Chapter 180: Substitutes
Cornelius Fudge dragged a trembling handkerchief across his brow, wiping away a fresh layer of cold sweat. He let out a heavy, shuddering sigh, the lingering fear evident in the sag of his shoulders.
"I truly do not know what manner of monster could have caused such devastation..." he muttered, his voice dropping to a nervous whisper. "In any case, before the Hogwarts term begins, you two minors must absolutely not leave the protection of the Leaky Cauldron. It simply isn't safe."
Tamara lifted her porcelain teacup, using the delicate motion to mask the sharp, gleaming mockery flashing through her dark eyes.
'A terrifying monster from Albania?'Oh, the sheer, delicious irony of it all. She genuinely wondered if the Minister of Magic would tumble backward out of his chair in sheer terror if he realized the truth. The'evil existence' that had recently turned the Eastern European Underworld completely upside down was currently sitting right across from him, looking like an absolute angel while obediently sipping her black tea.
"Thank you for the warning, Minister. I will be sure to exercise the utmost caution." Tamara lowered her teacup with the practiced grace of a perfect pureblood lady, her smile soft, gentle, and utterly impeccable.
As for the infamous Sirius Black who had just broken out of Azkaban?
Tamara curled her lip in the dark recesses of her mind, utterly disinterested. When the news of a mass-murdering escapee first reached her ears, a brief thrill of excitement had actually sparked in her chest. She had assumed one of her truly loyal, competent subordinates had finally managed to break free from that wretched island.
Instead, it turned out to be nothing more than a pathetic fool who had been outsmarted, framed, and tossed into a cell by a sniveling little rat. A brainless, reckless mad dog like Black held absolutely zero recruitment value for the Dark Lord.
However...
Tamara took another slow, measured sip of her tea, allowing her gaze to slide discreetly toward the boy sitting opposite her.
Black was Harry Potter's rightful godfather. Knowing the savior's pathetic, morbid desperation for 'family' after spending his entire life groveling under the roof of abusive Muggles, the boy would latch onto the man instantly. Once Potter learned the truth of what happened all those years ago, Sirius Black would immediately transform into his most glaring, fatal weakness.
It was, quite frankly, a wonderful development.
The moment this mad dog Black made his grand entrance, Potter's aimless, cloying emotional dependence would shift entirely. He would be just like a starving stray dog finally finding a meaty bone. That would solve multiple problems at once. Not only would it rid her of those sickeningly complex, grateful looks the savior kept casting in her direction, but it would also perfectly curb the System's dangerous, uncontrollable favorability metrics.
'Let the little fool embrace his pathetic, fragile dream of a family,'she mused darkly.'After all, the higher one climbs, the more agonizing the impact when they inevitably fall.'
In the future, as long as she held Sirius Black's life and death firmly in her grasp, crushing the savior's will to dust would be as effortless as turning over her hand.
Having delivered his dire warnings, Fudge finally bustled out of the Leaky Cauldron, looking thoroughly relieved to have the matter settled. Old Tom, the stooped and toothless innkeeper, quickly arranged two adjacent rooms for the young students on the second floor.
The wooden floorboards of the dim corridor creaked underfoot as Tamara carried her leather suitcase, coming to a halt in front of her designated room. She reached into her pocket for the brass key, but her finely tuned instincts flared. A heavy, fixed gaze was burning a hole straight into her back.
Slowly, Tamara turned her head.
Harry stood in front of his own door just a few feet away. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and he was staring at her with an incredibly complex expression. Beneath his messy black fringe, those bright green eyes held a ridiculous, soft vulnerability that made her skin crawl.
Tamara's brow furrowed, the motion so slight it was practically imperceptible. A familiar, suffocating wave of irritation and sheer disgust welled up in her chest.
For the past two years, she had been forced to walk a precarious tightrope, dancing to the tune of this utterly absurd System. Cold, calculating reason dictated that using the life debt he owed her, along with a steady supply of fake warmth, was the most efficient strategy to brainwash and control the savior. Yet, whenever Harry actually looked at her with that sickening blend of gratitude and emotional dependence, a violent repulsion clawed its way up from the darkest depths of her soul.
How could it not? The boy standing before her was her fated nemesis. The very same boy who had already killed her twice.
In the past, her pragmatic side would have forced her to swallow the bile, paste on a gentle smile, and use that fake warmth to stabilize the savior's favorability before carefully managing the distance between them.
But the board had changed.
Since Sirius Black was destined to become the perfect, heavy collar to leash the boy, she no longer needed to waste a single shred of patience or pretense on him.
... for a being as supremely narcissistic and fiercely controlling as the Dark Lord, logic often clashed with possessiveness. No matter how deeply disgusted and repulsed she felt by him, the boy standing in the hallway was still her prey. He was a toy meant to be broken at her whim.
The sudden realization that her elevated standing in Potter's heart was about to be usurped by a filthy, unhinged mad dog from Gryffindor... A sharp, irrational flicker of irritation flared in Tamara's chest. It was the distinct, territorial anger of having her personal property encroached upon.
To ruthlessly crush that entirely superfluous emotion, she needed to prove to herself—in the cruelest way possible—that she did not care about him in the slightest.
"Blowing up your Muggle relatives like oversized balloons?" Tamara leaned casually against the wooden doorframe, her lips curling into a sharp, undisguised sneer. "Not bad, Potter. You finally look a bit like a proper wizard."
Before Harry could even process the sudden verbal strike, she shifted her tone. Her voice dripped with lazy disdain and a cold warning.
"However, you had best be careful during your stay here. Try not to get yourself killed before the term actually begins. I would hate to waste a perfectly good holiday having to collect your corpse."
According to Tamara's extensive, painful understanding of her idiotic System, if this boy actually stumbled into mortal danger out on the streets of London, the System would undoubtedly go completely berserk. It would instantly paralyze her with electric shocks and force her to accept some nauseating, high-priority 'save your dear classmate' quest.
Hearing those callous words, Harry's jaw locked. The hand buried deep in his pocket suddenly clamped around the handle of his wand, his knuckles turning white.
'As expected,'he thought bitterly.'She has always just seen me as a burden. A nuisance she's forced to tolerate!'
But this time, Harry did not avert his gaze. He did not lower his head in that familiar, weak posture of defeat. Instead, he drew in a sharp, deep breath and lifted his chin. The soft admiration that had lingered in his green eyes just moments ago shattered, instantly replaced by a hard, defensive sharpness.
"That is none of your concern," Harry snapped back, his voice icing over.
"You should save your energy for lying to everyone else, Riddle." He took a step forward, the tension in the narrow corridor spiking. "After all, playing the role of the frightened, innocent little goody-two-shoes in front of Fudge just now must have been incredibly exhausting for you."
A flash of raw, undisguised irony flared in Harry's eyes.
"You should be very careful not to overact. It would be a shame if you ended up just like you were down in the Chamber of Secrets—claiming you were perfectly fine one second, only to collapse and faint on the spot the very next..."
Harry's intense gaze swept pointedly over the pale, delicate skin of Tamara's neck, lingering on the faint, almost invisible scar left behind by the basilisk fang. He curled his lips, throwing her own mocking phrasing right back in her face.
"When that time comes, I won't be going out of my way to collect your corpse, either."
The stale air in the dim corridor seemed to freeze solid in that exact instant.
Following the trajectory of Harry's defiant gaze, Tamara's deep, dark eyes turned pitch-black. Her slender fingers twitched, subconsciously rising to brush against the faded mark on her neck.
For one terrifying, breathless second, the pure, unadulterated ferocity of Lord Voldemort screamed wildly in her blood. The urge to draw her holly wand was overwhelming. She wanted nothing more than to hurl a Cruciatus Curse right into the chest of this arrogant little nemesis—to punish him for daring to expose her darkest, most humiliating history right to her face, and to make him shut that infuriating mouth forever!
But a split second later, she ruthlessly clamped down on the violent surge of killing intent.
'Calm down.'
She was the Dark Lord. She had just spent the summer washing her soul in the blood of countless dark wizards deep within the Black Forest of Albania, reclaiming her absolute, unquestionable sense of rule. If she allowed herself to fly into a blind rage over a few harmless, biting words from a thirteen-year-old brat, then the title of Dark Lord was far too cheap.
Why should the apex predator ever feel annoyed by the pathetic bravado of her prey right before the slaughter?
also, the moment that lethal intent had spiked, a faint, warning crackle of electricity had sparked at her fingertips. The System's cheerful, patronizing voice chimed a sharp warning directly into her mind, threatening to trigger the punishment protocol.
Forced back to reality by the threat of a humiliating shock, Tamara slowly, deliberately lowered her hand from her neck.
"Not collect my corpse?" Tamara let out a low, breathy laugh that held absolutely no warmth.
She pushed her heavy wooden door open, pausing on the threshold. When she spoke, her voice was smooth as silk, dripping with an aristocratic, condescending disdain.
"Then you had better start praying to Merlin every single day, Potter." She didn't look back at him as she stepped into the dark room. "Pray that you can keep being this incredibly lucky... and that you actually manage to live long enough to see the day you are qualified to look upon my corpse."
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