Hermione walked in, her pace steady and her expression composed, as if she had just finished a pleasant afternoon stroll and had tidied up her back garden along the way.
She had changed into a clean, sharp set of Wizard robes, and her slightly curly brown hair was casually tied back with a silver hairband, revealing a smooth, full forehead.
Her face showed no trace of the gloom or fatigue left by her fury the previous night; instead, it carried a freshness like the clear sky after rain, along with a strange, deep sense of satisfaction that almost overflowed from the corners of her eyes and brows.
In those intelligent brown eyes, there seemed to be a pool of bottomless spring water thoroughly stirred by moonlight, shimmering and radiant, adding a touch of soul-stirring charm.
In front of the fireplace, Harry, Ron, Sirius, and others, who were in the middle of a heated, red-faced discussion about tactics, seemed to have been hit by a pause button. They all stopped and looked at her in unison.
The air, which had been so tense from the war that it had almost solidified, filled with the smell of smoke and anxiety, seemed to have a crisp gap knocked into it by her unhurried footsteps.
"Hermione?" Harry spoke up somewhat uncertainly, his eyes filled with immense confusion.
"Are you... okay?"
He clearly remembered how, when Hermione left yesterday, she had radiated an aura of destruction, her eyes burning with a monstrous fire capable of incinerating everything as she stormed out.
Ron had even whispered in his ear that the Hermione of that moment was ten thousand times more terrifying than a Hungarian Horntail about to breathe fire.
At that time, she was like a volcano on the verge of eruption, capable of destroying Pompeii, making the entire room feel suffocated.
But now, she was like a lioness satisfied after a hearty feast, elegantly licking her paws and lazily patrolling her territory.
The corners of her mouth were even tilted up uncontrollably, and her lips even curled into a wavy line as she smiled.
"I'm fine," Hermione's answer was short and powerful, her voice carrying a hint of lazy hoarseness after a hard-fought battle. This hoarseness, far from making her seem weak, added a bit of unusual charm.
"Very fine."
She casually picked up her copy of the intelligence from the last few days, her eyes quickly scanning the various defensive deployments and enemy movements marked on it, and her brow furrowed imperceptibly.
"What's going on? Have the Death Eater attacks weakened?"
"More than just weakened,"
Lupin leaned against the wall, irritably scratching his somewhat greasy hair. "It's like the tide has receded! Those half-bloods suddenly stopped their general offensive and started using some insignificant spells, tapping the Castle's protective shield one by one like flies, as if they were just tickling us!"
"They are searching for the weak points in our magic defenses."
Professor McGonagall added with a weary expression, the dark circles under her eyes almost merging with her glasses frames.
"And they are very purposeful, not at all like the frantic chaos from before. A calm Lord Voldemort is more terrifying than a crazed one."
Ron leaned over, his face showing a trace of lingering fear and relief: "Whatever the case, we can finally catch our breath. Just now was... merlins beard, I almost thought the walls were going to be torn down by those Giants. By the way, Hermione, where's Lia? Is she okay?"
Hermione's gaze didn't even leave the map as she responded flatly.
"She's exhausted and is resting. As for what comes next, I am enough."
The absolute protectiveness in her tone, which took it for granted, made Ron instinctively shut his mouth, giving her a look mixed with 'I understand.'
Hermione extended a slender index finger, her fingertip hovering over several areas marked as 'Key Defense' on the map.
She slightly closed her eyes, and in an instant, a three-dimensional model of Hogwarts surfaced in her mind.
"No," Hermione suddenly opened her eyes, her tone certain, and her fingertip landed with a 'thud' on a marker that had been ignored by almost everyone. "Professor, this is a trap. They are feinting; the real target is here."
"So it seems they really did send people to infiltrate this vicinity."
Professor McGonagall murmured, then suddenly looked up, her eyes behind her lenses filled with unbelievable shock.
"How did you know? That place has been completely sealed off by us with Transfiguration and several Solidifying Charms!"
"Transfiguration cannot stop certain things, Professor." Hermione turned her gaze to Professor McGonagall. "How much longer can the Castle's Ancient Runes protection hold out?"
Professor McGonagall's face looked weary, as days of exhaustion had caused her state to decline, but her eyes remained as sharp as an hawk's.
"At this frequency of attack, it can last at least three days. However, if Lord Voldemort himself makes a move..."
Everyone present, including the battle-hardened members of the Order of the Phoenix, listened while analyzing the situation.
War is everyone's business; no one can remain uninvolved.
Only Sirius remained silent, holding a goblet and taking a sip from time to time.
He used an extremely strange look to scan back and forth between Hermione and the staircase leading to the Girls Dormitory.
He always felt that there was something more about Hermione... it wasn't simple self-confidence, but a lazy and dangerous aura of an apex predator that radiated from the inside out after being thoroughly nourished and satisfied.
This involuntarily reminded him of his mother, that paranoid and crazed woman, Walburga Black.
When he was a child, every time his mother successfully punished the family's rebels or obtained a long-coveted Dark Arts item, she would sit in the main seat like this, scanning the entire family with that disdainful look of scrutinizing her possessions.
Coupled with the fact that Lia hadn't appeared for several days, and the seductive charm that could not be hidden in the corners of Hermione's eyes and brows at this moment, a playful smile curled at the corner of Sirius's mouth.
He lowered his voice and muttered at a volume only he could hear:
"Young people these days... they certainly have a lot of ways to play."
"Even more than I did... back in the day..."
Over the next two days, Hogwarts fell into an eerie calm.
Outside the Castle, the Death Eater attacks never ceased, but they always maintained a subtle intensity, with harassment outweighing the offensive.
Inside the Castle, everyone's nerves were taut as they took turns reinforcing the defensive works.
No one mentioned Lia again; everyone tacitly accepted Hermione's explanation that "she is resting."
Only Hermione would return alone to Gryffindor Tower at a fixed time every day, carrying carefully prepared food and water.
The dormitory door was pushed open gently.
Lia was curled up in her cat form on the soft bed, sleeping soundly.
Sunlight spilled through the window onto her snow-white fur, reflecting a warm and soft glow.
Hermione sat down by the bed, not waking her, just watching quietly.
She knew that Lia wasn't just sleeping.
For the past two days, Lia had remained in her cat form to minimize consumption, but a massive, invisible mental power sufficient to make one tremble was extending from this small body, covering all of Hogwarts like a fine spiderweb and even penetrating deep into the Forbidden Forest.
Every magic fluctuation of every Death Eater on the battlefield, every bit of energy loss in the Castle's defensive arrays.
Even the cold, brutal soul aura of Lord Voldemort himself, mixed with a hint of fear, hidden deep in the Forbidden Forest, was fed back in real-time with absolute precision through the invisible soul bond between them, appearing accurately in Hermione's mind.
Lia had become the most precise and irreplaceable battlefield radar, belonging to her alone.
And the price was immense mental exhaustion.
[Darlings, if you see this, please click 'remind to update' to give me some motivation (it's best to watch some ads for free gifts)...]
[Being at home for the holidays, I'm really getting lazier and lazier...]
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