The cobblestone street of Diagon Alley was packed with people.
When Jerry walked out of the back door of the Leaky Cauldron and the brick wall closed behind him, he was hit by a solid wall of human voices.
Hundreds of wizards jammed the main street of Diagon Alley, stretching from the white marble steps of Gringotts all the way to the window of Ollivanders Wand Shop, packing the entire street so tightly that not a drop of water could trickle through.
They held up all sorts of placards; some were glowing words conjured in the air with wands, others were slogans hastily scrawled on cardboard with ink.
"Blood for blood!"
"Exterminate the Cultivation World!"
"Avenge the dead!"
Shouts erupted from every corner of the crowd, merging into a muddy wave of sound laden with anger and fear.
People pumped their fists in the air, stomped their feet, and violently shook the placards held above their heads.
A balding, middle-aged wizard stood on the steps of Gringotts, his wand pressed against his throat with a Sonorus Charm, screaming himself hoarse, spittle flying far from his mouth.
Jerry stood on the steps at the back of the Leaky Cauldron, his grey eyes sweeping over this chaotic sea of humanity.
He rolled his eyes.
Wizards protesting. These two words put together inherently carried an indescribable sense of dissonance.
The social structure of the wizarding community was entirely different from the Muggle world; they had no labor unions, no political parties, no tradition of street politics.
The attitude of the vast majority of wizards toward public affairs could be summed up in four words: None of my business. If the neighbor's house caught fire, as long as the flames didn't reach their own fence, they wouldn't even bother pulling back the curtains to take a look.
Yet these people had actually come out to Diagon Alley to protest.
A web was forming in Jerry's mind.
That web began weaving from the explosion site of the Quidditch World Cup, passed through the conversation in Professor McGonagall's office, passed through Cassiopeia's words—"It's also possible they are on our side"—when she stepped on his crotch, passed through the light of reassessment flashing in Olivia Selwyn's deep brown eyes, and extended all the way to this street packed with angry wizards before him.
The Olympian Pantheon had fallen too fast.
Everyone thought that war would last at least ten years.
As a result, in less than three years, the core worlds of Olympus completely collapsed.
Jerry himself, Aurora, and Hera's betrayal—these factors stacked together to compress what should have been a protracted war into a blitzkrieg.
For the hand behind the curtain, the target was gone.
The Olympian Pantheon was a perfect target. It was strong enough—strong enough to keep a war going for many years.
A long war meant continuous military expenditure, continuous procurement of supplies, continuous political reshuffling.
People die in war, and people get rich in war. The slower the target falls, the longer the time to get rich.
When a target falls too fast, a new one is needed.
The Magical Congress of the United States of America was internally harmonious and lacked any decent external enemies; it wasn't suitable as a target.
The Cultivation World community facing the Asian Ministry was different; over four thousand worlds, three hundred million combat cultivators—its volume was several times more massive than the Olympian Pantheon.
Su Chan's Heavenly Dao Alliance had already been dragged to the brink of exhaustion; the Asian Ministry couldn't win on its own.
By expanding this enemy to the entire wizarding world, dragging Europe and North America into the fray, the war could be sustained for a very, very long time.
And the protest before him was one of the methods to push public opinion toward war.
Jerry's gaze swept from the back of the crowd to the front.
At the very front of the procession, there was a row of people walking exceptionally neatly; their pace was uniform, their slogans were synchronized, and the style of their placards was identical—clearly organized in advance.
Jerry's line of sight moved from left to right along that row, stopping when he reached the seventh person.
A woman.
She wore a rough grey hoodie, the hood pulled down to her forehead, covering most of her face.
Thrown into the crowd, she wouldn't attract any attention whatsoever.
But Jerry recognized her.
Because of the way she walked.
Her steps carried a specific rhythm; when her left foot landed, the toes would point slightly inward; when her right foot landed, the heel would touch down first and rapidly transition to the ball of the foot.
This gait characteristic was trained into her by Catherine. When Catherine trained her, she demanded she walk with this gait, punishing her if she didn't.
After months of walking this way, it became muscle memory, impossible to change.
Cassandra.
That seventh-year Hogwarts girl who used to dress all in gothic attire, wearing heavy eyeliner and a silver cross necklace.
Jerry and Catherine had both assumed she returned to her family's territory, severing contact from then on.
She stood at the very front of the protest line, her mouth wide open, shouting slogans along with the people around her.
Her voice was drowned out by the shouts of hundreds, but her body language was extremely exaggerated: the amplitude of her fist pumps, the force of her stomps, the frequency of her turning her head to rile up the emotions of those around her—all of it was meticulously designed.
She was guiding this crowd.
Jerry hopped down from the steps and squeezed into the crowd.
His height made him almost completely disappear within the throng; surrounded entirely by the waists and buttocks of adult wizards, he had to navigate through the gaps between legs.
The cobblestone street was littered with trampled flyers and spilled Butterbeer, his sneakers making squish-squish sounds as he stepped on them.
Cassandra was about twenty meters ahead in the crowd.
Jerry squeezed his way to fifteen meters.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
Cassandra's hood slipped back a little during a particularly forceful fist pump, revealing her profile.
Pale skin, a pointed chin, and that tiny black teardrop mole beneath the corner of her eye.
She wore no eyeliner, nor her previously favored black lipstick; her entire face was as plain as a sheet of white paper.
The corner of her eye caught something.
Cassandra's body stiffened for a second.
That stiffness lasted less than half a second, but Jerry caught it.
Cassandra's footsteps faltered for a beat; her left toes didn't point inward when they landed, and the transition of her right foot was half a beat slow.
Her head turned slightly toward Jerry's direction, and those black eyes beneath the brim of her hood met Jerry's grey eyes through a gap in the crowd.
She saw him.
Cassandra's pupils constricted.
Then she looked away, continuing to pump her fist and shout, pretending nothing had happened.
Cassandra's pace quickened, her body shifting toward the left side of the crowd, attempting to use the wall of people to escape Jerry's line of sight.
Jerry's right hand pulled his wand from his hoodie pocket.
He didn't raise the wand, only aimed the tip in Cassandra's direction at waist height, completely concealed by the bodies of the people around him.
His lips moved, making no sound.
A non-verbal spell.
A pale blue light shot from the tip of his wand, passed through the gap between three people's legs, and accurately hit the back of the accelerating Cassandra.
Poof.
Cassandra's body shrank in an instant.
The grey hoodie collapsed, the jeans deflated into a pile of fabric pooling on the cobblestone floor, the canvas shoes standing empty where they were.
From that pile of clothes, a small cat emerged.
Black fur, a pointed little face, and a tiny tuft of white stray hairs just below the corner of her left eye, exactly where the teardrop mole used to be.
The little cat's black eyes widened into circles, her four paws stepping on the jeans she had just been wearing, the fur all over her body puffing up.
The protesters around her hadn't noticed what happened at all.
The crowd was too dense; everyone's attention was focused on the front and the placards above their heads.
A person suddenly disappearing and a cat appearing underfoot was entirely ignored in the chaos.
Jerry closed the distance in two quick strides, squeezing to the pile of clothes, and bent down to pick up the puffed-up little black cat.
The kitten struggled frantically in his palm, her four paws kicking wildly, her sharp little claws leaving several shallow red scratches on the back of Jerry's hand.
Her mouth opened, revealing two rows of tiny feline teeth, letting out a threatening "Hsss..."
Jerry supported the kitten's body with his left hand, his right thumb and index finger pinching the scruff of her neck.
The kitten's struggles ceased immediately.
The scruff of a feline's neck is an innate brake switch; a cat pinched by the scruff will instinctively relax all its muscles, its limbs hanging limp, turning into a soft ball of fur.
Although Cassandra was a human transformed into a cat, Transfiguration alters the physiological structure of the entire body; feline instinctive reactions would likewise take effect.
She went limp, her large black eyes glaring at Jerry, her pupils filled with anger and fear.
Jerry shoved her into the front pocket of his hoodie.
The kitten's body fit perfectly into the pocket, with only a small black head poking out from the opening, her two pointed ears flattened against the top of her head, her whiskers trembling with rage.
Jerry turned and squeezed his way back against the flow of the crowd.
His small stature actually became an advantage at this moment; he could agilely navigate through the gaps between the adult wizards' legs like a small fish swimming between reefs.
The kitten in his front pocket was jostled up and down by the squeezing of the crowd, letting out a few displeased "meows."
Three minutes later, Jerry squeezed out of the crowd and turned into Knockturn Alley next to Diagon Alley.
The light in Knockturn Alley was much dimmer than in Diagon Alley; the buildings on both sides leaned inward, almost meeting overhead.
The alley was permeated with a damp smell of mold and the stench of rotting medicinal ingredients wafting from some unknown shop.
Jerry walked down the alley for about fifty meters and stopped before a rust-spotted iron door.
He tapped the lock with his wand.
Click.
The iron door opened, revealing an abandoned storage room inside.
Dust covered every inch of space on the floor, several rotting wooden crates were piled in the corner, and a long-extinguished oil lamp hung from the ceiling.
The only source of light was the faint daylight seeping in through the cracks in the door and walls.
Jerry walked in, closed the iron door, and locked it.
He pulled the little black cat out of his hoodie pocket and placed her on the floor.
Then he raised his wand and cast the spell to reverse the Transfiguration on the kitten.
Poof.
The kitten's body expanded, stretched, and restructured in an instant.
The black fur receded into the skin, the limbs extended into human shapes, the tail vanished, and the ears moved from the top of the head back to the sides.
Cassandra crouched naked on the floor of the storage room.
Transfiguration does not restore clothing when reversed; her grey hoodie and jeans were still on the cobblestones of Diagon Alley.
Her body curled into a ball on the dust-covered floor, her arms crossed over her chest, her knees pressed together, trying to cover as much skin as possible.
Her skin was very white, so white it almost glowed in the dim storage room.
Her figure was thinner than Jerry remembered; the lines of her collarbone were more pronounced, and the outline of her ribs was faintly visible at her sides.
Her long black hair scattered over her shoulders and back, the ends sweeping the dust on the floor.
That teardrop mole below the corner of her left eye stood out strikingly against her pale skin.
"Cassandra."
Jerry stood before her, his grey eyes looking down at her.
Cassandra did not look up. Her chin was buried in her crossed arms, her black eyes staring at the dust on the floor.
"Who told you to lead those people in the protest?"
Silence.
"Where did you go after you dropped out of Hogwarts?"
Silence.
"Why were all the letters Catherine sent you returned?"
Cassandra's shoulders hitched. The name Catherine triggered a distinct physiological reaction in her body, but she still didn't speak.
Jerry squatted down, meeting Cassandra at eye level.
His right hand reached out, his finger hooking Cassandra's chin and lifting her face.
Cassandra's black eyes finally met Jerry's grey eyes.
The rims of her eyes were red, but there were no tears. Her lips were pressed tightly into a line, her jaw muscles taut.
"Not talking?"
Cassandra jerked her face away from Jerry's fingers and lowered her head again.
Jerry stood up.
He looked at Cassandra curled up on the floor, silent for a few seconds.
Then he walked behind Cassandra.
His palm pressed against Cassandra's bare back.
Cassandra's body instantly went rigid.
The muscles of her back contracted under Jerry's palm, the outline of every vertebra becoming clearly visible.
Jerry's palm slid downward from her back, following the groove of her spine all the way down, passing the dimples of Venus, and arriving at the upper edge of her buttocks.
"Jerry... don't..."
Cassandra finally spoke. Her voice was hoarse, carrying a suppressed tremor.
"Then speak."
Cassandra bit her lower lip.
Jerry's palm crossed the upper edge of her buttocks, covering her right butt-cheek.
The flesh of her buttock felt slightly cool under his palm, the skin covered in fine goosebumps.
Jerry's fingers tightened, grasping that soft mound of flesh in his hand, and gave a forceful knead.
"Mmh..."
Cassandra leaked an incredibly faint sound from her nose.
Jerry's other hand reached over as well; both hands simultaneously grabbed Cassandra's two butt-cheeks and pulled them apart.
Her gluteal cleft was exposed between Jerry's fingers; that shallow crease extending from her tailbone all the way to the root of her thighs appeared a lighter pink than the surrounding skin in the dim light.
"Are you going to talk or not?"
Cassandra's body was trembling, but her mouth remained tightly shut.
Jerry released one hand and pulled down the waistband of his sweatpants.
That thing sprang free from the restraint of the waistband; in the dim light of the storage room, its thick silhouette cast a shadow.
He pressed it against the entrance of Cassandra's cleft.
Cassandra's body froze.
She felt that scalding, rock-hard object pressing against her most private location.
The size of that thing made her body instinctively feel fear; her muscles contracted, trying to close the entrance.
Jerry's hips pushed forward an inch.
The tip pushed past the tightly closed tender flesh of the entrance, embedding shallowly to a depth of about one centimeter.
"Ah..."
Cassandra's fingers scraped several trails through the dust on the floor.
"It hurts..."
Cassandra's voice squeezed out from between her teeth.
"It won't hurt once you talk."
Jerry's hips pushed another inch.
"Ah, ah..."
In pain, Cassandra's body began to secrete a small amount of fluid; it was the body's self-protection mechanism, attempting to use lubrication to reduce the damage caused by friction.
Jerry felt that slight wetness.
His hips continued forward.
Squish... squelch...
An incredibly faint wet sound.
"Who... told you to go..."
Jerry repeated the question as he slowly pushed in.
Cassandra bit her lower lip, her black eyes staring fixedly at the dust on the floor.
The tears in her eyes finally spilled over, dropping onto the dust and smashing into a few small, dark circular spots.
Jerry's hips thrust violently forward.
"Ah!"
Cassandra's waist slumped; her upper body sprawled on the floor, her cheek pressed against the dust-covered floorboards.
Her mouth opened, and she let out a cry that was a mixture of pain and something she was unwilling to admit.
Squish.
Liquid was squeezed out under the brutal thrust, overflowing from the junction and trailing down her inner thigh.
Jerry began his assault.
SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.
Every impact caused Cassandra's body to slide forward a bit, her knees scraping two red trails across the dust-covered floor.
Jerry's hands pinched her waist, his small palms leaving ten fingerprints on her slender waist.
Squish-squish-squish...
The wet sounds grew denser with the frequency of his assault.
After the initial dryness, Cassandra's body began to secrete massive amounts of fluid; the liquid made every plunge and withdrawal smoother, and the wet sounds much louder.
"Speak."
Jerry's voice was flat.
"No..."
Cassandra's voice was intermittent, every word shattered by Jerry's thrusts.
Jerry accelerated his rhythm.
SMACK-SMACK-SMACK-SMACK...
The sound of flesh colliding echoed in the cramped storage room, intertwining with the wet squish-squish sounds.
Cassandra's body rocked back and forth constantly under Jerry's violent impacts.
Her two breasts, squeezed out of shape by her prone posture, swung back and forth beneath her chest; her nipples dragged across the dust-covered floor, rubbed red and swollen.
"Who is it?"
"I can't say... ah... they'll kill me..."
Jerry's motion stopped for a second.
They.
"How many people?"
Cassandra bit her lower lip, refusing to yield, her black eyes staring fixedly at the dust moistened by her tears.
Jerry released his right hand from her waist and drew the wand tucked into his waistband.
He pressed the tip of the wand against the indented skin above Cassandra's tailbone and mouthed a word.
An incredibly faint pink light seeped from the wand tip into Cassandra's skin.
It was a Sensory Amplification Charm.
Not an offensive spell, it caused no physical harm; its function was to increase the tactile nerve sensitivity of the targeted area fivefold.
The effect was instantaneous.
"AAAAHHH!"
Cassandra's scream exploded in the storage room.
Maintaining his deep posture without moving an inch, the Amplification Charm turned every inch of the mucous membrane inside her tunnel into overloaded sensors.
All the stimulation that was bearable in a normal state was transformed by the fivefold sensitivity into a tsunami of obliterating pleasure.
Cassandra's limbs lost all strength; she collapsed onto the floor, her cheek pressed against the dust-covered floorboards, her mouth wide open, drool leaking from the corner of her lips and dragging a wet trail through the dust.
Squish-squish-squish...
Jerry slowly withdrew an inch.
"Ahhh... no..."
Just a single inch of movement, under fivefold sensitivity, produced a friction that made Cassandra's brain completely white out.
Her eyes rolled back, her pupils lost focus, and her ten fingers spasmed against the floor, carving ten grooves into the dust.
A gush of warm liquid erupted from her body, pooling in the dust.
Jerry pushed that inch back in.
Squish.
"Ah...!"
Cassandra's body arched up and then slumped down, like a fish thrown onto the shore.
"Speak."
"The Or... Order of the Phoenix..."
Cassandra's voice crumbled into dust, every syllable torn to pieces by the pleasure.
"It was the Order of the Phoenix... who told me to go..."
Jerry's motion stopped.
The long spear lay buried deep within Cassandra's body, motionless.
The effect of the Amplification Charm persisted; even with Jerry completely still, the inner walls of Cassandra's tunnel continued to feel the presence of that massive object with fivefold sensitivity.
The continuous pleasure caused her body to involuntarily spasm every few seconds.
"The Order of the Phoenix." Jerry repeated the words.
"I am... an initiate member... half a year ago after dropping out of Hogwarts... they found me..."
Cassandra's words leaked intermittently from her mouth, mixed with drool and panting.
Jerry tucked his wand back into his waistband and gripped Cassandra's waist with both hands again.
He lifted her upper body from the floor, adjusting her posture.
Cassandra's hands and knees rested on the floor, her buttocks propped high, her spine dipping downward, forming a standard hands-and-knees posture.
Jerry knelt behind her, the long spear still buried inside her, his two hands gripping her waist.
Then he leaned his upper body over Cassandra's back.
His chest pressed against her spine, his chin resting on her shoulder.
His body covered Cassandra's back like a small predator perched on its prey.
His weight was almost negligible to Cassandra, but the weight and presence of the long spear buried inside her constantly reminded her who was the master of this room.
Jerry's hips began to squirm in small motions.
Squish... squelch... slurp...
The wet sounds became dense and continuous, like some viscous liquid being slowly stirred.
"The Order of the Phoenix told you to organize the protest." Jerry's lips were pressed against the shell of Cassandra's ear, his voice very soft, his breath brushing her ear canal. "The goal is to incite public opinion and push the Exterminatus order through the Wizengamot vote."
"Mmh... yes..."
Cassandra's voice carried a sob; the effect of the Amplification Charm had not fully faded, and every grind from Jerry made her body shiver.
"Who gave you the order? Specifically, which person in the Order?"
"I don't know the name... I only know the codename... they call him 'Grey Cloak'..."
"Ah... ah..."
Cassandra's arms were trembling, barely able to support her upper body.
"The protest is only the first step." Jerry continued asking. "What other plans does the Order have?"
"I don't know... I'm just an initiate... they wouldn't tell me the core plans... I'm only responsible for organizing rallies and protests for lower-class wizards..."
Jerry rested his chin on Cassandra's shoulder, his grey eyes looking at the crack-covered wall opposite the storage room.
The Order of the Phoenix.
The modus operandi of these people had never changed. Secretly developing members, infiltrating all classes, manipulating public opinion and political direction from the shadows.
Back when Voldemort's power was at its peak, Dumbledore used this exact method to build the first-generation network of the Order of the Phoenix: placing informants within the Ministry, swaying swing-voters among the pure-blood families, and planting his own people in the editorial department of the Daily Prophet.
That set of tactics was called "heroic underground resistance" when fighting the Dark Lord; change the context, and it was the standard operational model of a conspiracy organization.
Cassiopeia took over the remnants of the Death Eaters, reorganizing those stragglers into an efficient underground network centered on commercial interests.
Her methods were far milder than Voldemort's, but her infiltration was stronger.
The Death Eaters no longer engaged in terrorist attacks and ethnic cleansing; instead, they controlled black market trade, smuggling networks, and the financial flow of the grey zones.
This transition made the Order of the Phoenix lose its moral high ground of "fighting evil," because it was very difficult to explain to the public why an underground organization doing business needed to be fought by a secret society.
The Order of the Phoenix needed a new enemy to prove the value of its existence.
The Cultivation World community was that enemy.
By dragging the wizarding world into an all-out war, the Order could once again play the role of "guardian," expanding its influence during the war, developing more members, and infiltrating more institutions.
The longer the war, the greater the Order's power.
The corner of Jerry's mouth curled up at an angle Cassandra couldn't see.
These people really hadn't improved one bit.
The amplitude of his squirming hips suddenly increased.
"Ah...!"
Cassandra's arms finally gave way, and her upper body slumped to the floor again.
Squelch...
Jerry's hands moved from Cassandra's waist to her shoulders, pinning her shoulder blades down.
His hips began to thrust with an even denser frequency, the long spear rapidly grinding back and forth inside Cassandra, the tip repeatedly slamming against the deepest point...
Jerry stood up, adjusting his sweatpants.
He pulled a neatly folded piece of parchment from the inner pocket of his hoodie.
It was a Gringotts check, written in magical ink for "Exactly Ten Thousand Gold Galleons," with the Rozier family seal stamped in the bottom right corner.
He squatted down, folded the check in half, and stuffed it into Cassandra's half-open mouth.
The edge of the parchment pressed against Cassandra's tongue and palate, propping her mouth open at a fixed angle, preventing her from closing her lips to form complete syllables.
"Mmh... mmh-mmh..."
Cassandra's black eyes glared at Jerry, holding the ten-thousand-Galleon check in her mouth; drool trailed down the edge of the check, dampening a corner of the parchment.
Jerry squatted before her, his grey eyes looking at her calmly.
"Ten thousand gold Galleons. Enough for you to buy an apartment with an attic in Diagon Alley."
A complex light flashed in Cassandra's eyes.
"From today onward, anything that happens in the Order of the Phoenix, you must tell me immediately. The time and place of every rally, the codename and traits of every member you contact, every order and plan you hear."
Jerry reached out and pushed the check further into Cassandra's mouth, wedging it more securely between her upper and lower teeth.
"You don't need to do anything extra. Continue being your initiate member, continue organizing your protests, continue obeying 'Grey Cloak's' orders.
Just while doing these things, sync all the information to me."
He stood up, pulled a palm-sized Two-Way Mirror from his pocket, and placed it in front of Cassandra.
"The other side of this mirror is with Catherine. You use it to contact Catherine, and Catherine will forward the information to me."
Hearing Catherine's name, Cassandra's body shivered again.
Jerry watched her reaction, the corner of his mouth moving slightly.
"Catherine misses you very much."
Cassandra's eyes turned red.
Jerry turned toward the iron door of the storage room. He unlocked it, and the damp, dark air of Knockturn Alley rushed in.
He paused before stepping through the threshold, turning his head.
"The check is real. Just go to Gringotts and cash it."
He walked out, the iron door closing behind him with a dull clang.
Only Cassandra remained in the storage room, lying naked on the dust-covered floor, holding a ten-thousand-Galleon check in her mouth, thick white liquid still flowing slowly from between her thighs.
She spat the check out of her mouth; the parchment was covered in drool, but the magical ink and seal on it were completely intact.
She stared at the check for a long time.
The Two-Way Mirror lay beside her hand, mirror-face up, reflecting the long-extinguished oil lamp on the storage room ceiling.
"Catherine..."
Her voice was very soft, so soft only she could hear it.
Professor McGonagall's private room was on the seventh floor of Gryffindor Tower; even though she had resigned as Head of House, this room remained hers.
Hogwarts Castle had its own will; it deemed certain rooms to belong to certain people, regardless of their position.
When Jerry pushed the door open, Professor McGonagall was sitting on the windowsill reading a book.
She wore a loose, off-white homewear dress, barefoot, her two bare calves extending from beneath the hem, her ankles crossed and resting on the edge of the sill.
Square spectacles perched on her nose, the green eyes behind the lenses tracking the words on the page.
The sunset outside dyed her profile a warm orange; her deep brown hair was freed from its usual tight bun, scattered over her shoulders with slightly curled ends.
She heard the door open and looked up.
Her green eyes looked at Jerry over the rim of her square glasses, then returned to the book.
"You smell of another woman."
Jerry walked to the windowsill and leaned against the wall.
"The Order of the Phoenix is manipulating the protests in Diagon Alley."
Professor McGonagall turned a page.
"Mmh."
The tone of that "mmh" was far too flat. So flat that Jerry's grey eyes narrowed.
"You already knew."
Professor McGonagall closed the book and set it on the sill.
She turned around from the window, her two bare calves hanging down, her toes a short distance from the floor.
She took off her square glasses and used the hem of her dress to wipe the lenses, her movements very slow.
"I was in the Order of the Phoenix for over a decade, Jerry. What they do, the methods they use, I can guess with my eyes closed."
She put her glasses back on her nose and then extended her right hand.
Her fingers touched Jerry's forehead.
The pad of her finger rested against the skin of his temple, slowly sliding down past the side of his head to his cheek.
Her fingertips lingered on Jerry's cheek for a second, then continued downward, following his jawline to the side of his neck.
She was wiping away sweat.
Jerry had rushed all the way back to Hogwarts from Diagon Alley; a thin layer of sweat still lingered on his forehead and neck, gleaming faintly in the sunset light.
Professor McGonagall's fingers wiped away the sweat bit by bit; the touch of her pads was warm and dry, bearing the thin calluses unique to those who wielded wands year-round.
Her fingers slid to the junction of Jerry's neck and shoulder, and stopped.
Her nostrils flared twice.
"The scent of the Red Dragon bloodline. And... residue of Beastial Elixir."
Her green eyes looked at Jerry through her glasses, the corners of her mouth curving into an infinitesimally small arc.
"Which woman did you learn about the Order of the Phoenix from this time?"
Jerry's expression did not change.
Professor McGonagall hopped down from the windowsill, her bare feet landing on the flagstone floor with a soft pat.
She walked up to Jerry; the height difference required her to tilt her head down slightly to meet his eyes.
Her right hand moved from Jerry's neck, downward, crossing the hem of his hoodie, her fingers hooking the waistband of his sweatpants.
Her hand slid inside.
Her slender fingers slipped past the elastic waistband and reached into the interior of the sweatpants.
Her fingertips touched Jerry's meat-root; having just experienced Vera and Cassandra, that thing was in a completely flaccid state, hanging softly between his legs.
Her fingers gripped the shaft, her palm immediately feeling the sticky residue on the surface.
"It's not completely dry yet."
Her fingers slid slowly along the shaft; her pads rolled over a small patch of semi-dry, sticky white residue.
Those substances produced an incredibly faint squish sound under her fingertips.
"Two people."
Professor McGonagall's nose twitched again, discerning the scents on her fingers.
"The one with the Red Dragon bloodline, and another... young, no special bloodline."
Jerry looked down at the hand McGonagall had slipped into his pants, his grey eyes devoid of panic.
"Are you going to clean me up?"
"You came back filthy; you can't go to sleep like this."
Professor McGonagall picked up a clean cotton handkerchief from the nearby coffee table and tapped it with her wand; the fabric turned warm and damp.
She wrapped the handkerchief around the fingers of her right hand and reached back into Jerry's pants.
The warm, damp fabric pressed against the shaft of the meat-root and began to wipe slowly.
Squish.
The handkerchief slid over the surface of the shaft, wiping away the semi-dry, sticky residue bit by bit.
Professor McGonagall's movements were very meticulous; her fingers wiped along every groove and fold of the shaft, from base to tip, then from tip back to base.
Her fingers would slow down slightly when passing the coronal sulcus of the head, using the corner of the handkerchief to carefully clean the residue trapped in the crevices.
Squish... squelch...
The meat-root jumped slightly under the wiping of the warm handkerchief; the blood vessels on the shaft began to slowly engorge.
Professor McGonagall felt the thing in her palm gradually becoming harder and thicker; the area covered by the handkerchief was increasingly insufficient.
"Don't get hard. I'm wiping it for you."
"You're rubbing it inside my pants; of course it's going to get hard."
The corner of Professor McGonagall's mouth curved again.
She accelerated the speed of her wiping, the handkerchief sliding back and forth along the shaft to clean away the last bit of residue.
Then she pulled the handkerchief out of his pants; the cloth was stained with traces of mixed white and transparent liquid.
She tossed the dirty handkerchief into the laundry basket beneath the window.
A distinct tent had already pitched in the front of Jerry's sweatpants.
Professor McGonagall glanced at the tent, a flash of exasperation in her green eyes.
"Take care of it yourself. I have business to discuss."
She walked back to the windowsill and sat back down, her two bare calves swinging.
The sunset had already fallen behind the treetops of the Forbidden Forest; the light in the room had shifted from warm orange to dark gold.
"When the Order of the Phoenix was first founded, it was just a group of people who couldn't survive huddling together for warmth."
Her voice changed, from the lightly teasing tone just now to a more grounded, reminiscent texture.
"Dumbledore founded the Order of the Phoenix during the First Wizarding War; the purpose was pure—just to fight Voldemort.
At that time, more than half of the Ministry had been infiltrated, the Auror forces existed in name only, and ordinary wizards could be killed by Death Eaters just going out for groceries.
The Order of the Phoenix was the only organization still resisting."
Her bare feet swung over the edge of the sill, her toes occasionally brushing the surface of the stone wall, making soft tap-tap sounds.
"After the First War ended, the Order disbanded.
Then Voldemort returned, and the Order was rebuilt.
After the Second War ended, by all rights, it should have disbanded again."
Her feet stopped.
"It did not disband."
Jerry leaned against the wall, his grey eyes watching her.
"Over a decade of war, the Order accumulated vast amounts of connections, intelligence networks, and underground resources.
These things don't automatically disappear when a war ends.
Some people felt these resources shouldn't be wasted, that they should continue operating, 'just in case'."
Professor McGonagall's fingers brushed the cover of the book resting on the windowsill, her fingertips unconsciously tracing back and forth along the spine.
"'Just in case'—those three words are the best excuse in the world.
Any organization operating under the banner of 'just in case' can indefinitely prolong its existence, indefinitely expand its power.
The Order of the Phoenix transitioned from a resistance organization to an intelligence organization, and from an intelligence organization to a political organization.
Once interests were involved, it could never return to what it originally was."
Her green eyes looked out the window. The outline of the Forbidden Forest had turned into a black silhouette in the twilight.
"I withdrew from the Order of the Phoenix precisely because I saw this."
The tent in the front of Jerry's sweatpants had slowly receded; he shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets.
"They want to drag the wizarding world into an all-out war with the Cultivation World community."
"War is the fastest avenue for the Order to expand its power. In peacetime, no one needs a secret organization; in wartime, everyone needs one."
Professor McGonagall hopped down from the windowsill, her bare feet stepping on the flagstones. She walked to the small round table in the center of the room, picked up the teapot, and poured herself a cup of tea.
"What role they played in the terrorist attack at the Quidditch World Cup, I'm not certain.
They could be the planners, the facilitators, or merely opportunists taking advantage of the aftermath.
But the protest in Diagon Alley is one hundred percent organized by them."
She held her teacup, turning around to look at Jerry.
"Because of this, we absolutely cannot be dragged into another war."
She took a sip of tea, the rim of the cup leaving a wet mark on her lips.
"The European Ministry of Magic consumed too much in the war against the Pseudo-Olympian Pantheon.
The casualty rate among combat wizards exceeded fifteen percent, two-thirds of potion reserves were depleted, and more than half of the war bonds at Gringotts have yet to be cashed.
It will take at least five to eight years to fully recover.
Before then, fighting another all-out war is suicide."
She set the teacup back on the table and walked barefoot over to Jerry.
Her green eyes looked at him through her square glasses, the twilight making her pupils appear even darker.
"At the Wizengamot vote the day after tomorrow, the Exterminatus order absolutely cannot pass."