Chapter 76: A Fair Evaluation
The sensation of weightless, uncontrolled descent was entirely devoid of elegance.
After a brief, rushing plunge through the darkness, Tamara's boots connected with something distinctly unpleasant. It was soft, damp, and yielded with a spongy, elastic resistance beneath her weight.
Pitch blackness swallowed her vision. The stagnant air in the subterranean chamber hung heavy with the cloying stench of freshly turned earth, damp rot, and... was that the acrid scent of charred cabbage?
She barely had a moment to adjust her footing before the seemingly inert mass beneath her reacted. Sensing the sudden intrusion of a warm-blooded body, the thick vines sprang into violent motion. Slithering with the silent, predatory grace of starved pythons, they lashed out in the gloom. Cold, damp tendrils whipped around Tamara's ankles, rapidly spiraling up her calves in a desperate bid to bind her legs, constrict her waist, and drag her down into a suffocating embrace.
"Devil's Snare."
Tamara did not flinch. She did not thrash. She merely stood perfectly still in the center of the writhing mass, her wand remaining casually lowered at her side as she pronounced the plant's name with absolute, freezing disdain.
So this was Pomona Sprout's grand contribution to guarding the Philosopher's Stone. A pathetic weed that thrived in damp, lightless corners. To an ordinary, panic-stricken first-year student, this creeping menace might genuinely pose a lethal threat. The more a victim thrashed and fought against the bindings, the tighter the relentless vines would constrict, crushing ribs and snapping spines until the prey was thoroughly strangled.
A wet, hissing friction echoed in the dark as the creepers slithered past her knees. The slimy, fibrous texture seeping through her pristine robes caused Tamara's brow to furrow in deep revulsion.
To a witch of her caliber, such a low-tier botanical nuisance was barely fit to serve as compost, let alone a worthy obstacle.
"Release me."
Her voice was a low, silken murmur. It was not a shout, yet it carried the crushing, unquestionable weight of absolute authority.
Naturally, the mindless flora lacked the intellect to comprehend human commands. Interpreting her absolute stillness as weakness, the snare surged with renewed vigor. A particularly thick, oozing branch whipped upward, blindly attempting to snatch the yew wand from her relaxed grip.
"Impudent weed."
A dangerous glint of impatience flared in Tamara's dark eyes.
"Incendio."
She did not bother to enunciate the full, dramatic incantation taught in the classroom. Instead, she merely offered a lazy, almost dismissive flick of her wrist.
There was no roaring inferno. No massive, blinding fireball erupted to consume the chamber. Only a singular, concentrated flame, scarcely larger than a thumb, flickered quietly to life at the very tip of her wand.
Yet, to the Devil's Snare, this minuscule spark might as well have been the wrath of a dying sun.
The plant had, after all, just endured a catastrophic trauma. Hermione Granger, that insufferable, violent little mudblood, had unleashed a genuine blaze only moments prior, nearly scorching the entire root system bald. The lingering, acrid stench of roasted leaves hanging in the air was the ultimate proof of its recent suffering.
Driven by sheer botanical panic and severe post-traumatic stress, the plant erupted with a desperate, frantic will to survive the absolute second that tiny light pierced the gloom.
Swish!
The thick vines that had been so eagerly constricting Tamara's limbs snapped back with a violent blur of speed. They recoiled like a salted slug, ripping themselves away from her skin.
The entire massive organism began to tremble violently, emitting a frantic, rustling friction as leaves scraped against stone. Not only did the snare release its intended victim, but the vines actively scrambled backward. In a remarkably human display of terror, the tendrils plastered themselves flat against the damp stone walls, curling inward into tight, defensive knots. They forcefully cleared a wide, unobstructed path straight down the center of the chamber.
Even the roots directly beneath Tamara's boots flattened themselves out, desperately smoothing over the uneven dirt floor, utterly terrified of accidentally tripping this terrifying young mistress.
"Sensible."
Tamara casually extinguished the flame at her wand's tip. She took a moment to smooth out the front of her pristine school robes, which had not suffered a single wrinkle, before continuing her advance. She walked forward with slow, aristocratic grace, stepping lightly upon the makeshift welcome carpet of subdued Devil's Snare.
With every click of her heels, the traumatized flora beneath her soles shivered and quaked in submission.
'If Pomona Sprout knew her precious, deadly guardian was nothing but a spineless bully that cowered before true strength, the plump woman would likely kick over her dragon dung fertilizer bucket in a fit of absolute despair.'
Leaving the trembling botanical room behind, Tamara stepped into a long, sloping stone corridor. The deeper she descended, the more the damp, musty odor of wet earth faded into nothingness. In its place, a crisp, high-pitched buzzing began to echo off the masonry. It sounded like a swarm of countless, agitated insects frantically beating their wings.
Emerging from the dark tunnel, Tamara stepped into a vast, brilliantly illuminated chamber.
The vaulted ceiling arched so high it vanished into the upper shadows. The source of the buzzing was immediately apparent. Countless tiny, jewel-bright objects were darting and circling wildly through the open air, catching the torchlight and emitting a dazzling, chaotic glare.
At the far end of the chamber stood a massive, heavy wooden door, reinforced with iron bands.
Tamara paused, tilting her chin up to observe the glittering swarm. They were not birds. They were keys. Hundreds upon hundreds of old-fashioned keys, each outfitted with a pair of rapidly beating, translucent wings. They zipped and dive-bombed through the space like a hive of maddened hornets that had been sealed away for far too long.
Her dark gaze drifted downward, landing on a small collection of battered broomsticks resting carelessly in the corner.
The design intent of this particular obstacle was painfully obvious. The challenger was meant to mount one of those splintering twigs, launch themselves into the chaotic swarm, and somehow identify and capture the single correct key from among the thousands. A tedious test designed to evaluate both sharp eyesight and aerial agility.
'Typical Filius Flitwick nonsense,'Tamara mused, her lip curling.'Flashy, horribly cumbersome, and thoroughly saturated with a sense of self-indulgent, academic technicality.'
She delivered her silent, entirely fair, and overwhelmingly negative review of the Charms Master's handiwork.
She did not spare the brooms a second glance. Such crude toys were meant for simpletons like Harry Potter, fools who genuinely enjoyed scurrying about in the sky like overexcited monkeys. True flight was the absolute mastery of gravity through one's own raw, unfettered magical power. The ability to simply step into the air and command the sky to hold you.
But riding a broomstick? The sheer indignity of wedging a rough, vibrating wooden stick between one's thighs, entirely dependent on a mass-produced tool just to leave the dirt like some unevolved primitive... it was a vulgar profanation of the very concept of flight.
'Not only aesthetically offensive, but entirely beneath my dignity.'
Tamara coldly withdrew her gaze from the corner. She would rather sever her own feet and crawl across the stone floor than lay her bare hands on a public school broom coated in decades of nervous, sweaty adolescent palms.
Ignoring the buzzing swarm above, she walked straight down the center of the room toward the heavy wooden exit.
The iron keyhole was empty. No key remained trapped in the lock. Yet, the heavy oak door itself was cracked open, leaving a sliver of dark space visible.
'It seems the little Gryffindors have been inside for quite some time.'
A dark, playful curve touched the corner of Tamara's mouth. Potter and his sycophants clearly lacked the presence of mind to relock the door behind them, a fortunate oversight that saved her the minor annoyance of blasting the hinges off.
However.
The moment her boots crossed the exact center of the chamber, the atmosphere shifted.
As if the enchanted swarm collectively realized this new intruder had zero intention of playing by the established rules of their aerial game, the keys suddenly grew violently restless.
The chaotic, disorderly circling ceased in an instant. A chilling, synchronized metallic clatter echoed through the high-vaulted room as hundreds of sharp, heavy iron keyheads pivoted in mid-air. They locked onto the lone girl standing on the stone floor.
It was a brutal, secondary anti-cheating mechanism woven into the charm.
Should a wizard attempt to bypass the trial and force their way through the door without properly catching the designated key, the swarm would instantly transform into a barrage of sharp, flying projectiles, designed to riddle the arrogant intruder until they resembled a bloody sieve.
With a sharp, scalp-tingling shriek of displaced air, a vanguard of a dozen heavy silver keys broke formation. They dive-bombed from the ceiling like a miniature, lethal rain of arrows, their jagged iron teeth aimed directly for the soft tissue of Tamara's eyes and throat.
"Annoying flies."
Tamara did not break her steady, measured stride. She merely raised her yew wand with a lazy grace, tracing a casual, elegant circle in the empty air before her.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
A pulse of invisible, kinetic force rippled outward from the wand's tip. The dozen silver keys, rushing with lethal momentum, slammed into the magical barrier. Mere inches from the bridge of her nose, the projectiles were violently seized by an unseen grip, freezing dead in mid-air.
Their translucent blue wings blurred frantically, struggling against the hold, but the heavy iron bodies remained absolutely motionless.
As she continued her walk to the door, wave after wave of the metallic swarm attempted to dive at her. With every strike, Tamara simply flicked her wrist, using the fundamental Levitation Charm to bat the incoming keys aside, violently crashing the enchanted objects into one another in a shower of sparks and bent metal.
Just as her hand reached out to push open the heavy oak door, a faint scratching sound drew her attention to the shadows near the hinges.
Something was weakly struggling against the stone floor. Tamara paused, looking down. It was a large, heavy, old-fashioned silver key.
This particular key boasted a pair of bright, sky-blue wings. However, its current state was pitiful. One of the delicate wings was bent backward at a grotesque, unnatural angle, the silver metal deeply grooved with the frantic, crushing marks of a violent, desperate grip. Stripped of its ability to fly, the heavy key could only drag itself in pathetic, lopsided circles on the cold stone, resembling a headless chicken with a shattered leg.
This was the prize. The correct key.
Tamara stopped entirely, staring down at the pathetic, crippled object twitching at the tip of her boot.
"Crude," she murmured, her tone dripping with disdain.
Such excessive, unrefined damage was clearly not the precise work of an insufferable bookworm like Granger, nor was it something a bumbling, uncoordinated oaf like Weasley could manage while airborne. This carried a very specific signature.
Only Harry Potter.
Tamara could vividly picture the chaotic scene that had unfolded here just an hour prior. That infuriating, bespectacled brat clinging to a broomstick, recklessly weaving through a lethal storm of iron, before using that mindless, adrenaline-fueled brute force so utterly unique to Gryffindors. He would have snatched the key right out of the air, crushing its delicate wings in his fist, before violently shoving it into the lock.
The method was entirely devoid of any aesthetic grace. It was barbaric, reckless, and thoroughly unrefined.
Yet, as she stared at the cracked open door, she had to concede a singular point.
"The efficiency is... acceptable."
Tamara stepped smoothly over the twitching silver metal. It was the absolute first time tonight she had afforded the wizarding world's precious savior anything remotely resembling a positive evaluation.
'It seems the Boy-Who-Lived isn't entirely devoid of utility,'she mused darkly.'At the very least, as a blunt instrument to clear away the rubbish, he possesses a certain... talent.'
[Ding! System Prompt: Did you just praise Harry Potter?!]
The Virtue System's perky, synthetic voice suddenly exploded inside her skull, practically vibrating with obnoxious surprise.
[Acknowledging a peer's strengths is the very first step to building a healthy, lasting friendship! Oh, Tamara, have you finally learned to look past your differences and appreciate the wonderful qualities of The Boy Who Lived?]
"Shut up," Tamara hissed aloud, her face freezing into a mask of absolute, expressionless ice as she shoved the heavy wooden door the rest of the way open.
'I am merely evaluating the structural integrity of a stepping stone before I crush it beneath my heel.'
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