Chapter 154: Operation
Though Tamara's threat lacked its usual physical venom, every syllable seemed to grind through her teeth, dripping with a chilling, unmistakable dread.
Harry swallowed hard. A cold sweat broke out across his neck. He had absolutely no doubt that if he had actually managed to knock over that simmering cauldron, Tamara would have used her dying breath to hurl him off the Astronomy Tower, leaving his corpse to weather the highland winds for eternity.
"Don't worry, Riddle," Harry muttered, taking a deep, steadying breath.
He rolled up his sleeves, his hands trembling slightly before he forced them still, and carefully picked up the long-handled brass ladle. His movements were agonizingly gentle. He treated the bubbling concoction like volatile explosive, terrified of splashing even a single drop of the precious, iridescent liquid.
Meanwhile, Tamara leaned heavily against the cold stone doorframe, watching his every move with dead, calculating eyes. The disgusting high fever had receded slightly, but the aftermath left her body feeling hollowed out. Her muscles ached, and her bones felt as though they had been melted down to lead.
Watching the foolish savior—a boy who usually only excelled at flying wildly on a broomstick—now laboring for her as obediently as a subservient House-elf, Tamara felt not a shred of dark triumph. Instead, an unmatched wave of sickening self-loathing washed over her.
It was humiliating.
It was an absolute disgrace to the Dark Lord's terrifying reputation. She had actually lost her composure in front of this idiot? She had been reduced to relying on petty, desperate threats just to cover up her own physical incompetence?
It must be this damned body... Tamara cursed viciously in her mind.
Since her rebirth, her emotions had become an uncontrollable, bucking hippogriff. She was increasingly sensitive, irritable, and absurdly preoccupied with saving face. This bizarre emotional turbulence was slowly eroding the absolute, icy rationality she prided herself on. Tamara strongly suspected that the accursed System was secretly tampering with her neurochemistry.
It wasn't as if she hadn't lived through this age before. In her previous life, even during the most hormonally restless years of adolescence, she had been infinitely calmer than her pathetic peers. Impulsiveness? Such useless, trivial emotions were locked away in the deepest, darkest vaults of her mind, suffocated by pure ambition.
Back then, she was the perfect Tom Riddle. The model student in the eyes of every Hogwarts Professor—elegant, modest, brilliantly reserved. She could pour tea for a Professor, flashing the most charming, innocent smile, while simultaneously calculating the precise magical vectors required to murder them and turn their soul into a Horcrux.
Well, except for that meddlesome old fool, Dumbledore.
Only beneath the piercing weight of those half-moon spectacles—eyes that seemed to slice straight through her charming facade—would she occasionally let her mask slip, revealing a microscopic twitch of annoyance and disgust. But even then, she had never felt this utterly out of control.
This was definitely not normal.
Damn this body... making me as impulsive and volatile as a brainless Gryffindor.
Tamara closed her eyes, violently crushing the irritating spike of emotion. When her lashes fluttered open again, her gaze had returned to a pool of dead, stagnant water. Regardless of her wounded pride, the potion was brewed. As long as that parasitic remnant soul was stripped away from the Weasley girl, she could finally wash her hands of this entire miserable ordeal.
I must rid myself of this pathetic, vulnerable state as soon as possible.
A sharp clink of glass broke the silence. Harry firmly pressed the stopper into the crystal vial and let out a long, heavy exhale.
"All done, Tamara." He turned around, holding the vial of thick, swirling potion up to the dim light. A tentative, relieved smile touched his lips. "Not a single drop spilled. Now... do you need me to help you walk back?"
Tamara's gaze swept over him with glacial indifference. She had recovered a fraction of her strength; though her legs still felt like jelly, she refused to be propped up like an invalid.
"No need," she flatly rejected, snatching the vial from his hand.
Seeing her turn her back, Harry took a step forward. "When are you planning to administer the potion to Ginny? Do you need Ron and me to help hold her down? If her condition is really as serious as you said, she might fight back..."
"Do not think so highly of yourself, Potter."
Tamara stopped dead. She slowly turned her head, fixing him with a stare so devoid of warmth it physically pushed him back.
"This is Slytherin business. You have no place interfering."
She would absolutely never allow Harry Potter to witness her violently forcing a dark alchemical brew down a first-year's throat to exorcise a demonic parasite. Nor did she have any intention of explaining that the 'demon' was actually a fragment of her own past soul. That was her darkest secret.
"Your task is over. Our transaction is complete." Tamara lifted her chin, her haughty, queenly demeanor snapping flawlessly back into place. "Take your little Invisibility Cloak and scurry back to your lion's den. Do not make me repeat myself."
With a sharp swish of her robes, she turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving Harry staring at her resolute, solitary silhouette.
Harry stood rooted to the spot, blinking at the harsh dismissal. Yet, instead of flaring up in anger, a helpless, wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Still so awkward..." he muttered to the empty corridor. He sighed, pulling the silvery fabric of the Invisibility Cloak tightly around his shoulders, and faded into the darkness. But at least I helped her this time. Overall... it's a good thing, right?
High up in Gryffindor Tower, the dormitory was pitch black.
As Harry tiptoed through the door, a pungent, clinging odor drifted in with him. The scent was highly distinct—a nauseatingly sweet fishiness layered over the cold, damp stench of rotting earth. It was the unmistakable, lingering aura of the Soul Separation Potion.
"Mmph... Harry?"
Ron mumbled from the adjacent four-poster bed. The foul smell had pierced his sleep. He sat up, groggily rubbing his eyes. "Mate... did you fall into Snape's cauldron? Why do you smell like a rotting bog?"
Harry froze, his heart skipping a beat. He hurriedly shoved the Invisibility Cloak deep into his trunk and slammed the lid shut.
"It's nothing," he mumbled vaguely, burying his face into his pillow to muffle his voice. "I was just... practicing some spells late. Might have used a bit too much Slug-Repelling Gel."
He knew Tamara would kill him if anyone else found out. This was their secret.
"Oh... alright then. Wash up and go to sleep..." Ron grunted, rolling over and instantly resuming his loud snoring.
Harry let out a long, shaky breath. He was far too exhausted to care about hygiene. Ignoring the pungent potion steam clinging to his pajamas, he collapsed onto his mattress and let the darkness claim him.
But the scent remained. It seeped from his clothes, curling through the air, drifting out from beneath the dormitory door, and slowly descending the spiral staircase into the Common Room.
A few hours later.
The first pale rays of morning sunlight pierced the tall windows of the Gryffindor Common Room, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. Ginny Weasley was already awake.
She stood by the hearth, happily holding two slices of freshly toasted bread and a jar of spiced beef paste. She was excitedly preparing a hearty sandwich for her senior, Tamara. Despite the older girl's incredibly sharp tongue, Ginny firmly believed she was someone who desperately needed to be cared for.
"I have to make sure she finishes every bite today..." Ginny hummed a cheerful little tune as she skipped across the woven rugs of the Common Room.
Suddenly, her footsteps stuttered to a halt.
A faint, almost imperceptible scent drifted past her nose. To a normal human, it was just a foul odor. But to the dark, parasitic entity lurking deep within her soul, it was a scent that triggered pure, unadulterated terror.
It was the scent of a deadly poison engineered specifically to target the soul.
It was the scent of a predator.
"What is this..." Ginny murmured.
Her pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks. In the span of a heartbeat, the warm, bright brown of her eyes frosted over, turning hollow, icy, and utterly dead.
The remnant soul of the diary, which had been peacefully slumbering inside her consciousness, violently jolted awake. It had smelled the unmistakable stench of death. Someone had successfully brewed a concoction capable of killing it! This potion, radiating such specific, concentrated malice, was absolutely designed to violently strip its soul from this perfect, pliable vessel and obliterate it into nothingness!
Who... who is trying to kill me?!
The remnant soul shrieked within the void of her mind, sensing an unmatched, existential threat. It could not just sit here and wait for execution. It had to act immediately! Before whoever brewed that terrifying concoction could find them and force it down this vessel's throat, it had to completely finalize the resurrection ritual!
The toast and the jar of beef paste slipped from Ginny's hands, shattering against the stone floor. The sharp edge of the butter knife sliced deeply across her palm as it fell, welling with bright red blood.
But the girl showed absolutely no reaction. Not a flinch. Not a gasp.
Her body, now completely hijacked by the dark entity, pivoted with stiff, unnatural speed. Leaving the ruined breakfast behind, she marched out of the portrait hole, her rapid footsteps echoing toward the second-floor girls' bathroom.
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