During the summer holiday, the daily life of The Granger Family was shrouded in an invisible gloom.
Lia began having nightmares.
They were no longer painful flashbacks of being hunted, frozen, and starved, but entirely unfamiliar scenes.
A cold, damp stone chamber, the hiss of Parseltongue in her ears, the owner of the perspective stroking a massive Basilisk, their heart surging with bitter hatred for the word "mudblood," and a near-mad desire for eternal life.
"Hermione..."
Lia suddenly woke up from the dream, soaked in cold sweat, her azure eyes filled with terror.
She desperately burrowed into Hermione's arms, her body trembling incessantly. Only by feeling that familiar, bookish warmth could the turmoil deep within her soul slightly subside.
Hermione woke up, groggily holding her and gently patting her back.
"Nightmares again?" Her voice was thick with sleep, yet incredibly gentle.
Lia didn't speak, just buried her face in Hermione's neck, breathing in her scent deeply, as if it were the only antidote.
Hermione sighed, stroking the soft silver hair at the back of Lia's head. Her fingertips brushed against the two pure white cat ears, but when they touched the stubborn patch of grayish-black at the tips, her heart sank slightly.
That black color seemed deeper than it had been at Hogwarts.
Lia also changed during the day.
She became more silent, often staring blankly out the window, her eyes vacant.
But her possessiveness toward Hermione reached an unprecedented peak.
If Hermione left her sight for more than five minutes, she would pace restlessly around the house until Hermione reappeared, at which point she would leap up and hold her tightly, as if terrified she might vanish.
A stranger change occurred at the dinner table.
"Lia, try this, it's Mom's apple pie." Hermione cut a small slice and forked it toward Lia's mouth.
Lia sniffed it, shook her head without interest, but her gaze involuntarily drifted toward an antique brass pocket watch displayed by Mr. Granger on the living room mantelpiece.
That was no ordinary pocket watch. It was an heirloom left by Mr. Granger's grandfather, carrying the memories and time of several generations.
In Lia's Eye of Truth, the pocket watch was emitting a faint, warm, alluring glow, like aged honey.
An unprecedented sense of "hunger" surged from the depths of her soul.
She wanted... to eat it.
This thought startled Lia herself. She quickly retracted her gaze, tightly hugged Hermione's arm, and buried her face into it.
"What's wrong?" Hermione noticed her unusual behavior.
"...I don't have an appetite." Lia's voice was muffled.
Hermione followed her previous gaze, seeing only the unremarkable pocket watch.
She frowned, and an indescribable unease seized her heart.
Lia's "recipe" seemed to be changing.
In this oppressive atmosphere, a letter from the Ministry of Magic broke the temporary calm.
The envelope bore a cold, official wax seal, delivered by an arrogant owl.
Hermione tore open the letter. The paper contained an official document from the Ministry of Magic's Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, worded with extreme arrogance and disrespect.
In an arrogant tone, the letter "suggested" that The Granger Family immediately register the "unidentified Magical Creature, unregistered and highly aggressive" they had adopted, and hinted that failure to comply would result in "Investigators" arriving to enforce the matter.
At the end of the letter, there was an almost imperceptible signature abbreviation written in cursive—L.M..
Lucius Malfoy.
"Bastard!" Hermione crumpled the letter, her knuckles white from the force.
This wasn't official procedure at all; it was naked retaliation!
It was Lucius's targeted attack against her and Lia following the Chamber of Secrets incident.
He dared not directly confront Harry, nor could he touch Dumbledore, so he aimed his venom at their combination: the "mudblood" and the "monster."
"Hermione?" Lia looked up anxiously, sensing the sudden surge of anger radiating from Hermione.
Hermione took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing her rage and converting it into cold rationality. She turned back to her desk and pulled out a fresh piece of parchment.
"It's nothing, Lia," she said without turning around, dipping her quill heavily into the inkwell. "Just some flies buzzing around."
For the next hour, Lia watched Hermione write furiously.
She did not use angry rhetoric, but cited legal precedent, from Article 3, Section 7 of the *Wizarding Code* concerning the "Rights of House-Elves and Non-Humanoid Sentient Beings," to the explicit definition of "aggressiveness" in the *Magical Creatures Protection Act*, and finally to the Ministry's internal regulations regarding penalties for "malicious accusation and abuse of authority"... She wrote a three-page, logically rigorous, and factually supported letter of refutation.
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