Chapter 206: Shelter
The Forbidden Forest.
A bitter late-autumn wind howled through the towering, ancient trees, carrying the heavy, suffocating stench of decaying leaves and damp earth. This desolate stretch of woods lay strictly beyond the protective wards of Hogwarts.
Through the jagged canopy of branches, several tattered, pitch-black cloaks drifted silently through the freezing air. Azkaban Dementors on patrol.
Standing amidst this deathly, unnatural silence, Tamara didn't so much as bat an eyelash. Along the way, she had spent the entire trek carrying a fat, unconscious rat by its tail, carefully calculating a route through the woods that offered the least resistance from the floating guards. She had keenly deduced that as long as she didn't practically walk into a Dementor's face, the blind, soul-sucking parasites wouldn't actively hunt her down. After all, even though her soul had been repaired, it remained fractured—a jagged, unappetizing meal compared to a whole one.
And even if, by some remote chance, an exceptionally unobservant monster dared to drift too close?
Tamara would not hesitate for a fraction of a second. She would simply cast a spell, force the rat in her grip to reveal its true human form, and toss him to the Dementors in exchange for her own safe exit.
Tamara casually hurled the unconscious rodent onto the muddy forest floor.
The violent impact jolted Peter Pettigrew awake.
"Squeak—!"
The rat scrambled, its tiny claws digging frantically into the wet soil in a desperate bid to flee. In the very next second, the cold, unyielding tip of a holly wand pressed firmly between its twitching ears.
"Twelve years, Wormtail."
Tamara stared down at the trembling creature. Her dark eyes held absolutely zero warmth, brimming instead with a bottomless well of cruelty and aristocratic disdain.
"Playing the role of a beloved pet in the Weasley household for twelve entire years. Feasting on the biscuit crumbs they carelessly dropped on the floor. Sleeping soundly in the pocket of that red-haired idiot..."
Her voice was a soft, melodic whisper, as gentle as a mother reading a bedtime story. Yet, to Peter's ears, that silken tone was infinitely more terrifying than the rattling breath of a Dementor.
"Did you truly believe that as long as you wore this filthy rat skin, you could bury the events of that night forever?" she murmured, leaning in slightly. "That you could simply enjoy this cozy little life... free from any responsibility, sleeping with a perfectly clear conscience?"
The rat's body convulsed violently. It let out a pathetic, distinctly human-like whimper, its tiny head shaking frantically back and forth in a desperate plea for mercy.
"Stop facing me in this disgusting form."
Tamara's gaze turned glacial. A sinister, blood-red light flashed deep within the black pits of her eyes.
"Incarcerous!"
Thick, coarse black ropes erupted from thin air. They lashed around the rat's small body like striking vipers, binding it tight.
But she was far from finished.
Tamara possessed zero patience to stand around in the freezing mud and wait for him to voluntarily reverse his Animagus transformation. The only way to ensure absolute, unquestioning obedience was to completely crush him from the deepest recesses of his soul.
Without a single warning syllable, she raised her wand and aimed it directly at the bound rodent.
"Legilimency!"
This was no gentle, probing intrusion to sift through memories. This was the sheer, unadulterated will of the Dark Lord—a jagged, physical blade of magic that brutally and mercilessly butchered its way through his mental defenses!
"Ah—!!!"
A heart-wrenching, shrill human scream tore through the silent forest. Peter's fragile mental barriers shattered into dust under the crushing, suffocating weight of Tamara's magical intrusion. Under such extreme psychological agony and physical pressure, the magic sustaining his Animagus form spiraled completely out of control.
The rat's body began to twist, bulge, and expand in grotesque proportions.
After just a few seconds, the sickening sounds of shifting bones ceased.
A short, fat, balding man with a wretched, rat-like face materialized on the muddy ground. Clad in filthy, tattered robes, he curled into a tight ball, clutching his throbbing head and wailing into the dirt.
Peter Pettigrew.
This spineless coward—the man who had indirectly orchestrated the murders of James and Lily Potter, framed Sirius Black for a one-way ticket to Azkaban, and lived in hiding for over a decade simply to preserve his own miserable life—finally revealed his true face in the darkest corner of the Forbidden Forest.
"Mas... Master..."
Peter trembled violently, his entire body shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. When he finally forced his head up and met Tamara's deep, abyssal black eyes—eyes that seemed to effortlessly slice through every lie he had ever told—his final, desperate shred of hope evaporated.
The terrifying, oppressive aura radiating from her belonged entirely to Lord Voldemort. It was so heavy it made the very act of drawing breath a struggle.
Ignoring the magical ropes still biting into his flesh, he lunged forward. Like a boneless worm, he groveled humbly at Tamara's feet, his lips stretching out in a pathetic attempt to kiss the mud-stained hem of her school robe.
"Great... Great Dark Lord..."
Peter wept bitterly. Mud and snot smeared across his face, a disgusting portrait of absolute terror and desperate flattery. "You've finally returned! I... I have been looking forward to your arrival every single moment! I've been lurking by Potter's friend's side for twelve years just to..."
Tamara didn't even bother letting him finish his pathetic, hole-ridden script.
She casually raised her boot and kicked Peter squarely in the chest. The brutal impact sent the fat man rolling backward through the wet mud.
"Put away your disgusting rhetoric, Wormtail."
Tamara took a slow, deliberate step forward, looking down at him as one might observe a crushed cockroach.
"Twelve years, and you did not spend a single day searching for me. You cowered in the gutters of the Weasley family, watching the tides like a true rat, waiting to see which side had the better chance of winning."
A cruel, mocking sneer curled the corners of her lips.
"If I had not returned, were you planning to feast on those idiots' biscuit crumbs for the rest of your natural life? Only now, seeing me standing before you, do you suddenly remember to offer Potter's information as your pathetic little tribute?"
She tilted her head, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Your so-called loyalty... exists solely because you have nowhere else to run."
Peter's face drained of all color, turning paler than a fresh corpse.
He stared up at Tamara in absolute despair, his watery eyes wide with the primal fear of death. He realized then that his pathetic, self-serving calculations were nothing more than a toddler's clumsy parlor trick before the Dark Lord who could read the darkest corners of the human heart.
"No... Master! Please believe me!"
Peter thrashed in the mud like a suffocating fish, his voice pitching into a shrill, desperate shriek. "I have always been loyal to you! If I hadn't betrayed the Potters back then..."
"Shut up."
Tamara's voice barely rose above a whisper, yet the sheer malice in those two syllables seemed to freeze the surrounding air into solid ice.
Her gaze darkened to an absolute void, a chilling, venomous murderous intent surging violently in the depths of her black pupils.
That night at Godric's Hollow was a humiliating stain she never wanted to acknowledge for the rest of her existence. And this incompetent, sniveling fool actually dared to present that catastrophic failure as his proudest achievement? He was shamelessly using her greatest defeat to beg for a reward?
He thought he was demonstrating loyalty. To Tamara, it sounded exactly like a loud, mocking reminder of her downfall.
"Utterly stupid."
Tamara flicked her wand, violently yanking up the tattered left sleeve of Peter's robes.
There it was. The Dark Mark. A symbol that had once represented supreme terror and unmatched glory, now reduced to a faded, moldy, ugly scar etched into flabby skin.
"Twelve years." Tamara's gaze held zero temperature. "It is high time this piece of rotting meat learned the true meaning of reverence again."
She pressed the tip of her holly wand ruthlessly against the dull, faded skull on his forearm.
"Incendio."
Under her terrifyingly precise, surgical control of magic, a concentrated burst of flame—like a white-hot branding iron—pierced accurately and brutally straight into the deepest layers of Peter's skin.
The nauseating hiss of sizzling flesh filled the air. Peter threw his head back and unleashed a shrill, blood-curdling scream of pure agony.
The searing heat instantly awakened the dormant beast.
Beneath the blistering skin, the faded serpent seemed to physically writhe and thrash. The once-lifeless ink shed its dullness at a visible, horrifying speed, shifting into a striking, vivid crimson that looked as though it were actively weeping fresh blood!
Peter rolled frantically in the dirt, his face a grotesque mask of snot, tears, and mud. His dirty fingernails dug deep into the forest soil as he convulsed.
"Remember this pain, Wormtail."
Tamara coldly withdrew her wand. She offered a slow, satisfied nod as she admired the Dark Mark, now burning bright red and commanding attention once more.
"This is to remind you exactly who your true master is."
Peter lay prone in the muck, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. Stripped of all strength, he couldn't even lift his head from the dirt. He merely offered a weak, trembling nod of submission.
"Now, listen to my orders."
Tamara stared down at his pathetic form, her tone an absolute, unquestionable command.
"Hogwarts Castle is no longer safe for you. That damned Marauder's Map is currently in Potter's hands. If you dare return to Gryffindor Tower as a rat, you will be discovered. It is only a matter of time."
She would never allow this walking liability to remain under her nose. If Peter were caught, Dumbledore's piercing gaze would inevitably turn toward the shadows, and all her careful disguises and careful plotting could be compromised.
"Get yourself into the deepest depths of the Forbidden Forest."
Tamara pointed her wand toward the dark, impenetrable cluster of ancient trees in the distance.
"Go hide among the Acromantulas, the Centaurs, or whatever other disgusting monsters breed in the dark. Survive however you must. Eat insects. Scavenge rotting meat. I do not care."
She leaned in slightly, her voice a deadly promise. "Unless I summon you, you are absolutely forbidden from stepping a single foot out of this forest. I will call for you through this mark whenever I require your services."
Hearing that he was being banished into the lethal, monster-infested depths of the Forbidden Forest, a raw flash of despair crossed Peter's face.
Yet, he lacked the spine to openly refuse.
Trembling, Peter slowly lifted his head. A subtle, calculating gleam flickered within his beady, rat-like eyes as he attempted to probe her boundaries.
"Mas... Master..."
Peter swallowed hard, forcing his voice to tremble with feigned, absolute devotion, as if he were solely concerned for his master's grand designs. "The Forbidden Forest is too dangerous... If... I mean, just in case, I am caught by Dumbledore, or an Auror from the Ministry of Magic?"
He tucked his chin lower, injecting a pathetic, wet sob into his throat.
"You know my Occlumency is dreadfully poor... What if they use Veritaserum on me? Or Legilimency? I'm terrified my mind will collapse, and I would accidentally expose your great plan of rebirth..."
He looked up through the mud and tears, his voice dropping to a desperate, whining plea. "You... you will grant me protection, won't you?"
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