Chapter 86: Aquatic Showdown, and Exposed!

Sitting by a bank in the Great Lake, soaking his feet in the cold water, Quinn readied himself for another deep dive into the it's depths.

It had been a few weeks since Quinn had tried to get close to the Kraken; he had been practicing his swimming near the surface, away from the Kraken's main body. He had been practicing his magic so that when he did approach the Kraken once more, he wouldn't be helpless.

"Well, I'm not exactly helpless. I could injure it and take my chance... Yeah, but that would probably not go my or the Kraken's way," grumbled Quinn, while swinging his soaking feet in the lake water.

Quinn was sure that he could reasonably injure the Kraken; last year, while under the sin curse, Quinn had learned a lot of destructive magic and had practiced it even more. The Room of Requirement had dealt with a lot of abuse from Quinn, who had a penchant for destruction.

So Quinn was sure that if he turned his magic against the Kraken, he would make the legendary monster feel a lot of pain and rip and detach at least one of its tentacles from its body.

But at the same time, Quinn wasn't sure what he would do when it came to defending. The water was the Kraken's territory, his home ground, and Quinn was an outsider, playing an away game, which meant that Kraken had the field advantage. Quinn had done some mental 'simulations'— that is, he had imagined how things would go if he fought the Kraken. In lots of them, he ended up crushed by a Kraken's tentacle or eaten by the Kraken or being repeatedly smacked into the lakebed till he was broken and dead.

"I wanted to say that our battle would be legendary," smirked Quinn but sighed while shaking his head. "Alas, it won't happen... but, maybe! — Naw, it won't happen..."

Quinn stood up and walked into the lake, water climbing up his body as he wadded forward. When his feet no longer touched the ground and had swum a distance from the shore, he stopped himself from floating and let himself sink into the water, disappearing from the surface.

In the deep blue and somewhat murky green, he closed his eyes and held his breath. Afterward, Quinn brought his hands to the sides of his neck and sunk deeper into the water. Magic flowed in his body and thrummed as it showed its charm.

Quinn opened his mouth and let water flow in, and a few seconds later, bubbles emerged from beneath Quinn's hand.

He opened his eyes and put away his hands from his neck, which revealed three large slits just below his ears, flapping in the cold air.

Gills were a respiratory organ found in many aquatic organisms that extracted dissolved oxygen from water and expelled carbon dioxide. Gills were tissues that were like short threads, protein structures called filaments. Each filament contained a blood capillary network that provided a large surface area for exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Human Transfiguration was a sub-branch of Transfiguration and a kind of transformation where one transfigures human body parts or an entire human being into another form. Human Transfiguration on oneself was an arduous process because you added organic parts to the human body that weren't part of the original human physiology. If not performed correctly and carefully, then the caster would be in a world of complications.

Adding gills to himself for oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange under the water was a simple enough idea that Quinn borrowed from Harry Potter and Viktor Krum's performance in the second task of the Triwizard tournament.

Harry had used Gillyweed, a magical plant, to achieve underwater breathing. When eaten, it gave the consumer gills, allowing them to breathe underwater and webbing between the fingers and toes, allowing them to swim underwater with ease.

Viktor Krum chose to attempt human transfigure on himself and tried to transform himself into a shark but managed only to transfigure his head. Still, it worked well enough for him to reach the merpeople village because the shark head had gills that allowed him to breathe underwater.

So Quinn combined both of those examples and gave him a pair of gills without turning into another species. He studied the anatomy of the gills from multiple aquatic species before he was able to clearly understand how the gills worked.

From there on, Quinn had to transfigure gill structures with filaments that had a blood capillary network. He connected those capillaries to his own natural blood vessel network. Finally, he blocked his windpipe so that the water wouldn't go in his lungs and diverted to the gills, completing an artificial aquatic respiratory system in his body.

The first gulp of icy lake water felt like the breath of life. He took another swallow of water and felt it pass smoothly through his gills, sending oxygen back to his brain. The oxygen circulation was established, and Quinn's body got a healthy dose of oxygen from the water.

'Alright, everything seems to be working fine,' thought Quinn, intaking more water to suck the oxygen out of the liquid. The gill flaps closed when Quinn took in water, and his mouth shut when the gill flaps opened to let out the water.

'Good, let's go.'

Quinn's magic leaked into the surrounding water, causing it to react with a short wave of vibration before it settled down to normalcy, but Quinn knew that it wasn't back to normal.

With a single thought, the water reacted and pushed Quinn forward. He left behind a jet of water as Quinn's speed in water increased, and he zoomed across the lake towards the largest resident of the area.

If you looked closely, it'd be possible to see Quinn covered in a teardrop-shaped envelope of calm water, as the turbulent water around that stable envelope made Quinn move inside the lake.

After practicing for a few weeks, Quinn had learned a lot about using water magic to practice underwater swimming. Quinn had found that he needed to maintain calm water around him, as steady and stable water was ideal for proper oxygen circulation.

The turbulent water hindered Quinn's ability to take in water, so to solve that, he tried many options, like covering his face with stable water, but that failed the integrity test and would turn turbulent after a certain speed.

After many tests and configurations, Quinn had found that covering his entire body with a teardrop-shaped stable water cover was better, as not only did it pass the integrity test. It also spared Quinn's body from the water-resistance he experienced while learning how to use water magic for swimming.

'Hydrodynamics for the win,' smiled Quinn as he exerted more magic, pushing his speed up as he moved towards the Kraken.

What previously took tens of minutes of physical swimming, now with the help of water magic, it took under five minutes for Quinn to start from his usual starting point to where the Kraken usually resided.

'There it is,' thought Quinn as a tentacle entered his sight.

Quinn stopped at a distance away from the tentacle and took a moment to form his plan. This would be his second encounter with the Kraken, although this time his goal was to at least make sure that the Kraken didn't touch him. That was all he wanted to accomplish today.

'Let's start.' Quinn cracked his knuckles underwater, and the water once again formed a teardrop around Quinn. Quinn, then, contracted his body before extending it straight and shot himself towards the Kraken.

Immediately, the Kraken's tentacle twitched as it felt a tiny human moving towards him at a faster speed than before. The next second, two tentacles rose from the lake floor and shot towards the smaller figure in the water.

Quinn, who registered the twin tentacle pincer attack immediately shot upward to avoid a tentacle. The next second, though, the other tentacle went upon Quinn, ready to grab him.

'Oh, no, I'm not going to the surface soon,' thought Quinn. The water magic showed its maneuverability advantages as the teardrop cover narrowed.

Water forces from different directions came into play, and Quinn moved towards the incoming tentacle, intending to escape it's grasp with an aggressive approach. Quinn and the tentacle close on to each other, and at the last second, Quinn spun around the cylindrical body of the tentacle, leaving behind coils of water propulsions around the tentacle's body as he zoomed forward.

'YES!' celebrated Quinn as he put in more magic into speed and zoomed towards the Kraken's main body while intending to see its face.

But the thing about tentacles is that they don't work like hands; they weren't single jointed limbs and could fold and turn at any point of their length.

And the Kraken knew it better than anyone else. So when Quinn escaped its first attempt, both tentacles immediately moved, turning towards Quinn and darting with speed to catch up with Quinn like homing missiles.

Quinn, who was zooming forward, felt something behind him and saw that the tentacles he dodged were once again on his tail, and they were much faster than Quinn, so the distance was shortening as he watched them.

He knew running away wasn't going to work for long, so he decided to use another branch of magic, a magic that had a massive advantage in his current situation.

Turning his body towards the tentacles while still moving away from them, Quinn took a deep breath of water and called upon his magic. The magic from his magical core shot out into the water and waited for Quinn to give the command.

Quinn waited — he waited for the tentacles to get closer and closer to each other as they moved nearer to Quinn, patiently watching for the right moment. When they were just about the distance Quinn wanted them to be, he dwelled deep into his memories.

'... Ice.'

That single word brought him the memories of the chilling freeze of the Icy vault, all the time he had spent in the area, feeling the cold seep into his bones. Just for the moment, Quinn felt that he was back in the Icy vault, working on the snowflake icicle, trying to get inside the vault.

'Ice.'

With that thought, the magic got the command it was waiting for, and it made the wish come true in reality.

Ice bloomed in the Great lake, two giant bands of ice formed around the two tentacles, working as cuffs when the ice from the band shot towards each other, meeting to lock the tentacles with each other, causing them to slow down and snatch against each other.

In an environment where water was everywhere, where the base material for making ice was in so much abundance, Quinn's ice magic worked with greater ease. He was able to push it to greater heights than he had ever reached.

More and more ice bands formed around the surface of the tentacles, weighing them down as they locked them to each other.

With a smirk on his face, Quinn raised an arm up, and a gigantic upward curving ice barrier formed just as a third tentacle tried to capture Quinn from above.

'Ha! I was expecting that!' reveled Quinn as he made a fist with his raised hand.

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The third tentacle, which collided with the barrier, started to freeze as ice formed on its surface, climbing up at an alarming rate.

But the next things Quinn saw wiped the smirk off Quinn's face.

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The initial two tentacles, sinking down because of the ice, moved and tugged to opposite sides. Immediately, there were cracks and crevices appeared in the ice constraints.

Quinn's eyes widened as he saw the cracks in the ice. In response, he concentrated his magic to fill those cracks with more ice.

But as he did that, he felt something on his side, and when Quinn moved his eyes to the side, he saw a fourth tentacle darting towards him.

'Motherfuc-!' Quinn tried to curse as he formed an ice sphere around him, and just as the ice sphere was about to complete, the collision with the fourth tentacle happened, sending the ice sphere with Quinn inside rushing to the opposite direction.

"SHiT!" he shouted, but underwater all that did was to create a gurgle.

The whirling ice sphere stole Quinn's balance, and he tumbled inside for a good couple of seconds before he exerted magic and dissolved the ice sphere, leaving Quinn's body flailing.

It took another few seconds before Quinn could regain balance, but he was still moving uncontrollably. Turning back to the direction he was drifting in an attempt to stop himself, Quinn came into another shock.

'Crap!'

- (Scene Break) -

The Slytherin common room was a dungeon-like room with greenish lamps and chairs. This dungeon extended part way under the lake, giving the light in the room a green tinge.

The room had lots of low-backed, black and dark green, button-tufted, leather sofas, skulls, and dark wood cupboards. One of the wooden tables had a Wizard's Chess set on it.

The common room was decorated with tapestries featuring the adventures of famous Medieval Slytherins. It had quite a dignified atmosphere, albeit quite a cold one.

Daphne Greengrass, her sister, Astoria Greengrass, and Tracey Davis were sitting in there. Tracey and Astoria were playing a game of Wizard's Chess while Daphne was reading a book.

There was no one else in the spacious area. So except for the occasional cross-talk between Tracy and Astoria, the only sounds in the room were the ticking of a clock, moving of chess pieces, and turning pages.

The three occupants were comfortable in the room's tranquility until a heavy thump broke it.

All three girls jumped in their chairs and looked at each other before hastily looking towards the source of the shattering thump.

The three girls saw a person pressed up flat against the glass panels that showed the underwater view of the Great lake.

Tracy blinked a couple of times, squinted her eyes to thoroughly look at the person, and her eyes opened when she recognized the person.

"Quinn!"

The Greengrass sister's jaw dropped when it clicked in their minds, and now they could see that the man dressed only in shorts was the Ravenclaw, and their friend, Quinn West.

"What in Slytherin's name is he doing there?" asked Astoria as she moved towards the glass panels.

"Are those slits on his neck?" pointed out Daphne when she noticed his gills.

Tracy and Astoria turned to Daphne and looked at her with a face that said, 'That is the first thing you notice?'

Quinn, who was on the other side of the glass, opened his eyes to see his three Slytherin friends.

The three girls watched as Quinn's eyes widened when he noticed them. They saw his jaw drop in shock and then the banging of his head against the glass.

Quinn slapped his hand against the glass, and they saw the reddish-yellow glowing words form on the glass.

「NOT A WORD TO ANYONE.」

After a moment, another line formed below the first line.

「NOT A WORD.」

The words stayed there for a few seconds before they disappeared, and the girls saw Quinn push against the glass and swim away.

"... He didn't say goodbye," commented Astoria as Quinn disappeared away from their sights.

This time the older girls looked at Astoria and made faces that said, 'That is what you say first?'

Quinn's sudden 'visit' surprised the three girls enough for them not to notice that he didn't have a wand in his hand.

At least then, that is.

- (Scene Break) -

Quinn didn't encounter the Kraken during his journey back to the shore. Just before he got out of the water, Quinn's transfigured gills disappeared, and so did other modifications.

He brought his face out of the water and took a couple of deep breaths through his mouth till his lungs were once again filled with oxygen-rich air and performing as normal.

Walking out of the lake, Quinn laid down on the ground and groaned for a good minute before opening his eyes and sighing.

"I just wanted a peaceful year, and now this happens."

While he was sure that Daphne, Tracy, and Astoria wouldn't speak about it to anyone else, he didn't want them to know.

A secret was strongest when only one person knew about it.

Quinn had no plan of telling them anything about the vault or what he was actually doing there, but he was sure that he was going to have a talk with them.

'I need to think about what I am going to tell them.'

Quinn sighed, and then his mind went back to today's encounter with the Kraken.

"Damn it, that Kraken is a toughie. The number of tentacles is just not fair. I need to get more practice," sighed Quinn before some other things. "I need to change some things. Yeah, definitely change some things."

The second encounter with the Kraken ended up a failure.

Quinn West - MC - Fought the tentacles.

Hogwarts' giant squid - Kraken - Tricky tiny human, hmph!

Daphne Greengrass - Slytherin #1 - Slits? But why..?

Tracy Davis - Slytherin #2 - It is too cold for a swim, isn't it?

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Astoria Greengrass - Slytherin #3 - Didn't speak goodbye, how rude.

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