Caesar's Confession

He began to "confess" calmly, even methodically:

"Professor McGonagall, you've probably guessed where my hatred of Hogwarts and Dumbledore comes from, but let me tell you a deeper secret.

Approaching Hermione was part of the plan from the start. Her talent, her background, her easy-to-control yet sentimental nature—she was the perfect pawn. Our chance meeting at the station? I arranged it.

I nurtured her interest in magic, deepened her dependence on me, and gave her a necklace. It held more than just a protective charm.

I also subtly influenced her feelings, and taught her dangerous knowledge, all so she'd grow faster and become a more useful tool.

I used her feelings for me to make sure she'd stand by my side at the crucial moment, against you, against Dumbledore..."

One by one, Caesar laid out every calculation beneath those tender façades, in the calmest, most ruthless tone.

He exposed the cold motives behind the memories Hermione had treasured, laying them bare before McGonagall.

Every word was like a poisoned blade stabbing into the listener's heart, and it utterly defiled the love for which Hermione had given everything.

Professor McGonagall's face went from flushed with anger to livid, and finally to a deathly pale stillness. Her body swayed slightly, as if she might collapse at any moment.

Looking at the young man before her, whom she had once admired and even partly trusted because of his "care" for Hermione, she now found him utterly unfamiliar, utterly... evil.

"As for Hogwarts..." Caesar said at last, his gaze sweeping over the castle blazing outside the window.

"I never cared about it. This place was just a stage. Now the show has to end.

"Kill me, Minerva. It's the only way to stop more people from dying.

"Oh, and you can avenge your protégé Snape, too. Voldemort killed him, but..."

He closed his eyes, offering his neck for the execution, but the curve of his lips held a hint of mockery, as if to say, I've already succeeded.

"Professor! Don't!" a Ravenclaw student cried. "He could be lying to you..."

"Every second," Caesar interrupted, his voice as soft as a sigh, "another student could die beneath those monsters' claws. Maybe the Weasley twins?

"Maybe that girl who's always following Longbottom around? Maybe some Hufflepuff whose name you don't know, but who shyly greets you every morning?"

His words struck the softest, most untouchable part of Professor McGonagall's heart.

Hogwarts.

Its students. Every child within its walls.

Nothing mattered more to her than Hogwarts. Protecting the castle and the students inside it was a vow engraved in her soul.

It mattered more than her life, more than her principles, even more than her commitment to justice.

Caesar extinguished the last flicker of hope in her heart that she might subdue him and force him to undo the spell, and made the very idea of "judgment" seem pale and laughable.

In the face of death after death, judgment was meaningless.

All the anger, pain, and struggle vanished from Professor McGonagall's face, along with every emotion belonging to "Minerva McGonagall" as an individual.

In their place came a wholly cold, resolute determination belonging to the "Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts."

Her wand rose, steady as stone.

Its tip pointed at Caesar's heart.

There was no incantation, only a concentrated glow of magic pulsing at the tip of her wand.

It was the culmination of her life's mastery and her will to protect in that moment, powerful enough to pierce stone and shatter souls.

She looked at Caesar's calm, death-waiting face, and the last glimmer of humanity in her eyes went dark.

"For Hogwarts."

The cold words fell.

A brilliant beam of magic, unleashed without restraint like a bolt of judgment, shot toward the man who had destroyed something precious in her heart and was slaughtering the place she had sworn to protect with her life.

Just before the beam struck, the deepest part of Caesar's eyes, so long calm and unreadable, seemed to ripple with something faint beyond anyone's understanding.

At last... it had taken hold.

Hermione... you'll... hate me, won't you?

That was for the best.

The beam swallowed him.

Elsewhere, the castle courtyard had become a hellish wasteland.

Unspent Fiendfyre and traces of Dark Magic swirled among the rubble and shattered walls. The air reeked of blood, ozone, and dust.

The remaining Death Eaters had either been subdued or scattered into the night, but even greater chaos and cries of anguish came from every part of the castle.

The Fire Dragon's furious roars, the Giants' thunderous footsteps, and the students' terrified screams wove together into a symphony of destruction.

Yet to Hermione Granger, all that noise had become a blurred din in the background.

Her world had narrowed until it held only the figure before her, radiating a nauseating blend of the Philosopher's Stone's brilliance and utter darkness.

Under Hermione's frenzied, precise barrage of spells, Voldemort's newly reborn and still-unstable body was already covered in cracks and scorch marks.

The spells she used had long since gone beyond the scope of Hogwarts textbooks, even surpassing the dangerous, effective ancient spells Caesar had taught her.

They were a fusion of her own surging magic, awakened by the intensity of her emotions; the vast knowledge she had accumulated over five years of hard study; and a nearly instinctive battle sense.

Every swing of her wand came with a shriek that tore through the air. Every incantation stirred the surrounding magic into resonance and frenzy.

She held nothing back and made no attempt to test him. From the very start, she unleashed everything in a bid to kill.

A silver variant of the Patronus Charm coiled around him like a ribbon, weakening his dark defenses.

Blades of magic formed from Ancient Runes sliced cunningly at the body the Philosopher's Stone had forcibly pieced together.

She even drew on every trace of positive emotion and protective intent that remained in the surroundings.

She turned them into invisible hammers, pounding again and again at Voldemort's already chaotic, evil soul.

Voldemort was both enraged and astonished. He had just obtained some of the Philosopher's Stone's power and had been about to unleash it.

Instead, he had run headlong into a witch who seemed to have returned from hell, and was nothing like a student.

The purity and strength of her magic made his soul ache, while her ruthless, precise fighting style was that of a seasoned Auror who had survived countless battles to the death.

What unsettled him even more was the cold fire burning in her eyes. It wasn't hatred of the dark.

It was something purer, more unquestioning: the determination that you must be eliminated, as if he were merely an obstacle in her way.

"Mudblood... how dare you...!" Voldemort roared, unleashing even greater waves of Dark Magic in an attempt to crush her with sheer power.

But Hermione's figure moved like a ghost, always evading his deadliest attacks by a hair's breadth and answering with fiercer blows that left wounds on him.

The Philosopher's Stone's power was rapidly draining as it repaired this temporary body and resisted Hermione's relentless onslaught.

At last, during a head-on clash of their core magic, Voldemort's not-yet-stabilized body let out a cracking sound under the strain.

A Silver-Red Beam, formed from all of Hermione's magic and infused with the burning conviction in her heart, shot through his hastily erected layers of defenses like a Spear of Judgment and plunged into his chest.

It pierced not a physical heart, but the core where his dark soul and the Philosopher's Stone's power had fused!

"Argh—!!!"

With a shrill, inhuman scream, Voldemort's deformed body flew backward like shattered porcelain and crashed through half a ruined wall, disappearing beneath the rubble.

Deep red light spilled uncontrollably from the "wound" in his chest. The Philosopher's Stone's power was draining away.

His scarlet eyes glared at Hermione as she advanced step by step, filled with fury and disbelief.

And with the humiliation of being defeated by someone he considered inferior.

Just as Hermione raised her wand again, ready to finish him once and for all—

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

A gentle yet irresistible Levitation Charm shot in from the side. It wasn't aimed at Hermione.

Instead, it precisely targeted the deep red gem that had rolled from Voldemort's damaged chest, its light somewhat dimmed but still magnificent.

The Philosopher's Stone rose as if borne by an invisible hand, arced through the air, and landed securely in the hands of Albus Dumbledore, who had appeared at the edge of the battlefield at some point.