Chapter 116: Falling Ill
Icy rainwater dripped steadily from the heavy black dragon hide cloak, leaving a winding trail of wet marks along the dim stone corridors of Hogwarts.
Draco held a black umbrella and followed behind Tamara like a dutiful, fanatical acolyte. His mouth never stopped moving, pouring out a constant stream of curses against the out of control Bludger and Gryffindor stupidity.
Tamara ignored him.
Her steps were mechanical as she made her way toward the Slytherin Dungeons.
However, just as they reached the stairs leading down to the first underground level, the backlash she had been suppressing with the Dark Lord's terrifying willpower finally erupted.
Ten full seconds of violent electric shock had not merely punished her body. It had struck directly at the depths of her nerves and soul.
Combined with the bone chilling cold from being soaked in gale and rain for most of the afternoon, the two forces intertwined and easily shattered this fragile body of a twelve year old.
The corridor before Tamara's eyes suddenly began to spin.
Draco's voice grew distant, as if separated from her by a thick layer of water.
A suffocating heat surged from the depths of her marrow, while the surface of her body remained as cold as ice.
"Tamara? Why have you stopped?"
Draco halted and turned back in confusion.
In the next second, his expression transformed into one of utter terror.
He saw Tamara's deep, sharp black eyes completely lose focus. Then, as if all the bones in her body had been pulled away, she collapsed straight toward the cold stone steps.
"Tamara!"
Draco let out a distorted scream.
He threw the umbrella aside without hesitation and lunged forward, cushioning her body with his own in the split second before her head could strike the stone.
When Tamara regained consciousness, the first thing she smelled was a mixture of bitter Potions and clean linen.
The Hogwarts Hospital Wing.
Her eyelids felt as heavy as lead. Every bone in her body felt as if it had been smashed inch by inch by a Troll with a club, then put back together again. She was so sore she could not even lift a finger.
Her throat felt as though an invisible fire were burning inside it.
"This is far too abnormal, Severus!"
Madam Pomfrey's anxious voice rang out beside the bed.
Tamara slowly opened her eyes a crack. Through her blurred vision, she saw Madam Pomfrey continuously waving her wand over her, while Snape stood to the side with a face as dark as storm clouds.
"I've already given her two full doses of Pepperup Potion!"
Madam Pomfrey sounded utterly incredulous. "Reasonably speaking, even if she had fallen into an ice hole, she should be lively again after drinking Pepperup Potion! But her fever won't come down at all!"
Snape stared at Tamara, who was breathing weakly on the hospital bed. A faint trace of confusion flashed in the depths of his pitch black eyes.
After a moment's thought, Snape seemed to complete the entire chain of logic in his mind.
"Her constitution was already unusually frail," Snape said coldly, his tone carrying a hint of severity.
"A fragile shell that could fall ill from a cold breeze, yet happens to contain a massive amount of magic far beyond her age. After being soaked in icy rain for so long today, she still forced herself to stop that idiot."
His gaze darkened.
"This collapse is merely the inevitable result of that frail shell being driven into extreme overload."
"Utterly ridiculous!"
Madam Pomfrey tucked Tamara's blanket in with indignant force.
"Until that fever has completely subsided, she will remain right here on this bed!"
"Even if Dumbledore himself comes, he can forget about taking her half a step out of this room!"
Lying against the white pillow and listening to Madam Pomfrey's unquestionable declaration, Tamara felt an absurd desolation rise in her heart.
Illness.
For the great Dark Lord, it was such a distant, foreign, shameful word.
Ever since she had split her soul and transformed her body into something neither human nor ghost, she had escaped the birth, aging, sickness, and death of mortals.
She had once believed she would forever stand beyond such laughable physical laws.
But now, this living shell of hers, with a sudden and aggressive fever, was heartlessly reminding her of one fact.
She was now only a mortal.
A mortal who could feel pain.
A mortal who could fall ill.
A mortal so weak she could not even hold a wand.
That sense of fragility, of falling from the clouds into mortal dust, brought Tamara an unprecedented panic.
She hated this feeling of being unable to control her own body.
Just then, an unpleasant retching sound came from a nearby hospital bed.
Tamara turned her head with difficulty.
Less than two metres away, Harry Potter was wearing oversized hospital pyjamas, holding a steaming cup in his hand. His face was twisted into a miserable knot from the foul taste of the medicine.
But the moment he saw Tamara wake up, Harry even forgot to cough.
"Tamara? You're awake!"
Harry ignored his right arm and struggled to sit up. His green eyes were filled with guilt and worry.
"I'm sorry... if it weren't for me, if you hadn't saved me on the pitch..."
His voice was hoarse.
Not long after Hagrid had sent him to the Hospital Wing, Harry had seen Draco rush in like a madman, dragging the unconscious Tamara with him.
When he heard the conversation between Madam Pomfrey and Snape, and learned that Tamara had collapsed from exhaustion and being soaked in the rain, the tiny bit of joy he had felt from winning the match vanished at once.
In its place came heavy guilt, mixed with a bittersweet feeling of being deeply moved.
Tamara quietly looked at the self reproaching saviour in the next bed.
At any other time, she would have used the most biting and sarcastic words to tear this fool's ridiculous sentimentality to shreds.
But now, the fever had robbed her of nearly all her energy. She did not even have the strength to roll her eyes.
She could only look at him weakly and blankly, her black eyes damp from the fever, stripped of some of their usual cold sharpness.
"Shut up... Potter."
Tamara's voice was so faint that it seemed a single gust of wind could blow it away. It carried a heavy rasp.
"I want quiet..."
To Harry, those words sounded entirely like the powerless groan of an extremely weak patient.
He looked at Tamara's face, which had lost all its disguises and defences because of illness.
This was the first time he, and perhaps everyone in the school, had seen Tamara reveal such real, vulnerable fragility.
She was no longer the teacher in the Room of Requirement who had scolded students from all four houses until none of them dared raise their heads.
Nor was she the controller who made no secret of her ambition to stand above everything.
Now, she was just a little girl frowning because of a terrible fever, breathing as if even that took effort.
Harry immediately shut his mouth.
He did not even dare make a sound while drinking his medicine, afraid he would disturb her rest.
He only watched the figure on the next bed in silence, his gaze complicated.
By evening, the tranquillity of the Hospital Wing was broken by a flurry of hurried footsteps.
Madam Pomfrey had intended to drive all visitors away, but under the tearful pleas of several young girls, she eventually softened and allowed them ten minutes.
Hermione Granger was the first to rush in.
She was still clutching a thick copy of Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. When she saw Tamara lying on the bed with her face flushed and her eyes tightly shut, the usually talkative Miss Know It All was, for once, at a loss.
"She looks awful..." Hermione lowered her voice, almost on the verge of tears.
Following behind Hermione were Luna Lovegood, Hannah Abbott, and Ginny Weasley, who looked a little awkward but whose eyes were full of worry.
And of course, Pansy Parkinson could never be absent.
This Slytherin young lady had clearly forced her way into the visiting group. She was using a disdainful look and her shoulders to push the eyesore outsiders away from Tamara's bedside.
"Move over, Granger! Don't infect Tamara with your Gryffindor poverty!"
Pansy glared fiercely at Hermione and Ginny. "If she hadn't stopped that idiot to save your pathetic Seeker, Tamara wouldn't be lying here at all!"
"Madam Pomfrey said she has a very high fever, and that her magic is severely overextended," Harry could not help saying quietly from the next bed. His tone was full of self reproach.
Tamara was not actually asleep.
The fever had dragged her mind into a hazy state between waking and sleep.
She could clearly hear the irritating arguing and whispering of the girls by her bedside.
She wanted to shout at them to get out, but her parched lips were too heavy to open.
Just then, a hand gently landed on her forehead without warning.
Tamara's body instinctively stiffened.
As Voldemort, she loathed being touched by anyone.
Touch meant invasion.
Touch meant danger.
Touch meant someone had crossed the boundary of her absolute personal safety.
But at this moment, that hand carried no aggression.
Its palm was cool and soft, the warmth of a living person tempered by the chill of the room. It pressed lightly against her forehead, which was burning as if set aflame.
For Tamara, who was being tortured by a splitting fever headache, that coolness actually brought a brief relief from the pain.
"Oh my god, she's as hot as a branding iron."
Ginny's tear thick voice rang beside her ear.
"Tamara... you have to get better soon..."
Ginny sniffled, her other hand gently tucking in the corner of Tamara's blanket. Her movements were as careful as if she were handling something fragile and precious.
"You're such a good person. Merlin definitely won't let anything happen to you."
Lying on the bed, Tamara felt the comfortable coolness on her forehead and heard that prayer, so sincere it was almost stupid.
Her fever muddled brain fell into an unprecedented confusion.
This was disgusting.
This was simply the most disgusting thing in the world.
She, the Dark Lord, was actually lying in a hospital bed like a pitiful wretch, accepting sympathy and pity from prey she utterly looked down upon.
And what terrified her most, what even made her feel a trace of despair, was that...
Inside this shell weakened by fever...
She actually felt a faint comfort from another person's touch, from this defenceless concern.
This did not belong to Voldemort.
This was absolutely not an emotion that belonged to Voldemort.
It was this damned human flesh at work.
Tamara roared hysterically in her heart, trying to use the most vicious curses to wash away the weakness that made her sick.
She wanted to open her eyes immediately and blast away all these girls who had no sense of boundaries.
But in the end, under the light touch of Ginny's cool little hand, her taut nerves slowly relaxed.
Amid the torment of illness and a foreign, anxiety inducing peace, this peerless Dark Lord sank into a humiliated, deep sleep.
.....
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