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Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of dull thuds, accompanied by exasperated shouts, erupted in the Hufflepuff Dormitory.
"What the f*** is this?! You motherf—" A string of expletives that would definitely be censored if written out squeezed through Lynn's clenched teeth.
He slammed his hand on the desk, making the quill jump and the ink bottle wobble three times.
Edgar, William, and Ollie immediately put down what they were doing and curiously gathered around. What on earth did Headmaster Dumbledore give Lynn to make him so angry?
Then, they saw the contents of the notebook spread open on the table—"Anecdotes of a Certain Pope's Familiar," "Cheated While Playing Cards with a Vampire Countess," "Secretly Enhancing a Muggle Genius Inventor," and other centuries-spanning wizarding world gossip.
Edgar scratched his head, looked at the notebook, then at the depressed Lynn, and hesitantly asked, "Uh... so, Headmaster Dumbledore's 'reward' is quite unique... Does he also like collecting gossip?"
Lynn: "..."
He rolled his eyes. He really wanted to go back on his word now. If he had known that Dumbledore's gift was anything but a secret...
On the weekend, the clamor outside the Castle was even louder than usual.
The annual Quidditch season officially kicked off, with the first match being Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. Yellow and red flags waved crisscrossing in the stands, and cheers could be faintly heard even through the thick Castle walls.
However, the weather was terrible.
The sky was like spilled ink, overcast with dark clouds, and damp, cold winds blew in gusts, clearly a prelude to a torrential downpour.
Lynn stood by the window of the common room, peered out at the sky, and then looked at Edgar, who was nervously checking his Beater's gloves and muttering tactics.
He decisively abandoned his friend.
"I'm going fishing in the Black Lake," Lynn announced, without the slightest hesitation in his tone.
"What?!" Edgar suddenly looked up, his face full of disbelief, "Today's my game! Against Gryffindor! You're going fishing?!"
"The weather's bad, so the fish might be active," Lynn said, his reason sound, already packing his fishing gear bag. "Besides, I can't help much from the sidelines. Good luck, I'm rooting for you."
He patted Edgar's shoulder, speaking earnestly.
Under Edgar's almost materialized look of disdain, Lynn, carrying his fishing rod, once again arrived at the bank of his "loyal" Black Lake.
Skillfully using Transfiguration to create a transparent, rainproof makeshift shelter, Lynn comfortably sat on a small folding chair and cast his hook into the increasingly choppy lake.
Then, he began to reel in and cast intermittently, his eyes unfocused, his thoughts drifting somewhere unknown.
Time passed minute by minute amidst the oppressive silence before the rain and the lapping of the lake water. The sky grew darker, and the clouds hung low and rolled.
Finally—
Boom!
A deafening thunderclap tore through the silence of the sky, followed by a tremor that seemed to explode directly overhead! Near the lightning strike, a tall fir tree was split from its base, smoking as it crashed down, blocking part of the path.
Amidst the roar of the falling tree and the splashing mud and wood chips, the sprinting black dog displayed astonishing agility, leaping to narrowly avoid the collapsing trunk and the erratic electrical arcs.
At the same time, Lynn, who had been pursuing him, swung his wand, and a blue-white electric snake struck first, grazing the black dog's tail and hitting the ground where it had been a second ago, blasting open a scorched pit.
The black dog narrowly dodged the lightning Lynn cast, and its figure violently twisted and expanded the moment it landed!
In the blink of an eye, the beast's outline vanished, replaced by a tall, gaunt, ragged man with tangled black hair splayed out.
He held a wand in his hand and turned to face the pursuing Lynn.
Rain washed over his grimy face as he looked at Lynn, a crooked grin on his lips, letting out intermittent, maniacal laughter.
"Haha... Hahaha... a little brat... coming to catch me for a bounty at the Ministry of Magic? Hahaha..."
Lynn stopped about ten meters away from him, rain dripping from the thin shield above his head. He narrowed his eyes, looking at the man, who seemed to be in a frenzy, listening to his harsh laughter, his face utterly calm.
Lynn raised his wand, aiming at the laughing figure.
"What the hell are you laughing at?"
Before his words finished, a crimson light burst from the tip of his wand!
"Crucio!"
An eerie, dazzling scarlet beam erupted from the tip of the wand, tearing through the gloomy rain curtain and shooting straight at Sirius Black, who was still laughing maniacally!
Black's frenzied laughter ceased abruptly. He had never expected that this young wizard would dare to cast such a vicious Dark Arts spell right off the bat!
He tried to dodge but found his body completely unresponsive, stiff to an absurd degree.
Whoosh!
The beam hit him squarely in the chest.
"Ah—!!!!"
A piercing scream tore through the rain curtain. Black crumpled and slammed into the muddy ground, his entire body convulsing violently.
Lynn glanced at the twitching Black, quietly waiting for the system to notify him of the mission's completion.
After waiting for quite a while, the expected system prompt didn't ring out; it remained dead silent. Lynn scratched his hair, a hint of doubt surfacing between his brows.
Could it be... not enough intensity? He looked at Black, who was twitching in pain in the mud but didn't seem to have reached the standard of being "punished" yet. He felt that perhaps he was being too "gentle."
"Crucio!"
Without hesitation, a second piercingly bright crimson beam burst forth once again from the tip of Lynn's wand.
In a daze, Black seemed to see James Potter's figure waving to him from the other side of the rain curtain. He wanted to speak, wanted to scream, but the grinding pain originating from the deepest part of his soul firmly throttled his vocal cords.
Lynn waited patiently for a while longer. The system's prompt still didn't ring out.
Lynn was truly puzzled now. He put away his wand, crouched down, and carefully examined the man on the ground.