Chapter 128: Catastrophe
The girls' bathroom on the second floor.
The air was thick with the pungent smell of Polyjuice Potion.
When Tamara arrived, she did not witness a scene of everyone scattering in the face of disaster.
Instead, what greeted her was a melodramatic tragedy that she found somewhat irritating.
Harry and Ron, who had already reverted to their original appearances, were anxiously crowded outside the door of the last cubicle, their faces etched with complete helplessness.
"Hermione! Please, come out!" Ron pleaded, stamping his foot in frustration as he pounded on the door. "Whatever you've turned into, Madam Pomfrey can fix it!"
"Go away! Just leave!"
Hermione's voice came from inside, choked with sobs and filled with shame and despair.
"Don't bother about me! If anyone finds you here..."
"We're not leaving you!" Harry said firmly, his tone carrying the sort of stubbornness that gave Tamara a headache.
Meanwhile, Moaning Myrtle floated in the air, drifting about as she let out gleeful shrieks.
"Oh my! How touching! How dreadful! You should break the door down and see! Ahahahaha!"
The noisy atmosphere was utterly grating to Tamara, who preferred quiet.
Watching this farce, she did not even feel the urge to mock them.
A pack of Gryffindors who only knew how to make noise and cause trouble.
With cold indifference, she turned to leave this troublesome place and leave it for Filch or some passing Professor to deal with these scurrying rats.
However, the moment she took a step, her foot froze in midair.
[Ding! Detected key character Hermione Granger on the brink of social death!]
[Emergency side quest triggered: The Big Sister's Rescue.]
[Quest Objective: Disperse unrelated males, soothe the injured girl's heart, and help Hermione resolve her problem.]
[Reward: Love +2.]
[Failure Penalty: The system will forcibly take over the host's body and execute the Warm Embrace protocol, hugging these three helpless Gryffindors for five minutes of consolation.]
There was absolutely no way she was hugging those three idiots.
"...Damn it."
Tamara cursed through gritted teeth in her heart.
She had no choice but to retract her step, take a deep breath, forcibly suppress the murderous intent rising in her chest, and turn back toward the noisy group.
"It seems the so called saviour not only enjoys playing follower..."
Tamara's icy voice cut through the clamour, instantly silencing the room.
"...but also has a peculiar fondness for trespassing in the girls' bathroom?"
Harry and Ron spun around as if they had been hit by Petrificus Totalus.
When they saw the Slytherin standing in the shadows, arms crossed and face impassive, both boys' faces instantly drained of colour.
"Ta... Tamara?!" Ron's voice trembled.
It was over.
Completely over.
They had just escaped from the Slytherin Common Room, only to be caught red handed by Tamara herself.
Harry instinctively stepped in front of the cubicle door. Although his hands still trembled slightly, his green eyes fixed intently on Tamara, filled with wariness and pleading.
"This has nothing to do with Hermione. It was us..."
"Shut up, Potter."
Tamara impatiently cut off his impending speech of noble self sacrifice.
She could not even be bothered to expose that the provocative "Goyle" from earlier had been this fool standing in front of her.
She merely swept a look over them as if they were rubbish, then pointed toward the door.
"Now. Immediately. Get out."
"But Hermione, she..." Harry tried to argue.
"This is the girls' bathroom."
Tamara raised an eyebrow, her tone laced with sarcasm.
"Do you two brainless Trolls plan to stand guard here until you attract Filch or Snape, and then watch her humiliation become public?"
Those words landed like a slap, instantly jolting Harry and Ron awake.
Indeed, if Filch saw Hermione in her current state, or if the whole school found out, it would be the greatest disaster imaginable for the fiercely proud Hermione.
"But..." Ron glanced at the closed door.
"I will handle it."
Tamara's voice was cold, brooking no argument.
"This is... a matter between girls."
"You have three seconds to disappear."
Harry gritted his teeth.
He looked at Tamara, his eyes still holding that disgusting trust that irritated her.
"...Please."
Harry muttered the word, then grabbed Ron, who was about to say something else. The two of them lowered their heads like thieves and scurried out of the bathroom.
Watching those two annoying figures finally vanish, Tamara turned her gaze back to the cubicle before her.
"All right."
She faced the still closed door, her tone returning to its usual careless arrogance.
"The irrelevant audience has been cleared."
"Now, come out."
Tamara walked to the door, her slender fingers lightly tapping the wood.
"Miss Granger, I believe you remember that you only paid my tuition this morning. As a tutor who has already received payment, I have an obligation to see what sort of mess my student has landed herself in."
The crying inside the cubicle paused.
"No! Tamara, please... don't look!" Hermione's voice was full of despair. "It's... it's horrible!"
"My tolerance for horrible things is quite high."
Tamara drew her wand and tapped it lightly.
"Alohomora."
The lock clicked open.
Hermione Granger, sitting on the toilet, covered her face with her robes and let out a whimper.
When she lowered her hands, even the widely experienced Dark Lord could not help pausing for a moment.
Hermione's face was covered in a layer of short black fur. Her eyes had become yellow vertical slits, and two furry pointed ears had appeared on top of her head.
Most absurdly, a black tail was swishing uneasily behind her.
"Polyjuice Potion?"
Tamara looked at the half human, half cat creature before her with a trace of amusement.
"It seems our top student made a fatal mistake in material selection. This Potion is ineffective for animal transformations."
"I... I thought it was Millicent Bulstrode's hair!" Hermione sobbed. "It was on my robes from the Duelling Club... sniff..."
"Clearly, it was cat hair."
Tamara stepped closer, using her wand to lift a strand of fur from the side of Hermione's face with some distaste.
Looking at that curly, jet black fur and Hermione's now wild yellow eyes, a strange sense of familiarity suddenly washed over Tamara.
This cat...
It seemed somewhat similar to her own.
And this appearance felt inexplicably familiar.
"...Strange."
Tamara frowned slightly.
She did keep a black cat named Nagini, but that cat seemed to have been shedding quite a lot lately.
Could the hair Hermione had picked up just happen to belong to that damned cat?
But why would the human form produced from a cat give her such a bizarre sense of déjà vu?
As if she had seen this face somewhere before.
"Tamara? Am I going to be stuck like this forever?" Hermione asked tearfully, her yellow cat eyes looking at her pitifully.
Tamara snapped back to herself and replied coldly.
"You won't die."
Tamara withdrew her wand, looking at the furry Hermione before her. Her eyes held no sympathy, only a hint of inquiry.
To test the hypothesis forming in her mind, she reached out and pinched the trembling black pointed ear on top of Hermione's head between her slender fingers.
It was not a gentle caress, but a cold and clinical kneading, as though she were examining the texture of a Potion ingredient.
"This firmness..."
Tamara felt the sensation beneath her fingertips, her brow furrowing slightly.
No mistake.
The feel of this fur was exactly the same as that of the black cat named Nagini in her dormitory.
Just as Tamara sank into thought, Hermione, whose ear was being pinched, stiffened completely.
Tamara's fingers were cool, but their touch on her burning ear sent a violent shiver through her.
She had no idea Tamara was studying her like a specimen.
At that moment, Hermione felt as though her brain had turned into a dried out cauldron, her entire body heating rapidly.
She even thought that if someone poured a ladle of cold water over her head right now, it would definitely make a hissing sound and release a plume of white steam.
That heat burned all the way from her neck to the roots of her ears, making the pair of furry pointed ears on her head flutter uncontrollably, as if trying to fan herself cool.
The strange sensation made Hermione's breath catch, and even her black tail went rigidly straight.
"The texture is too coarse."
Just as Hermione was about to faint, Tamara released her grip and commented disdainfully.
She drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and meticulously wiped the fingers that had just touched Hermione, as though they had been contaminated by something dirty.
"Just like your messy hair. Utterly lacking in smoothness."
With that, she tossed the handkerchief into a nearby bin and turned to leave without looking back.
"Stay here and don't move. I'll have Madam Pomfrey bring you a Potion."
Tamara stopped and glanced sideways, a flash of warning passing through her dark eyes.
"And keep your mouth shut."
"If you dare tell anyone that the idiot who cannot tell cat hair from human hair was personally tutored by me..."
"I will turn you into a real cat."
.....
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