Chapter 233: The Dark Lord's Third Option
Had it been any other student, the sheer, crushing weight of that dismissal would have sent them scrambling for the door.
But this was Hermione.
After a fleeting second of shock, the Gryffindor know-it-all planted her feet. She didn't retreat a single inch. Instead, she dumped her heavy stack of textbooks onto the nearest chair and marched straight toward the desk.
"You're bleeding! Tamara! What on earth are you doing?!"
Hermione's voice pitched high, vibrating with a frantic, raw panic.
She stared at the thick, dark crimson droplets sliding down Tamara's chin, splashing onto the chaotic mess of runic parchments scattered across the wood. Tears immediately pricked the corners of Hermione's eyes, her breathing turning shallow.
"No, no, I have to get you to the Hospital Wing. Or find a Professor—"
Before the sentence even finished, Hermione's hands were already reaching out, desperately trying to haul up a girl who currently lacked the strength to even twitch her fingers.
"Don't touch me."
Tamara jerked her head to the side. Her lip curled in absolute revulsion, narrowly dodging the Gryffindor's outstretched fingers.
Her muscles screamed in agony, her magical core trembling from the backlash, yet the deep-seated, rotting arrogance in her soul refused to yield. Lord Voldemort did not accept pity. And she certainly did not accept it from a filthy Mudblood while slumped in a chair like some dying, pathetic animal.
"Put away that nauseating expression, Granger."
Tamara forced her facial muscles into a mask of pure, freezing disdain. Her voice dripped with a venomous malice. "Even if my corpse were to rot in this very chair, you have already leached enough knowledge from me to guarantee your precious first place in next term's exams."
She let out a ragged, breathless scoff.
"So do us both a favor. Vanish from my sight. Immediately."
'That should do it,' Tamara thought, her mind calculating the exact trajectory of the girl's impending breakdown. A few cruel words to shatter that fragile Gryffindor pride, followed by a tearful exit and a slammed door. This was the only logic the Dark Lord understood. Every interaction, every fleeting moment of supposed warmth, was nothing more than a transactional exchange of use and benefit. Break the transaction, end the interaction.
Yet, as the venomous words hung in the stale air, Hermione's hands merely froze mid-reach.
She didn't spin on her heel. She didn't flee down the corridor. She didn't even shed a single tear of humiliation.
Instead, the bushy-haired girl snapped her chin up. Those wide brown eyes, usually so eager and rule-abiding, ignited with a furious, blazing inferno.
"Are you insane?!"
The shout echoed off the stone walls. Hermione glared down at her, entirely oblivious to the suffocating, predatory aura Tamara usually weaponized against her peers.
"Do you honestly think I care about you because of some damn grades?! Why do you always have to twist everyone's concern into some sick, utilitarian transaction?!"
'A hundred Avada Kedavras,'Tamara thought, her jaw locking.'I will carve her into pieces for daring to raise her voice at Lord Voldemort.'
To be scolded by a thirteen-year-old Mudblood was an offense that demanded oceans of blood.
But her body refused to move. So, Tamara merely stared back, her dark eyes glinting with a cold, mocking light. A frail, chilling smirk tugged at the corner of her pale lips.
"If not for benefit, then why the theatrics?" Tamara whispered, her voice a raspy hiss. "Don't tell me the legendary, overflowing well of Gryffindor friendship has become so bloated that you are now tossing it out as charity to a Slytherin."
"Then what about you?!" Hermione fired back, refusing to back down a single inch. A stray tear finally broke free, tracing a hot path down her cheek. "Why did you always help me before?! And don't you dare lie to me! Don't give me that rubbish about it being 'convenient' or that you just couldn't stand the sight of me struggling!"
The retort died on Tamara's tongue. She wanted to laugh in the girl's face. She wanted to mock this pathetic, naive stupidity and scream that every single good deed was extorted from her by a sadistic, tyrannical Virtue System. She only helped to avoid being electrocuted into a twitching, pitiful mess!
But looking at the fierce conviction in Hermione's stance, Tamara knew the idiot wouldn't believe a word of it. She swallowed the bitter truth, refusing to waste her limited breath.
"If you have sprinted all the way down here simply to repay some imaginary debt..." Tamara let her heavy eyelids flutter shut, masking the sudden, sharp spike of irritation flaring in her chest. The girl had struck a nerve. "Then turning around and walking out that door would be the greatest assistance you could possibly offer."
"I am not leaving!"
Hermione planted her shoes firmly against the floorboards. She stared at Tamara's ghastly, waxen complexion, her voice cracking under the weight of genuine, unmistakable heartache.
"You were the one who lectured me! You told me not to push myself too hard with my coursework! So why... why are you driving yourself into this state?!"
'Idiot,' Tamara sneered internally, a phantom scoff echoing in her mind.
How could this thick-headed Mudblood ever comprehend the abyss she was staring into? The magic Tamara sought had absolutely nothing in common with the mundane, mind-numbing drivel printed in Hogwarts textbooks! Hermione was breaking her back over a few extra 'O's on a piece of parchment, hoping to secure some mediocre desk job at the Ministry.
But Tamara?
She was piercing the veil of mortality. She was tearing apart the very fabric of life and death! This was the ultimate pursuit of a dark monarch, the grand ambition of Lord Voldemort! To seize supreme, god-like power, what did a trivial nosebleed and a few ruptured blood vessels matter?
She didn't even possess the energy to articulate the sheer scale of the girl's ignorance. Tamara was simply baffled. Why was this child so obsessively meddling in affairs beyond her comprehension?
Gathering the last dregs of her strength, Tamara parted her lips, preparing to unleash a string of curses so vile they would send the Gryffindor weeping to her Head of House.
But Hermione was done asking for permission.
Ignoring the lethal, warning glare practically burning holes through her skull, Miss Know-It-All abruptly whipped out her wand.
"Scourgify!"
A sharp, precise flick of the wrist accompanied the incantation.
Instantly, the thick, coagulated blood clinging to Tamara's chin and soaking into her collar vanished, leaving the fabric and her skin perfectly pristine.
Before Tamara could even process the sheer audacity of having a wand pointed at her face, Hermione dug into her robes. She produced a neatly folded, snow-white handkerchief. Leaning forward—completely devoid of the terror she ought to feel in the presence of a Dark Lord—Hermione forcefully pressed the soft cotton against Tamara's still-bleeding nostrils.
"Don't move." The command was stiff, clipped with lingering anger, yet the fingers holding the cloth against Tamara's skin were painstakingly, agonizingly gentle.
Tamara went entirely rigid.
The soft, warm pressure of the fabric rested against the bridge of her nose. Her vision was entirely consumed by Hermione's face, hovering mere inches away, her brow furrowed in deep concentration.
For a long, suspended second, the Dark Lord's mind went entirely blank.
A master of deception, a creature forged in the fires of manipulation and calculated cruelty, Voldemort suddenly found herself plunging into a terrifying, alien state of utter bewilderment. Ever since she had awakened in this cursed, delicate female body, this infuriating hesitation had been creeping into her psyche like a slow-acting poison.
Concern was cheap. It was a currency used by liars, always masking a hidden dagger or a greedy scheme. To Lord Voldemort, the absolute pinnacle of magical authority, receiving care was a direct insult. It was a desecration of her supremacy. Only the weak, the broken, and the dying required care.
Even her most fanatical, devoted hounds—Bellatrix, Barty—only offered their twisted versions of care because they were starving dogs begging for a scrap of validation. They wanted power, recognition, a fleeting glance of approval from their master.
But this...
Tamara stared blankly into those wide, clear brown eyes.
Hermione's frantic actions stemmed from one singular, absurdly simple truth: she just didn't want Tamara to die.
The Death Eaters dreaded Voldemort's demise because it meant the end of their protection, the collapse of their bloody reign, and the loss of their own status.
But what did Hermione stand to lose?
Tamara's brilliant, tactical mind ground to a violent halt. She ran the calculations, analyzing the variables, and came up empty. If Tamara Riddle dropped dead on these very floorboards, it would have absolutely zero negative impact on this Mudblood's life. If anything, it would remove a rival.
The realization triggered a bizarre, twisting knot of discomfort deep in the Dark Lord's stomach.
Her pride was screaming. She was being treated like a fragile porcelain doll, a weakling who required coddling and protection. In the brutal laws of survival that governed Voldemort's existence, dependence was synonymous with danger. Logic dictated that she should instantly blast this insolent girl across the room for daring to breach her personal space. A swift, agonizing Crucio would serve as a permanent reminder never to cross that line again.
And yet...
The steady pressure of the handkerchief against her skin, the warmth radiating from Hermione's fingertips, and that unfiltered, agonizing worry swimming in the Gryffindor's eyes... it all sparked a strange, microscopic tremor within Tamara's chest. A sensation she could neither identify nor suppress.
The vicious command—'Get out'—rested right on the edge of her teeth. But as she looked at the girl tending to her wounds, the words snagged in her throat, dissolving into a heavy, suffocating silence. She couldn't force them out.
In her past life, Lord Voldemort would have resolved this reckless audacity through one of two avenues.
The first: a blinding flash of the Cruciatus Curse, followed by a banishment that would permanently shatter this pathetic, overstepping sympathy.
The second: slip on the mask of the charming, tragic prodigy. Smile that perfect, hollow smile, and ruthlessly exploit this defenseless, bleeding-heart trust until the girl was drained dry.
But now.
Trapped in this chair, staring at a Gryffindor whose eyes were rimmed with red, who had the sheer, unadulterated gall to pinch her nose shut with a piece of cloth... Tamara made a deeply irritating, almost sorrowful discovery. She couldn't bring herself to execute either option. The natural instincts of the Dark Lord were paralyzed.
'Forget it,'Tamara finally reasoned, desperately constructing a flimsy excuse to justify her own bizarre inaction.'This is still exploitation. She is acting as a free nurse. Throwing a tantrum and banishing her now would only make me, the greatest Dark Wizard of the age, appear hysterical and ungrateful.'
The seconds ticked by, swallowed by a heavy, deeply strange silence.
Slowly, the Life Potion she had choked down earlier began to fully integrate into her bloodstream. A massive, surging wave of vitality flooded her veins, forcibly knitting together the microscopic tears in her magical core and washing away the paralyzing weakness of the backlash.
The bleeding finally slowed to a halt. The waxy, death-like pallor of her skin receded, replaced by the faint, healthy flush of a living, breathing human being.
Sensing the shift, Hermione cautiously pulled the handkerchief away. She inspected Tamara's face, letting out a quiet breath of relief upon confirming the hemorrhage had stopped. With another quick Scourgify, she vanished the crimson stains from the fabric and tucked it away.
Taking a deliberate step back, Hermione stared down at the recovering Slytherin. Her lips pressed into a tight, thin line.
"I won't tell the Professors about what happened tonight," she stated, her tone stiff and guarded.
Before Tamara could even begin to form a mocking smirk, Hermione leaned in, her bright eyes flashing with absolute, unyielding determination.
"But if... if I ever catch you turning yourself into a half-dead ghost again, teetering on the edge of collapse, I will tell Professor McGonagall! I'll tell Dumbledore! I'll even go straight to Snape!" She jabbed a finger in Tamara's direction. "Don't think I won't do it, Tamara Riddle."
Confronted with the little beaver's fierce ultimatum, Tamara merely raised an arm, casually propping her chin on the back of her hand. She observed the bristling Gryffindor with renewed, dark interest.
Tilting her head slightly, a genuinely playful, dangerous curve hooked the corner of Tamara's mouth. In her twisted worldview, no one issued such a thankless, risky threat without an ulterior motive.
When she spoke, her voice had fully regained its signature, lazy composure.
"You are threatening me, Granger."
There were countless ways to dispose of this meddling know-it-all. The most efficient route would be to flash that flawless, angelic smile and weave a web of fabricated promises to pacify her. Alternatively, a swift flick of her wand and a whispered Obliviate would cleanly wipe this entire incident from the Muggle-born's mind.
That was the code of conduct. That was the way of the Dark Lord.
And yet, looking at that stubborn face still etched with lingering worry, Tamara found herself doing something entirely unmatched. For the very first time, she offered the little beaver a third option—one that even she found utterly absurd.
"In exchange for keeping my secret, and for... caring about me," Tamara purred, her dark eyes narrowing into predatory slits. "What is it you want? Deeper magical knowledge? Rare, high-level Potion recipes?"
She leaned forward, her voice dropping into a silken, hypnotic whisper laced with dark seduction.
"Or perhaps... you want permission to stand by my side, and unravel the most deep, dangerous magic in the world with me?"
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