Chapter 76: A Fair Evaluation
The feeling of falling weightlessly was not especially pleasant.
After a brief drop, Tamara landed on something soft, damp, and faintly elastic.
It was pitch black all around, and the air was thick with the smell of earth and something else. Burnt vegetables.
Before she could even steady herself, the seemingly soft vines beneath her reacted to the warmth of prey and instantly came alive.
Like a nest of starving pythons, they crept soundlessly up her ankles, trying to coil around her legs, cinch her waist, and strangle her in the dark.
"Devil's Snare."
Tamara stood where she was without even raising her wand, merely speaking the plant's name in a cold voice.
Professor Sprout's obstacle.
For an ordinary first year, a magical plant like this might have been a fatal trap.
The more one struggled in panic, the tighter it would squeeze, until its prey was strangled to death.
"Hiss..."
The vines had already climbed to her knees, and the slimy sensation made Tamara frown in disgust.
To her, this kind of low level magical plant was not even worthy of becoming a specimen.
"Let go."
She gave the order quietly. Her voice was not loud, but it carried absolute authority.
The plant naturally did not understand human language. On the contrary, her stillness only encouraged it, and the vines tightened more eagerly. One especially thick vine even crept toward her wand hand.
"Impudent."
A trace of impatience flashed through Tamara's eyes.
"Incendio."
She did not even bother to recite the spell properly. She only flicked the tip of her wand.
No great burst of fire followed.
Only a flame the size of a thumb appeared at the tip of the wand.
Yet to the Devil's Snare, that tiny light was the image of its natural enemy.
Especially after it had only just survived a disaster. Hermione Granger, that violent little witch, had apparently set the place ablaze earlier and nearly burned it bald.
The burnt smell in the air was proof enough.
Faced with such recent trauma, the moment the plant saw fire again, its survival instinct erupted.
Swish.
The vines wrapped around Tamara recoiled at once, as if they had been scalded. The entire mass of Devil's Snare shuddered violently, rustling against itself.
Not only did it release her, it shrank back to both sides in an almost human show of terror, flattening itself against the walls and clearing a broad path down the middle.
Even the vines beneath Tamara's feet spread themselves flat across the ground, smoothing out the uneven floor as if afraid she might trip.
"Sensible."
Tamara extinguished the flame, smoothed her robes, which had barely been disturbed at all, and walked forward with practiced grace, stepping over the living carpet of Devil's Snare.
With every step she took, the vines beneath her trembled.
If Professor Sprout knew her beloved plant was this shameless, bullying the weak and fearing the strong, she would probably be so angry she kicked over her fertilizer bucket.
Beyond the plant chamber lay a long stone corridor.
The deeper she went, the more the damp, moldy smell faded, replaced by a sharp buzzing sound like countless insects beating their wings.
Tamara emerged from the corridor into a tall, brightly lit room.
The ceiling was so high it was lost in shadow, while countless tiny jewel like objects flew in circles through the air, flashing and glittering as they moved.
At the far end stood a heavy wooden door.
Tamara looked up at the flying objects.
They were not birds. They were keys with wings.
They darted through the room like a swarm of maddened bees that had been locked up too long.
Her gaze shifted to the broomsticks stacked in one corner.
Clearly, the intended method here was for the intruder to mount a broom, catch the correct large old fashioned key from among the swarm, then use it to unlock the door.
A test of eyesight and flying skill.
"Typical Ravenclaw thinking. Flashy, cumbersome, and overflowing with self indulgent technical cleverness."
Tamara gave it a fair and thoroughly negative evaluation.
She did not spare the broomsticks a second glance.
Those were for people like Potter, who enjoyed scampering around the sky like a monkey.
True flight meant conquering gravity with one's own magic.
Riding a broom, relying on a stick wedged between one's legs to rise into the air like some primitive creature, was an insult to the very word.
Not only ugly, but beneath her dignity.
Tamara withdrew her gaze coldly.
She would sooner walk than touch those communal brooms slick with other people's sweat.
She headed straight for the door.
The keyhole was empty. No key remained inside.
The door itself, however, stood slightly open.
"It seems they've been in there for quite a while already."
A small amused curve appeared at the corner of Tamara's mouth.
Potter and the others had at least possessed enough sense not to lock the door again. That saved her some trouble.
However, the moment she reached the middle of the room, the swarm of keys abruptly changed.
As if detecting that the intruder had refused to play by the intended rules, they all stopped their chaotic circling at once. Hundreds of sharp silver points turned toward Tamara simultaneously.
This was the anti cheating measure.
If a wizard tried to force their way through without chasing the key properly, the flying keys would become hidden weapons and tear the intruder apart like a storm of blades.
With a shrill slicing whistle, the first dozen silver keys shot downward, like a tiny rain of arrows aimed straight at Tamara's eyes and throat.
"Annoying flies."
Tamara did not even slow down.
She simply raised her wand lazily and drew a circle through the air.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
An invisible ripple spread out.
The dozen keys that had been about to hit her froze in midair, suspended inches from her face. Their wings remained in the motion of beating, yet they could no longer move.
Whenever another cluster came at her, Tamara casually used the Levitation Charm to send them crashing into one another.
Just before she reached the door, she noticed something flopping weakly in a corner on the floor.
It was a large silver key with bright blue wings, one of which had been bent at a grotesque angle. Marks from rough handling scarred its surface.
It could no longer fly, only twitch and spin helplessly on the ground like a broken bird.
This was the correct key.
Tamara stopped and looked down at it.
"Crude."
That was her judgment.
This sort of damage was clearly not Hermione's work, nor the result of Ron's clumsy hands.
Only Harry Potter.
Tamara could almost picture the scene.
The bespectacled brat racing through the air on a broom, weaving through the storm of keys, then grabbing the right one with all the brute force typical of Gryffindor and jamming it into the lock.
The method had no elegance whatsoever and was even a little barbaric.
Still...
"The efficiency is acceptable."
Tamara stepped over the fallen key. It was the first genuinely positive evaluation she had given the savior all night.
"It seems this savior is not entirely useless."
"At the very least, when it comes to manual labor, he does have some talent."
[Ding! System prompt: Did you just praise Harry Potter?]
The system's voice suddenly chimed in, filled with obvious surprise.
[Acknowledging a teammate's strengths is the first step toward building a good relationship! Have you finally learned to appreciate The Boy Who Lived?]
"Shut up."
Without expression, Tamara pushed open the heavy wooden door.
"I am merely evaluating a useful stepping stone."
.....
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