The next morning, sunlight filtered through the gaps in the curtains, casting dappled spots of light on the floor.
Mrs. Granger had come upstairs to knock seven or eight times, starting with "Girls, breakfast is ready."
By the time she reached a helpless sigh, rustling movements finally came from inside the room.
When Hermione, with a head of bushy brown hair, led a sleepy-eyed Lia—whose tail hung limply—downstairs, Mr. Granger had already finished half of The Times.
"Oh, my sweethearts, you're finally up."
Mrs. Granger pushed warm milk and fried fish toward them while casting meaningful looks back and forth between her daughter and Lia.
"It's good for young people to be energetic, but you must also remember to rest. Breakfast is a must."
She specifically placed the largest piece of boneless deep-sea cod belly onto Lia's plate.
Her gaze was as tender as if she were looking at her own silly daughter.
She had finally brought that impossibly beautiful little daughter-in-law home and was terrified that poor hospitality would make her run away.
Hermione's face instantly turned beet red; she practically buried her face in her cereal, finishing the food on her plate at lightning speed.
Then, pulling Lia—who was still taking tiny bites of her fried fish—she fled back to her room as if escaping.
Leaving behind only a small leftover fish tail and The Grangers, who shared a knowing smile.
The door shut with a thud, and Hermione finally breathed a long sigh of relief. She picked up a comb and began to tidy Lia's long silver hair with a mix of annoyance and affection.
Her fingers ran through the silky strands, and occasionally she couldn't help herself, her hand naughtily pinching the slightly twitching cat ears' fluff, drawing a comfortable purr from Lia.
"Hermione..." Lia's voice was soft, carrying the nasal tone of someone who had just woken up, as she squinted her eyes contentedly.
"Hmm?" Hermione's hand didn't stop, enjoying the incomparable sensation at her fingertips.
"I always feel like... even though Cedric survived, it seems like no one besides us believes Lord Voldemort has returned. Why is that?"
"That's because they want to shut him up, Lia." Hermione put down the comb and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Especially Fudge, that coward and opportunist! He isn't actually afraid of Lord Voldemort; he's afraid that admitting Lord Voldemort's return will shake his power!"
"Admitting Lord Voldemort's return is equivalent to admitting that his past ten-plus years of peaceful governance were a total joke!"
"He would rather paint Harry as a grandstanding lunatic and Dumbledore as a power-hungry old fool!"
"They will use the power of the Ministry of Magic to suppress anyone who speaks the truth."
Hermione's voice trembled slightly with anger. "Dumbledore and Harry will be the first to suffer. This summer probably won't be very peaceful."
Lia obediently rubbed her cheek against Hermione's clenched fist, soothing her with her own body heat. "If Hermione were the Minister, you definitely wouldn't be like him."
"You trust me that much?" Hermione was amused by her, and the fire in her heart dissipated quite a bit.
"Of course!" Lia's answer was firm and decisive.
Summer life, within the warm atmosphere deliberately created by The Grangers, was as tranquil as the sea before a storm.
Hermione spent most of her time previewing fifth-year textbooks, preparing for the upcoming O.W.L.s exams.
Lia, meanwhile, lay on Hermione's bed with a pillow under her chest, pretending to read but actually dozing off.
Hermione also pretended not to see Lia's head nodding off repeatedly.
Occasionally, O.W.L.s would bring letters from Harry and Ron.
Lia could smell distinct scents coming from those pieces of parchment.
In Harry's letters, there was a mix of a musty smell like burning ozone, full of anxiety and anger.
Ron's letters were much stranger; between the lines, they smelled of'secrets' and 'tension,' similar to metallic rust.
This afternoon, the London sky was overcast with dark clouds, and the air was as muggy as a soaked sponge.
Hermione was explaining a complex spell from the guide to advanced transfiguration to Lia when the sky outside darkened without warning.
An extreme chill that could drain all joy and hope, carrying the stench of death and decay, penetrated the walls and glass, sweeping through the entire room!
"—!"
Lia's fur instantly puffed out. She lunged up from the bed, landing on all fours with her back arched high, letting out a threatening hiss from deep in her throat.
Her eyes stared fixedly out the window, her pupils narrowing into two sharp vertical lines!
On the window glass, a layer of cold frost visibly condensed!
"It's Dementors!" Hermione's brow furrowed. She rushed to the window in one stride and saw a terrifying scene she would never forget.
On the street, two figures wearing tattered black cloaks, their bodies as bloated as rotting corpses in water, were floating silently in mid-air.
Below them, Harry and his fat cousin Dudley were collapsed on the ground, twitching violently as if their bones had been removed, their faces covered in a layer of deathly gray.
"Merlin's beard! How could they appear in a Muggle neighborhood!"
Hermione instinctively gripped her magic wand.
Lia's Danger Intuition screamed sharply in her mind, but unlike before, the danger signal wasn't locked onto Harry; it was chaotic and scattered like a headless fly.
"Something's wrong!" Lia sniffed the information in the air. The malicious magic emitted by those two Dementors wasn't a concentrated line of precise predation.
Instead, it was a mass of chaotic, bewildered hunger being forcibly driven. "They... their target isn't Harry! They were just thrown here and are instinctively searching for prey!"
Hermione didn't have time to overthink; she saw Harry already struggling to raise his magic wand.
"Expecto Patronum!"
A majestic stag shining with silver brilliance erupted from the tip of Harry's wand.
It held its head high, raised its massive antlers, and slammed hard into the two monsters, brutally driving them back into the dark sky.
The chill receded, and the crisis was averted. But the real trouble had only just begun.
The next day, Harry's letter arrived, its content simple and desperate: he was being officially summoned by the Ministry of Magic for using magic in front of a Muggle outside of school.
"They're framing him!" Hermione was shaking with rage, pacing back and forth in the room, her voice carrying uncontrollable anger.
"The Dementors attacked first! Harry acted in self-defense! How dare they!"
"They just want a result that can shut him up," Lia said muffledly in her arms, using her body heat to soothe the furious Hermione.
Sure enough, not long after, an urgent letter from Mr. Arthur Weasley confirmed the worst suspicions.
The letter sternly warned Harry not to leave the Dursley house and said Dumbledore was handling it.
For the next few days, the atmosphere was tense to the extreme.
Though The Grangers didn't understand what was happening, they could feel their daughter's visible anxiety.
Finally, late one night, the flames in the fireplace suddenly turned a strange emerald green with a 'whoosh'.
Hermione and Lia immediately stood up, alert.
A young Witch wearing a long traveling cloak, with hair a strange bubblegum pink, stepped out of the flames.
Following behind her was a tall, dark-skinned Wizard whose expression was as serious as a mountain peak.
"Hermione Granger?" the pink-haired Witch spoke; her voice was young and full of energy. "I'm Nymphadora Tonks, but you can call me Tonks. This is Kingsley Shacklebolt."
Kingsley gave Hermione a slight nod of greeting, his steady gaze scanning the room.
Lia stood behind Hermione, warily sizing up these two uninvited guests.
She smelled the same'secret' and 'tension' scents on them as on Ron's letter, but beneath that, deeper down, was a rock-solid scent woven from 'loyalty' and'sense of mission'.
"Dumbledore sent us."
Tonks said. She noticed Lia, her eyes lighting up, but she restrained the urge to reach out and pet the cat ears.
"We're here to pick you up. Mad-Eye and the others have already gone to Harry's."
"Pick us up? To where?" Hermione's hand tightened on her magic wand.
"A safe place," Kingsley's voice was deep and resonant, making one instinctively trust him. "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix."
The Order of the Phoenix.
As soon as the name appeared, Lia saw shimmering golden threads composed of 'oaths' and 'resistance' in her Eye of Truth, extending from the two people in front of her, crossing space to connect to a distant and blurry place.
There, at the center of the storm.
Hermione did not hesitate. She quickly returned to her room and packed a small bag.
Before leaving, she tightly hugged her parents, who had been startled awake.
"Dad, Mum, I... I'm just going to stay at a friend's house for a few days. I'll be back before school starts." She told a lie, not wanting them to worry.
The Grangers looked at her with concern, then at the two serious-looking Wizards, but ultimately only told her: "Take care of yourself, and Lia."
Under the escort of Tonks and Kingsley, they traveled via Apparition, instantly moving from the quiet suburban street to a seemingly ordinary old London street.
This was Grimmauld Place.
Hermione looked at the mottled door numbers: 10, 11... then it jumped straight to 13.
A piece had been forcibly carved out of the middle.
Tonks handed her a small piece of parchment: "Memorize the content, then burn it."
Hermione unfolded the parchment; on it was written a line of elegant handwriting: "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is located at 12 Grimmauld Place, London."
She recited it silently, and the parchment turned to ash in her hand.
"Concentrate, think of the place you just saw," Tonks reminded her.
Hermione closed her eyes and clearly constructed the concept of '12 Grimmauld Place' in her mind.
The next second, a hair-raising scene occurred.
Accompanied by a dull grinding sound of stone and brick rubbing against each other, between numbers 11 and 13...
A dusty, dilapidated black door 'grew' out of thin air.
Following that were mottled walls and dusty windows, spreading upward layer by layer.
A haunted house hidden in the cracks of time and space finally cast its eerie reflection in reality.
Lia looked up at the building and took a half-step back in horror.
In her Eye of Truth, this house was essentially a dying creature that was slowly rotting!
On the door, a silver serpent-shaped door knocker watched them silently with its hollow eye sockets.
Tonks stepped forward and tapped the door three times with her magic wand.
From inside the door came the 'clatter' of metal friction and multiple chains sliding.
The door opened.
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