Chapter 41: Keyword Search
In the days following the disastrous Quidditch match against Gryffindor, the atmosphere inside the Slytherin common room hung so heavy and damp it felt as though one could wring the very air out like a soaked rag. The emerald flames in the hearth flickered weakly, casting long, distorted shadows across the stone walls.
Ever since Harry Potter secured victory with that utterly ridiculous, ball-swallowing stunt, Slytherin Quidditch Captain Marcus Flint had treated the subterranean lounge as his personal venting ground.
"That was a foul! An absolute, bloody foul!"
Marcus launched a heavy boot into an exquisitely crafted silver-lined footstool. It shattered against the far wall with a sharp crack. His face, already bearing an unfortunate resemblance to a mountain troll, flushed a violent, mottled purple. Saliva flew from his crooked teeth with every shouted syllable, raining down on the terrified first-years huddled nearby.
Slumped in a leather armchair in the corner, Draco Malfoy eagerly chimed in. His usually drawling voice had worn down to a pathetic, raspy wheeze after three consecutive days of incessant whining.
"I told you, Dumbledore favors Gryffindor! If I had caught the Snitch by nearly choking to death on it, I would definitely be banned from the pitch for life!"
Seated in a high-backed, green velvet armchair as far from the noisy hearth as physically possible, Tamara Riddle held a massive, leather-bound volume of Advanced Rune Analysis resting on her knees. She turned a crisp parchment page, her perfectly sculpted brow twitching in irritation. The baboon-like mating roars echoing through the damp dungeon air made concentrating on ancient runic arrays utterly impossible.
'Just a bunch of pathetic, sore losers.'
Tamara let the cold, venomous thought slither through her mind.
If this were decades ago, any Death Eater who dared to throw a public tantrum over a meaningless children's ball game would have been instantly rewarded with a prolonged Cruciatus Curse. She would have gladly taught this brutish half-wit the true, agonizing meaning of silence. Her fingers twitched around the spine of her book, yearning for the familiar, comforting weight of her yew wand.
But she could not. Not with this wretched, parasitic System monitoring her every malicious impulse. If she even mentally prepared the incantation, she would be hit with a debilitating electric shock that would leave her gasping and looking pitifully fragile.
Swallowing her murderous intent, Tamara snapped the heavy rune book shut and rose to her feet with fluid, aristocratic elegance.
"Where are you going, Tamara?" Pansy Parkinson asked. The pug-faced girl flinched slightly, her wand trembling as she attempted to cast a mending charm on the splintered remains of the footstool Marcus had just destroyed.
"The library."
Tamara smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from the hem of her pristine black robes. Her voice was cool, smooth, and entirely indifferent.
"The air in here is thick with the sour, pathetic stench of fermented losers. I think I need to go somewhere else to breathe before it infects me."
Marcus blinked his small, close-set eyes, his thick brain struggling to process the insult. Before he could even formulate a grunt of outrage, Tamara's slender figure had already swept past the heavy stone door and vanished into the dark corridor beyond.
Aside from the hidden sanctuary of the Room of Requirement, the Hogwarts Library was easily Tamara's favorite location in the entire castle. It was sufficiently quiet, vast enough to avoid unwanted company, and above all, the air hung heavy with the rich, dry scent of aging parchment, binding glue, and iron-gall ink. To her, it was the intoxicating perfume of hoarded knowledge. And knowledge, as she knew better than anyone, was simply another word for power.
She handled the labyrinth of towering oak bookshelves with practiced ease, her pale fingers trailing lightly over the cracked leather spines. Lately, that insufferable Potter trio had been wandering the castle corridors like a pack of blind, unweaned puppies. They had even stooped so low as to interrogate that oafish half-giant, Hagrid, desperately fishing for any scrap of information regarding the identity of Nicolas Flamel.
A cold, elegant sneer curled the corners of Tamara's lips.
She, of course, knew exactly who Nicolas Flamel was. That wretched, six-hundred-year-old fossil was Dumbledore's former alchemy partner and the sole creator of the Philosopher's Stone. The very object she currently needed to restore her true glory.
Plucking a heavy, brass-bound tome on ancient alchemical theory from the shelf at random, Tamara claimed a secluded mahogany table near a frosted window. She settled into the wooden chair, fully prepared to enjoy a quiet, undisturbed afternoon of study.
However, fate always seemed to take immense pleasure in testing her remarkably thin patience.
Scarcely had she opened the cover when the sacred silence of her isolated corner was violently shattered by the frantic, aggressive sound of rapid page-turning.
Flip. Rustle. Flip.
The noise was sharp, echoing with a desperate, grating anxiety that clawed at Tamara's nerves.
Her dark eyes narrowed in intense displeasure. Peering through the narrow gap between two rows of encyclopedias, she spotted a wildly bushy mane of brown hair.
Hermione Granger.
The insufferable Gryffindor Miss Know-It-All was currently buried alive behind a literal mountain of reference materials. Her usually untamed hair looked like a bird had nested in it during a hurricane, and heavy, bruised-looking dark circles hung beneath her bloodshot eyes. She had clearly been depriving herself of sleep.
The mudblood girl was frantically tearing through the index of Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, her lips moving in a rapid, manic mutter.
"Not here... not here either... Damn it, who is he? Why isn't he listed? Why can't I even find a single footnote in A History of Modern Magic?"
Hermione gripped the edges of the book so tightly her knuckles turned white. She looked entirely ready to burst into tears or tear her own hair out by the roots.
She had been searching for three agonizing days, systematically scouring every single volume in the restricted and unrestricted sections regarding modern wizards, yet she had turned up absolutely nothing. For a girl whose entire self-worth was built on having the correct answer, this academic failure was clearly a torture worse than death.
Tamara watched the pathetic display through the bookshelf, a flash of pure, unadulterated disdain chilling her dark eyes.
'Utterly stupid.'She snorted coldly in the privacy of her own mind.'Nicolas Flamel might still be breathing, but the man made his name in the fourteenth century. Searching for a medieval living fossil in a twentieth-century history book? How is that any different from hunting for a fire-breathing dragon in a muggle pet shop?'
Tamara had absolutely zero intention of correcting the girl's flawed logic. Watching the so-called brightest witch of Gryffindor run herself into the ground like a headless, panicking fly provided a rare, exquisite sort of amusement.
However, the frantic rustling and desperate muttering were ruining her concentration. Deciding the entertainment value had expired, Tamara prepared to gather her things and find a quieter section of the castle.
[Ding! Your dear classmate is detected to be on the verge of a severe academic breakdown!]
That sickeningly cheerful, perky, and entirely patronizing voice echoed through her skull at the most inopportune moment possible.
[Daily Quest Triggered: Top Student's Guidance!]
[Quest Background: As Hogwarts' recognized, shining genius, how can you possibly tolerate someone using such a tragically inefficient and incorrect research method right in front of you? This is simply an insult to the sacred sanctity of the Library!]
[Quest Description: Without directly spoon-feeding her the answer, gently guide Hermione Granger to locate the correct reference book.]
[Quest Reward: Wisdom +1, Hermione Granger's Favorability UP.]
[Failure Penalty: The host will be forced to stand on a table and sing the Hogwarts school song in the Slytherin Common Room with overwhelming, tearful emotion.]
'...You absolute, malfunctioning piece of garbage.'
Tamara's jaw locked so tightly her teeth ground together. A vein pulsed faintly at her temple. She closed her eyes, taking a slow, measured breath to forcefully suppress the overwhelming urge to march over and bludgeon Hermione Granger to death with the heavy brass-bound alchemy tome.
Singing that wretched, tone-deaf school song in front of Marcus Flint and Draco Malfoy? She would rather swallow a gallon of Basilisk venom.
Resigning herself to her miserable fate, she closed her book. She stood up, smoothing her features into a mask of cool indifference, and rounded the towering bookshelf with silent, predatory steps.
"You are making far too much noise, Granger."
Tamara's voice cut through the dusty air like a blade of ice. It was cold, measured, and dripped with her signature aristocratic arrogance as it suddenly rang out directly above the Gryffindor's hunched shoulders.
Hermione violently jumped in her seat, her elbow knocking against a stack of encyclopedias and nearly sending them crashing to the floor. She snapped her head up, her bushy hair flying wild. The moment her exhausted brown eyes registered Tamara standing over her, the sheer panic on her face melted into deep, stammering awkwardness.
"Ta... Tamara?"
Hermione scrambled to tidy the chaotic disaster zone of parchment and heavy bindings scattered across her desk, her cheeks flushing a brilliant, embarrassing scarlet. "I am so sorry, I... I was just in a rush. I am looking for..."
"You are looking for a specific name. I am well aware."
Tamara cut her off smoothly. Her dark, calculating gaze swept over the open copies of A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry and Notable Magical Names of Our Time cluttering the wood.
She extended one long, pale finger, pressing the manicured nail against the leather cover of the nearest book, and disdainfully pushed the entire useless pile aside.
"But your entire methodology is completely, fundamentally flawed."
"Flawed?" Hermione blinked, utterly stunned by the critique. "But Harry said he specifically saw the name on a Chocolate Frog card..."
"And that particular card mentioned this person was Dumbledore's partner, did it not?"
Tamara looked down her nose at the sitting girl, her tone dripping with a heavy, theatrical sigh of disappointment, as if she were speaking to a particularly slow toddler.
"Use that brain you are so incredibly proud of, Granger. Professor Dumbledore is well over a century old. If someone possessed the skill to be his equal partner in the complex art of alchemy, yet they have not been widely recorded in any modern history books..." Tamara let the sentence hang in the quiet air. "What exactly does that imply?"
Hermione blinked rapidly. A brief flash of deep confusion clouded her clever brown eyes, but as the gears in her head finally caught traction, a bright, dawning realization lit up her exhausted features.
"It implies... it implies he might be significantly older than Dumbledore?"
"Not entirely hopeless."
Tamara turned on her heel, her dark robes billowing slightly, and glided toward a shadowed row of bookshelves tucked away in the very back of the section. Here sat the ancient, massive, and heavily dust-coated tomes that the general student body rarely possessed the intellect to consult.
Driven by sheer academic instinct, Hermione immediately abandoned her messy desk and scrambled to follow behind the Slytherin girl.
Tamara's pale fingers drifted gracefully across the faded, gold-embossed spines. She walked slowly, letting the suspense build, before her hand finally stopped on a colossal, menacing-looking volume bound in cracked black dragonhide.
Alchemy: Ancient Art and Science.
She did not pull the heavy book down and hand it to the Gryffindor. Acting like a common servant fetching reading material for a mudblood was entirely beneath her dignity.
Instead, she merely hooked her finger over the top edge and pulled the massive spine halfway out from the shelf, as if performing a casual, random inspection. Then, with a soft exhale, she released it, feigning complete boredom.
"If you truly wish to uncover the identity of a historical figure, you cannot simply stare blindly at their name."
Tamara spoke nonchalantly, keeping her back turned to Hermione. Her voice was soft, carrying the detached cadence of someone merely musing aloud to themselves.
"After all, what is more worthy of being immortalized in text than the crowning achievements of a master alchemist?"
Having delivered her cryptic breadcrumbs, Tamara did not spare the bushy-haired girl a single backward glance. She adjusted her grip on her own book and walked straight toward the heavy oak doors of the library exit, her footsteps echoing sharply against the stone floor.
Hermione stood absolutely frozen in the shadowy aisle. She stared blankly at Tamara's cool, retreating back for a long moment before her gaze slowly drifted down to the ancient, black-leather book that the Slytherin genius had 'coincidentally' left jutting out from the shelf.
Alchemy?
Hermione's heart gave a sudden, violent leap against her ribs.
She lunged forward, her small hands gripping the thick spine, and laboriously hauled the incredibly heavy copy of Alchemy: Ancient Art and Science off the wooden shelf. She dropped it onto a nearby reading stand, a cloud of ancient dust puffing into the air.
With trembling, eager fingers, she tore open the brittle cover and flipped straight to the massive index at the back. Her index finger slid down the columns of faded ink with frantic urgency.
She scanned for the letter 'F'. There was no dedicated entry for the name Nicolas Flamel.
However, her eyes caught a cross-reference. Under the expansive index section detailing the legendary artifact known as the Philosopher's Stone, she spotted a single, tiny line of cramped print:
The renowned creator of the Philosopher's Stone, and the only known existing owner of the artifact—Nicolas Flamel.
"Found it!"
Hermione nearly screamed the words aloud. She slapped both hands over her mouth, her entire body trembling violently with the sheer, intoxicating rush of academic victory.
She had searched for three whole days! She had sacrificed sleep, meals, and her own sanity digging through mountains of useless modern history!
And yet, Tamara Riddle had taken one single, dismissive look at her chaotic desk and instantly pinpointed the exact flaw in her logic, leading her straight to the hidden truth!
Clutching the heavy, dust-covered book tightly against her chest, Hermione turned her shining eyes back toward the library entrance. The corridor beyond the oak doors was already empty, the Slytherin girl long gone.
In Hermione's star-struck eyes, Tamara's cold, dismissive behavior just now was not born of arrogance or disdain. No, it was deep. It was mysterious and deeply intellectual. It was a special, subtle form of guidance, deliberately offered so that Hermione would not continue to embarrass herself and waste precious time wallowing in her own blind ignorance.
also, Tamara had respected her intellect enough not to just hand her the answer like a child. She had challenged her. She had guided her to think critically, to search in the right direction...
"She actually knew exactly what I was looking for this entire time. She... she has been paying attention to me..." Hermione murmured softly to the empty aisle, her cheeks flushing a deep, warm pink with a mixture of awe and excitement.
"She even went completely out of her way to remind me to look at the historical achievements, rather than just chasing a ghost of a name."
A strange, incredibly warm feeling swelled in the center of Hermione's chest, completely washing away the exhaustion of the past three days.
"Thank you, Tamara."
Hermione squeezed the heavy alchemy tome tightly against her robes, her brown eyes shining with a fierce, determined light. "I promise, I definitely will not let your brilliant guidance go to waste!"
[Ding! Quest Completed: Top Student's Guidance!]
[Reward: Wisdom +1.]
[Current Wisdom: 23.]
[Detection: Hermione Granger's deep admiration for your intellect has increased significantly. Favorability status updated to: Confidante.]
Halfway down the damp, echoing stone stairs leading back to the Slytherin dungeons, Tamara listened to the cheerful chime in her mind. Her expensive dragon-hide boot caught on the edge of a stone step, and she actually stumbled, her perfect balance faltering for a fraction of a second.
'Confidante?' Tamara's upper lip twitched violently. A sudden, repulsive chill slithered down her spine, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
'Who in Salazar's name wants to be confidantes with a filthy mudblood?' She aggressively brushed off the front of her pristine robes with a look of utter disgust, slapping the dark fabric as if trying to physically shake off the sickening, non-existent bond the System had just forced upon her.
'I am only doing this to extract more power from this parasitic curse,' she reminded herself fiercely, her dark eyes narrowing as she descended into the gloom of the dungeons.
'Nothing more.'
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