The news exploded before breakfast.
Not via owl, not via parchment on the notice boards... but by word of mouth.
Human mouths.
The mouths of teenagers—uncontrollable and faster than any message-delivery spell.
At the Slytherin long table, a fifth-year girl dropped her spoon into her porridge bowl.
Oatmeal splashed halfway up her cuff, but she didn't wipe it.
She clutched the crumpled copy of the points transcript passed from the next seat, her lips moving as she read the numbers on it three times.
She was a member of the club!
At the Gryffindor long table, the atmosphere was entirely the opposite... but it wasn't cheering either.
The older students exchanged glances.
There was no joy of victory in their eyes, only a tacit silence, like they were chewing on something hard.
Sixth-year Angelina Johnson poked at the fried egg on her plate with her fork.
The yolk broke, the golden liquid spreading across the white porcelain.
She stared at the yolk for five seconds and put down her fork.
She was also a member of the club!
The younger wizards were completely baffled.
A second-year Gryffindor boy tugged the sleeve of a fourth-year girl next to him, looking up and asking, "Did we win? Did we win?"
The fourth-year girl looked down at him, the corner of her mouth twitching.
Without answering, she shoved a piece of jam-smeared toast into his hand.
She was also a member of the club!
At the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw long tables, the reactions were even more subtle.
The Ravenclaw students had already begun to discuss the political logic behind this in low voices.
Several sixth-year heads were huddled together, quills drawing arrows and boxes on napkins, connecting words like "Board of Governors," "Faculty Council," and "Voting Rights" with lines, as if drawing a miniature map of power relations.
The Hufflepuff students were much quieter.
Most of them just ate their breakfast in silence, occasionally looking up at the two empty chairs at the staff table...
McGonagall's chair, and Dumbledore's chair.
Both chairs were empty.
The second piece of news exploded less than twenty minutes after the first began to spread.
McGonagall had resigned as Head of Gryffindor House.
This news traveled even faster than the points change because it leaked from the staff channels...
Professor Flitwick had been talking to Professor Sprout in the corridor and was overheard mid-sentence by a Ravenclaw sixth-year.
Within ten minutes, that half-sentence had been embellished and multiplied into forty-seven versions, ranging from "Professor McGonagall resigned," to "Professor McGonagall was fired," to "Professor McGonagall had a huge row with Dumbledore and stormed out."
The differences between the versions were as vast as forty-seven completely different events happening in forty-seven parallel universes.
But the core fact remained unchanged... McGonagall was no longer the Head of Gryffindor House.
When the older students put the two pieces of information together, the outline of the puzzle emerged.
At 3:00 AM, Dumbledore awarded Gryffindor seven hundred and eighty points in one go.
Then McGonagall resigned as Head of House.
Any student who had completed fifth-year Political History of Magic could read where the arrow of causality pointed...
What Dumbledore had traded for Gryffindor's victory, and the price of that trade, was McGonagall's position.
The news crossed the walls of Hogwarts.
Owls flew out of the Owlery in flocks, their wings looking like a flapping, grayish-brown cloud in the morning light.
Underneath every claw was clutched a scroll of parchment covered in writing, flying toward London, toward Diagon Alley, toward the Ministry of Magic, and toward the pure-blood manors that subscribed to the Daily Prophet's special delivery.
Fourth floor.
Transfiguration Professor's Office.
McGonagall was still sitting in that high-backed chair.
Her posture hadn't changed much since Dumbledore left in the early morning... her spine resting against the back of the chair, her shoulders slightly skewed, and her glasses still halfway down the bridge of her nose.
The only change was that there were now seven or eight ink spots on the blank parchment on the desk.
They were scattered across the paper in various sizes, like a group of silent black beetles having a meeting.
She hadn't written a resignation letter.
Not because she didn't intend to write one... but because she didn't need to.
Dumbledore hadn't asked her to write one.
He had only said "I'm sorry" and "It was the only way," and then left.
The change in the Head of House position took effect directly through administrative procedures; it didn't require her signature or her consent. The Headmaster had the right to unilaterally adjust the appointment of House Heads.
She only needed to move out.
But she hadn't moved yet.
The office was filled with decades' worth of things...
Manuscripts of Transfiguration lesson plans arranged by year on the bookshelves.
Copies of past students' grade records in the drawers.
That bronze, cat-shaped candlestick on the mantelpiece... she had bought it in Diagon Alley when she first walked into this office at the age of twenty-three.
Her initials, "M.M.", were engraved on the base of the candlestick, the verdigris having filled the engraving like an old wound that had healed but left a scar.
The new office hadn't been cleared out yet. Until then, she wasn't going anywhere.
A knock on the door.
It wasn't the pounding knock of a student... it was three even, rhythmic taps.
The force of the knuckles against the wood was just right, neither too light nor too heavy, like knocking on a door one knew would be opened for them.
McGonagall's eyelids lifted slightly.
"Come in."
The door opened.
When Hess walked in, the heels of her boots clicked twice crisply on the flagstones—clack, clack.
The rhythm of her steps was steady and composed, the distance between each step nearly identical, as if measured with a ruler.
The dueling professor's black robes were tailored more closely than the other staff members', cinched tightly at the waist, outlining her thirty-something-year-old figure cleanly...
The line of her shoulders, the narrowing of her waist, the slight outward flare of her hip bones beneath the fabric of the robe looked like a cello wrapped in black velvet, its curves fluid.
There was no deliberately feigned expression of sympathy on her face.
Her brows and eyes were relaxed, the corners of her mouth flat. The muscles of her jawline were neither tensed nor deliberately slackened.
The expression on her entire face was like a glass of warm water just poured, without any spices added... clean, neutral, devoid of any preconceived stance.
She walked to the front of the desk, standing exactly where Dumbledore had stood moments ago.
Her gaze swept from McGonagall's crooked glasses to the pale purple bruise exposed at her collar, pausing for half a beat.
That bruise.
Hess's eyelashes fluttered... an extremely subtle movement, like a leaf brushing against the wind.
She recognized the shape and color of that mark.
Not long ago at the party, she had seen with her own eyes how the lips that left such a mark had pressed against her, how the boy's front teeth had pinched the skin near her collarbone, how McGonagall's fingers had threaded through the boy's hair, pressing his head against her own neck.
She didn't mention it.
Her fingers rested on the edge of the desk, her fingertips grinding over the wood grain next to those ink spots. Her nail scraped a shallow scratch...
That was a scratch gouged into the desktop by a mistakenly transfigured porcupine during a student's Transfiguration exam some year in the past.
"I have an empty office over by me."
The voice emerged from her throat, the pitch neither high nor low, the speed neither fast nor slow, as if remarking that the weather today was nice or that the wall lamp at the end of the corridor needed a new wick.
"Third floor, east corridor, next to the dueling classroom.
Faces south, the lighting is better than here.
I just had the House-Elves clean it out last month. The floor is newly waxed, and the fireplace flue is clear."
Her fingers withdrew from the desktop, crossing her arms over her chest.
The fabric of the robe tightened under the squeeze of her forearms, outlining the muscles...
The dueling professor's forearms were a size thicker than an ordinary woman's, the muscle fibers beneath the skin like bundles of tightly twisted ropes.
"Move over there."
McGonagall's fingers released the quill; the shaft rolled half a circle on the desk again, touching the edge of an ink spot, the tip picking up a trace of wet ink.
Her gaze shifted from the quill to Hess's face.
The crooked glasses caused her line of sight to go over the upper rim of the lenses, her naked eyes meeting Hess's calm, unprejudiced eyes.
The corner of her mouth twitched.
Not a smile... the muscles around her lips twitched slightly for a beat, pulled by some emotion, like a fish turning over beneath the surface of the water, the ripple vanishing before it could spread to the surface.
Hess's boot heel clicked on the flagstone, shifting her weight from her left foot to her right.
The angle of her hip bone skewed slightly, and the hem of her robe swept the floor during this shift of weight, emitting a swish of fabric against stone.
Her arms uncrossed from her chest. Her right hand slipped into the pocket of her robe, her fingers clenching and unclenching against the inner lining, as if squeezing an invisible stress ball.
"Do you want to!"
Her voice dropped half an octave, shifting from a normal conversational volume to a near-whisper frequency that could only be heard clearly at the distance between the two of them.
Her lips moved twice, her tongue-tip grinding over her upper palate, turning the next few words over in her mouth, confirming their weight and temperature before letting them out from between her teeth.
"Kill that old thing?"
Hess's words still hung in the air of the office.
The words "kill that old thing" were like a stone tossed casually into still water. Before the ripples had even dissipated, the door sounded again.
McGonagall's gaze shifted from Hess's face to the door.
Hess stepped half a pace to the side, the hem of her robe sweeping the flagstones, yielding the path between the door and the desk.
The door was pushed open a crack.
A head poked in first... golden-brown long hair hung down through the crack in the door.
The ends of her hair brushed the edge of the door panel, a few strands caught in the crack, breaking off two hairs from the ends as she peeked inside, drifting down onto the flagstone of the threshold.
A round face appeared from behind the door panel, her cheeks still carrying a bit of the curve of baby fat, making her facial features look several years younger than her actual age.
She looked like a lost younger student who had mistakenly wandered into the staff area.
Liliana's golden-brown eyes scanned the interior of the office through the crack in the door...
Sweeping past McGonagall behind the desk, past Hess standing in front of the desk, past the bronze cat-shaped candlestick on the mantelpiece, past the lemon-colored morning light on the floor...
Then her body squeezed in through the crack in the door.
Squeezed.
Not walked in, squeezed in.
The crack in the door was open less than a foot wide. Her shoulder slid sideways through the gap between the door panel and the frame, but she got stuck at her chest...
Those orbs, completely disproportionate to her baby face, were squeezed from both sides by the door panel and the frame. The orbs beneath the fabric bulged out a section above her neckline, like two lumps of dough stuffed into a mold that was too small, trying to overflow.
Liliana's body twisted, the angle of her shoulders shifting another dozen degrees. The orbs squeezed through the crack in the door with a pop, bouncing twice beneath the fabric of her school robe as they sprang back to their original shape.
The amplitude of the bouncing was so great that it skewed the collar of Liliana's school robe a section, revealing the pale skin below her collarbone and a small red mark pressed into the starting curve of her cleavage by the fabric.
"Professor McGonagall!"
The voice bounced from Liliana's lips, the tone sickeningly sweet, like three extra spoons of honey added to hot cocoa.
The end of the word tilted upward, carrying the reckless vivacity unique to a first-year wizard, yet to be worn away by the rules of the academy.
Liliana's bare feet pattered across the flagstones, leaving a trail of warm, quickly fading footprints on the floor as she walked over and stood beside Hess.
She only reached Hess's shoulder. She looked up at Hess, blinking her golden-brown eyes twice, her eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings.
"Professor Hess is here too."
Hess looked down at her, her gaze sweeping from her round baby face to the orbs that stretched out an exaggerated curve beneath the fabric of her school robe.
The corner of her mouth twitched, but she said nothing.
Liliana turned her head back, her golden-brown long hair whipping over her shoulder with the movement.
The ends of her hair swept across Hess's forearm, several strands catching on the button of Hess's robe sleeve, snapping with her next movement.
Her gaze fell on McGonagall's face.
McGonagall sat in the high-backed chair, her spine resting against the backrest, her glasses askew on the bridge of her nose.
The pale purple bruise exposed at her collar looked particularly glaring in the lemon-colored morning light.
Liliana's golden-brown eyes paused for a beat on that bruise...
She recognized the mark. She recognized the shape and force of the lips that left such a mark, because she had them on her own body, too.
Hidden by her school robe, in the area below her collarbone and above her orbs, several marks of the same shape were scattered in varying shades.
Liliana didn't stare.
Her gaze slid away from the bruise, landing on the quill that had rolled next to the ink spot by McGonagall's hand.
"I heard."
A few words slipped from Liliana's lips. That honey-like sweetness faded a bit from her tone, revealing a quieter, softer layer beneath, closer to her true voice.
Liliana's fingers rested on the edge of the desk, her fingertips grinding over that scratch gouged by the porcupine on the oak desktop...
Hess had ground over the same scratch just moments ago; their fingertips passed over the same mark one after the other, like two trains passing on the same track at different times.
"The whole school is talking about it."
Her fingers withdrew from the scratch, hanging at her side. Her fingertips rubbed against the fabric of her school robe, wiping off a trace of sawdust that had stuck to her pads.
Her bare feet shuffled half a step on the flagstones, her toes bumping the crossbar at the bottom of the desk, pulling back.
"Dumbledore awarded seven hundred and eighty points, and then you..."
Her lips closed for a beat, swallowing the second half of the sentence.
Her golden-brown eyes moved from the quill to McGonagall's face, blinking once.
She had seen Liliana's performance in Dueling Class... honestly, she was not a suitable duelist.
And Transfiguration... Hess was not an expert in Transfiguration, but she had heard McGonagall mention it.
More than once, McGonagall would speak of Liliana's performance in Transfiguration Class with an extremely restrained tone, so restrained that almost no emotion could be heard.
But that restraint itself leaked everything... Minerva McGonagall only showed such restraint when faced with something that truly moved her.
Liliana lifted her hand from her side, resting it on the hand McGonagall had placed on the desktop.
A small palm covered the back of McGonagall's hand. The temperature of the fingers transmitted through the skin...
Warm, carrying the vigorous body heat unique to a first-year wizard with a fast metabolism, several degrees higher than the back of McGonagall's hand, which had grown slightly cool from sitting in the high-backed chair all morning.
Her fingers didn't clasp tightly, just resting there, her palm pressed against the back of the hand, her fingertips dangling next to McGonagall's knuckles, like a small animal resting its paw on a large animal's paw.
"Professor."
Her golden-brown eyes met McGonagall's naked gaze, which looked over the upper rim of her askew glasses.
"Regardless of whether you are the Head of Gryffindor... you still teach Transfiguration, right?"
McGonagall's fingers moved beneath Liliana's palm, her knuckles bending slightly in an arc, as if responding to the small hand resting there, or perhaps just an involuntary muscle twitch.
The corners of Liliana's mouth curved up.
The arc wasn't large, but on her round baby face, this arc was squeezed into the shape of a dimple by the baby fat on her cheeks—shallow, as if someone had pressed a small dent into her cheek with their fingertip.
"Then I am still your student."
Liliana's words still hung in the air when more movement came from the office entrance.
This time it wasn't a knock... it was the sound of footsteps, several sets of footsteps overlapping, traveling from the flagstones of the corridor.
The rhythms varied, like a small, unrehearsed band playing out of sync.
Hermione was the first to appear in the doorway.
Her brown curly hair was tied into a loose ponytail, a few stray hairs escaping the elastic band to cling to the sides of her cheeks, which still carried the flush of having jogged all the way from Gryffindor Tower.
The front of her school robe was buttoned neatly, fastened all the way to the top button, completely covering the skin on her neck...
But the fabric at her collar stretched open slightly with the rise and fall of her collarbones as she panted, revealing a small patch of skin glistening with thin sweat in the hollow of her collarbone.
Her brown eyes scanned the interior of the office, seeing McGonagall, seeing Hess, seeing the small hand Liliana had rested on the back of McGonagall's hand.
She pursed her lips and stepped sideways to clear the doorway.
Hannah poked half her body out from behind Hermione.
Her scarf still hung around her neck, the yellow and black stripes swaying next to her rounded face. Her short blonde hair was tucked behind her ears, the small silver stud earrings glinting in the light from the corridor.
Her hand clutched a paper bag. The opening of the bag wasn't sealed, and a sweet scent of butter cookies wafted out...
Probably swiped from the kitchens; her common room was the closest to them.
Hannah's blue eyes paused at the doorway, seeing Liliana standing barefoot on the flagstones.
She frowned, switched the paper bag to her left hand, pulled her right hand out from her scarf, and reached toward Liliana. Her lips opened and closed, but ultimately she said nothing, following Hermione into the office.
In the corridor behind them, the sound of boot heels striking flagstones drew nearer.
Catherine's figure turned the corner of the corridor. Her black robe swayed with the stride of her walk, the hem sweeping the surface of the flagstones, emitting a rhythmic swish with every step.
Her golden eyes were half-squinted, a faint arc hanging at the corner of her mouth.
That large, fuzzy tail stretched out from beneath the back of her robe, the ball of fur at the tip swaying left and right behind her, brushing against the walls on both sides of the corridor, leaving a few fluffy hairs on the surface of the stone bricks.
She didn't pause as she walked into the office, her gaze sweeping past McGonagall, Hess, Liliana, Hermione, and Hannah, finally landing on the bronze cat-shaped candlestick on the mantelpiece. The arc of her mouth curved a bit more.
Her tail wrapped around from behind to her front, the ball of fur resting on her crossed forearms, the down brushing against the fabric of her robe sleeve.
Isabella walked in closely behind Catherine, her silver-white long hair braided into a thick plait that hung down her chest, the end of the braid resting at her waistline.
A thin black satin ribbon was wrapped around the braid, tied into a bow at the end, swaying gently with her walking pace.
Her gray-blue eyes quietly swept over the people already standing in the office.
Her lips didn't move; she just nodded slightly, walking to the window and standing still, her shoulder leaning against the window frame, her fingers unconsciously twirling the bow of the ribbon at the end of her braid.
The last to enter was Ophena.
Her short hair, looking like a ball of burning flame piled atop her head, was pinned up with a wooden hairpin that looked like it would fall apart at any moment.
A few strands of hair escaped through the gaps of the hairpin, hanging over her forehead and covering half of an eyebrow.
Her eyes swept over the office through the gaps in those strands of hair.
A licorice wand was clamped in the corner of her mouth, the end of the licorice wand bitten into a ring of teeth marks by her front teeth, emitting a faint crunching sound as she chewed.
After she walked in, she casually pulled the door shut behind her.
The door panel closed into the frame with a click, shutting out the light and sound from the corridor.
The office suddenly became crowded.
The space wasn't small, but with seven people standing in the area between the desk and the fireplace, the heat of their breath and their respective scents mingled together...
The residual ink smell on Hermione, the sweet scent of butter cookies drifting from the paper bag in Hannah's hand, the fragrance of amber and tuberose from Catherine, the fabric smell of the ribbon on Isabella's braid, the spicy herbal scent of the licorice wand in Ophena's mouth, the trace of chill brought up by Liliana's bare feet on the flagstones...
All the scents brewed under the baking of the faint firelight in the fireplace, turning into a warm, crowded, composite aura unique to a gathering of females.
McGonagall sat in the high-backed chair, her eyes behind her askew glasses scanning the faces before her one by one.
Hermione stood directly in front of the desk, her fingers wringing the cuffs of her school robe, her brown eyes carrying a hesitation—wanting to say something but still organizing her words.
Hannah stood next to Hermione, the fingers clutching the paper bag tightening a circle, the bag emitting a crinkle of creasing.
Liliana's hand still rested on the back of McGonagall's hand, her golden-brown eyes looking at McGonagall's face through the gaps between the shoulders of these older girls who were a head or even two heads taller than her.
Catherine leaned near the bookshelf, the ball of fur on her tail slowly rubbing against her forearm.
Isabella leaned against the window frame, her fingers twirling the ribbon.
Ophena clamped the licorice wand, her green eyes half-squinted.
Hess stood to the side of the desk, arms crossed over her chest. Her gaze swept over this group of girls filing in, the arc of her mouth shifting from flat to slightly upturned... an "as expected," unsurprised arc.
The silence lasted for about five seconds.
In those five seconds, the fireplace flames licked the iron bars three times, the morning light in the curtains brightened a degree from lemon-colored, and the paper bag in Hannah's hand crinkled again.
McGonagall's fingers moved beneath Liliana's palm.
Then her spine left the back of the chair.
Inch by inch, like a slowly righted flagpole, she recovered from her slumped posture to perfectly straight... that iron-rod-like straightness belonging to Minerva McGonagall.
Her shoulders leveled out, the left and right returning to the same horizontal line.
Her left hand rose, her fingers adjusting the askew glasses on the bridge of her nose, pushing the arm back to the correct position above her auricle.
The lenses reflected a beam of firelight the instant they returned to place, casting a diamond-shaped light spot on the ceiling.
She stood up from the high-backed chair.
Liliana's hand slid off the back of her hand, the small fingers hovering in the air for a beat before dropping back to her side.
McGonagall stood behind the desk.
The dark green robe recovered its proper tailored lines on her straightened figure... the shoulder line square, the waistline cinched, the hem falling vertically onto her boots.
Her gaze swept over the faces before her, from Hermione to Hannah, from Hannah to Liliana, from Liliana to Catherine, from Catherine to Isabella, from Isabella to Ophena, finally landing on Hess's face, pausing for a beat.
"What are you all doing?"
When the voice emerged from her throat, the hoarseness had mostly faded, replaced by something closer to usual, the crispness carrying a Scottish accent...
It wasn't fully recovered, but the framework was already propped up, like a lighthouse blown askew by a storm correcting its angle; the light wasn't fully on yet, but the direction was right.
"You make it sound as if I've suffered some kind of defeat."
Her fingers withdrew from the arm of her glasses, resting on the edge of the desk. Her fingertips ground over the wood grain next to those ink spots, her nail scraping a very light hiss on the oak surface.
Hermione's lips parted!
McGonagall raised her hand, palm facing forward, fingers slightly spread, pressing back the words Hermione was about to speak.
"Resigning from this... has actually been my dream for many years."
She pulled her hand back from Hermione's direction. Her fingers gathered the fabric of her collar, hiding that pale purple bruise back into the shadow of the neckline.
"I just couldn't bring myself to leave you all before."
When she said "you all," her gaze didn't look at anyone in particular, but at the bronze cat-shaped candlestick on the mantelpiece...
The initials "M.M." engraved on the base of the candlestick appeared and disappeared in the firelight, the verdigris filling the grooves of the engraving.
"But now that someone has made the decision for me..."
Her fingers released from her collar, hanging at her side. Her fingertips brushed against the fabric of the robe, wiping off a trace of ink stain that had stuck to her pad.
"Then there is nothing left to say."
She stepped out from behind the desk. Her boot heels clicked on the flagstones twice crisply—clack, clack.
The rhythm of her steps was steady and composed, exactly the same as Hess's steps when she walked in earlier... two thirty-something-year-old women, the composure of mature women honed in their respective fields.
"I will remain at Hogwarts, serving as the Transfiguration Professor."
She walked to the bookshelf. Her fingers pulled a roll of parchment from the third shelf.
The parchment bore the purple wax seal of the Ministry of Magic; the pattern of the seal was a wand and a shield crossed together.
"At the same time... the appointment from the Ministry of Magic has come down.
Director of the Department for the Security and Protection of Underage Wizards."
She turned the roll of parchment in her hand; the wax seal shimmered with a dark red luster in the firelight from the hearth.
"And... the Ministry representative on the reorganized Hogwarts Board of Governors."
She placed the parchment back on the bookshelf, her fingers grinding against the edge of the roll to flatten the curled corners.
Catherine's tail stopped swaying, the fur on the ball bristling slightly, and her golden eyes opened a fraction from their half-squinted state.
Ophena stopped the crunching sound of the licorice wand in her mouth, her eyes shooting a sharp glint through the gaps in her short red hair.
Hess uncrossed her arms, letting her fingers hang by her sides, her fingertips grinding against the fabric of her robes.
Hermione's brown eyes stayed on McGonagall's face for three seconds. Her lips pressed into a thin line, then relaxed, the tight line of her mouth shifting into a subtle upward curve somewhere between relief and admiration.
Hannah's fingers loosened their grip on the paper bag; the opening parted a little, letting the sweet scent of butter cookies drift out even stronger.
Liliana's golden-brown eyes lit up, the dimple reappearing on her round baby face. Her bare toes curled and uncurled against the flagstones, like a little kitten stretching.
McGonagall stood by the bookshelf. The firelight from the hearth illuminated her profile, gilding the silhouette of her dark green robes with a warm orange-red edge.
Her spine was straight, her shoulders level, her glasses perched properly on the bridge of her nose.
The luster in her eyes behind the lenses was returning bit by bit... not a candy-wrapper-like sparkle, but the steady, continuous light of a lighthouse re-ignited.
Isabella's shoulder pushed off the window frame. Her long silver braid slid from her chest to her back as she stood straight, the black satin bow at the end swaying against her waist for a beat.
Her gray-blue eyes watched McGonagall; her lips moved, but she made no sound, merely nodding once... a tiny movement, her chin dropping an inch and lifting back.
The wood in the fireplace cracked with a pop. A spark shot out from the gaps in the iron grate, drawing an orange-red arc across the flagstone floor before dying out three inches in front of the toe of McGonagall's boot.
The door was pushed open again.
There was no knock this time.
The creak of the hinges was stretched into a sharp metallic shriek by the force of a kick.
The door panel slammed against the wall with a muffled bang that shook the bronze cat-shaped candlestick on the mantelpiece, causing its base to rotate a quarter turn on the surface, shifting the engraved "M.M." from facing the room to facing the wall.
Jerry stood in the doorway.
His left hand held a party popper.
Not the kind common in the wizarding world that shot out live butterflies or miniature fireworks... it was a proper Muggle-style cardboard party popper, the tube wrapped in cheap gold foil.
The foil was printed with the word "CONGRATULATIONS," the edges of the letters rough and fuzzy due to poor printing quality, like a row of moss-covered fences.
His right hand clutched something.
Golden.
Not the cheap gold of foil... but solid gold, heavy, radiating a warm, deep luster—like solidified melted honey—under the dual illumination of the firelight and the morning light from the curtains.
A staff.
The shaft extended from his palm, its length nearly a third longer than a standard wand, its thickness somewhere between a wand and a walking stick.
It was cast entirely of pure gold, the surface free of any gemstone inlays or flashy decorative patterns.
There was only a very shallow, spiraling groove carved from the grip to the tip.
Inlaid at the bottom of the groove was a silver thread finer than a hair, snaking up the golden shaft like a climbing, coldly glowing serpent.
The tip tapered into a smooth cone, upon which was cast a coin-sized emblem...
The emblem depicted a phoenix with spread wings, its eyes two pinhead-sized rubies that looked like two drops of coagulated blood in the firelight.
The seven people in the office looked toward the door simultaneously.
Jerry's eyes swept over the faces in the room, the corner of his mouth quirked.
His left hand aimed the party popper toward the ceiling and gave a twist...
Bang!
The cardboard tube blew open, shooting gold and silver confetti from the muzzle.
It burst into a shower of glittering paper scraps in the office air.
The confetti spun, tumbled, and drifted down, landing on McGonagall's shoulder, in Hess's hair, on the tip of Liliana's nose, on Catherine's raised tail-puff, on the collar of Hermione's school robe, into the opening of Hannah's paper bag, onto Isabella's silver braid, and into Ophena's short red hair...
The golden scraps hanging in her red hair looked like golden ashes drifting down onto a burning bush.
The flames in the fireplace surged higher from the impact of the popper's airflow. The tongues of fire licked the top of the iron grate, drawing several pieces of confetti that had drifted near the hearth into the blaze.
The paper curled, blackened, and turned into wisps of gray smoke in the fire, mixing into the draft of the chimney.
Jerry casually tossed the empty cardboard tube behind him. It bounced twice on the flagstones of the corridor and rolled into the shadows of the corner.
He walked over to McGonagall.
The height difference between a teenage boy and an adult woman was compressed to its most visceral degree at this distance...
When he looked straight ahead, his line of sight met the fabric-covered area below McGonagall's collarbone and above her neckline; to see her face, he had to look up.
But he didn't look up. His eyes remained level, and the quirky arc at the corner of his mouth didn't change.
His right hand extended the solid gold staff horizontally.
The shaft rested between his palm and fingertips, the golden luster appearing exceptionally heavy against his youthful, bony fingers.
It looked like a golden scepter held by a hand that hadn't fully grown yet... giving a "small horse pulling a big cart" vibe; from the size of the fingers to the weight of the staff, every detail emphasized this contrast.
"Congratulations."
A single word popped from his lips, his tone as light as dropping a leaf onto water.
"Director of the Department for the Security and Protection of Underage Wizards, and Ministry Representative on the Hogwarts Board of Governors... Minerva McGonagall."
His eyes finally lifted, moving from McGonagall's collar to her chin, from her chin to her lips, from her lips to the tip of her nose, from the tip of her nose to the eyes behind the lenses that were lighting up again.
The arc at the corner of his mouth quirked a fraction more.
"I really want to see it!"
The sole of his shoe ground against the flagstone, scraping over a piece of golden confetti that had fallen to the floor and crushing it beneath his heel.
"The expression on Dumbledore's face when he sees you appear on the Board of Governors again."
Golden confetti was still drifting down from the air.
One piece landed on the shaft of the staff, slid a short distance along that spiraling silver thread to the edge of the phoenix emblem, and caught on the tip of the phoenix's spread wing, trembling slightly in the draft from the fireplace.
Liliana shuffled half a step forward. Her golden-brown eyes moved from the staff to Jerry's profile, the dimple on her round baby face so deep it was practically overflowing with a smile. Her lips parted to reveal a row of neat, small white teeth.
"Jerry... where did you get this...?"
Catherine's tail slowly lowered from its vertical state, the fur on the ball dropping strand by strand back to its fluffy state. The tip curled up, drawing a lazy arc in the air that brushed against the tops of the spines on the lowest bookshelf, sweeping a piece of golden confetti onto the floor.
Ophena shifted the licorice wand from the left side of her mouth to the right, her front teeth knocking against the stick with a crisp clack. Her eyes moved from Jerry's face to McGonagall's face, and then from McGonagall's face to the solid gold staff held horizontally between them, the corners of her mouth curving behind the licorice wand at an angle obscured from view.
The golden confetti continued to fall.
A piece landed on the lens of McGonagall's glasses, slid a short distance down the glass, drifted from the lower rim of the frame, and landed on her lips. It was blown up by her exhaled breath, performed a somersault, and landed on the staff Jerry was holding out, resting right next to the piece already caught on the phoenix's wingtip.
The wood in the fireplace cracked again.
The iron door to the alchemy workshop was unlocked.
The moment Jerry's fingers touched the doorknob, sounds leaked through the crack... not the clink of metal striking metal, not the bubbling of a boiling cauldron, but intermittent, weak whimpers squeezed from deep within a throat, like a small animal being scruffed.
"Ynn... mmh... ynnn..."
He pushed the door open.
The light inside the workshop was dim, the windows sealed shut by heavy blackout curtains.
The only light source came from the alchemy furnace in the corner... the blue flames in the hearth dyed the entire space in a cold, underwater-like glow. The surfaces of the metal instruments reflected shards of blue light, casting swaying, ripple-like shadows on the walls and ceiling.
On the workbench next to the furnace, a semi-finished crystal golem soaked in a glass container.
The alchemical solution in the container bubbled finely, making a gurgle-gurgle sound.
Droplets splashed by the popping bubbles landed on the tabletop, soaking into nail-sized silver dots.
The sounds were not coming from the furnace.
They were coming from the black leather-upholstered operating table at the very back of the workshop.
Aurora sat on the edge of the operating table, her legs crossed, left over right, the heel of her boot hooking the crossbar at the bottom of the table. Her posture was as relaxed as if she were sitting on the armrest of a sofa in her own living room.
Her black robes were half-off; her upper body clad only in a tight, dark gray undershirt, the sleeves rolled up above her elbows, revealing the muscle lines on her forearms—thicker than an ordinary woman's from years of handling alchemical tools.
The muscle fibers looked like bundles of tightly twisted silk ropes in the blue firelight.
Her right hand held something.
Long, thin, and silver, the shaft carved with dense runes that glowed faintly in the blue light... not a wand, but an alchemical probe, typically used to test the magical conductivity of materials, the tip capable of releasing faint magical pulses of adjustable intensity.
The tip was currently pressed against Selena's lower abdomen.
Selena was bound to the other end of the operating table.
Not with ropes... but with leather straps used to secure large materials in the alchemy workshop.
The wide, dark brown straps passed through securing rings beneath the tabletop.
One strap cinched her waist, pressing the small of her back into the leather surface.
Another wrapped around her left wrist, securing her arm to an iron ring on the edge of the table above her head. There was one on her right wrist as well, securing it symmetrically to the left.
Her two arms were spread in a V-shape, her fingers curling weakly at the edge of the strap, her fingertips white.
Her leather jacket had been stripped off and balled up under her head as a pillow.
The buttons of her blouse were completely undone from collar to hem, the fabric falling away from her sides to lay flat on the leather table, exposing her entire naked torso from collarbone to pubic bone.
The contours of her ribs appeared and disappeared one by one with her rapid breathing.
The skin of her abdomen rose and fell with the rhythm of her breath, the depression of her navel deepening and shallowing like a small breathing mouth.
The curve of her waistline narrowed from the lower edge of her ribs to her hip bones and then expanded, outlining the hourglass silhouette unique to a young woman not yet fully matured.
Her leather skirt had been pushed up past her waistline, piled on the segment of her torso between the strap and her ribs, the wrinkled fabric looking like a strip of cloth washed ashore by the tide and left stranded on the beach.
Below the skirt, the skin from the root of her thighs to her knees was exposed in the blue firelight. Her panties had been pulled down to her left ankle, hanging on her ankle bone, the fabric soaked with a dark wet patch.
The tip of the alchemical probe in Aurora's hand pressed against Selena's lower abdomen, exactly three inches below her navel...
The skin there was a layer thinner than the surrounding areas, and the muscle tissue beneath spasmed uncontrollably under the stimulation of the faint magical pulses released by the tip.
With every spasm, Selena's waist bounced an inch off the table, only to be yanked back by the strap around her waist, producing a dull smack between leather and skin.
"Ynn... don't... don't touch there..."
Selena's voice squeezed through her teeth, the tone as shrill as an overtightened bowstring. Every word carried a tremolo, the end of her words shattering in her throat like a piece of thin ice smashed on the ground.
Selena's head was turned to the side, her cheek pressed against the balled-up leather jacket serving as a pillow.
Her long, deep chestnut hair was scattered across the table, several strands sticking to her sweat-soaked cheek, running from her temple to the corner of her mouth, lifting and falling with her rapid breaths.
Her black eyes were wet, tears pooling into a glistening line at the edge of her lower eyelids.
They hadn't fallen yet, but they already refracted fine spots of light in the blue firelight.
Her pupils were dilated, the irises squeezed into narrow black rings, like nebulas mostly swallowed by black holes, fading away.
The corners of Aurora's mouth were curved.
Not a smile... but an arc somewhere between observation and appreciation, focused and calm, like an alchemist inspecting a semi-finished product.
Her thumb twisted the shaft of the probe; the brightness of the runes changed, from a faint blue glow to a slightly brighter blue-white light... the intensity of the magical pulse had been turned up a notch.
The tip drew a line on Selena's lower abdomen, moving slowly from below the navel toward the pubic bone.
A dense layer of goosebumps rose on the skin surface ground by the tip, like an invisible snake crawling across a calm water surface, leaving a trail of ripples.
"Your muscle reflex arc is shorter than I expected."
Aurora's voice slid from her lips, the tone as flat as reading a lab report—no inflection, no emotion, every word precisely cut to the same length and weight.
"The delay from stimulus to spasm is only about 0.3 seconds... an ordinary wizard is 0.5 to 0.7... your nerve conduction speed is nearly twice as fast as the average."
The tip moved to the upper edge of the pubic bone, grinding over the boundary line where the lower abdomen transitioned to the private parts and the skin texture suddenly became finer and more sensitive...
Selena's thighs snapped together violently, her knees colliding with a dull thump, the skin of her inner thighs trapping the air to squeeze out a wet squish.
Aurora's left hand clamped down on Selena's right knee, her fingers hooking the edge of the kneecap, and pried it outward...
Selena's thighs were forced apart, her knees forcibly separated from their closed state to the two sides of the table.
The skin of her inner thighs, soaked with sweat and bodily fluids, was exposed in the blue light; from her groin to the inside of her knees, the entire patch of skin glistened with a damp, dewy sheen like a petal dampened by morning mist.
The two fleshy petals parted a crack from their closed state with the forced opening of her thighs.
The transparent liquid overflowing from the slit trickled down the curve of the perineum, passing the starting point of her gluteal cleft, and dripped onto the leather operating table with a plop, soaking into a coin-sized dark spot on the black leather surface.
Jerry stepped onto the flagstone floor of the workshop.
The sole of his shoe bumped into a silver screw that had rolled off the workbench; the screw spun half a circle beneath his toe, hitting the adjacent table leg with a clink.
Aurora's gaze moved away from Selena's body, turning toward the doorway.
The blue firelight shone on her profile, cutting her facial contours into two areas, half bright and half dark...
On the bright side, the curve of her cheekbone, the straight line of her nose, and the curve of the corner of her mouth were outlined in blue light like a cool-toned sketch; the dark half sank into the shadows of the workshop, with only the reflection of the blue light deep in her eye turning slowly like a cold star sunk in deep water.
"You're back?"
The two words popped from her lips, the tone as flat as when she was reading the lab report, as if Jerry had simply gone out to take out the trash and come back.
Selena's head jerked toward the door from its sideways angle.
Her long, deep chestnut hair whipped across the tabletop with the turn of her head, whipping away the few strands stuck to her cheek to reveal her entire face soaked in tears and sweat...
Her eyes, the moment they saw the figure in the doorway, contracted.
From an enlarged, unfocused state, her pupils violently shrank into two pinhead-sized black dots. The black of her irises became exceptionally intense in the instant of contraction, like a nebula suddenly compressed, its density surging abruptly.
The tears spilled over the edge of her lower eyelids.
Not because of pain... but because of something else, a liquid hotter and fiercer than pain surging up from the depths of her pupils.
It trickled down the grooves on both sides of her nose, past the corners of her mouth, into the depression of her chin, and dripped onto the balled-up leather jacket serving as a pillow, soaking into two dark, small round spots.
Her lips parted, her front teeth biting the inside of her lower lip so hard the flesh caved into a pit, the bottom of the pit turning white.
"Ro...zi...er..."
The three syllables popped one by one from between her teeth, separated by rapid pants, like three red-hot bullets ejected one by one from a magazine.
In her black eyes, tears and hatred churned together, brewing in the blue firelight into a turbid color, indistinguishable between sorrow and fury, like seawater churned up before a storm.
Jerry's fingers slipped from his sleeve, his fingertip tapping the area above Selena's collarbone.
A faint blue electric arc jumped from the tip of his wand to her skin with a crisp crackle.
The arc exploded into a fingernail-sized blue spark in the hollow of her collarbone. The heat of the spark scorched the thin sweat on the skin's surface, evaporating the sweat into a wisp of white smoke. The smoke carried a charred, salty scent that drifted into Selena's nostrils.
Selena's torso bounded off the table.
The strap on her waist yanked her lower back back to the leather surface with a dull smack. The force of her spine hitting the table made her teeth clack together with a clack; her tongue-tip was scraped by the edge of her front teeth, and a rusty taste bloomed in her mouth.
Her fingers spasmed, opening and clenching in the straps above her head. Her nails scraped the inside of the leather straps, producing a sharp hiss.
"Ugh!"
The sound was squeezed from behind her clenched teeth—not a moan, but a muffled grunt, somewhere between a roar and a whimper, crushed by the pain and humiliation of the electric shock.
Her Adam's apple rolled violently beneath the skin of her neck.
Jerry withdrew his finger, the residual blue electric arc on the wand tip jumping crackle-crackle in the air for two beats before going out.
"We can wrap things up today."
His voice slid from his lips, the tone airy, as if remarking that the weather today was nice.
His bare foot stepped over the silver screw on the floor, the sole of his shoe grinding over the edges of the screw, pressing it into the gap between the flagstones with a dull clack.
The alchemical probe in Aurora's hand retreated from Selena's lower abdomen.
The tip of the needle was coated with a thin layer of sweat, shimmering with a wet luster in the blue firelight.
Aurora placed the probe in the tool groove on the edge of the operating table, metal against metal, a crisp clink.
"The core of the crystal golem has solidified; the outer shell just needs one final round of quenching."
Aurora's fingers withdrew from the tool groove, resting on her crossed knees.
The heel of her boot bumped against the crossbar at the bottom of the table as she switched the direction of her crossed legs, her right leg now resting over her left.
"The magical flow tests are also done—nerve conduction velocity, carrying threshold of the magic circuits, the caliber of the core channel—the data is all on that parchment."
Aurora's chin gestured toward the workbench.
The parchment spread out on the workbench had several corners soaked by silver droplets splashed from the alchemical solution. The paper was densely covered in numbers and rune charts, the ink colors varying in depth. The latest lines written on it were not yet fully dry, shimmering with a wet luster in the blue light.
Selena's chest heaved violently, her ribs appearing and disappearing one by one beneath her skin.
In the hollow of her collarbone where the blue spark had scorched, a small patch of bright red burn mark flared up. The center of the burn was white, the edges red, like a coin-sized stamp branded onto her skin.
The skin around the burn mark broke out in a dense layer of goosebumps, spreading from her collarbone to her chest, extending to the upper edge of her breasts.
It turned the surface of the sweat-soaked skin rough, like a pebble beach blown by a cold wind.
Aurora's black eyes stared at the swaying blue water-ripple shadows on the ceiling. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, flowing along the curve of her temples into her hairline, soaking the few strands of deep chestnut hair at her temples into a wet dark brown.
Her lips were trembling.
Not because of the cold—the residual heat from the alchemy furnace warmed the air in the workshop, making it hot and dry—but because of something else, something surging up from the depths of her chest, blocking her throat, something she could neither swallow nor spit out.
"Rozier!"
She recited the surname again, her voice lower than before. The breath squeezed through her teeth shattered into several pieces, every piece carrying a sharp hatred ground by her teeth.
Her wrists twisted inside the straps above her head.
The edges of the leather ground against the thin skin on the inside of her wrist bones, grinding out red marks. Several pinhead-sized beads of blood seeped from the center of the red marks.
The beads of blood appeared in the blue firelight as an almost black, dark red, like several crushed, overripe pomegranate seeds.
Jerry's bare feet stepped beside the operating table, his toes bumping the crossbar at the bottom of the table—the same crossbar Aurora's boot heel was hooked on.
Standing beside the operating table, his line of sight perfectly leveled with Selena's torso on the table; he didn't need to look up or down, the height of the table seemingly custom-made for him.
His eyes swept from the burn mark on Selena's collarbone to the heaving curves of her chest, from her chest to the wrinkled skirt pushed above her waistline, from the wrinkled skirt to the glistening area between her parted thighs.
Aurora slid off the edge of the table, her boot heels landing on the flagstones with a clack.
She walked to the workbench, her fingers picking up the parchment filled with data. She gave it two shakes, flicking off the silver droplets stuck to the paper, the droplets splashing onto the tabletop with patter-patter sounds.
"The caliber of the core channel is a few fractions of a unit narrower than estimated; we'll need to fine-tune the parameters during quenching."
She held the parchment out toward Jerry. The densely packed numbers and rune charts on the paper looked like a miniature spiderweb woven with ink in the blue light.
"It will probably take another three hours."
Selena's knees closed slightly on either side of the table. The muscles of her inner thighs tightened. The skin at the root of her thighs, soaked with bodily fluids, wrinkled with the pull of the muscle contraction.
The two fleshy petals closed back into a slit from their slightly parted state. A small stream of the transparent liquid film between the gap was squeezed out by the closing pressure, trickling down the curve of the perineum to join the starting point of her gluteal cleft.
It dripped with a plop next to the dark spot that had already soaked into the leather operating table. The two round spots sat side-by-side, like a pair of silent eyes watching something.
Her ankle twisted inside the strap. The fabric of her panties hanging on her left ankle rubbed over the protrusion of her ankle bone. The dark wet patch on the fabric soaked out a bit further from the friction, spreading a few millimeters from its original boundary.
"Shut up!"
"Bitch!"