The duel in the Trophy Room had long since passed, and they hadn't managed to figure out why Lia could talk to the Cerberus.
They could only conclude that it was a special ability of a Magical Creature.
In the days that followed, Lia lived very peacefully at Hogwarts.
The Castle was warm, and there was plenty of food.
Most importantly, there was a reassuring human cat tree.
The cat tree had a strong learning ability; even with a cat hanging on her at all times, she easily made up for the progress hindered by the cat and even studied far ahead.
Lia was so immersed in this "humanly" pleasant daily routine that she couldn't extricate herself, hanging on Hermione day after day, and soon Halloween arrived.
A thousand pumpkin lanterns floated above the Great Hall, their flickering candlelight illuminating swarms of magical bats circling under the Gothic ceiling. The festive atmosphere should have been warm and cheerful, but the air between Harry and Ron was somewhat stagnant.
Hermione's seat was empty.
"She hasn't talked to me all day," Ron said gloomily, poking at the pumpkin pie on his plate.
Harry didn't speak, only glancing worriedly at the doors of the Great Hall. This morning, an offhand mockery from Ron after Charms Class had completely stung Hermione.
That line, "No wonder you haven't got any friends, you're a know-it-all nightmare," had made that girl, who always held her head high, tear up for the first time in front of them before running away crying. By the time Lia snapped out of her bewildered state, Hermione was already far away.
Lia was listless all day. She curled up in Hermione's empty seat, not even touching her favorite grilled fish. Without Hermione, everything around her became noisy and unsettling.
Just then, the doors of the Great Hall were burst open.
Professor Quirrell came sprinting in, his turban askew and his face full of terror.
"Troll — in the Dungeons —" he screamed with all his might, "thought you ought to know."
With that, his eyes rolled back, and he fell straight backward, fainting onto the cold floor.
Lia had a very poor impression of this Defense Against the Dark Arts Class Professor.
There were always two smells on him: one was the scent of rotting garlic, and the other... was a cold, deathly aura that made her feel disgust and fear from the depths of her soul.
So every time she had his class, Lia chose to turn into a kitten and huddle in Hermione's robe pocket, refusing to come out.
The Great Hall instantly erupted into chaos. The students' screams almost brought the roof down.
"Silence!" Dumbledore's sonorous voice drowned out everything. He stood up, and the purple firecrackers bursting from the tip of his magic wand quieted everyone down. "Prefects, lead the students of your Houses back to the common rooms immediately!"
Percy immediately straightened his chest and began loudly organizing the Gryffindor students. The crowd surged toward the door in a mess.
Harry stood up abruptly, suddenly remembering something.
"Hermione!" he said to Ron. "She doesn't know about the Troll! She's still in the bathroom!"
Ron's face went pale instantly.
Just as they were about to break away from the line, a suppressed, threatening low growl sounded beside them.
"Hiss—ha!"
Lia, who had been quietly curled up, now had every white hair on her body standing on end. She arched her back, her whole being exploding into a fluffy ball of fur.
Without looking at anyone, Lia stared fixedly in one direction — toward the girls' bathroom.
A strong, cold, and deadly chill surged up her spine and into her brain.
Danger!
Deadly danger!
The Danger Intuition inside her was screaming frantically; that feeling was ten thousand times more terrifying than a hunter's trap or a Dark Wizard's scalpel!
Hermione was there!
This thought was like a bolt of lightning, splitting through all her fear and hesitation.
Lia darted out from the crowd regardless of everything, her petite figure moving against the surging throng of people as she rushed madly toward the source of the danger.
"Lia! Come back!" Percy tried to reach out and grab her.
But Lia's movements were incredibly agile. She ducked low, slipping under Percy's arm without pausing for a moment.
She was like a white flash of lightning, sprinting through the chaotic corridors.
Just at a corner, she almost collided with two others who were also running in the opposite direction.
It was Harry and Ron.
Both of them were stunned for a moment upon seeing the bristling, fierce-looking Lia.
Lia had no time to explain. Letting out an anxious whimper from her throat, she darted between them and was the first to reach the bathroom door.
A thick, nauseating stench wafted from the gap under the door, mixed with the sour smell of a public restroom and something... more primal, a beastly foul odor.
Before they could even push the door open, Hermione's scream of absolute terror came from inside.
"Ah—!"
Immediately following was the loud crash of massive wood being smashed to pieces.
Lia's deep blue eyes instantly narrowed into two cold vertical slits from boundless fear and anger.
Without a second thought, the three of them burst through the bathroom door.
The sight before them froze their blood.
A behemoth at least twelve feet tall stood in the middle of the bathroom. Its skin was a dull granite gray, its body massive and bloated, with two short, thick legs barely supporting its heavy frame. It brandished a huge wooden club ripped from a small tree, smashing through rows of wooden cubicles one by one.
Water pipes burst, spraying water everywhere, mixed with wood chips and dust; the entire space was a mess.
In the furthest corner, Hermione was huddled in terror under the remains of a sink, her face pale and her body trembling, with nowhere left to run.
The Troll spotted her, let out a stupid grunt, and raised the massive wooden club covered in wood chips and debris.
"Hey, you pea-brain!" Harry shouted, thinking quickly. He picked up a piece of a broken water pipe and threw it at the wall with all his might.
Ron followed suit, throwing whatever he could find.
The sound of metal hitting the wall successfully caught the Troll's attention. It turned its head sluggishly, saw the two little figures at the door, abandoned its current prey, and began walking toward them.
But its target remained the closest one. After only two steps, it refocused its attention on Hermione in the corner, its deadly club held high.
Hermione closed her eyes in despair.
In that instant, Lia's mind went blank.
The extreme fear of pain and ending brought by the memories of three deaths inscribed in the depths of her soul clashed frantically with the image of Hermione about to be smashed into a pulp by the club.
Then, the instinct to protect Hermione completely overwhelmed everything else.
"Don't... hurt her!"
A sharp, entirely non-human roar, a mix of a cat's hiss and a young girl's fury, erupted from Lia's throat.
Under the stunned gazes of Harry and Ron, Lia's running body underwent a strange transformation. Her figure remained petite, but her nails grew frantically in an instant, extending to at least three inches and becoming as sharp and white as blades.
She turned into a white afterimage almost invisible to the naked eye, charging toward the behemoth.
She didn't stupidly attack the Troll's thick, invulnerable skin.
Her petite body pushed off the slippery floor, using the walls and broken sinks to perform high-speed, unbelievable leaps back and forth in the air.
Her wild instinct marked the targets for her — the Troll's eyes and the knees supporting its massive body!
"Hiss—!"
With every leap, her cat's claws, sharp as daggers, left shallow bloody gashes on the Troll's rough skin.
This level of injury was negligible to the Troll.
But the sharp stings and endless harassment drove the dim-witted creature into a total frenzy.
"Roar—!"
The Troll abandoned Hermione, who was within easy reach in the corner, and instead swung its club angrily, frantically chasing after this little white thing that was hopping around it like a nimble flea.
This bought Harry and Ron the most precious breathing room.
"What are we going to do!" Ron's voice carried a hint of a sob.
Harry dodged a flying wooden plank, a flash of inspiration hitting him.
"The Levitation Charm! Ron, use the Levitation Charm!"
Ron froze; the incantation he had been mocked for, which Hermione had corrected his pronunciation of over and over, now echoed clearly in his ears.
He looked at the blood-stained white figure risking her life for Hermione, and at Harry, who was in a perilous situation being cornered by the Troll, and a surge of hot blood rushed to his head.
He pulled out his magic wand and, pointing it at the Troll's wildly swinging club, shouted with all his might, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The club stopped in mid-air.
It wobbled as it rose, and under the Troll's confused gaze, it flipped over and then, with immense force, slammed heavily onto its own head.
A dull, heavy thud.
The Troll's massive body swayed before crashing to the ground, splashing water everywhere.
Everything went silent.
Lia had also exhausted all her strength; she had never engaged in such intense physical activity for so long.
As the adrenaline faded, intense pain and exhaustion swept over her.
She fell from mid-air, landing heavily in a cold puddle. She instantly reverted to her soft, boneless Ragdoll Cat form, slumped on the ground without even the strength to twitch a whisker.
Hermione snapped out of her extreme terror.
Crying, she scrambled over and regardless of everything, held the limp, sewage-stained, dirty little white cat tightly, tightly in her arms.
Warm tears burst forth like a broken dam, instantly soaking the kitten's filthy fur.
"Lia... Lia... thank you... thank you..."
Her voice was broken, filled only with repeated thanks and uncontrollable sobbing.
Sharp footsteps echoed in the corridor as Professor McGonagall rushed in with Snape and Quirrell. When they saw the fallen Troll and the bathroom that looked like it had been hit by a cannonball, they were all stunned.
Professor McGonagall covered her mouth, gasping.
"merlins beard... you... you better explain yourselves!"
Harry and Ron were still in a daze from their narrow escape, not knowing how to start.
Hermione suddenly stood up. She held Lia protectively in her arms, lifted her tear-stained face, and spoke with an unprecedented firmness.
"It was my fault, Professor McGonagall."
This was the first time Hermione Granger had ever lied to a teacher.
"I heard there was a Troll, and I thought... I thought I could deal with it myself. I've read about them." She took full responsibility, her voice raspy from crying but exceptionally clear. "If Harry and Ron hadn't come looking for me, I might be dead."
Throughout the whole process, no one noticed that the kitten she was protecting like a treasure in her arms, who had already fallen into an exhausted sleep, was the silent hero who had truly turned the tide of the desperate battle.
The wise Dumbledore gave her a deep look; Hermione felt as if she had been seen through, but the old Principal said nothing, only instructing the Professors to repair the building and telling the children to go back and rest.
Back at Gryffindor Tower, the Girls Dormitory was empty.
Hermione carefully drew the bed curtains, sealing off the outside world. She used her magic wand to conjure a basin of warm water and a clean towel, and bit by bit, with extreme gentleness, she wiped down Lia's body.
As the sewage and blood were washed away, shocking injuries were revealed beneath Lia's snow-white fur.
Her four paw pads were covered in small cuts from gravel and porcelain shards. Although they were healing at a slow pace, they were still a bloody mess.
Her sharp nails hadn't been a match for the Troll's skin after all; several had snapped, and there were several alarming scratches on her body from the debris kicked up by the Troll's club.
Hermione's heart felt as if it were being squeezed tightly by an invisible hand, aching with pain.
She couldn't imagine it.
If Lia hadn't been so fast... if the Troll's club hadn't hit its own head but had struck that petite body instead... just thinking about the possibility made her whole body go cold with a shudder.
Even in her sleep, Lia seemed uneasy. Her little paws twitched occasionally, and a faint, pained whimper came from her throat. Her furry little head unconsciously tried to burrow deeper into Hermione's warm embrace, seeking the only sanctuary she knew.
Holding this little creature who had risked everything to protect her, an unprecedented, overwhelming surge of protectiveness and possessiveness almost drowned out Hermione's reason.
This little life was so fragile, yet so brave.
Hermione leaned down and pressed an incredibly precious, gentle kiss onto Lia's furry forehead.
To the sleeping, defenseless kitten, she made the first truly meaningful vow of her life in a voice only she could hear.
"Lia, I will never let anyone hurt you again."
"I swear it."