Chapter 105: Loopholes and Interlopers
On a quiet weekend morning, the Slytherin common room lay completely deserted. The murky, green-tinted light from the Black Lake filtered through the high windows, casting long, wavering shadows across the cold stone floor.
Tamara Riddle sat enthroned in her favorite high-backed leather armchair by the unlit hearth. Her posture was immaculate, her expression perfectly serene, but her dark eyes were fixed on empty air. She was calmly inspecting a translucent, floating interface that only she could perceive.
[Current Attributes: Wisdom 33, Courage 32, Love 21, Life 19.]
Her gaze drifted over the glowing numbers, eventually locking onto the second statistic. Courage 32. A muscle feathered faintly in her jaw.
'System,'she called out in her mind. Her internal voice was a glacial drawl, dripping with the kind of quiet authority that usually preceded a killing curse.'If my memory serves me correctly, a new spell is unlocked every time an attribute reaches a ten-point milestone. My Courage value broke the thirty-point threshold quite some time ago. Did a mountain troll eat my reward?'
The air around her seemed to freeze into a moment of dead silence.
[Ding!... Oh, Host, look at my memory!]
The system's perky electronic voice chimed in her head, carrying a rare, almost sickeningly sweet tone of guilt and fawning.
[There was a slight delay in the issuance of the previous reward. Issuing it for you right now!]
[Congratulations, Host! Courage value has broken the 30 mark!]
[Unlocked Advanced Spell: Confundo.]
[Skill Description: Able to plunge the target's brain into brief confusion and daze. It is an excellent auxiliary spell for travel, avoiding inspections, and even tampering with others' cognition.]
A sudden, warm current of magic surged through her fingertips, racing up her arm and blooming directly inside her mind. The complex wand movements and the precise magical theory of the Confundus Charm etched themselves into her memory.
Confundo.
Tamara lowered her eyelashes, masking the dark satisfaction swimming in her eyes. For a Dark Lord who had once been the world's foremost master of Legilimency and the Imperius Curse, this was a highly useful tool. Confundo was a crude, blunt instrument compared to her usual mind arts, but in this frustratingly weak eleven-year-old shell—a body heavily restricted from casting the Unforgivable Curses without suffering agonizing electrical shocks—it was a godsend. It would allow her to manipulate the pathetic minds of those around her without drawing the slightest bit of unwanted attention.
A faint, chilling smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
'Delayed issuance?' she chewed on the words silently, her brilliant mind spinning.
This system, with all its rigid rules and nauseating, patronizing lectures about love and peace, had actually forgotten. It had made an error.
That single, tiny mistake revealed a monumental truth. The system was not infallible. It possessed blind spots, processing limits, and a judgment mechanism that could be deceived.
'As long as there are rules, there will be loopholes,' she mused.
A shrewd, incredibly dangerous glint flashed through her dark eyes. Outwardly, she maintained the picture of a quiet, studious girl accepting a belated gift. Inwardly, the Dark Lord was already dissecting the system's human-like flaws, calculating exactly how to exploit this artificial stupidity to claw back her rightful power.
Hours later, the afternoon sun cast long, golden beams through the castle windows.
Tamara stood completely alone in the empty corridor on the eighth floor, directly opposite the woven wall hanging of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to train a group of trolls for the ballet.
The timing was impeccable. It was a Hogsmeade weekend for the upper-year students, and the vast majority of the younger brats were out on the grounds, frolicking like mindless animals in the rare Scottish sunshine. This was the perfect window of opportunity.
Her objective was singular and absolute. Ravenclaw's Diadem.
It was another of her Horcruxes, a masterpiece she had spent immense effort tracking down and corrupting, hidden safely within the Room of Requirement just behind this very stretch of blank stone.
The diary—that pathetic vessel carrying sixteen years of her memories—was currently out of her reach, guarded by the system's damned morality constraints., the main soul out there wandering the forests was a disgusting, fractured lunatic who could regroup and ruin her plans at any moment. She needed to recover her scattered fragments immediately. She had to bridge the massive gap in absolute magic reserves that plagued this fragile, prepubescent body.
If she could retrieve the diadem and re-merge with it, or even just siphon the massive reservoir of homologous dark magic contained within the sapphire, her strength would undergo a terrifying, qualitative leap. She might even gather enough raw power to forcibly shatter the underlying constraints of the Virtue System altogether.
"Meow—!"
A sharp, grating yowl sliced through the quiet corridor.
Tamara's eyes snapped toward the sound. Madam Norris. The skeletal, dust-colored cat was prowling near the corner. Immediately following the feline's cry came the heavy, dragging footsteps and the wheezing, grumbling voice of Argus Filch.
"Are they over there, my sweet? Is there another sightless little brat wandering around the corridors where they shouldn't be?"
Tamara's brow furrowed in deep annoyance. She did not have the time or the patience to deal with this miserable Squib right now. If he caught her pacing back and forth in front of an empty wall, it would invite endless, tedious questioning.
As if sensing the dark, oppressive irritation rolling off Tamara, the shadows near the corner of the corridor seemed to thicken. A transparent figure, draped in robes heavily stained with silver blood, drifted out from the gloom. The Bloody Baron.
"Help me lead that nuisance Filch away," Tamara ordered, her voice dropping to a soft, commanding hiss.
The ghost's dead, bulging eyes stared hollowly ahead, but upon receiving the command from the true Heir of Slytherin, he shifted his wandering trajectory with absolute, terrifying obedience. Carrying a bone-chilling draft that frosted the stone walls, the Baron drifted straight toward the sound of the caretaker's voice.
"Ah—!! Mr. Baron! Why are you here?!"
Filch's raspy grumble instantly pitched into a terrified, breathless scream. Madam Norris let out a frantic hiss, her claws scrabbling wildly against the stone floor as she fled in the opposite direction.
Listening to the frantic, retreating footsteps of the caretaker, Tamara withdrew her gaze, a sneer of satisfaction ghosting across her lips.
She turned back to face the blank stretch of wall. Closing her eyes, she walked past it once.
'I need a place to hide things.'She turned and walked past it a second time.'I need a place to hide things.'She paced past it a third and final time.'I need a place to hide things.'
The stone ground silently. An incredibly smooth, highly polished wooden door materialized out of thin air, smoothly integrating into the ancient castle wall. Tamara reached out, pushed the heavy iron handle, and stepped inside.
The space beyond the door was as vast as a cathedral. Towering, arched windows near the ceiling cast down thick, dusty beams of dim light, illuminating a sprawling maze constructed from centuries of discarded secrets.
Mountains of broken furniture loomed like wooden hills. Thousands upon thousands of rotting books formed precarious towers. She spotted winged catapults, rusted armor, and even the skeletal remains of unidentifiable magical creatures suspended in massive, murky glass jars. It was a hoarder's paradise, a chaotic labyrinth of junk.
But to Tamara's finely tuned senses, it was a glittering treasure trove.
She closed her eyes, tuning out the smell of old parchment and rust, and reached out with her magic. She searched for the specific, dark resonance belonging to her own soul fragment.
Within seconds, she felt it. A weak, rhythmic thrum, pulling at her magical core with an intense, sickening familiarity.
"Over there," she whispered.
Tamara opened her eyes, a flash of fanatical, hungry desire illuminating her dark irises. She handled swiftly through several small mountains of splintered chairs, finally coming to a halt before a jumbled pile of moldy books and heavily oxidized cauldrons.
There, resting casually atop an incredibly ugly, pockmarked warlock bust missing half its head, was the prize.
A delicate diadem set with heavy, brilliant sapphires. Though it was coated in a thick layer of grey dust, nothing could completely mask the ancient, haughty magic radiating from the silver metal. It lay there quietly, waiting.
"Finally found it..."
Tamara's voice trembled slightly, the sheer excitement bleeding through her usual iron control. If she could just take it, just touch the cold metal, that overwhelming sense of soul-completing fulfillment would flood her veins. She would finally regain a fraction of her true self.
Yet, her fingers stopped mere inches from the sapphire. She did not reach out.
As the creator of this dark artifact, she understood the lethal danger of a Horcrux better than anyone alive. Sealed within that silver crown was an absolutely rational, highly independent, and utterly ruthless version of Lord Voldemort. If she touched it rashly, that proud, arrogant soul fragment would not simply submit to the eleven-year-old girl standing before it. It would fight. It might even trigger a violent, mutual devouring of their two homologous souls.
Since the Virtue System currently blocked her from using the high-level Dark magic required for a forceful Soul Detachment Ritual, she had to employ a more delicate approach.
Tamara smoothly drew her holly wand with her right hand, while her left hand slipped into her sleeve, producing a small, wickedly sharp silver knife. She prepared to use the precious, magically potent blood within her own veins as a medium, attempting to soothe and slowly assimilate the hostile magic within the diadem.
She raised the blade. A faint, dark glimmer lit up the tip of her wand. The sharp silver edge hovered just a millimeter above her pale fingertip.
Creak—
The heavy wooden door to the Room of Requirement was shoved open from the outside. There was no warning. No approaching footsteps.
Tamara whipped her head around. In a blur of motion, her wrist flicked, sliding the silver knife back up her sleeve before it could catch the light. The dark magic at the tip of her wand snuffed out instantly.
In the depths of her pitch-black eyes, raw, unadulterated killing intent surged upward, almost manifesting into physical form.
Who was it? Dumbledore? A patrolling professor?
Her brilliant mind shifted into terrifying overdrive, calculating variables at lightning speed. In less than a tenth of a second, she had prepared three flawless, airtight excuses. She was fleeing from Peeves' cruel pranks and got lost. She was searching for an obscure, out-of-print textbook for Potions class. Or, she was simply an innocent, curious second-year student who had accidentally stumbled upon a magical door.
She forced her facial muscles to relax. She adjusted the moisture in her eyes, widening them just enough to project the helpless, startled innocence of a perfectly sweet, vulnerable little girl. She was ready to play the victim.
However.
"Huff... huff... Tamara! You really are here!"
The heavy, ragged panting echoed through the cavernous room.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione—the three insufferable Gryffindors—rushed through the doorway like a chaotic, noisy tornado. Harry was still clutching a shimmering, silver-grey fabric in his hands. The Invisibility Cloak. They had stealthily followed her all the way from the dungeons.
"What on earth are you doing? Tamara!" Harry ran toward her, his green eyes wide with genuine, sickening concern. "We saw you heading up to the eighth floor all alone, acting so mysterious! We thought you'd run into some kind of danger!"
"Yeah! Filch was just screaming his head off downstairs, scared the life out of us!" Ron panted, patting his chest as he looked around, still pale from the lingering fear of the caretaker.
Hermione, meanwhile, had stopped dead in her tracks. Her brown eyes widened to the size of saucers as she took in the mountainous piles of hidden artifacts. "Heavens, Hogwarts actually has a place like this? Look at all these books! It's so suitable for practicing spells after class without anyone bothering us!"
Tamara closed her eyes.
Behind her eyelids, she wiped away the carefully constructed innocence. She wiped away the sweet disguise. All that remained in the dark void of her mind was a bone-deep, weary helplessness, heavily laced with the burning desire to cast three consecutive Killing Curses.
She opened her eyes, staring blankly at the three grinning idiots.
"...Why are you all here?"
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