Chapter 86: An Old Acquaintance
With an ear-splitting screech of iron on iron, the Hogwarts Express expelled its final, exhausted plume of white steam. The great scarlet engine shuddered and ground to a halt alongside Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Instantly, the carriage doors burst open, vomiting a stampede of students onto the platform like a horde of feral mandrakes released back into the wild.
Tamara remained seated in her compartment, utterly drained.
Reflecting on the past few hours, the journey had been nothing short of a carefully designed torture chamber for the Dark Lord's sanity. The air inside the cramped space was thick and suffocating—a vile concoction of cloying chocolate frogs, the pungent decay of Ronald Weasley's useless rat, and the heavy, headache-inducing cologne radiating from Draco Malfoy.
For hours, her left ear had been assaulted by Harry Potter's incessant, mindless babbling about Quidditch tactics, while her right ear suffered the shrill, glass-shattering frequency of Pansy Parkinson's giggles.
If a soul could physically wither from sheer annoyance, hers would have crumbled into fine ash over the English countryside.
Compared to this agonizing mental degradation, her years spent as a disembodied, wandering wraith in the desolate Albanian forests suddenly felt like a luxury vacation.
Her upper lip curled in deep disgust. She drew her wand, pointing the polished wood at her knee to vanish the sticky, foul-smelling slime left behind by a certain amphibian. With a flick of her wrist, she cast a silent levitation charm, hoisting the offending toad into the air and unceremoniously dumping it back into Neville Longbottom's lap like a bag of rotting garbage.
"...Take your toad and get lost."
Neville fumbled wildly, his pudgy hands barely catching the croaking creature. His round face flushed with overwhelming gratitude. "Thank you for looking after Trevor! Tamara, you're so incredibly kind!"
Tamara closed her eyes. A vein throbbed faintly at her temple. She felt a deep, bone-deep exhaustion.
Just then, a painfully cheerful chime echoed in her skull.
[Ding! Mission Complete: The Friendship Express.]
[Congratulations, host! During the hours-long journey, you successfully resisted the urge to cast lethal jinxes on your classmates, demonstrating remarkable patience and angelic tolerance!]
[Reward: Love +1.]
[Current Attribute, Love: 20.]
[Congratulations on achieving a milestone! New skill unlocked.]
[Spell Acquired: Stupefy.]
A sudden, familiar rush of heat surged through Tamara's veins, pooling at her fingertips.
Stupefy.
While it was merely a non-lethal Stunning Spell, in the heat of a duel, rendering an opponent instantly unconscious was an exceptionally pragmatic tool.
"Finally..."
Tamara tightened her grip on her wand. She savored the intoxicating rush of new magic settling into her magical core. A genuine, albeit chilling, smile finally tugged at the corners of her tightly drawn lips.
Perhaps the agonizing suffering of this train ride hadn't been entirely in vain.
With this spell etched into her repertoire, the very next time she found herself cornered by these insufferable brats, she could simply blast them into a deep, quiet sleep. For the greater good, of course.
"Let's go."
She stood up, smoothing the creases from her robes. A lazy wave of her wand sent her heavy trunk floating obediently behind her as she strode out of the suffocating compartment and into the chaotic din of the station.
The platform was a riot of noise and motion. Witches and wizards in varying states of eccentric dress swarmed the area, collecting their children amidst a cacophony of hooting owls, screeching cats, and tearful reunions.
Tamara handled the crushing crowd with practiced grace, making a beeline for the ticket barrier leading back to the Muggle world.
"Tamara! Wait!"
She hadn't made it far before Harry's voice cut through the clamor.
He was struggling to push his heavily laden luggage trolley over the uneven cobblestones. Just beyond the wrought-iron railing, the bloated, purplish-red face of Vernon Dursley was already visible, his thick walrus mustache twitching as he roared impatiently at his nephew.
Harry's expression had darkened considerably—the grim resignation of a prisoner returning to his cell.
"Um... I have to go," Harry muttered, his green eyes lingering on Tamara with obvious reluctance. "I'm going back to Privet Drive... It's absolutely dreadful there."
He shifted his weight, clearly desperate to ask where she was staying for the summer holidays. He wanted to ask if she would write, if she would accept his letters, or... perhaps if they could meet.
But one look at Tamara's perfectly impassive, porcelain face made the words die in his throat.
Tamara stared at the supposed Savior of the Wizarding World, watching him dread his return to a mundane suburban house. She felt absolutely zero sympathy. In fact, a dark, bubbling urge to laugh clawed at her throat.
"Good luck, Potter," Tamara said coolly, allowing a razor-thin edge of mockery to bleed into her tone. "I do hope your Muggle cousin doesn't stuff you headfirst down the toilet and flush you away."
She tilted her head, her dark eyes glinting. "If that does happen, be sure to write to me. I'll need to tell Draco the joke."
However.
The Boy Who Lived possessed an astonishing immunity to sarcasm.
Instead of registering the blatant malice, Harry's eyes actually brightened.
"Thank you, Tamara!" he said, his voice thick with genuine emotion. "I'll be careful! You're worried about me, aren't you? Even though you always try to sound harsh, I know you're actually a really good person underneath it all!"
"..."
Tamara's lips twitched violently.
'Had this idiot's brain been slammed in a door, or did a mountain troll use his skull for tap-dancing practice?'
"Get lost," she snapped, ending the conversation with brutal efficiency.
Just as Harry finally trudged away, glancing back over his shoulder every few steps, a fresh headache materialized.
"Tamara!"
Draco stood a few yards away, flanked by a tall, impeccably dressed couple radiating aristocratic haughtiness.
Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.
Lucius stood tall, both hands resting elegantly on his iconic silver snake-headed cane. His cold, pale gray eyes swept over Tamara, scrutinizing her with an appraising, deeply critical gaze.
"So this is the... Miss Riddle you mentioned?" Lucius drawled, his silken voice catching almost imperceptibly on the surname.
His eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. A flicker of something dark and obscure shifted in the depths of his gaze.
'Riddle.'
It was a painfully ordinary, even lowly Muggle surname.
But for the current patriarch of the House of Malfoy, the mere pronunciation of those two syllables acted like a forbidden curse, dragging long-buried, chilling memories to the surface.
His late father, Abraxas Malfoy, had muttered that name through fevered breaths on his deathbed. The Dark Lord, the supreme master who had once held the entire wizarding world by the throat, had supposedly borne such a mediocre, unknown surname during his school days.
Was this merely a bizarre coincidence?
Or was it some... terrifying continuation?
"Yes, Father! It's her!" Draco piped up, entirely oblivious to the sudden, rigid tension in his father's posture. He continued with eager pride, "She's a hero of Slytherin! And her spellcasting is miles ahead of the upper-years! Even Professor Snape treats her differently!"
Draco turned to her, his chest puffed out. "Tamara, I want to invite you to Malfoy Manor for the summer! We can practice Quidditch together, and you can see my father's collection of... uh, rare treasures."
'To Malfoy Manor?'
Tamara's dark eyes drifted downward, sweeping past Lucius's bespoke dragon-hide briefcase before locking onto the silver snake-headed cane.
If her memory served her correctly, her sixteen-year-old soul fragment—that intoxicatingly dark diary—was currently sitting in some hidden compartment beneath the drawing-room floor of Malfoy Manor.
Decades ago, she—or rather, the Dark Lord at the absolute zenith of his power—had personally entrusted that piece of her soul to this slippery, groveling servant for safekeeping. She had made it abundantly clear that it wasn't just another dark artifact to be fenced; it was to be guarded with his very life.
Yet, as the memories of her past life surged forward, a flash of heart-stopping, violent crimson light flared deep within Tamara's pupils.
She remembered it all too clearly. After this pathetic coward convinced himself that Voldemort had fallen for good, he had casually slipped the diary into the cauldron of a first-year Weasley girl. He had treated a piece of her immortal soul like a disposable political prop just to frame Arthur Weasley!
That singular act of monumental stupidity had ultimately led to the complete destruction of her Horcrux.
It was the ultimate betrayal. The most unforgivable desecration of her eternal legacy.
Right now, her fingers twitched with the desperate urge to rip the manor apart and reclaim it. Just the thought of touching it, of experiencing the euphoric rush of her soul reuniting, threatened to drive her mad with longing.
But... Tamara's current reality was a bitter pill to swallow. She was legally an orphaned Muggle-born.
If she accepted Draco's invitation, Lucius would undoubtedly launch a thorough investigation into her background. If this aristocratic snob discovered that the so-called heir of Slytherin was currently rotting in a filthy, rat-infested Muggle orphanage... it would be an indelible stain on the Dark Lord's flawless mythos. It would instantly strip away any awe or fear Lucius might harbor.
'Why not just reveal my identity now?'
Tamara sneered inwardly.
She knew Lucius's opportunistic, cowardly nature better than anyone. If he realized his resurrected master was currently trapped in the fragile body of an eleven-year-old girl, stripped of her overwhelming magical reserves... his first instinct wouldn't be to fall to his knees in worship. He would immediately plot to control her, bind her, or worse—use her as a lucrative bargaining chip with the Ministry of Magic.
She had to maintain the illusion.
She had to keep him terrified, guessing, and off-balance.
"I am afraid not, Draco," Tamara declined. Her voice was perfectly polite, yet laced with an icy distance. "I have no desire to waste my holiday on frivolities."
"But... are you really going back there?" Draco blurted out, his pale face twisting in utter bewilderment, as if Tamara had just announced her intention to dine on a bowl of horned slugs. "I mean, compared to that... that utterly non-magical Muggle place, Malfoy Manor is clearly more suitable for someone like you—"
"Draco." Narcissa's hand clamped gently but firmly onto her son's shoulder, cutting off his rude outburst.
Commenting so loudly on another witch's background in the middle of a crowded platform was a glaring breach of pure-blood etiquette.
Yet, Tamara felt absolutely no shame at having her living situation broadcasted.
Instead, she slowly tilted her chin up. Her bottomless, ink-black eyes locked directly onto Lucius's pale gray ones.
In that split second, the air between them seemed to freeze. Lucius felt the sudden, suffocating sensation of a venomous serpent uncoiling at his throat.
'That gaze.'
That cold, utterly condescending stare that viewed everything in its path as nothing more than breathing meat.
It bore a horrifying, uncanny resemblance to the monstrous figure that haunted his darkest nightmares.
Lucius's knuckles turned stark white as his grip on the silver cane tightened convulsively. His pupils shrank to pinpricks. The primal terror rooted deep within his soul screamed at him to take a step back.
"I have my own arrangements, Lucius," Tamara said softly.
The temperature seemed to drop. She had deliberately omitted any honorifics, addressing the proud patriarch by his first name as if speaking to a subordinate.
"Some matters are simply not suitable for discussion in broad daylight. Wouldn't you agree?"
It was a masterclass in double entendre. A polite refusal wrapped in a razor-sharp warning.
Lucius's heart slammed against his ribs.
Staring down at this eleven-year-old girl, a fine sheen of cold sweat broke out across his forehead.
'Too similar.'The cadence of her voice. The crushing, suffocating pressure of her presence.'Could it be...?'
"I... understand."
Lucius drew a slow, shaky breath, forcibly wrestling the violent storm of panic in his chest under control. His previous mask of arrogant scrutiny evaporated entirely, replaced by a rigid, almost humble caution.
He executed a slight bow. It was noticeably deeper than the polite nod he would offer a fellow pure-blood head of house—a bow that carried the distinct, unmistakable deference reserved for a master.
"Since Miss Riddle has important matters to attend to, we shall not disturb you further."
He paused, lowering his voice into a careful, probing whisper. "However, allow me to add one thing. The doors of Malfoy Manor are always open to... exceptional talents such as yourself."
"I will consider it."
Tamara offered a haughty, millimeter-deep nod. Without sparing the stunned father and son another glance, she turned on her heel and glided toward the ticket barrier.
Lucius stood frozen, watching the slender girl's silhouette vanish into the bustling crowd. Only then did he realize his fine leather gloves were slick with sweat.
"Father? What's wrong?" Draco looked up, his brow furrowed in confusion. "You don't look well."
"It is nothing, Draco."
Lucius withdrew a silk handkerchief from his robes and dabbed at his forehead. His pale eyes remained locked on the spot where Tamara had disappeared, a storm of complex, terrifying calculations churning behind them.
"Just... remembering an old acquaintance."
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