Chapter 131: Gentle Words
Ron's voice shattered the suffocating standoff inside the damp bathroom.
Tamara's fingers twitched against the leather cover. The oppressive, heavy aura that had been coiling around her frame fractured the moment the red-haired Weasley blundered into the room.
A perfect opportunity.
Taking advantage of the exact second Harry's attention snapped toward his friend, Tamara's dark eyes sharpened into slits. The fingers pressing down on the book's cover tightened imperceptibly, the subtle, predatory precursor of a Dark Lord preparing to forcibly seize her prey.
With just one forceful yank, she could rip this horcrux straight from the savior's foolish hands.
Yet, at the exact millisecond her muscles coiled to strike, a blindingly cheerful blue pop-up window plastered itself directly across her vision.
[Warning! Host's intent to commit robbery detected!]
[System logic in judgment...]
[Item Traceability: This item was originally voluntarily entrusted by Voldemort to Lucius Malfoy, and later gifted by Lucius to Ginny Weasley.]
[Status Determination: Although Ginny Weasley has abandoned it, making it an unowned lost item, Harry Potter, as the first finder, possesses current temporary ownership.]
[Conclusion: Although the item does not yet fully belong to Harry Potter, forcibly seizing an item held by a classmate is still judged as a malicious act of robbery.]
[Forcibly snatching an item found by a classmate will trigger the mandatory 'Public Apology' punishment.]
Tamara's kinetic exertion froze entirely mid-action.
Her jaw locked so hard her teeth ground together. Even during her most pathetic days as a wandering, bodiless wraith in the Albanian forests, she had never felt a frustration this suffocating. She could not snatch it. She could not curse the boy into oblivion. Was she simply supposed to stand here and watch helplessly as Harry Potter walked away with her soul?
[System Suggestion: Please attempt to influence the other party using 'gentle language'.]
[Task Updated: Retrieve the diary.]
[Gently request the other party to give you this item, and fabricate a reason that is impossible to refuse.]
[Failure Penalty: The system will automatically control the host's vocal cords to recite the contents of the diary on the spot.]
Tamara's pupils underwent an instantaneous, catastrophic earthquake.
Recite the diary's contents? Recite those humiliating, grandiose statements written late at night by a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle? The endless, dramatic paragraphs about 'I am Voldemort', 'I will rule the world', and 'I will fly from death and become the only eternal being in this world'?
If this accursed system actually hijacked her body and read that adolescent drivel out loud in front of Potter and Weasley, she, as the Dark Lord, might as well throw herself off the Astronomy Tower and quit entirely.
'...You win.'
To avoid social annihilation at Hogwarts, she had to swallow a sense of shame far more agonizing than the Cruciatus Curse. She drew in a long, shuddering breath, forcibly burying the acidic killing intent swirling in the depths of her eyes. It took immense effort to mobilize facial muscles that were accustomed only to sneers and cold indifference.
The hand pressing down on the diary, previously hooked like a predatory eagle's claw, suddenly went slack. That heart-stopping, icy tension vanished into thin air. In its place came a slight, calculated trembling, a delicate cautiousness that mimicked the desperate fear of losing something precious.
Tamara slowly tilted her head upward. Her dark, abyssal eyes looked directly into Harry's startlingly green ones. Under the passive, sickening blessing of the Harmless buff, her usually freezing gaze managed to squeeze out a pathetic hint of moisture, carrying a soft, pleading vulnerability.
"...Harry."
The moment his first name slipped past her lips, Tamara felt as though she had swallowed a live, spiny Flobberworm. The sheer disgust made her stomach cramp violently.
But the boy standing opposite her looked as if he had been struck by a stray lightning bolt. Harry's entire body went rigid. His pupils dilated rapidly.
Tamara... had just called him Harry?
She had used his first name once or twice before, yes, but always laced with biting impatience, haughty condescension, or some inexplicable, mocking drawl. It had absolutely never sounded like this. Her tone was soft, brushing against his eardrums with an unmatched, fragile gentleness. Paired with those dark eyes that currently looked as though they were glistening with unshed tears, the massive, whiplash-inducing contrast hit Harry so hard he felt as if he had taken a Bludgeoning Charm straight to the chest.
His mind flatlined. He entirely forgot how to draw breath.
"Could you... give it back to me?"
Tamara's voice dropped to a whisper. It held zero threat, sounding entirely like a timid negotiation. She did not retract her hand. Instead, she let her pale fingers slide down, gently covering the back of Harry's hand. Her fingertips brushed against the black leather cover as if by pure, desperate chance.
"This is... my thing." Tamara lowered her chin. Her long, dark eyelashes fluttered and trembled, perfectly concealing the violent, murderous storm raging in the depths of her irises. "I accidentally lost it a while ago... I have been looking for it for so long. To me, this is a very important... diary."
Had anyone else delivered this line, Harry might have maintained a shred of suspicion. But this was Tamara. The untouchable Slytherin who was always proud, always freezing, and who never bowed her head to a single soul in this castle. Yet right now, she was displaying such a shattered, fragile expression over a small, battered book? And begging him in such a tone?
Harry felt a taut string inside his chest snap completely. All suspicion, all lingering curiosity about the strange book, suddenly felt incredibly redundant and cruel.
"It is... yours?" Harry stammered, dithering for a second. Then, as if a memory finally pierced through his daze, he tried to withdraw his hand, looking hesitant. "But... you just told me it was incredibly dangerous? You said it was attached with a vicious curse and would burn someone's brain out?"
A vein pulsed at Tamara's temple. This was agonizingly awkward. She had essentially cast a Blasting Curse on her own foot. She could feel her facial muscles twitching in a desperate bid for control. To maintain this sickening lie, she had to grind her teeth together and swallow every last ounce of her pride.
"I lied to you." She turned her face away. Her voice came out stiff, sounding as though she were painfully reciting lines from a textbook, but to Harry's ears, it merely sounded as if she were far too embarrassed to look him in the eye. "If I did not make the consequences sound utterly terrifying... a Gryffindor with excessive curiosity like you would definitely have been unable to resist opening it."
Tamara took another deep breath, violently suppressing the urge to blast Harry with a Memory Charm right then and there. She whispered with a gritted-teeth sort of gentleness, "There are some... private things written inside that I do not want others to see. Especially... I do not want you to see them."
The infamous lightning-bolt scar on Harry's forehead felt as though it were burning. He stammered wildly, "I did not know... I just... Of course! I mean, of course I can give it back to you!"
Acting as though he were holding a bubbling cauldron, he hurriedly tried to shove the diary into Tamara's waiting hands.
However, right at that moment, the accursed horcrux seemed to sense that something was catastrophically wrong. The sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle trapped inside heard this exchange and immediately registered an unmatched, existential crisis. As a manifestation of pure, unadulterated arrogance, he would never allow himself to be quietly devoured by his original body like a piece of discarded trash! He would resist! He would expose this imposter!
The diary suddenly vibrated violently between their hands. On the previously pitch-black, waterlogged cover, a line of pale ink began to slowly bleed through the leather:
[She is lying! I am not—]
The handwriting had barely poked its head out of the parchment. Harry's green eyes widened in surprise. "Eh? There seem to be words on it..."
Smack!
A crisp, deafening crack echoed off the bathroom tiles. Tamara was quick-eyed and utterly ruthless. Her free hand slammed down, striking the cover of the diary with terrifying force. The sheer physical impact of the slap was so intense that Harry felt as if the bones in his own hand were about to shatter into dust. Those few glowing words that had just dared to appear were forcibly beaten back into the paper pulp by that single, brutal blow.
"Ta... Tamara?" Harry jumped, thoroughly startled by the sudden explosion of violence.
"It is nothing." Tamara looked up. Her expression twisted into something demonic for a fraction of a second, but she rapidly forced the fragile, teary-eyed mask back into place. She pressed down heavily on the diary, which was still attempting to vibrate. Her knuckles turned stark white from the physical exertion, but in Harry's naive eyes, it merely looked like overwhelming excitement at having recovered a lost treasure.
"Just... too excited." Tamara explained through tightly ground teeth. Simultaneously, she unleashed her immense, crushing mental presence, driving it straight into the horcrux to ruthlessly smother the soul fragment attempting to cause a scene.
Perhaps sensing the original body's terrifying, overwhelming magical power, a force more than capable of erasing him from existence, the Tom inside the diary finally cowered. The violent vibrating ceased. The pale handwriting vanished without a trace. The book reverted to an ordinary, soggy, pathetic little diary.
Tamara snatched the diary from Harry's loosened grip. She clutched it to her chest so tightly it looked as though she expected someone to steal it in the next breath.
"Thank you... Harry."
His name was spat out with extreme haste, blurred and clipped like a sudden cough. She did not dare look at Harry's expression for another second, nor did she have the stomach to face Ron, who was still standing by the door with a completely vacant, dazed look on his freckled face. She spun on her heel, her black robes cutting a sharp, sweeping arc through the damp air.
"I need to go back... and dry the water off it."
Even her retreating back carried the distinct, frantic aura of someone fleeing for their life.
A bizarre, heavy silence lingered in the girls' bathroom long after Tamara's figure disappeared at the end of the corridor.
Several seconds ticked by. Ron finally swallowed hard. He pointed a trembling finger in the direction of the empty doorway, looking at Harry with an expression that suggested he had just witnessed a troll doing ballet.
"Mate... am I dreaming?" Ron rubbed his eyes furiously. "Was that Tamara just now? The same Tamara who made Malfoy cry from scolding him in the tutoring class? Did she just... call you Harry? And... look a bit embarrassed?"
Harry remained frozen in his previous posture, his hand still extended in the empty air. The cold, delicate touch of Tamara's pale fingertips seemed to still linger like a ghost against his skin. Hearing Ron's voice, Harry's face instantly flushed a brilliant, burning red all the way to the tips of his ears. He haphazardly wiped his hand against his robes, his gaze darting around the room.
"She just... just wanted her diary back," Harry defended her, his voice dropping in volume. "She is actually not as cold as she seems on the surface... she also has things that are very important and cherished."
"Oh, come off it." Ron rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. Seeing his best friend's love-struck, utterly silly expression, he could not resist throwing a metaphorical bucket of ice water over his head. "Though... alright, I admit she is actually quite good at teaching spells," Ron muttered awkwardly. He clearly hated admitting it, but he quickly shifted the subject, his tone regaining its deep-seated, instinctual alertness. "But that does not change the fact that she is a Slytherin! And a cold-blooded, terrifying Slytherin at that."
Ron gave an exaggerated shudder, acting as if the very thought caused him physical revulsion. "Have you forgotten? The way she usually looks at us, like she is watching a few Flobberworms dancing in the mud. What kind of decent 'privacy' would a person like that have?"
Ron pointed an accusing finger at the hand Harry had just used to hold the book, his voice ringing with absolute conviction. "I bet there was absolutely no girl's heart-to-heart written in there. It is probably all Dark Arts recipes for how to boil us alive and feed us to the Giant Squid."
"Do not talk nonsense, Ron," Harry countered seriously, his jaw setting. "That is her privacy."
Meanwhile, deep within the Slytherin Dungeons.
The heavy oak door of the girls' dormitory slammed shut with a resounding, violent crash. Wearing an expression of pure, unadulterated gloom, Tamara hurled the soggy diary onto her wooden desk.
"Harry..."
She recalled her own affected, artificial behavior from just moments ago. The Dark Lord leaned heavily against the corner of the table, clutching her stomach, and finally could not stop herself from letting out a visceral dry heave. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, the absolute greatest humiliation she had suffered since her rebirth!
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully completing the task! Successfully retrieved the key item!]
[Facts prove that this kind of friendly communication is just great! It not only solved the problem but also brought classmates closer together. It is simply killing two birds with one stone!]
The system's sickeningly cheerful voice chimed in at the exact wrong moment, acting as if it were entirely blind to the host's murderous, bloodshot gaze.
Tamara drew in a ragged breath. She stared at her own reflection in the silver-framed mirror, a crimson light of pure slaughter flashing wildly in her dark eyes. She swore it. One day, she would dismantle this broken, patronizing system piece by piece, and then she would give Harry Potter a very real, very permanent Avada Kedavra.
But before that...
Tamara slowly turned her head. Her crimson eyes locked onto the damp diary sitting on the desk, currently playing dead.
"As for you..." A cold, chilling laugh slipped past her lips. Her slender fingers reached out, slowly and deliberately stroking the embossed name on the leather cover. "What were you trying to say just now? Did not want to come back?"
The diary trembled slightly under her touch, then went completely, terrifyingly still.
"Very good." Her voice dropped to a deadly, silken whisper. "It seems we need to have a good talk about who is the master and who... is just a lowly projection."
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