Chapter 196: Past Resentments
Deep within the Slytherin dungeons, the girls' dormitory bathroom was suffocatingly quiet.
Tamara stood rigidly before the glass mirror, her face a mask of absolute freezing calm. Cold lake water rushed from the brass faucet, violently splashing against the porcelain sink and dampening the edges of her sleeves.
She roughly yanked her collar down. Her dark, unblinking gaze locked onto the reflection of her neck and collarbone—skin that ought to have been flawlessly pale and smooth. Instead, several glaring red welts and fine, stinging scratches marred the surface. They sat there in an absurd, mocking fashion, loudly proclaiming the humiliating reality that the Dark Lord had just been assaulted by a deranged feline.
"Lunatic."
Tamara squeezed the word through her teeth. Her pitch-black eyes churned with a killing intent so dense it practically sucked the light from the damp room.
She snatched the holly wand from her pocket, jabbing the tip hard against her own collarbone.
"Episkey."
"Scourgify."
Magic washed over her skin in a sharp, clinical wave. The angry red marks left by those barbed claws instantly receded, her flesh knitting back together to restore its usual porcelain perfection. Accompanying the physical healing, the lingering scent belonging to Bella was ruthlessly scrubbed away by the powerful Scouring Charm.
Yet, while physical traces could be erased with a flick of the wrist, the trampling of the Dark Lord's dignity was not something a few simple spells could pacify.
Tamara reached out and twisted the faucet shut. The sudden silence in the bathroom was deafening. She braced both hands heavily against the edge of the sink, leaning forward until her forehead nearly touched the cold glass of the mirror, and drew in a long, slow breath.
The white-hot fury boiling in her skull began to cool, giving way to razor-sharp reason.
After that utterly absurd farce, she had not only confirmed the true identity of that stupid cat, but she had also unearthed a massive, festering hidden danger.
Peter Pettigrew.
That pathetic coward missing a finger. That spineless scum who would eagerly sell out his closest friends just to buy another day of breathing, reducing himself to a rat to cower in the Weasley household for twelve miserable years.
'A traitor's bones are always soft,' Tamara sneered inwardly.
Since Peter could so easily betray Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, he would naturally betray her, the Dark Lord, the very second the winds shifted. He would sell her out for a scrap of advantage, or simply to save his own miserable neck.
Even more deadly was the existence of the Marauder's Map.
Those two Gryffindor idiot twins might be blind to the details, treating the artifact like a mere toy for pranks, but that did not guarantee the map would never fall into the hands of someone with an actual brain and a hidden agenda.
If one day Dumbledore, or any of his loyal lapdogs, happened to glance at the parchment and saw the name 'Peter Pettigrew' wandering the halls...
By following the breadcrumbs, Tamara's carefully constructed disguises and flawless angelic persona at Hogwarts could very well have a corner of their iceberg exposed to the light.
This was an absolutely intolerable variable.
'I must get my hands on that map.'
Tamara's mind raced, rapidly finalizing a cold, calculated plan. Securing the map was the only way to thoroughly monitor the movements of Dumbledore and the faculty. More, she wanted to snatch that rat Peter by the tail and squeeze him firmly in her own grip, transforming him into a convenient scapegoat she could toss into the fire whenever the need arose.
But a glaring problem stood in her way. She could not simply track down the Weasley twins and snatch the parchment from their hands.
That blasted Virtue System had already proven it would classify her own Horcrux as someone else's property if she tried to take it back by force. It would undoubtedly unleash a barrage of agonizing electric shocks, reducing her to a twitching, pitifully fragile mess if she dared to steal a map that did not technically belong to her.
'Since I cannot take it myself...'Tamara straightened up, carefully adjusting her restored collar to ensure not a single thread was out of place. A glint of dark calculation flashed through her deep black eyes.'Then I will just have to borrow someone else's blade.'
Half an hour later.
The heavy oak door to the Potions Professor's office received a soft, polite knock.
"Enter."
Snape's gloomy, resonant voice drifted through the thick wood.
Tamara pushed the door open and stepped inside, her posture the very picture of a respectful, diligent student.
The office maintained its usual oppressive atmosphere. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the stone walls, packed tight with glass jars containing grotesque animal specimens suspended in eerie, murky liquids. The air was thick and heavy, saturated with the sharp, acrid scent of wormwood and chemical preservatives.
Snape stood before his wide stone workstation, his back turned to the door. His attention was entirely consumed by the large, bubbling cauldron sitting over a low blue flame. The silver stirring rod in his long fingers moved with agonizing slowness, tracing a rhythmic, counter-clockwise path through the thick liquid.
With every rotation of his wrist, a gas carrying a brutally strong bitterness rose from the surface, accompanied by wisps of eerie blue smoke that curled toward the damp ceiling.
Tamara's footsteps paused just inside the threshold. Her keen sense of smell instantly captured the highly unusual, complex scent cutting through the standard dungeon odors.
She had originally come here to play the innocent snitch, intending to casually guide Snape toward confiscating the Marauder's Map from the twins. But at this exact moment, her gaze was involuntarily dragged toward that bubbling cauldron.
'Aconite... Moongrass... and this highly specific temperature control...'
Tamara narrowed her eyes, her interest genuinely piqued, and took a few silent steps closer.
As a Dark Lord possessing a golden bloodline and an obsessive, extreme pursuit of Potions and Alchemy, she frequently borrowed obscure ancient texts from the Restricted Section. She kept herself carefully updated on the latest high-level potion formulas published across the global Wizarding world.
"Professor."
Staring at the thick liquid glowing with that eerie blue luminescence, Tamara pitched her voice perfectly. She injected just the right amount of academic surprise and polite inquiry to break the heavy silence.
"If I am not mistaken, this appears to be a batch of... Wolfsbane Potion?"
Snape's stirring motion halted mid-rotation.
He turned his head slowly, his dark, hollow eyes fixing on Tamara with a deep, penetrating look. A brief flash of undisguised admiration cut through his usual scowl.
Wolfsbane Potion was an incredibly complex, high-level concoction invented only in recent years. Even N.E.W.T. level upper-year students usually had never even heard the name, let alone seen it brewed. Yet this third-year Slytherin had recognized it at a mere glance, identifying it solely by the ambient scent and the raw ingredients scattered on the table.
"Those eyes of yours that always insist on looking where they shouldn't are actually worthy of your Potions grades, Riddle."
Snape gave a cold, breathy snort. He had no intention of hiding his work from his most exceptional Slytherin student.
He turned fully around, tossing the silver stirring rod into the stone sink with a sharp clatter. When he spoke again, his tone dripped with suppressed, venomous sarcasm.
"Since you have recognized it, you might as well use that prideful intelligence of yours to hazard a guess..."
Snape swept past the workstation, walking behind his heavy wooden desk and lowering himself into his chair. He steepled his fingers, looking coldly at Tamara through the gloom.
"Tell me, Riddle. In this fortress that our great Headmaster Dumbledore endlessly touts as 'absolutely safe'... who exactly might require such an expensive, foul-tasting poison on a strict monthly schedule?"
A knowing, perfectly calculated curve hooked the corner of Tamara's mouth.
"It seems..."
She deliberately dragged out the syllables, speaking slowly and methodically, matching his mocking air with a gentle, innocent cruelty.
"You are truly... full of care and concern... for our newly appointed Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor."
The words seemed to strike a raw, exposed nerve.
Snape's sallow face instantly darkened to an extreme degree. A hint of genuine, ugly distortion twisted his normally expressionless features, his upper lip curling into a sneer.
"Put away your self-proclaimed humorous rhetoric, Riddle."
He leaned forward, the shadows of the dungeon clinging to his black robes.
"If it were not for Dumbledore's blind persistence, I would much rather add a generous handful of Monkshood to the cauldron and personally end that werewolf's miserable existence."
Snape let out a hollow, cold laugh. His tone was laced with a chilling malice and a contempt so deep it seemed to rot the very air between them.
"A beast that cannot even maintain control over its own basic reason is actually permitted to teach children?"
He spat the words out like poison.
"This is simply the greatest insult to Hogwarts. Just like that group of equally arrogant, conceited, and nauseating friends he dragged around with him back then..."
Snape's dark eyes burned with decades of unhealed resentment.
"They are simply a group of thoroughbred scourges."
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