Chapter 165: A Young Girl's Thoughts
The heavy scent of essence of Dittany and the bitter smell of Invigoration Draughts rushed into her nostrils.
Tamara slowly opened her eyes, and the familiar white ceiling of the hospital wing came into view.
A burning sting came from her throat. Frowning slightly, she propped herself up on the soft mattress with one hand and sat up with some difficulty.
A circle of people surrounded the hospital bed.
Dumbledore, McGonagall, and the Weasleys, whose eyes were red from crying.
Harry and Ron stood a little farther back, while Draco stood in the shadows not far away with his arms crossed.
"Oh, thank Merlin! You're finally awake, dear child! You saved Ginny!"
Seeing Tamara sit up, Molly Weasley immediately covered her mouth and let out a tearful exclamation.
Had she not been worried about how fragile Tamara looked right now, this warm hearted mother would likely have rushed forward to give her a hug.
"I'm fine, Mrs Weasley. It was nothing," Tamara replied in a raspy voice.
Her gaze passed over the crowd and landed on the adjacent hospital bed.
Ginny Weasley was awake too.
She looked extremely weak, sunken into her white pillow. Under Dumbledore's gentle gaze, she was sobbing as she fitfully recounted her experiences over the past year.
"...It was me. I found a black diary."
Ginny paused slightly here, sensing Tamara's gaze on her.
Some blurred memories flashed through her mind.
She remembered the tenderness of Tom in the diary, so similar to Tamara's.
She remembered the amulet that had given her brief moments of peace.
She remembered the surname written on the cover, the one she had never paid attention to.
Riddle.
But Ginny did not say any of this out loud.
She knew that speaking of these things would surely bring Tamara a great deal of trouble.
Ginny instinctively chose to hide it from Dumbledore.
She felt that this was an unspeakable secret belonging only to her and Senior Tamara.
Thus, she swallowed the name Tom Riddle and continued sobbing, downplaying the details.
"There was something in the diary, and I wrote all my thoughts to it... but every time we finished talking, I would lose consciousness..."
"Later, I found chicken feathers on my clothes... I was so scared, so I threw it away, in that girls' bathroom on the second floor..."
"But it was no use... that thing controlled me again and dragged me into the Chamber of Secrets..."
Ginny buried her face in her hands, crying as if her heart had broken. Her voice was filled with endless regret and collapse.
"I'm sorry... I hurt those people. I even hurt Senior Tamara... I'm sorry..."
The entire hospital wing echoed with the girl's heartbroken cries.
Everyone felt heartache and pity for this poor, innocent girl.
But from an angle invisible to the others, Ginny's tear filled eyes looked over her parents' shoulders and quietly fell upon Tamara.
More accurately, they fell upon Tamara's slightly open collar.
There, a ring of hideous strangulation marks, like an ugly venomous snake, was firmly branded onto Tamara's pale, perfect skin.
Ginny knew who had left them.
They were the marks she had strangled into Tamara with her own hands at the final moment of being controlled.
It was a Dark Arts backlash caused by the collision of souls from the same source, a wound that even Madam Pomfrey's potions could not immediately erase.
Looking at that glaring scar, Ginny appeared heartbroken and full of guilt on the surface.
But deep in her heart, which had become somewhat twisted from long contact with a Horcrux, an indescribable sense of satisfaction quietly blossomed.
She was hurt.
That Senior Tamara, who was so powerful that she seemed unmatched, had been seriously injured because of her.
On that flawless body, a mark belonging exclusively to her, Ginny Weasley, had been carved.
This meant that no matter how cold or annoyed Tamara usually was with her, an indelible bond already existed between them, one stained with blood.
This almost pathological sense of control and connection made Ginny feel a shiver of pleasure amid her guilt.
"...Sick."
Tamara keenly caught the fleeting abnormality in Ginny's eyes.
She snorted coldly in her heart. Gryffindors really were all mentally unstable.
But that was not the only trouble right now.
"The girls' bathroom on the second floor..."
Harry, standing at the foot of the bed, felt some buried memories suddenly awaken the moment he heard those words.
At the beginning of the school year, in Myrtle's bathroom, Tamara had once been searching for a black diary by the sink.
He cast a complicated glance at Tamara sitting on the bed, but in the end, he said nothing and quickly looked away.
Yet it was precisely this complicated glance from Harry that caught Dumbledore's attention.
Following Harry's gaze, Dumbledore was also calmly watching her, as if he could see through all the lies and secrets beneath the shell of this twelve year old girl.
Tamara cursed in her heart.
This damned saviour's brain actually worked quickly at critical moments.
It was time for crisis management.
Tamara took a deep breath, and her control over her expression instantly reached the level of a Best Actress.
She did not avoid Harry's gaze, nor did she dodge Dumbledore's scrutiny.
On the contrary, her eyes trembled slightly, revealing just the right amount of vulnerability, a mix of shock and lingering fear.
She lowered her head, as if recalling some horrific scene, and her body shrank back slightly.
Then she raised a long, pale hand, her fingertips trembling slightly as she gently touched the shocking black strangulation mark on her neck.
She vividly portrayed the image of an innocent victim who had bravely saved someone, nearly had her soul drained by an evil Dark Arts item, and remained shaken even now.
It was so perfect that even the system wanted to award her Best Actress of the Year for Moving Hogwarts.
"..."
Dumbledore quietly watched Tamara's every move.
This wise old man, who had lived for over a century, let his gaze drift back and forth between Tamara's exquisite expression and that fatal wound.
After a long silence, Dumbledore's gaze softened, and he let out a slight sigh.
No matter what these children were hiding, one point was indisputable.
The most selfish Dark Arts could never fake such a sacrifice that bordered on mutual destruction.
"It seems that diary, filled with evil power, has been flushed down the toilet into the bottomless abyss."
Dumbledore spoke, ending this invisible scrutiny.
"But that no longer matters. Most importantly, the children have survived safely. That is the greatest miracle of tonight."
Hearing this, Tamara did not relax her guard. Instead, she inquired in her heart.
"System, what is Dumbledore's current suspicion level toward me?"
[Ding. Querying Dumbledore's suspicion level toward the host...]
[Current suspicion level: 15%]
"As expected..."
Tamara sneered inwardly.
Even though she had nearly lost her life to save someone, this suspicious old man still held an ineradicable wariness toward her.
Fifteen percent.
For an ordinary Hogwarts student, this might just be a negligible bit of curiosity from the Headmaster.
But for a Dark Lord, as long as this value was not zero, it was equivalent to a Sword of Damocles that could fall at any time, enough to keep her from sleeping or eating in peace.
This old fox's insight was far too sharp.
Just now, even though she had not shown any flaws, Dumbledore was able to immediately catch the abnormality and trace it back to her, simply because that idiot Potter could not hide his emotions and cast a complicated look her way.
If Potter acted stupidly a few more times and showed more of those hesitant expressions...
Even if she acted flawlessly, this old man might follow the clues Potter left behind and forcibly dig the truth of the Chamber of Secrets, or even the secret of her rebirth, out of the mire.
Tamara lowered her eyelashes, concealing the wariness deep in her eyes.
"As long as Dumbledore remains at Hogwarts..."
"This damned place will never be considered safe."
.....
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