Chapter 228: Thoughts
Betrayal.
For Peter Pettigrew, the word carried no heavy weight of moral condemnation. It was simply an instinctive law of survival, a biological necessity for a rat caught in a trap.
Twelve years ago, he had not sold out James and Lily Potter to the Order of the Phoenix because he harbored some deep, burning yearning for dark doctrines. He had done it because he saw right through the fatal weakness of the Order.
In that suffocating era shrouded by the shadow of death, he had watched Albus Dumbledore and his loyal followers constantly restrain themselves. They crippled their own magical potential just to protect the worthless, mediocre masses. They even clung to the ridiculous, suicidal bottom line of refusing to cast Unforgivable Curses.
How could a faction held hostage by fragile morality and fleeting emotion ever hope to defeat a madman who recognized no boundaries? A dark lord who wielded slaughter and fear as an art form? In the face of absolute, unyielding brutality, a moral bottom line was a fatal flaw.
So, he had crawled. He had knelt in the dirt at the feet of Lord Voldemort, eagerly trading the lives of his closest friends for a scrap of protection. Only that pure, despairing cruelty could grant him a sliver of peace in a world determined to crush him.
But now.
Now, everything was wrong. That girl named Tamara Riddle, the one who supposedly housed the soul of the greatest Dark Lord in history, was parading around with the exact same ridiculous limitations and weaknesses as Albus Dumbledore!
She refused to execute Sirius Black. She showed sickening tolerance toward Mudbloods. She even sat in the headmaster's office and spouted absolute garbage about kindness and virtue!
What kind of Dark Lord was this?
A Voldemort with scruples, a master who had lost her absolute, terrifying edge, could never protect the life of a marked traitor like him when the inevitable reckoning came.
Peter cowered among the towering mountains of forgotten junk in the Room of Requirement. His pudgy hands trembled violently as he stared at the tarnished silver of Ravenclaw's Diadem. A ghostly, hypnotic blue light pulsed from its sapphire centerpiece, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the dead air.
"I need a true master..."
He swallowed hard, the sound loud in the oppressive silence, and reached out a shaking, dirt-stained hand.
As his stubby fingers drew closer to the artifact, the faded Dark Mark branded into his left forearm flared to life. A surge of intense, piercing pain shot up his arm, burning like hot iron against his flesh.
The very second his fingertips grazed the freezing metal of the diadem, the world tilted.
A violent, suffocating surge of dark magic erupted. Like a flood of black water shattering a dam, the malicious aura roared out from the cracked sapphire and violently invaded Peter's mind.
"Ah!"
Peter threw his head back and unleashed a shrill, rat-like scream. He felt his skull being pried apart from the inside. A massive, suffocating weight of memories belonging to a young Tom Riddle ruthlessly crushed his fragile nerves, tearing through his mental defenses like wet paper.
'A piece of trash reeking of a rat.'A cold, aristocratic, and infinitely cruel young voice exploded within the confines of Peter's skull.'But your memories... they are somewhat valuable.'
"Mas... Master!"
Peter collapsed to his knees, his fingernails digging bloody half-moons into his own scalp. Despite the agonizing pain splitting his brain, his watery eyes erupted with a manic, wild joy.
This was it. This freezing contempt! This absolute, emotionless brutality!
This was the true Lord Voldemort, the nightmare that had once struck paralyzing terror into the heart of the entire Wizarding world! It did not matter that this was merely a fractured sliver of soul sealed within an ancient relic.
"Great Master! I am willing to serve you! I am willing to offer you everything!" Peter babbled, tears of pain and fanaticism streaming down his grimy cheeks as he pressed his forehead against the dusty floorboards like a groveling dog.
'Offer everything?'The young Tom Riddle residing within the diadem let out a slow, contemptuous sneer that echoed in Peter's mind.'That cowardly, repulsive shell of yours is entirely unworthy of carrying my soul.''But as a temporary vessel... a crude tool for me to clean house and devour that weak, defective product currently parading around in my name... it will barely suffice.'
Peter was terrified of death. His heart hammered against his ribs. He knew perfectly well that if he allowed the Dark Lord to completely hollow out his body for a true resurrection, his twelve years of hiding in the sewers as a filthy rat would be entirely in vain.
But he also knew Tom Riddle. This sixteen-year-old memory, a youth standing at the absolute peak of extreme narcissism and arrogance, would rather fade into nothingness than allow his flawless, perfect soul to be permanently revived within the grotesque, balding body of a rat-man.
'Open your consciousness.'Tom's demonic whisper slithered through the cold air of the room, wrapping around Peter's throat.'Use your pathetic life force to nourish my will. In exchange, I shall grant you... power. Power enough to survive in this cruel world.'
Peter ground his yellowed teeth together and shattered his own mental barriers, throwing the doors to his mind wide open without a single second of hesitation.
His body seized. A violent spasm arched his spine as a thick, suffocating wisp of pitch-black smoke slithered out from the cracked sapphire. The shadow coiled like a viper before violently forcing its way into Peter's body through his eyes, ears, nose, and screaming mouth.
The young Tom did not entirely abandon the safety of the diadem. He merely severed a portion of his dark will, grafting it parasitically onto Peter's fragile soul.
In that agonizing, blinding moment of soul fusion, every single secret, every pathetic fear, and every memory Peter had hoarded over the past decade was violently laid bare.
Tom saw her. He saw the Slytherin girl who dared to call herself Tamara Riddle. He watched through Peter's memories as she used that fragile, thirteen-year-old body to play a sickening, hypocritical game of house within the walls of Hogwarts.
Immediately after, a deeper, far more hidden memory was dragged to the surface.
The Boy Who Lived. Harry Potter.
Tom watched in cold, mounting fury as his future self chased after some ethereal, pathetic prophecy, only to meet his absolute downfall at the hands of a crying, one-year-old infant. He watched his future self's body be reduced to ash, leaving him as a wandering, pathetic wraith.
'Truly a sickening fall...' the voice hissed, dripping with absolute disgust.
Several minutes passed in dead silence.
Then, the man lying in a heap on the dusty floorboards slowly stood up.
He still possessed that short, fat, and grotesque appearance. His thinning hair still clung to his sweaty scalp. But his spine, which had been hunched in perpetual cowardice for over a decade, was now ramrod straight.
Those watery, rat-like eyes that had always darted around in pathetic fear were now fixed, burning with a terrifying, dark crimson glow.
The entity wearing Peter's skin raised his stubby hands, turning them over and inspecting the dirty fingernails with deep, aristocratic disgust. He lowered his arms and turned his head, his crimson gaze piercing through the gloom to stare at the heavy wooden doors of the Room of Requirement.
"Tamara Riddle. And... Harry Potter."
He murmured the names aloud. The voice was still Peter's high-pitched, reedy whine, but the cadence was slow, precise, and deadly cold.
"Since my future self has proven to be so utterly unsightly, it seems I must be the one to correct this ridiculous mistake."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the castle, the fractured bones in Harry Potter's leg had finally mended under Madam Pomfrey's strict care. With his discharge from the hospital wing, the tedious, degrading task of smuggling food to that filthy mad dog hiding in the Shrieking Shack was finally shoved back into the savior's lap.
"Take your ragged cloak and get out of my sight immediately."
At the shadowed corner of the stone corridor leading from the Slytherin dungeons to the entrance hall, Tamara stood with her arms crossed. Without a shred of ceremony, she snatched the silvery, water-like fabric of the Invisibility Cloak and threw it directly into the face of the recently discharged Gryffindor, treating the legendary Deathly Hallow like a soiled dishcloth.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for completing the 'Return to Original Owner' task! For resisting the urge to covet a classmate's precious relic, reward: Courage +1! Current Courage: 57]
Hearing the system's overly cheerful, patronizing voice echoing in her skull, Tamara barely suppressed a physical sneer. 'Keep your pathetic points,' she cursed inwardly, her dark soul writhing in annoyance at being praised for basic decency.
Harry scrambled backward, his hands flailing as he caught the shimmering fabric before it could hit the damp stone floor. He opened his mouth, a grateful smile already forming on his lips.
Suddenly, his movements froze.
As the silken material of the cloak brushed past his face, his nose caught a scent. Beneath the crisp, cool aroma of cedar that always seemed to linger around Tamara's uniform, there was something else. Something peculiar woven into the threads.
It was a sharp, medicinal bitterness, the distinct acrid tang of a Revealing Potion. But beneath that harsh chemical smell lay a faint, almost intoxicatingly sweet fragrance. The metallic, rich scent of Golden Blood.
"What is this smell..."
Harry murmured under his breath. He lowered his head, burying his nose slightly into the folds of the cloak, his brow furrowing in confusion. He wanted to isolate that strange, sweet metallic scent, a fragrance that inexplicably made his pulse hammer against his throat.
But before his brain could process the source of the strange aroma, Tamara's ice-cold voice sliced through his thoughts like a silver blade.
"What exactly are you doing staring blankly at that rag, Potter?"
Tamara looked down her nose at him. Her dark eyes were narrowed, her tone dripping with aristocratic impatience and a heavy layer of warning.
"If your leg is finally functioning again, then I suggest you keep a tight leash on your mutt of a godfather. Do not let him even entertain the thought of taking another step outside his miserable little hideout."
Harry snapped his head up, abruptly yanked back to reality by her biting reprimand. Realizing that standing in the middle of the corridor sniffing his own cloak made him look like an absolute idiot, his cheeks flushed hot. He hurriedly bundled the shimmering fabric and stuffed it deep into the inner pockets of his robes, coughing awkwardly into his fist.
"I know... I will," he stammered, shifting his weight. "Um, Tamara... thank you. For helping feed Sirius these past few days. I know you didn't have to."
Harry hesitated. He looked up at Tamara's pale, exquisitely carved face, the sharp line of her jaw, and the cold indifference in her dark eyes. Swallowing his nerves, he gathered his Gryffindor courage and pushed forward.
"This weekend is the last Hogsmeade visit of the term. I was wondering... do you want to go? We could sneak out together under the cloak. I know a secret passage behind a mirror on the fourth floor that leads straight into the village..."
In Harry's mind, it made perfect sense. She had risked her own neck to help him cover for a wanted fugitive. Surely, that meant they had established some sort of unspoken bond. A secret alliance between the two of them. They were in this together, weren't they?
However.
Faced with the eager, hopeful puppy-dog eyes of the Wizarding World's precious savior, Tamara felt nothing but a surge of deep irritation. A disdainful sneer tugged at the corner of her perfectly shaped lips.
'Idiot,' she thought, her internal voice dripping with venom. Lately, because she had been forced by this damned system to play delivery girl for his filthy godfather, she had clearly given this boy far too many illusions.
He had somehow developed a ridiculous, entirely unearned sense of intimacy. He actually believed he could stand on equal footing with her, whispering in corridors and sharing little secrets like they were childhood friends.
This blatant overstepping, this pathetic display of emotional dependence, made the dark soul residing within her skin crawl. Lord Voldemort was accustomed to followers groveling in the dirt, not looking up at him with starry-eyed affection. It was nauseating.
'Just as well,'she mused coldly.'I can use this opportunity to crush this ridiculous infatuation before it becomes a genuine nuisance.'
"Sneak out?"
Tamara repeated the words slowly, tasting the sheer absurdity of them. She raised her chin a fraction of an inch, looking down at him through her thick lashes. In those deep, abyssal eyes, the crushing, innate superiority unique to the highest echelon of Slytherin house was laid bare.
"Potter, do you suffer from some fundamental misunderstanding regarding the definition of the word 'privilege'?"
She slowly, carefully adjusted the crisp silver-lined cuffs of her robes, her movements elegant and entirely dismissive. When she spoke again, her tone was laced with an arrogance sharp enough to draw blood from any prideful Gryffindor.
"I have absolutely no need to crawl through some filthy, spiderweb-infested tunnel hidden behind a mirror. I certainly have no desire to huddle under a piece of old fabric like a sewer rat terrified of the sunlight."
"Draco already handled my Hogsmeade Permission Form three days ago. He had it personally signed and approved through Lucius's authority as a school governor."
Tamara watched with dark satisfaction as Harry's hopeful expression instantly shattered, his jaw stiffening in shock. Her lips curled into a flawless, mocking sneer.
"Frankly, Potter, compared to scurrying around in the dirt with you... enduring Draco's endless, self-important nonsense over a cup of tea sounds infinitely more bearable."
Having delivered the killing blow to his fragile ego, Tamara did not grant him a single second to formulate a response. With a sharp pivot of her heel, she turned her back on him. The crisp, rhythmic click of her leather shoes echoed off the stone walls as she descended the stairs toward the damp chill of the Slytherin dungeons, leaving him entirely behind.
The corridor fell dead silent.
Harry stood frozen in the shadows, his knuckles turning white as he clutched the bundle of the Invisibility Cloak against his chest.
Tamara's mocking, razor-sharp words felt like a bucket of freezing water dumped directly over his head. Every ounce of the warm, fluttering joy he had felt just moments prior, the foolish belief in their shared secret alliance, was brutally extinguished.
But the rejection wasn't what burned the most. What truly made his stomach twist into a sickening knot was the name she had so casually dropped.
Draco Malfoy.
That arrogant, slick-haired bastard who was constantly hovering around Tamara like a pathetic lapdog! Every single time Harry saw them in the Great Hall, walking side-by-side down the corridors, his blood boiled.
Whenever he saw Malfoy smirking, showing off his proximity to her with that sickening, unearned sense of superiority, Harry's fingers would twitch. His instincts screamed at him to draw his wand, to march across the room, shove Malfoy roughly against a wall, and hex the smug grin right off his pale face.
But he couldn't. He had no right. And the bitter truth was glaringly obvious: compared to a walking disaster like himself, a boy constantly surrounded by danger and rule-breaking, Tamara clearly preferred the safety and status of having Draco stand by her side.
But why?
Harry squeezed the silken fabric in his arms so tightly his joints ached.
He stared blankly at the empty stone archway where Tamara's retreating figure had just disappeared. The phantom trace of that peculiar, sweet scent, the metallic tang of Golden Blood, seemed to still linger in the cold air, teasing his senses.
Harry knew, with absolute certainty, that Malfoy didn't understand Tamara at all. Malfoy only saw the perfect Slytherin princess. He had never seen Tamara's true self, the girl who would risk expulsion to feed a starving fugitive. Malfoy didn't share a life-or-death secret with her.
Yet, despite all of that, the person currently standing alone in the dark, the one being coldly pushed away, was him.
A dark, swirling mixture of bitter unwillingness, raw jealousy, and a dangerous, budding obsession began to take root in the savior's bright green eyes.
"Malfoy again..."
Harry gritted his teeth, the words hissing out into the empty corridor like a curse.
Fine. If she wouldn't allow him to walk openly by her side in the daylight, then he would simply drape this cloak over his shoulders and follow them through the snow to Hogsmeade.
He needed to see it for himself. He needed to know exactly why that spoiled, cowardly idiot, a boy who didn't even comprehend a fraction of her true nature, was allowed to claim the space by her side as if it were his birthright.
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