In the chaos, Hermione was directing the last group of students into the secret passage on the other side of the wall. She hurriedly turned back to count the heads, and her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Lia wasn't there.
That snowy white figure was not in the crowd, nor was she even within her sight.
"Lia!"
Hermione's heart was suddenly gripped by an invisible hand. Ignoring Ron's anxious shout of "Hermione, hurry up!", she rushed back into the empty training ground like a madwoman, pushing against the flow of people.
She saw her.
Lia stood in the center of the room, neither fleeing nor panicking.
She quietly watched the wall that had been blown open, her snowy white tail slowly swishing behind her like an elegant and patient hunter waiting for prey to step into a trap.
She stayed behind on purpose!
"Boom—!"
Just as Hermione reached Lia's side, the wall completely shattered, with rubble mixing with pungent dust flying everywhere.
A pink figure entered with a nauseatingly sweet perfume scent. Umbridge had a twisted and triumphant smile on her face, like a fat spider that had finally captured its prey.
Behind her, Draco Malfoy and his lackeys filed in, their faces full of the arrogance of petty people who had achieved their goal.
"Oh, look who we've caught?"
Umbridge's gaze swept around the empty room before finally landing on Hermione and Lia standing side by side. The malice in her eyes was almost overflowing. "Miss Granger, and you, you little beast. I've finally caught you red-handed."
Malfoy picked up the parchment from the floor, looked at the two girls, and handed it to Umbridge with a smirk.
Umbridge clutched the list, letting out a cackling, extremely uncomfortable laugh from her throat.
"Dumbledore's Army? Good, very good. Illegal assembly, conspiring against Ministry of Magic officials—this is enough to kick both of you, and that old fool Dumbledore, out of Hogwarts together."
She waved her hand behind her.
Two Slytherin students roughly pushed a girl forward.
The girl was Cho Chang's friend, Marietta Edgecombe.
She was trembling all over, her head lowered, not daring to look at anyone.
Her face was covered in dense, slightly twitching purple pustules that hideously spelled out a word—
SNEAK.
"Now, I have a witness." Umbridge triumphantly pinched Marietta's chin, forcing her to look up. "Miss Edgecombe, tell us everything you saw. Tell us how they organized this illegal group."
Marietta's lips quivered, making strange "he-he" sounds in her throat, but she couldn't say a single word.
She pointed at her face in terror, large tears rolling down.
"Useless thing!" Umbridge shoved her away in disgust. "But it doesn't matter; her willingness to testify is enough."
A dead silence followed.
Only Marietta's suppressed sobbing echoed in the empty room.
Lia looked up, her pure blue eyes devoid of any emotion.
She smelled it.
Marietta's soul was tightly wrapped in a gray mist of fear.
Lia smelled the nauseatingly strong odor on her.
It was the scent of extreme terror.
The scent of being forced and going against one's heart.
And a deeper worry originating from her bloodline—a smell mixed with old parchment and a certain cheap floral perfume; it was the scent of her mother.
As for the scent of lies—that sweet, rotting stench like pink mold—it all came from Umbridge.
"I did it."
Hermione's calm voice broke the stalemate.
She stepped forward, shielding Lia behind her and looking directly at Umbridge.
"The magic on that parchment was cast by me. If anyone tries to snitch, those things appear on their face. It's just a prank to prevent people from not being able to hold their tongues; it's hardly any advanced Dark Arts."
Her tone was flat, as if she were stating a trivial matter.
"A prank?" Umbridge shrieked. "Miss Granger, did you think this little cleverness could save you? Disfiguring a classmate—this is your prank? I will report this matter in its entirety to the Wizengamot!"
She stepped closer, her gaze bypassing Hermione to lock onto Lia. The familiar wand capable of releasing nerve-attacking curses had already appeared in her hand.
"Now, I have to arrest you in the name of the senior undersecretary of the Ministry of Magic and confiscate this dangerous magical creature that can use Dark Arts!"
Umbridge had finally waited for this opportunity.
Caught red-handed with both evidence and a witness.
Even Dumbledore couldn't protect them! She could rightfully get her hands on this cat-demon she had coveted for so long, lock her in a Ministry of Magic laboratory for study, or destroy her completely.
The moment Umbridge's wand pointed at Lia.
Lia stepped out from behind Hermione and stood side by side with her.
The temperature of the surrounding air plummeted.
Lia slowly raised her head. Deep within those sky-blue eyes, a ring of ghostly green light suddenly flared up like a swirling nebula in the abyss, finally contracting and condensing into cold, inorganic vertical serpent pupils.
The soft and harmless pet-like aura around her vanished without a trace, replaced by an arrogance and indifference that looked down upon all living beings from ancient times.
An invisible kingly pressure spread out, making Malfoy and the others feel instinctively difficult to breathe.
She spoke, her voice no longer a sweet, soft whisper.
An elegant, cold tone with a peculiar hiss escaped her throat, perfectly replicating Tom Riddle's manner of speaking.
"I warned you."
Lia's voice was very light, yet it clearly reached everyone's ears, as if sounding directly within the depths of their souls.
"Do not harm the people here at Hogwarts."
Umbridge's smile froze on her face. From those dark green vertical pupils, she saw a terror that made her soul tremble.
It was an absolute darkness capable of crushing everything that she had once felt from a certain man!
"You... what are you?!" she shrieked.
Lia did not answer.
She simply raised her hand, fingers spread, and made a gentle clenching motion toward Umbridge.
No incantation. No light.
"Crack!"
The pink magic shield that had silently appeared in front of Umbridge shattered like glass struck by an invisible giant hammer, instantly covered in cracks before exploding into a sky full of light specks!
Umbridge hadn't even reacted to what happened.
Lia's finger contemptuously hooked toward Umbridge's wand from a distance.
A thread of black magic, nearly invisible to the naked eye, appeared out of thin air, wrapping around Umbridge's wand like a lightning-fast venomous snake.
"Ah!"
A massive force pulled, and Umbridge let out a short scream. The wand she cherished like a treasure was forcibly snatched from her hand, arching through the air to be caught by Lia's tail, and then, with a "snap," it was easily broken like a dry twig!
Malfoy and his cronies turned pale with fright; they had seen this scene before!
They quickly retreated, falling onto their backsides, unable to believe their eyes.
This cat... what kind of monster is this cat?!
"I said."
Lia's voice carried impatience.
"You're next."
She waved her hand casually toward the distraught Umbridge.
Pure destructive dark magic condensed into an invisible giant hand, slamming hard into Umbridge!
"Bang!"
Umbridge's fat body was slapped away like a tattered sandbag, crashing through the already broken wall and rolling onto the corridor outside amidst a cloud of smoke and rubble.
She let out a pained groan, followed by a warm liquid spreading from beneath her, mixing with dust and sweet perfume to emit a nauseating, rank smell.
She had actually been scared into incontinence and then completely lost consciousness.
The entire Room of Requirement was deathly silent.
Malfoy looked at the miserable, half-dead Umbridge in the corridor, then at the Cat-girl with cold eyes and a terrifying aura, and his legs began to shake uncontrollably.
"Get out."
Lia uttered a single word, like a king's pardon.
As if granted a grand amnesty, Malfoy scrambled away on all fours, leading his two already terrified lackeys as they fled the place in a panic.
In the room, only Hermione, Lia, and Marietta—who was huddled in the corner shaking even harder—remained.
The green light in Lia's eyes slowly faded, and the dark green vertical pupils returned to pure sky blue.
The terrifying aura around her also dissipated; the arrogant and cold king from just now seemed like a mere hallucination.
She swayed slightly, her tail loosened, and the broken pieces of the wand fell to the floor.
Hermione immediately stepped forward to support her, holding her tightly in her arms, using her own body heat to warm Lia's cold body.
"It's all right, Lia, it's all right."
Lia buried her face in the crook of Hermione's neck, taking a deep breath of the familiar, comforting scent. After a long while, she said in a very low voice:
"Her mother works at the Ministry of Magic."
Hermione's movements paused.
Lia turned her head and glanced at the girl who was still sobbing.
"Umbridge used her mother's job to threaten her."
Hermione understood.
She looked up at Marietta.
The purple pustules on the girl's face looked so hideous and glaring under the magical lights.
Hermione's gaze was complex.
There was no joy of victory, nor any satisfaction in seeing the informant punished.
Only an unprecedented heaviness and coldness.
She had thought this was just a confrontation between students, children resisting injustice in their own way.
The prank curse she had set was originally intended only to punish traitors and maintain the group's cohesion.
But she was wrong.
This war was no longer a game for children.
Umbridge, the senior undersecretary of the Ministry of Magic, had actually used a mother's job to threaten an underage daughter, forcing her to betray her friends.
How low, how shameless a tactic.
Looking at the "masterpiece" on Marietta's face, Hermione felt for the first time that her magic had been used in the wrong place.
Punishing a coerced, pitiful person did not bring any justice.
The true culprit was the pink toad lying in the corridor outside, and the corrupt, fallen Ministry of Magic behind her.
Hermione gently patted Lia's back, then let her go and walked slowly to Marietta.
The girl shrank back in terror.
Hermione knelt down, took a handkerchief from her pocket, and gently wiped away the tears on Marietta's face.
"It'll be okay," Hermione's voice was very soft. "I'll remove the curse on your face. As for Umbridge, I'll find a way."
She stood up and glanced back at the large hole Lia had blasted, her eyes turning cold and angry.
Use the law? Use the rules?
When your enemy is shameless enough to use the safety of family to coerce a child, what rules are there left to talk about?
The Ministry of Magic is beyond saving.
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