"Susan, look at me! What is happening to you?" the Headmaster asked urgently.
"Glass! I have glass in my eyes!" Susan wailed through unintelligible moans.
Dumbledore did not hesitate. With a firm movement of his wand, he forced the young girl's eyelids open and, using a surgical levitation spell, extracted two yellowish contact lenses with multicolored glints, which were now completely shattered.
"Those are the lenses Red gave us!" Tracey exclaimed, terror painted on her face.
"They were supposed to protect us from the monster!" Daphne added, drawing her wand and sweeping the room with a suspicious gaze, stopping furiously at Snape. "What happened?!"
Susan was plunged into a deep sleep by Dumbledore's spell. The Headmaster glanced sideways at Snape; he had noticed the actions of his Potions Professor. Severus looked away, clenching his teeth with a mixture of guilt and rage. He had not expected the boy to prepare something like this—and for it to react so violently against a mental intrusion.
"Rest assured, everything will be fine. We will take Miss Bones to the hospital wing immediately. There is nothing Madam Pomfrey cannot resolve," Dumbledore stated, levitating the girl into Snape's arms.
"We are coming with you," Daphne said immediately, with a coldness that challenged the Headmaster's authority.
The others nodded, closing ranks. Although not all of them had understood Snape's maneuver as quickly as Daphne, their protective instinct put them on guard. They were willing to face anyone, even the most powerful men in the school, to ensure no one touched one of their own again.
Dumbledore could only sigh, feeling a pang of bitter joy at seeing such fierce loyalty and how these small but promising girls were under the command of someone so problematic.
...
In the hospital wing, Dumbledore's investigation hit a wall of awkwardness. Hermione was there, sitting on one of the beds; she looked tense, but was not in obvious pain. Although I had eventually given her some treatment for her injuries, it was only partial: enough to stabilize them and erase a few traces of what truly ailed her, while still justifying her stay.
Before an expert healer like Madam Pomfrey, hiding the truth was a difficult task. However, the story of an unfortunate fall, with an impact in a "delicate" area, served as the perfect smoke screen. Hermione's constant blushing and nervousness only served to validate the embarrassment of a domestic accident in the nurse's eyes.
Dumbledore and Snape, impatient due to the chaos at the Ministry, would have been much more incisive had it not been for the urgency of Susan's state. When they arrived with the unconscious girl and her blood-stained eyes, the focus shifted violently. Hermione, from her bed, watched her friend's face in horror, wondering what new disaster had occurred in her absence.
Madam Pomfrey exploded in indignation. Although the damage to Susan's corneas was reversible, the nature of the injury infuriated her. She handed out severe reprimands to Snape and Dumbledore while casting curses into the air directed at the "irresponsible genius" who had manufactured those crystals. Neither the Headmaster nor the Potions Master dared to confess that the outburst was provoked by a forced mental intrusion.
"Are all of you wearing those unstable lenses?!" Pomfrey exclaimed as she extracted the last shards of magical glass from Susan's eyes with silver tweezers. "Out! All of you, take them off right now! That's an order."
"But... they are to protect us from the monster," Parvati stammered, taking a step back.
"When will you learn that these homemade methods are death traps?" the nurse stated sternly. "I have enough with the Weasley twins selling homemade amulets without you now wearing crystals that could blind you at any moment."
"No! Don't take them off!" Hermione shouted suddenly, standing up. The memory of her close brush with death flooded her; she knew those lenses were the only border between them and the end. "They really work. They will keep us safe!"
The silence that followed was absolute. Every eye was fixed on Hermione.
"They are for our safety..." she murmured, regaining her shyness at being the center of attention, but without lowering her gaze. "They aren't unstable. They really serve to..."
Daphne and the others watched Hermione with a new spark of suspicion. Between her disappearance the day before, Red's order to protect her, and her current state in the hospital wing, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit in their minds in unsettling ways. Dumbledore and Snape, for their part, shared a look loaded with a much more complex analysis.
"It seems Miss Granger possesses information of vital importance," Snape intervened. His tone was inquisitive, laced with sibilant venom, but he kept a prudent distance. He did not intend to risk his Legilimency provoking another explosion of magical glass and more uncomfortable questions. "How can you claim, with such certainty, that these artifacts protect you?"
"Child... have you encountered the Heir of Slytherin?" Dumbledore asked. His voice was a calm whisper, but his blue eyes, fixed on Hermione, seemed to be dissecting every fiber of her soul. "And Red. You have encountered both, haven't you?"
Arthur Weasley, who had struggled to contain his anxiety so as not to terrify the students, stepped forward. His hands were shaking; he was one second away from losing his composure.
"I..." Hermione began.
Under her sleeve, her pinky finger pressed hard against a specific stone on her bracelet. Instantly, an icy current traveled from her wrist to her brain, numbing her nerves and crystallizing her thoughts.
I had already foreseen this. She was still too inexperienced, and not even a mind as brilliant as hers could lie to Dumbledore and Snape without help; she needed the bracelet to dictate her pulse. It was her time to shine on the stage I had built for her.
"I... I saw him. Yesterday," she said, letting a rehearsed shudder run through her shoulders. "I thought I had found a lead on the Heir and wanted to confirm it... but on the way to the castle, someone touched my shoulder. I felt a terrible fear, but I turned around, and when I did..."
"What did you see?" Dumbledore pressed, leaning forward.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?!" several voices exclaimed in unison, the echo of surprise.
"Nothing," Hermione repeated, feigning just the right amount of nervousness. "The contact lenses activated. They protected me, but I temporarily lost my sight. Then Red arrived... and he saved me."
"And where is Red?!" Arthur asked, his voice breaking with desperation as he approached the bed. "Tell me where my son is, Hermione!"
"I don't know..." she denied, looking down with perfectly feigned guilt. "After rescuing me, he used magic to heal my eyes; the shards from the lenses had hurt me. He stayed with me for a while until I could see again, and then he left. He said... he said he would take care of everything."
Hermione's words caused a furrow of doubt on the faces of those present, though for very different reasons. Madam Pomfrey, whose only priority was physical well-being, set aside the political intrigues and stepped forward to perform a quick check-up.
"So that blow you suffered was because of that?" the nurse asked while examining Hermione's pupils with a small magical light. She gave no details in front of the men; the story of a blind fall that ended in a forceful blow to the pelvic area was humiliating enough to justify the girl's state.
"Yes... while I heard Red fighting that thing, I tried to escape, but I couldn't see anything and I tripped," Hermione replied, letting a natural blush creep into her cheeks.
The story of an embarrassing accident to the groin was undignified, but infinitely more acceptable—and less dangerous—than the truth: that she had been petrified and unpetrified... only to be turned into an "adult" by her boyfriend...
"Well, it seems young Weasley has done an impeccable job. Your eyes are healthy. That boy never ceases to amaze me," Pomfrey concluded, stowing her wand.
Although the nurse tried to consider the matter closed, Dumbledore's silence and Snape's icy gaze indicated that this was not over.
"And what did the Heir look like?!" the girls asked almost in unison. The question, loaded with an anguish they had been carrying for months, floated in the air of the hospital wing like a sentence.
"I don't know... I couldn't see anything. Only Red knows... I think," Hermione replied. She maintained her role as the ignorant victim, though inside she was dying to reveal the truth to her friends.
"But didn't Red tell you anything?! Any lead?! What was he going to do, where would he go?!" Arthur intervened. Desperation made him search for a sliver of hope in the young girl's story.
"No, I have no idea. He simply left, angry, as soon as he checked that I was okay. He only said he would return when everything was resolved," Hermione denied. If it weren't for the stone on her bracelet draining her nerves, the adults' scrutiny would have broken her.
Snape and Dumbledore exchanged a meaningful look. Both were beginning to suspect that this "resolving everything" had a direct connection to the outburst that had occurred at the Ministry of Magic... assuming the Red in London was the same as the one from the Brazilian jungles and here.
"But then... why did Susan's lenses explode?" Tracey asked, breaking the silence. "Did the Heir attack her?"
The girls looked at the three men with renewed vigilance. The atmosphere became heavy; although they didn't want to believe it, the suspicion that the Heir could be right in front of them was a shadow difficult to ignore.
"Ahem... Do not worry, I can assure you it was a simple accident," Dumbledore intervened. His tone was that of an indulgent grandfather. "I recognize that the alchemical artifacts Red has created on his own are, indeed, impressive; even more so if they have saved a life. But, despite his astounding talent, it is likely he has not yet perfected his study and his creations may fail."
Dumbledore shifted the blame toward the boy's "imperfection" with masterly elegance.
"In fact, I am somewhat knowledgeable in alchemy," he continued, his eyes twinkling behind his half-moon spectacles. "I believe I could guide him, help him perfect this peculiar invention. Would it be possible for you to lend me one of those lenses to analyze in my office?"
The girls tensed. The Slytherins' distrust became almost tangible at Dumbledore's attempt to confiscate their only defense.
"We're sorry, Director, but we don't have any more," Daphne replied with a polite but forced apology. "Red only gave each of us one pair."
"A pity," Dumbledore sighed, feigning genuine disappointment. "Well, I won't ask you to remove your protections. I shall have to wait for Red to return. If he does, be sure to tell me; it would be appropriate to request his services to produce more lenses and distribute them to the entire student body."
Dumbledore gave them a smile before indicating it was time to leave. But Snape was not willing to let the matter rest there.
"How is it possible that Weasley entered, faced the Heir, and escaped Hogwarts without anyone knowing?" Snape hissed, casting a suspicious look toward the group. "He must have some method we are unaware of... or perhaps received internal help. Where are the others from his group? Clearwater... or his sister, Ginevra?"
"Perhaps later, Severus," Dumbledore cut him off, looking toward the entrance of the hospital wing. "I do not believe this is the opportune moment."