Chapter 129: Restraint
In the depths of January, the Scottish Highlands were held hostage by a bone-chilling, razor-sharp wind. When the Hogwarts Express finally pulled back into the station, exhaling massive plumes of thick white steam into the freezing air, it felt as though the chaotic events of the long winter break had been temporarily buried beneath the heavy, pristine blankets of snow.
Hermione Granger had not yet fully recovered.
According to Madam Pomfrey's strict diagnosis, it would take several more weeks for the thick layer of feline fur coating her face and body to completely shed. To avoid sending her classmates into fits of terror, the usually insufferable Miss Know-It-All was forced to continue her semi-secluded existence within the sterile confines of the Hospital Wing.
This left Harry and Ron wandering the corridors with a distinct air of frustration; the famous trio had been forcibly reduced to a rather pathetic duo.
But compared to the still-furry Hermione, another student's condition was visibly far more wretched.
Ginny Weasley had returned to school. Yet she looked less like a student and more like a hollowed-out survivor who had barely escaped a Dementor's kiss.
At the long, bustling Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, Tamara elegantly sliced her medium-rare steak. Her silver knife glided through the meat with practiced grace, though her dark eyes observed the younger Weasley girl through the periphery of her vision.
The little redhead was as pale as parchment, her eyes sunken beneath heavy, bruised-looking dark circles.
Most crucially—she no longer stole shy, sparkling glances at Tamara.
On the contrary, whenever Tamara's gaze inadvertently swept in her direction, Ginny would flinch. She would snap her head down like a startled rabbit, her thin shoulders trembling violently, looking as though she desperately wished she could drown herself in her bowl of pumpkin porridge.
'...Interesting.'
Tamara speared a bloody piece of beef, a perfectly polite, yet entirely predatory curve tugging at the corner of her mouth.
This sheer, unadulterated terror wasn't directed at the legendary Dark Lord. No, this was the fear of an insider.
It seemed the foolish girl still vividly remembered the horrifying sensation of being utterly loathed before the Christmas holidays. Ginny was terrified that Tamara would expose her. She lived in constant dread that the perfect, angelic upperclassman would publicly point a finger and declare her a possessed monster.
But what concerned Tamara far more than the psychological trauma of a twelve-year-old was something else entirely.
That battered old schoolbag Ginny usually guarded like a dragon hoarding gold had gone completely limp.
That heavy, black-bound diary was gone.
Tamara's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch.
It seemed that on the train ride back to the castle, or perhaps during the chaotic first few days of term, this cornered little lamb had finally scraped together enough Gryffindor courage to dispose of her sinister confidant.
Had she thrown it into the freezing depths of the Black Lake? Or buried it beneath the rotting roots of the Forbidden Forest?
Wherever it was, Tamara had to retrieve it. Immediately.
Although her current, infuriatingly restrictive identity was merely that of a second-year student lacking the convenient late-night patrol privileges of a Prefect, that hardly stopped the former Dark Lord from conducting her own private, systematic search of the castle.
Over the next few days, Tamara used every spare moment between classes to quietly investigate several likely disposal sites.
None yielded a single trace of dark magic.
That was, until Wednesday afternoon. As she strolled past the notoriously flooded second-floor corridor, a familiar, sickeningly sweet ripple of dark magic washed over her senses. Her footsteps halted abruptly.
Here again.
The second-floor girls' bathroom.
Tamara stared at the dilapidated, peeling wooden door, a flash of deep disgust crossing her features.
A ghost lived in there. Moaning Myrtle.
Fifty years ago, when she was still Tom Marvolo Riddle, she had unleashed the Basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets and casually snuffed out the life of the then-living Myrtle. Although the miserable girl hadn't known who her killer was even in her final moments, they had still been classmates.
, ghosts, despite lacking physical forms, possessed a terrifyingly stubborn attachment to the memories of their mortal lives, especially the exact moment of their demise. Even a slight, familiar silhouette or a specific, lingering aura could violently awaken the dormant paranoia in their subconscious.
Although the current Tamara was female, possessing softer, far more delicate features, the cold, ruthless aura etched deep into her very soul shared an eighty percent similarity with the Tom Riddle of that era.
At Hogwarts, aside from the few highly dangerous professors she was forced to interact with, namely Dumbledore and Snape, Tamara had zero desire to attract the attention of any other entities. Especially a hysterical phantom whose mind was permanently stuck half a century in the past.
It was always better to avoid unnecessary trouble.
So, for the past year and a half, Tamara had practically never stepped foot inside this particular bathroom, often taking tedious detours to the third floor or the damp Dungeons just to bypass the miserable place.
But fate, it seemed, had a twisted sense of humor.
The first time she had been forced to enter was because Tom, possessing Ginny's fragile body, was causing a ruckus.
The second time was to play the role of the benevolent savior for Hermione, who had disastrously transformed herself into a cat-girl.
And now...
Tamara felt the distinct, icy aura of a Horcrux seeping through the cracks in the wooden door. She took a slow, measured breath, suppressing the urge to curse.
For the sake of that damned diary.
She would endure it.
The bathroom was as thoroughly damp and depressing as ever. Myrtle's shrill, ear-piercing sobs echoed through the rusted plumbing; it seemed someone had tossed an object directly into her U-bend, sending the ghost into a spectacular tantrum.
"Everyone bullies me! Everyone throws things at me!" Myrtle swooped in erratic circles near the moldy ceiling, screaming in a fit of absolute rage. "Even in death, no one respects me!"
Tamara expertly ignored the crazed phantom. Her sharp gaze immediately locked onto a large, murky puddle spreading across the tiled floor.
But the diary she was hunting for wasn't resting in the water.
Instead, a soaking wet figure was crouched right in the middle of the puddle.
Harry Potter.
Tamara's pupils constricted into tiny pinpricks.
The Boy Who Lived was squatting beneath Myrtle's stall, his hands firmly gripping a small, black-covered book that looked slightly swollen from the water.
It was the diary.
'Damn it.' Tamara cursed viciously in her mind.
She was exactly one step too late.
Had that absolute idiot Ginny actually flushed a piece of the Dark Lord's soul down Myrtle's toilet? And Harry Potter, the insufferable savior with his ridiculously thick plot armor, just happened to be wandering by to fish it out?
At this moment, Harry remained completely oblivious to the predator standing silently behind him. He was entirely absorbed in examining his soggy prize.
The diary looked remarkably ordinary, its leather cover faded and scuffed. Yet, Harry was visibly surprised to discover that despite being submerged in toilet water for Merlin knew how long, the pages inside weren't soaked through, and the ink hadn't run in the slightest.
"Strange..." Harry muttered to himself, wiping his wet hands on his robes.
An inexplicable, almost hypnotic intuition seemed to drive him. He reached out, his thumb catching the edge of the cover, intending to slowly peel it back and flip to the very first page.
Tamara's heart skipped a beat.
If she didn't stop him this exact second, he would see the name printed inside. T.M. Riddle.
If he saw that name, his overly curious, reckless Gryffindor brain would inevitably start investigating the surname. The carefully buried secrets of fifty years ago would be dragged kicking and screaming into the light. Dumbledore's piercing blue eyes would immediately turn toward her.
She absolutely could not let him read it.
As a Dark Wizard, Tamara's immediate, violent instinct was to draw her wand, blast this reckless savior with a Petrificus Totalus, and simply use Accio to summon the diary into her waiting hand.
But the moment the murderous thought bloomed in her mind, she ruthlessly crushed it.
That diary shared the exact same magical signature as her own soul. If she recklessly cast a spell near it, the magic was highly likely to instantly awaken the dormant soul fragment inside, triggering a violent magical chain reaction she would never be able to explain away.
If that damned book suddenly started vibrating violently in Harry's hands, or worse, automatically flew toward her like an excited puppy greeting its master... she wouldn't be able to talk her way out of it, even if she had a hundred mouths.
Worse yet, there was the matter of that damned System.
If she used a hostile spell on a fellow classmate outside of an officially sanctioned duel, it would instantly trigger the System's campus violence alarm. The resulting electric shock would leave her paralyzed, and she might even be forced to perform some utterly humiliating apology task.
She refused to do something as bizarre and nauseating as deeply embracing the victim and begging for forgiveness in front of Potter.
She had no choice. She could only use the most primitive, direct, and non-magical method available.
[Ding! Host, this System is truly gratified that you can think this way!]
The System's aggressively perky, patronizing voice suddenly exploded in her mind.
[It seems you have finally learned to restrain your violent killing intent! You understand that using intimate physical contact is far superior to cold, unfeeling spells. This is a monumental step toward achieving the Loving Family milestone!]
'Shut up.'
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