"It's Dementors!" Hermione's brow furrowed. She rushed to the window in one stride and saw a terrifying scene she would never forget.
On the street, two figures wearing tattered black cloaks, their bodies as bloated as rotting corpses in water, were floating silently in mid-air.
Below them, Harry and his fat cousin Dudley were collapsed on the ground, twitching violently as if their bones had been removed, their faces covered in a layer of deathly gray.
"Merlin's beard! How could they appear in a Muggle neighborhood!"
Hermione instinctively gripped her magic wand.
Lia's Danger Intuition screamed sharply in her mind, but unlike before, the danger signal wasn't locked onto Harry; it was chaotic and scattered like a headless fly.
"Something's wrong!" Lia sniffed the information in the air. The malicious magic emitted by those two Dementors wasn't a concentrated line of precise predation.
Instead, it was a mass of chaotic, bewildered hunger being forcibly driven. "They... their target isn't Harry! They were just thrown here and are instinctively searching for prey!"
Hermione didn't have time to overthink; she saw Harry already struggling to raise his magic wand.
"Expecto Patronum!"
A majestic stag shining with silver brilliance erupted from the tip of Harry's wand.
It held its head high, raised its massive antlers, and slammed hard into the two monsters, brutally driving them back into the dark sky.
The chill receded, and the crisis was averted. But the real trouble had only just begun.
The next day, Harry's letter arrived, its content simple and desperate: he was being officially summoned by the Ministry of Magic for using magic in front of a Muggle outside of school.
"They're framing him!" Hermione was shaking with rage, pacing back and forth in the room, her voice carrying uncontrollable anger.
"The Dementors attacked first! Harry acted in self-defense! How dare they!"
"They just want a result that can shut him up," Lia said muffledly in her arms, using her body heat to soothe the furious Hermione.
Sure enough, not long after, an urgent letter from Mr. Arthur Weasley confirmed the worst suspicions.
The letter sternly warned Harry not to leave the Dursley house and said Dumbledore was handling it.
For the next few days, the atmosphere was tense to the extreme.
Though The Grangers didn't understand what was happening, they could feel their daughter's visible anxiety.
Finally, late one night, the flames in the fireplace suddenly turned a strange emerald green with a 'whoosh'.
Hermione and Lia immediately stood up, alert.
A young Witch wearing a long traveling cloak, with hair a strange bubblegum pink, stepped out of the flames.
Following behind her was a tall, dark-skinned Wizard whose expression was as serious as a mountain peak.
"Hermione Granger?" the pink-haired Witch spoke; her voice was young and full of energy. "I'm Nymphadora Tonks, but you can call me Tonks. This is Kingsley Shacklebolt."
Kingsley gave Hermione a slight nod of greeting, his steady gaze scanning the room.
Lia stood behind Hermione, warily sizing up these two uninvited guests.
She smelled the same'secret' and 'tension' scents on them as on Ron's letter, but beneath that, deeper down, was a rock-solid scent woven from 'loyalty' and'sense of mission'.
"Dumbledore sent us."
Tonks said. She noticed Lia, her eyes lighting up, but she restrained the urge to reach out and pet the cat ears.
"We're here to pick you up. Mad-Eye and the others have already gone to Harry's."
"Pick us up? To where?" Hermione's hand tightened on her magic wand.
"A safe place," Kingsley's voice was deep and resonant, making one instinctively trust him. "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix."
The Order of the Phoenix.
As soon as the name appeared, Lia saw shimmering golden threads composed of 'oaths' and 'resistance' in her Eye of Truth, extending from the two people in front of her, crossing space to connect to a distant and blurry place.
There, at the center of the storm.
Hermione did not hesitate. She quickly returned to her room and packed a small bag.
Before leaving, she tightly hugged her parents, who had been startled awake.
"Dad, Mum, I... I'm just going to stay at a friend's house for a few days. I'll be back before school starts." She told a lie, not wanting them to worry.
The Grangers looked at her with concern, then at the two serious-looking Wizards, but ultimately only told her: "Take care of yourself, and Lia."
Under the escort of Tonks and Kingsley, they traveled via Apparition, instantly moving from the quiet suburban street to a seemingly ordinary old London street.
This was Grimmauld Place.
Hermione looked at the mottled door numbers: 10, 11... then it jumped straight to 13.
A piece had been forcibly carved out of the middle.
Tonks handed her a small piece of parchment: "Memorize the content, then burn it."
Hermione unfolded the parchment; on it was written a line of elegant handwriting: "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is located at 12 Grimmauld Place, London."
She recited it silently, and the parchment turned to ash in her hand.
"Concentrate, think of the place you just saw," Tonks reminded her.
Hermione closed her eyes and clearly constructed the concept of '12 Grimmauld Place' in her mind.
The next second, a hair-raising scene occurred.
Accompanied by a dull grinding sound of stone and brick rubbing against each other, between numbers 11 and 13...
A dusty, dilapidated black door 'grew' out of thin air.
Following that were mottled walls and dusty windows, spreading upward layer by layer.
A haunted house hidden in the cracks of time and space finally cast its eerie reflection in reality.
Lia looked up at the building and took a half-step back in horror.
In her Eye of Truth, this house was essentially a dying creature that was slowly rotting!
On the door, a silver serpent-shaped door knocker watched them silently with its hollow eye sockets.
Tonks stepped forward and tapped the door three times with her magic wand.
From inside the door came the 'clatter' of metal friction and multiple chains sliding.
The door opened.
-------------------------------
I've already uploaded 70 chapters of this story on Patreon!
If you enjoy it, come check out the latest chapters in advance.
Here's the link:
[patreon.com/Greyhounds]
Thank you so much for your support!!
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"