Chapter 141: I've Figured It Out
Ginny stood frozen, the heavy silence of the library pressing down on her shoulders.
Lately, she had poured every ounce of her energy into acting mature and strong. She desperately wanted to prove she was worthy of standing by Tamara's side, hoping to finally shed her pathetic image as a mere crybaby. She wanted to be useful. She wanted to be seen.
But now, staring into Tamara's flat, unfeeling gaze, Ginny realized the truth. All her exhausting efforts meant nothing. To Tamara, she was still just that sniveling, bothersome Weasley.
A massive wave of shame, thick and suffocating, crashed into her chest, followed closely by a bitter sense of grievance. Ginny's eyes burned, the edges of her vision blurring with unshed tears.
Why was the senior who had been so stern yet fiercely caring back in the bathroom now acting so cold?
Ginny frantically searched for excuses, her mind spinning. Maybe Tamara was just too busy with her studies? Maybe she was having a terrible day? Or perhaps... her own stuttering performance just now had been too utterly stupid?
Yes, that had to be it. It was because she was too useless.
The senior was a Slytherin genius, a witch destined for absolute greatness. How could someone like Tamara possibly have the time or patience to listen to a little girl's boring, childish nightmares? Instead of being a helpful companion, Ginny was nothing but a dead weight, constantly dragging her down and causing trouble.
"I... I'm sorry."
Ginny bowed her head, her chin trembling as she fought back the tears. Her fingers tightened around the rejected pumpkin pasty, crinkling the wrapper. She turned on her heel, desperate to flee from this suffocating space before she completely broke down.
However.
Just as she took her first few shaky steps away from the desk, a sudden noise shattered the quiet atmosphere.
"Tamara!"
The voice was crisp, brimming with an almost reckless confidence, and laced with breathless excitement. It came from the other side of the towering bookshelves.
Hermione Granger marched down the aisle, her arms wrapped around a precarious stack of heavy, leather-bound tomes that threatened to topple over her bushy hair. She did not even spare a glance for the pale, trembling redhead standing just a few feet away. Hermione bypassed Ginny entirely, marching straight to Tamara's desk and dropping the massive stack of books with a resounding, dusty thud.
"About that variant structure of Ancient Runes you mentioned last time!"
Hermione gasped for air, but her brown eyes were incredibly bright, her face flushed and glowing with the pure fervor of academic pursuit.
"I found it! There is a similar variant in Chapter Seventeen of Tracing the Origins of Nordic Runes!"
Ginny stopped dead in her tracks.
She subconsciously looked back over her shoulder, her breath catching in her throat. She waited for the inevitable. She wanted to see how Tamara would treat this new intruder who had dared to disturb her peace. Would Tamara sneer? Would she look at Hermione like a piece of trash and tell her to get lost, just as she had silently commanded Ginny?
But the scene that unfolded before her completely shattered the fragile remains of her heart.
The previously impatient, ice-cold Tamara... actually stopped her quill.
The ink pooled slightly on the parchment as Tamara slowly lifted her head. The suffocating, icy indifference that had just frozen Ginny to the bone actually melted away from those pitch-black eyes. In its place was a sharp, calculating, yet entirely genuine focus. It was still arrogant, yes, but it was engaged.
"Tracing the Origins of Nordic Runes?"
Tamara arched a single, elegant eyebrow and reached across the desk to take the heavy volume Hermione eagerly offered.
"That old-fashioned theory can actually be applied?"
"Of course!" Hermione leaned over the desk with absolute confidence, flipping the heavy cover open and pointing a finger directly at a dense paragraph of text. "Look right here, regarding the Dielectric Loss in Magic Conduction..."
"...Interesting."
As Tamara scanned the aged pages, the corner of her mouth actually curled upward. It was an extremely tiny, almost imperceptible arc, but it held a trace of genuine approval.
"While the logic is a bit strained, as a supporting argument, it is not entirely without value."
"Sit down, Granger."
Tamara tapped the empty wooden chair across the table with the tip of her wand.
"Explain your so-called theory to me in detail. If you are talking nonsense again, I will throw you out."
Though her tone remained sharp and condescending, the reality of her actions screamed a different truth.
She let Hermione sit down.
She was willing to listen to Hermione speak.
She was even discussing deep, complex magical theories with Hermione—topics that Ginny could not even begin to comprehend.
In that exact moment, standing forgotten in the shadows of the towering bookshelves, Ginny felt the very last trace of warmth drain completely from her body.
The stark contrast was a jagged knife, ruthlessly twisting into her already battered heart. As it turned out, Tamara did not hate being disturbed at all.
She just hated being disturbed by Ginny.
In Tamara's eyes, Hermione Granger was a peer. She was someone who could keep up with her brilliant thoughts, a valuable conversational partner worthy of her time.
And Ginny...
Ginny was just a useless Weasley who could only cry, act paranoid, and offer pathetic pumpkin pasties.
"Why..."
Ginny gripped the wooden plaque resting against her chest. Her knuckles turned white, her fingernails digging so hard into her own palms that they almost broke the skin.
Jealousy. Despair. Grievance. A deep, rotting self-loathing began to ferment wildly within her chest.
At the exact second her mental defenses crumbled into dust, a suffocating wave of dark magic slithered up from the deepest, darkest corner of her soul. The remnant—the fractured piece of soul that had been forced to play dead, cowering in terror after being brutally suppressed by Tamara—finally saw its chance. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
'Heh heh...'A voice dripping with malice and mockery echoed through the darkest corners of her mind. It was audible only to her. This was not the gentle, understanding Tom from the diary pages. This was a monster stripped of all reason, a hollow shell of pure resentment driven only by the instinct for revenge.'Look... what a pathetic little girl.'The voice hissed inside her skull, mimicking the flicking tongue of a venomous snake.'You treat her as your only salvation, your most admired idol... but what about her?''She looks down on you.''She thinks you are a waste. A burden. A fool who cannot even speak clearly.'Ginny's breathing hitched. Her pupils began to dilate rapidly, and deep within her originally warm brown eyes, a layer of eerie, swirling black mist slowly emerged.'Look at that mudblood...'
Using Ginny's eyes as its own, the remnant soul's gaze locked firmly onto Hermione Granger, who was sitting comfortably across from Tamara, talking eloquently about runic structures.
To this remnant soul, Tamara was its absolute worst nightmare, its most feared natural enemy. It did not dare to strike at Tamara directly. The fear of being crushed again was too great.
But it hated her.
It hated the original body that had so ruthlessly ruined its grand plan for physical reconstruction, and it hated that high-and-mighty woman who sat there looking so utterly untouchable.
Since it did not dare touch the original body... it would destroy what she cared about instead.
In the remnant soul's twisted, sociopathic perception, for a cold-blooded, calculating creature like Tamara to willingly waste her precious time communicating—even allowing the other person to sit opposite her—this mudblood had to be her most important pawn.
'It is that mudblood who stole your place...''It is that mudblood who makes Tamara ignore you...'The voice was thick with dark seduction, wrapping around Ginny's fragile mind like a comforting blanket of poison.'As long as she disappears... Tamara will see you again.''As long as you destroy that mudblood... you can make that arrogant woman feel pain...'
Ginny's body seized, shuddering violently as the dark magic flooded her veins.
Then, the trembling stopped. It stopped completely.
She slowly lifted her head. The tears were still wet on her pale cheeks, but a bizarre, twisted smile now stretched across her face. In those eyes, there was no longer a single trace of the innocence and cowardice that belonged to Ginny Weasley.
Only a deathly, silent darkness remained.
"Granger..."
Ginny's lips barely moved, her voice exceptionally raspy, sounding like dry leaves scraping against stone.
"It is all because of you..."
She took one last, deep look at Hermione, who was bathed in the warm sunlight streaming through the library window, happily discussing academics with Tamara.
Then, Ginny turned away. She walked out of the library, her steps stiff, silent, and entirely devoid of life.
And in her corrupted mind, a frantic, blood-soaked plan had already taken perfect shape.
The monster that had slept in the pipes beneath the school for far too long... it was time for it to wake up again. It was time to enjoy a feast.
"I will make you... pay the price."
Ginny's fingers neurotically stroked the wooden plaque at her chest, rubbing the surface as if it were her only lifeline in a drowning world.
The bizarre smile at the corner of her mouth slowly widened in the dim shadows of the corridor, revealing a bone-chilling mixture of absolute obsession and twisted innocence.
"As long as you disappear..."
"That spot will become empty."
Ginny murmured in a low voice, her tone as light and hollow as a winter wind.
"That way... Sister Tamara's gaze will fall entirely... on me."
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