Professor Snape could not worry about Hagrid; he readied a Stupefy spell to cast at Cyrus. She had to be knocked out, for he knew the girl's next step would be to target the Slytherin students. Sure enough, there had been something fishy about what happened just moments ago—she had managed to divert his attention using that group of students.
"I'm afraid, sir, you don't truly understand my abilities. Even if you try to stop me, as long as you fail to kill me, that giant out there will be torn to pieces the very next second. Do you think it's wise to just leave Hagrid be, you—do you dare gamble with his life?"
Cyrus knelt beside Angus's lifeless form, gently stroking its face before carefully tucking Angus away into her waist pouch. Without showing any defense against Professor Snape, she limped toward the castle.
Professor Snape gripped his wand tightly, weighing his options internally. He was not certain whether Cyrus was telling the truth, but as a professor, he could not simply stand by and let Cyrus attack students.
"Promise me—do not kill!" Professor Snape had no choice but to place his hopes on the other professors still inside the castle. Why hadn't Headmaster Dumbledore arrived yet?! He hoped to buy time with words and stall Cyrus. The girl froze in her tracks, turning her head to look back at Professor Snape.
Those two deep eyes were like bottomless pools of water—profound and hollow, exuding an icy chill. "Sometimes, being alive is the most painful thing of all. I imagine you understand that feeling better than anyone."
"Damn it!" Seeing Cyrus's figure vanish into the thicket, Professor Snape had no time to ponder her words; he immediately whirled around to check on Hagrid's petrified state.
"Hahaha! Wasn't she just a beast? Did you see the frantic way she ran into the Forbidden Forest? Absolutely pathetic!" Seraphina Travers sat in the common room, flanked by several boys who had earlier pretended to pursue the Gryffindor students.
Lynna Shafiq and Krie chuckled nearby as well. "Thank you, Senior Seraphina! If not for you, we never would have figured out how to get back at her! Because of her disgusting face, I've had nightmares for days."
Seraphina waved a hand dismissively. "Of course I'm happy to help with Uncle Shafiq's request. A nobody with no background and no magic—what kind of waves could she possibly make?"
It had all been a trap orchestrated by them. The moment Lynna had been frightened by Cyrus's face, she had immediately written home, asking her father to urge Headmaster Dumbledore to expel her. But because Cyrus had done nothing to actually harm any students, the request was flatly refused.
With Cyrus remaining at school, there was no way to reach her from the outside. So Lynna's father had asked Seraphina Travers, a fellow pure-blood—and favors among pure-bloods were naturally a welcome currency. Knowing that Cyrus was immune to both soft and hard tactics and only reacted to the beast at her side, Seraphina had devised this plan.
Knowing that Cyrus separated from Angus every time she entered her Head of House's office, she had instructed several boys to distract Professor Snape and lead him away. Then, she found an excuse to slip back, attacked Angus with a Stupefy spell, and, along with Lynna and the others, dumped Angus in an area frequented by Acromantulas.
To ensure she wasn't attacked by other creatures herself, she had brought along her family's specialized Invisibility Cloak, which could conceal one's presence. When she watched Cyrus rush into the bedroom with a pale face, only to find the dog missing, Seraphina felt her heart blossom with joy.
Professor Snape rushed into the Slytherin common room, dragging a still somewhat stiff Hagrid along with him. He had been anxious to find herbs for Hagrid, never expecting the petrification to wear off automatically in under ten minutes. Hagrid's face was still smeared with snot and tears, and he whimpered as he trotted after Professor Snape.
Had Professor Snape been able to Apparate within the school, he would gladly have abandoned the crying giant beside him, transformed into a bat, and flown straight inside. Instead, he spotted Headmaster Dumbledore standing at the entrance of the common room, alongside the Heads of the other three Houses.
The boulder in his chest eased slightly, but an instant later, a scream echoed through the entire dungeon. He pushed past the stunned crowd and rushed to Headmaster Dumbledore's side, only to be intercepted by him.
Following Dumbledore's gaze, Cyrus sat neatly propped against the central sofa, humming a tune quite leisurely as her fingers tapped out a rhythm. One would never have guessed that the terrifying Reaper covered in blood, with shredded clothes and reaping lives amidst a horde of spiders, was the same person. Only the bandages on her face were gone, and the hideous scars framed by her smiling eyes looked exceptionally chilling—a stark contrast to the warm smile Professor Snape had seen by the lake in the Forbidden Forest earlier.
Her crimson eyes, brimming with coldness and murderous intent, swept mockingly over the several boys rolling in agony on the floor. Kneeling beside her feet, trembling like sieves, were Seraphina and Lynna. Professor Snape had no idea what had happened to the boys on the floor; he could not detect any trace of spellcasting, yet their faces were twisted as they clutched their stomachs and thrashed wildly.
"Cyrus, stop this!" Headmaster Dumbledore intervened, blocking the professors who wanted to step forward, and spoke in a stern, commanding tone.
"Why?"
Acting as though she had stumbled upon something immensely interesting, Cyrus propped her cheek in her hand and watched Dumbledore with keen interest. Professor Snape swore this was the night he had seen the widest range of facial expressions from Cyrus.
"I am truly sorry about Angus. But these are all students, and they will face appropriate punishment afterward."
Seeing that Cyrus gave no response and continued humming, Professor McGonagall pressed her lips into a thin line, her chest heaving as if suppressing an inner fury. "Cyrus, although I don't know what exactly happened, harming classmates is a very serious matter!"
Cyrus leaned back against the sofa again, tilting her head up and giving Dumbledore a light nod with the tip of her nose.
"Is that so? Headmaster Dumbledore, why don't you tell Professor McGonagall—why don't you tell everyone here what you know? I mean—all of it."
Everyone turned as one toward Dumbledore, whose white eyebrows twitched in a slight frown. "…Cyrus, I am sorry. I thought—"
Before Dumbledore could finish, Cyrus cut him off. "You thought I wouldn't care. What a fine excuse. It is true that I do not care, but I am also weary of your probing… Well then—let the show begin!"
With a flick of her fingers, her index and middle fingers sweeping upward in a sharp arc—*splat!* Blood spattered everywhere. The boys on the floor convulsed all over, foaming at the mouth and muttering incoherently as their intestines burst through their stomachs, dangling in the air and swaying to the rhythm of Cyrus's dancing fingers.
The dark green ceiling was speckled with tiny dots of crimson, and streams of vibrant, miniature fountains sprayed across the expensive milky-white carpet. Awakened by the screams, students poured out of their rooms, only to scream in bone-chilling terror at the sight; some even collapsed onto the floor, weeping.
At that exact moment, Professor Sprout wept, Professor Flitwick muttered "Good heavens" in a hoarse voice, and Professor McGonagall stared in sheer disbelief at student after student convulsing in pools of blood, her eyes burning red. Professor Snape's hand, gripping his wand so tightly that his knuckles dug into his palms, locked his ink-black pupils onto the most vivid splash of red in the room—and in her mocking eyes, he saw nothing but… agony.
Cyrus turned her gaze to Seraphina and Lynna, who were on the verge of fainting. "Does it look nice?"
*Thud! Thud!* Both girls passed out. "Heh… and so life, it is as bitter as a song."
"Enough!" Dumbledore's roar rang out, and a white spell plunged straight into Cyrus's chest. The surrounding air twisted and warped.
"Despicable… great ones."
Cyrus collapsed onto the sofa and closed her eyes, her expression still carrying a trace of mockery. The bloodstains on the carpet vanished as though they had never been there. Professor McGonagall looked at the students she had gathered into her arms—they were completely unharmed, merely resting quietly as if fast asleep.
The blood-soaked room returned to its original state, save for Cyrus herself: her clothes were now in tatters, revealing wounds as horrific as the scars on her face, caked in dirt and green venom. The sofa beneath her abruptly turned crimson, and a spring-like gush of blood welled up from under her, dripping… dripping… with a crisp sound that echoed in everyone's heart.
Headmaster Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape stood outside the door of the Hospital Wing. The other faculty members had gone to calm the students and maintain order; the sudden incident in the Slytherin common room guaranteed that no one would sleep this night.
Professor McGonagall's face was etched with anxiety as she looked at the two grim-faced, silent men. Because Dumbledore and Snape had a rough idea of what Cyrus's eyes were capable of, they had recognized that the scene moments earlier was merely an illusion created by Cyrus. McGonagall and the others, consumed by frantic worry for the students' safety, had failed to notice.
Just then, the door of the Hospital Wing opened, and Madam Pomfrey emerged with red-rimmed eyes and a grave expression, looking directly at Dumbledore. "Headmaster Dumbledore, the other students suffered no injuries at all; they just need to drink a draught of calming potion after waking up and they can be discharged.
"But that child—what on earth is wrong with her?! Her magic is completely exhausted, her soul is shattered into fragments like broken glass, and she has multiple beast-inflicted wounds and tears across her body. The venom of the Acromantula is severely eating away at her from the inside. Most importantly… she… the injuries she has suffered in the past—not a single inch of her body is whole. New injuries cover old ones, and there are countless places where broken bones have healed on their own."
The group walked slowly over to the bed where Cyrus lay. Madam Pomfrey choked back a hoarse sob in her throat. "Those old injuries aside, there are numerous bruises inflicted by others, swelling, and even the traces of minor dark curses. These are all fresh injuries from the past few months… Why didn't she ever come to the Hospital Wing?! Not even once…"
Madam Pomfrey's implication hung heavily in the air. Ever since entering Hogwarts, this girl's life had been far from the easy ride it seemed on the surface. Prank after prank, bullying after bullying from those around her—it was all written across her body.
By now, Professor McGonagall had turned away, secretly wiping away her tears. She simply could not bear to face the girl she had mistaken for an aggressor just a short while ago.
Filled with self-reproach and rage, Professor Snape turned his gaze to Dumbledore. "So everything she said—about you knowing it all. Everything she experienced in this school, you knew?!"
"Severus, I needed to be entirely certain what she was hiding from us."
"So that's it? Pushing her to the brink just to see if she would slaughter others the way the Dark Lord did?!"
"Tonight's events were an accident, an oversight on my part… I would never put my students in harm's way."
"Of course Headmaster Dumbledore protects his students! I trust that if Cyrus hadn't used illusions tonight instead of another curse, she would have been a corpse the second before she cast her spell! And what about her? She is also… my student!"
"Enough! Both of you! Let this child rest!" Madam Pomfrey took her duty as a healer very seriously, and the two men's bickering had pushed her frayed nerves to the breaking point. Taking a deep breath with a complicated expression, Dumbledore stepped closer to Cyrus to probe her soul.
"If you don't kill me, you will regret it one day." Cyrus's faint voice drifted out, causing Dumbledore to freeze. "Cyrus… I am sorry, truly." Struggling to her feet, the girl attempted to get out of bed on her own, ignoring Professor McGonagall's verbal attempts to dissuade her.
Rejecting everyone who tried to approach, Cyrus said, "Thank you, Madam Pomfrey. Only my sense of touch is working right now; I'm not sure who is here. Professor Snape, are you present?"
A moment later, Cyrus felt her head tapped lightly by a wand. "Angus."
Next, Cyrus felt a stiff, ice-cold, heavy object gently placed across her lap. Cyrus hugged the coldness to her chest for a long time, as if trying to warm it with her own body heat.
Then, the others watched as Cyrus began to channel the meager scraps of exhausted magic left in her body, attempting to transfer them into Angus. "I don't need magic, I don't need a soul… I only want you…"
Dumbledore hastily reached out to grab Cyrus, only to have his hand slapped away. "I can save him once, I can save him a second time!"
*Crack!* Professor Snape brought his wand down heavily against Cyrus's head… Everyone froze, including Cyrus. Cyrus bit her lower lip hard. "Is there really no way… can he truly not be brought back?"
No response came. The girl raised her head to face the crowd, waiting for an answer the way she always had. Still, no response.
Cyrus reached out a hand. "Professor Snape, could you take me and Angus to that lake? I haven't quite lost the ability to walk yet."
This time, Cyrus waited for a long time, but her raised hand was never met. Instead, a thick wizard's robe was draped over her shoulders, and an invisible force lifted Cyrus—who was still clutching Angus—and suspended her smoothly in mid-air. Gradually, Cyrus felt the freezing chill of the Forbidden Forest, and before long, she was set down upon the morning-frosted grass.
Still cradling Angus, Cyrus groped blindly at the ground with one hand until she felt her way to the large tree where she and Angus used to rest.
The deep, resonant chimes of a bell rang out, yet they could no longer awaken you from your slumber.
How I foolishly yearned for this to be nothing more than a nightmare. Yet it has truly become my waking dread.
Please, do not remain silent; it was you, after all, who held the spark that lit the dark.
You were once riddled with scars, and now that familiar voice crosses the threshold of my ears once more.
Having lived, having lost, having come, having released, having laughed, having cried, having roared.
The brilliance and decay of life are so blurred together.
Would you also be reluctant to leave like this?
Life is like a bitter song, making one yearn to admire a sea of blooming flowers and swallows returning to their nests.
Yet if none of it can ever be undone, what is to be done?
Then… for whose sake should I even exist?
Cyrus wanted to burst into bitter tears, but her throat felt as though it were being choked; the wails and screams were trapped within her chest. A heart-tearing pain welled up, and a cascade of tears flowed silently down her face, making not a single sound as she simply let the tears stream endlessly.
He was never coming back. Every time she sank into the dark, he had always been by her side, but now he was gone. She could see nothing, hear nothing, feel… nothing anymore. She had returned to that long-ago emptiness, drifting in a world with no one to accompany her.
"I have nothing left… then why should I even live…"
A wand tapped against Cyrus's head, the pressure somewhat heavy. Stiffly, Cyrus raised her head, followed her senses to grab the arm holding the wand, and pulled it toward her chest.
A scent of herbs washed over her. Grasping Professor Snape's wrist, Cyrus pressed the wand tip against her own throat: "Kill me… I beg you…"
Cyrus felt her hand violently shoved away, only to have it grabbed again as her palm was forced open, a rough yet warm sensation pressing against it. Professor Snape left a line of words carved into Cyrus's palm:
"You have yet to repay the debt you owe for your life."
"Do not dare to die."