Chapter 77: Care
The moment she pushed past the heavy wooden door, the ambient light snuffed out. A suffocating wave of stale, dust-choked air washed over her face, carrying the distinct, oppressive chill of an ancient mausoleum.
The silence here was absolute. No monstrous roars echoed from the shadows. No rustling vines slithered across the stone.
Tamara halted. Her crimson eyes narrowed, cutting through the gloom. Stretching out into the cavernous dark was a colossal chessboard.
The alternating black and white marble squares spanned the width of the chamber. Towering stone figures loomed in the shadows, though many had been reduced to jagged rubble scattered across the floor.
Minerva McGonagall's trial. A tedious blend of advanced Transfiguration and rudimentary tactical logic.
"Wizard's Chess..." Tamara murmured, her voice dripping with quiet disdain.
She surveyed the wreckage. The white army had clearly suffered heavy losses. Decapitated stone horses lay on their sides, while the white queen stood precariously on a fractured pedestal. As for the black pieces, although they had claimed victory, their ranks were equally thinned. A brutal, unyielding slaughter of stone had just concluded here.
Near the edge of the board, a splash of garish red hair broke the monochromatic landscape.
Ron Weasley lay sprawled on the cold marble. His eyes were squeezed shut, a massive, ugly purple bruise swelling across his temple. His knuckles were white, still desperately gripping his splintered wand.
A cold, mocking sneer curled Tamara's lips.
'Offering yourself up as a sacrificial pawn just to pave the way for the golden boy...'she thought, her inner voice dripping with venom.'What utterly foolish, nauseating self-indulgence.'
She stepped past the unconscious Gryffindor without a second glance, her polished shoe clicking against the first black square.
However.
The moment her sole made contact with the board.
Rumble!
The grinding shriek of stone scraping against stone echoed through the chamber. The shattered remnants of the white army began to tremble. Under the heavy pull of restorative magic, jagged fragments flew through the air, snapping back into place. Severed stone arms reattached to broad shoulders. Cracks sealed. In mere seconds, a pristine, towering white army stood in perfect formation, blocking her path once again.
Two massive pawns, easily three meters tall, stepped forward. They crossed their heavy stone broadswords with a resounding clang, barring her advance. Their blank, featureless visages projected an aura of absolute refusal.
McGonagall had enchanted the board with a flawless reset mechanism. It did not matter that someone had just cleared the room a second ago; a new challenger meant a new game.
"Please choose a side."
A hollow, booming voice reverberated from the vaulted ceiling.
"If you wish to pass, you must win this game."
Tamara stared at the crossed swords, then shifted her gaze to the heavy wooden door at the far end of the hall.
Play chess?
These mindless lumps of rock actually expected her to sit here and play a time-wasting parlor game with them? By the time she finished maneuvering these pathetic pawns across the board step by step, Quirrell would have already pocketed the Philosopher's Stone. The stuttering fool might even be halfway through his resurrection banquet.
"I do not have the time to play with you."
Tamara raised her wand. Her gaze turned razor-sharp.
"Move."
The stone pawns remained rigid, utterly indifferent to her command.
"You refuse?" Tamara let out a long, exaggerated sigh, feigning a delicate helplessness as she slashed her wand upward. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The surge of magical power she unleashed was staggering, far eclipsing the force she had used to subdue Fluffy.
The air in the chamber warped and hummed. The entire white army groaned as an invisible, crushing weight seized them. Then, collectively, they lifted off the marble floor. But she did not stop there. The black pieces, too, were violently yanked upward by her sheer, unreasonable magical output.
Dozens of colossal stone statues, each weighing several tons, floated helplessly in the dark air, their heavy weapons dangling uselessly.
Tamara snapped her wand inward, closing her fist.
The suspended statues were violently hurled toward the center of the room, crushed together as if caught in the grip of an invisible titan. The collisions were deafening. Kings smashed into queens. Knights shattered against bishops. Rooks plowed through rows of pawns.
Clouds of pulverized rock exploded outward. The thunderous roar of grinding, shattering stone shook the very foundations of the subterranean basement.
Within seconds, the majestic, unyielding chess armies were reduced to a swirling vortex of gravel and fractured limbs suspended in the air.
"That is much quieter."
With a casual flick of her wrist, Tamara released the spell. The massive sphere of rubble plummeted, crashing onto the marble board and paving a convenient, jagged path straight to the exit.
She stepped onto the broken remains of the once-arrogant pieces. She walked with the slow, deliberate grace of a tyrant strolling through the ashes of a conquered kingdom.
As she passed Ron's prone body, she did not even break her stride.
An idiot who sacrifices himself for others deserves whatever miserable fate finds him.
However.
[Ding! Warning!]
The System's obnoxiously perky alarm klaxon detonated inside her skull.
[Teammate Ron Weasley detected in a state of severe coma, and vital signs are unstable!]
[As the leader of this unofficial rescue team, how can you ignore an injured comrade? This is simply cold-blooded! Heartless! A tragic betrayal of friendship!]
[Mandatory Task: Slytherin's Care.]
[Please provide immediate medical treatment to the casualty to ensure he does not die on this cold floor.]
[Penalty: Guard the student until he awakens or until Dumbledore arrives to help.]
Tamara's foot froze mid-step.
'Are you sick?'Tamara roared at the System in her mind.'He was knocked out by a piece of flying rock, not struck by an Avada Kedavra! He will be perfectly fine after a nap!'
[Life is fragile, Host! What if his concussion causes intracranial hemorrhaging? What if he catches a cold from the draft and develops pneumonia?]
The System spouted its patronizing nonsense with infuriating cheerfulness.
Tamara inhaled sharply. A vein pulsed violently at her temple.
She turned on her heel, glaring daggers at the unconscious red-haired boy sprawled on the floor.
"I truly hope Dumbledore thanks me for taking care of his pathetic student," she muttered through gritted teeth.
Moving with stiff, reluctant grace, she marched back and knelt beside Ron.
Looking down at that dirt-smudged, freckled face, Tamara pulled out her wand with pure disgust and pointed the tip at his swollen forehead.
"Episkey."
A warm, gentle white light bloomed from the wood, sinking into Ron's skin. The grotesque purple bruising receded, the swelling vanishing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
But Tamara maliciously throttled the magical output. She provided just enough healing to drag him out of the danger zone and regain a fraction of consciousness, entirely to avoid having to listen to his babbling nonsense when he fully woke up.
"Do not die, Weasley."
Leaving those cold words hanging in the dusty air, she stood and turned to walk away.
Behind her, Ron let out a low, pained groan.
His consciousness floated in a murky, half-dreaming state of chaos. Through his heavily lidded eyes, his blurred vision caught the retreating back of a slender black silhouette, dissolving into the encroaching shadows.
That graceful gait gave him an inexplicable, comforting sense of familiarity.
"Ta... Tamara...?"
Ron murmured weakly to himself. His head lolled to the side, and he slipped back into a peaceful, deep sleep.
Passing through the ruined chessboard room, an even stronger, eye-watering stench began to permeate the air.
It was the unmistakable reek of a Mountain Troll. Worse, it smelled like a Troll that had not bathed for days and had spent its time rolling in a rotting trash heap.
"That revolting beast again."
Tamara pinched the bridge of her nose in deep disgust. She pushed open the heavy door.
There was indeed a Troll occupying the center of this room. It should have been unconscious—that was Quirrell's handiwork for the obstacle course. But clearly, the natural resilience of a Troll far exceeded whatever weak spell the stuttering wizard had employed.
The moment Tamara stepped into the room.
"Rrrgh..."
The Troll rolled its massive, lumpy body over, weakly rubbing the back of its thick skull where a painful lump throbbed. It blearily peeled open its beady, tennis-ball-sized eyes.
Through the gloom, its gaze locked directly onto Tamara, who was quietly preparing to slip past along the wall.
The confusion of waking up, combined with the sharp pain in its skull, ignited an instant, blinding rage within the creature's tiny brain.
It snatched up its massive, splintered wooden club from the floor and hauled its immense bulk upright with a deafening roar. A colossal shadow instantly swallowed Tamara's small frame.
"ROAR—!!!"
The Troll bellowed, spraying foul saliva into the air. It swung the heavy club downward with terrifying force, carrying a gust of putrid wind straight toward her head.
"..."
Tamara stared up at the drooling, foul-smelling monstrosity. She did not even bother to shift her stance to dodge.
'Truly, they never learn.'
She raised her wand, her crimson eyes flashing with icy contempt.
If this were her past life, this pathetic creature would have been reduced to a pile of steaming, shredded meat before it even finished its roar. But now, her hands were tied. She could not use Dark Magic, nor could she employ any overly violent methods that might echo down the corridor and draw Quirrell or Potter back to investigate.
Very well. A quiet sculpture it would be.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
A blinding bolt of white light erupted from her wand, striking the Troll dead center in its thick, leathery chest.
The beast froze instantly. The momentum of its swing halted in mid-air. Its massive arms snapped rigidly to its sides, its thick legs locked together, and the entire creature stiffened into a colossal, fleshy brick.
Rumble!
Deprived of its balance, the paralyzed Troll tipped forward. It crashed face-first onto the stone floor like a felled pillar. The heavy impact made the ground shudder violently, kicking up a thick cloud of dust and debris.
Its beady little eyes darted wildly in their sockets, staring up at the tiny human in absolute, primal terror. Yet, despite its panic, its body could not twitch a single finger.
Tamara stepped gracefully through the settling dust, stopping right beside the Troll's massive, frozen head. She looked down at it with utter revulsion.
"Quirrell... what a useless waste of magic."
She delivered a sharp kick to the dropped wooden club, sending it skittering across the floor. Her tone dripped with aristocratic disdain.
"If he went through the trouble of knocking the beast out, he should have simply snapped its neck. Or, at the very least, bound it properly."
She stepped over the paralyzed monster's arm, shaking her head.
"Leaving such a sloppy mess for those following behind... it shows a shocking lack of professional ethics."
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