Fortunately for me, those women with whom I had already consolidated a carnal and emotional relationship took it upon themselves to end the social blockade. Penelope took the initiative, breaking formation to throw herself onto my chest, holding me in a firm embrace adorned with fake yet sincere tears:
"Red... I am so happy you are alive!"
That display operated as the definitive catalyst in the collective psychology of the table. The gesture forced the girls who were still trembling at my proximity to reconsider, inducing them to understand the fundamental truth of the crisis: I hadn't behaved like a heartless, cold-blooded killer... I had been thrust into a life-or-death scenario, and I simply happened to be the one who prevailed.
The collective rigidity fractured, or perhaps, evaluating it with greater precision, it simply mutated into another kind. The sepulchral silence that ruled our perimeter at the Gryffindor table gradually gave way to a murmur of voices. The bolder members of my circle began to articulate words, gaining confidence as they noted that I, despite projecting a visibly fatigued and restrained countenance, remained the same Red they knew.
Nonetheless, our stay in the Great Hall was doomed to brevity. The venue housed too many indiscreet glances, and the flux of conjectures and whispers regarding my person saturated the environment. Even a few particularly reckless students hinted at approaching to ask the most imprudent questions given the circumstances.
Without delay, I ordered a retreat. My group and I abandoned the hall to take refuge within the coordinates of our "secret base" inside the castle: the Den. On this occasion, I sealed off access to the female student body that previously could enter, guaranteeing absolute and exclusive privacy for our conclave. Once confined to our safe space, the girls who had maintained a silent composure in the Great Hall detonated into a polyphonic torrent of questions:
"Red! Are the headlines true?"
"Why did you do it?"
"Have you suffered any harm? Are you okay?"
"Did you really kill Lucius?"
"Are they going to send you to Azkaban?"
The room transformed into an ocean of questioning where genuine worry, social panic, and an insatiable intrigue converged. I limited myself to exhaling a controlled sigh while gesturing to restore order in the room. After a brief interval during which Susan provided the committee with an assortment of snacks to temper their spirits, I once more deployed the narrative I had structured.
I adorned the events with certain dramatic nuances, assumed the posture of a victim of the political framework, and made the necessary omissions; however, I allowed myself to be substantially more honest with them than with the rest of the world. That operated as a phase of habituation, a subtle training so their minds would begin to assimilate the contours of my true nature. A necessary preparation for the future.
At least in logistical terms, I managed to restore stability at the core of the group. At that moment, I kept Hermione held tight against my chest; her academic mind was still wrestling with a severe moral dissonance regarding my actions, but her heart rate had placated upon verifying that, despite having risked my life at the Ministry, I was physically intact by her side.
"You won't be sent to Azkaban, Red...?" Parvati questioned, breaking the silence. "Visiting you there would be very difficult..."
"No," I ruled firmly. "Although the objective reality dictates that I took a life, the encounter was governed under the canons of a formal and legitimate duel of honor. It does not classify as a crime before the Wizengamot. What's more... the final outcome obeyed an accidental fatality. My original design contemplated the neutralization of Lucius solely; under the clauses of the challenge, his defeat would have implied the absolute nullity of his magic, stripping him of his status as a wizard... nothing more," I added, seasoning my words with calculated pity.
"That is like dying..." Padma murmured in a whisper that, due to the acoustics of the Den, was clearly perceived by all those present, causing a sudden flush to ignite her cheeks as she noticed the scrutiny of the group.
"That is not true... It is perfectly viable to sustain a dignified life stripped of magic," Hermione countered, tightening the pressure of her embrace and burying her face against my chest while raising her eyes to look at me.
Within the gears of her psyche, as a defense mechanism to evade the notion of death—a concept her current sensitivity would not have tolerated—Hermione was already structuring a hypothetical scenario: she was evaluating how our lives would shape up if I had lost the duel and been deprived of my magic. In her projection of tomorrow, she would assume the role of economic pillar and institutional status in the magical community, while I would presumably take care of the household chores or adopt a job in the Muggle sector, like her parents.
"But if Red had lost his magic, the consequences..." Tracei began to verbalize with evident nervousness, incapable of conceiving such a mystical castration for herself or any wizard.
"Tranquil, girls... even with that, I wouldn't lose out entirely," I intervened, sketching a smile laden with playful arrogance. "After all, even if the laws of magic stripped me of my ordinary wizard status, I still possess an inventory of alternative skills."
Accompanying the declaration, I extended my will: a subtle, stylized tentacle forged from pure blood magic emerged from my anatomy, snaked through the air with precision, snatched one of the pastries from Susan's tray, and brought it directly to my mouth before the astonished eyes of the girls.
The entirety of the girls widened their eyes in genuine surprise, suddenly confronted with a variable their traditional schemes had never considered.
"Heh... Just because my mind suffered the temporary interference of a couple of cursed wands doesn't imply I have lost my strategic wit," I declared with calculated hubris. "It is no simple task to wrest the advantage away from me."
"That's cheating," one of the girls exclaimed from the back, detonating a wave of laughter and reactivating a heated technical debate regarding the legal loopholes of duels of honor.
I observed the panorama with internal satisfaction: the detailed analysis of magical technicalities operated perfectly, diluting the psychological density of Malfoy's execution and returning control of normalcy to them.
In this manner, we consummated the day, intertwining conversations and restoring harmony. Between confidences, jokes, and subtle attempts by the girls to extract details about my campaign in Brazil—which I systematically evaded, since that section also belonged to Hannah. Even the most responsible members of the group wavered over the convenience of missing their respective classes to prolong our stay in the Den; nonetheless, under my firm insistence, they ended up returning to their academic duties. Of course, I skipped attending the classrooms; I enjoyed a tacit "institutional permission," although the interlude wasn't exactly pleasant. The major drawback of having executed a maneuver so loud and questionable in the eyes of the Ministry was the subsequent siege, and I don't mean solely the scrutiny of the student body.
I failed to evade the actions of the faculty, finding myself forced to face two of the House Heads separately: McGonagall and Snape. I endured consecutive sessions in their respective offices, navigating between vociferous reprimands and an oppressive silence. Minerva didn't cease lecturing me, articulating her reproaches with such vehemence that saliva splattered the air while she yelled at me... not out of a desire to intimidate me, but in a desperate attempt to make me internalize the gravity of my actions; though, intertwined with her rigor, a deep worry and a veiled attempt to comfort me beneath her inflexible Scottish matrix were discernible.
On the other hand... Severus confined himself to pinning his eyes on me. He held me in his office without uttering a single taunt about my situation, confining me to a freezing, contemplative inertia. That silent attitude was infinitely more uncomfortable; it was so different from the usual "Snape Bitch." To conclude, he assigned me daily detentions until the closure of the academic year; a directive that would cost me the permanent deployment of a clone wasted on the tasks of his potions laboratory. Did that operate as an undercover surveillance maneuver? I didn't know... All I knew was that I possess a highly vindictive temperament, and I've already sketched a reprisal in my mental agenda for both of them in an excellently bad way, or perhaps a bad good way... Heh, heh, heh...
As night fell over the castle grounds, another kind of confrontation came to me.
The first to reach me were Ginny and Luna. The latter immediately adopted a silent posture, limiting herself to scrutinizing me with her protuberant eyes while stroking the strands of my hair... even giving it a couple of subtle licks. On the contrary, Ginny planted herself in the center of the room with her arms crossed, displaying a tough, severe look that bore an uncanny resemblance to Mom.
"Spill it!" she ruled without preamble. I exhaled a sigh of resignation. I owed her a considerable volume of explanations, so I opted to assume the preferred posture of a good brother.
"What do you want?" I inquired with commercial coldness.
In the end, rather than a dismal confession of traumas, the session transitioned into a rigorous business meeting. Of course, I found myself obliged to reveal certain things to her: I confirmed that every phase of the duel had been orchestrated, broke down the mechanics of the execution for her, and extended an apology for having exposed her to the capabilities of the cursed notebook, as well as for the public insinuations at the Ministry regarding her being one of its victims. This last topic caused both Ginny and Luna to experience a sudden, heated blush on their cheeks, deducing that both had already debated the implications of that narrative in private. But as I was specifying... the core of the session revolved around the bribery scheme I had to supply them with to mitigate their hostility; Ginny's anger, mainly, since Luna was indifferent to it, although she ended up benefiting from the pact.
The final agreement stipulated a private adventure, exclusive to the three of us, during the summer holidays; coupled with a private training program, similar to the dynamics we executed before her formal entry into Hogwarts... and a regular supply of treats crafted by my own magical hands while wearing a traditional housewife outfit. Yes... I was forced to yield considerably to their demands.
Those girls commanded a high index of greed, and a simple excursion across British lands would not fulfill their expectations. I would definitely have to pull the strings to guarantee that my parents won't fail to win the grand prize of the Daily Prophet lottery to secure the trip to Egypt; these young ladies demanded exotic destinations. I could well avail myself of the fief's capabilities, but I judged it more enriching to explore the mysteries of this world in its most natural state. Furthermore, a holiday decompression for the Weasley clan would cushion the impact of the current crisis.
After finishing the agreement with the minors, later in the night, I was besieged by the girls who had knowledge of my true identity: Penelope, Lavender, Pansy, Daphne, and her sister Astoria—the latter escorted by the eldest of the Greengrasses with the explicit purpose of beginning to accustom her to the physiognomy of the entity to whom they rendered vassalage.
The expressions of these girls diverged significantly. Penelope wore a genuine heavyheartedness, internally fearing that, now that we were stripped of witnesses, my speech would differ from the heroic version I had proclaimed. Lavender displayed her classic register of lasciviousness and horniness, her pupils dilated in anticipation of me breaking down the darkest, juiciest details of the homicide. Daphne retained her mask of aristocratic coldness, immutable on the surface, though her gaze pinned onto me with an analytical fixity; pressed against her flank was Astoria, whose eyes betrayed that she didn't quite grasp what she was waiting for. And Pansy... well, Parkinson demonstrated why she was a step ahead in terms of social audacity; she planted herself in the center with her hands firmly on her hips and an expression of severe demand.
"You did it with total premeditation... Didn't you, Red? It was no accident," Pansy decreed, breaking the room's lethargy with crushing confidence, pinning her dark eyes onto my person.