Chapter 52: Contact
Late-night Hogwarts possessed the suffocating silence of a colossal tomb.
Only Argus Filch, carrying his sputtering, dim oil lamp and accompanied by his scrawny, dust-colored cat, patrolled the maze of corridors tirelessly. The heavy thud of the caretaker's boots echoed across the empty stone flagstones. Every time the sound rang out, it felt like a heavy boot stomping directly on the frayed nerves of a night-wanderer.
Under the shimmering, liquid-glass cover of the Invisibility Cloak, the heavy oak door to the Restricted Section was pushed open without a single creak.
Tamara and Harry squeezed together beneath the flowing, silver-gray fabric, handling their way carefully through the towering rows of eerie, shadow-drenched bookshelves.
"Don't press so close, Potter."
Tamara lowered her voice, a heavy dose of venomous distaste dripping from her tone.
Although the legendary Cloak was large enough to conceal them, physical contact was entirely unavoidable when two growing children were forced to huddle under it. Harry's awkward, shuffling proximity made Tamara's skin crawl with utter revulsion.
"Sorry... but if my feet show, we'll be caught."
Harry defended himself in a breathless whisper. He tried to shrink his shoulders and pull his elbows inward as much as humanly possible, but to keep up with Tamara's brisk, purposeful strides, he had no choice but to bump against her shoulder.
Their goals for tonight were entirely different.
Harry was still stubbornly obsessed with uncovering the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone. Even though Hermione had already lectured him with the answers, the Gryffindor idiot simply insisted on sneaking out to look for himself. Honestly, it was hard to tell if he actually wanted to read a book or if he just enjoyed the thrill of wandering the castle in his father's heirloom.
Tamara, on the other hand, was only here to farm favorability points with the so-called Savior. Her ultimate, calculated goal was to manipulate him into willingly handing over this particular Deathly Hallow in the future.
However, the Savior's reckless curiosity far exceeded Tamara's already low expectations.
Just as she opened her mouth to warn him not to touch a single cursed thing, Harry reached out and flipped open a massive, brass-bound tome.
Instantly, the book let out a blood-curdling, agonizing scream.
"Who's there?!"
Filch's raspy, gleeful roar echoed from the main entrance of the Library.
"Run!"
Harry slammed the screaming book shut in a panic, but the deafening wail had already painted a massive target on their backs.
"Absolute idiot!"
Tamara cursed under her breath. She grabbed his scrawny arm with a vice-like grip and yanked him forward. "Follow me!"
The two sprinted blindly through the suffocating darkness.
Filch's heavy boots pounded against the floorboards, drawing rapidly closer. Madam Norris's yowls sliced through the air, sharp and predatory.
They burst out of the Library doors, skidding wildly on the polished stone, and ducked into a narrow, branching corridor.
It was a dead end.
The only escape was a tiny, battered wooden door that looked like a storage closet for cleaning supplies.
"Get in!"
Tamara shoved the door open, threw Harry inside by his collar, squeezed her own body through the gap, and snapped the door shut right as a lantern's glow swept the hallway.
It was indeed a broom cupboard.
And a suffocatingly narrow one at that.
The cramped space reeked of stale floor wax and damp mop heads. Bristles of old brooms dug into their backs, leaving barely a foot of clearance between the walls. Harry was shoved brutally into the furthest corner, with Tamara plastered flush against his chest.
Outside the thin wooden door, Filch's heavy footsteps ground to a halt.
"I heard them run this way... my sweet... sniff them out..."
The caretaker was standing right outside.
If he merely turned the brass handle, or if that wretched cat caught a single whiff of their scent...
Harry held his breath, his lungs burning with tension. His heart hammered so violently against his ribs he was terrified the sound alone would give them away.
In this pitch-black, enclosed space, their bodies were pressed tightly together. There was nowhere to retreat. Harry could clearly feel the radiating body heat coming from Tamara. Her rhythmic breathing brushed lightly against his neck, carrying a faint, familiar scent of cold cedar and old parchment.
"Don't move."
Tamara's voice was a barely audible thread of sound, spoken directly against his ear.
The sudden warmth of her breath against his skin sent a violent chill down Harry's spine.
Right at that exact second.
Without a single warning, the jagged, lightning-bolt scar on Harry's forehead ignited.
The pain was blinding, sharp, and searing, as if a red-hot iron wire had been driven straight through his skull and into his brain.
"Urgh!"
Harry let out a muffled, agonizing groan, his entire body jerking forward.
This was the resonance of the soul.
Although Tamara's fractured soul was currently shielded by the Virtue System, such extreme physical proximity meant that the violent rejection reaction from their shared origin could not be completely suppressed. This was especially true when both of them were in a state of heightened adrenaline, their magical cores fluctuating wildly.
Tamara felt it the very next second.
Her vision swam. Her skull felt as though it had been cracked open by a heavy iron hammer, and a sickening wave of dizziness washed over her mind.
'Damn it all...'
She cursed viciously in her mind.
This physical distance was far too dangerous! If this idiot boy cried out in pain, or worse, if he became suspicious of her because of this highly abnormal magical reaction...
[Ding! High-risk Soul Resonance detected.]
The Virtue System's voice chimed inside her head at the perfect moment, carrying its usual, sickeningly cheerful and reassuring tone.
[Proceeding with emergency physiological signal camouflage...]
[Pain blocking activated.]
[Adrenaline simulation initiated.]
[Dopamine secretion regulation in progress...]
The very next second.
The blinding, white-hot agony radiating from Harry's scar vanished without a trace.
In its place rushed a bizarre, overwhelming surge of adrenaline. His heart hammered against his ribs, but the sensation was no longer driven by pain. It was a frantic, dizzying mixture of tension, excitement, and an indescribable, weightless fluttering in his stomach.
It felt exactly like pulling out of a steep, death-defying dive on a racing broomstick for the very first time.
Or like... standing helplessly before an existence he simply could not resist.
Harry gasped for air, his chest heaving. His cheeks burned with a sudden, intense heat, and a bead of sweat trickled down his temple.
He looked up into the suffocating darkness. Though he could not make out the fine details of Tamara's face, he could feel those cold, obsidian-like eyes staring intensely at him from mere inches away.
"Ta... Tamara..."
Harry's voice was raspy, carrying a strange, breathless tremor that he did not even recognize as his own.
"Shut up."
Tamara clamped her cold, pale hand firmly over Harry's mouth.
The sudden, icy touch against his burning skin made Harry's entire body stiffen.
At that exact moment, Argus Filch standing right outside the door, the predatory Madam Norris, and even the looming terror of expulsion were completely wiped from his mind.
Only the girl standing in front of him remained in his entire world.
This girl who always wore a cold, indifferent expression. This girl who constantly called him an idiot to his face, yet somehow always managed to save him at the most critical, life-threatening moments.
A strange, unfamiliar emotion took root in his chest, growing wildly like tangled vines.
Out in the corridor, Filch muttered a string of foul curses. The heavy thud of his boots slowly turned away, the sound gradually fading into the depths of the castle.
"They're gone."
Tamara exhaled a quiet breath of relief and immediately ripped her hand away from his face.
If it were not for the fact that this Gryffindor idiot was always making strange, suspicious noises, she would have never willingly pressed her bare skin against his face. The lingering sensation of his warm breath spraying against her palm made Tamara's stomach churn with instinctive disgust.
She had absolutely no idea what sort of meddling the Virtue System had just pulled, nor did she have any clue just how wildly rich and complicated Harry's internal monologue had become in the span of thirty seconds.
Tamara only felt that this cramped, dusty space was suffocating her. Although the agonizing headache from the Soul Resonance had been forcefully suppressed, the lingering magical static still made her feel deeply uneasy.
"Get out."
Tamara pushed the wooden door open and scrambled out into the empty corridor, moving with the frantic speed of someone escaping a highly infectious plague.
Harry stumbled out clumsily after her.
He stood in the middle of the hallway, clutching his still-pounding chest. He stared blankly at Tamara's retreating back, his green eyes clouded with a dazed, unfocused light.
"Are you okay?"
Tamara glanced back at the red-faced, heavily panting boy and furrowed her brows in genuine annoyance.
"You look like you're about to drop dead on the floor."
"I'm... I'm completely fine!"
Harry waved his hands frantically in the air, suddenly terrified to look her directly in the eye.
"It was just... things were just too tense back there."
"Hmph. Coward."
Tamara snorted coldly, turning her back to him as she smoothed out the wrinkles in her slightly messy school robes.
"Let's go. It is time to head back to the common room."
Harry remained rooted to the spot for a moment longer, watching her slender figure gradually melt into the shadows of the corridor. Slowly, almost subconsciously, he raised a hand and brushed his fingertips against his own lips.
There seemed to be a lingering trace of a cool, phantom touch resting there.
[Ding! Detected a qualitative change in Harry Potter's emotional state toward you.]
[Current state: Budding admiration.]
[System evaluation: Congratulations, Host! You have successfully used the Suspension Bridge Effect and system intervention to drastically alter your destined archenemy's perception of you!]
Tamara's brisk footsteps ground to a dead halt.
'...Admiration?'Tamara felt her stomach violently churn. She looked down at her own slightly trembling hand, and a massive wave of pure, unadulterated nausea surged up her throat.'What exactly did you do to him?' she demanded internally, her mental voice dripping with murderous intent.
[I simply converted the agonizing pain signals into an accelerated heartbeat! Oh, do not worry, it was strictly to protect the Host's true identity from being exposed.]
The Virtue System's voice remained as sickeningly cheerful as ever.
'...'Tamara took a long, deep breath of the cold dungeon air, violently suppressing the overwhelming urge to turn around and blast Harry Potter with a Killing Curse right then and there.'Forget it.'She rationalized coldly, her dark mind spinning with new calculations.'Admiration is fine.''Anyway... human affection is merely another highly effective means of control.''As long as I can successfully rule this pathetic world, even if the Savior himself falls madly in love with me...''It is merely his ultimate honor to serve as my sacrifice.'
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