Chapter 183: Times Have Changed
The temperature in the corridor plummeted at a hair-raising speed.
A thick layer of frost crawled across the windowpanes, and every exhaled breath instantly crystallized into white mist. At the far end of the flickering corridor, a creature draped in a tattered, rotting black cloak glided forward. It had no face, only a gaping void beneath its hood, emitting a wet, rattling hiss with every slow, deliberate movement.
Screams and muffled sobs bled through the compartment doors on either side. Fear thickened the air, heavy and suffocating.
Yet, Tamara Riddle stood perfectly still.
Her pitch-black eyes locked onto the approaching Dementor. A bold, perhaps even terrifying, thought suddenly sparked within her mind.
According to the basic laws of the Wizarding world, Dementors fed on human happiness, hope, and every conceivable positive emotion. They drained the light from their prey's heart, leaving behind only the most deep, inescapable despair.
'System,'Tamara called out coldly in her mind, her mental voice laced with a dangerous curiosity.'If all these nauseating, so-called positive emotions generated by this body—the ones that make me physically sick—are judged by you as happiness...'She watched the frost creep closer to her polished shoes.'Does that mean if I let this Dementor take a deep breath, it can completely strip these pathetic emotional scraps from my soul? Will it finally rid me of this ridiculous human weakness?'
A brief silence stretched in her mind before the familiar, overly cheerful electronic chime echoed.
[Ding! The system is performing logical calculations...]
[Theoretically speaking, yes, Host! Dementors do focus on feeding on and stripping away all positive emotions and warm memories within a target's body.]
[But! This system strongly advises against making such a high-risk attempt!]
The mechanical voice shifted, adopting an earnest, almost maternal tone of heartache, as if scolding a rebellious teenager.
[You should know that love and happiness are the most precious treasures in life! If these warm emotions are lost, the world will turn into a gray desert in your eyes! That would be a very, very bad thing! Please cherish the hard-won light in your heart!]
'Is that so?'A cruel, expectant sneer curled the corners of Tamara's mouth.'That sounds... absolutely wonderful.'
To the great Dark Lord, the world was supposed to be a desert. All this forced warmth, these pathetic bonds and sudden pangs of conscience, were nothing but parasites clinging to her noble soul. They dulled her killing intent. They fractured her perfect, icy composure.
If this filthy creature could suck those irritating lights dry and return her to the absolute rationality of the heartless Lord Voldemort... then she practically owed the beast a debt of gratitude.
Without a single moment of hesitation, Tamara stepped forward. She did not raise her wand. She did not back down. Instead, she walked directly into the Dementor's freezing embrace, completely dropping every mental shield and soul defense she possessed.
Or rather, in the deeply ingrained arrogance of the Dark Lord, she simply believed she didn't need to guard against such low-level Dark creatures. In her previous life, when she reigned as the terrifying Voldemort, Dementors were her natural allies. They had bowed to her, greedily feasting on the terror and despair she had so generously gifted to the Wizarding world.
The abyss hidden beneath the rotting hood leaned in. The creature let out a long, greedy intake of breath, aiming directly at Tamara's face.
A bone-chilling wind poured into her mouth and nose.
The initial sensation was simply divine.
Tamara could physically feel those strange, irritating emotions—the sudden bursts of empathy, the forced kindness—being violently ripped from her chest, pulled away like silk threads from a cocoon. A long-lost, intoxicating coldness rushed in to fill the void.
'Yes... this is it. This is the feeling.'
Tamara let out a long, comfortable sigh in her mind. This was the absolute, unfeeling calculation a Dark Lord required. No redundant impurities. No pathetic attachments. Just a pure, unadulterated desire for power.
However.
She had forgotten one fatal, catastrophic detail.
The former Lord Voldemort had never feared Dementors because his soul had long been butchered into scattered fragments. There was barely any humanity left in his main soul, let alone enough positive emotion to constitute a meal. To a Dementor, the old Voldemort was nothing but a withered, dry skeleton—something not even worth a second glance.
But the current Tamara was entirely different.
After devouring the sixteen-year-old remnant soul trapped within the diary, her soul had been repaired. It was whole again. More, she now occupied a fresh, young, and vibrant body.
When those so-called joys were sucked dry in a matter of seconds, what rushed in to replace them was not the absolute rationality and cold calculation Tamara had anticipated.
It was pure, suffocating nothingness.
"Ugh..."
The triumphant smile on Tamara's lips froze, then shattered.
If pain was a bitter medicine and happiness was honey, then this nothingness was a bottomless abyss devoid of light, sound, or meaning. There was no desire here. No love. No hate. She could not even find her own reflection in the dark.
In this deathly, freezing silence, Tamara's pitch-black pupils contracted to the size of pinpricks.
Horror seized her. She realized, with a rising sense of panic, that the very foundation stones of her existence were collapsing at an irrevocable speed.
The desire for power.
The obsession with eternal life.
The insatiable greed for strength.
These were the driving forces that had dragged her out of that miserable Muggle orphanage, the ambitions that had pushed her to the highest altar of dark magic, even at the cost of splitting her soul seven times. And now, under the Dementor's terrifying suction, they were fading. Disintegrating. Turning into ridiculous, meaningless dust.
What was the point of ruling the Wizarding world?
What did it matter if she crushed those fools beneath her heel?
Why even bother living?
As these alien, terrifying thoughts flooded her mind, Tamara experienced the deepest, most primal fear she had felt since her rebirth.
If even her ambitions were stripped away... would she still be Voldemort?
No. She would be nothing. Just an empty husk.
"Huff... huff..."
Her chest heaved. Her breathing turned rapid and broken, misting erratically in the freezing air. Her trembling fingers scrambled for the wand holstered at her side. Her fading logic screamed that she had to do something, anything, to stop this.
To maintain her crumbling sense of self, an utterly absurd thought clawed its way up from her subconscious.
She needed to cast that spell.
The ridiculous, pathetic Patronus Charm she had always looked down upon. The spell she had firmly believed was reserved only for weak, sentimental fools who indulged in false comfort...
"Expecto..."
Her voice was a fragile whisper. Just as the incantation was about to escape her trembling lips, the compartment door directly across from her slammed open.
A raspy, commanding adult voice shattered the freezing silence.
"Expecto Patronum!"
A massive eruption of dazzling, silver-white light burst from the tip of a wooden wand, slamming violently into the Dementor's chest.
The creature let out a high-pitched, unwilling hiss. Repelled by the overwhelming wave of pure, positive magic, it scattered like black mist caught in a hurricane, fleeing frantically toward the end of the carriage.
The frost coating the corridor immediately began to melt. The pale overhead lamps flickered, then stabilized, casting a warm glow over the train once more.
A wizard with graying hair, wearing patched, threadbare robes—Remus Lupin—lowered his wand. He took a step forward, intending to check on the student in the hall.
But at that exact moment, the door to the compartment right behind Lupin slid open. Harry Potter stumbled out, his fingers desperately gripping the doorframe to keep himself upright.
His face was as pale as parchment, his forehead slick with a layer of cold sweat. He gasped for air, his chest heaving. He had clearly been caught in the Dementor's area of effect just moments ago, and the agonizing memories it dragged up had nearly driven him mad. He had forced his last ounce of strength to drag himself out, needing to see what was happening.
However, when Harry looked up and took in the scene in the corridor, he froze completely.
Less than two meters away from him.
Tamara Riddle—the arrogant, untouchable girl who had been completely at odds with him just days prior—was slumped helplessly on the cold floorboards.
Harry's breath hitched in his throat.
Her delicate, pale face was entirely devoid of expression, still carrying that icy, empty detachment that always kept everyone at a distance. Yet, from those deathly black eyes, tears were rolling down her cheeks in an uncontrollable, silent flood.
There was no sobbing. No whimpering. Not even a slight furrow of her brow.
Just a perfectly expressionless face, and a quiet, endless torrent of tears.
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