Chapter 243: Wishful Thinking
Tamara stared fixedly at the Savior standing before her. His emerald eyes were practically sparkling with anticipation. She looked at him with the exact same expression one might reserve for a particularly foul-smelling mountain troll.
Practice together? With Harry Potter?!
She had spent the better part of the week actively dodging his very existence just to stop that damnable favorability metric from ticking upward. How did this absolute imbecile have the sheer audacity to waltz right up to her and suggest they team up?
"Potter, I strongly suggest you pack away that exhausting, utterly mindless Gryffindor enthusiasm..." Tamara sneered. Her pitch-black eyes darkened, swirling with undisguised irritation and a bitter edge she did not bother to hide.
Her tongue was already loaded with the most vicious, soul-crushing insults she could muster. She was fully prepared to shatter his ridiculous little fantasy of camaraderie into a thousand jagged pieces and banish him from her sight forever.
However.
Just as her icy glare swept upward to deliver the final blow, her gaze snagged. It froze entirely on the jagged, lightning-shaped scar marring Harry's forehead, half-concealed beneath his perpetually messy fringe.
Some wretched, unknown thief had already absconded with the soul fragment hidden within Ravenclaw's Diadem. That theft had robbed her of a vital portion of her power, leaving a gaping, agonizing void in her very soul.
But... what about the Savior standing right in front of her? The one who was not lost to the winds, but was currently breathing, blinking, and entirely alive?
Decades ago in Godric's Hollow, in that catastrophic fraction of a second when her Killing Curse rebounded and her soul was violently ripped apart, she had unintentionally left a parasitic fragment of herself lodged right behind Potter's skull.
And in her previous life, during that final, fateful confrontation in the Forbidden Forest... that Avada Kedavra—the curse that was supposed to end it all—had not only failed to kill the Boy Who Lived, but it had entirely obliterated her own soul fragment in the process.
Following that disastrous miscalculation, her consciousness had briefly, agonizingly lingered in that ethereal vision of King's Cross Station.
She remembered overhearing the conversation between Albus Dumbledore and Potter. Or, more accurately, she had been forced to endure the sound of those two sickeningly self-righteous voices echoing nearby. They had prattled on about the tragedy at Godric's Hollow, the convoluted ownership of the Elder Wand... and eventually, their incessant, moralizing drivel had drawn the great Lord Voldemort's attention to her own pathetic state in that limbo.
She had been curled up beneath a spectral bench, reduced to the form of a flayed, whimpering infant.
The memory of that sheer vulnerability was so utterly degrading, so deeply filthy, that Tamara's soul violently trembled with pure, unadulterated hatred every single time it surfaced.
But now... since the fragment within Ravenclaw's Diadem was gone, stolen away into the shadows...
Did that not make the lightning-scarred Savior standing right in front of her the absolute perfect source of nourishment? He was right within arm's reach. He was practically offering himself up on a silver platter, completely devoid of any defenses.
Tamara's gaze turned predatory. Like a venomous snake lazily flicking its tongue to taste the air, her attention coiled tightly around Harry's scar. Deep within the pitch-black depths of her eyes—eyes that had just been brimming with sheer impatience—a terrifying, fanatical greed began to quietly surge.
If she could just find the perfect opportunity. If she could extract the parasitic soul fragment from beneath that scar, keeping it perfectly intact, and devour it whole...
Once she reclaimed that power, a mere Patronus Charm would be nothing more than a parlor trick for the great Dark Lord!
Harry shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He watched Tamara stare fixedly at his forehead, her silence stretching on for an unnerving amount of time. The ambient temperature in the corridor seemed to plummet, a sudden, freezing chill seeping into the stone walls.
The bright, hopeful light in Harry's eyes gradually dimmed. He swallowed hard, feeling like an absolute fool. He must have been out of his mind to even dream of inviting this icy Slytherin—a girl who made a sport out of rejecting him—to practice magic together.
"Sorry," Harry let out a short, bitter laugh. He lowered his eyes, the sting of disappointment washing over him as he braced himself for her inevitable, cutting remarks. "If... if you're not willing, then never mind. I'll just go..."
His shoulders slumped. He turned around, his boots heavy against the flagstones as he prepared to walk away.
"Wait."
A soft voice, dripping with a sudden, eerie sweetness, echoed through the empty corridor.
Harry's heavy footsteps abruptly halted. He whipped his head back around, his emerald eyes widening in sheer disbelief.
The Tamara who had been radiating hostile impatience just a fraction of a second ago had vanished. In her place stood a girl who had entirely dropped her impenetrable, icy exterior. She tilted her head, looking at Harry as her lips curled into a smile that was equal parts charming and deeply dangerous.
"Alright."
Tamara kept her gaze locked onto the jagged scar. Her voice was a velvet whisper, so soft and melodic it seemed to bypass his ears entirely, crawling straight through his blood and settling deep into his marrow. "Since we've both hit the exact same bottleneck, why don't we... solve it together?"
Harry stood absolutely frozen, his mind struggling to process the sudden, whiplash-inducing shift in her demeanor.
Meanwhile, Tamara had already turned her head slightly away, her brilliant, twisted mind racing at breakneck speed.
'What method should I use to extract the soul intact?'
If she used Legilimency to violently tear into his mind, would Lily Potter's damnable blood magic protection trigger and burn her? What if she resorted to Dark Arts potions instead? Tamara rapidly calculated the variables in her head. The concentration of the Soul Separation Potion she had brewed last time was far too weak to deal with a fragment buried this deeply into a living host.
She would have to completely overhaul the formula. Increase the toxicity of the base ingredients, double the dosage, and prepare at least three lethal backup plans...
Just as the great Dark Lord was gleefully and cruelly plotting the exact methodology required to tear this teenage boy apart and devour his essence... she suddenly felt the weight of a burning gaze upon her.
Tamara's brow furrowed. She snapped her head back, immediately colliding with Harry's unblinking, emerald-green eyes.
"What are you looking at?" she demanded coldly, the sharp edge returning to her voice, deeply displeased at having her murderous train of thought interrupted.
"No... nothing." Harry scratched the back of his messy head sheepishly. His youthful face was completely open, radiating a foolish, unguarded sincerity. "I'm just surprised. I thought for sure you were going to reject me... I really didn't expect you to actually agree to practice."
Seeing Tamara's brow furrow even deeper, a dangerous, cold light glinting in her dark eyes, Harry immediately assumed he had misstepped. He quickly waved his hands in front of him, rushing to explain himself.
"I know, Tamara. I know you probably didn't agree just out of the goodness of your heart to help me." Harry took a deep breath, his hands dropping to his sides. His emerald eyes reflected a blunt, almost painful honesty. "You never do anything without a reason. You don't do meaningless things. So, since you agreed... you must have your own purpose for doing this."
A soft, relieved smile spread across Harry's face. It was a smile that carried the distinct, naive silliness typical of a teenage boy who had not yet realized the world was out to kill him. "I just wanted to say thank you."
He paused, his voice dropping slightly. "At least it lets me know that I'm not some hopeless freak when it comes to this spell. It's... nice to not be the only one struggling."
A bizarre, suffocating silence descended upon the stone corridor.
Tamara stood perfectly still. Her dark, unfathomable eyes remained fixed on the Savior of the Wizarding World, who was currently standing there, willingly bleeding his heart out to her.
For a fleeting second, she was almost driven to a bout of hysterical, exasperated laughter by the sheer absurdity of his sincere words.
'What an absolute idiot.'
Not only had he keenly deduced that she possessed an ulterior motive, but he had also generously decided to tolerate her calculated manipulation. He was practically moved to tears simply because he did not have to face a minor academic difficulty alone?
If he knew her true purpose was to violently rip his soul apart while his heart was still beating... would he still be able to wear that nauseating, grateful smile?
If he knew that she was the very monster who had butchered his parents, and that she fully intended to butcher him next... would his ridiculous favorability toward her still remain so high?
A sudden, violent surge of irritation flared in Tamara's chest, hot and suffocating.
She snapped her gaze away, entirely unwilling to look into those painfully clear, trusting green eyes for another second. Her lips curled into a sharp, merciless sneer as she muttered under her breath.
"Wishful thinking."
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