Chapter 253: The Second Time
A biting chill howled down the length of the corridor, tearing through the shattered remains of the stained-glass window. The jagged edges of the frame whistled a haunting tune, whipping the sleepwear of the small, motley group of students into a frantic rustle.
Pinned under Remus Lupin's exhausted, demanding stare, this hastily assembled alliance immediately fractured into wildly different survival strategies.
"Professor, we are conducting a serious academic investigation."
Tamara spoke up with absolute serenity. Her exquisite face displayed not a single twitch of panic. She smoothly tucked her wand into her robes, her posture shifting into that of an impeccable, misunderstood honors student. "As you know, Potter's Firebolt was hexed. While I was analyzing the lingering jinx on the broomstick, I managed to extract a trace of magic residue left behind by the caster."
She gestured gracefully toward the shattered glass. "I followed the magical trail all the way up here, only to find that the culprit seemed to have smashed through the window and escaped into the night."
"That's right, Professor!" Harry nodded vigorously, his messy hair bouncing. To avoid any unnecessary suspicion, he hurriedly shoved a handful of hissing grass snakes deep into his pajama pockets, patting them down flat.
"I was looking for a special rat," Luna chimed in. She held up a small, woven net, her silvery eyes wide and entirely sincere. "Its head is completely infested with rare, black-hearted Wrackspurts. I originally planned to catch it so Tamara could study the parasites."
Hearing these three absurd, barely cohesive explanations strung together, the corners of Lupin's mouth twitched violently. A vein throbbed at his temple.
He shifted his tired gaze toward the Weasley twins, who were currently pressed against the far wall, desperately trying to shrink their tall frames into the shadows of a stone gargoyle.
"And what about you two? Fred? George?"
"Oh... us?" Fred blinked rapidly. He threw his head back, clamped his eyes shut in a melodramatic display, and held his arms out stiffly like a zombie. He took two slow, dragging steps forward. "Whew... we're sleepwalking, Professor. Fast asleep."
"Yes... wait, how did we get here?" George snapped his eyes open, feigning a massive yawn. "Goodness me, why is everyone standing in the draft?"
After sprinting through the castle all night, Tamara felt a sharp ache in her lungs. She took a slow, measured breath, viciously cursing these two useless idiots in the darkest corners of her mind.
Watching their atrociously poor acting, the great Dark Lord felt her fingers twitch with the overwhelming urge to draw her wand. She wanted nothing more than to grant each of them a generous dose of the Cruciatus Curse, just to ensure these bumbling Gryffindor apes would keep their nonsense-spewing mouths shut for the rest of eternity.
"Enough, Weasley." Lupin clearly couldn't stomach another second of it. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut against a mounting headache.
Although the current situation was highly unfavorable for the students, Tamara's sharp gaze dropped to the seemingly blank piece of parchment clutched tightly in Lupin's white-knuckled grip. She narrowed her eyes.
"So... what about you, Professor Lupin?"
Her voice was soft, melodic, and perfectly polite. Her tone dripped with the utmost respect for her teacher, yet beneath the velvet exterior lay an overwhelming, suffocating pressure.
"Forgive my curiosity, but you don't seem to be resting in your quarters either, and..." Tamara tilted her head. The pale moonlight spilled over her flawless profile, illuminating the pitch-black depths of her eyes—eyes that held absolutely zero respect for the ragged man standing before her. "In the middle of the night, wearing pajamas, clutching a... blank piece of parchment, and just happening to appear in front of a window that was recently smashed by a dangerous creature. It's truly a puzzling coincidence, isn't it?"
The lingering shock on Lupin's face vanished, instantly replaced by a grim, heavy solemnity.
Just minutes ago, he had watched the Marauder's Map with his own eyes. He had seen the ink dot labeled Peter Pettigrew—a man who was supposed to have been blown to pieces twelve years ago—fleeing frantically through the castle corridors, ultimately escaping through this very window and vanishing toward the Forbidden Forest.
That chilling, impossible discovery had shattered his entire understanding of reality. Yet, until he could confirm the absolute truth, he could not breathe a word of this deadly secret to a group of underage students. Especially not to Harry.
"I..." Lupin swallowed hard, his throat clicking in the quiet corridor. His brain spun rapidly, desperate to concoct a plausible lie.
But before the clumsy excuse could leave his lips, a cold, silken voice drifted out from the shadows of the staircase.
"A wonderful midnight gathering, Lupin."
Accompanied by the soft, deliberate sweep of heavy fabric, Professor Severus Snape glided into the moonlight. His dark, glittering eyes swept over the shattered stained glass, the shivering students, and finally locked onto Harry Potter's face.
"Wandering the corridors so arrogantly in the dead of night, and even taking the time to vandalize school property." A cruel, deeply satisfied sneer curled Snape's thin lips. "Fifty points from Gryffindor. Each. And I guarantee you will receive a detention you will not soon forget—"
"Wait, Severus."
Since the students were practically vibrating with guilt, Lupin knew he had to step up. As the only other adult present, he forced himself to stand between the Potions Master and the group of troublemakers.
"They aren't out on a night walk." Lupin took a deep breath, fighting the urge to wince as he prepared to deliver the most ridiculous lie of his adult life. "They were... assisting me. With a special research project."
Snape's eyes narrowed into dangerous, dark slits. "A research project? In a drafty corridor at one in the morning?"
"Yes. Regarding... the impact of lunar cycle trajectories on the abnormal agitation of nocturnal magical creatures." Lupin pointed stiffly at the broken window, spouting dry, academic nonsense. "A magical creature just smashed the glass. Thanks to the quick thinking of these brave students, we prevented it from causing even more damage to the castle."
Snape's expression soured into something truly foul.
He clearly didn't believe a single syllable. But as his gaze flicked over Lupin's shoulder, he noticed Tamara standing quietly in the shadows. The Potions Professor's brow furrowed. The malicious gleam in his eyes shifted into something extremely complex and conflicted.
"...A clumsy excuse." Snape finally gave a cold, dismissive snort. "Since they are your precious assistants, Lupin, I expect you to properly handle the cost of the glass they broke."
With a sharp, resentful flick of his billowing black robes, Snape turned on his heel and swept back down the stairs.
The immediate crisis had been smoothed over by a strange, unspoken tacit understanding.
"Alright, the chaotic night is over." Lupin wiped a sheen of cold sweat from his forehead and waved his hand wearily at the group. "Now, all of you, return to your dormitories. Quietly. Immediately."
The midnight rat-catching squad was thus reluctantly disbanded.
However, while the capital offense of wandering the castle had been avoided, the lesser punishment was inescapable. Lupin had barely managed to save them from losing two hundred house points, but the mandatory manual labor required to pay for the broken stained glass fell squarely upon the heads of all five students.
Wednesday afternoon, in the pumpkin patch outside Hagrid's hut, right at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
The ridiculous rat-catching squad had been heartlessly assigned to groom the feathers of a restless herd of Hippogriffs.
"Gentle, Harry! He doesn't like being plucked!" Hagrid's gruff, booming voice echoed across the patch.
Harry and the Weasley twins were currently fighting a losing battle amidst a massive, choking cloud of flying gray feathers. Buckbeak snorted in deep dissatisfaction, occasionally snapping his razor-sharp beak and causing Fred and George to scatter with exaggerated yelps of terror.
Luna, meanwhile, crouched peacefully beside a slate-gray Hippogriff, humming a strange, off-key melody as she engaged in cross-species communication with the lethal predator.
Tamara didn't need to lift a single finger.
As a Dark Lord utterly accustomed to being worshipped and served, she naturally had no intention of engaging in crude, filthy manual labor. She simply stood at the edge of the enclosure, her arms crossed over her chest, staring blankly at the majestic beasts.
Under the dual effect of the Dark Lord's suffocating, invisible pressure and the subtle hum of her Virtue System's twenty-percent Magical Creature Affinity, the originally unruly monsters felt a primal tremor strike the very depths of their souls.
They immediately choked back their aggressive snorts. Sharp talons were carefully tucked away. Lethal beaks were lowered toward the dirt. In a display of utter, terrifying submissiveness, the Hippogriffs bowed their proud heads toward the dark-haired girl. Without anyone issuing a single command, the beasts began to carefully groom each other's feathers, desperate to please her.
Tamara stood in the cool shade of a massive oak tree, her fingers lightly tracing the smooth surface of a small crystal vial hidden within her sleeve.
Inside the vial sloshed the Soul Separation Potion.
Ever since her last poisoning attempt had been thwarted in the Hospital Wing, Tamara hadn't found a single opening to strike. Hogwarts was crawling with eyes, ears, and meddling ghosts. A single misstep could expose her true nature to the old fool Dumbledore.
But today was entirely different.
They were at the very edge of the Forbidden Forest, far away from the castle's prying portraits. She was surrounded by a group of exhausted, disheveled idiots who had just spent an hour being tossed around by giant bird-horses. Their guards were entirely down. It was a god-given opportunity.
"Well done, children! Come have some hot tea and rest your bones!"
Hagrid lumbered over, carrying a massive, steaming wooden bucket. He enthusiastically began ladling thick, boiling tea into crude clay mugs for the exhausted boys.
Tamara remained anchored in the shadows of the oak tree. Her face was a mask of cool indifference. She had absolutely no desire to squeeze onto a wooden bench next to a sweating Weasley.
Harry grasped his oversized mug, blowing on the steam. He turned, his green eyes searching the yard until they landed on Tamara standing alone. He hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then, he stepped forward, grabbed an extra mug, ladled it full of tea, and walked proactively toward the tree.
"Here. Hagrid says drinking some hot tea in this weather will make you feel better." Harry stopped beside her, offering the steaming clay cup with a small, earnest smile.
Tamara lowered her eyelashes, her gaze sweeping over the dark, murky liquid.
She didn't refuse. She reached out and took the warm clay, her thumb expertly and silently flicking the stopper off the hidden crystal vial inside her sleeve.
"Tamara." Harry leaned his shoulder against the rough bark of the oak tree. He cradled his tea, his gaze drifting aimlessly toward the dark, looming tree line of the Forbidden Forest. "Have you thought about it these past few days? Why Professor Lupin appeared on the fourth floor that night? And his expression..."
Harry frowned, his brow creasing as he struggled to articulate the memory. "He looked more shocked than if he'd seen a ghost. He looked terrified."
Hearing the boy's naive speculation, Tamara sneered viciously in the confines of her mind.
Obviously, you imbecile. Anyone would look terrified if they saw a man who had been blown to bloody chunks twelve years ago suddenly resurrect and go skipping down a school corridor.
But outwardly, the calculating Dark Lord retracted every single one of her sharp edges. To distract Potter's attention from her hands, she deliberately softened her voice. Her tone took on an unmatched, honeyed gentleness.
"Everyone has secrets they don't want others to pry into, Potter."
Tamara turned her head. Her deep, abyssal black eyes locked intently onto Harry's bright green ones. "Even Professors have pasts they don't wish to face. Sometimes, digging too deep into the dark isn't a good thing. It only brings pain."
The rare, gentle sincerity in her voice caught Harry completely off guard. Accustomed to her usual cold mockery and sharp rebukes, he simply stared at her.
The early spring sunlight filtered through the canopy, casting dappled golden light across her pale, flawless profile. It gave her an ethereal, vibrant warmth.
Harry's heart inexplicably skipped a heavy beat in his chest. He suddenly felt entirely too warm. Shifting his gaze away in a fluster, he stared intensely at the steam rising from his tea, a faint, obvious blush creeping up the back of his neck.
He was completely immersed in the quiet, beautiful atmosphere beneath the tree, thoroughly enjoying this rare, fragile moment of peaceful companionship free from their usual bickering.
And in the blind spot he couldn't see, Tamara was watching him with a gaze as dead and cold as a tombstone.
The hand hidden within her dark sleeve twitched. A single, lethal drop of the Soul Separation Potion slid from the vial. Guided by a thread of wandless magic, the liquid suspended soundlessly in the air, hovering right above Harry's cup.
Just as Tamara prepared to sever the magical thread and drop the poison.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
A sharp, ear-piercing whistle abruptly erupted from the oversized pocket of Harry's school robes.
Harry jolted in panic. He slammed his tea cup down onto a nearby tree stump and hurriedly dug into his pocket, pulling out a violently spinning, smoking Pocket Sneakoscope.
Tamara froze. Her magic locked the poison mid-air.
That damned broken toy.
Ever since she had casually tossed the Sneakoscope to Potter in the Hospital Wing to maintain her 'caring' facade, she had completely forgotten to confiscate the wretched thing.
Based on their previous encounter in the corridor, the device's target had been the dark magic radiating from the Diadem fragment possessing Peter Pettigrew. It hadn't reacted to her. But right now, the piercing alarm was screaming at a truly catastrophic moment.
Tamara couldn't be entirely sure if the infernal spinning glass was detecting Pettigrew hiding somewhere in the nearby tree line, or if it was directly warning Potter about the ruthless poisoner standing two feet away from him.
Regardless, the great Dark Lord was not about to let a cheap, noisy trinket disrupt a perfect assassination.
While Harry's entire focus was glued to the burning hot, whistling Sneakoscope in his palms, a flash of pure ruthlessness cut across Tamara's eyes. Her finger gave a microscopic, masterful flick.
The suspended drop of lethal potion blurred into an afterimage. It fell perfectly into the cup of hot tea resting on the stump, instantly dissolving into the dark brown liquid without causing so much as a single ripple.
The very microsecond the poison merged with the tea, the violently spinning Sneakoscope seemed to possess a mind of its own. Its burning temperature rapidly cooled against Harry's skin. The sharp, frantic whistling died out eerily and abruptly, the glass top slowing until it was just an ordinary, silent mirror surface once more.
Harry stared blankly at the dead device in his hands. He whipped his head around, scanning the edge of the forest and the pumpkin patch.
Finding absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, he reached down and picked up his spiked cup of hot tea. He leaned closer to Tamara, his voice dropping into a tense whisper.
"Tamara, did you see that? It just went off again." Harry gripped the poisoned cup tightly. "It must be the person who hexed my broom! Do you think... Peter has appeared nearby again?"
Tamara let her dark eyes drift down to the steaming tea currently inches from Harry's mouth. The corners of her lips twitched upward into a faint, deeply meaningful smile.
"...That is very likely."
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