Chapter 7: Reasonable Rights Protection
As Lord Voldemort, the one thing she never lacked was a predator's insight.
In this entire miserable world, no one understood the true value of dark artifacts better than she did. No one else possessed the sheer brilliance required to unearth the lethal secrets hidden within seemingly broken, discarded refuse.
Her crimson-tinted gaze swept past the pristine display windows of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, dismissed the bustling entrance of Flourish and Blotts, and finally locked onto a miserable little storefront squeezed into a damp corner. A crooked, peeling sign hung above the door: Second-Hand Robes and Junk Shop.
Several oversized wicker baskets were piled haphazardly near the entrance, overflowing with the detritus of wizarding society. Chipped brass cauldrons, oxidized scales, water-damaged spellbooks blooming with green mold, and jagged heaps of unidentifiable metal scrap spilled onto the cobblestones.
[It looks like this place is perfectly prepared for destitute people like the host! Happy shopping!]
'That is a place prepared for fools,'Tamara thought, her lips curling into a microscopic, chilling sneer.'But the truly wise know how to pan for gold in the mud.'
She adjusted her posture, adopting the meek, unassuming gait of a lost child, and stepped into the shadows of the doorway.
The interior lighting was abysmal. The stagnant air hung heavy with the suffocating stench of rotting parchment, stale tobacco, and the distinct, lingering odor of dead rats. Behind a splintering wooden counter, an elderly wizard with hair resembling an abandoned bird's nest and spectacles thick as cauldron bottoms was snoring loudly, his chin resting on his chest.
Tamara did not bother to wake the useless old fool. Instead, she glided silently toward a massive, dust-coated bin bearing a hastily scribbled label: Clearance Items - Average Price 1 Sickle.
She plunged her small, pale hands into the filth.
A brass potion scale missing its balancing foot. Trash.
A waterlogged copy of Practical Potions missing the entire chapter on antidotes. Useless trash.
A carved hairpin that vaguely resembled the femur of a Bowtruckle. She snapped it between her fingers. Fake. It was a chicken bone transfigured by an amateur.
Suddenly, her fingertips brushed against something unnaturally cold and slick with age-old grease. She pulled it free from the debris. It was a dense, black metal sphere roughly the size of a grown man's fist. Its surface was heavily pitted and scarred, resembling a chunk of burnt coal cinder. It had been tossed carelessly beneath a pile of oxidized silver spoons, looking entirely unremarkable to the untrained eye.
But the moment her skin made contact with the metal, Tamara's breath hitched. A faint, highly specific magical fluctuation pulsed against her palm. The frequency was incredibly subtle, buried deep within the core of the object. If a wizard were not intimately, dangerously sensitive to the darkest arts, they would never detect it.
'Is this... Goblin Silver?'she mused, her thumb tracing a jagged scar on the metal.'No. It is something far older. Far more volatile.'
Maintaining an expression of absolute, bored indifference, Tamara rotated the heavy sphere. She located a tiny, almost invisible depression near the base and pressed down hard with her thumb. A sickly, venomous green light flared for a fraction of a second deep within the microscopic cracks of the cinder-like shell before dying out.
A surge of dark, triumphant ecstasy flooded her veins. Yet, her delicate features remained frozen in a mask of mild distaste. This was no piece of discarded coal. It was the intact outer shell of an Anti-Wizard Shock Grenade, a brutal weapon manufactured exclusively during the bloody Goblin Rebellions of the seventeenth century.
The alchemical explosives packed inside had long since degraded into inert powder, but the true value lay in the casing itself. The shell was forged from an exceedingly rare, highly illegal Magic-Absorbing Metal, designed to swallow and neutralize standard defensive charms upon impact. In the eyes of a true connoisseur—like that greedy sycophant Borgin down in Knockturn Alley, or some pompous pure-blood collector—this little lump of iron was worth a minimum of one hundred Galleons.
And here it sat, rotting in a bargain bin for the price of a cheap butterbeer.
Tamara tucked the heavy sphere into the crook of her arm. To complete her disguise as a bargain-hunting student, she casually snatched a tattered, spine-cracked copy of Hogwarts: A History and a reasonably clean second-hand student robe from a nearby rack. She approached the counter, her footsteps light and unassuming.
"Excuse me, sir. I would like to pay." Her voice was a perfect imitation of a timid, polite schoolgirl.
The old wizard snorted, jerking awake. He blinked away his dizziness, pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his greasy nose, and squinted at the meager pile of items Tamara placed on the wood.
"Oh. A robe, a book, and a..." He squinted harder, leaning over the counter. "What in Merlin's name is that? Ah, just an iron lump." The old man released a jaw-cracking yawn, scratching his beard. "Three Sickles for the robe. One Sickle for the book. And I suppose I'll charge you five Knuts for that piece of scrap. That makes four Sickles and five Knuts total, girl."
Tamara counted out the bronze and silver coins without a moment of hesitation, sliding them across the counter.
The transaction was complete. The artifact was now legally hers.
Under normal circumstances, Lord Voldemort would immediately take this prize straight down the twisting, shadowy path of Knockturn Alley to extort a fortune from the dark merchants. But she was currently trapped in the fragile, magically stunted body of a little girl. Marching into Knockturn Alley right now would be an invitation to be robbed blind, or worse, sold for parts.
She needed to liquidate this asset through a much safer, far more entertaining avenue.
Instead of turning to leave, Tamara remained planted at the counter. She picked up the heavy iron lump, tossing it lightly from hand to hand.
"Shopkeeper," she said suddenly. Her voice was still dripping with sugary sweetness, but the underlying cadence had shifted, taking on a slow, eerie precision. "Do you actually know what this is?"
"What?" The old wizard waved a gnarled hand impatiently. "Isn't it just a melted cauldron base? Or some iron bludger a prankster cracked? Look, little girl, you bought your junk. Now run along."
"No. This is certainly no iron ball."
Tamara retrieved a pristine white handkerchief from her pocket. With agonizing slowness, she wiped a thick layer of grime from the sphere's equator. The removal of the dirt revealed a jagged line of ancient runic script, stamped deeply into the metal.
"This is a Class-A contraband weapon from the Goblin Rebellions. Designation X-79. A Magic-Absorbing Shock Grenade."
The old wizard's hand froze mid-wave. The annoyance drained from his face, replaced by a sudden, sharp stillness.
"According to Article 72 of the Ministry of Magic's Dangerous Goods Control Act," Tamara continued, her tone as casual as if she were reciting poetry, "the private possession, storage, or trade of contraband Goblin weaponry is a severe criminal offense. It is punishable by a mandatory fine of no less than five hundred Galleons. And, depending on the mood of the Wizengamot, perhaps a few miserable months rotting in Azkaban."
Tamara tilted her head up. Her large, doe-like eyes blinked at the old wizard. A perfectly innocent, angelic smile bloomed across her face.
"Sir, you just sold a lethal weapon of war to an underage witch. If I were to walk out your door, take a sharp left, and hand this directly to that Auror currently patrolling outside Madam Malkin's..."
All the color vanished from the shopkeeper's face, leaving him a sickly, ashen gray. His jaw went slack. How in the name of Merlin's baggy trousers was this tiny, sweet-looking child more proficient at reciting penal codes than a senior Ministry official?
"What... what do you want?" the old wizard stammered. A bead of cold sweat broke out on his forehead, tracing a path down his wrinkled cheek. "I can give you a refund! Give it back! I won't sell it to you!"
"A refund?" Tamara shook her head slowly, letting out a soft, pitying sigh. "The transaction is already complete, sir. The coins are in your till. This item is now my legal property."
She paused, letting the silence stretch until the man looked ready to faint.
"But... I am a kind, good child. I truly wouldn't want to see a nice old man like you sent to a cold, damp prison cell."
[System Notification: Detected that the host is performing... er... reasonable rights protection based on legal knowledge.]
[System Judgment: Although the host's methods are highly questionable and bordering on extortion, it technically qualifies as 'popularizing legal knowledge'and'helping an elder correct their mistakes.', no bloody conflict has been initiated.]
[Status: Barely passed. No punishment will be administered.]
Hearing the mechanical voice concede defeat without sending a crippling surge of electricity through her spine, the innocent smile on Tamara's lips deepened into something genuinely terrifying.
"How about this, sir?" she chirped brightly. "I think this heavy old thing is simply too dangerous for a little girl like me to play with. I would like to... sell it back to you. As the proprietor of a professional antique shop, you must be more than willing to pay a premium price to acquire such a rare, historically significant piece of Goblin craftsmanship. Am I right?"
Staring into the dark, bottomless eyes of this seemingly innocent child, the old wizard felt a bone-deep chill, as if a Dementor had just glided into his shop and wrapped its rotting hands around his throat.
"How... how much?" he wheezed.
"Oh, I am not a greedy person." Tamara gracefully held up five pale, slender fingers. "Fifty Galleons. That is exactly half the black market price. You can still make a massive profit by quietly reselling it to someone who actually knows their stuff, and I will be saved the exhausting trouble of flagging down an Auror. Everyone walks away happy."
"Fifty Galleons?! You're completely mad!" the old wizard shrieked, his voice cracking an octave higher.
"Or perhaps I should just go call that Auror?" Tamara pivoted on her heel, her robes swishing as she made a deliberate move toward the door.
"Don't! Wait, don't go!" The old wizard slammed his hands on the counter. Gritting his teeth so hard they audibly ground together, he yanked open his heavy iron cash box. His face contorted in sheer, unadulterated agony as he began counting out the heavy gold coins. "Take it! Take it all! Take the money and get out of here! And don't you ever set foot in my shop again, you little demon!"
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The heavy, beautiful gold coins cascaded into Tamara's worn leather coin purse. Fifty Galleons from her brilliant extortion, plus the twenty Galleons she had previously acquired. Seventy Galleons total. It was a pathetic sum for the Dark Lord, but it was enough to barely scrape by for the immediate future.
Tamara carelessly tossed the highly dangerous, illegal contraband back onto the scratched wood of the counter. She gripped the edges of her cheap skirt and performed a flawless, elegant curtsy.
"An absolute pleasure doing business with you, sir. You see, knowledge truly is wealth, isn't it?"
Without waiting for his sputtered reply, she turned and strolled out of the dingy shop, her footsteps light and practically skipping across the cobblestones.
[Ding! Given that the host accurately identified an ancient magical artifact and successfully popularized vital legal knowledge to a citizen in need.]
[Reward: Wisdom +10.]
[Current Wisdom: 10.]
[Congratulations! Wisdom has reached the 10-point milestone. Unlocked first-year basic spell: Levitation Charm.]
A full ten-point increase in a single bound. Tamara paused in the bustling street, genuinely surprised. She had initially assumed these ridiculous virtue points would require weeks of agonizing, nauseatingly good deeds to accumulate. Extortion, it seemed, was a highly efficient shortcut.
Stepping fully into the warm afternoon sunlight, Tamara closed her eyes. Deep within the core of her magically stunted body, she felt the heavy, suffocating seal loosen by a microscopic fraction. In the dark theater of her mind, a glowing icon representing the spell flared to life, burning with golden energy.
"The Levitation Charm..." she murmured softly.
She didn't even need a wand. Channeling the raw, newly unlocked magic through her fingertips, she reached out and aimed a gentle, precise tap toward a smooth gray pebble resting by the roadside.
The pebble wobbled violently. A second later, it defied gravity, floating smoothly into the air. Though it hovered only a few meager centimeters above the dirt, the sight of it sent a thrill of absolute vindication through her soul. It was a pathetic display of magic, yes, but it represented a terrifying truth: she, Lord Voldemort, had finally begun to claw her power back.
"Very good," she whispered.
Tamara clenched her small fist, letting the pebble drop back to the earth. She savored the dual, intoxicating enrichment of heavy gold coins at her hip and active magic humming in her veins.
She turned her gaze back down the alley, locking onto the pristine brickwork of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions just a short distance away.
"Now that I have proper funding, these humiliating rags can finally be incinerated." Tamara pinched the frayed fabric of her old, oversized dress with deep disgust. "Improper clothing is entirely detrimental to my status as the Dark Lord."
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