Chapter 622: The Champions’ Miserable Ordeals

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Watching the two champions on the screen being chased like stray dogs—one step slower and they’d be turned into human showerheads—the Quidditch pitch fell into a strange, heavy silence.

It didn’t take much for people to figure out why an ordinary balloon fish had suddenly become something out of prehistory.

Plenty had seen Tom riding that giant squid into the depths of the Black Lake yesterday. No one had connected it to the tournament at the time.

Now it all made sense.

Riddle had gone down there to give the lake’s creatures a big buff.

Absolutely shameless. Truly shameless.

If this had been done by someone else—even Dumbledore or Grindelwald—people would probably be cursing them under their breath right about now.

But since it was Tom Riddle...

All the students could do was sigh and laugh it off.

That was reputation for you. The whole wizarding world knew how petty Riddle was, so no one wanted to test their luck with him.

...

..

On the screen, Quinta and Nassim had finally shaken off the balloon fish. Or rather, the fish had given up on chasing them.

Tom might be a menace, but the point of this round was still treasure hunting and competition between champions. He wasn’t about to let NPCs steal the spotlight. So he’d set boundaries for these creatures. Once they strayed too far, a repelling spell would force them back to their territory.

’Phew!’

Only after confirming they were safe did Quinta and Nassim slow down. They exchanged a glance. And Quinta could clearly see the anger and frustration in Nassim’s eyes. She gave him an awkward smile, then turned and swam off.

Nassim didn’t chase her. He was furious, sure, but picking a fight right now would be a terrible idea.

The two split off in different directions. They’d already wasted a lot of time. If they didn’t hurry and find the hidden treasures, they’d fall too far behind.

But the real suffering was only just beginning.

Over the next half hour, every single champion ran into trouble. One magical creature after another blocked their paths. The audience, while worried about their own school’s representatives, couldn’t help but enjoy the misfortune of the others.

Jauncey ran into a group of Grindylows. Normally, these small water demons stood about five feet tall and were ugly as sin, but manageable—even second- or third-year students could handle them.

That was under normal circumstances.

Today, Jauncey had stumbled into a swarm of more than twenty. Red-eyed and aggressive, they lunged at him, clawing and biting.

By the time he escaped, his clothes were in tatters.

...

Ariana ran into a patrol of merpeople.

In the wizarding world, male merpeople were known as mermen, and females as mermaids. But sadly, neither looked anything like the graceful beauties of legend—they were... an acquired taste, to put it kindly.

Before the merpeople could even attack, Ariana struck first, thoroughly disgusted. Her Obscurus reacted slightly to the water, but it was still powerful. In just a few swift moves, she beat them bloody and tossed their bodies into a tangled pile of weeds.

...

Fleur ran into a school of squids. No one knew if they were related to that giant one, but they sprayed her with ink all the same. In an instant, the elegant mermaid turned into a pitch-black silhouette.

Furious, Fleur forgot all about the treasure hunt. She rounded up the entire squid swarm into a wriggling mass and slammed them into the lakebed, burying them outright just to vent her anger.

The most laughable situation, though, belonged to Daphne.

Her terrible sense of direction went completely out of control in the Black Lake. For a full half hour, she swam back and forth within the same patch of water, utterly unable to tell one direction from another, darting around like a headless fly.

In the water, she was... Zoro.

...

..

"Man... that’s rough. Just brutal... Kekeke~"

Tom’s grin was impossible to hide, bright as a blooming flower.

Seeing everyone else suffer put him at ease. It meant those two-plus hours he’d spent messing around underwater yesterday hadn’t been wasted.

The contestants were clearly getting a lot out of this!

"Tom, could you at least try to rein it in a little? Stop looking so pleased with yourself."

Hermione and Astoria, sitting beside him, didn’t know what to say. This guy wasn’t even pretending anymore. He could watch Fleur get humiliated and still smile like it was the highlight of his day.

And it wasn’t just him. The little one in his arms was just as bad.

Gabrielle was holding up her iCodex, snapping pictures of Fleur’s ink-covered state and saving them, giggling like a delighted little hen.

"Who said I’m gloating?" Tom forced his smile down just a bit. "I’m feeling... gratified. I see perseverance in the champions, a refusal to give up. This will help them grow. I’m definitely not smiling because my prank worked."

"So you admit it was a prank!" Hermione shot back. He wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore.

Astoria sighed. "Tom, you’re laughing now, but once my sister and the others finish competing, they’re definitely coming after you."

"I’ll protect big brother!"

Gabrielle immediately hugged Tom’s arm, declaring her loyalty. Her chubby little face was full of determination, and it was hard not to smile at the sight.

Tom reached out and pinched her cheek. "Good. With Gabrielle around, I’ve got nothing to worry about."

"You little flatterer." Astoria couldn’t resist reaching over and giving Gabrielle’s cheek a playful squeeze, only letting go when the girl puffed her lips out in protest. "At most, you can stop your sister. What about mine?"

"Then you go stop her!" Gabrielle blurted out.

"I can’t handle her." Astoria shook her head dramatically, putting on a scared expression. "Don’t tell me you’ve never been beaten up by your sister before."

That hit a nerve. Gabrielle instantly recalled all those times she’d been mischievous and ended up getting "suppressed" by Fleur. Her face turned pale.

Seeing that, Astoria couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing. Hermione wasn’t doing much better.

Tom laughed too, but he wasn’t about to let the little girl tear up, so he quickly soothed her. "Don’t worry, Gabrielle. Once the competition ends, I’ll take you and Astoria, and we’ll make a run for it. By the time we come back, they’ll have cooled off."

Astoria blinked. She hadn’t heard about this plan. "Where are we going?"

Tom leaned close and whispered in her ear, "Your house. That issue in your body needs to be completely dealt with."

By now, Astoria’s condition had almost been fully stabilized. The potions were ready. Tom had no intention of dragging things out any longer. He planned to finish it in one go and eliminate the blood curse entirely.

The pocket world he controlled looked no different from the outside, but it was still a magically expanded space. If the disturbance got too big, it might destabilize everything.

So this time, he planned to take Astoria back to the Greengrass family estate. Ancient pure-blood manors like that weren’t simple places. Over centuries, they had developed a kind of intangible power, something that quietly protected and watched over their descendants.

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