Chapter 113: Acting
In November, the Scottish Highlands were swept by gales and icy rain, each drop like a tiny blade scraping across the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch.
Under the leaden sky, the match between Slytherin and Gryffindor had fallen into a deadlock.
Tamara Riddle sat at the highest point of the Slytherin stands, wrapped in a cloak of treated dragon hide strengthened with a powerful Warming Charm. She looked down coldly at the fools shivering in the freezing wind, yet still cheering until their throats were hoarse.
"Truly barbaric, boring monkey business," she ruthlessly concluded in her mind.
However, what annoyed her today was not merely the sight of broomsticks darting about in the sky.
"Oh, look at that wind! I must say, if it were me up there, I would only need to apply a tiny Airflow Vortex Charm to the tail of the broom to perfectly offset the drag from this crosswind!"
A high pitched, boastful voice rang out less than five metres away from Tamara.
Gilderoy Lockhart.
The famous Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor was wearing bright pink robes trimmed with gold today, clashing violently with the gloomy weather. He had even stuck a peacock feather into his hat.
He stood before several Hufflepuff girls, gesticulating wildly as he commentated on the match while slipping in promotions for his nonexistent heroic deeds.
"Back when I watched a match in Transylvania, I once caught a runaway Bludger with my bare hands! That Bludger stopped right in my palm..."
"Simply nauseating."
Draco Malfoy, sitting beside Tamara, rolled his eyes in disgust. His voice was just loud enough for the surrounding Slytherins and the neighbouring Ravenclaws to hear.
In fact, because Malfoy Manor had donated seven brand new Nimbus 2001s to the entire Slytherin team at the start of term, Captain Marcus Flint had originally intended to give Draco the prime position of Seeker in return.
But on the first day of school, after Tamara coldly remarked that "only incompletely evolved monkeys would ride wooden sticks through freezing wind to grab a ball," Draco had rejected the position without hesitation and agreed with her completely.
Moreover, ever since Tamara's after school tutoring in the Room of Requirement, Draco had long since thrown those amateur sports activities out of his mind.
He now practised magic output and advanced spells desperately every day. Compared to showing off in the sky, he now craved the kind of magical power that could truly trample Gryffindor underfoot.
He absolutely could not lose face in Tamara's class.
"I doubt he can even recite a basic Impediment Jinx properly," Draco muttered, his tone full of disdain. "My father is right. Dumbledore really has gone senile if he found this sort of rubbish to teach us."
"Exactly," Pansy said from the side, curling her lip. "He can't even compare to a single strand of Tamara's hair."
"If Tamara taught Defense Against the Dark Arts..." Zabini leaned in as well, his gaze carrying sincere respect. "Those thirty minutes in the Room of Requirement alone taught us more than listening to this peacock brag for an entire term."
Their discussion was not deliberately kept quiet.
Across the aisle, Hermione, sitting at the edge of the Gryffindor section, could not help frowning deeply as she heard Lockhart's self praise.
"He just mispronounced the syllables of a simple Impervius Charm, which is why the hem of his robes is completely soaked."
At this point, Hermione turned her head and looked at Tamara with extreme admiration and trust.
"If he really teaches us how to deal with vampires, we'll probably only learn how to wrap ourselves up and deliver ourselves to the dinner table. If Tamara taught Defense Against the Dark Arts, we would definitely learn something truly useful this term."
Listening to the whispered conversations behind her, Tamara lowered her eyes slightly.
No expression appeared on her exquisite, pale face, but deep within those pitch black eyes, a flicker of genuine satisfaction quietly passed.
Although they were only a group of eleven and twelve year old children, this heartfelt esteem and submission still greatly satisfied the arrogance and vanity carved into the Dark Lord's bones.
That old fool Dumbledore would rather hire a piece of trash who could not even handle a House-elf than acknowledge the excellence of Tamara Riddle.
But so what?
In the hearts of these students, she had already replaced the Professor personally appointed by Dumbledore.
She did not need that ridiculous title. She herself was the absolute academic authority of Hogwarts.
The thrill of mentally stripping Dumbledore of his control put Tamara in a rare and pleasant mood.
However, that pleasure did not last long.
Bang!
A dull, heavy sound came from midair.
The students in the stands gasped.
Tamara carelessly raised her eyes and looked toward the gloomy sky above the pitch.
A heavy black Bludger, like a mad stray dog, completely ignored the other players, even the Slytherin Beaters, and chased a red figure along a lethal trajectory.
Harry Potter.
That Bludger had clearly been tampered with.
Not only was its speed astonishing, but every turn it made carried obvious murderous intent, as though it would not stop until it smashed the saviour's head to pieces.
"Whoa! Potter's in trouble!" Draco whistled excitedly. "Hit him! Hit him! Knock him off his broom!"
Harry dodged and darted clumsily through the wind and rain, his Nimbus 2000 forced into several thrilling rolls in midair.
The Bludger flew past his ear, bringing with it a gust of wind that made one's scalp tingle.
Tamara watched the one sided pursuit in the sky with cold eyes, the corners of her mouth curling slightly.
Who had done this?
Tamara searched through her mind but could not find a logical explanation.
But it did not matter.
Whoever it was, as long as they could make Potter suffer, she was happy to see it.
If that ball could directly break Potter's neck, she would practically award it the Order of Merlin, First Class.
Just as Tamara was preparing to leisurely enjoy the saviour's suffering, the mechanical voice she hated to the core boomed in her mind like a death knell.
[Ding! Emergency high risk event triggered!]
[Detected that your close friend, the rising star of the wizarding world, Harry Potter, is under lethal threat from a Bludger!]
[As a moral benchmark of Hogwarts and a confidante big sister to your classmates, how can you stand by and watch your friend fall in the wind and rain?]
[Forced Task: Friendly Beater!]
[Task Requirement: Please use magic immediately to covertly and precisely shatter that mad Bludger and save your friend!]
[Task Reward: Love +2.]
The cold smile on Tamara's lips froze instantly.
Sitting in the stands, listening to that sickeningly cheerful notification in her mind, an unprecedented sense of absurdity and cold panic suddenly coiled around her heart like a venomous snake.
Close friend?
Tamara's breathing quickened for a moment.
She suddenly snapped back to her senses, and fragments of the past six months flashed through her mind like a revolving lantern.
Enduring the noise of those fools on the train.
Fighting the main soul in the Forbidden Forest to protect them.
Tutoring them in the Room of Requirement.
Even going to that poverty stricken Burrow to comfort a little red haired girl whose head was full of adolescent crushes.
What exactly had she been doing?
She was Tom Marvolo Riddle, the greatest and cruellest Dark Lord in history.
Yet for the past six months, she had subtly been playing the role of a good person?
She had originally thought she was merely acting, merely using the system's rules to seek benefits for herself, merely treating these children as stepping stones she could discard at any time.
But without her noticing, this fragile shell, along with this damned system, had been stripping away her original tyranny piece by piece, reshaping her behavioural logic like a frog being boiled in warm water.
This was not merely imprisonment of the body.
This was alteration of the soul.
"No..."
Tamara's pupils contracted violently, and a surge of rage almost burned away her reason.
She could endure temporary weakness. She could endure the stench of Muggles. But she absolutely could not tolerate being domesticated into a saint full of weak compassion.
[Warning! Detected that the target's vital signs are dropping rapidly! Please act as soon as possible, host!]
"Impossible."
Without even knowing when it had begun, this forced kindness, this humiliating disguise, had actually seeped into her muscle memory like a chronic poison, corroding the instincts of her soul.
She had truly begun, through subtle influence, to react like a guardian to a cry for help.
Towering rage and indescribable panic exploded in Tamara's chest.
"I am Lord Voldemort!"
"I am the Dark Lord who transcends death! I am the purest darkness in this world!"
She roared hysterically in her mind.
"That idiot scurrying around like a monkey in the sky is the one destined by prophecy to kill me! He is the nemesis I dream of grinding into ashes!"
"Why should I save him again and again?"
[Host, please correct your values. Standing by and watching someone die seriously violates the core principles of virtue.]
The system's cold voice had lost its usual cheerfulness. It carried a pressure that brooked no defiance.
[If you insist on refusing to perform the rescue task, the system will initiate the punishment program.]
"Then bring it on!"
Tamara sat in the wind and rain, clutching the metal railing before her so tightly that her nails almost dug into the hard steel.
A terrifying resolve rose in her eyes.
"Today..."
Tamara made a solemn vow in her heart, word by word.
"Even if you electrocute me to death right here, I will absolutely not act."
"I want to see him fall from that pathetic broom with my own eyes."
"I want to see his neck break, and that Bludger smash his ridiculous skull."
[Instruction confirmed. Host refuses to perform the task.]
[Punishment program initiated.]
Without any warning, a violent and terrifying current far exceeding any previous punishment suddenly exploded from the base of Tamara's spine.
"Ugh..."
Tamara's body stiffened abruptly, and a muffled groan like that of a dying beast escaped her throat.
This was not ordinary numbness. It was a sharp pain as if every nerve fibre in her body were being plucked out one by one and burned over an open flame.
Her face turned as white as paper in an instant, without a trace of colour.
Fine beads of cold sweat poured out, mingling with the falling rain and dripping frantically down her tense jaw.
The intense current made every muscle in her body tremble uncontrollably. Her legs went weak, nearly sliding her off the chair and to her knees.
But she did not fall.
The terrifying willpower of the Dark Lord, who had experienced the tearing of her soul and the abyss of death, erupted with astonishing resilience at this moment.
She bit her lower lip hard. Her sharp teeth instantly pierced the delicate skin, and a streak of dark red blood flowed down the pale corner of her mouth, adding a ghastly eeriness to that exquisite face.
Tamara pressed all her weight onto the hands gripping the railing. Her knuckles turned a ghostly white from the force.
She was resisting.
Using a mortal shell to endure rule based punishment from an unknown dimension.
"Tamara? What's wrong?"
Draco, beside her, finally noticed something was wrong.
He turned his head and looked in horror at the trembling, pale faced Tamara.
"You look terrible! Is it too cold?"
"Don't... touch me..."
Tamara's voice was hoarse, as if rubbed raw by sandpaper. Every word was squeezed from between her teeth as if leaking blood.
She did not turn her head. Her eyes, bloodshot from physiological pain and filled with a thin layer of mist, stared fixedly at the gloomy sky.
There, Harry Potter was being driven into a corner by that Bludger.
Bang!
The Bludger smashed past the tail of Harry's broom, sending splinters of wood flying everywhere.
Harry cried out in midair. His body lost balance and began to sway.
"Fall..."
Tamara felt the current tearing through her body, felt the weakness that nearly made her faint.
But in that extreme pain, the corners of her mouth slowly and with great difficulty pulled outward.
It was a crazed, delighted, cold smile, filled with pure malice.
In the interweaving of agony and ecstasy, she silently cursed.
"Go to hell, saviour."
.....
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