For Hogwarts

Professor McGonagall staggered back half a step, the last trace of color draining from her face.

She looked at her former student, the one she had once been most proud of, at the unfamiliar dark flames burning in her eyes for only one person, and suddenly understood the meaning of Caesar's final mocking smile.

Caesar had not only calculated her own actions, but also Hermione's reaction, and even Minerva McGonagall herself.

This Deputy Headmistress, who placed Hogwarts and her students above all else, upon learning the "truth," would inevitably come to tell Hermione, trying to "save" her.

And he, exploiting precisely that, had pushed Hermione completely over the edge.

"For Hogwarts..." Professor McGonagall murmured, repeating the words she had spoken before her own action, yet now feeling nothing but endless absurdity and cold.

Hermione's wand rose steadily, aiming at Professor McGonagall.

Magic began to gather around her, far more condensed than before, and also... darker.

Those silvery lights that once represented protection and wisdom were now faintly tinged with an ominous blood-red.

Dumbledore sighed, tightening his grip on the Elder Wand. He knew that persuasion was useless.

The Hermione Granger before him had already made her choice.

Professor McGonagall's low murmur was like a final death knell, shattering the last shreds of hesitation and wavering that belonged to "student Hermione Granger" within her heart.

For Hogwarts?

For those ethereal "principles" and "responsibilities"?

Her Hogwarts had long since shrunk down to a single figure, a single name, starting from that chaotic station five years ago.

For him.

She could betray the entire world, and naturally, she could destroy any obstacle.

Her wand aimed at Professor McGonagall as steady as a rock, the magic gathering at its tip no longer pure silver-white, nor blazing gold-red.

Instead, it transformed into a viscous, heavy, light-devouring dark red vortex, with pitch-black arcs of electricity flickering at its edges.

That was the innermost obsession of the Patronus Charm, twisted beyond recognition by despair, rage, and a madness bordering on sacrifice.

It no longer protected; it existed only to destroy anything standing before its "target," be it a former mentor, or the Headmistress symbolizing order.

Dumbledore's aged sigh had barely faded when Hermione's attack was already launched.

No incantation, no warning.

The dark red vortex of magic erupted from her wand tip like a living thing.

Mid-air, it split, spun, and transformed into countless hair-thin, screeching dark red rays, raining down upon Professor McGonagall like a storm!

Each ray carried a soul-severing chill and a brutality that could shatter all things.

Professor McGonagall's pupils contracted sharply. Almost by instinct, she swung her wand, using a Transfiguration charm to raise layers of stone slabs from the ground.

They formed a thick stone shield before her, while the light of a Shield Charm flared around her body.

Yet the dark red rays seemed to ignore physical and conventional magical defenses.

They easily pierced through the stone shield, like red-hot wire through butter, leaving behind countless scorched black holes.

The Shield Charm's light fluctuated violently under the assault, dimmed, and shattered in less than two seconds!

"Thump, thump, thump, thump—!"

Several rays pierced through Professor McGonagall's defenses, burying deep into her shoulder, arm, and side.

No blood sprayed. The struck areas instantly turned gray, withered, as if all life force had been drained away, even the pain seemingly stripped.

Only a cold numbness and a rapidly spreading weakness remained.

Professor McGonagall grunted, staggered back, her wand nearly falling from her hand. Her face was drained of color, her eyes filled with disbelief and horror.

"Hermione! Stop!" Dumbledore finally moved.

He no longer tried to reason with words. The Elder Wand traced a magnificent silver arc.

Like the break of dawn, it tried to dispel and purify the evil dark red magic, while a gentle yet tenacious binding force field swept toward Hermione, attempting to restrain her.

Hermione didn't even turn around.

Her left hand swept backward, and a surge of magic, equally dark red yet far more savage, rushed up to meet Dumbledore's silver arc.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a grating, "sizzling" sound, as if two completely opposing rules were annihilating and eroding each other.

The silver light and dark red corroded and canceled each other out, locked in a stalemate!

And the binding force field Dumbledore had cast, upon approaching within three feet of Hermione, was silently devoured and dissolved by the automatically flowing dark red magic field.

For the first time, true gravity appeared on Dumbledore's aged face.

He could sense that the "quality" of the magic Hermione was now mobilizing had reached an inconceivable level. It wasn't a simple accumulation of Dark Arts.

But a forced fusion of some extreme emotion within herself with a vast source of magical power, forming a prototype of power at the "rule" level.

Domineering, pure, existing only to achieve a single goal, even briefly overriding many conventional magical principles.

Taking advantage of Dumbledore being occupied, Hermione's figure closed in on the severely injured and weakened Professor McGonagall like a ghost.

Her eyes held not a trace of emotion—only an icy, focused indifference to "removing the obstacle."

Her wand lashed out like a venomous serpent striking, a blur too fast to follow, aimed straight at Professor McGonagall's heart.

This time, it was no weakening or control spell—it was a killing blow, meant to take a life!

Professor McGonagall barely raised her wand to block, but the gap in power was too vast; her wand was easily knocked aside.

Just as the wand tip was about to touch Professor McGonagall's chest—

"Mind Pierce!"

An aged, weary, yet resolute cry rang out from the side!

Dumbledore, while simultaneously fending off the encroaching dark red magical erosion and maintaining other protections, forcibly diverted his focus to cast an attack spell at Hermione!

A white light shot like a venomous snake toward Hermione's back!

It was the most desperate, yet most effective choice. Against Hermione in her current state, conventional spells were no longer effective.

Only the ultimate killing curse might interrupt her attack and force her to defend herself.

But Hermione's reaction exceeded everyone's expectations.

She did not dodge. She did not defend.

Her left hand shot out with blinding speed, leaving afterimages—not to block the piercing curse.

But to grab Professor McGonagall's right wrist, left completely exposed after her wand was knocked away!

At the same time, her body, riding the momentum of her charge, twisted an almost imperceptible ten degrees to the side.

Pfft!

The white light of the piercing curse grazed Hermione's left shoulder blade, tearing away a large chunk of flesh, leaving a scorched, blackened wound deep enough to see bone.

Even the faintly twitching bone beneath was visible.

The searing pain made Hermione's body shudder violently, her face instantly turning deathly pale.

But she clenched her teeth, not even letting out a groan, and her forward charge and grabbing motion never faltered!

And her right-hand wand finally struck Professor McGonagall's chest. Not a piercing curse, nor the dark red ray from before.

But a highly concentrated magical impact, carrying a sharp, high-frequency tremor—like the sharpest awl—instantly piercing through Professor McGonagall's final life force field, straight into her heart!