After reading what her sister had written, Astoria was quite tempted by the idea.
Normally, they always sat inside the common room looking out at the scenery beneath the lake.
Now that they had the opportunity, how could they resist seeing things from the opposite perspective?
After calculating the remaining time and confirming that they still had plenty to spare, the two changed direction and swam deeper underwater.
However, after swimming for a while, they discovered a rather serious problem.
They seemed to be lost.
Finding the few small windows of the Slytherin common room somewhere at the bottom of the enormous Black Lake was no easy task.
It was almost like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Just then, the two of them heard a voice.
"The common room is this way."
Both girls instantly reacted like cats whose tails had been stepped on, every hair on their bodies practically standing on end.
Suddenly hearing a voice underwater was certainly frightening.
Both of them immediately reached for their wands, but they quickly recognised the owner of the voice.
[Rhys? (☆▽☆)!!] Daphne deliberately added two punctuation marks to convey her feelings.
"Yes. You two really aren't worried about missing the final deadline, are you?" Rhys couldn't help commenting on how carefree the sisters were.
It would be hilarious if they became so engrossed in searching for the common room windows underwater that they missed the competition deadline.
[It's fine. I brought a timer. It'll go off automatically at fifty minutes!] Astoria pulled a golden pocket watch from her clothes, showing that she had already taken every precaution.
Daphne gave a sheepish grin, indicating that she was simply following her younger sister.
Seeing that Astoria was still as reliable as ever, Rhys finally relaxed.
The two girls looked at Rhys, who moved underwater with complete freedom as though there were no difference between being in the lake and being on land, and a trace of envy flashed in their eyes.
There was nothing Rhys could do about that. Unless someone possessed a water domain, no one could move like he did.
"Follow me. I'll take you to see the common room from outside." Rhys gestured for them to follow behind him.
For Rhys, figuring out their position and locating the common room was much easier.
He swam toward the castle for a while, then quickly found the common room's location through the information carried by the water.
After choosing the right direction and swimming for several minutes, several ornate floor-to-ceiling windows appeared before the three of them.
The windows had an old-fashioned design, and their frames were covered with the marks of age.
"There. That's it. Don't get too close. There are spells attached to them." Rhys waved to the two girls, indicating that they could go over and take a look.
Rhys himself had gone to quite a bit of trouble to obtain those large panes of glass for the Slytherin common room.
Glass might be cheap in modern society, but back then, those floor-to-ceiling windows had been genuine luxury items of the highest order.
Quite a few pure-blood children sorted into Slytherin had originally been noisy and full of themselves, but the moment they saw the common room windows, they invariably fell silent.
Huge, transparent panes of glass!
Back then, they had been one of the House's most impressive sights.
Through the windows, Daphne and Astoria could clearly see the interior of the common room.
Armchairs, the fireplace, the marble floor...
The familiar furniture and decorations suddenly looked fresh again from this unusual perspective.
Still, there was only so much novelty to it. After watching for a while, the sisters gradually lost interest.
[We should head back.] Astoria took out the timer, indicating that they did not have much time left.
"Mm. Let's go."
The three of them began swimming toward the surface together.
A few minutes later, all three poked their heads out of the lake at the same time.
The instant Rhys surfaced, he sensed that something was wrong.
Then he saw more than a dozen spells flying toward him.
With a wave of his hand, a wall of water formed in front of him.
The next second, more than a dozen ripples spread across its surface.
Every spell fired by the hunters on shore was blocked.
"Oh? Interesting."
Rhys quickly understood what they were trying to do and sincerely thought that they had finally discovered the proper way to play this competition.
If he really were an ordinary contestant, he would have done the same thing.
Astoria's eyes lit up.
She felt that she should hurry ashore and join them.
If they were allowed to set up an interception here, then clearly the judges permitted this method!
This was the perfect opportunity to eliminate the other contestants!
Once they finished this job, the rest of the competition would practically be secured!
However, before Rhys or Astoria could move, Daphne acted first.
She shot onto the shore like a bolt of lightning.
The spells aimed at her either missed or were blocked by her defensive magic.
Once she reached land, the hunters immediately stopped attacking, but Daphne had no intention of doing the same.
Both her hands turned crimson red, and the intense heat around her movements even caused the air to shimmer.
Spells flew from her one after another like a barrage of cannon fire.
The hunters were caught completely off guard, and several of them were blasted away by Daphne's spells.
This was the first time they had encountered someone like her!
Couldn't she see that they were helping reduce the pressure on her?
Just as they prepared to retaliate, they suddenly realised that the ground beneath their feet was becoming scorching hot.
"What's going on?"
"Get out of here!"
The previously orderly formation by the lakeshore immediately fell into chaos.
Watching Daphne charge ashore and start fighting everyone, Rhys and Astoria sighed in perfect unison.
What else could they do?
Now that Daphne had already started, they could hardly stand off to the side and watch.
Rhys casually cast several Disarming Charms, knocking the wands from the hands of contestants trying to fight back.
Astoria also conveniently helped her sister deal with several opponents.
What followed was Daphne's personal performance.
In front of the entire school and the Headmasters of the other seven Great Schools of Magic, she defeated every contestant who had attacked her from the shore and threw them one by one into the Black Lake.
Any resistance before her was useless.
The lucky ones were merely knocked unconscious by her spells.
The unlucky ones had to endure her fists as well!
"Th-this..." Karkaroff stared in stunned disbelief.
When he saw Daphne seize the completion chests belonging to his own students and throw those into the lake as well, he could no longer sit still.
"Albus, shouldn't we..."
"This doesn't violate the competition rules either, does it?" A faint smile appeared at the corner of Dumbledore's mouth.
"But, but..." Karkaroff felt his vision darkening.
As time had passed, quite a few Durmstrang students had joined the hunters by the lakeside.
If this little girl kept beating them down like this, Durmstrang might be left with Krum as its only remaining contestant for the rest of the competition!
"Looks like this young lady has had an 'inspired idea' of her own!" Madame Maxime added at exactly the right moment.
Karkaroff's vision went black.
He collapsed back into his seat.
____
12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI