In Hogwarts, another meeting was being held in the Lair. In fact, they were now happening almost every day; however, while the frequency had increased, the mood hadn't. The atmosphere felt heavy, as if everyone knew something was missing.
"It feels so... weird," Parvati commented, breaking the silence with a sigh. "Without Red, everything is too quiet."
"There's still a monster that petrifies people and we haven't managed to catch it," Tracey added seriously, trying to give importance to the obvious.
"Nah... even so, it doesn't compare to what it would be like with Red," Parvati denied, shrugging. "In a way it's relaxing, but... boring."
"And not everyone is happy about that," Padma interjected, gesturing with a glance towards those who were most affected by his departure.
There was Pansy, from Slytherin, devouring her nails as if they were Honeydukes sweets. She had already had to visit the infirmary because of it, but she couldn't stop. Her mood was so irritable that no one dared to speak more than two sentences to her. Beside her, Millicent was... well, physically "present," but with her gaze lost as if contemplating the existential void.
On the other hand, there was Hermione, buried in mountains of books. She read without pause, as if she wanted to devour the entire library in a single night. No one was sure if she was doing it to find a solution to the mystery, or because she simply couldn't stand the silence Red had left.
Not far from her, Lavender couldn't stop writing, as if she were a supercharged machine. The girls didn't understand why, but she seemed to be channeling some unspent energy in this way. However, she didn't let anyone read what she was writing, which was annoying. Sweating, panting, and with a flushed face, what she was writing must have been surprising enough to make her so excited... but it was better for their innocent minds to never discover it.
Meanwhile, Luna and Ginny were whispering to each other. No one really understood what they were talking about, but at least they seemed content to have each other. A little twisted, yes, but all in all... functional.
Susan, on the other hand, was a separate case. If she continued at that pace, she would make everyone fat. When Hannah and Red, her closest friends, left, she felt devastated. Although the other girls tried to be friendly, she had lost her confidence. She took refuge in the kitchen, constantly baking and bringing food to the others, as if she thought that cooking was the only way to keep their friendship. The girls, not wanting to make her feel bad, kept accepting what she brought, but some were already noticing the extra pounds they were gaining.
"Come on girls, he hasn't been gone that long," Penelope said upon arrival, observing the scene: a scattered group, between discouragement and gluttony.
"Did he write us anything?" Pansy asked immediately, stopping the massacre of her nails just to look up.
"No, Pansy," Penelope replied with resignation. "We wrote to him this morning. It takes about a day for him to respond to us, even if he received it, we would have his response by dusk. Don't push it so much, relax."
"Penelope is right," Cho intervened, standing up with a solemnity. "We wanted to prove that we can solve this mystery without his help, and now is our chance. Stop lamenting and let's strive to put an end to this problem before he comes back."
"Yes, we must do it," Hermione supported, closing her book with a dry thud that resonated throughout the room. "We have to prove to ourselves that we can achieve things without him. We've become too accustomed to him always being there to solve everything... and we don't need him... in that way." She clarified the last part in a murmur, pressing her lips together.
The other girls nodded, each with very different motivations: some were bored of the routine without surprise attacks, without chaos, without Red's spontaneous madness; others, those who missed him the most, were simply looking for something to show him with pride when he returned.
"Okay, where did we leave off?" asked Astoria, who was staying a little apart. She was a year younger than most of them, and although she got along well with Ginny and Luna, they didn't include her in some of their secret topics.
"That there's a possible gorgon hiding somewhere in the Hogwarts grounds," Parvati replied.
"It could be another creature," Padma added, "but we chose the gorgon because... well, it's the most 'regional.' That, or it's something we still don't know."
"Okay, what else?" Pansy asked, with that determined expression of someone who wanted to close the case no matter what, even if it was by headbutting. She was going to present me with the gorgon's head as a house trophy before claiming me.
"Well... nothing else," Padma admitted dejectedly. "We're actually stuck. Even with the attack pattern, we haven't gotten anything, not even a clear suspect."
The girls started to argue from there, repeating the same arguments, blaming each other for details, questioning if they hadn't missed obvious clues. The tension hung in the air like a cloud ready to burst, and Pansy, with her nerves shattered, was the easiest spark to ignite. It didn't escalate, but the feeling of unease was undeniable.
And meanwhile, in silence, a certain writer didn't waste time and poured all of that into her notebook with surprising... creativity.
Lavender's Perverted Writing: "...And so, Emperor Red's harem fell into chaos. Friends against friends, sisters against sisters. The absence of his sacred flesh wand had condemned us. There was no doubt: we women were nothing more than bags of semen, flesh holes that became a complete disaster if we weren't used as sex toys... Our female instincts forced us to become wild beasts the moment a good one wasn't buried in us..."
"Hehehehe…" Lavender let out a silly giggle as she scribbled away, even drooling a little onto the page.
"Lavender? Are you… okay?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lavender looked up and discovered that everyone was staring at her with expressions ranging from horror to sheer bewilderment. She swallowed hard, discreetly wiped the corner of her mouth, and snapped the notebook shut, sitting up straight in a desperate attempt to look normal. Of course, that didn't quite work—there was still that suspicious damp spot, hidden only thanks to her tightly crossed legs.
"So… where were we?" she asked in a strangely neutral tone.
"…Fine," Hermione replied, clearly doubtful but unwilling to push the matter further. She preferred to move on. "Actually, it's not like we're completely stuck."
"Really? So we've got some kind of key lead, right?" Cho jumped in, ready to throw herself into a dangerous adventure even if the fear of the monster still weighed on her.
"We do have a suspect… but we haven't gone to see him because we don't really think it's him," Hermione explained while sketching the outline of a person with a big question mark on the board. "Still, we're at a dead end. Even if he's not guilty, he might have information that could help us move forward."
"Who?" several asked at the same time, most of them having no idea who she meant.
"Hagrid." Hermione pronounced the name slowly, before pinning his picture over the freshly drawn silhouette.
The silence turned heavy, broken only by a few awkward throat-clearings. That was when several of them realized that, indeed, girls tended to pick up their boyfriends' habits. In this case, Hermione's flair for the dramatic was suspiciously similar to mine. She noticed it herself right away… and cursed me in her mind for corrupting her.
The girls waited until well into the night to visit Hagrid. They didn't want anyone to discover their investigation, so they lingered until the castle fell quiet and then, one by one, slipped away like shadows.
"Like ninjas, Red would say," Tracey whispered with a grin.
"Shut up!" hissed Pansy, smacking her arm. "You'll get us caught!"
They reached the gamekeeper's hut without incident, but an obvious problem remained: there were too many of them. Cramming inside would only make their suspect uncomfortable. So they decided that just a few would handle the interrogation, while the others listened from outside thanks to the prototype Extendable Ear Ginny had gotten from Fred and George.
Hermione, Padma, and Susan were chosen. One from each house… well, except Slytherin, because everyone knew Hagrid wasn't on the best of terms with that house. Nobody wanted to push their luck.
*knock* *knock* *knock*
"Harry?" Hagrid asked as he opened the door, expecting to see Harry and Ron, who had sent him an owl saying they were coming to chat. "Girls? What are you doing here? You shouldn't be out of the castle at this hour…"
"So you don't invite us in, but you were waiting for Harry?" Hermione asked in an inquisitorial tone.
"The old Keeper of Keys and Grounds, receiving two boys in the middle of the night… and in secret…" Padma covered her mouth, feigning scandal.
"Is Hagrid a bad man who wants to do things to children?" Susan whispered, snuggling behind Padma as if seeking protection.
"What?! Never! I'm not that kind of person!" Hagrid staggered back, both offended and terrified. It was the first time anyone had accused him of something like that, and he nearly lost his temper. Had it been anyone other than these girls, he might have thrown a punch already.
"Relax, Hagrid. Just a joke," Hermione said quickly, giving him a reassuring pat on the arm with a genuine smile. "We all know you'll always be our friend, the gamekeeper we trust to keep us safe."
The half-giant sighed in relief, though the joke hadn't amused him at all. He was just regaining his composure when Hermione went on with a smile that looked straight out of a Slytherin playbook.
"So… may we come in?"
"This… it's not the right hour…" Hagrid tried to refuse. He knew it was wrong for students to be wandering outside the castle, and besides, he was already expecting Harry and Ron.
"Is it because we're girls? Are you that kind of bad man?" Padma asked with false innocence.
"Does Hagrid like boys but not girls?" Susan added in a trembling murmur.
"Maybe we should tell Dumbledore, at least so he knows the girls are safe…" Hermione finished, lacing her words with feigned disdain.
The three huddled together, shivering theatrically as they looked at Hagrid with "poor victim" eyes. It was an Oscar-worthy performance.
"…Fine, come in," Hagrid grunted, frowning with an evident headache. "And please, stop spending so much time with Red!"
The girls dropped the act at once and stepped inside smiling, victorious. Of course, they only dared tease him that way because they knew the half-giant's noble heart. The pressure was nothing more than a trick learned from Red to gain an edge in the negotiation and interrogation to come.
Meanwhile, outside…
"See? I told you it would work. That's why we didn't bring Penelope—she wouldn't have had the same visual impact," Parvati said with smug satisfaction.
"Still, I think we should have saved that card in case Hagrid didn't talk. If we try it again, it won't have the same effect… it could even backfire," Daphne cautioned.
"Doesn't matter, if it doesn't work we can always use force," Pansy suggested with a shrug.
"We can't take down Hagrid fast enough to avoid drawing attention," Cho countered. "We're not going to get anything out of him by beating him up."
"Then we poison him," Pansy said with complete naturalness.
"Or get him drunk, or dose him with some potion…" Lavender added eagerly, scribbling notes in the dark.
"Girls…" Tracey spoke up thoughtfully. "Do you think it's true we're actually starting to act more like Red?"
Silence fell. They all glanced at one another, and a faint blush spread through the group. No one wanted to answer out loud. Off to the side, Penelope only sighed in resignation: "At least they realized it," she thought, fearing what the future might hold for the next generation of the wizarding world.