He Used Your Feelings

The old headmaster bore some traces of battle on him, but his demeanor remained steady.

Behind his half-moon spectacles, blue eyes gazed at Hermione with complexity, then darted warily toward Voldemort struggling in the rubble.

Hermione's movements abruptly stopped.

She slowly turned her head, looking at Dumbledore, at the stone in his hand that held Caesar's life or death in the balance.

The blood on her face was still wet, mixed with sweat and ash, taking on a breathtaking, wild, and cruel beauty in the flickering firelight.

Her eyes—those brown eyes that always sparkled with intelligence and curiosity—

Now were like two bottomless, icy pools, reflecting Dumbledore's figure but holding no warmth.

"Give it to me, Headmaster."

Hermione's voice was terrifyingly calm, without plea or explanation, just a simple, unquestionable demand.

Dumbledore did not answer immediately. His gaze swept across the chaotic battlefield, over the distant chaos and screams growing louder from magical creature attacks, and finally returned to Hermione.

"Hermione, child..." His voice carried deep exhaustion and regret. "Look around you. Stop. Think. Caesar Habs..."

"Miss Granger."

A hoarser, wearier voice, yet carrying heavy weight, interrupted Dumbledore.

Professor McGonagall emerged from the shadows on the other side.

Her steps were unsteady, her robes stained and torn, her face pale from the fierce battle.

And a deeper exhaustion and grayness, as if she had aged ten years in an instant.

In her hand, she gripped her wand tightly, but its tip hung low.

Her eyes met Hermione's, containing no anger, no condemnation—only a cold, almost despairing sorrow.

"He's dead." Professor McGonagall's voice was soft, but it struck Hermione's heart like a hammer. "Caesar Habs. I killed him."

Hermione's body swayed almost imperceptibly, like a slender bamboo in a gale.

But the expression on her face did not change at all, not even the ice in her eyes melting a fraction.

She simply looked at McGonagall quietly, as if waiting for more.

"He said a lot before he died."

McGonagall handed over the letter she had found in Caesar's office, addressed to Hermione, and painfully, word by word, recounted Caesar's "confession" in the abandoned classroom—

How he had designed from the start to get close to Hermione, using her talent and feelings as tools to achieve his goals.

And finally, how he had used the lives of the entire school as leverage to force her hand.

She repeated it in the most concise, coldest language.

Without adding any personal judgment, just stating facts, each word like an ice pick trying to chisel through the seemingly solid ice in Hermione's eyes.

"...He used your feelings, Miss Granger. From beginning to end, it was all a deception."

McGonagall said at last, her voice carrying a barely perceptible tremor.

"You defeated Voldemort and saved Hogwarts from the most direct dark rule.

Stop now, and everything... might still be salvageable.

Headmaster Dumbledore and I can testify that you were deceived and used.

But if you now attack Headmaster Dumbledore for a lie, for someone who used you..."

She took a deep breath, filled with pity. "You will never be able to turn back. You will truly fall into the abyss, beyond redemption."

Silence.

Only the distant clamor of battle and the wind sobbing through the ruins.

Hermione stood there, her face stained with the blood of enemies and her own, listening quietly, also looking quietly at the letter in her hand.

Her gaze moved from McGonagall's grieving face to the faintly glowing Philosopher's Stone in Dumbledore's hand, then back to McGonagall.

Time seemed to pass for a long while, or perhaps only an instant.

Then, she tilted her head slightly, like a diligent student pondering a complex logical problem.

A faint, almost naive confusion even appeared on her face.

"Professor McGonagall," Hermione's voice remained calm, even carrying a polite tone of inquiry, "Everything you said about how Caesar used me, about his plans and deception—

Other than you, is there any other witness?"

The question was so abrupt, so...

inappropriate.

In such a brutal battlefield, at a moment of life-and-death and moral choice, she was asking about "witnesses"?

McGonagall was stunned, and a sharp glint flashed in Dumbledore's eyes.

Amid the rubble, Voldemort, barely conscious and gasping for breath, heard those words.

A strange, rasping laugh suddenly burst from his throat, like a broken bellows, filled with mockery and madness.

"Witness... haha... cough..."

He coughed up black blood as he laughed in fits, his scarlet eyes sweeping contemptuously over Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall before finally landing on Hermione.

"Hogwarts... truly full of talents... besides me, there's... such an 'outstanding' student as you... what a pity I didn't meet you sooner..."

He seemed to want to say more—perhaps about Caesar's earlier secret dealings with Grindelwald's remnants, or deeper conspiracies.

But his severe injuries and magical backlash reduced him to nothing but a series of meaningless rasping sounds.

Yet in his eyes flickered a malice that was almost "gratified."

Look—another "promising seedling" who would stop at nothing for their goals. Hogwarts' "education" was truly a success!

Dumbledore slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again, leaving only profound sorrow within.

"Child,"

he said, looking at Hermione, his voice aged and weary. "When you asked that question, you already knew the answer, didn't you?

And you also know what you were thinking when you asked it."

Between the intelligent, no words needed to be spelled out.

When Hermione asked, "Is there a witness," the subtext was as clear as a torch in the night:

If only Professor McGonagall knew the "truth" about Caesar, then making this "witness" disappear—

That "truth" would cease to exist.

Hermione's intellect—the logical reasoning, the ability to find loopholes and solve problems, so carefully cultivated by Hogwarts and Caesar himself—

In this moment, it was not used for salvation or defense, but coldly, efficiently, began serving the proposition: "How to preserve Caesar's hope of survival while erasing the evidence of his 'betrayal.'"

Kill the one who knows. Cover up the truth.

Hermione did not deny Dumbledore's words. She even gave a slight nod, as if agreeing with his judgment.

Then, her gaze fell back on Professor McGonagall.

In that gaze, there was no trace of the feigned confusion from before—only pure, icy killing intent.