Chapter 78: Making the Most of Resources
The wooden door connecting to the troll's chamber looked entirely unremarkable, its splintered surface giving no hint of the chaos beyond. Before Tamara could even raise her hand to push it open, the heavy timber violently swung outward.
A bushy mane of brown hair burst through the threshold, nearly slamming directly into Tamara's chest.
"Ouch!"
Hermione Granger stumbled back with a startled cry, her knuckles white as she clutched an empty glass vial. When her frantic gaze finally focused and registered Tamara standing in the dim corridor, the sheer panic on her face melted into overwhelming, tearful relief.
"Tamara! Oh, Merlin! You're here too!"
Hermione sounded as though she had just witnessed the second coming of a savior. Her voice trembled violently, thick with unshed tears and adrenaline. "Harry... Harry has already gone in! The final obstacle is a logic puzzle with potions, but there's only enough for one person! He drank the potion and went after Snape, telling me to go back and find Dumbledore!"
She gasped for breath, pointing a shaking finger back down the hall. "I was just about to run to the Owlery to send a message to Dumbledore!"
"Send a message?"
Tamara's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch.
'If I let this insufferable little know-it-all call Dumbledore back now,'Tamara thought, a cold spike of irritation piercing her mind,'wouldn't my carefully laid plans be entirely ruined?'
If that meddling old coot arrived tonight, not only would she fail to secure the Philosopher's Stone, but she would also lose her only window to converse with the main soul. She would be forced to stand there, smiling and playing the part of a genuinely heroic, rule-abiding student.
Absolutely not.
"No, Hermione."
Tamara reached out, her hands clamping firmly onto Hermione's trembling shoulders. She halted the Gryffindor's frantic momentum, her tone dropping into a register of grave, urgent sincerity.
"Dumbledore is in London. It would take far too long for an owl to fly there and back. By the time he receives the message and returns, it will all be over."
She paused, letting the silence stretch for a heartbeat, before pointing back toward the chamber that still reeked of sour sweat and troll dung. "And... Ron is still lying out there."
"I gave him some basic first aid when I came through," Tamara lied smoothly, her face a mask of gentle concern, "but he is not out of danger yet. The troll could wake up at any moment, or those giant chess pieces might reawaken and attack him again."
She leaned in closer, locking her dark eyes onto Hermione's, beginning the calculated moral manipulation.
"You are the only friend who can help him right now, Hermione. Could you really leave him alone on that cold stone floor while you run off to send a letter?"
Hermione's face instantly drained of all color, turning a sickly, deathly pale.
"Ron... Oh my goodness, Ron!"
She had been so entirely consumed by the grand scale of the crisis that she had completely forgotten her unconscious companion bleeding in the previous room. Reminded by Tamara's 'kind' words, a crushing wave of guilt slammed into the young Gryffindor.
"Then what should I do? But Harry is in there..." Hermione stammered, caught in a desperate, tearing dilemma.
"Leave Harry to me."
Tamara released her grip, elegantly straightening her own collar. She spoke with cool, unwavering calm. "Your task now is to take Ron to Madam Pomfrey immediately. As for the Dark Wizard inside..."
She drew her wand from her robes, her gaze hardening into something resolute and dangerous. "I will handle it."
Hermione nodded emphatically, her curls bouncing as she turned to sprint back. But suddenly, she froze. A flicker of sharp doubt passed through her intelligent brown eyes.
"Wait, Tamara... how did you know something would happen tonight?"
The question was sharp, analytical.
But the Dark Lord always came prepared. Tamara did not even blink. A look of deep, weary insight settled over her delicate features.
"Because I have been keeping an eye on Quirrell."
Tamara lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, leaning in as if sharing a dangerous secret. "When I was in his office asking questions this afternoon, I saw a piece of parchment on his desk. It had a sketch detailing how to get past Fluffy, some scattered notes about the Philosopher's Stone, and a specific time marked in the corner."
She sighed, her expression grave. "I knew he was going to make his move tonight, so I have been following him."
A perfect, flawless lie.
It explained her sudden appearance, painted her as a solitary, vigilant hero, and neatly pinned every ounce of blame onto Quirrell's stuttering shoulders.
The doubt in Hermione's eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by a shining, boundless admiration.
"So that's how... you're amazing, Tamara." Hermione sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve. "And we were being absolute fools, suspecting Snape..."
"Alright, there is no time for that now." Tamara gave Hermione a gentle, encouraging push toward the exit. "Hurry."
"But..." Hermione pointed back at the doorway, her voice rising in panic again. "The potion to get through the black fire has already been drunk by Harry! You can't get in!"
"There is no room a Slytherin cannot enter."
A haughty, aristocratic smile curled at the corner of Tamara's mouth. "Do not measure me by your standards, Miss Granger."
With that, she dismissed the Gryffindor entirely. She turned on her heel and pushed open the heavy door, stepping into a chamber illuminated by the eerie, dancing light of purple and black flames.
Watching Tamara's determined, retreating figure, Hermione gritted her teeth, turned, and sprinted back toward Ron.
The Potion Puzzle Room.
The air inside was stiflingly hot, thick with the acrid scent of burning magic. Seven glass bottles of various shapes and sizes sat lined up on a long wooden table in the center of the room.
At either end of the chamber, two distinct walls of fire roared. Behind her, a curtain of purple flames flared up, sealing the exit. Ahead, a towering inferno of pitch-black fire barred the way forward, its dark tongues licking the stone archway.
Tamara walked to the table, her boots clicking softly against the stone. She glanced down at the roll of parchment resting beside the bottles.
'Danger lies before you, safety behind... second left and second right...'
"Hmph. Snape."
Tamara tossed the parchment aside with a flick of her wrist, her lip curling in utter disdain. "Still so fond of his pathetic little word games."
This sort of rudimentary logic puzzle might stump a Muggle-born first-year, but for Voldemort—a wizard who prided himself on possessing a mastery of Potions that far eclipsed Severus Snape's—it was as elementary as basic arithmetic.
She did not even need to read the rest of the riddle. Just by uncorking the bottles, wafting the fumes, and observing the viscosity of the liquids, she could instantly identify which held deadly poison, which held harmless nettle wine, and which held the key to the path forward.
Within seconds, her dark gaze locked onto the smallest, roundest bottle in the lineup.
That was the potion required to pass through the black flames.
However.
Just as Hermione had warned, the bottle was empty.
Tamara picked up the tiny vial, turning it upside down and giving it a sharp shake.
One drop.
Only a single, transparent drop of liquid clung stubbornly to the glass rim. It was the pathetic dregs left behind by Harry Potter's sloppy consumption.
Tamara stared at that solitary drop. Her normally impassive, angelic face began to twist.
It was a physical, soul-deep revulsion. The very thought of consuming something that had just been pressed against that wretched boy's lips made her stomach churn violently.
[Ding! System Notification: Detected insufficient quantity of key item. Automatically enhanced Potion dosage for you.]
[In other words, if you just lick the rim, this one drop will be enough to protect you through the flames.]
[For the sake of the great mission, please don't mind this minor hygiene issue!]
"SHUT UP!!!"
Tamara practically shrieked, her composure shattering. She hurled the glass bottle to the stone floor with vicious force.
Crack!
Glass shards exploded outward, scattering across the room.
"I would rather be burned alive by Fiendfyre than touch something Potter's filthy mouth has been on!"
Her chest heaved. She closed her eyes, taking two slow, deep breaths to force her raging temper back under control. When she opened them again, her gaze returned to the roaring black flames blocking the doorway. The room fell into a heavy, oppressive silence, broken only by the crackle of the magical fire.
The problem remained: how was she going to get through?
This was Dark magic fire. A specialized barrier set by Snape specifically to incinerate thieves. Without the protective potion, forcing her way through the inferno was undoubtedly suicide.
Tamara's eyes darted around the chamber, her brilliant mind working at lightning speed.
Nothing could stump the Dark Lord. If she could not withstand the heat herself, then she simply needed to find a thick-skinned, highly expendable shield to take the hit for her.
Tamara turned slowly, her gaze piercing back through the purple flames, looking into the previous chamber.
There, the massive mountain troll she had Petrified earlier lay entirely motionless on the stone floor.
"A bit smelly..."
A cruel, chilling smile played on Tamara's lips, her eyes glinting with malicious intent. "...But it is a perfect meat shield."
She did not waste another second hesitating. Her wand snapped up, slashing through the air with precise, practiced elegance.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
In the adjacent room, the multi-ton beast groaned against the stone before slowly rising into the air. It floated through the purple flames and into the potion room like a giant, rigid human shield, its massive arms still locked in a ridiculous, upright posture from the Petrification curse.
"Go."
Tamara pointed her wand directly at the black inferno.
The immobile troll, entirely at her mercy, was thrust forward, crashing headfirst into the solid wall of black fire.
Sizzle—!
The very second the troll's rough, leathery gray skin made contact with the dark flames, a sickening, high-pitched sizzling sound filled the chamber.
A nauseating stench of burning flesh and singed hair instantly exploded in the cramped room, thick enough to gag a dragon. Trolls were notoriously thick-skinned and possessed incredibly high magical resistance, but even they could not avoid being brutally scorched by flames of this dark intensity.
But that was exactly what Tamara wanted.
The magical flames were immediately drawn to the massive, intruding object. As the fire concentrated on scorching the troll's enormous body, it created a brief, safe vacuum beneath and directly behind the beast.
"Now."
Tamara showed not a single ounce of pity.
Using the burning troll's colossal body as absolute cover, she darted forward. Like a phantom slipping through the shadows, she glided through the narrow gap forcibly wedged open in the wall of fire.
[Ding! Warning!]
[Detected host engaging in extremely cruel abuse of a rare magical creature!]
[Using a sentient being as a disposable item to throw into the fire like this is simply...]
Tamara cut off the system's cheerful, patronizing chatter, her voice echoing coldly in the corridor beyond the flames.
"...simply making the most of resources."
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]