Chapter 199: Confessing
"Granger."
Tamara's voice clipped through the dead silence of the empty corridor, sharp and precise.
Hermione came to a sudden halt. The towering stack of heavy leather-bound books in her arms wobbled precariously, threatening to spill across the flagstones from the abrupt stop.
She looked up blankly. Her brown eyes—usually so bright and fiercely intelligent—were now heavily bloodshot, highlighted by bruised purple bags of sheer exhaustion.
"...Tamara?"
Hermione's voice scraped out, terribly hoarse. She lacked even the strength to maintain her usual rigid, upright posture. Her pale face barely peeked out from behind the precarious gap in her shifting textbooks.
"You look like you are about to drop dead." Tamara remarked, her tone utterly devoid of sympathy.
Hermione's brow furrowed. She opened her mouth, clearly intending to launch into a defensive argument, but Tamara simply stepped forward and clamped a hand around her wrist.
"Come with me."
It was a command that brooked absolutely no refusal.
Hermione possessed neither the physical strength nor the mental fortitude to struggle. She allowed herself to be half-dragged by Tamara through the winding corridors, all the way up toward the eighth floor.
A few minutes later.
The heavy oak door to the Room of Requirement clicked shut slowly behind them.
Tamara had molded this hidden space into a secluded, luxuriously comfortable study. A warm fire crackled merrily in the ornate stone hearth, casting a golden glow over plush velvet sofas. A faint, refreshing scent of sandalwood incense drifted through the air, designed to clear the mind.
"Sit down." Tamara pointed a slender finger at the nearest sofa.
Hermione practically collapsed into the velvet cushions. Her grip failed, and the massive stack of books scattered across the thick carpet with heavy thuds. She did not even possess the energy to reach down and gather them. Instead, she simply let her head fall back, squeezing her eyes shut as a pathetic groan of pain slipped past her lips.
"So tired..."
Tamara stood over her, looking down at the mudblood who had foolishly squeezed her own limits until she was nothing but a hollowed-out husk. Disdain curled in Tamara's chest. 'Pathetic.'
She reached into the pocket of her tailored robes and withdrew a small crystal vial. Inside sloshed a liquid of perfect, luminescent icy blue.
This was no shoddy, half-baked concoction brewed on a whim like her previous attempts. This was a flawless Invigoration Draught, brewed with careful precision and exact proportions.
"Drink it." Tamara pressed the cold glass against Hermione's chapped lips.
Hermione did not even open her eyes. Driven by a blind, foolish trust in the girl standing over her, she obediently parted her lips and swallowed the freezing liquid in one gulp.
Almost the instant the potion slid down her throat, a shockwave of absolute clarity exploded through Hermione's muddled brain. It felt like plunging headfirst into a glacial lake. The deep-seated, grinding ache in her bones and the suffocating exhaustion—a weariness that felt as though a Dementor had personally sucked her soul dry—vanished into thin air within seconds.
Hermione snapped her eyes open. She stared down at her trembling hands in absolute shock, feeling a sudden surge of boundless energy. She felt as though she could sprint across the grounds and recite the entire History of Magic backward in a single breath.
"Merlin's beard... what potion is this?" Her voice was no longer a raspy croak. "Its effect is a hundred times stronger than Madam Pomfrey's Pepperup Potion!"
"This is something only the clever deserve to enjoy." Tamara sat down gracefully in the armchair opposite her. She crossed her legs, smoothing her robes, and fixed Hermione with a cool, calculating gaze. "But from where I am sitting, you seem to be trying your absolute hardest to turn yourself into a fool."
Hermione's face stiffened. The faint flush of healthy color she had just regained drained away instantly.
"I'm not..." she began, instinctively trying to defend herself. A thick hint of grievance choked her voice.
Tamara let out a soft, contemptuous sneer.
"You have turned yourself into a walking wreck, spinning like a top between every single classroom, every single day."
Tamara leaned back, her dark eyes flashing with deliberate mockery. "And those so-called 'best friends' of yours—" She let the words hang in the air, dripping with poison. "They have not even noticed that you are on the verge of dropping dead from sheer exhaustion."
The moment those words pierced the quiet room, Hermione felt a sharp sting in her nose. Hot tears immediately began to well up in her eyes, blurring her vision.
Tamara was right. It was the ugly truth.
Harry and Ron spent every waking second obsessing over Sirius Black, Quidditch tactics, and the latest sweets smuggled in from Hogsmeade. Not once had either of them asked her why she was suddenly appearing out of thin air in entirely different classrooms. Not once had they cared to notice that she was so tired she was practically breaking apart at the seams.
[Ding—Target's emotions detected to be at a vulnerable low point!]
The sickeningly cheerful, perky electronic voice chimed directly inside Tamara's skull.
[Triggered female-exclusive social passive skill: Bestie's Trust (Novice)!]
'Disgusting.'Tamara cursed coldly in her heart, a wave of visceral revulsion washing over her at the sheer indignity of such terminology.'Bestie. I am the Dark Lord, you wretched machine.'
But outwardly, she did not miss a beat. She perfectly weaponized that twenty percent affinity bonus, blending it flawlessly with Voldemort's own innate, terrifying charisma.
She leaned forward slightly. She masked the cold, calculating indifference in her eyes with a perfectly engineered look of deep focus and gentle patience. She sat in silence, quietly watching the trembling girl opposite her.
"Do you want to... talk to me about it?" Tamara's voice dropped to a soft, soothing murmur. "I think I would be happy to listen to your troubles."
Those gentle words acted as the final strike against Hermione's crumbling defenses, offering an unmatched sense of absolute security. The desperate desire to confide, suppressed and buried deep inside for an entire year, surged upward like a violent flood breaking through a shattered dam.
"Tamara, I don't know if you can understand, but..." Hermione covered her face with both hands. Her voice came out muffled through her fingers, thick with tears and heavy with a crushing weariness. "I often feel like I don't belong here."
She drew a ragged breath. "For most people in this school, magic is an instinct. It is as natural to them as breathing. They are all connected to the wizarding world in some way, through their families, their history... but not me."
"Before I received that letter at eleven years old, I didn't even know this world existed."
Hermione lowered her hands and wiped her reddened eyes fiercely with the back of her wrist.
"In this completely foreign world, I have absolutely nothing to rely on but books and knowledge."
Her voice trembled, thick with raw vulnerability. "Even though no Professor has ever criticized me, and even though I always pretend not to care about the vile insults regarding Muggle-borns... I can't help but think about it."
She looked at Tamara, her brown eyes wide and desperate. "If I can't memorize every single book... if I'm not first in every class... if I fail even one exam..."
Hermione's voice cracked. "Will Hogwarts realize it made a mistake in admitting me?"
"Will they think that I don't deserve to be a witch at all? Or if I fail just once, will they think that... that Muggle-borns just aren't good enough?"
Tamara did not speak. She merely sat there, listening to the mudblood's pathetic insecurities with an air of quiet indulgence.
But that perfectly crafted attitude of attentive listening was more than enough for Miss Know-It-All to completely empty the heavy burdens of her heart.
"And last term..." Hermione looked up, her eyes brimming with fresh tears that threatened to spill over her cheeks.
"I lay in the hospital wing like a corpse for a whole month!"
Her hands clenched into tight fists in her lap. "I have to make up for that lost time twofold! Tamara, do you understand? I have to learn more, and I have to learn it faster than everyone else!"
A sob tore from her throat as she stared into the warm firelight. "Only then can I prove... that I belong here."
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