Chapter 160: Tears
Of course, a thousand-year-old Basilisk cared nothing for the prestige of winning Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award five times in a row.
The massive serpent's tail whipped through the damp air with the force of a battering ram. Gilderoy Lockhart's magnificent plum-purple robes traced a perfect, dramatic parabola across the gloom before the hero professor slammed violently against the Chamber of Secrets' freezing stone wall.
He hung there for a singular, pathetic second, draped over the damp masonry like a discarded rag, before sliding limply into the muck. He was out cold before he even hit the ground.
Ron, who had been violently shoved out of the impact zone, tumbled backward into a stagnant puddle. He came up sputtering, soaked to the bone, but entirely intact.
"Professor!" Ron's voice cracked, echoing off the cavernous ceiling in sheer disbelief.
Lockhart had pushed him. Lockhart had saved him.
This absolute fraud of a wizard, a man who had spent his entire pathetic existence lying, stealing memories, and plagiarizing the bravery of others, had chosen this exact moment—when his own mind had been scrambled into a brainwashed pudding—to finally act the part of a true hero.
The Basilisk, a creature not exactly known for its towering intellect even on a good day, was completely disoriented by the sudden appearance of this shrieking, purple-clad distraction. Its massive, diamond-shaped head, which had been mere inches from snapping Ron in half, jerked sharply mid-air. Blind instinct drove it to chase the flying target.
But its colossal body, dozens of feet of armored scales and pure muscle, was already receiving conflicting, chaotic signals from the fractured soul commanding it. The sudden, violent pivot of its head, combined with the sheer inertia of its massive bulk, caused a catastrophic physical error. Its snout met its own tail. The great beast spun out of control on the slick stone, thrashing wildly until it managed to tie its own lower half into a massive, inescapable knot.
"Hiss—!!!"
Dizzy, confused, and thoroughly humiliated, the ancient terror of Slytherin instantly erupted into a blind frenzy. The beast let out a deafening, frustrated screech that rattled the very foundations of the Chamber. Its trapped body thrashed violently against the floor, cracking stone and kicking up blinding clouds of ancient dust and shattered debris. The giant tail whipped aimlessly through the shadows, turning the cavern into a death trap.
The entire Chamber of Secrets descended into absolute chaos.
'Now.'
A sharp, predatory light ignited in Tamara's eyes. She didn't spare a single glance for Lockhart's crumpled form. She couldn't care less about Harry and Ron scrambling through the debris to avoid the crushing weight of the serpent.
She moved.
Draco stood frozen in her path, his pale face locked in terror. Tamara didn't even slow down. She drove her shoulder into him, roughly shoving the useless Malfoy heir into the muck, and darted forward. Under the heavy cover of the swirling stone dust, she tore across the cavern like a bolt of black lightning, sliding to a halt at the base of Salazar Slytherin's towering monument.
Ginny Weasley lay exactly where she had fallen.
The dense, suffocating black mist shrouding the girl's small body had grown erratic. The Basilisk's sudden distress was feeding back into the Horcrux, causing the dark energy to churn and boil violently around her pale skin.
'It's over, you pathetic little parasite,' Tamara sneered internally.
She dropped to one knee in the freezing, ankle-deep water. There was no gentle bedside manner, no comforting touch. Tamara grabbed Ginny by the jaw, her grip bruising and absolute. Her slender fingers dug mercilessly into the girl's cheeks, forcing the unconscious Gryffindor's mouth wide open.
With her free hand, Tamara snatched the crystal vial from her robes. The dark green potion inside sloshed, thick and vile.
"Get... out." Tamara's voice was a venomous whisper, her eyes devoid of anything resembling human warmth.
She tipped the vial, pouring the violently corrosive, soul-tearing concoction directly down the girl's throat.
"Hiss—!!!"
The absolute second the viscous liquid coated Ginny's throat, the black mist clinging to her flesh let out an ear-piercing, unearthly shriek.
It knew.
The remnant soul recognized the agonizing burn of a poison crafted specifically to sever its parasitic roots from the host's physical body. If it didn't fight back right this second, it would be violently ripped from the girl and left to dissolve into nothingness.
Pure, unfiltered survival instinct drove the fractured piece of Tom Riddle's soul into absolute madness.
It instantly severed its telepathic link with the thrashing Basilisk. It dragged every single ounce of its remaining power, every drop of its ancient malice, and compressed it entirely into Ginny's frail form.
It had to kill the threat. Now.
Tamara had barely begun to shift her weight to stand when Ginny—who had looked like a cold corpse a second prior—snapped her eyes open.
There was no white left in them. No iris. Just an endless, suffocating, pitch-black void.
An impossible, inhuman strength exploded from the small girl's limbs. Before Tamara could even blink, Ginny lunged upward, slamming her full weight into Tamara's chest and pinning her flat against the flooded floor.
The back of Tamara's head cracked brutally against the unforgiving stone. Her vision exploded into a shower of white sparks.
An instant later, a pair of ice-cold, unnaturally strong hands clamped around her throat.
"Die... just die..."
The voice tearing out of Ginny's throat was a horrific, layered rasp—two souls speaking as one. The remnant soul spat venomous curses as those small hands tightened like a steel vise. Ginny's fingernails dug deep, piercing Tamara's skin, drawing beads of dark blood.
But the physical strangulation was the least of her problems.
When two souls born from the exact same origin—two fragments of Lord Voldemort—clashed with such violent, murderous intent at point-blank range, the magical backlash was instantaneous and catastrophic.
A surge of dark magic erupted between them. Tamara's throat felt as though it had been doused in Fiendfyre. The agony didn't just scorch her flesh; it seared straight through her veins, burning directly into the core of her soul.
Beneath Ginny's tightening grip, Tamara's pale skin rapidly blistered. Eerie, charred black veins spiderwebbed outward from her neck, crawling up her jawline as if she were being consumed by an invisible, demonic flame.
"Ugh..."
Tamara's jaw locked open in a silent, agonizing scream. Her lungs burned for air that wouldn't come. She threw her hands up, grabbing Ginny's wrists, trying to pry the girl off. But the heavy aftereffects of the complex potion she had brewed the night before had left her physical shell drained. Her limbs felt like lead.
Ginny was an immovable iron statue, her weight pressing down with supernatural force.
The crushing pressure on Tamara's windpipe intensified. The edges of her vision began to bleed into blackness.
The cold, mocking shadow of death once again draped itself over the former Dark Lord.
[Warning! Warning!]
[Detected host vital signs dropping rapidly! Near-death alert!]
The System's perpetually perky, patronizing voice had vanished. In its place was a sterile, frantic, mechanical alarm ringing directly inside her skull.
[Emergency protocol initiated... Virtue restrictions lifted... Black Magic permissions opened...]
[Allowing host to use all means for self-preservation! Repeat! Allowing host to use all means for self-preservation!]
In that singular, breathless fraction of a second.
Tamara felt the massive, suffocating dam inside her shatter. The vast reservoir of dark magic that the System had kept locked away flooded her veins like a tidal wave.
Killing intent.
Pure, unadulterated, violent killing intent washed away the pain, filling her mind with absolute clarity.
'This damn remnant soul.''This reckless, pathetic little vessel.''How dare it push Lord Voldemort to this point?!'
Tamara's fingers twitched against the flooded stone. She didn't even need a wand. With the System's chains shattered by her near-death state, she could channel this explosive surge of raw magic to simply crush Ginny Weasley's heart inside her chest. Or better yet, end it instantly with a silent, wandless Killing Curse.
She felt absolutely nothing for Ginny Weasley's life.
She cared only for her own survival.
The moment she pushed that magic outward, this fragile little shell would die, and the annoying remnant soul would be dragged into the void with it.
'Avada...'
Lethal, crackling magic condensed at the tips of Tamara's fingers. The air around her hand warped, ready to erupt into that beautiful, fatal flash of green light.
However.
At the absolute precipice of life and death.
A single drop of warm liquid fell from the shadows above.
It cut straight through the suffocating aura of killing intent radiating from Tamara's body. It landed precisely on Tamara's cheekbone, sliding down the pale skin, and slipped directly into the corner of her eye.
Stinging.
That was the very first sensation that registered in Tamara's mind. A sharp, hot sting.
It was a tear. A clear, scalding tear falling from Ginny's terrifying, pitch-black eyes.
The drop of saltwater burned against Tamara's eye, bringing a sudden, jarring ache that shattered her absolute focus.
Tamara froze. The lethal incantation hovering on her tongue caught in her throat. The green spark at her fingertips flickered and stalled.
She blinked, trying to clear her blurring vision.
Ginny, still straddling her chest, still pinning her down with the strength of a demon, was crying. Thick, heavy tears poured endlessly from those void-like eyes, eyes that still radiated an overwhelming desire to murder.
The tears carved clean tracks through the grime and stone dust coating the girl's face, falling in a steady, rhythmic patter against Tamara's skin.
And then, cutting through the raspy, venomous hisses of the Horcrux, a tiny, fractured voice drifted out. It was impossibly faint, trembling like a dying candle flame in a hurricane.
"I'm sorry..."
This foolish, pathetic Gryffindor girl.
At this exact moment—when her physical body was entirely hijacked, when her very soul was being violently ripped apart by dark magic, when her hands were locked in a lethal kill command—she had somehow, through sheer, stubborn willpower, clawed back a microscopic sliver of her own consciousness.
Ginny stared down in absolute horror at her own hands, watching them crush Tamara's throat. Her tears flowed like a broken dam, her small shoulders shaking violently as she forced out a broken, desperate plea.
"Please... hit me with a spell..."
The girl's voice cracked, thick with terror and self-loathing.
"I don't want to become... a monster that even you find disgusting..."
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