Chapter 130: Not the Right Time
Tamara walked quickly across the damp, slippery floor.
At the very moment Harry's fingers were about to flip open the cover, a pale, cold hand reached out from behind him and pressed heavily down on the diary.
Smack.
A soft sound rang out.
Harry's movement was forcibly interrupted.
Startled, he whipped his head around and nearly bumped into the chin of the person standing behind him.
Tamara was there, looking down at him from above.
Because they were so close, Harry could even smell the pleasant scent coming from her.
Her face looked exceptionally pale in the dim light, and her pitch black eyes were fixed intently on the diary in his hand. There was a pressure in her gaze that made Harry's heart race.
It was more terrifying than Snape and Filch combined.
"Ta... Tamara?"
Harry stammered, his heart pounding violently from the sudden closeness.
Tamara did not answer immediately.
Her hand remained firmly pressed against the diary, her knuckles even turning white from the force.
She was feeling it.
Feeling the familiar fluctuations of the soul inside the book beneath her palm.
Within the diary, Tom Riddle seemed to have sensed Tamara's approach as well. He trembled while withdrawing his aura, pretending to be an ordinary, lifeless object.
"Do not touch it."
Tamara finally spoke.
Her voice was low, carrying an unquestionable severity, and it produced a strange echo in the empty bathroom.
"Dark Arts items of unknown origin are often attached to the most vicious curses."
Tamara increased the pressure of her hand, forcing Harry to move his fingers away from the edge of the cover.
"Unless you want your brain fried or wish to be haunted by some unknown evil spirit."
Harry froze.
He looked at Tamara's frost cold face, then at her hand pressing down on the diary.
To Tamara, she was stopping the foolish saviour from ruining her plans.
But in Harry's eyes, this scene took on a completely different meaning.
She is worried about me.
Harry's mind automatically completed that logical leap.
She ignored how filthy this place is, and even ignored the possible danger of the book, rushing forward at the first moment to stop me from touching it. She is afraid I will get hurt.
A warm current instantly surged through Harry's heart, causing the fright from being startled just now to vanish completely.
"I... I just saw it thrown in the water and thought it was strange."
Harry explained somewhat sheepishly, obediently moving away the fingers that had been about to flip the book open and allowing Tamara to keep her hand on it.
"And it doesn't seem wet at all. I thought it might be a clue..."
"Clues are often accompanied by traps, Potter."
Tamara interrupted him coldly.
She was about to take the opportunity to snatch the diary from Harry's hand and claim it for herself.
Just then, Myrtle floated up to Tamara, so close that Tamara had to lean back slightly.
The last time she had helped Hermione here, it had been the middle of the night. There had been almost no light in the bathroom, and Tamara had stayed in the shadows, so Myrtle had not seen her face clearly at all.
But today was different.
It was daytime. Although the light was dim, it was enough for a ghost to see a silhouette clearly.
"You look... so familiar."
Myrtle tilted her head, deep concentration appearing on her pale face as she tried to remember.
"Those eyes, that cold expression..."
"I remember now. Fifty years ago, there was a student just like you."
Tamara's heart skipped a beat.
Damn ghost.
Had she really been recognized?
If Myrtle said in front of Harry that Tamara looked like someone from fifty years ago, with Potter's sensitivity, he would definitely become suspicious.
Harry also looked up curiously.
"Who? Which student?"
"Shut up."
Tamara whipped her head around.
In that instant, she completely tore away the gentle mask of a top student.
From those pitch black eyes, an undisguised surge of killing intent and brutality erupted.
Deep within those bottomless pupils, a heart stopping glint of crimson vaguely flickered.
That was not the gaze a second year student should have.
That was the true form of the Dark Lord, who had once slaughtered countless lives and personally orchestrated this very tragedy.
"Get lost."
Tamara squeezed those two words out from between her teeth.
This terrifying pressure was enough to make any soul shudder.
"Ahhh! You're a bad person too! Waaaah!"
Although Myrtle did not know who this person was, the fear etched deep into her soul, as if she were facing a natural predator, made her scream instantly.
"What... what happened to her?"
Harry watched the ghost suddenly flee in a frenzy, looking utterly bewildered and unable to understand what had happened.
"She is probably having a fit of madness."
Tamara withdrew her gaze without changing expression and looked back at the diary in Harry's hand.
"Give it to me, Potter."
She held out her hand, her tone brooking no refusal.
"This is not something you should touch."
Harry hesitated for a moment.
Although he listened to Tamara, the Gryffindor spirit of adventure buried deep within him made him feel that this diary was important.
While the two were at a stalemate, the bathroom door was suddenly flung open.
"Harry! What are you doing? I thought I heard Myrtle screaming..."
Ron Weasley burst in, panting for breath.
Then he slammed to a halt.
His eyes widened as he took in the scene before him.
In the dim, waterlogged bathroom, Harry was crouching on the floor.
And that Slytherin, who was always aloof and even a little frightening, was standing behind Harry, leaning over slightly.
Her hand was tightly covering Harry's, and they were so close that their posture looked...
Strangely intimate.
Tamara's pale figure almost completely enveloped Harry in shadow, her posture exuding a suffocating sense of dominance.
It was as if, at the slightest resistance from Harry, the slender fingers pressed against the back of his hand would instantly turn into claws and crush his throat.
The coldness and danger permeating the air even made Ron feel that this looked more like some Dark Arts sacrificial ritual in progress.
"Er..."
Ron's mouth hung open. His expression shifted from worry to horror, then from horror to the awkward look of someone who had just swallowed a slug.
"Am I... interrupting something?"
.....
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