Chapter 212: Lies
Scabbers.
The moment that name drifted into Harry's ears, all the air vanished from his lungs. It felt as though a Bludger had slammed directly into his stomach. A violent wave of nausea, thick and acidic, churned together with a surging, white-hot fury that rushed straight to his temples.
That fat, grey-furred rat. The one with the missing toe.
It was the name Sirius had chewed over and spat out back in the Shrieking Shack, his voice raw with a hatred so deep he sounded ready to skin the creature alive.
Peter Pettigrew.
The culprit who had sold out his parents. The coward who had orchestrated his family's ruin and left Sirius to rot in the lightless torment of Azkaban for twelve agonizing years. And this vile traitor had the sheer audacity to masquerade as a pathetic garden pet. He had freeloaded at his best friend's house, eaten from their hands, and slept in the very bed next to Harry's, night after night.
Harry's blood roared in his ears.
His jaw locked so tight his teeth ground together. He wanted to grab Ron by the shoulders and scream the truth right into his freckled face. 'Your precious rat isn't a pet! He is a damn Death Eater! A murderer!'
He forced himself to swallow the words, tasting copper as he bit down on the inside of his cheek.
He could not say it.
A tiny, desperate sliver of remaining logic blared warning sirens in his mind. He absolutely could not tell Ron. Not here. Not now.
Ron was a fiercely loyal friend, Harry knew that. But he also knew exactly how this would play out. Forced to choose between a beloved family pet of twelve years and the raving claims of a mass murderer who had just broken out of prison, it was painfully obvious who Ron would believe. The moment Harry opened his mouth, Ron would think he had lost his mind. Worse, he might panic and alert the teachers, dragging Sirius—who was still hiding in the Shrieking Shack—straight into the fire.
If the news leaked, Hogwarts would erupt into absolute chaos. The Ministry of Magic Aurors and the soul-sucking Dementors prowling the perimeters would lock down the castle in seconds. Sirius would never even get a chance to speak. He would receive the Dementor's Kiss on sight.
To protect his newly found godfather, Harry had to bury this secret in the darkest corner of his chest.
Breathing heavily, Harry shot a subconscious glance at Tamara out of the corner of his eye.
Her expression remained as placid as a still lake, but deep within those dark, bottomless eyes, a sliver of cold, calculating light flickered. Naturally, she had no intention of letting the rat's true whereabouts slip. Peter Pettigrew was now an incredibly valuable trump card sitting squarely in her palm.
Facing Ron's wide, expectant gaze, Tamara did not display even a microscopic fraction of panic. For a Dark Lord who had woven deception and disguise into the very marrow of her bones, this pathetic level of crisis management was as effortless as drawing breath.
"I am so sorry, Weasley."
Tamara sighed softly. A perfectly calibrated expression of self-reproach bloomed across her delicate features. She pushed her passive skill [Harmless] to its absolute maximum output, letting a subtle aura of vulnerability wash over her.
Lowering her eyelashes to cast a shadow of guilt over her cheeks, she spoke in a gentle, remorseful murmur.
"I originally placed him in my robe pocket. I intended to take him down to the Dungeons, find him a bit of food, and perhaps use Episkey to heal his poor paw..." She paused, her voice catching just enough to sound genuine. "But... I do not know what came over him. He suddenly went completely wild. He bit through the lining of my pocket with such desperation and just bolted."
"What?!" The hopeful smile on Ron's face evaporated. The paper bag of sweets in his hand crinkled loudly, nearly slipping from his grasp. "He ran away?!"
"Yes. He was simply too fast," Tamara replied, her tone dripping with sincerity and a masterfully crafted hint of lingering fear. "He scurried all the way toward the edge of the grounds. I was terribly anxious, but thankfully, I happened to run into Potter. After I hastily explained the situation, the two of us chased him all the way to the tree line of the Forbidden Forest."
Tamara let the sentence hang in the air. She turned her head slowly, fixing Harry with a deeply meaningful gaze. A faint, almost imperceptible smile tugged at the very corners of her lips.
"But it was just too dangerous out there." She kept her eyes locked on Harry. "Dementors were swarming everywhere. We were nearly attacked in the gloom... To save ourselves, we had no choice but to fall back. We could only watch helplessly as he vanished into the dark depths of the forest."
She tilted her head, her voice soft as velvet. "Isn't that right, Potter?"
To Ron, her eyes seemed to be seeking gentle confirmation. But Harry felt the crushing weight of her silent coercion. She was pinning him down, forcing him to step over the line and become a willing accomplice to her fabrication.
Harry swallowed hard. His throat felt as dry as if he had just swallowed a handful of coarse sand.
He looked at Tamara's flawless, hypocritical mask of sorrow, and then shifted his gaze to Ron, whose freckled face was rapidly draining of color. He knew he was not just covering for Tamara's schemes; he was building a shield around Sirius.
"Y-yes."
Harry forced his mouth open, the word scraping out of his dry throat. He heard his own voice echo her narrative, sounding hoarse and distant. "We tried our best, Ron. But there were just too many Dementors hovering at the edge of the trees. We... we couldn't follow him in."
It was the first time in his entire life he had ever delivered such a massive, calculated lie to his best friend. And yet, the words flowed out with terrifying smoothness.
The very second the lie left his lips, Harry felt an invisible, twisted bond snap into place, linking him directly to the dark girl standing beside him.
"The Forbidden Forest?! Dementors?!"
Ron's voice cracked, his composure shattering completely. His fingers went slack. The bag of sweets plummeted to the stone floor, bursting open upon impact. Brightly colored candies scattered and rolled in every direction, completely ignored.
"How could you lose him! He is just a rat!" Ron's eyes flushed a watery red instantly. His pitch rose, thick with mounting anxiety and hot anger. "The Forbidden Forest is crawling with monsters! And those bloody Dementors! Scabbers will never survive a single night in there! He'll be eaten alive, or have his soul sucked right out of his body!"
Watching Ron agonize so deeply over a treacherous murderer, a sudden, violent surge of irritation churned in Harry's chest.
If this had been just a few hours ago, he would have wrapped an arm around Ron's shoulder. He would have patiently offered comfort, perhaps even volunteered to march back down to the edge of the forest with a lantern, just to put on a good show of searching.
But not now.
He had just survived the most dramatic, devastating turning point of his entire life inside that dusty Shrieking Shack. Thanks to Tamara's intervention, he had found his godfather—his only true living relative in this magical world. He had walked a razor-thin wire between absolute despair and blinding hope.
Still reeling from that massive psychological impact, Harry simply had zero emotional energy left to coddle Ron's broken heart over a filthy, betraying rat.
Deep down, a subtle shift had occurred. With the sudden, overwhelming presence of Sirius and the dark, anchoring weight of Tamara's alliance, Harry had subconsciously gained a new foundation. He no longer felt that desperate, clinging need to seek constant validation and warmth solely from Ron's friendship.
Harry lifted his chin. When he met Ron's gaze, his emerald-green eyes were entirely stripped of their usual warmth. Instead, they held a rare, chilling detachment.
"He was just a... rat," Harry stated, his voice bone-dry. "If you are really that upset about it... I will just buy you another pet. An owl, a toad, or a younger, healthier rat. Whatever you want."
The silence that followed was deafening.
It was not just Ron who stood frozen in shock. Even Tamara, who had comfortably positioned herself to enjoy the entertaining spectacle of internal Gryffindor bickering, felt a genuine flicker of surprise ripple through her dark eyes.
She turned her head slightly, re-evaluating the messy-haired boy standing beside her.
This cold rhetoric. Putting a strict price tag on emotional attachments. Offering to use gold and cheap replacements to fill a sentimental void...
'Well, well,' Tamara mused. That was certainly not the sort of callous pragmatism one expected to spill from the mouth of a hot-blooded, impulsive Gryffindor.
It seemed the wizarding world's precious Savior, a boy so carefully cultivated by Dumbledore's endless sermons on love and kindness, had unknowingly picked up some delightfully toxic habits.
'Fascinating...'Tamara let out a wicked, thoroughly amused chuckle within the confines of her mind, the curve of her lips deepening into a genuine smirk.'If Dumbledore could hear his golden boy right now, the look of horror on that wrinkled, bearded face would be absolutely spectacular, wouldn't it?'
For the Dark Lord, this sensation—corrupting the old fool's prized weapon and defeating Dumbledore on a purely spiritual level—tasted far sweeter than any mere physical slaughter.
Meanwhile, Ron looked as though he had just been struck by a stray lightning bolt. He stared at Harry in utter disbelief, his pale face contorting with a messy mixture of shock, bitter disappointment, and deep hurt.
"Just a rat...?" Ron's voice trembled violently. He stared intensely at Harry, his eyes wide, as if he were looking at a complete stranger. "Harry Potter... how could you say such a thing?!"
His fists clenched at his sides.
"Scabbers has been with our family for twelve years! He wasn't just Percy's old pet, he was my pet too! Even though I always complained about him, even though he slept all day and was missing a toe..."
Hot tears welled up in the corners of Ron's eyes. He gritted his teeth, his voice cracking into a wounded shout.
"But he has been a member of our family for a long time! He is family! He is not some cheap toy you can just replace with a handful of Galleons!"
Ron took a step back, his chest heaving.
"What is wrong with you, Harry? You sound just like... like a cold-blooded Slytherin!"
Ron shot a venomous glare at Tamara, clearly convinced that this sudden, cruel shift in his best friend was the result of some dark, manipulative spell she had woven. Without waiting for a response, he abandoned the scattered candies on the stone floor. He spun on his heel, aggressively wiping at his eyes, and sprinted headlong down the corridor toward Gryffindor Tower, never once looking back.
Watching Ron's retreating, hunched figure disappear around the corner, the rigid tension in Harry's shoulders finally collapsed.
The icy, detached shell he had instinctively borrowed from Tamara's presence fractured the moment Ron had shouted the word 'family'. His Gryffindor conscience, battered as it was, still beat within his chest.
Harry knew exactly how much Ron had valued that rat, even if the creature was nothing more than a useless, treacherous waste of space. His words had been unnecessarily cruel. But... if he had not used such an extreme, cutting method to sever the conversation, he honestly did not know if he possessed the willpower to keep the truth from spilling out.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut in a wince of pain, his fingers digging deeply into his messy black hair as he let out a shaky breath.
Tamara quietly observed Harry's conflicted, pained, and deeply self-loathing expression. She could practically taste the boy's internal struggle.
'That ridiculous Gryffindor conscience,'Tamara sneered inwardly, her mental voice dripping with disdain.'Always wedged like a moldy, festering thorn in the most inconvenient of places.'
But she had no intention of correcting his behavior. A Savior burdened by a wavering heart, drowning in a swamp of conflict and guilt, was infinitely easier for her to mold and control.
"Go comfort your fragile little friend, Potter," Tamara murmured.
She elegantly smoothed a nonexistent crease from her robes, effortlessly slipping back into her haughty, untouchable posture. She looked down her nose at Harry, her voice soft, yet laced with a warning that chilled him straight to the bone.
"However, as my newly minted accomplice, I feel obligated to remind you of one crucial detail."
Tamara leaned forward, her dark hair brushing his shoulder as she brought her lips close to his ear. She whispered in a silken volume meant only for him.
"I think you know very well what should, and should not, be said."
She pulled back just enough to let him feel the icy draft between them.
"If your pathetic little reservoir of sympathy happens to overflow, and you accidentally let a single truth slip..." Tamara straightened up to her full height. Her dark, abyssal eyes pinned Harry in place, promising absolute ruin. "...then that precious new godfather of yours, currently hiding back in the Shrieking Shack, might not be quite so lucky."
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