.
Katya retreated again.
"Master~"
That word came out long and hollow, dripping with undisguised sarcasm and malice.
Katya's face went completely white.
How does he know?! he thought. I did it so carefully! I never told anyone!
Up in the stands, the audience was reeling too.
"What?!"
"It was Katya who entered Lynn's name?!"
"That whole Azkaban Institute thing was his doing?!"
"Why would he even do that?!"
Whispers spread like a wave.
Katya watched the "Lynn" drawing steadily closer, his fear climbing toward its peak.
Then—
fear hardened into resolve.
His hand snapped to his wand. "Die!"
He shouted, a corrosive curse blasting from the tip of his wand, streaking straight toward the "Lynn"!
Whoosh!
The spell tore straight through "Lynn's" body.
But no blood appeared where it should have. No scream followed.
That "Lynn's" body rippled the instant it was struck.
Katya froze again.
He stared at "Lynn," his mind racing.
A creature suddenly came to mind.
Katya's face went scarlet.
Not fear this time—shame, fury, the rage of being thoroughly toyed with and humiliated.
"Boggart?!"
...
Everyone in the stands stared blankly at the big screen, watching Katya standing there, face twisted with fury.
After a long pause, Ludo Bagman's voice returned, dry and more than a little awkward, clearly at a loss for words.
"Uh... it appears... Mr. Katya... has encountered a Boggart..."
He paused.
"And... um... that Boggart... seems to know some rather... interesting things..."
In the stands, the murmuring picked right back up, more heated than before.
"It really was him!"
"He put Lynn's name in the cup!"
"But why would he do that?!"
"Jealousy, has to be jealousy!"
"Serves him right! Let the Boggart scare him half to death!"
In the Hufflepuff stands, Edgar, William, and Ollie exchanged glances.
"So..." Edgar said haltingly, "it was Katya?"
William pushed up his glasses.
"Looks that way now."
—
Meanwhile, deep in the maze.
Lynn was still feeling his way forward, entirely unaware of any of this.
Suddenly—
he sneezed.
"Weird," he muttered, rubbing his nose. "Who's talking about me?"
---
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