Lupin frowned, scrutinizing the dirty white cat closely.
Those sky-blue eyes, that uniquely innocent voice... "Lia?!" Lupin exclaimed involuntarily. "How did you end up like this!"
Lia ignored their shock.
She jumped down from the chair, and her body began to change the moment she landed.
Bones elongated, flesh reshaped, and within seconds, the slender girl with snow-white cat ears and a long tail reappeared before everyone.
She was clad only in tattered, thin clothing, completely soaked, with smudges on her face and arms, looking utterly wretched.
Now everyone recognized her.
"Where is Hermione?" she pressed, her voice carrying a barely perceptible tremor. "Where are Harry? Where are they?"
"Good heavens! My child! Lia, how could you be like this? What happened?" Mrs. Weasley finally reacted, rushing over, grabbing a nearby blanket to wrap her tightly, and with a trembling hand, using a towel to wipe the grime from her face.
She did not dislike this pure and warm touch.
"Calm down, Lia!" Lupin soothed, his eyes filled with worry and confusion. "Why are you here? Hermione has been looking for you; she's going crazy! Dumbledore is looking for you too!"
Hermione... looking for me?
This realization struck Lia's frozen heart like a warm current, almost bringing her to tears.
She thought Hermione would blame her... "Something happened," Kingsley said gravely, breaking the brief moment of warmth. "Harry... he went to the Ministry of Magic."
Lia's pupils contracted sharply.
"He received a vision," Tonks quickly explained. "He saw Sirius being tortured by Lord Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries. We couldn't stop him; he used the fireplace and left. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna, they all followed him!"
"Sirius?" Lia's Eye of Truth instantly activated, and she looked at Lupin, seeing the thread of friendship connected to Sirius, which was intact, only trembling slightly due to its owner's anxiety. "Sirius is here; he never went to the Ministry of Magic!"
She recalled something Tonks had mentioned earlier.
"You said Sirius was busy with something?" Lia pressed Tonks.
"Y-yes... Dumbledore asked him to stay here to study some Black family items..." Tonks stammered in reply.
A trap.
A fatal trap set for Harry.
The string in Lia's mind named Danger Intuition let out a piercing screech on the verge of snapping the moment she heard the words 'Department of Mysteries'.
An unprecedentedly dense, unyielding aura of death swept through all her senses like a dark tsunami.
A hundred times stronger than the Triwizard Tournament Maze!
A thousand times stronger than Umbridge's office!
Hermione is there!
Hermione is in danger!
All guilt, self-reproach, fear, and confusion were completely consumed by a more primal panic.
She could accept any punishment from Hermione.
Being scolded, being hit, being locked up.
But she absolutely, absolutely could not accept... losing Hermione.
"I'm going too," Lia's voice was soft.
"No! It's full of Death Eaters! Dumbledore has already rushed over, we are making final preparations then leaving, you can't..." Lupin tried to stop her.
But Lia's figure had already turned into a blur of afterimages.
She ducked, hit the kitchen door on all fours, and rushed toward the hall.
The portrait of Mrs. Black on the wall let out a piercing scream, but Lia ignored it.
Lia burst through the low dog door of Number Twelve and rushed out into the cold night rain of London!
Her body's instinct surpassed reason; she didn't even need to think about the route.
In central London, where Apparition was disrupted by counter-spells, she chose the fastest, most direct method.
Running.
BOOM!!!
The red telephone booth at the Ministry of Magic visitor entrance was blasted outward by an indescribable, immense force, its shattered fragments flying around like shrapnel!
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