The cranial cavity of the giant dragon, viewed from the inside, looked like a domed cathedral woven from purple cartilage and semi-transparent nerve fibers.
Malfoy's hand reached out from the gap in the innermost wall of the skull.
His five fingers were draped with thick, semi-transparent light purple mucus.
The mucus pulled long threads between his fingers, shimmering with an uncomfortable pearlescence under the dark purple light unique to -17.
Then came his head.
His platinum-blonde hair was completely unrecognizable from its original color.
Every strand was soaked in thick neural connection fluid, plastered tightly to his scalp, presenting a wet, dark color somewhere between silver-gray and light purple.
The mucus ran down from his hairline along his forehead, over his brow bone, over the bridge of his nose, gathering into a drop at the tip of his chin, and landed with a splat on the carapace of the dragon's outer skull.
His face squeezed out from the exit of the cranial cavity.
The expression on that face...
Malfoy's gray eyes were staring perfectly round, his pupils dilated to the point of almost swallowing his irises.
The corners of his mouth were split to the roots of his ears.
His teeth were fully bared.
The muscles on his cheeks were taut to the point of near-spasm due to overexcitement, making his entire face look like a madman hit with a permanent Cheering Charm.
"My God...!"
His voice carried out from the resonant structure of the dragon's cranial cavity, bearing a bizarre echo produced by bone conduction.
"My God, my God, my God...!"
His upper body struggled out of the cranial cavity.
The entire process was accompanied by a loud squish-squish sound as massive amounts of mucus were squeezed through the gap.
The sound was like someone doing sit-ups in a bathtub full of jelly.
His Slytherin robes were completely ruined.
The dark green fabric was soaked by the neural connection fluid into an indescribable purplish-green mix, clinging to his body like a layer of seaweed just dredged from a swamp.
His legs pulled out from the cranial cavity.
Squelch.
The sound of that final pull was exceptionally loud, like ripping a piece of meat off a giant suction cup.
Malfoy's entire body slid down the side of the dragon's skull.
He slid for about three meters along the massive outer wall of the head covered in purple scales, then hit the carapace ground with a smack.
The mucus splattered in a ring around him from the impact of his landing.
He lay on the ground, limbs spread wide, his chest heaving violently.
Not an inch of skin on his entire body was dry.
That giant dragon lay right beside him.
Its size, even in a prone posture, was enough to make Malfoy look like an ant dropped next to a whale.
The length from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail was at least forty meters.
Its wingspan, when fully extended, could probably cover half a Quidditch pitch.
Its scales were the dark purple unique to the Tyranids, each the size of a dinner plate, the surface covered in a slightly reflective waxy coating secreted by biomass.
But it was different from an ordinary dragon.
Its body bore obvious traces of Tyranid modification.
The row of structures on its spine that should have been keratinous spikes was replaced by rows of neat, backward-curving chitinous blades, the edge of each blade thin to the point of being semi-transparent.
The membrane of the wings wasn't the leathery film of ordinary dragon wings, but a biomass composite material woven from millions of microscopic chitinous fibers, with a strength far exceeding steel.
On the side of its head, at the spot where Malfoy had just squeezed out, there was an opening about a meter and a half in diameter, formed by muscular valves.
The inner walls of the opening were densely packed with purple neural tentacles as thin as hair.
Those tentacles were currently slowly shrinking and retracting, detaching from the state of connection with Malfoy's nervous system just now.
Jerry stood on a chitinous rock five meters away.
His posture was very relaxed, left hand in his pocket, right hand holding a deep purple cloth that looked like it had been peeled off some Tyranid organism, with a texture similar to suede.
He threw the cloth toward Malfoy.
The cloth landed accurately on Malfoy's face.
"Wipe yourself off."
Malfoy pulled the cloth off his face and used it to swipe haphazardly across his face a couple of times.
A layer of mucus was rubbed off, but new mucus immediately ran down from his hair to replace it.
He gave up the effort to wipe his face and bounced straight up from the ground.
The speed of that bounce was astonishingly fast.
Considering he had just experienced an extreme ordeal that lasted nearly twenty minutes, with his entire nervous system externally connected to a forty-meter-long biological weapon, the recovery speed of his physical strength was simply not like a teenager's.
"This is simply... this is simply...!"
Malfoy's hands gestured wildly in the air.
Mucus flung from his fingertips, drawing purple parabolas in the air.
"This is a hundred times better than flying on a broomstick!
No... a thousand times! Ten thousand times!"
His voice was shrill to the verge of cracking.
His gray eyes burned with a fanatical light that usually only appeared in the Malfoy family when seeing large sums of gold Galleons deposited into their accounts.
"Do you know what that feels like?!"
He rushed in front of Jerry, grabbing Jerry's shoulders with both hands.
His ten mucus-covered fingers left ten clear purple fingerprints on Jerry's white shirt, his face leaning in to a distance of only twenty centimeters from Jerry's.
"I... I was a dragon!
Not fake like Transfiguration!
Not a sleight of hand like Apparition!
I really... truly... turned into a dragon!"
He released Jerry's shoulders, took two steps back, spread his arms, and threw his head back, letting out a yell toward the sky covered by the Tyranid organic dome.
That yell echoed among the honeycomb megastructures, most of its energy absorbed by those purple organic surfaces, leaving only a muffled, gradually dissipating echo.
"I felt the wings!"
Malfoy's arms flapped up and down at his sides.
That action looked incredibly stupid—a soaking wet, platinum-blonde teenage boy standing next to a forty-meter-long purple giant dragon, flapping his arms—but the expression on his face was completely serious.
"When I flapped my wings, I could feel the lift generated when the air flowed from the leading edge of the wing surface to the trailing edge.
That power, that pure physical power lifting a body weighing dozens of tons off the ground, transmitting from the base of the wings to the shoulder blades, then to the spine, then to every abdominal and back muscle..."
His breathing grew rapid.
"And then the flying!
True flying!
Not the kind where you ride on a broomstick and get blown all over the place by the wind, but me flying myself!
My wings! My muscles! My body slicing through the airflow!
I could feel the temperature difference of every updraft and downdraft, I could feel the faint vibration generated when the wind passed through the gaps in the scales..."
He whipped around to face Jerry.
"And the eyes!
Dragon's eyes!"
Malfoy formed a frame in front of his own eyes with his hands.
"I could see heat!
Every rock, every Hive, every crack on the ground—their temperature distribution was completely overlaid onto normal vision in the form of color blocks!
Red is hot, blue is cold, with dozens of transition colors in between.
I could even see the direction of the heat flow inside those still-flowing biomass pipes deep underground!"
He lowered his hands from his eyes, clenched them into fists, and punched the air forcefully.
"And the fire! I tried a Dragon Breath once while flying. Do you know what that feels like?
A scorching, liquid substance surging up from some special chamber in the stomach, passing through a... an ignition structure in the throat, and then when it sprays out of the mouth, it has already become a pillar of fire with a temperature over a thousand degrees...!
That feeling, the feeling of erupting destructive power from within the body..."
Malfoy's voice suddenly caught here.
Not because he didn't want to speak anymore.
It was because he couldn't find the right words to describe it.
He stood there, soaking wet, mucus still dripping from his hair and clothes, mouth agape, his gray eyes churning with an anxiety caused jointly by extreme excitement and a poverty of language.
"...Awesome."
Finally, he only squeezed out this one word.
"Just awesome.
So awesome I want to cry."
Jerry leaned against that chitinous rock, arms crossed over his chest, a trace of an imperceptible arc at the corners of his mouth.
"How was it? Felt pretty good, right?"
"Pretty good?!"
Malfoy's voice went shrill again.
"More than pretty good!
It was freakin' awesome!
Do you know what Transfiguration feels like?"
He gestured in the air with his mucus-covered hands.
"Transfiguration only changes the external form.
Your body turns into an eagle, but your feelings are still human feelings.
You fly with eagle wings, but what you feel isn't 'wings flapping'; what you feel is 'my arms are making a weird movement.'
You look with eagle eyes, but your visual processing method is still human. You can't see heat, you can't see ultraviolet light, you can't see the things that only a true eagle can see."
He poked his index finger forcefully in the air.
"Animagi are the same!
When Professor McGonagall turns into a cat, her consciousness is still a human consciousness.
She's just wearing a cat-shaped coat.
She can't feel the precise tactile sensation of a cat's whiskers detecting airflow, can't feel the three-dimensional auditory sensation of a cat's ears capturing soundwaves in a 360-degree range..."
He violently slapped his own chest, splattering a small patch of mucus from the impact.
"But just now, I truly turned into a dragon!
I wasn't wearing a dragon's coat; my brain was directly plugged into the dragon's nervous system!
Every sensory organ of the dragon became my sensory organ!
Every muscle of the dragon became my muscle!
I even..."
His voice suddenly dropped low, carrying a tone bordering on awe.
"I even used Draconic magic."
Jerry's eyebrow twitched slightly.
"Draconic magic?"
"Draconic magic." Malfoy nodded heavily, slinging mucus from his chin. "The vocal cord structure of a dragon is completely different from a human's. They can produce frequencies and syllable combinations that are physically impossible for human vocal cords.
Those syllables themselves carry magical resonance.
No wand needed, no spell formula needed.
As long as you use the dragon's vocal cords to produce the correct syllable sequence, you can directly drive a magical response at the elemental level."
His eyes shone like two small gray suns.
"I roared at a Hive from an altitude of three thousand meters.
Just one roar, and the air temperature within a two-hundred-meter radius around that Hive instantly rose by four hundred degrees.
Not flames, but pure thermal energy release.
Draconic magic. Magic that can only be cast by a creature truly possessing a dragon's vocal cords."
Jerry nodded.
His expression didn't change much.
For someone who owned a Tyranid Broodmother as a pet, Draconic magic was probably just a rather inconspicuous entry on his list of collectibles.
He shifted his gaze from Malfoy and looked around.
Those purple honeycomb megastructures stood in every direction of the field of vision, towering into the clouds—or rather, towering into that dome composed of Tyranid organic matter.
The surface of every megastructure was densely covered with hexagonal holes.
Dark purple pulsing light flickered on and off from the depths of the holes, like countless breathing eyes.
In the gaps between the megastructures, Tyranid organisms of various sizes could be seen moving.
Some were drone units four or five meters long, their six segmented limbs crawling rapidly over the carapace ground, carrying blocks of organic matter larger than their own volume on their backs.
Some were larger flying units with wingspans over ten meters, silently gliding in the airspace between the Hives.
There were also miniature units, so small they were almost invisible, swarming together in the air to form purple mist-like clusters, like moving clouds of smoke.
"Every single one is a Hive."
Jerry's voice was flat.
He pulled his right hand from his pocket, drawing an arc toward those purple megastructures.
"In this world alone, there are already over three hundred.
And they are still growing.
The Broodmother's reproduction rate is about forty percent faster than I estimated.
Probably because the energy density of the Sunstones is too high; the nutritional efficiency after conversion into biomass far exceeds ordinary minerals."
He withdrew his hand, tucking it back into his pocket.
"But this also means I really do have to buy a world.
Specifically to store them.
-17 is almost eaten up.
In another two months, even the remaining sixty-three percent of the crust will be digested.
By then, this world will only be an empty shell made of Tyranid biomass.
Usable, but not enough.
The Broodmother needs a continuous input of matter to maintain the operation and expansion of the Hives.
Do you have any good ideas?"
Malfoy was using that deep purple cloth to wipe his neck.
Mucus seeped from his collar, running down his collarbone, pooling at the neckline of his shirt.
He wiped as he listened to Jerry, his gray eyes rapidly scanning among those honeycomb megastructures.
Malfoy's hand stopped.
The cloth rested on his neck, mucus still dripping down.
"How about opening an amusement park?"
Jerry turned his head to look at him.
"How did you come up with that?"
Malfoy chuckled.
That smile appeared exceptionally vivid on his face, which was a mess smeared with mucus.
His platinum-blonde hair clung wetly to his forehead; mucus ran down from his sideburns, but the light shining in his gray eyes was even brighter than when he had just climbed out of the dragon's brain.
That was no longer pure excitement.
That was the light of a businessman.
"I'm tired of playing in Muggle amusement parks."
Malfoy pulled the cloth off his neck and tossed it casually onto the ground.
He began to pace back and forth in front of Jerry.
His leather shoes clicked on the carapace ground; every step left a wet purple footprint.
"Roller coasters, Ferris wheels, drop towers—those things are children's toys to wizards.
How fast can the most thrilling roller coaster go?
A hundred and fifty kilometers per hour?
I ride a Nimbus Two Thousand three times faster than that.
How high is the highest drop tower?
A hundred meters?
Any random dive I do on the Quidditch pitch is more thrilling than that."
He stopped in front of Jerry, hands on his hips.
"Wizards' entertainment options are too scarce.
Think about it carefully, what do we have?
Quidditch.
Wizard's Chess.
Exploding Snap.
Occasionally going to Hogsmeade for a glass of Butterbeer.
That's it.
The entire magical world, a civilization with a population of hundreds of thousands that has existed for thousands of years, has an entertainment industry that is almost completely blank."
His index finger drew a circle in the air.
"Why?
Because wizards think, 'We have magic, what other entertainment do we need?'
That kind of thinking is completely stupid.
Magic is a tool, not an experience.
Knowing how to fly doesn't mean you've experienced what it feels like to be a dragon.
Knowing how to transfigure doesn't mean you've truly felt the sensory world of another creature."
He whipped around to face Jerry; a small string of water droplets flung out from his rapid turning motion.
"But I felt it just now!"
His voice carried a missionary-like fervor.
"Twenty minutes. It only took twenty minutes.
I experienced something a human could never experience in their entire life—becoming a dragon.
A true dragon. A dragon with wings, scales, Dragon Breath, and Draconic magic.
That feeling, that pure, overwhelming novelty and thrill surging up from the bones..."
He forcefully slapped his own thigh, splattering mucus all over his trousers.
"I bet you that ninety-nine percent of the wizards in this world have no way to resist this temptation.
No... one hundred percent.
No one can refuse.
If you tell a wizard, 'Do you want to turn into a dragon and fly for twenty minutes?', he will empty out the very last bronze Knut in his vault."
Malfoy's pacing accelerated.
"Not just dragons."
His fingers tapped rapidly in the air, as if making a list on an invisible blackboard.
"Sea serpents. Phoenixes. Hippogriffs. Unicorns. Merpeople.
Even, even these Tyranids' own biological weapons, those flying units, those giant drones—every single one can be an 'Experience Attraction'."
He turned to Jerry, the gleam of gold Galleons shining in his gray eyes.
"Imagine, a super amusement park built in a private world, open only to wizards.
Admission fee, a hundred Galleons.
Each Experience Attraction, ranging from fifty to two hundred Galleons.
VIP package, a thousand Galleons, unlimited experiences on all attractions all day."
He counted on his fingers.
"The audience for the Quidditch World Cup is a hundred thousand people.
A hundred thousand wizards gathered in one place, their pockets full of gold Galleons ready to be spent.
If we open during the World Cup, just the admission fee alone, a hundred thousand multiplied by one hundred..."
"Ten million Galleons," Jerry finished the calculation for him.
"Ten million!" Malfoy's voice spiked to a new height. "And that's just the admission fee!
Add the revenue from the Experience Attractions, food and beverage, souvenirs, accommodation...
A conservative estimate, the total revenue during the World Cup could reach thirty to fifty million Galleons!"
He whipped his arm violently, and a large glob of mucus flew from his cuff, hitting the scales of the giant dragon beside them with a smack.
The giant dragon didn't even bat an eyelid.
Because it had no brain at all.
"Of course..."
Malfoy looked down at the layer of not-yet-dry purple mucus covering him from head to toe, the expression on his face finally mixing a trace of disgust into the pure fervor.
He pinched the front of his robes with two fingers, tearing the mucus-soaked fabric away from his skin.
With a rrrip, the mucus pulled a silver-silk-like web structure between the fabric and his skin, then snapped.
"This mucus is indeed a bit disgusting."
He shook the cloth, and more mucus splattered from it.
"But these are harmless details." He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, immediately adding a new streak of purple mucus to it. "We just need to provide a Scouring Charm service to the guests after the experience ends.
Or simply make it a selling point: 'Mysterious bodily fluids from another world.'
Maybe some people would even be willing to pay to take a bottle home."
The expression on his face when he said this sentence was extremely serious.
Jerry looked at him.
A soaking wet pure-blood young master, plastered with purple mucus from head to toe, platinum-blonde hair plastered to his forehead.
Standing next to a forty-meter-long Tyranid biological weapon, in an Olympian Divine Realm where a third of the crust had been eaten by alien bugs.
Gleefully planning a theme park aimed at wizards.
On the index finger of Jerry's right hand, the ring that looked like it was forged from some dark metal suddenly flickered with a layer of faint, dark-gold light.
The light wasn't blinding, merely forming a ring of flowing runic patterns on the surface of the ring.
Those runes rotated rapidly around the face of the ring twice, then stopped at a specific position, emitting an extremely faint ding.
Malfoy's gaze was immediately drawn to it.
He had just been endlessly describing the amusement park's profit model; his mouth hung half-open, words caught in his throat, his gray eyes staring fixedly at the glowing ring on Jerry's hand.
"What is that?"
"Communicator." Jerry raised his right hand, bringing the ring to his eyes for a glance. "Cassiopeia."
The corners of Malfoy's mouth immediately split open.
That smile carried a malicious interest unique to teenagers gossiping about others' private lives, along with a trace of sourness mixed with jealousy and envy.
"Oh... is it Madam Cassiopeia?"
He dragged out the trailing note of the "Oh," the teasing implication in his voice so thick you could wring water from it.
"You really are a good son-in-law, Jerry.
Even though you only just got engaged, right?"
Jerry rolled his eyes.
Then he raised his left hand, waving it casually in the direction above Malfoy's head.
The magical fluctuation sent a ripple invisible to the naked eye through the air.
Before Malfoy could react...
Splash...!
A massive stream of water appeared out of thin air three meters above his head, as if someone in the sky had knocked over a giant bucket holding the volume of an entire swimming pool, smashing down overwhelmingly.
"Mmh...!"
Malfoy's cry of alarm was drowned by the water.
The impact of that water stream wasn't massive enough to knock a person down, but the volume was staggering.
Clear, slightly cool water poured down from above Malfoy's head, washing down along his hair, face, neck, shoulders, and chest, thoroughly scrubbing away the layer of thick purple neural connection fluid on his body.
Under the impact of the water, the mucus peeled off his clothes and skin, flowing down to the ground along with the clean water, forming a rapidly expanding puddle of mixed purple and transparent liquid on the chitinous ground.
The water flow lasted for about five seconds.
Then stopped.
Malfoy stood rooted to the spot, soaking wet, his platinum-blonde hair plastered entirely to his scalp.
Water dripped incessantly from the tips of his hair, the tip of his nose, his chin, and his fingertips.
His robes had absorbed their fill of water, hanging heavily on his body, the hem clinging to his calves. Every step he took squeezed water out with a squish-squish sound.
But at least, that layer of disgusting purple mucus on him was gone.
Malfoy wiped the water off his face, wiped the water droplets from his eyes, and then opened his eyes to look at Jerry.
"...Thanks."
Jerry did not respond.
He had already turned around and was walking toward that purple giant dragon lying on the ground.
On the side of the dragon's skull, next to the 1.5-meter-diameter opening used for neural connection, a small patch of chitinous ground bulged slightly, forming a natural step-like structure.
Jerry walked to that spot, pulled a small pinch of something that looked like ordinary ash from his pocket, and sprinkled it on the ground.
The instant the ash hit the ground, it began to automatically arrange itself.
Floo Network.
Unlike the dizzyingly complex multi-layered web structure built in the Hogwarts Great Hall earlier, the network Jerry built this time was extremely simple.
There was only one main trunk connecting two nodes.
The starting point was the carapace ground under his feet; the destination was a place whose coordinates only Jerry knew.
Green flames surged from the ash lines, forming a ring of fire about two meters in diameter on the ground.
Jerry looked back at Malfoy.
"Figure out your own way back to school. Don't tell anyone about the things here."
Before Malfoy had time to answer...
Jerry had already stepped into the green flames.
The flames swallowed his silhouette.
A second later, the flames extinguished.
The ash lines on the ground also dissipated, as if they had never existed.
Malfoy stood rooted to the spot, soaking wet, surrounded by hundreds of towering purple honeycomb megastructures.
Beneath his feet was a puddle of mixed clean water and purple mucus.
Behind him was a forty-meter-long Tyranid biological weapon resting with its eyes closed.
He looked around.
"...Damn it."
He muttered, then pulled his wand from the inner pocket of his robes.
The green flames spun.
Not that high-speed, out-of-control spinning that made one nauseous enough to vomit.
This teleportation was extremely smooth; Jerry could even clearly see those flowing runic patterns composed of magic on the inner walls of the Floo Network channel during the spinning process.
Three seconds later, the spinning stopped.
Jerry stepped out of the flames.
His feet landed on a soft, deep-red carpet.
The texture was a high-grade magical fiber; the sensation underfoot was somewhere between velvet and wool, so thick that his footsteps were nearly silent.
He looked up.
It was an office.
A typical office belonging to a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Magic.
The room was vast, at least sixty square meters by his estimation, with a ceiling four meters high and walls paneled in dark oak.
Each panel was intricately carved with the emblems representing the various departments of the Ministry.
The junction between the walls and the ceiling was decorated with gilded molding, shimmering with a soft golden luster in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows.
Several wizarding portraits hung on the left wall.
The frames were heavy, carved dark wood; the figures inside wore Ministry robes from various eras.
Some were dozing, some were flipping through parchment, and some watched Jerry with curiosity as he emerged from the fireplace.
The right wall was a single, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.
It stretched from the floor to the ceiling, every tier packed with books of varying thicknesses.
Compilations of magical law, departmental handbooks, Ministry gazettes, and ancient parchment scrolls with worn, illegible titles.
On the top shelf sat several magical artifacts: a slowly rotating astrolabe, a color-changing crystal ball in a glass dome, and a silver statuette of a phoenix with its wings spread.
Directly ahead was a massive desk.
Made of dark mahogany, it was at least two meters wide and nearly three meters long.
A thin, dark green leather pad was secured to the desktop with golden rivets at the corners.
The desk was cluttered with items: stacks of parchment, quills in crystal inkwells, a classical brass lamp, a wooden box of seals, and a magical clock ticking away on a brass base.
Behind the desk sat a woman.
Cassiopeia.
She was looking down at a document, a quill in her right hand as she scribbled annotations on the margin.
Hearing the sound from the fireplace, she lifted her head.
That face...
Every time Jerry saw her, he silently admitted that at least half of Isabella's beauty was inherited from her mother.
She wore a meticulously tailored, deep blue Ministry official's robe.
The fabric was a high-grade silk blend with a faint luster that produced subtle, flowing reflections as she moved.
The neckline was a standard V-shape, the depth hitting the perfect balance between "professional" and "sexy."
It was neither too conservative nor undignified.
Beneath the robe, she wore a white silk shirt.
The collar was mostly hidden by the robe, but a glimpse of the white fabric and her elegant collarbones was visible through the V-neck.
The hem of the robe draped naturally over the sides of her chair, revealing a dark gray, form-fitting knee-length pencil skirt.
The skirt, like the robe, was a high-grade blend that clung to her thighs and buttocks, perfectly outlining her curves.
Below the hem were her long, slender calves wrapped in black silk stockings.
Those stockings...
Jerry's gaze lingered on her legs for half a second.
The silk stretched from her ankles to the roots of her thighs, creating tiny, delicate wrinkles at her knees where her legs were bent.
Those wrinkles shifted and changed with her breathing and slight movements, creating a flowing, seductive interplay of light and shadow.
On her feet were black patent leather stilettos with seven-centimeter heels, reflecting the lamp's light like a mirror.
Cassiopeia set down her quill.
The corners of her mouth curled up slightly—a restrained arc of only two millimeters—but it was enough to shift her expression.
She went from "serious working official" to "prospective mother-in-law seeing her future son-in-law."
"Jerry."
Her voice was low, carrying the seasoned magnetism of a mature woman.
Every syllable was articulated clearly, but her pace was unhurried, giving an air of total control.
"You arrived quickly."
Jerry walked over from the fireplace and stood before the desk.
"You sent for me?"
"Yes."
Cassiopeia rose from her chair.
The movement was incredibly elegant; her spine remained straight as she braced her hands on the desk.
As her hips lifted, her upper body leaned forward, allowing the robe and skirt to slide naturally along her curves.
She stood tall.
Her height was about 175cm, and with the seven-centimeter heels, she stood nearly 182cm—about ten centimeters taller than Jerry.
She walked around the desk and approached him.
Her heels clicked rhythmically and dully against the carpet—thump, thump, thump.
Her skirt swayed with her stride, her silk-clad legs stepping forward alternately, the lines of her inner thighs visible beneath the fabric.
She stopped about a meter away from him.
Then, she extended her right hand.
Jerry took it.
"Sit."
She released him and gestured toward the sofa area next to the desk.
It was a set of dark brown leather furniture: a three-seater sofa and two armchairs around a low, glass-topped coffee table.
The leather was high-grade, magically treated dragon-hide, textured and incredibly soft to the touch.
Jerry headed toward one of the armchairs.
Just as he was about to sit down...
The office door was pushed open.
"Cassiopeia, that proposal regarding the expansion of the international Floo Network..."
A woman's voice drifted in from the doorway.
The voice stopped the moment she saw Jerry.
Jerry turned his head.
Another woman was standing in the doorway.
Vivian Rose.
Senior Commissioner of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.
Cassiopeia's deputy, colleague of many years, and bitter rival.
She stood there with her hand still on the knob, scanning Jerry from head to toe.
Then, her lips curled upward.
Her smile was much more obvious than Cassiopeia's, showing a small row of white teeth.
"Oh."
She let go of the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind her.
Her heels clicked on the carpet with a lighter, faster tempo—clack, clack, clack—like a cheerful march.
"The Black family's golden son-in-law is here, I see."
She walked to the sofa and sat on the right side of the three-seater.
As she sat, her skirt slid up about three centimeters, revealing more of her thighs encased in black silk.
She crossed her legs.
Her right leg rested over her left, her toe pointing down as her dark red heel swayed gently in the air.
The pressure of the cross created a minute crease in the silk that vanished beneath her hem.
"Good afternoon, Jerry."
Her voice was airier than Cassiopeia's, possessing a natural, disarming charm.
"It's been a while."
Jerry sat down in the armchair.
The dragon-hide was so soft his hips sank about five centimeters before the elasticity caught him.
He leaned back, hands on the armrests, his legs naturally spread.
That posture...
Cassiopeia's gaze lingered on Jerry's crotch for half a second.
Vivian's gaze stayed there for a full second.
Jerry was wearing his Hogwarts uniform trousers—dark gray wool blend, tailored to fit but not tight.
But even that relatively loose cut could not hide the truth of what lay beneath.
A terrifying bulge ran along the inside of his left thigh, stretching almost to his knee.
His cock was currently semi-erect—not flaccid, but not yet a full, raging hard-on.
It was in a state of "standby," ready to be activated at any moment.
Even so, the outline was impossible to ignore; a thick, slightly curved ridge of meat straining against the fabric.
Cassiopeia withdrew her gaze.
She sat on the left side of the long sofa, about a meter away from Vivian.
Her movements were more restrained than Vivian's—back straight, legs pressed together, knees tilted slightly left, hands folded on her lap.
Her skirt also slid up, but far less than Vivian's, only exposing about ten centimeters of her black silk-clad knees.
She looked back at Jerry's face.
"I called you here to discuss a matter."
Her voice remained low and composed, but the volume dropped slightly.
It was a natural adjustment for a conversation not meant for ears outside the room.
"It's about my proposal."
Jerry leaned back, his expression unchanged.
"The legalization of Basilisk breeding?"
"Yes," Cassiopeia nodded. "It passed the preliminary review, but it's hit... resistance... in the final stage."
Vivian let out a soft snort from the side.
The laugh was quiet but sharp in the silent room, carrying a mocking "I told you so" vibe.
"Resistance?" Jerry asked flatly. "Opposing votes?"
"Thirteen," Cassiopeia said, pointing an index finger in the air.
"There are twenty-five seats on the Final Review Committee. I need sixteen 'ayes' to pass."
"I have twelve. I'm short by four."
She lowered her hand back to her lap.
"Of those thirteen 'nays,' eight can be swayed. The other five are hardliners; don't waste your time on them."
Jerry studied her face for two seconds.
"Why not ask Amelia for help?"
The corner of Cassiopeia's mouth twitched.
It was a tiny movement, barely a millimeter, but it told Jerry his question was foolish.
Then, she opened her mouth.
Her tongue slithered out from between her lips.
It was not a normal, pink, human tongue.
It was a dark, unhealthy shade between deep purple and bruised red, coated in a glistening film of saliva.
When fully extended, it was at least thirty centimeters long, quivering in the air like a serpent tasting the wind.
Most importantly... the tip was bifurcated.
Starting about five centimeters from the end, the tongue split into two independent, slender branches.
The tips were sharp as needles, twitching independently like miniature, sentient tentacles.
It was a clear mark of Basilisk bloodline modification.
Cassiopeia did not pull her tongue back.
She kept it extended, the forked tips swaying slowly as she watched Jerry.
"Because Amelia..."
She spoke even with her tongue out.
The presence of the organ made her pronunciation sharper on consonants and blurred on vowels, though still intelligible.
"...is one of the ones who must be bribed."
As she said this, she began to lean forward.
The movement was agonizingly slow, her weight shifting from her hips to her thighs and then her knees.
She braced her hands on the sofa cushions to support her forward tilt.
At the same time, she lifted her right leg from its prim position.
Her knee bent, her calf extended, and her toe pointed straight.
Her black, seven-centimeter pointed stiletto traced a small arc in the air before...
Accurately...
Landing right on Jerry's crotch.
Tap.
The sound of the toe hitting the fabric was faint.
But the location was precise.
It was right at the base of that thick meat-pillar running down his left thigh.
Cassiopeia's foot didn't stop there.
She pressed down gently—not a stomp, but a calculated, firm pressure to feel the heat and hardness beneath the wool.
Then, her foot began to slide.
The tip of her stiletto traced the outline of his cock, moving from the base downward, centimeter by centimeter over the ridge.
With every inch, she applied a little more pressure, as if confirming the data of his size.
Jerry's breathing hitch changed.
It wasn't a gasp, but his steady twelve breaths per minute jumped to fifteen.
His chest began to heave more visibly.
The thing in his pants began to swell in response.
The transition to a full erection was gradual; blood surged into the chambers, and the meat-pillar thickened.
Its diameter grew from four centimeters to five, then six, then seven.
It lengthened as well, stretching from mid-thigh until it practically touched his knee.
The fabric of his trousers groaned under the tension.
The ridge was no longer a suggestion; it was a clear, terrifying bulge that shouted its presence to anyone in the room.
Cassiopeia's shoe reached the mid-section of his shaft.
She paused.
Then, she rotated her foot, using the toe as a pivot to circle her heel in the air.
The contact shifted from just the tip to the entire flat of her sole pressing against his cock.
She began to rub the sole of her shoe back and forth against the length of his meat.
The friction between the wool, the leather, and his hot flesh sent a jolt through Jerry's entire nervous system.
At the same time...
Cassiopeia's tongue moved.
That thirty-centimeter, forked, purplish tongue began to reach across the gap.
It didn't move like a human tongue; it moved like a snake, in a serpentine, undulating wave.
The base stayed still while the body of the tongue propelled forward in a fluid, continuous motion.
The twin tips flickered rapidly, tasting the air for his scent and heat.
The tongue crossed the 1.5-meter distance between them.
It arched over the edge of the coffee table and headed straight for his fly.
The tips touched the waistband of Jerry's trousers.
The two forked ends acted like nimble fingers, searching the gap between his belt and the fabric for an entrance.
It found one.
The zipper.
It wasn't fully closed; because of his massive size, the zipper had been pushed down slightly when he sat, leaving a two-centimeter gap.
The tongue flicked inside.
Slurp...
The sound of saliva-slicked muscle rubbing against the inner lining of his pants was wet and soft.
The tongue slithered deeper.
It bypassed the gap between his pants and underwear until...
It touched the surface of his cock.
Skin.
Scalding, slightly damp with sweat, with a pulse clearly thumping beneath—the skin of a virile boy.
The tongue didn't stop.
It began to crawl down the shaft from the head.
The twin tips acted like two small insects, circling the coronal sulcus before spiraling down the length of the pillar.
With every wrap, the tongue tightened.
It wasn't a sudden squeeze, but a persistent, constricting coil, like a python wrapping its prey.
Each loop was tighter than the last until the entire meat-pillar was encased in a wet, warm, muscular embrace.
Jerry's fingers clamped onto the armrests.
His knuckles turned white.
Cassiopeia's shoe had now moved from the shaft down to his balls.
The sharp, patent leather tip of her stiletto pressed gently against his soft, heavy sac.
She wasn't stepping on them.
She was pressing.
One, two, three times.
Each press was perfectly controlled—enough to be felt deeply, but not enough to cause pain.
It was a reminder: "My foot is here, and I can press harder if I want."
Cassiopeia was now leaning completely forward.
Her face was only fifty centimeters from his.
The purple tongue extending from her mouth into his pants formed a quivering, wet bridge between them.
She stared into his eyes.
Her dark brown eyes held maternal warmth, ancestral authority, and the raw possessiveness of a woman facing the male she had chosen as her own.
She began to speak again.
Her tongue was still deep in his trousers.
She could still talk, though her voice was muffled and required her throat and nose to compensate for the missing organ.
"Amelia."
Her voice was low and certain.
"She holds two votes: her own, and that of Deputy Director Christopher Walker, whom she controls."
Her shoe pressed against Jerry's balls again.
"But she opposes my proposal."
"Her excuse is that Basilisks are too dangerous and a threat to public safety."
The corner of Cassiopeia's mouth hooked into a sneer.
"But her real reason is a personal grudge against the Parkinson family."
"The Parkinsons are the biggest beneficiaries of this deal."
"She simply doesn't want them to get rich. It's that simple."
Her tongue tightened around Jerry's cock.
The force suddenly spiked—no longer a gentle wrap, but an oppressive, choking constriction.
The skin of his shaft was squeezed until the veins bulged further, the head turning from deep red to a bruised, dark purple as the blood was trapped inside.
"So..."
Cassiopeia's voice dropped to a whisper.
"I need you to persuade her."
Her shoe tip moved from his balls and began to roll back and forth, kneading the soft flesh with careful intent.
"Use your body."
She was perfectly blunt.
No euphemisms, no "if you wouldn't mind."
It was a command.
The order of a future mother-in-law that could not be refused.
Vivian chuckled again.
She remained in her cross-legged pose, hands on her knees, watching the scene with rapt interest.
"I can testify to that..."
Vivian's voice was light, almost playful.
"Jerry's 'persuasiveness' is quite formidable."
She stared at Jerry's crotch for two seconds, focusing on the ridge where Cassiopeia's tongue was currently at work.
"A woman like Amelia looks prim, but she's been pent up for ten years. Her husband died five years ago, and she's done nothing but work since."
Vivian's smile widened.
"That kind of woman is the easiest to break. Once you let her taste the sweetness, she'll be more cooperative than anyone."
Cassiopeia's tongue began to loosen.
It didn't let go, but relaxed from a choke-hold to a gentle caress, allowing the blood to flow again.
Then, it began to climb back up.
Reversing its path, it spiraled up the shaft from base to tip.
As it moved, it left a trail of slick saliva that cooled and turned into a sticky film on his hot skin.
The twin tips finally stopped at the very end—his urethra.
They acted like curious antennae, probing the edges of the tiny, sensitive slit before...
Both tips poked inside simultaneously.
"Mmh..."
A highly suppressed, nearly silent groan escaped Jerry's throat.
The tips stayed inside his meatus for a second before withdrawing.
The tongue began its final retreat from his pants.
It followed the path back out through the zipper, traced an arc through the air, and vanished back into Cassiopeia's mouth.
The thirty-centimeter organ shrank back to its normal size instantly.
She closed her mouth.
She licked her lips once—a quick, half-second motion—and sat back up straight.
Her spine was ramrod straight again.
Her legs were together.
Her hands were folded on her lap.
Her right foot returned to the floor with a soft thud.
Her expression returned to the calm, professional poise of a high-ranking official.
As if nothing had ever happened.
"Besides Amelia, there are six others."
Her voice was clear again, the slur gone.
"I've already compiled the list. Backgrounds, weaknesses, and the best way to approach each of them."
She pulled a roll of parchment from her inner pocket and set it on the coffee table.
"You have one month."
Jerry looked at the parchment.
His breathing hadn't recovered.
His cock was still rock-hard in his pants, the saliva from her tongue leaving a wet patch on his underwear.
He reached out and took the scroll.
"One month," he repeated.
"Seven women."
"Correct."
Cassiopeia's smile returned.
This time it was broad, five millimeters wide, showing her white teeth.
"I know you can do it, my good son-in-law."