Their magical spell || BSD × Hogwarts AU

Chapter XII.

Talk by the lake
__________________________________

   It felt like Ranpo has only blinked and suddenly there he was, on the tall platforms above the Black lake where everyone has gathered to observe the execution of the Second Task.
  There was nothing much to do though. The Task required the champions to dive on the bottom of the lake and find something they've lost with one hour of a time limit - or that's how Dumbledore described it -. For those who came to cheer, it only meant standing around in freezing cold for said time until the Task comes to finish.

  Some people still managed to take it more optimistically than others... For example few students not far away from Ranpo were debating on who has the highest chance of winning or what has been lost in their case; as if it wasn't obvious enough already.

  Yet there were those who went through existencial crisis, like Atsushi who couldn't stop worrying about Dazai and Sigma who couldn't stop worrying about Fyodor for a change, as well as walking around in panic, trying to find the white-haired clown that was nowhere to be seen; later the two of them managed to bond over that burden of their.

  Ranpo has already predicted everything that Task stood for as well as the winner, so the upcoming forty minutes would give him no benefit whatsoever...
  That didn't change the fact that he was supposed to keep his mouth shut, not to spoil anything and stay there to watch anyway, because school couldn't allow even one kid to run around unobserved.
  He tried to convince Fukuzawa to let him at least walk around for a bit - which was pretty unusual, since he's still considered walking annoying -, but the silver-haired man refused to let him go alone because of his poor sense of direction and sole concern for the boy. Neither Mushi nor Yosano were up for joining him for said walk and therefore doomed him to be stuck there in boredom as well...

  They were twenty minutes in and Ranpo couldn't bring himself to give a shit.
  This unimpressed behavior clearly ran in the family, since Fukuzawa also looked even more angered and dead inside than usual - yet still kept on refusing to lift his spirit during the damn walk he could go on with his son! -.
  Probably the only one from the adoptive family who showed any kind of emotion towards the Task was Atsushi who was still an anxious mess, currently switching from nervously clinging onto Akutagawa, and after the eyebrowless Slytherin shook him off, he went back to collectively stress himself out with Sigma who looked like he was about to cry.
  And then cycle continued on and on, bringing Ranpo to determine decision of dragging both Dazai and Fyodor to the two anxious babies to comfort them and make them - with all honesty and respect - shut up as soon as the Task ends, or else they won't be the only ones that will lose their minds that afternoon.

  Twenty-two minutes... God, this is getting annoying.
  If no mystery whatsoever manages to surprise Ranpo, there was only one person who would be willing to present him a better and more challenging one or simply bring him other form of entertainment (no second meaning intended or referenced). But the current biggest mystery brought by him was where in the hell even was he?
  Ranpo has looked around basically every platform there was, but where-
  He froze in place.
  Could he have been the one taken away? And submerged on the bottom of the lake?!
  No... no, no, no, no, no...
  That wasn't as he's deducted- He is never wrong! It was true that Edgar brought up a lot of mysterious feelings he couldn't name inside him, but Ranpo couldn't have been wrong of his potential part in such an obvious mystery like that damn Task!

  He didn't know why - no, scratch that... he knew bit too well why, but couldn't admit just how much exactly it was -, but knowing that someone could treasure him so much to use him as a bait during the Task-! And what if the champion - Agatha - couldn't make it in time or she wouldn't be strong enough to get him out, what then?