Chapter 57: Threat
February at Hogwarts remained locked in a bitterly cold grip. Frost clung to the stone mullions of the windows, and the wind howled around the castle turrets like a dying banshee.
Although those three restless Gryffindor brats had finally stumbled upon the secret of Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone, it hardly meant they were about to throw themselves headlong into the forbidden third-floor corridor. They were, after all, merely first-year students. The sheer terror of facing a massive, three-headed Cerberus easily eclipsed whatever meager heroic impulses they possessed. They needed a push. A truly compelling reason to risk having their heads bitten off.
Tamara Riddle, however, was the most patient of hunters. She sat perfectly still at the center of her carefully woven web, a venomous spider masquerading as a butterfly, quietly waiting for her prey to pluck the delicate thread labeled 'Justice'.
'No rush at all.'Tamara sat tucked away in a quiet, dust-moted corner of the Hogwarts Library. Her slender fingers idly turned the yellowed pages of a heavy Defense Against the Dark Arts reference tome. A chilling, utterly arrogant smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth.'That decaying, foolish main soul hasn't made his move yet.'According to the twisted, nauseating logic of her damned Virtue System, she could not simply murder the man in his sleep. No, only when Quirinus Quirrell actively attempted to steal the Philosopher's Stone and directly threatened the safety of the student body would her lethal intervention be classified as'righteous guardianship'.
Until then, she was forced to play the waiting game. She would wait for that stuttering idiot to slip up, or better yet, wait for him to be hopelessly cornered by Albus Dumbledore's pathetic obstacle course.
Wednesday afternoon brought a biting draft through the stone halls. Having just endured another tedious hour of Transfiguration, Tamara walked alone down a dimly lit, secluded corridor sloping downward toward the Dungeons. Her footsteps echoed softly against the damp flagstones.
"Ri... Miss Riddle."
A pathetic, stuttering voice echoed from the shadows behind her, carrying with it a pungent, eye-watering stench of stale garlic.
Tamara halted her steps.
She turned slowly, the hem of her robes swishing against the floor. Professor Quirrell stood a few paces away. As always, his head was tightly bound in that ridiculous purple turban, his shoulders hunched as if a stiff breeze might knock him unconscious.
"Professor?" Tamara raised a single, delicate eyebrow. She instantly smoothed her features into a mask of polite innocence, projecting just the right mixture of mild surprise and respectful confusion. "Is something the matter?"
Ever since their very first lesson, Quirrell had gone out of his way to avoid her. He would practically sprint from the classroom the moment the bell rang, scurrying away like a frightened rat. They had not shared a single private conversation in months.
Quirrell lingered in the gloom between two flickering torches. His trademark meekness appeared almost violently exaggerated today, his hands twitching nervously at his sides. Yet, his eyes—usually darting away from any direct contact—were entirely different. They locked onto Tamara with an unblinking, predatory intensity, radiating a cold, uncomfortable malice that cut straight through the garlic fumes.
"I... I wanted to ask you about... about your Charms homework." Quirrell took a slow, deliberate step closer. His voice dropped an octave, the stutter suddenly feeling less like anxiety and more like a mocking cadence. He spoke as if sharing a filthy secret. "I heard... Professor Flitwick is quite... impressed with you."
"It is my honor to learn from him, sir." Tamara offered a sweet, demure smile. Beneath the folds of her dark robes, her fingers subtly curled, tightening her grip around the smooth wood of the wand concealed in her sleeve.
"Yes... an honor."
Quirrell suddenly laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound. A twisted, bizarre smile stretched across his pale face, completely shattering his cowardly facade.
"Then... do you have any... particular thoughts about that... that restricted corridor on the third floor?"
Tamara's breath hitched for a fraction of a second.
He was testing her. No, the parasite clinging to the back of his skull was testing her. That fragmented, decaying main soul might have been driven half-mad by his own hubris, but he was certainly not stupid. He smelled a threat in the water.
"I am afraid I don't understand what you mean, Professor." Tamara widened her dark eyes, playing the part of the bewildered student to perfection. She took a measured step backward, carefully increasing the distance between them. "That is a forbidden area. Headmaster Dumbledore was quite clear about the dangers."
"Forbidden area... Heh heh... Forbidden area..."
Quirrell mumbled the words under his breath, rolling them over his tongue as if tasting them. The frenzied light in his eyes flared into outright madness.
Without warning, he lunged forward. A wand snapped into his hand with terrifying speed, the tip aimed directly at her chest.
"Some truths... once discovered... result in a very painful death."
Pure, suffocating killing intent washed over the corridor. It was raw, heavy, and completely undisguised.
Tamara's pupils contracted into sharp pinpricks. The main soul actually intended to strike her down right here? In the middle of a Hogwarts corridor in broad daylight?
'Truly, utterly insane,'she cursed inwardly, her mind racing.'However, if you are so eager to die, I will gladly grant your final wish.'
The feigned innocence vanished from Tamara's face, replaced by a gaze of absolute, glacial ice. Magic thrummed in her veins as she prepared to snap her wand forward and obliterate this reckless puppet with a curse dark enough to melt his bones. She had a Basic Magic Potion stored in her inventory. It would only grant her ten minutes of her true, unrestrained magical power, but ten minutes was more than enough to butcher a half-dead, parasitic soul.
Better yet, this was a clear-cut case of self-defense. That patronizing Virtue System could not penalize her for protecting her own life.
"Quirrell."
But before Tamara could unleash her wrath, a deep, silken voice sliced through the heavy tension. The single word carried a crushing weight of warning, echoing sharply from the far end of the stone corridor.
Quirrell froze. His entire body locked up as if he had been struck by a Body-Bind Curse. He yanked his wand hand back as though he had touched a live wire. The murderous madness melted from his features in a heartbeat, instantly replaced by the twitching, pathetic visage of the stuttering coward.
Severus Snape billowed out of the shadows, gliding across the flagstones like a storm cloud of black silk. He moved with silent, predatory grace, stepping smoothly between the two of them. His obsidian eyes swept coldly over Tamara for a brief second, assessing her condition, before locking onto Quirrell with lethal intensity.
"S-Professor Snape?" Quirrell squeaked, his hands flying up to nervously tug at the edges of his purple turban. His voice trembled violently. "Y-you... what are you doing down here?"
"That is precisely the question I should be asking you, Quirrell," Snape drawled, his voice dripping with undisguised disgust and heavy suspicion. "Lurking in the dungeon corridors? Cornering a first-year student? Discussing some... unspeakable secret, perhaps?"
His dark gaze scraped over Quirrell's trembling form like a serrated blade, practically trying to flay the ridiculous disguise right off the man's bones.
"N-no! We were merely... merely discussing homework!" Quirrell stammered flusteredly, his eyes darting frantically at the floor, absolutely refusing to meet Snape's piercing stare.
"Is that so?" Snape let out a low, humorless scoff. He did not press the interrogation further. Instead, he deliberately turned his back on the Defense professor—a calculated display of utter contempt—and focused his attention entirely on Tamara.
"Miss Riddle."
Snape looked down at her, his sallow face a mask of complicated emotions. He still harbored a deep, gnawing suspicion and apprehension toward this particular orphan girl. Yet, the moment he had seen Quirrell's furtive, predatory stance, an ingrained instinct had forced him to intervene. Whatever dark secrets Tamara Riddle might be hiding, his loathing for Quirrell's two-faced nature ran far deeper.
"If you do not mind, I believe I have a few words to discuss with you privately. Regarding your recent... performance in Potions."
It was a painfully transparent excuse. A thinly veiled command designed to extract Tamara from the corridor and pull her safely away from the immediate source of danger.
Tamara looked up at the tall Potions Master standing protectively in front of her. The faintest ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She had been fully prepared to paint the walls with Quirrell's blood, but it seemed she could keep her wand clean for today.
"Of course, Professor Snape," Tamara replied, her tone dripping with obedient sweetness. As she moved to follow him, she subtly shifted her angle, ensuring Quirrell caught the fleeting, utterly provocative smirk that flashed across her face.
"Well then, I shall see you in class, Professor Quirrell."
Quirrell's jaw locked. He glared viciously at Snape's broad back, his eyes burning with suppressed rage. But ultimately, the coward won out. He spun on his heel and fled down the corridor, his robes flapping behind him like a startled, oversized bat.
Silence descended upon the damp stone hall, leaving only Tamara and Snape in the flickering torchlight. Snape did not speak immediately. He stood perfectly still, his dark eyes tracking the empty space where Quirrell had vanished, a deep, troubled crease forming between his brows.
"Thank you, Professor," Tamara murmured softly, injecting a flawless note of vulnerable gratitude into her voice. She lowered her gaze, playing with the edge of her sleeve. "I do not know why, but... Professor Quirrell's expression just now... it frightened me."
Snape's head snapped around, his intense gaze pinning her in place.
"Stay away from him," he warned coldly, his voice dropping to a harsh, stern whisper. "No matter what he says to you. No matter what he attempts to promise you... do not trust a single word that falls from his mouth."
He was under no illusions that Tamara Riddle was some helpless, innocent little lamb. But he knew with absolute certainty that Quirinus Quirrell was a festering rot within the castle walls.
"I understand, sir," Tamara nodded meekly, her dark hair falling over her shoulders.
Internally, she was practically cackling. It was genuinely amusing. Snape likely assumed Quirrell was attempting to groom her for some dark faction, or perhaps harbored some twisted, improper designs.
The Potions Master had absolutely no idea that Quirrell had drawn his wand with the sole intention of murdering her on the spot. He didn't know that her very existence was a glaring, terrifying threat to the fragile supremacy of the main soul festering beneath that turban.
'It seems... you have made the correct choice, Severus.' Tamara studied Snape's somber, sharp profile through the veil of her eyelashes, evaluating him with a deep sense of dark satisfaction.
It was glaringly obvious now. Snape still had no idea that the main soul of Lord Voldemort was currently hitching a ride on the back of Quirrell's skull. This confirmed her suspicions: the incident where Snape had his leg mangled by the three-headed dog had been a purely independent endeavor to protect the Stone, not an order handed down by the Dark Lord.
'Although you remain entirely ignorant of the truth, you instinctively placed yourself between danger and me. You stood by my side, rather than bowing to that decaying, pathetic excuse for a main soul.'A cold, possessive thrill ran through her veins.'This is very good. As long as you continue to demonstrate this level of blind loyalty to me, Severus, I suppose I can find it in my heart to forgive your previous offenses.'
Snape, entirely oblivious to the megalomaniacal monologue occurring inside the first-year's head, simply felt a lingering unease about the entire confrontation. He scowled, waving a long, pale hand in dismissal.
"Hurry back to your common room, Miss Riddle. And cease your aimless loitering in the dungeon corridors."
"Yes, Professor."
Tamara offered a flawless, respectful curtsy and turned on her heel to leave. But the very second her face was hidden from Snape's view, the meekness vanished. A vicious, predatory glint flashed in her dark eyes.
'Quirrell... Hmph. Although his mind has been thoroughly warped by that fragmented main soul, his underlying loyalty to the Dark Lord remains intact. It is a pity. He ought to be serving a far stronger, far superior master. Not acting as a disposable puppet for a dying parasite.'
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