Chapter 116: Sickness
Icy rainwater dripped continuously from the heavy black dragon-hide cloak, leaving a winding trail of dark puddles across the dim stone floors of the Hogwarts corridors.
Draco held a massive black umbrella, trailing after Tamara like a dutiful, fanatical acolyte. His mouth never stopped moving, spitting out an incessant stream of vicious curses directed at that out-of-control Bludger, the atrocious weather, and the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of the entire Gryffindor house.
Tamara ignored him completely. Her steps were rigid and mechanical as she forced her way toward the Slytherin dungeons.
However, just as the toes of her dragon-hide boots met the first stone step leading down to the basement level, the absolute limit was reached.
The brutal backlash she had been forcefully suppressing through the sheer, terrifying willpower of the Dark Lord finally erupted.
Ten full seconds of high-voltage electric shock had ripped through her earlier. It was a System punishment that bypassed the physical flesh entirely, acting directly upon the deepest recesses of her soul and the raw endings of her nerves.
Coupled with the bone-chilling cold of being soaked to the skin in a torrential gale for the better part of the afternoon, these two destructive forces intertwined. Together, they easily shattered the meager defenses of this fragile, twelve-year-old shell.
Tamara felt the stone corridor before her eyes suddenly violently tilt.
Draco's complaining voice grew instantly muffled, sounding as though she had been plunged headfirst into a deep lake.
A suffocating, blistering heat surged upward from the very marrow of her bones, yet the surface of her skin felt as cold as a block of solid ice.
"Tamara? Why have you stopped?" Draco halted his steps, turning back with a look of utter confusion.
In the very next second, the mild annoyance on his pale face twisted into a mask of extreme terror.
He watched as Tamara's deep, sharp black eyes completely lost their focus. Then, as if an invisible hand had instantly plucked every single bone from her body, she collapsed straight forward, plummeting toward the jagged edges of the cold stone steps.
"Tamara!"
Draco let out a raw, distorted scream. He threw the heavy umbrella aside without a second thought and lunged forward, throwing his own body onto the stairs to cushion her fall a mere fraction of a second before her head could strike the stone.
When Tamara finally dragged her consciousness back from the dark void, the very first thing to assault her senses was a sharp, biting scent. It was a heavy mixture of bitter medicinal Potions and the sterile smell of freshly laundered linen.
The Hogwarts Hospital Wing.
Her eyelids felt as heavy as lead vault doors. Every single bone in her body throbbed with a dull, agonizing ache, as if she had been systematically smashed to pieces by a Mountain Troll wielding a club, and then haphazardly glued back together. She was so incredibly sore that she could not even command her index finger to twitch.
Her throat felt tight and dry, as if an invisible fire was actively burning away her vocal cords.
"This is entirely abnormal, Severus!"
Madam Pomfrey's voice, thick with genuine anxiety, rang out sharply right beside the bed.
Tamara slowly forced her eyes open a tiny crack. Through a hazy, blurred field of vision, she saw Madam Pomfrey waving her wand in rapid, continuous circles above the bed. Snape stood silently off to the side, his face as dark and still as stagnant water.
"I have already administered two full, undiluted doses of Pepperup Potion!" Madam Pomfrey spoke, her tone bordering on incredulous. "Reasonably speaking, even if the poor girl had fallen straight through a frozen lake, she should be lively and kicking with steam pouring from her ears by now! But her high fever simply refuses to break!"
Snape stared down at the weakly breathing Tamara on the white hospital bed. A rare, almost imperceptible flicker of confusion flashed through the depths of his pitch-black eyes.
After a long moment of heavy silence, Snape seemed to piece the entire logical chain together in his mind.
"Her physical constitution was already unusually frail to begin with," Snape spoke, his voice cold, measured, and carrying a distinct hint of severity.
"A fragile vessel that could fall violently ill from a mere draft in the corridors, yet it happens to carry a massive, volatile amount of magic that far exceeds anyone in her age group. To be soaked to the bone in the freezing rain for so long today, and then to forcefully exert herself to stop that idiot..."
Snape's dark eyes narrowed slightly. "This current collapse is nothing more than the inevitable result of that frail shell being pushed far beyond extreme overload."
"Simply ridiculous!" Madam Pomfrey huffed indignantly, leaning over to forcefully tuck the edges of Tamara's thick blanket tighter around her shoulders.
"Until this high fever has completely subsided, she must stay right here on this bed!" The matron turned, her hands on her hips. "Even if Albus Dumbledore himself comes marching in here, he cannot dream of taking her half a step out of those doors!"
Lying motionless on the stark white pillow, listening to Madam Pomfrey's unquestionable medical declaration, Tamara felt a sudden, suffocating wave of absurd desolation wash over her heart.
Illness.
For the greatest Dark Lord in history, this was such a distant, such a foreign, and such an utterly shameful concept.
Ever since she had successfully split her soul and transformed her original body into a terrifying entity that was neither truly human nor ghost, she had completely escaped the pathetic cycle of mortal existence. Birth, aging, sickness, and death were the burdens of lesser beings.
She had honestly believed she would forever transcend these ridiculous, limiting physiological laws.
But now, this living, breathing shell of hers, currently burning up with a sudden and aggressive high fever, was heartlessly reminding her of a single, inescapable fact.
She was now just a mortal. A mortal who could feel agonizing pain, who could burn with a fever, and who could be rendered so pathetically weak that she could not even lift her own wand.
This overwhelming sense of physical fragility, this feeling of falling from the immortal clouds straight down into the filthy mortal dust, caused Tamara to experience a sudden spike of unmatched panic.
She absolutely hated this feeling. She despised being unable to exert total control over her own flesh.
Just then, an unpleasant, wet retching sound suddenly echoed from a nearby hospital bed.
Tamara turned her head against the pillow, the simple motion requiring an exhausting amount of effort.
Less than two meters away, Harry Potter was sitting up. He was wearing an oversized, striped hospital pajama top, clutching a steaming wooden cup in his left hand. His facial features were entirely twisted into a tight, disgusted knot from the foul-tasting medicine he had just swallowed.
But the exact moment his green eyes landed on Tamara, Harry froze, completely forgetting to cough.
"Tamara? You're awake!"
Harry completely ignored the dull ache in his right arm and scrambled to sit up straighter against his headboard, his bright green eyes swimming with a heavy mixture of guilt and deep worry.
"I'm so sorry... if it wasn't for me, if it wasn't because you rushed out to save me on the pitch..."
Harry's voice was thick and raspy.
Not long after he had been carried into the Hospital Wing by Hagrid, he had watched Draco Malfoy rush through the double doors like an absolute madman, dragging the completely unconscious Tamara with him.
When Harry had laid there and listened to the hushed, tense conversation between Madam Pomfrey and Snape, learning that Tamara had fallen so severely ill due to magic exhaustion and freezing in the rain to protect him, the tiny, lingering bit of joy this eleven-year-old boy felt from catching the Snitch instantly vanished.
In its place was a crushing, heavy sense of guilt, mixed with a bittersweet, overwhelming feeling of being deeply moved.
Tamara quietly stared at the self-reproaching savior in the next bed.
If it were any other time, under any other circumstances, she would have immediately deployed the most biting, venomous, and sarcastic words in her vocabulary to tear this foolish boy's ridiculous self-sentiment to absolute shreds.
But now.
The raging high fever had robbed her of almost every single drop of her energy. She did not even have the physical strength required to roll her eyes at him.
She could only look at him weakly. Her usually sharp, terrifying black eyes were currently moist and glassy from the fever, completely stripped of their usual cold, calculating edge.
"Shut up... Potter."
Tamara's voice was so incredibly soft it seemed a passing gust of wind could scatter the words. It carried a heavy, painful raspiness that scratched at her burning throat.
"I want... quiet."
To Harry's ears, these harsh words did not sound like an insult at all. They sounded entirely like the powerless, exhausted groan of an extremely sick patient begging for rest.
He looked closely at Tamara's pale face, a face that had lost all of its usual flawless disguises and intimidating defenses due to the sheer weight of her illness.
This was the very first time he, and perhaps anyone in the entire school, had ever seen Tamara reveal such a real, such a raw, and such a vulnerable fragility.
She was no longer the terrifying, commanding teacher in the Room of Requirement who scolded students from all four houses until they wanted to bury their heads in the floor. Nor was she the brilliant controller who made absolutely no secret of her towering ambition that transcended everything else.
Right now, she was just a little girl. A little girl whose brow was tightly furrowed in pain because of a high fever, and for whom even drawing a simple breath seemed to require a massive effort.
Harry immediately snapped his mouth shut, nodding obediently. He did not even dare to make a single sound of disgust when he took the next sip of his terrible medicine, absolutely terrified of disturbing her rest.
He just sat there, silently watching the small figure on the next bed with a deeply complex gaze.
By evening, the quiet tranquility of the Hospital Wing was abruptly shattered by a sudden flurry of light, hurried footsteps squeaking against the stone floor.
Madam Pomfrey had fully intended to aggressively drive away all visitors at the door, but under the tearful, desperate pleas of several young girls, the matron eventually softened her stance, strictly allowing a maximum ten-minute visitation period.
Hermione Granger was the very first to rush through the doors.
She was still tightly clutching a massive, heavy book titled 'Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions' against her chest. Seeing Tamara lying so still on the bed, her face flushed a deep, unhealthy red and her eyes tightly shut, this usually talkative, bossy Miss Know-It-All was actually, and quite rarely, completely at a loss for what to do or say.
"She looks terrible..." Hermione whispered, lowering her voice drastically, her brown eyes already shining on the verge of tears.
Following closely behind Hermione were Luna Lovegood, Hannah Abbott, and Ginny Weasley. They stood awkwardly around the foot of the bed, their faces pale and their eyes brimming with obvious worry.
And of course, there was Pansy Parkinson, who would absolutely never allow herself to be absent from such an event.
This haughty Slytherin lady had clearly forced her way into this visiting group through sheer stubbornness.
She was currently using her sharp shoulders and a deeply disdainful glare to actively try and push these eyesore outsiders as far away from Tamara's bedside as physically possible.
"Move over, Granger! Don't you dare infect Tamara with your filthy Gryffindor poverty!"
Pansy glared fiercely at Hermione and Ginny, her nose wrinkled in disgust. "If it wasn't for her stopping that idiot Bludger to save your pathetic, blind Seeker, Tamara wouldn't be lying here half-dead at all!"
"Madam Pomfrey said she has a very high fever and that her magic is severely overextended," Harry, sitting up on the next bed, couldn't help but advise in a small, quiet voice, his tone still heavy with self-reproach.
Tamara was not actually asleep.
The high fever had essentially cooked her brain into a groggy, floating state of half-slumber.
She could clearly hear the annoying, buzzing arguments and the pathetic, sniffling whispers of these foolish girls crowded around her bed.
She desperately wanted to scream at them to get out, to banish them all from her sight, but her parched, cracked lips felt entirely too heavy to pry open.
Just then.
A hand, without any prior warning whatsoever, lightly landed flat against her burning forehead.
Tamara's entire body instinctively stiffened under the blankets.
As Lord Voldemort, she extremely, violently loathed being touched by anyone.
Physical contact was a direct violation of her absolute personal safety. It was a breach of her domain.
But at this exact moment.
That small hand did not carry even a single ounce of aggression or threat.
Its palm carried a wonderfully cool, soft touch belonging to a living, breathing person. It was pressed lightly, carefully against her forehead, which was currently so hot it felt as if a fire was raging beneath her skin.
This sudden, soothing drop in temperature, for Tamara who was currently being mercilessly tortured by a splitting, throbbing headache from the fever, actually provided a brief, miraculous wave of relief from the agonizing pain.
"Oh my god, she's as hot as a red-hot branding iron."
Ginny's voice, thick and trembling with unshed tears, rang softly right next to her ear.
"Tamara... you must get better soon..."
Ginny sniffled loudly, using her free hand to gently, carefully tuck the loose corner of the white blanket tighter around Tamara's shoulder. Her movements were incredibly soft, acting as if she were handling a priceless, fragile treasure that might shatter at any moment.
"You're such a good person. Merlin definitely won't let anything bad happen to you."
Lying trapped on the bed, Tamara felt that incredibly comfortable, soothing coolness resting on her forehead. She heard that quiet prayer, a prayer so genuinely sincere it bordered on absolute stupidity.
Her fever-addled brain fell into a state of unmatched, chaotic confusion.
'This is so disgusting.''This is simply the most disgusting, revolting thing in the entire world.'
She, the great Dark Lord, the terror of magical Britain, was actually lying flat on a hospital bed like a pathetic, helpless wretch, passively accepting the cloying sympathy and dripping pity bestowed upon her by a weak prey she utterly looked down upon.
And what made her feel the most terrified, what actually sent a cold spike of genuine despair through her chest, was that...
Deep inside this pathetic shell made weak and fragile by a mere fever...
She actually felt a faint, obvious sense of comfort from this physical contact. From this completely defenseless, raw display of concern.
'This does not belong to Voldemort.''This is absolutely not an emotion belonging to Lord Voldemort!''This is this damned, weak human flesh at work!'
Tamara roared hysterically within the confines of her own mind, desperately trying to summon the most vicious, unforgivable curses to wash away this sickening wave of weakness that made her want to vomit.
She wanted to force her eyes open immediately. She wanted to summon her wand and blast every single one of these annoying, weeping girls straight through the hospital walls.
But in the end.
Her tightly strung, agonizingly taut nerves slowly, traitorously relaxed under the light, continuous caress of Ginny's cool little hand.
Trapped amidst the physical torture of her illness and a completely foreign, deeply anxiety-inducing sense of peaceful warmth...
This peerless Dark Lord finally sank into a deeply humiliated, heavy sleep.
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