"Hm... Why do you ask that?" I inquired, using a subtle tone of confusion.
I could perceive that, despite the apparent firmness of her posture, my neutrality began to sow doubt in her assumptions. However, upon noting that she held my gaze with tenacity, I opted to end the farce. "You are absolutely right, Pansy. I planned it all."
My words impacted with the weight of a subtle detonation; not so much due to the factor of an unforeseen surprise, but because they operated as the confirmation of their latent suspicions. But while Penelope experienced a visible shudder and little Astoria sought refuge behind her older sister's flank, Pansy tilted her face, fixing her eyes on the floor. Her aura diluted slightly without completely collapsing, denoting a tactical retreat: she carried fewer doubts, but also a drastic reduction in her ordinary confidence.
"Why did you do it?" she ended up asking, while the other two pinned their gazes on me.
"It was... necessary for certain plans I have in hand," I replied simply. "How did you deduce it?" I asked with genuine curiosity, recovering my usual confidence and leaving behind any shred of the melancholic weakness from the last few hours. Although it was in my plans to reveal the truth to them later on, I didn't anticipate they would uncover it so soon.
"Simple intuition..." Pansy articulated, raising her gaze once more, reclaiming an analytical stillness as she held my gaze. "It didn't seem normal to me that a couple of foreign wands would bend your will. It didn't add up... You are not one to act without a motive, nor are you someone easy to manipulate."
"You don't seem very affected by the truth, and neither do you, Daphne," I commented, scrutinizing both Slytherin members and deliberately ignoring Lavender, who by that time was already rubbing her crotch against her own clothing, oblivious to the weight of the conversation.
"Why should I be scandalized?" Parkinson revived with a hint of sarcasm. "They are my husband's plans; I have no reason to complain."
A dense silence filled the room for a brief moment. Despite projecting the image of a woman placing blind trust in my judgment under the status of her "husband," I perceived that something was unsettling her deep down. Nonetheless, I opted to question my secretary within the castle walls first.
"And as far as you are concerned, Daphne?" I inquired with intrigue. "Your countenance does not denote surprise. Does it not perturb you to know that I executed Lucius in a premeditated manner for selfish motivations?"
"It is characteristic of a Slytherin to seek benefit... ambition. What you did... is not so far-fetched," she replied, her voice somewhat muted. Deep down, it was a shocking blow, but she composed herself quickly. Evaluating my status and capabilities, her only logical option was to nod at my actions and congratulate me on the victory.
"Well... and what is it that bothers you, Pansy?" I returned my attention to her.
"Does your agenda contemplate similar maneuvers directed against other pure-blood dynasties? What is it exactly that you are seeking?" she questioned, displaying a much more explicit vulnerability in her features.
"Why does it make you so uncomfortable? But answering your question, no, I have nothing else planned in that sense," I replied in a casual tone, holding her gaze.
"Oh... I see..." Pansy seemed to untense her shoulders, releasing a long sigh of relief.
"What was it that worried you?"
"No... it's just that... I didn't know what had driven you to do that. And I feared that my family might be in your crosshairs," she explained, having shed her previous rigidity. She crossed the space of the room to settle with utter naturalness onto my lap. "I wouldn't have known how to cope with it or what to do," she confessed with absolute honesty. She didn't say it as if she intended to oppose me, but because of the internal conflict of having to endorse the annihilation of her own blood.
"Did you fear I was going to kill your father?" I inquired, genuinely intrigued.
"You did it to Draco's... His mother took him away from here yesterday," Pansy murmured, wrapping her arms around my neck.
"And would you accept it if that were the case?" I wanted to know, evaluating her attitude.
"I wouldn't like it... but if it's what you have to do... They are my parents, it's true, but you are my husband. They always taught me that a wife must support her husband above all else," she declared. Immediately afterward, she began to plant clumsy kisses against the skin of my neck, whispering with a cadence that intended to be seductive, rehearsing the guidelines of marital manipulation her mother had inoculated into her since childhood. "But it won't be necessary to go that far, right? With me you can get everything you desire from the Parkinson family, without the need to use such drastic methods."
"Consider that you also have the assets of House Greengrass at your entire disposal," Daphne intervened, attempting to convey absolute confidence in her capacity. "While my current margin of maneuver does not empower me to mobilize the entirety of the family estate, and the matter of my marriage and my sister's is still pending... if you give me time, I will find a way."
I limited myself to caressing Pansy's hair while processing their declarations, genuinely impressed by the pragmatism both witches manifested in the face of the crisis. They were the epitome of pure-blood heiresses educated under the strictest standards of the snakes: guided exclusively by benefits, ambition, and an implacable instinct for self-preservation.
Then, I shifted my gaze toward the girl who could barely contain herself anymore.
"Penelope..." was all I said, giving her the floor. She jumped right in.
"Red?! What will happen if you are discovered?" she asked with genuine worry. "Not only could they imprison you! If the other pure-blood families find out about this, they will see you as a threat. Perhaps they already do! They will hunt you down and try to kill you!"
Her anguish was clear, logical, and above all, loyal. Despite knowing that I had murdered someone, what mattered most to her was still my safety.
I limited myself to sketching a smile. I flicked my hand in a subtle hook, invoking a blood tentacle that dragged her toward me with a mixture of abruptness and gentleness. I caught her against my body, embracing her with my remaining free arm.
"Tranquil, my girl..." I told her in a teasing yet authoritative tone. "You have nothing to worry about. You know what I am capable of... Did you happen to forget everything I showed you, everything you know about me? Do you really believe I wouldn't have foreseen this?"
I kissed her firmly, ignoring the scowl from Pansy, who was watching me from my other leg.
"Yes, but..." Penelope managed to articulate the moment I released her lips.
"Shhh... Don't think about anything, I've already taken care of everything," I interrupted her confidently, giving her waist a firm squeeze. "Trust me. I have been planning this for a long time. And if everything happens to fail... we still have a safe place to take refuge. So go back to being the serene, pretty, studious student and dancer that I like so much."
Penelope swallowed her doubts. Trapped by my gaze and the certainty of my words, she had no choice but to yield. She knew I was powerful, but she was unaware of the true scope of my abilities, so her fears were completely sincere. To finish calming her down, I began to shower her with kisses.
That finally exhausted the patience of Pansy, who began to plant light blows on my chest with an increasingly crisp expression. Not far away, Astoria contemplated me with a mixture of fear and uncertainty, clinging to her sister's arm. Daphne, by contrast, remained unperturbed; no one was capable of guessing what lay behind her mask of serenity.
"Enough! Stop kissing her! Can't you see I am right here?" Pansy complained, indignant. "I have no problem with you having your sluts, but I demand respect..."
Her grievance was cut short when I silenced her by stamping my lips against hers, while sliding the hand I had on her waist up to firmly squeeze her nipple.
Thus I spent the following moments, playing at the exchange: distributing caresses and kisses to dissipate Penelope's anxiety and placate Pansy's wrath.
The resulting spectacle was quite uncomfortable for the witnesses. At least for Astoria, since Daphne remained just as unperturbed. And Lavender? Well... while I was occupied in the kissing game, she had already slid to the floor. She crawled with animal submission toward me, removed my shoes, and began to lick and kiss my instep with perverted devotion.
"Seriously, Lavender?" I asked, interrupting the kisses to look down at the girl, who seemed to have no limits when it came to degrading herself.
"Why do you always have to be so disgusting?" Pansy spat with deep contempt, already forgetting her anger with me.
However, that disgust came accompanied by a morbid internal satisfaction. Deep down, Pansy wished it were Granger down there, prostrated at her husband's feet, licking his feet... perhaps both of our feet... I could sense a slight shiver of excitement run through Pansy's body at that twisted thought.
"Please... let me adore it..." Lavender begged, licking my skin with devotion. "If I don't, you will get rid of me... right? You are a killer; at any moment you could kill me. You've already tasted blood... You could fuck me and, the very next instant, decide that I will be your next victim! I won't be able to do anything while you strip the shine from my eyes, deprive my lungs of oxygen, and cancel the last beat of my heart... turning me into a useless corpse you will get rid of... Perhaps I'll even serve you one last time, when you use my cold, lifeless body as a fleshlight before throwing it into the sewers to be devoured by rats and parasites..."
Her tone of voice became increasingly feverish and excited. Her licks, now more intense and clumsy, betrayed her lack of control while her gaze shone with fixity. From her gasps and the tension in her body, she almost seemed to be on the verge of orgasm just imagining that scene.
"Lav... seriously, you... how is it that you always manage to go a step further?" I shook my head, observing her outburst. "Let's see, I am aware that the female psyche possesses fantasies of an extremely dark spectrum, it's natural... but usually they wish to experience them within a safe and controlled space. You really don't seem to care; you prefer to actually suffer and die. It's hard for me to believe you have so little self-love... you are a clinical case study."
"It's just what I feel in the deepest part of my being! I desperately yearn for you to execute every single one of those things on me!" she proclaimed, stripped of any vestige of modesty, pressing my limb against her anatomy with such vehemence that she threatened to hurt herself, fixing upon me pupils pregnant with death wishes.
"Lavender! You..." Penelope intervened, genuinely horrified by the drift of the conversation. "Do you want to die? You can't be serious..." she stammered, not knowing how to react.
"Do you really desire death?" Pansy asked, feeling that the situation was crossing the boundaries of the acceptable.
"If it is at his hands... let him destroy every part of me," Lavender replied with dreamy eyes. "I want to feel everything he is capable of doing to me..."
"Lavender..." Daphne approached and placed a hand on her shoulder with evident pity. At that moment, the Slytherin seriously weighed whether she should start thinking about paying for a stay in the psychiatric wing of St. Mungo's for her classmate; clearly, special care was needed.
"Aren't you afraid?" I asked her, adopting a serious tone. "You aren't talking about a safe game, Lav. Doesn't it scare you that desiring something so real brings... definitive consequences?"
"No," she denied with a smile. "Because I know that, no matter what happens, you will be able to fix it. It's not that I don't want a safe space... it's that I don't need it. If it involves you, we can try whatever we want without worrying!" she assured with absolute devotion.
"Lavender, you can't be so naive!" Penelope countered, alarmed by her disconnection from reality. "If you die, there is no coming back! Red can't save you from absolutely everything... If you die, it's over!"
"Wait a moment..." I interrupted Penelope. "In fact... she isn't wrong."