Chapter 150: Quite a Coincidence, Isn't It?
The mist clinging to the deepest reaches of the Forbidden Forest was suffocating, pressing a heavy, damp weight against the twisted bark of the ancient trees. Not a single sliver of starlight pierced the dense canopy above. The stagnant air hung thick with the stench of rotting leaves, slick moss, and a nauseating, metallic fishiness that warned of unseen predators.
For any ordinary Hogwarts student, this was an absolute forbidden zone. A breeding ground for nightmares.
But for Tamara Riddle, this was merely a hunting ground.
A terrifying hiss erupted from the jagged bushes to her right. Instantly, several massive black shadows launched themselves through the air like arrows loosed from a bow, dragging a foul wind behind them.
Three fully grown Acromantulas. They thrashed their bristly, jointed legs, their giant pincers clicking in a frantic rhythm, their bulbous eyes gleaming with a ravenous, ferocious hunger.
Faced with a sudden ambush that would have paralyzed a fully grown wizard with sheer terror, Tamara did not even break her stride. Instead, a contemptuous curve tugged at the corner of her delicate mouth.
"Interesting."
She whispered the word softly. Her holly wand traced an elegant, lethal arc through the darkness.
"Diffindo."
She did not shout the incantation. There were no brilliant, flashy bursts of light. There was only an invisible blade of compressed wind, moving far too fast for the naked eye to track, slicing cleanly through the heavy air.
The lead spider never even had the chance to scream. Its massive, hairy head and the upper half of its thorax slid off its body in a perfectly smooth, diagonal line, falling away like a slab of hot butter. Thick green blood erupted in a geyser, splashing against the surrounding tree trunks with a violent, sizzling hiss as the corrosive fluid ate into the bark.
The remaining two beasts faltered, their frantic charge breaking as the sudden, brutal death of their kin registered in their primitive minds.
That hesitation sealed their fate.
"Incendio."
Tamara gave her wrist a casual, dismissive flick.
A sphere of concentrated fire erupted from her wand. This was no ordinary flame; it burned with a terrifying, white-hot intensity and possessed a sticky, adhesive quality. The fireball slammed directly into the second spider's swollen abdomen, igniting it instantly.
"Hiss—!!!"
The creature let out an ear-piercing shriek, dropping to the forest floor and rolling frantically through the damp dirt in a desperate bid to extinguish the blaze. But the magical fire clung to it like a flesh-eating maggot. In the blink of an eye, the beast was engulfed, transforming into a thrashing, massive fireball that reduced the surrounding underbrush to gray ash.
The final spider finally seemed to comprehend the nature of the monster standing before it. This seemingly fragile, beautiful human girl was a predator of a far higher order. It let out a pathetic, clicking whimper of absolute terror, scrambling backward to flee toward the safety of its dark nest.
"Trying to run?"
Tamara sneered, a glint of dark playfulness flashing in her obsidian eyes.
"Since you went through the trouble of coming all this way, you ought to leave something behind."
"Incarcerous."
Thick, coarse ropes burst from the tip of her wand, twisting through the air as if possessed by a life of their own. They whipped around the fleeing spider, binding its eight thrashing legs tight against its body and hoisting the heavy creature upside down into the canopy.
Tamara strolled forward, her pace unhurried and graceful. Completely ignoring the beast's desperate, violent struggles, she reached into her sleeve and elegantly withdrew a pristine crystal vial and a small, wickedly sharp silver knife.
"Don't move."
She reached up and lightly patted the spider's massive, hairy head, her tone mimicking a teacher scolding a disobedient student.
"It will be over soon."
The silver blade flashed. Precise. Clean. Devoid of any wasted motion.
She excised the venom sac entirely, catching the prize without spilling a single drop of the precious, highly toxic fluid. The suspended spider twitched violently twice, then went completely still.
Tamara squeezed the venom sac, watching the viscous, dark green liquid drip steadily into the crystal vial. As the thick fluid swirled at the bottom of the glass, she gave a satisfied nod.
"That makes three."
She stowed her spoils carefully. A quick, silent Scourgify banished the foul-smelling bloodstains from her pristine gloves. Stepping over the smoking, severed limbs of her prey, she continued her leisurely stroll deeper into the heart of the forest.
This long-lost sensation of unleashing magic recklessly, free from the annoying, patronizing interference of that damnable system, brought Tamara a deep, intoxicating pleasure that surged from the very depths of her soul.
She even found herself humming a light, cheerful little tune.
'A bunch of overgrown insects who do not know the meaning of death...''Did you truly believe that hiding behind the protection of that oaf Hagrid would allow you to rule this forest?''Tonight, I will teach you what it truly means to sit at the absolute pinnacle of the food chain.'
Meanwhile.
On the far side of the Forbidden Forest, deep within a massive hollow choked by layers of thick, gray spiderwebs.
The situation was entirely different.
Harry and Ron had foolishly placed their absolute trust in Hagrid's cryptic parting advice to follow the spiders. Wandering out in the dead of night, draped only in the invisibility cloak, they had stumbled blindly into a forbidden territory that even Albus Dumbledore would not tread upon lightly.
They had come here hoping to find clues to prove Hagrid's innocence. In their sheer, Gryffindor naivety, they had even expected to encounter some misunderstood, friendly magical creature.
They certainly had not expected to wash their own necks and deliver themselves directly onto a monster's dinner plate.
"Get back! Ron! Get back!"
Harry screamed until his throat felt raw. His wand was raised high, emitting a desperate, faint light as he tried to force back the encroaching tide of shadows.
It was utterly useless.
Hundreds, thousands of Acromantulas poured into the hollow. Some were the size of dinner plates, others as massive as horse-drawn carriages. They surged from every direction, crawling over the roots, dropping from the webs, crowding every available inch of the depression.
The sheer volume of the noise was maddening. The relentless, dense clicking of mandibles, the dry rustling of countless hairy legs scraping over withered leaves, it was enough to make a person's scalp crawl with sheer terror.
And resting in the very center of this nightmare swarm lay an ancient, monstrous spider. Aragog.
Though the beast's milky-white, bulbous eyes were blind with age, it could still perfectly track the scent of warm, fresh human meat.
"Friends of Hagrid..."
Aragog's voice was a low, raspy clicking sound, vibrating with a desperate, ancient coldness.
"If Hagrid had come himself, I would naturally have kept my promise... but since you have intruded into our home on your own..."
The massive pincers clacked together.
"My children are hungry."
"They are being slaughtered... I can feel it. A terrible thing is hunting them in the forest tonight... They need to replenish their strength."
"So, I cannot stop them from enjoying the fresh meat that has so willingly delivered itself to our door."
"Kill them."
The moment the command left the ancient spider's mandibles, the surrounding sea of arachnids boiled over in a frenzy.
"Impedimenta!"
Ron sobbed out the incantation, his wand shaking violently. The spell struck the nearest spider, causing it to freeze for a mere fraction of a second.
An instant later, three more spiders vaulted over their paralyzed companion's body, their fangs dripping with venom.
"Stupefy!"
Harry fired Stunning Spells with desperate, frantic speed. Red light flashed brilliantly in the suffocating darkness, blasting back two smaller spiders that had lunged for his ankles.
But it was like trying to empty the Black Lake with a teacup.
There were simply too many.
Far, far too many.
"Harry! We're finished!" Ron wailed, his voice cracking with absolute despair. Down at his feet, Fang had already curled into a tight ball, whimpering once before fainting dead away from the sheer terror of it all.
A spider the size of a large hunting dog vaulted from the shadows to their right, its massive, razor-sharp pincers snapping wide, aiming directly for Ron's exposed neck.
"Expelliarmus!"
Harry spun on his heel. A burst of scarlet light slammed into the leaping beast, blasting it backward into the swarm.
But the violent motion left his own back completely exposed.
Two even larger Acromantulas seized the opening, flanking him from the rear, their hairy legs silent against the forest floor.
Harry turned his head, staring in wide-eyed, paralyzing horror at the hideous, dripping mouthparts descending toward him. His mind went entirely blank.
They had been too stupid. Too naive.
They actually believed they could uncover the truth simply by tracking down Hagrid's old pet. They had completely forgotten that this was the Forbidden Forest, a domain of ancient, lethal magic where even the Headmaster could not guarantee their safety.
High above the chaos, perched upon the thick, sturdy branch of an ancient tree overlooking the hollow.
Tamara stood in perfect silence, looking down at the pathetic commotion unfolding below.
She had just finished clearing out the outer patrol routes in this sector and was preparing to take a brief rest when the chaotic noise drew her attention.
She raised a delicate eyebrow. Her pitch-black eyes peered through the thick layers of leaves, locking onto the very center of the depression, which was now entirely engulfed by the writhing sea of spiders.
Due to the distance and the suffocating darkness, she could not clearly make out the faces of the two fools trapped in the middle.
But the sheer, staggering number of Acromantulas, a black, clicking tide that filled the entire hollow, did manage to provoke a genuine flicker of surprise.
'Just how much venom must be down there...'
Tamara slowly licked her lips, a cold, greedy light igniting in her dark eyes.
She had originally calculated that it would take her the entire night of tedious hunting to gather enough raw material for a single cauldron of potion.
But looking at the scene below...
This was practically a free, all-you-can-eat buffet.
'It seems that blind old spider has called out the entire extended family to deal with some trivial nuisance.''Since they have so graciously gathered in one place, it saves me the agonizing trouble of hunting them down one by one.'
Tamara raised her holly wand, her movements smooth and predatory.
"Diffindo—"
A stray spider crawling up the trunk toward her was instantly sliced in half. Tamara slowly stepped forward, preparing to descend and begin her mass harvest.
Right at that exact, critical moment, that utterly infuriating, overly cheerful electronic voice chimed inside her head.
[Ding—!]
[Emergency Alert! Detected spider swarm ahead—]
'Shut up!'
Tamara snarled viciously in her mind, ruthlessly cutting off the second half of the system's warning.
What did this idiotic piece of magic want now?
Was it about to start its nauseating, hypocritical preaching again? Was it going to try and stop her from slaughtering these highly valuable beasts?
Tamara sneered. The dangerous, crimson glint in her eyes only intensified, burning with a stubborn, rebellious fury.
'Just an hour ago, you were the one righteously judging my actions as ridding the people of an evil.''What? Now that you see so many of them gathered together, your pathetic artificial conscience thinks it is too cruel? Or do you genuinely believe these ugly, venomous beasts deserve my pity?'[Uh... No—]'You want me to stop now? Too late!'
Tamara thrust her wand high into the air, refusing to give the system even a fraction of a second to formulate another sentence.
The suffocating, infuriating feeling of being suppressed, controlled, and shocked by this system for so long suddenly twisted, transforming entirely into a pure, unadulterated desire for mass destruction. She did not even care about carefully collecting the venom anymore. She just wanted to burn something to ash.
"Since you are the one who issued the hunting permit..."
Tamara's voice dropped into a low, chilling whisper, laced with a trace of frantic, dark pleasure.
"Then do not even think about taking it back!"
"Incendio—!"
She swung her wand down with a violent, slashing motion.
A massive, roaring torrent of violent, dark-red flame erupted from the tip of her wand. It carried the suffocating, blistering heat of pure destruction, crashing down from the canopy like a bursting dam. The inferno slammed fiercely into the dense, writhing sea of spiders below.
Watching the raging, unnatural fire instantly carve a brutal path of charred flesh and boiling blood through the swarm, Tamara curled her lips into a stunning, wicked smile.
"Truly a blessing from Merlin." She whispered softly.
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