Chapter 153: Compromise
Harry had no idea that his pain signals were being actively hijacked by the system.
He only knew that his heart was hammering against his ribs, beating so violently it threatened to leap straight out of his throat. The sensation was overwhelmingly intense. It felt as though an invisible, hooked thread had snagged directly onto his soul, dragging him relentlessly toward a specific, unknown corner of the castle.
'Something... is calling me...'
The thought surfaced in his mind without warning. It defied all logic, yet the intuition was so overpowering it left no room for resistance. He cast a quick glance at Ron, who was snoring heavily into his pillow, completely oblivious to the world. Without wasting another second, Harry threw off his blankets, snatched his Invisibility Cloak from his trunk, and slipped out of the Gryffindor dormitory.
Guided by that relentless, thrumming pull in his chest, he sprinted through the dark corridors, taking the shifting staircases two at a time until he reached the eighth floor. Harry skidded to a halt before a familiar stretch of blank wall, directly opposite the woven portrait of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to teach trolls ballet.
A jagged crack suddenly materialized in the solid stone.
A brass doorknob twisted from the inside.
An instant later, a heavy oak door formed entirely out of thin air. It scraped against the flagstones, being pushed open just a fraction from the inside by someone clearly struggling with the weight.
A thick, cloying scent, a sharp mixture of burnt sugar and raw, metallic copper, spilled out into the corridor, hitting Harry so hard he staggered back a step.
The very next second, a fever-hot body tumbled through the narrow gap, collapsing forward as if all the bones holding it together had suddenly vanished.
"...Damn it."
The curse was a barely audible, ragged breath. The dark figure swayed, gravity pulling them down toward the freezing stone floor.
Harry lunged forward on pure instinct, his hands reaching out to catch the falling student.
Then, the moonlight caught her face. He froze.
Tamara Riddle clung weakly to the heavy wooden doorframe, her knuckles white, her entire body wracked with violent, uncontrollable tremors. Her long black hair, usually styled with immaculate, intimidating perfection, was plastered to her pale cheeks by a thick layer of cold sweat. Her dark eyes, which typically observed the world with a chilling, mocking superiority, were now glazed over, swimming with the hazy, unfocused sheen of a severe fever.
She dragged herself forward, her chest heaving with desperate, rattling gasps, looking for all the world like someone drowning on dry land.
When her hazy vision finally locked onto Harry Potter, a flash of pure, unadulterated murder pierced through the feverish fog in her eyes.
"Get out..."
She tried to scream the command, but the words left her throat as a pathetic, broken whisper.
Harry's mind spun. The burning sensation in his lightning-bolt scar reached an agonizing peak. He had no time to process why the untouchable, arrogant Tamara Riddle was reduced to this shivering mess; his body moved long before his brain could catch up. He let the Invisibility Cloak drop to the floor, closed the distance in a single stride, and dropped to one knee, reaching out to support her weight.
"Tamara! What's wrong with you?! Were you hurt in the Forbidden Forest?"
The instant Harry's fingertips brushed against the fabric of her shoulder.
A sharp, crackling sizzle snapped through the air.
A violent collision of souls.
For Tamara, whose physical form was already pushed to the absolute brink by the system's relentless electric punishments, this sudden contact was catastrophic. Even with the system filtering a portion of the agony, the raw, searing shock of his soul brushing hers was entirely unbearable.
"Don't touch me!!"
Pure physiological revulsion and blinding agony tore through her. She convulsed, drawing on the absolute last dregs of her strength to violently slap his hand away.
"Get out... don't touch me with your dirty hands... get out!"
She curled in on herself, panting raggedly against the stone wall, glaring at him with the ferocity of a cornered, wounded beast.
Harry's hand hovered in the empty air.
The phantom heat of her skin still burned against his fingertips. Yet, the moment she shoved him away, the searing pain in his scar vanished, replaced by a bizarre, hollow sense of loss. A strange, heavy emotion swelled in his chest, something he could not quite put into words.
Under normal circumstances, Harry would have flared up in anger at being called dirty.
But now...
He just looked at her. He watched this girl who could not even sit up straight, yet still bit down on her own lip until it bled, desperately using that venomous glare to shield her last remaining shred of dignity.
She refused to let anyone see her weak.
Especially not him.
Harry sensed a deep, confusing contradiction. Tamara was always cold, always armed with a razor-sharp tongue, but her attitude toward him was entirely different from how she treated the rest of the school. She had thrown herself in front of danger to protect him, that was real. But the sheer, visceral disgust in her eyes right now, that looked just as real.
This extreme duality left his head spinning. How could someone stand before him like a living Patronus one day, and the next, look at him as if his mere presence was a vile desecration?
Was this just some twisted, aristocratic Slytherin pride, or was this hatred reserved exclusively for him? Did she feel compelled to wrap every single act of kindness in a shell of jagged thorns?
Then, a memory surfaced. He recalled a conversation in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione's voice analyzing Tamara's impossible personality.
'Although Tamara despises people showing her unearned kindness, she doesn't seem to mind when people acknowledge her authority and competence.''As long as you frame it as a repayment of a debt, or professional admiration, rather than sticky, emotional attachment... she usually accepts it. Reluctantly.'
Harry looked at the trembling girl on the floor. If he offered her an ounce of pity right now, he was absolutely certain Tamara would use her dying breath to hit him with a terrible curse.
He took a slow, deep breath, forcing the chaotic swirl of emotions in his chest down into a tight box. He pulled his hand back completely, wiping the anxious concern from his face and replacing it with a mask of rigid, forced indifference.
"I didn't come here because I pity you, Riddle."
He spoke the words stiffly, deliberately using her surname to carve a sharp line of distance between them.
Tamara's ragged breathing hitched. Her fever-bright eyes narrowed, the raw anger shifting into something calculating.
"This is a transaction."
Harry stood up to his full height, looking down at her, doing his absolute best to mimic the cold, shrewd tone of a pureblood Slytherin negotiating a contract.
"You saved Ron and me in the Forbidden Forest. I refuse to owe anyone a life debt, especially not a Slytherin."
"So, I will help you this one time, and our ledgers will be completely clear. We'll be even."
Tamara stared up at him. Five agonizing seconds ticked by in total silence.
She was evaluating him. Her dark, calculating mind was working through the haze of system-induced pain, trying to determine if this Gryffindor idiot was putting on a pathetic act or if he had finally grown a brain.
Regardless of his true motives, the framing worked. The sheer irritation burning in her chest cooled just a fraction. At the very least, he wasn't looking at her like a pathetic, stray dog anymore.
Behind her, inside the hidden room, a cauldron emitted a sudden, violent hiss, the bubbling turning dangerously frantic. If she didn't intervene immediately, the highly volatile potion she had spent hours brewing, a concoction perfectly capable of saving a life or ending one, would boil over into a toxic disaster.
She could not even lift a single finger.
Cruel reality forced the Dark Lord to bow her head.
"...Heh."
Tamara let her eyes slide shut. A weak, heavily nasal scoff escaped her lips, dripping with her signature disdain.
"A transaction... Are you even worthy of one?"
The words were still laced with venom, but the rigid tension in her shoulders finally gave way. She slumped against the doorframe, offering a silent, grudging acceptance of his terms.
With agonizing effort, she tilted her chin up, gesturing weakly toward the violently hissing cauldron inside the room. Her voice was a ruined, hoarse rasp.
"Since it is a repayment... then shut your mouth and stop babbling."
"Pour that potion... into... the crystal vials on the top shelf."
She forced her eyes open one last time. She locked her watery, feverish gaze onto Harry, the sheer hostility in her stare cutting right through her physical frailty. She bared her teeth, squeezing out a final, vicious threat.
"If you dare spill a single drop... I will transfigure you into a toad... and stuff you into one of those specimen jars with the dead frogs in Snape's office."
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