Author's Note: Don't forget to vote, comment and leave a 5 star review to help the story grow and reach more people.
Read upto +30 Chapters worth of content ahead and receive extra updates daily by going to my Patreon and becoming a fellow Patreon.
Patreon: mrfanfiction140
Be sure to read my other Novels as well:
- Naruto: Multiverse Adventures
- Hunter x Hunter : The Alchemist.
- One Piece : Reincarnated As A Genderbent Charlotte Linlin.
----
The feast ended, and the grand welcoming ceremony came to a close.
Professor McGonagall led the school Principals, Professors, and some students requiring special arrangements (such as the young Gabrielle) out of the Great Hall to the guest rooms prepared for them.
Dumbledore remained in the gradually emptying Great Hall.
He pointed his wand at the open space between the Entrance Hall and the Great Hall doorway, drawing a virtual circle in the air.
A circle shimmering with white light appeared, surrounding the pedestal where the Goblet of Fire was placed.
As soon as the Age Line was drawn, as if a switch had been flipped, the students from the six schools—especially the older ones—immediately surged forward like a tide, surrounding the Goblet of Fire until not a gap remained.
The younger students stood on their tiptoes and craned their necks to watch the excitement, while the eager older students' eyes shone as they excitedly asked one another:
"Did you bring parchment? Quick, lend me a piece!"
"A quill! Who has an extra quill? Mine's run out of ink!"
"Ink! Damn it, I forgot to bring my ink bottle!"
"Use this! I just swiped it from the table... Uh, will a napkin work? It should burn if I write my name on it, right?"
"Idiot! The Goblet of Fire will treat that as trash!"
The scene was somewhat chaotic for a moment.
Standing by the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore looked at the group of young people cheerfully and clapped his hands.
Immediately, several House-elves who had been on standby appeared before the students carrying large stacks of high-quality parchment and handfuls of quills.
"Line up, children, don't be in a hurry." Dumbledore's voice rose above the noise. "There is plenty of parchment and writing material. I think I, an old man, shouldn't stay here and get in the way of you achieving your ambitions."
He winked with a smile on his face and walked toward the Great Hall's entrance with a composed gait.
As he reached the door, he happened to see Lynn strolling toward the Goblet of Fire.
For some reason, the old Principal's heart suddenly leaped. He paused and, as if by some strange impulse, reached out to block Lynn's path.
"Ah..." The old Principal's voice was as gentle as ever. "Child, have you... really carefully considered participating in this Triwizard Tournament? I must remind you again, this is quite a dangerous competition."
Lynn blinked and answered honestly, "Principal, I didn't say I was participating. I'm just going over to watch the fun."
Visibly, Dumbledore breathed a sigh of relief.
He patted Lynn's shoulder and said as if relieved of a great burden, "Watching the fun is good! This excitement is indeed worth seeing! Watch more, communicate more, and enhance international friendship!"
Having said that, he didn't stay any longer and disappeared through the Great Hall's entrance with a light step.
Lynn stood there, his head full of question marks.
"Is Dumbledore... did he eat too much treacle tart for dinner? Is a blood sugar spike causing abnormal behavior?"
He shook his head and tossed this inexplicable interlude to the back of his mind.
"Lynn! Come over here! Over here!"
Edgar's shout pierced through the noisy crowd, catching Lynn's attention.
He saw that Edgar had somehow squeezed into a position near the front, waving a large piece of freshly obtained parchment in his hand.
Lynn squeezed through the crowd and walked over. "Not bad, you moved fast."
"You bet!" Edgar puffed out his chest. "I'm the man who's going to be the Hogwarts champion! I've already thought about how to write my name. It's going to be in a flamboyant style..."
Lynn unceremoniously interrupted his daydream. "Are you out of your mind? Get real, Edgar, are you old enough?"
"Can't I even dream? You have to have dreams; what if... what if Dumbledore's magic suddenly fails? I'll just try. It's not like I'll lose anything!"
As he spoke, he tore the large piece of parchment into three pieces, keeping one for himself and handing one each to William and Ollie.
"Here, a share for everyone present! Give it a try!"
He didn't give one to Lynn at all because he remembered Lynn had clearly stated he had no interest in participating, and he subconsciously felt... if Lynn really wanted to join, he probably wouldn't need to go through the trouble of lining up for paper.
The three of them each wrote their names and "Hogwarts," then took their places at the end of the long line that had already formed behind the Goblet of Fire.
At this moment, a dozen Durmstrang students lined up and, one by one, crossed the Age Line and threw their parchment into the Goblet of Fire.
After Krum, Lynn saw a figure that looked quite familiar, making him feel as though he had seen them somewhere before.
Where had he seen them? It wasn't at Hogwarts, nor during the holidays... where on earth was it?
While Lynn stared at the person, lost in thought, the person held a slip of paper and walked up to the Goblet of Fire, but didn't immediately throw it in like the others.
The person turned around and began searching for something within the Great Hall.
His gaze swept across the excited or curious faces, across the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin table areas, and across the student groups from the other schools.
Suddenly, his gaze fixed sharply, locking onto Lynn, who was deep in thought.
The next second, he took a deep breath and shouted toward that direction:
"Lynn!"
This shout was like a clap of thunder in a clear sky, instantly attracting everyone's attention. The conversations stopped abruptly, and the students all turned their heads, their gazes moving back and forth between the shouting Durmstrang boy and Lynn.
His thoughts interrupted, Lynn looked up with some displeasure and met the person's gaze.
"What the hell are you shouting for? Do I know you? Who are you?"
The Durmstrang boy seemed completely unprepared for Lynn's reaction.
The scene he had envisioned, where enemies' eyes would burn with fury upon meeting, did not occur. Lynn's blank "Who are you?" expression made him feel a greater sense of humiliation than any deliberate mockery.
His face instantly flushed red, then turned ashen as he ground his teeth and squeezed out a name from between them:
"Ka-tya Vol-kov."
"Katya Volkov?" Lynn repeated, his brow furrowing deeper. It felt a bit familiar, but he just couldn't remember.
"Who? No impression."
Katya trembled with rage and prompted again through gritted teeth:
"The Al-che-my Com-pe-ti-tion!"
A look of realization immediately appeared on Lynn's face, followed by a wave of sarcastic remarks:
"Yo, yo, yo~ I wondered who it was making such a scene! If it isn't Durmstrang's 'famous' Alchemy 'master'—Mr. Katya Volkov!"
Katya's face grew even redder, and his fists clenched.
Lynn continued his barrage.
"What? The taste of being a defeated opponent wasn't enough last time, so you specifically came to Hogwarts to reminisce?"
"You...!" Katya was so angered by the term "defeated opponent" that he almost couldn't catch his breath, and his lips trembled.
Not far away, Ryan Sanderson and Amina Okoro subconsciously glanced at each other, their mouths twitching simultaneously.
Damn! Defeated opponents... they were too, and they suddenly felt a sense of depression from being hit by this indiscriminate attack.
Lynn didn't give Katya any chance to breathe; seeing he couldn't get the word "you" out, Lynn immediately followed up:
"'You' what? If your skills are inferior, admit it! If you lose a competition, accept it. What, are you trying to do by shouting loudly?"
"I...!" Katya's brain was buzzing from this series of rebukes, and his thoughts were becoming muddled.
"'I' what? You're making a fool of yourself! If your own level isn't high enough, you should be thinking about going back to school and training. Is this what they teach you at Durmstrang?"
Katya's brain almost completely stalled after being hit by this triple combo of "defeated opponent," "inferior skills," and "making a fool of yourself." He stood with his mouth open, his chest heaving violently, unable to organize an effective verbal counterattack for a moment.
The students present loved watching a scene and didn't mind it getting bigger. Especially the Hogwarts students; it was their first time seeing Lynn rebuke someone like this, and he was doing it to a student from another school. This was much more interesting than the registration process.
Katya stood there stiffly for a full ten seconds or so, feeling uncomfortable under the various gazes directed at him from all around.
His brain finally recovered a bit of its function from the verbal assault.
He also realized that he was absolutely no match for Lynn in a war of words.
He didn't care what more annoying things Lynn might say next and simply started shouting directly:
"Lynn! Don't be too smug! If you have the ability, then in the Triwizard Tournament, in front of everyone, beat me fairly and squarely! You, who aren't even qualified to cross the Age Line and only dare to make sarcastic remarks from the sidelines..."
His words came to an abrupt halt.
A faint light flashed, and Lynn had already cast a [Babbling Curse] on him.
"@#￥%...&*!"
Katya's subsequent words instantly turned into a series of strange, tongue-tied syllables. He clutched his mouth in horror, his eyes wide and round.
"Save it, you're too noisy." Lynn picked at his ear with a look of disdain. "With your language skills... try becoming a champion first."
"Wooo—!!!"
Katya was completely enraged; what an absolute disgrace!
Infuriated, he no longer tried to speak and suddenly raised his hand to throw the slip of parchment toward the Goblet of Fire.
However—
Just as the slip of paper left his hand and passed his fingertips, flying toward the air above the rim of the Goblet of Fire...
Boom!
A Fire-Making Spell hit the parchment flying through mid-air with unerring accuracy.
Before the slip of paper could even feel the call of the Goblet of Fire's cold flames, it turned into a small pile of ashes before everyone's eyes and fell at Katya's feet.
A deathly silence fell over the Great Hall.
Everyone was stunned; you could do that?
Katya remained in his throwing posture, frozen in place, staring blankly at the pile of ashes on the ground.
Lynn shrugged and slowly added one last sentence to the petrified Katya—the most "heart-killing" sentence of the night:
"See, what did I tell you? You can't even manage to throw the paper in while facing me. And you want to compete in the tournament? Go home and practice for a few more years, 'master.'"