Chapter 194: Marauder's Map
Early morning light barely penetrated the depths of the Slytherin Dungeons.
Tamara woke to a familiar, suffocating weight pressing down on her lungs. Her brow furrowed before her eyes even opened. As expected, the black cat she had begrudgingly named Nagini was sprawled grandly across her chest, vibrating with a deafening, rhythmic purr. The beast's slender tail flicked back and forth, repeatedly brushing against Tamara's chin and leaving a maddening itch in its wake.
'You wretched little beast...'
Tamara's expression darkened into a scowl worthy of the Dark Lord. This feline was driving her to the brink of insanity. Ever since their return from Albania, the creature had developed an eerie, unnatural persistence. It did not matter how many complex brass padlocks she fastened to its cage. It did not matter how many rudimentary locking charms she layered over the metal bars. Somehow, this furry menace always managed to silently bypass her wards in the dead of night, handle the dark dormitory, and crawl directly onto her bed. It stuck to her like cursed toffee.
For a highly paranoid Dark Lord accustomed to sleeping with one eye open, having a living creature bypass her defenses and pin her down during her most vulnerable hours was pure psychological torture.
Her lip curled in disgust. She reached out, her fingers ruthlessly pinching the scruff of Nagini's neck, and hoisted the animal off her chest. Suspended in mid-air, the black cat let out a disgruntled yowl. Its four paws flailed uselessly. It stared back at Tamara with wide, foolish yellow eyes, entirely oblivious as to why its master was radiating murderous intent.
"Wipe that idiotic look off your face."
Tamara sneered, tossing the feline unceremoniously toward the foot of the mattress. She had reached her limit. Since physical barriers and basic charms were useless against this furry lockpicker, she would have to escalate. Today, she would make a trip to the Room of Requirement. She would brew an enhanced, highly concentrated batch of the Draught of Living Death. Just a few drops of that potion could put a fully grown African elephant into a coma for a month. She would spike the beast's water bowl with it. That would ensure the damn cat stayed paralyzed in its cage every single night, unable to twitch so much as a single whisker!
Her mind made up, Tamara swiftly finished her morning ablutions. She scooped up the black cat, which was currently attempting to weave affectionately between her ankles, and slipped silently out of the Slytherin Dungeons.
She had a full two hours before Charms class began. Wanting absolutely nothing to do with the irritating chatter of early-rising students, she deliberately selected a convoluted, dusty route that the general populace actively avoided.
Yet, the moment she rounded a sharp corner into an abandoned corridor on the second floor, her peace was shattered.
"Senior Tamara! Good morning!"
The crisp, overly enthusiastic voice echoed sharply against the stone walls, carrying a terrifying level of persistence.
Tamara's boots ground to a dead halt. A muscle in her left eyelid began to twitch uncontrollably. She stared dead ahead at the small, red-haired figure blocking her path.
Ginny Weasley.
The Gryffindor girl was clutching a grease-spotted paper package. A faint shimmer indicated a freshly cast Warming Charm, and the heavy, savory aroma of roasted beef and melted cheese wafted through the drafty hall.
"Senior, this is a meat pie my mother baked just for you! I just ran down from the Owlery to get it, and it is still piping hot! You absolutely have to try it!"
Ginny bounded forward, her brown eyes shining with the manic devotion of a starving puppy spotting a fresh bone.
A cold sweat prickled the back of Tamara's neck. This was the fourth time this week! Hogwarts Castle was a massive, shifting labyrinth. The staircases moved, the doors vanished, and even the resident ghosts frequently lost their way. Tamara had made a completely spontaneous decision to take this specific, obscure shortcut just three minutes ago—a path most upper-year students did not even know existed.
So how in Salazar's name did this blood-traitor Gryffindor manage to intercept her with such terrifying precision? Did the girl possess X-ray vision?!
"I am not hungry."
Tamara maintained a mask of icy indifference. She did not break her stride, simply sidestepping the younger girl and marching briskly toward the marble staircase. Her fingers twitched with the urge to draw her wand, but she suppressed it. She just needed to reach the Room of Requirement and brew her feline-paralysis potion. Getting entangled with a Weasley was the last thing she wanted.
"That is perfectly fine! I can carry it for you, and you can eat it whenever you feel like it!"
Ginny was utterly undeterred. Like a relentlessly loyal shadow, she fell into step right behind Tamara, her short legs moving quickly to keep pace.
Annoyance flared hot in Tamara's chest. She quickened her pace, her long strides forcing her into a near-jog as she handled through three consecutive winding corridors. The sound of Ginny's pattering footsteps echoed right behind her.
As Tamara whipped around a dusty corner housing the Statue of the One-Eyed Witch, her patience snapped. She reached into her robes, fully prepared to hit the Weasley girl with a Confundo just to shake her off.
Instead, she slammed shoulder-first into a solid wall of human bodies.
"Watch it!"
Tamara stumbled backward, clutching the black cat tightly to her chest. She had collided head-on with Fred and George Weasley, who had been huddled together in the shadows, sneakily pouring over a piece of parchment.
"Who is walking around without their eyes open—oh!" George rubbed his bruised shoulder, fully prepared to unleash a string of curses. But the moment he looked up and recognized Tamara's pale, furious face, his scowl instantly melted into a massive, cheeky grin.
"Good morning, Dark Queen of Slytherin!" Fred chimed in. He casually scooped up the yellowed piece of parchment they had dropped during the collision and waved it in the air. "What is the rush? You can stop running. We are the ones who told little Ginny to intercept you in that corridor."
"She begged us for ages to help her deliver your breakfast," George added, leaning against the stone wall. "Said she simply had to give you a proper surprise."
Tamara slowly rubbed her aching shoulder. Her brow furrowed into a deep, dangerous V. Her keen, predatory gaze completely bypassed the twins' highly punchable, grinning faces and locked directly onto the seemingly ordinary scrap of parchment in Fred's hand.
"You told Ginny to intercept me?" Tamara's voice dropped to a freezing whisper. Her dark eyes glinted with a chilling, analytical intensity. "How exactly did you know I would take that specific path?"
Despite the heavy, oppressive aura radiating from the disguised Dark Lord, the twins did not flinch. Instead, they exchanged a knowing glance and flashed identical, smugly mysterious smiles.
Ever since the incident where they witnessed her plant someone head-first into the snow, followed by her delightfully dark, late-night speech down by the Black Lake, these chaos-loving Gryffindors had developed a bizarre sense of kinship with her. In their twisted minds, Tamara might wear the green and silver of Slytherin, but she was undeniably a hidden grandmaster of pranks.
"This right here is our absolute top secret," Fred whispered conspiratorially, ostentatiously spreading the folded parchment out in front of Tamara. "But since you are a fellow troublemaker we officially acknowledge, there is no harm in letting you in on the joke."
George drew his wand from his pocket. He tapped the center of the blank parchment lightly, his expression shifting into one of mock solemnity as if performing a sacred ritual.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
The very moment the words left his lips, the magic took hold.
Thin, spidery lines of black ink erupted from the tip of his wand. The ink spread rapidly across the previously blank surface, branching out like living veins to sketch a painstakingly detailed floor plan of every single level, tower, and hidden corner of Hogwarts Castle. And there, drifting between those complex architectural lines, were hundreds of tiny ink dots. Each dot was neatly labeled with a name, moving in real-time across the parchment.
Tamara's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. The mystery of Ginny's terrifying tracking abilities was instantly solved.
With the vast, ancient knowledge of a Dark Lord, she pierced through the underlying magical logic of the artifact in mere seconds.
'The Homonculous Charm...'she analyzed silently, her mind working at lightning speed.'Brilliantly anchored into the foundational magical defense arrays of Hogwarts itself.'
She mentally deconstructed the spell matrices woven into the paper. This map could bypass Polyjuice Potion. It could pierce through Invisibility Cloaks. It directly locked onto the true, unalterable signature of a wizard's soul.
While it was not some apocalyptic, world-destroying branch of forbidden Dark Arts, the creator's grasp of intelligence gathering and tactical surveillance was nothing short of genius.
"Well? What do you think? Brilliant, right?" Fred lifted his chin, practically glowing with pride. "With this little beauty, there is no place in Hogwarts we cannot sneak into, and absolutely no one we cannot find!"
Tamara stared down at the map. A sharp, predatory glint of pure greed flashed through her dark eyes.
If she possessed this artifact, she could perfectly map out Albus Dumbledore's daily movements. She could effortlessly bypass every single one of the old fox's eyes and ears. She could slip into any dormitory in the dead of night, completely undetected, and slit her enemies' throats while they slept.
And yet, these two monumental idiots were using a tactical masterpiece of this caliber to pull schoolyard pranks and coordinate sandwich deliveries?
'What an absolute, unforgivable waste of resources!' she raged internally.
Tamara was just beginning to memorize the visible magical circuits etched into the parchment, her mind already spinning a web of manipulation to swindle this priceless treasure away from the Weasley twins.
But before she could enact her plan, Fred's gaze swept casually over the map. He suddenly blinked, pointing a freckled finger at a tiny ink dot hovering directly next to the label reading 'Tamara Riddle'. He let out a soft sound of confusion.
"Speaking of which, Tamara..." Fred looked up, his expression shifting into one of mild bewilderment as he stared at the black cat currently squirming in her arms. "Did you rename your pet?"
"What?" Tamara snapped, her brow furrowing.
"Back on the Hogwarts Express, did you not tell us her name was Nagini?" Fred asked.
George leaned in closer, squinting at the tiny dot on the parchment before letting out a snort of amusement. "You actually named your cat... Bella?"
"Seriously, that is not exactly a common pet name," Fred chuckled, shaking his head. "If it were Bellatrix, I would honestly start to suspect you were a secret fan of that crazy Death Eater woman!"
Tamara froze. A jolt of icy electricity shot straight through her veins.
Frowning deeply, she followed the direction of the twins' pointing fingers, her dark eyes locking onto the surface of the Marauder's Map.
There, on the worn, yellowed parchment.
Hovering right beside the small ink dot labeled 'Tamara Riddle'.
Directly above the secondary ink dot representing the squirming black cat currently held against her chest.
Clearly and unmistakably, a line of elegant, looping cursive script spelled out a name—
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