"Boom——"
"Again?"
"No, don't, stop it! It's going to crack! Ahhh, it's already leaking! Quick, someone please, quickly come save me, save us—ah, can't, can't let it continue like this! Wuwuwuwu..."
"Stop whining, if I were you, I would have already run. Now, ha, it's too late for anything."
Draco Malfoy's eyes were vacant, a desolate smile on his face. He looked up, gazing at the nearby glass starting to crack inch by inch. The deep blue lake water streamed through the crevices into the Slytherin common room. There might be some magic or restriction there, allowing the cracked glass to withstand the lake's pressure from beneath the Black Lake—
But whatever it was, it had now lost its effect.
As for why Malfoy knew this?
Because he wasn't deaf or blind, the physical defects possibly resulting from the Wizard Nobility's close marriages had very fortunately not appeared in him. At this moment, he was watching wide-eyed as the lake water continually pressed against the glass that had reached its limit. The fine cracking sound of glass was hair-raising.
The boy suddenly had some regrets about being sorted into Slytherin. After living in the common room beneath the Black Lake for three or four years, he hadn't gained any benefits while rheumatism and arthritis didn't let him off—
And now, he might even drown at the bottom of the lake.
As for why the Slytherin common room suddenly threatened to collapse, Malfoy didn't know the exact reason. But he could roughly guess some things; at the very least, the few booms just now couldn't be unrelated—
Starting twenty minutes ago, the castle would intermittently emit a dull booming sound, accompanied by powerful tremors that almost affected the entire castle—
The little wizards of Slytherin were all discussing the source of the sound:
Some said it was a giant Inferi flipping over underground in the castle.
Others said it was the giant squid in the Black Lake reaching menopause.
Some also speculated the sound might be related to the next Eight-Team Tournament event, as many were rumored to believe the next event would take place in the Black Lake.
Then, before they could figure anything out, a Slytherin student just discovered a crack in the glass. But before he could shout, the crack rapidly expanded due to another sudden tremor—
Then, the little wizard who discovered this scrambled to escape, though there wasn't much of an issue initially—
But, as everyone knows, a crowd in panic is unable to organize into orderly action.
Moreover, it was a group of Slytherins in a panic now, and so the door got blocked, and many pure-blood little wizards who hadn't developed their brains just focused on saving themselves, neither yielding to others...nor allowing others to pass.
Thus, the door, originally only blocked by their subjective unwillingness to move, got completely impassable, and they couldn't make way even if they wanted to.
Watching Crabbe and Goyle howling at the door with a group of little wizards, Malfoy felt utterly exhausted.
He gripped his magic wand, ready for one last desperate struggle, but before that—
"Aren't you afraid?"
He turned around, looking at the girl still sitting on the sofa reading a book, seemingly ignoring these upheavals, and asked instinctively.
"Afraid of what?"
Daphne glanced at him, she looked up at the ceiling that had already begun trembling and shedding dust (while the little wizards on the other side screamed even more soulfully). The girl sighed, "What's the point of thinking so much? Minor issues aren't worth running from, major ones are unavoidable—rather than dwelling on these things, why not think about what to eat for dinner—"
"...What if there's no dinner?"
"Then wonder whether to come out head or feet first next time you're born."
"..."
What a beautiful mental state.
Malfoy suddenly wasn't nervous anymore. He leaned against another sofa by the fireplace, also gazing at the lush green lake water outside and sighed, "Makes sense." But then, the boy curiously looked again at the girl who had resumed reading, "I remember, you weren't always so... uh..."
"Giving up?"
"Pretty much..."
Malfoy remembered, the blonde girl in front of him was the eldest daughter of the Greengrass family. Her father knew his father, and after all, they were all members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Aside from that redhead bunch of Beings, the other families had fairly good relations.
He had visited the Greengrass family's villa when he was younger. He remembered the girl had a sister, seemed to have started school last year, sorted into Hufflepuff House.
The girl was known as a mischief maker in school, along with the Gryffindor Weasley girl and the Ravenclaw "Crazy Girl." The three of them always caused trouble in school together with a Niffler leading them. Filch was rumored to have even favored them over the Weasley Twins recently; that Niffler-led organization seemed to have become his "new favorite"—
However, Filch's cat was often reported to cover for them, though this was of course all hearsay.
"Not bad, perhaps I've seen through it." Daphne sighed, said gloomily, her dull voice pulling the boy back from his wild thoughts, "…My dad is sick."
"Mr. Greengrass?"
But are these things related? Malfoy blinked, waiting for more.
"Mom said something to me behind Dad's back, our family actually has a curse hidden in our bloodline. This curse makes it hard for us to live past thirty-five, and Dad just turned thirty-five this year—there's no way to lift this curse, and since then I've felt..."
The girl turned a page of the book, with the shake of the pages, bits of the ceiling had already turned to small stones, "Living is fine, dying is also okay—" She looked up, her green eyes quietly gazing at Malfoy, "You probably wouldn't understand that feeling—"
"Actually, I understand... a little."
"?"
"...Because we're pretty much going to die."
Malfoy wasn't telling the truth because he felt it wasn't yet the time for spilling his heart out.
"...True."
The girl laughed, her light-colored lips slightly pursed.
Listening to the sound of glass shattering more and more urgently, Malfoy took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and shut out the wailing of the little wizards behind him.
"But don't worry, we won't die," the boy muttered gently, "at least let you live until thirty-five, right?"
"?"
"Protego Totalum!"
"Arresto Momentum!"
A translucent barrier rose, a pale blue light shot out from the tip of Malfoy's magic wand, expanding a barrier that could originally cover only three or four people, erecting a tall wall of magic in the middle of the Slytherin Common Room. A crowd of little wizards was dumbfounded by his move, and many fourth-year students even forgot to scream—
Come on, we just entered school together, why are you so ahead of us?
Crabbe and Goyle were even more stunned, like "No, who are you?! Wait, never mind who you are, just don't get down from Malfoy!!"
"This should be enou—"
"Boom boom—"
This time it wasn't an explosion, but a series of dull thuds, and in the next moment, the sound of glass shattering in everyone's ears suddenly ceased. Just as Malfoy thought the first wave of impact was about to arrive, he heard an exclamation—and so he instinctively looked towards the glass, which should have been on the verge of breaking.
One by one, pink suckers appeared in front of everyone. A giant squid stuck its head out from the side of the bed, a pink glow emanating from its body, and the water that had been seeping in finally stopped—this squid was indeed extraordinary.
This was Malfoy's first thought.
Then, the second thought was... Did I just act dramatic while talking? Why do I suddenly feel a bit embarrassed...
"Impedimenta!"
Suddenly, a shout came from the door of the Common Room. The little wizards, originally stuck and unable to move, were instantly blown open by a burst of green light, but before they hit the wall and got hurt, they were gently cushioned by a soothing power. Malfoy instinctively looked back and saw an angry Snape striding into the Common Room.
"Reparo!"
Snape walked to the center of the room, forcefully waved his wand, and the next moment, the broken glass began to restore itself, and the lime and bricks on the ground floated back up. The giant squid outside also realized the situation was resolved, waved its tentacles, and swam away from the window without taking any glass with it—
"Dumbledore! What on earth is happening!"
After doing all this, Snape turned around angrily. It was only then that Malfoy noticed the white-bearded old man, who had entered with Snape and was now curiously observing everything around him—To be honest, even though he'd become the headmaster, he actually hadn't been much to this Common Room.
He truly didn't expect the environment here to be so... damp.
"Don't you get arthritis living here?"
Dumbledore rubbed his knee ruefully, causing the surrounding little wizards to instinctively cover their knees as well.
"Arthritis isn't exactly a... Wait! That's not the point—"
Snape was halfway through his sentence when he finally realized it, "I'm asking what exactly is this..."
"Whose protective spell was this? Not bad..."
Dumbledore walked to the transparent membrane in the center of the room, squinting at it, then praised generously.
"It was Draco Malfoy!"
Daphne raised her hand and said, with the surrounding little wizards echoing one after another. As a result, both Dumbledore and Snape looked at the fourth-year little wizard with astonishment, the latter couldn't help but frown, "...Lucius truly has a good son."
"So, Professor, what's going on here?"
Malfoy's face blushed slightly; he really wasn't used to being looked at this way. The boy could only loudly change the subject.
"...Actually, I just have a guess."
Dumbledore sighed, shook his head a bit helplessly, "I'll go see if I'm right." With that, the old man cheerfully greeted the little wizards around and then turned to leave the Common Room.
Soon, Snape also hurried out. The crowd that had initially surrounded Malfoy asking questions gradually dispersed. Having dealt with everything for a while, Malfoy finally sat back on the sofa, exhaling deeply to relax...
"'But, don't worry, we won't die—'"
And then he heard Daphne reciting his words in a ceremonious tone.
"!"
Shut up!! Without a sound, the boy screamed in his heart.