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.
At the end of the letter, she even "thoughtfully" attached a CC list: Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Albus Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.
She didn't threaten; she simply stated the facts and made Malfoy understand that if he wanted to play power games, she would use the "rules" he despised the most to make him hoist himself by his own petard.
After mailing the letter, the frost on Hermione's face gradually melted away.
She walked over to Lia, gathered the Cat-girl's soft body into her arms, and rested her chin on the top of Lia's head.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here. No one will dare touch you."
Lia, held in her arms, didn't respond, just leaned against her quietly. Hermione looked down and saw Lia staring back at her. In those azure eyes, the usual soft dependency was gone, replaced by a cold indifference that saw through everything.
"Hermione," Lia whispered, "that person called Lucius Malfoy, his soul... must taste terrible."
Hermione's heart instantly sank to the bottom... The Grangers hadn't noticed the undercurrents between their daughter and her "pet." They proceeded with their original plan to take their two "children" on a trip to France.
The sun shone brightly in Paris, and the Seine River shimmered, but for Lia, the city was like a sensory hell.
When they walked into Notre Dame Cathedral, Lia's Eye of Truth was passively activated. Instantly, the mighty torrent of emotions accumulated there over centuries surged toward her like a tsunami.
The devout prayers of countless believers, the fleeting astonishment of tourists, the sadness left over from wartime, the vows made by lovers... these invisible "soul noises" wove into a giant net, violently assaulting her mind.
"Ah—"
Lia let out a painful moan, clutching her head as her body curled up. The voices screamed in her mind, giving her a splitting headache.
"Lia! What's wrong?"
Hermione quickly steadied her and immediately held her tightly in her arms.
Miraculously, as Lia's cheek pressed against Hermione's body, and as the scent unique to Hermione enveloped her, the chaotic "soul noises" from outside seemed to be cut off by an invisible barrier.
The world instantly became quiet.
She gasped for breath like a fish out of water, burying her face deep in Hermione's embrace, unwilling to look up.
The Grangers watched her worriedly. Hermione could only weakly explain that Lia might be suffering from motion sickness and acclimatization issues.
This incident gave Hermione a deeper understanding of Lia's new ability.
It was powerful, but also extremely dangerous, especially in places with a long history and dense crowds, posing a huge burden on Lia's mind.
However, the real crisis erupted in Louvre.
To prevent another accident, Hermione held Lia (in her cat form) in her arms almost the entire time, using her body to shield her from the external "noise."
They walked past the gallery displaying the Mona Lisa and through the corridor housing the statue of the Winged Victory, and everything remained relatively calm.
Until they entered the Egyptian Gallery.
Under the dim lighting, a pharaoh's sarcophagus from thousands of years ago lay silently in the center of the exhibition hall.
The sarcophagus was covered in ancient hieroglyphs and deities' patterns, and an ancient, majestic, and deathly silent aura assaulted them.
The moment they approached the sarcophagus, the dormant "black crystal" deep within Lia's soul suddenly pulsed.
A cold, seductive voice, one that was not her own, rang out clearly in her mind for the first time:
"Devour it..."
Lia's body stiffened.
"Do you feel it? That lingering, weak King's Soul... Though decayed, it is excellent nourishment..."
The voice carried a superior, judgmental tone, as if a gourmet were critiquing a dish.
"Devour it, and you will become stronger. This is far more delicious than those boring emotional fragments..."
"No..." Lia silently opened her mouth. fear, like cold vines, spread from her heart throughout her body. She could feel the magic inside her uncontrollably reaching out toward the sarcophagus, driven by a primal, greedy desire.
That was the craving belonging to Tom Riddle.
He not only sought eternal life but also wanted to strengthen himself by devouring other souls!
And now, he was trying to turn Lia into a monster just like him!
"What are you resisting? Only the weak resist power. This is a gift, a shortcut to evolution. Accept it, we are fundamentally one..."
"No! Get out!" Lia screamed frantically in her mind.
"Lia?" Hermione felt the violent trembling of the little creature in her arms. She looked down and saw Lia's eyes tightly shut, her face pale, and her forehead covered in fine cold sweat.
"No... don't..."
Lia's delirium was full of desperate resistance. Her little claws desperately clutched Hermione's clothes, as if they were her last lifeline.
The next second, in the confrontation with that greedy will, Lia's mind completely snapped. Her vision went black, and she fainted on the spot.
"Lia!"
Hermione's cry of alarm was particularly jarring in the quiet Egyptian Gallery.
Holding the unconscious Lia in her arms, she looked at the silent pharaoh's sarcophagus not far away, and a chilling dread shot from her feet to the top of her head.
She finally understood what Dumbledore meant by, "You are her anchor."
That thing inside Lia... it wasn't a passive toxin; it was an awakening predator.
And it had already begun to hunt.
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