Chapter 26: The Scarf
Astronomy at eleven o'clock at night triggered a deep, physiological revulsion within Tamara. It was not merely the indignity of scaling the tallest tower in the castle during proper sleeping hours. It was the fact that late September nights in the Scottish Highlands carried a biting, soul-sucking chill that felt entirely too much like kissing a Dementor.
The Slytherin first-years dragged themselves up the final stretch of the spiral staircase, their chests heaving as they clutched their thick winter cloaks. The moment they breached the top of the Astronomy Tower, a vicious gale whipped across the open battlements, pouring ice-water drafts straight down their collars.
Gregory Goyle hunched his massive shoulders, his heavy jaw trembling as his teeth clattered together. "Why can't we have this class during the day? Or just use magical projections down in the dungeons?"
"Because the stars do not come out during the day, you absolute troll," Pansy Parkinson snapped through chattering teeth. She immediately shrank back, attempting to wedge her petite frame into Goyle's broad shadow to escape the relentless wind.
Tamara stood near the edge of the parapet, her black robes snapping violently around her ankles like a captured storm. Under the harsh, silver glare of the moonlight, her complexion was ghastly. Her skin was so pale it practically bled into the grey masonry of the castle walls behind her.
'This pathetic, fragile shell,' she cursed inwardly, her jaw locking to prevent her own teeth from chattering. Years of malnutrition at that wretched orphanage had left this body painfully susceptible to the elements. The wind sliced across her cheeks like a sharpened blade, aggressively stripping away whatever meager body heat she managed to generate.
Yet, her spine remained rigidly straight. It was a matter of pride—an ancient, dark arrogance carved directly into her soul. She was Lord Voldemort. If she were destined to freeze to death on this miserable tower, she would die standing like a marble monument to her own greatness. She would certainly never stoop to huddling together for shared body heat like the pathetic mass of Hufflepuffs gathered nearby.
Yes, the scheduling had subjected them to a shared period with Hufflepuff. That particular gaggle of black-and-yellow-clad badgers was currently clumped together on the far side of the observation deck. They looked exactly like a colony of terrified, freezing penguins. They chirped incessantly, whining about the frostbite threatening their toes while passing around steaming, crumbly biscuits they had undoubtedly smuggled up from the kitchens.
'Disgusting little gluttons,' Tamara sneered behind her blank, aristocratic mask.
The heavy oak door creaked open, and Professor Aurora Sinistra strode onto the deck. The Astronomy professor was a tall, dark-skinned witch with a perpetually severe expression, draped in heavy, deep-blue velvet robes embroidered with shimmering silver constellations.
"Alright, cease your whining," Professor Sinistra commanded. Her voice did not rise to a shout, yet it cut cleanly through the howling wind. "Astronomy is a discipline of patience and absolute precision. The stars do not care if you are cold. Now, set up your brass telescopes and calibrate your focus lenses."
She paced slowly between the shivering students. "Tonight's objective is to observe the moons of Jupiter and accurately map their orbital trajectories. Every single one of you will draft a chart. You will hand them to me before you are permitted to return to your warm beds."
A flurry of clumsy, frantic movement swept across the tower. The harsh, metallic screech of brass tripod legs scraping against the stone floor echoed into the night, accompanied by the chaotic clicking of adjustment knobs being twisted by numb fingers.
Tamara deployed her brass telescope with smooth, practiced efficiency. For a dark wizard who had mastered the deepest, most arcane branches of magic, drafting a simple planetary chart was insulting child's play. In her past life, she had spent countless, solitary nights on this exact tower, mapping the complex relationships between celestial alignments and the darkest of blood rituals. She knew the true, ancient name of every star burning in the void above. She knew the exact hour they shone brightest, and she knew precisely what bloody, fateful omens their movements heralded.
It took her less than ten minutes. She peered through the eyepiece once, memorized the alignment, and swiftly dragged her quill across the parchment. The ink formed a flawless, mathematically precise diagram of Jupiter and its three visible moons.
'Perfect. Now to wait out the clock.'
Tamara set her quill aside. She brought her hands to her mouth, exhaling a slow, quiet puff of warm air over her stiff, aching knuckles.
She turned, intending to claim a shadowed alcove away from the wind, when a pathetic, wet sound caught her attention. It was a suppressed, miserable sob.
"Ugh... I can't see it... where is it..."
The whining drifted over from the cluster of Hufflepuffs.
Tamara slowly turned her head, her dark eyes narrowing. She spotted a plump little girl with two messy golden braids—Hannah Abbott. The girl was practically weeping in frustration, her face hovering uselessly near the eyepiece of her telescope. Hannah's hands were raw and beet-red from the freezing air. She was trembling so violently that her fingers kept slipping off the brass fine-focus knob, knocking the entire apparatus out of alignment every time she tried to adjust it.
To make matters worse, the plummeting temperature had turned her standard-issue ink into a thick, useless sludge. Her frantic scratching with the quill produced nothing but dry, invisible grooves on the parchment. Panic fed her shivering, and her shivering fed her panic. The more anxious she became, the harder she shook, rendering the stars above a blurry, dancing mess.
A few paces away, a knot of Slytherins noticed the display and exchanged cruel, low snickers. The sound of their mockery reached Hannah's ears. The girl's face crumpled completely. Tears spilled over her freezing cheeks, mixing with snot in a display of utter, pathetic misery. A couple of nearby Hufflepuffs cast sympathetic glances her way, but their own charts were blank, and they were too busy battling the cold to offer any real assistance.
Tamara watched the spectacle with dead, unfeeling eyes. 'Weakness,'she thought with deep disgust.'Crying over a frozen bottle of ink. If I had my wand, I would transfigure her into a block of ice and push her off the edge just to end the noise.'
[Ding! Detected a classmate in distress.]
The cheerful, sickeningly perky voice of the Virtue System chimed directly into the center of her brain.
[Current Attribute Panel: Wisdom 19/20.]
[Hint: You are just one step away from unlocking the next spell!]
[Triggered Mission: Warm Sun on a Winter Night.]
[Mission Description: A true leader must not only look up at the stars themselves but also be able to look down and lend a hand to those who have fallen in the mud. Though Hufflepuffs are mediocre, they are the bedrock of loyalty. Show them the warmth of your heart!]
[Mission Requirement: Help Hannah Abbott complete her observation without using magic.]
[Reward: Wisdom +1.]
'Wisdom plus one...'
Tamara's dark gaze instantly sharpened, the annoyance vanishing beneath a wave of cold calculation. Every ten independent attribute points unlocked a new piece of her sealed magical repertoire. She was exactly one point short of breaching the next threshold.
Smoothing the front of her black robes, Tamara stepped away from the shadows and glided directly toward the Hufflepuff perimeter. Her sudden approach caused the chattering badgers to fall dead silent. They shrank back, their eyes wide and wary as they stared at the pale, aristocratic Slytherin, fully expecting her to deliver a cruel jinx or a cutting insult.
Hannah Abbott was so startled by the sudden shadow falling over her that she let out a loud, wet hiccup. She stared up at the approaching girl through a blur of tears.
"Move." Tamara stopped directly in front of Hannah's workstation, her voice ringing out cold, clear, and commanding over the wind.
Hannah subconsciously scrambled backward, her boots scraping the stone like a frightened rabbit fleeing a viper.
Tamara ignored her. She reached out with her long, elegant hands. Her knuckles were flushed a faint, bruised red from the freezing air, yet as her fingers clamped around the brass adjustment knob, there was absolutely no tremor. Her grip was absolute.
"Correction of thirty degrees in elevation. Pull back the focus by exactly two notches," Tamara muttered. As she swiftly manipulated the gears, she spoke in a flat, clinical tone. "Your tripod is not level. At this current wind speed, the slightest vibration in the primary barrel will cause you to misidentify the celestial positions by thousands of miles."
She leaned down, closing one eye as she peered through the small glass lens. A quick twist of her wrist brought the massive gas giant and its orbiting rocks into razor-sharp focus. Satisfied, she stepped back and stood up straight, her posture immaculate.
"Alright. Look now."
Hannah remained frozen in place. She stared blankly at Tamara's impassive face, then down at the brass telescope, which was now locked firmly into place, completely immune to the wind.
"I... I..."
"Stop babbling and look," Tamara ordered, allowing a fraction of her true impatience to bleed into her voice. "Unless you actively desire Professor Sinistra to hand you a Troll grade for the evening."
Hannah jolted, hurriedly leaning over the eyepiece. She gasped, a cloud of white vapor puffing from her lips. "Wow... I see it! It's so clear!" She spun around, her tear-streaked face lighting up as she looked at Tamara with wide, sparkling eyes. "Thank you! Thank you, Riddle!"
Tamara did not smile. She merely shifted her gaze down to the glass bottle clutched in the Hufflepuff's grip. The dark liquid inside had congealed into a thick, useless paste. "Is your ink frozen?"
"Ye... yes." Hannah sniffled loudly, suddenly looking deeply embarrassed. She tried to hide her swollen, beet-red hands behind her back. "And my hands are... they are a bit stiff."
Tamara stared at those fingers. They looked like frozen, raw carrots. The foolish girl was wearing nothing but a standard autumn cloak over her uniform, clearly having vastly underestimated the brutal reality of the Astronomy Tower at midnight.
'What an absolute, insufferable nuisance,'Tamara sighed heavily within the dark confines of her own mind.'I have to play the saint for a mud-brained badger.'
Moving with deliberate, agonizing slowness, Tamara reached up to her own throat. She grasped the thick, heavy wool of her Slytherin scarf—emerald green and embroidered with complex silver serpents—and began to unwind it. She was already freezing. The very second the protective layer left her neck, a vicious gust of icy wind rushed straight down her collar. Her body betrayed her, forcing a violent, involuntary chill down her spine.
She crushed the physical weakness instantly, clamping down on her muscles through sheer, tyrannical force of will. Her pale face maintained a mask of unfathomable, serene indifference.
"Put it on."
Before the Hufflepuff could even process the command, Tamara stepped forward and draped the heavy wool around Hannah's neck. The fabric still radiated Tamara's own trapped body heat. She looped it securely, leaving absolutely no room for argument, and even reached up to tighten the crooked ribbon holding Hannah's messy braids together.
"Tuck your left hand into your sleeve to preserve heat, and use this." Tamara pulled a sleek, dark feather from her own robe pocket and thrust it directly into Hannah's numb fingers. It was a high-grade Self-warming Quill. The moment Hannah touched it, a gentle, soothing heat radiated through the shaft, instantly thawing her stiff joints.
Hannah Abbott stood completely, utterly dumbfounded. She felt the sudden, luxurious warmth enveloping her neck. A faint, elegant fragrance—something cool, like crushed mint and old parchment—drifted up from the emerald wool, lingering at the tip of her nose. She stared up at the black-haired girl standing before her. Stripped of her scarf, Tamara looked incredibly thin, almost fragile as the wind whipped her dark robes around her slender frame. Yet, the dark eyes looking down at her were impossibly firm, anchored by a quiet, unshakeable strength.
In that singular, breathless instant, the terrifying, unapproachable image of the "scary Slytherin" shattered completely in Hannah's mind. It was instantly replaced by the vision of a silent, suffering angel who had descended to the freezing earth just to save her.
"Ta... Tamara..." Hannah whispered, her voice cracking. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes, this time born of overwhelming gratitude. "Aren't you cold?"
"No." Tamara lied smoothly, her expression not shifting a single millimeter, even as her own lips began to take on a faint, bluish-pale tint. "I am quite accustomed to maintaining absolute mental clarity in all manner of harsh environments." She looked down her nose at the girl. "It is called willpower."
The surrounding circle of Hufflepuffs stood paralyzed in shock, their jaws practically hitting the stone floor. Was this truly the legendary Tamara Riddle? The same Slytherin who walked the corridors with an aura of arrogant, freezing disdain, looking at everyone else as if they were dirt beneath her expensive shoes? She had just given her own scarf to Hannah Abbott?
Across the tower, the Slytherin faction was equally stunned. Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson stood with their mouths hanging open, completely forgetting to complain about the wind.
"What... what is she doing?" Pansy whispered in sheer disbelief, her eyes wide. "How could Tamara give her personal clothing to someone like that?"
"This is a matter of operating on a higher level, Pansy," Draco murmured. He stared at Tamara's straight, unyielding back, a deep gleam of admiration flashing in his pale grey eyes. "A true, high-tier noble is not merely ruthless toward themselves. They possess the capacity to bestow mercy upon... er, upon the commoners. It is a classic display of... what was the term my father used?"
"Chivalry?" Goyle grunted foolishly from the back.
"Shut your mouth, you idiot, that is a filthy Gryffindor word," Draco snapped, glaring at the larger boy. He turned back to watch Tamara, puffing his chest out slightly. "It is called the art of leadership!"
Tamara paid absolutely no attention to the whispering fools behind her. She simply stood there, her arms crossed tightly beneath her robes to hide her shivering, watching as Hannah clumsily but successfully began to chart the moons.
Finally, the sickeningly sweet chime echoed through her skull.
[Ding! Mission Completed: Warm Sun on a Winter Night.]
[Using the most primitive method, you have earned the most sincere gratitude.]
[Reward: Wisdom +1.]
[Current Wisdom: 20.]
[Congratulations Host! The Wisdom attribute has reached a milestone threshold!]
[System rewards are now being issued...]
[Unlocked Passive Skill: Elementary Occlumency.]
[Skill Description: Your thoughts will no longer be an open book to the world. You can now construct basic mental barriers to resist external prying and standard Legilimency.]
[Note: While it cannot yet block ancient monsters of Albus Dumbledore's caliber, it is more than sufficient for dealing with general, everyday prying.]
Tamara's dark pupils contracted to pinpricks.
'Finally.'
A subtle, cooling sensation washed over her brain. She could physically feel the shift within her own mental landscape. The terrifying vulnerability of having her thoughts nakedly exposed to the world was suddenly muted, wrapped in an invisible, protective film. Though this new barrier was still fragile compared to her former glory, it provided a deep, long-lost sense of security.
Enduring the freezing wind and surrendering her scarf to a weeping badger had been entirely worth the price.
As she finally turned and walked back to the Slytherin side of the tower, Draco Malfoy immediately stepped forward. He hastily unwound his own thick, expensive cashmere scarf and held it out to her, his expression eager.
"Here, Tamara. It is not quite as nice as yours, but it is warm."
Tamara stopped. She looked at Draco's expectant face, and then down at the dark green cashmere offered in his hands.
This time, she did not refuse.
She accepted the fabric, wrapping it tightly around her freezing neck. "Thank you, Draco."
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