Lys placed Gabeng back on her shoulder and stepped into the lift with Noah. For some reason, the strange, swaying sensation as the elevator moved made Lys feel as if she were still standing on that blasted Knight Bus.
She closed her eyes instinctively, trying to ease the discomfort. When the doors slid open, Noah glanced out and led Lys from the lift.
The first thing Lys did upon opening her eyes was tease Noah: "Dad, do you even know how to use a lift?"
Truth was, Noah really didn't. This was only his second time encountering such a contraption, and he'd assumed that once the doors opened, they'd reached their destination...
Last time, he'd even led the whole family out onto the wrong floor...
Lys surveyed the pitch-black hall stretching before her. This clearly wasn't the main entrance level of the Ministry of Magic. But when she turned around, the lift had already departed, and she couldn't find a single button on the wall to summon it back. She searched high and low but found nothing. Lys glanced about, hoping to spot someone to ask for directions, but the place was eerily silent—not a soul in sight.
"Excuse me, is anyone here?" Lys called out, her voice echoing through the darkness. Noah, meanwhile, covered his face, still mortified by his careless blunder.
When no response came, Noah told Lys to wait while he checked the nearby offices for staff.
Lys waited two minutes, but Noah didn't return. Growing anxious, she followed him through the door—only to discover that instead of the corridor or room she'd expected, there was a circular chamber with several doors evenly spaced along the curved walls. Lys approached cautiously, examining each entrance, and chose the handle with the least dust coating it.
"Is anyone here? Dad? Are you in here?" Lys frowned at the room's bizarre collection of artifacts—it looked exactly like one of those shadowy shops in Knockturn Alley, crammed with all manner of dark curiosities...
She swept the place with a disdainful glance, confirmed her father wasn't inside, and backed out.
She tried another door. This one opened into a vast, empty chamber that seemed to pulse with an otherworldly presence. Faint whispers drifted through the air like ghostly breath. Squinting through the gloom, Lys saw that the only object in the entire space was an ancient archway standing in the very center.
Just as she was about to retreat, she caught a flicker of movement in the tattered veil hanging within the arch. Every instinct screamed that someone—or something—was there.
"Dad, is that you?" Lys tightened her grip on her wand and crept forward, her footsteps echoing in the cavernous space.
But there was no one—only the veil, swaying gently in a breeze that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The closer she drew, the clearer the whispers became, more alluring, more insistent.
Staring at the archway, Lys felt certain the intricate patterns carved into its surface looked familiar, though she couldn't place where she'd seen them before.
The whispers seemed to beckon, to plead, to promise secrets just beyond her understanding.
She tilted her head, straining to decipher the words, but they remained tantalizingly out of reach. Whatever force emanated from the arch sent electric shivers dancing along every nerve, drawing her gaze inexorably to that moth-eaten veil.
She leaned closer, desperate to peer through one of the holes in the fabric. What lay beyond? Who was calling to her? What did they want to tell her?
On her shoulder, Gabeng's tail lashed back and forth with increasing agitation, thumping against her shoulder like a frantic drumbeat.
Lys swallowed hard, shook her head to clear the fog from her thoughts, pinched herself sharply, and forced herself to turn away.
Well, looks like I've found another weakness...
She still wanted to study those symbols more closely—she was convinced she'd encountered them before, and not merely because of some enchantment clouding her judgment.
But worry for Noah gnawed at her, so she didn't linger. Reluctantly, Lys circled the archway once more before tearing herself away.
Standing back in the circular chamber, she soothed Gabeng—who was still furiously thumping her shoulder in what seemed like protective anger—and wondered frantically where her father could have gone.
Lys harbored deep misgivings about the Ministry of Magic, which made her fear that Noah wandering lost in its depths was genuinely dangerous. He couldn't run fast... and his magical abilities were hardly impressive...
She decided to search systematically, starting with the first door. Just as she reached for the handle, Noah's head appeared through the gap of another entrance.
"Little Star? I found a staff member..."
Back in the lift, both assumed the other had gotten lost, and by unspoken agreement, neither mentioned the mysterious chamber again.
When the lift doors opened, Noah peered out cautiously before leading Lys away.
As they passed the registration desk, Gabeng's head swiveled toward the staff member again. Amused despite everything, Lys quickly turned it back around with her hand.
She offered the bemused official an apologetic smile, then Noah took her arm and Apparated them to Diagon Alley.
Once they arrived, they bought Gabeng a cage full of mice as treats.
The pet shop owner remembered Noah. He struck up a conversation, asking tactfully after Senna.
He recalled that Noah was a werewolf wizard capable of producing a Patronus. If such a remarkable wizard had lost his family, it would be a genuine tragedy.
"Thank you for your concern. My wife is fine—she's just feeling a bit poorly, and since the shop really couldn't stay afloat, we decided to close it."
During their chat, the shopkeeper recommended Noah purchase a pair of Crup puppies.
"They're excellent for security, you know. Sometimes Sneakoscopes and other detection devices can be fooled by magic, but you can't trick a dog's nose. They'll catch any stranger's scent in the air."
Lys was genuinely tempted, but seeing how the two Crups cowered before Gabeng's intimidating presence, she reconsidered.
She politely declined, explaining that she cultivated dangerous plants in her garden, making it unsuitable for keeping such pets.
When they returned home, Noah went to check on Senna, while Lys pulled out her lunar calendar and began calculating dates.
She set the calendar aside with a heavy sigh, rolled up her sleeves, and headed into the kitchen.
The ridiculous bird Cerebold was perched on its windowsill stand, messily devouring a mouse—one that Gabeng had brought it.
Ever since that incident when it had stubbornly refused to leave Gabeng's side, the serpent seemed less inclined to eat it and had even grown somewhat protective.
Lys watched in a daze as the bird tore the mouse apart, blood spattering everywhere in crimson droplets.
It wasn't until the blood had begun to dry that Lys snapped back to awareness.
She cleaned up the mess with obvious distaste, then adjusted the bird's stand to face outward. Cerebold staggered and squawked its indignation, earning a sharp flick to the head from Lys.
She couldn't fathom why the creature insisted on perching in the kitchen—whenever anyone was cooking, it invariably hopped onto that blasted stand.
As she fried steak, Lys noticed the heat was too high and felt a flash of irritation. She forced herself to focus and quickly flipped the meat.
It was still a lingering effect of that cursed potion—the hallucinogenic components made her concentration scatter like leaves in the wind whenever she felt upset or distracted.
She ate the overcooked steak herself, then prepared a more tender portion for the others.
After plating the food on the dishes Coco had arranged, she wiped her brow, shooed the annoying bird away, shut the window firmly, and the three of them sat down for dinner.
After the meal, Lys peered into the garden, grabbed her pruning shears, and went out to tend her plants.
She still needed to process the bloodthorn cuttings to send to Snape. To prevent him from guessing the true purpose behind her request for his brewing services, she'd invested considerable effort in her deception.
Once the plants were trimmed to near-baldness with nothing left to cut, Lys finally returned to the kitchen, wrapped her arms around herself, and let her mind cycle through the lunar calendar calculations.
So that day was my birthday... No wonder I never celebrated it...
As sunset gave way to moonrise, Coco approached and draped a coat over Lys's shoulders, though she wasn't cold at all—if anything, she felt uncomfortably warm.
Several months later, Lys's weight had spiraled completely out of control.
Desperate to suppress the terrifying effects of that potion before her trip to Germany, she'd secretly increased the dosage of her treatment regimen.
But the brutal side effects were far beyond what Lys could overcome through sheer willpower alone.
Now, Lys looked... well, massive. Absolutely enormous.
When Severus Snape encountered her at Lucius's dinner party, he couldn't suppress a sharp intake of breath. "What in Merlin's name...?"
Lys waved dismissively, dabbed at her perspiration, and explained, "Oh, I wasn't feeling well earlier, so I took some remedies to help. Didn't expect to botch the dosage and end up with a few... side effects."
Snape folded his arms, narrowed his obsidian eyes, and tilted his head with that familiar calculating expression. His voice was deceptively soft but absolutely certain: "You're not pregnant, are you?"
Lys was so thunderstruck that she whipped her head around, her entire face quivering with the sudden movement!
Snape didn't bother listening to her stammered protests—he simply walked away wearing an expression of dawning comprehension.
Lys stood there gaping like a fish out of water, staring after Snape's retreating figure, utterly at a loss for how to explain...
She was completely innocent! She hadn't even held a man's hand!
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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