Icy rainwater dripped down from her matted fur, spreading a small puddle on the filthy ground.
Lia was curled up in the shadows of a street corner, her body trembling slightly from the cold and weakness.
As her hazy consciousness began to clear, a familiar magical fluctuation, like a faint ray of sunlight, pierced through the layers of rain.
Lia slowly opened her eyes.
At the end of the nearby alley, a woman with short, bubblegum-pink hair stood looking somewhat helpless in front of a tightly shut back door.
The tip of her wand flickered with a faint light, seemingly attempting some kind of unlocking spell, but the door remained completely still.
"Damn Muggle lock..." The woman irritably ran a hand through her hair, and in the next second, her hair turned an ugly dull yellow. "Damn Sirius, he's never around when I need him..."
It was Tonks.
A member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Lia's memories were awakened. She remembered this woman, remembering the golden threads woven from 'oaths' and 'resistance' that surrounded her.
Tonks seemed to give up on the back door, muttering curses as she turned to leave.
Lia slowly closed her eyes, lacking the energy to care about anything.
Unexpectedly, as Tonks passed by, the corner of her eye caught sight of the small white lump in the shadows.
"Oh? Where did this poor little thing come from?" Tonks stopped and crouched down. When she clearly saw Lia's appearance, she couldn't help but freeze.
The cat was pure white. Although it was wet and dirty now, one could still discern its originally gorgeous and beautiful foundation.
The most special feature was its eyes; even in the dim light, they were as pure as two sky-blue jewels washed clean by the rain.
"You look terrible." Tonks reached out a hand, hesitated for a moment, and then gently stroked Lia's wet head.
Familiar kindness.
Lia was awakened to a sliver of consciousness by that long-absent warm touch. She opened her mouth and let out a cry so weak it was almost inaudible.
"Alright, alright, I can't leave you here to soak in the rain." Tonks's heart softened. She took off her waterproof coat, carefully wrapped the kitten, which was as cold as ice, and held it tightly against her chest. "Come with me, little one. At least you can have some warm milk and get dried off."
Tonks carried Lia and turned into another, more secluded alley.
After confirming no one was around, she spun in place, and with a faint popping sound, the two instantly vanished.
After the dizziness of Apparition passed, Lia found herself in a familiar, cluttered kitchen.
12 Grimmauld Place.
Mrs. Weasley, wearing an apron, was busy by the stove. She jumped when she saw Tonks appear out of thin air. "Oh! Tonks, you're back... merlins beard! What do you have in your arms?"
"Picked it up on the way; it was freezing to death," Tonks said, placing Lia on a chair before going to find milk and a towel.
Lia looked around.
Mrs. Weasley was not the only one in the kitchen; Remus Lupin was sitting nearby reading a newspaper, while Kingsley Shacklebolt leaned against the wall with a serious expression.
A strong scent, mixed with anxiety, anger, and secrets, permeated the entire space.
Ten times stronger than the last time she was here.
Lupin lowered his newspaper, his keen eyes, characteristic of a Werewolf, falling upon Lia.
He looked at the seemingly ordinary white cat, frowning slightly, feeling that something was amiss.
"Tonks, this cat..."
"What? Isn't she cute?" Tonks walked over carrying a small saucer of warm milk and placed it in front of Lia.
Lia did not move. Her gaze passed over the others and landed on the staircase leading upstairs.
Hermione's scent lingered there. As well as Harry's, Ron's... they had been here not long ago.
Moreover, that scent carried panic and resolve.
"Where is Harry?" A thought flashed through her mind. She raised her head, looked at Lupin, and asked two words in a hoarse voice unused for a long time.
"Harry?"
The air in the kitchen instantly solidified.
The towel in Tonks's hand dropped to the floor. Mrs. Weasley covered her mouth.
Kingsley straightened up abruptly, his hand instinctively reaching for the wand at his waist.
Lupin frowned, scrutinizing the dirty white cat closely.
Those sky-blue eyes, that uniquely innocent voice... "Lia?!" Lupin exclaimed involuntarily. "How did you end up like this!"
Lia ignored their shock.
She jumped down from the chair, and her body began to change the moment she landed.
Bones elongated, flesh reshaped, and within seconds, the slender girl with snow-white cat ears and a long tail reappeared before everyone.
She was clad only in tattered, thin clothing, completely soaked, with smudges on her face and arms, looking utterly wretched.
Now everyone recognized her.
"Where is Hermione?" she pressed, her voice carrying a barely perceptible tremor. "Where are Harry? Where are they?"
"Good heavens! My child! Lia, how could you be like this? What happened?" Mrs. Weasley finally reacted, rushing over, grabbing a nearby blanket to wrap her tightly, and with a trembling hand, using a towel to wipe the grime from her face.
She did not dislike this pure and warm touch.
"Calm down, Lia!" Lupin soothed, his eyes filled with worry and confusion. "Why are you here? Hermione has been looking for you; she's going crazy! Dumbledore is looking for you too!"
Hermione... looking for me?
This realization struck Lia's frozen heart like a warm current, almost bringing her to tears.
She thought Hermione would blame her... "Something happened," Kingsley said gravely, breaking the brief moment of warmth. "Harry... he went to the Ministry of Magic."
Lia's pupils contracted sharply.
"He received a vision," Tonks quickly explained. "He saw Sirius being tortured by Lord Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries. We couldn't stop him; he used the fireplace and left. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna, they all followed him!"
"Sirius?" Lia's Eye of Truth instantly activated, and she looked at Lupin, seeing the thread of friendship connected to Sirius, which was intact, only trembling slightly due to its owner's anxiety. "Sirius is here; he never went to the Ministry of Magic!"
She recalled something Tonks had mentioned earlier.
"You said Sirius was busy with something?" Lia pressed Tonks.
"Y-yes... Dumbledore asked him to stay here to study some Black family items..." Tonks stammered in reply.
A trap.
A fatal trap set for Harry.
The string in Lia's mind named Danger Intuition let out a piercing screech on the verge of snapping the moment she heard the words 'Department of Mysteries'.
An unprecedentedly dense, unyielding aura of death swept through all her senses like a dark tsunami.
A hundred times stronger than the Triwizard Tournament Maze!
A thousand times stronger than Umbridge's office!
Hermione is there!
Hermione is in danger!
All guilt, self-reproach, fear, and confusion were completely consumed by a more primal panic.
She could accept any punishment from Hermione.
Being scolded, being hit, being locked up.
But she absolutely, absolutely could not accept... losing Hermione.
"I'm going too," Lia's voice was soft.
"No! It's full of Death Eaters! Dumbledore has already rushed over, we are making final preparations then leaving, you can't..." Lupin tried to stop her.
But Lia's figure had already turned into a blur of afterimages.
She ducked, hit the kitchen door on all fours, and rushed toward the hall.
The portrait of Mrs. Black on the wall let out a piercing scream, but Lia ignored it.
Lia burst through the low dog door of Number Twelve and rushed out into the cold night rain of London!
Her body's instinct surpassed reason; she didn't even need to think about the route.
In central London, where Apparition was disrupted by counter-spells, she chose the fastest, most direct method.
Running.
BOOM!!!
The red telephone booth at the Ministry of Magic visitor entrance was blasted outward by an indescribable, immense force, its shattered fragments flying around like shrapnel!
Lia shot into the empty, silent Atrium like a cannonball fired from its barrel.
The floor was smooth as a mirror, reflecting her disheveled yet resolute figure.
The air was filled with a faint smell of disinfectant, and... the increasingly dense stench of decaying Dark Magic and the smell of blood from a dying struggle.
In her Eye of Truth, the entire world had transformed into a network composed of magical threads.
Countless Black threads, representing evil and curses, all converged toward the same place.
Underground, deep below.
The Department of Mysteries.
Lia didn't even look at the golden, barred elevators leading to different departments; she followed the shortest straight path and plunged toward the staircase leading underground.
The sturdy iron door shattered like paper before her, collapsing inward with a loud crash!
She rushed down the spiral staircase, leaving a shallow crack mark on the hard stone steps with every footfall.
Getting closer.
Hermione's aura—fearful yet stubbornly resilient—guided her with perfect clarity in her perception, like a beacon in the dark night.
She burst into a corridor lined with Black doors.
This was it!
Without hesitation, Lia's small body leaped up, transforming mid-air into a human shape and delivering a flying kick to the tightly closed main door.
"CRASH—!"
The entire door, along with the surrounding wall, was smashed to pieces by the combined violence of physics and magic!
Fragments of stone and door panels exploded outward in a fan shape!
Through the swirling dust, Lia clearly saw the scene inside.
It was a circular hall, surrounded by countless identical doors.
And in the center of the hall, twelve masked Death Eaters had Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna tightly surrounded.
A wand was held against Hermione's throat.
The one holding the wand was a rugged-looking man with a cruel, sneering grin on his face.
Hermione's face was pale, but her eyes remained defiant; she stared intensely at the leader, Lucius Malfoy.
Ron was grinning foolishly nearby, drooling, clearly affected by some nasty curse.
Neville's nose was crooked to one side, his face covered in blood, but he still stubbornly held up his wand.
And in Lucius's hand was a dull, gray glass orb emitting an ominous aura.
The Prophecy Orb.
The very thing that had caused Mr. Weasley's attack in the dream.
"Give me the Prophecy Orb, Potter," Lucius said with his characteristic aristocratic drawl, arrogant and triumphant.
"Otherwise, your little mudblood friend will be the first to go. I imagine Antonin would be delighted to show us how her head explodes."
mudblood... the word she tried to forget with all her might, yet one that burned her soul every night in her nightmares.
The word that caused her boundless pain and self-destruction when she spoke it to Hermione.
Now, spoken by the enemy to threaten Hermione's life.
Two extreme emotions—ultimate self-blame and towering rage toward the enemy—collided violently within her, igniting an unprecedented nuclear fusion.
It wasn't the cold killing intent of Tom Riddle.
It was her own.
The fury belonging to Lia, wanting to tear everything before her to shreds!
"Shattering Bones!"
A cold, hoarse voice came from the broken doorway.
A spell, cast faster than the reaction limit of any Wizard, turned the Death Eater holding Hermione into dust.
As the smoke cleared, a white-haired girl stood there, her clothes soaked and ragged.
Her dusty cat ears were pressed tightly against her scalp due to extreme anger, and her long tail lashed the air behind her in a frenzy, making light'snap, snap' sounds.
Lia stood still, her eyes sweeping over every horrified Death Eater present.
Her gaze finally landed on the figure she had longed for day and night.
"Hermione..."
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