"Malfoy really has thrown in with the Gryffindors. Look at that—Gryffindor's come running to stick up for him."
"This time's perfect. We'll deal with that Ashbourne over the Black Lake and let him soak there for a while."
The Slytherin Quidditch players glanced back at the figures chasing them—Theodore and Harry—and their eyes filled with open contempt.
"Riding those pathetic old school brooms and they still think they can catch us?"
"Our team brooms are the best of all four Houses."
"Ease off a bit. Don't make it too hopeless for them."
At the same time, Harry was sharply aware of the difference in raw speed between the two sides.
Flint and the others up ahead had actually slowed down—obviously planning to deal with them once they reached open sky over the lake.
Even for prodigy Harry, his current flying skills simply couldn't create a qualitative gap against trained Quidditch players. Which meant broom performance was a gulf they simply couldn't cross.
"Theo, I don't think we can catch up," Harry shouted.
Draco, struggling to keep pace, looked outright despairing.
Theodore, though, didn't so much as twitch. His voice carried back to the other two, clear and steady.
"Stick on my tail. Ride my slipstream."
"Who said a bad broom has to fly slow?"
Harry blinked. Draco did too.
But Harry's trust in Theodore was absolute. He immediately tucked in behind him.
Draco gritted his teeth and dropped in behind Harry.
Theodore narrowed his eyes—and lightly stirred Command Wind & Thunder.
In an instant, the air ahead—once pure resistance—seemed to bow down before him.
Wind, in Theodore's hands, was a toy. A courtier racing to keep up with its king.
A wild gale wrapped around all three of them. The brooms might be rubbish—fine. The wind would make up the difference.
Harry and Draco's eyes went wide as the world in front of them began to blur.
Fast. Too fast.
Their school brooms, already pushed to the limit, suddenly behaved as if they'd been dosed with some illegal performance potion. Their speed climbed and climbed; the scenery on both sides ripped past at a pace they'd never experienced.
The usual rattling and wobbling of the old sticks vanished, smoothed out beneath the lift of the airflow.
Brooms that had been in service longer than most students had been alive flew as smooth and responsive as brand-new models.
And the distance between them and Flint's lot shrank at a terrifying rate.
Flint and the others looked back—and their pupils constricted.
"How are they that fast?"
For a heartbeat, they felt like high-end racing cars suddenly watching a clapped-out delivery van roar past them on the straight. It made no sense at all.
Flint and his teammates pushed their brooms desperately, wringing every last scrap of speed out of them. They just managed to reach the far edge of the Black Lake—right as Theodore's trio came storming up behind.
If flying skill was about the same, then broom performance was what decided things.
Now, though, the roles had reversed.
The boy they'd toyed with earlier—Draco Malfoy—shot past like a drawn sword, slicing through the air right in front of the Slytherin team. The gust he kicked up made several of them squint and flinch.
"I've had enough."
"Give me back my pendant, or I'll make sure you learn exactly what happens when you anger a Malfoy!"
The Quidditch players only sneered harder.
"Spineless Malfoy."
"Pure-blood traitor."
"Disgrace to Slytherin!"
Draco let out a furious roar. He yanked his broom into a sharp climb from below and shot up diagonally, right into one chaser's face—then swung his fist.
Thud.
The chaser took the punch square on the jaw. His vision went black; he toppled sideways off his broom and dropped like a stone.
Theodore snapped his staff up and flicked out a casual Wingardium Leviosa.
He wasn't about to let the idiot die—but two broken legs would be the least of that boy's problems.
At the same time, Theodore spun the staff in his hand, eyes turning cold as he looked over the rest of the Slytherin team.
"You lot cling like cursed barnacles, don't you?"
"Seems I've been far too gentle."
"If I don't break at least a dozen bones between you today, we're not done."
Then he became lightning.
Theodore flashed back and forth between the clustered players, his staff a blur of overlapping afterimages. One by one, the Slytherin chasers and beaters were clubbed off their brooms and sent plummeting to join their teammate below.
In the space of a few breaths, only Marcus Flint was left.
Flint's face was a mask of panic. Clutching the pendant in one fist, he suddenly hurled it down toward the dark water of the Black Lake and kicked his broom in the opposite direction.
Harry and Draco, both born Seekers down to their bones, reacted without thinking. They plunged after the falling pendant in perfect sync.
Theodore cut across Flint's path instead, his staff spinning lazily in one hand.
"Looks like your teeth weren't enough to leave you with a lasting memory," he said mildly. "This time, I'll give you something different."
The next second, a storm of staff-shadows enveloped Flint.
Theodore didn't stop until he'd broken what felt like half the bones in Flint's body—just enough that the older boy would be confined to the hospital wing for the rest of the term. Only then did Theodore dump him off the broom like a sack of rubbish.
He didn't spare Flint another look. He whipped his broom around again and shot for the lake.
Harry and Draco were still straining desperately for the falling pendant. For a moment, they almost had it.
But without Theodore's wind at their backs, the school brooms were painfully slow. Their outstretched fingers brushed the chain—then slipped past, empty.
They could only watch as the pendant vanished beneath the surface of the Black Lake.
Draco let out a raw, helpless cry.
"No!"
Harry, though, had already realised the next problem.
"Draco, we have to pull up—we're going to crash straight into the lake!"
The water below was an endless black mirror. Draco swallowed and abandoned the thought of diving after the pendant.
He and Harry both hauled back on their broom handles with everything they had, trying to drag their trajectories up.
But manoeuvres like that were hard enough once in a while. Doing several in quick succession, on battered old brooms that had been in service for years, was asking far too much.
Both broomsticks began to creak in protest, wood whining under the strain as they skidded and wobbled on course for the lake's surface.
On the shore, the Gryffindors who'd come pounding down to the Black Lake broke into horrified shouts.
Harry and Draco were seconds away from plunging into the water—
A roaring gale ripped across the lake.
Theodore streaked past them like a thunderbolt trailing storm-winds, the blast he carried kicking up a crashing wave that surged beneath their brooms and buoyed them back up.
The screams on shore flipped instantly into cheers and wild whistling.
The little lions were dazzled. This was, without question, the most spectacular—and most dangerous—piece of flying they'd ever seen.
Theodore barely heard them.
His gaze was locked on the depths of the Black Lake.
Night-Sight burned in his eyes, piercing the dark water; he could see far more than any ordinary student.
Just now, he'd seen something vast flicker past in the depths.
That alone wasn't strange. The Black Lake was full of big fish and stranger creatures; a massive shape here or there wasn't exactly news.
But the key point was this—
At the edge of his vision, the System pane shimmered as fresh text appeared.
[While wandering near the Jade Void Palace, you are fortunate enough to glimpse a figure wreathed in the Dao passing by.]
[High crown and wide sleeves; auspicious clouds trailing; his features cannot be looked upon directly. This is Yuanshi Tianzun's avatar—a Saint's shadow!]
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