Late at night, the Slytherin girls' dormitory lay submerged in silence.
Beyond the tall, mullioned windows, the Black Lake shimmered with a faint, ghostly glow. Through the thick panes of enchanted glass, the enormous silhouette of the Giant Squid occasionally drifted past, its tentacles gliding like slow, deliberate shadows through the dark water.
Tamara's recent "teaching sessions" had been remarkably effective—so effective, in fact, that they bordered on oppressive. The girls no longer dared to let their minds wander in her presence. Even their whispers had grown cautious.
The constant tension had exhausted them.
One by one, the Slytherin girls succumbed to a deep, dreamless sleep.
Only a single bed remained lit.
Near the window, with the curtains half drawn, a faint fluorescent glow leaked into the darkness.
Tamara Riddle was still awake.
She leaned back against a plush pillow, an old, leather-bound volume spread open across her knees. The book bore no stamp of registration, no borrowing slip from the Hogwarts Library.
Its title read: Powerful Potions and Curses.
Over the past few days, she had quietly leveraged her spotless academic reputation and prefect-level privileges to slip unnoticed into the Restricted Section. Madam Pince had never suspected a thing.
Tamara knew the Restricted Section as intimately as she knew her own thoughts.
Taking the book had required no effort at all.
Though its contents covered only foundational theory—Blood Curses, Soul Stabilizers, and other advanced magical pathologies—it addressed a glaring blind spot in her knowledge.
A blind spot she could no longer afford to ignore.
She needed to understand precisely how this body—and that damned system—coexisted within her.
"…Soul rejection is typically accompanied by memory dissonance and a measurable decline in magical stability…"
By the pale glow emanating from the tip of her wand, Tamara's slender fingers traced the faded ink upon the brittle parchment. She murmured the words softly under her breath, testing the phrasing, weighing its implications.
Then she stopped.
A sensation brushed against her awareness.
Someone was watching her.
It was not a thought. It was instinct—honed through years of existing at the razor's edge between life and death.
Tamara did not look up.
Instead, she subtly tightened her grip on her wand. Her posture remained relaxed, but her peripheral vision sharpened. She scanned the room without moving her head.
There.
Beside her pillow.
The black cat—Nagini—was awake.
It was not curled into its usual tight ball of sleep, nor was it twitching in some foolish dream. Instead, it sat upright, spine straight, tail coiled neatly around its paws.
Its golden, vertical pupils shimmered faintly in the wandlight.
And it was staring.
Not at her.
At the book.
More specifically, at an illustration on the open page—a detailed rendering of a Maledictus curse. The image depicted a woman mid-transformation, her body twisting in agony as human flesh surrendered to animal form.
The cat's gaze did not belong to a cat.
There was something in it.
Something old.
Something heavy.
A depth of sorrow that seemed to stretch across years—perhaps decades. A quiet despair lingered there, threaded with nostalgia and unbearable resignation.
It was the look of a human soul imprisoned within the shell of a beast.
As if gazing at a world it once belonged to—through the bars of a cage.
Tamara's heart skipped once.
She closed the book.
"Snap."
The sound was small, but in the stillness of the dormitory it rang sharp and absolute.
The cat's body stiffened.
It did not look away.
Slowly, deliberately, it lifted its head.
Golden eyes met pitch-black ones.
Human and beast stared at one another in the muted glow of midnight.
The air seemed to freeze.
"Can you understand this?"
Tamara's voice was soft.
Not the gentle tone she used in public.
Not the composed politeness she displayed before professors.
This voice carried no disguise.
Only cold inquiry.
The cat did not move.
It continued to watch her in silence.
Tamara narrowed her eyes.
She leaned closer, strands of long black hair sliding down both sides of her pale face. Under the fluorescent wandlight, her features appeared almost spectral.
"Nagini…"
She spoke the name like an incantation.
"Answer me."
Her gaze locked onto the creature's pupils, searching for the slightest flicker of comprehension.
"You understand what I'm saying… don't you?"
For a split second—
The cat's pupils contracted into razor-thin slits.
Its ears twitched.
The fur along its spine bristled ever so slightly.
It was an instinctive reaction.
The reflex of prey confronted by an apex predator.
Tamara saw it.
She almost had it.
Then—
A luminous moth drifted into view.
It fluttered clumsily around the glowing tip of her wand, its powdery wings scattering dustlike sparks into the air.
The tension shattered.
In the very next second, the cat's entire demeanor shifted.
The profound, human-like gravity vanished.
Its eyes widened. Focus scattered.
"Hiss!"
With a ridiculous little sound, the cat launched itself at the moth.
It pounced wildly across the bed, paws flailing with exaggerated enthusiasm. It rolled onto its side, then onto its back, hind legs kicking at the air as it attempted to trap the insect.
At one point, it stepped directly on Tamara's stomach.
She nearly choked on the black tea she had drunk moments earlier.
"…."
Her expression darkened instantly.
The oppressive atmosphere of seconds ago evaporated as though it had never existed.
The cat tumbled across the quilt, nearly entangling itself in the sheets as it pursued the moth in clumsy circles.
"Get off."
Tamara seized the cat by the scruff of its neck with visible disgust and tossed it unceremoniously toward the foot of the bed.
The cat flipped midair and landed gracefully on its paws.
Then, as though nothing had happened, it sat down and began licking its forepaw with single-minded dedication.
Calm.
Ordinary.
Mindlessly feline.
As if the earlier gaze—ancient and burdened—had been nothing more than Tamara's imagination.
"Truly… a foolish creature."
Tamara rubbed her temple.
Perhaps she had been reading too much lately.
How could a mere cat possibly comprehend the Dark Arts?
A faint chime echoed in her mind.
[Ding! Detected: Host engaging in deep communication with pet.]
Tamara's eyelid twitched.
[System Tip: Pets are humanity's best companions. Frequent interaction can alleviate the Dark Lord's emotional tension and antisocial tendencies.]
Her expression grew colder.
[Daily Task Triggered: The Joy of Petting a Cat.]
Of course.
[Task Requirement: Gently stroke your cat for three minutes until it begins to purr.]
[Reward: Love +1.]
[Failure Penalty: The cat will wake up on your face tomorrow morning.]
Tamara stared at the floating panel in utter silence.
Then she looked at the black cat—still licking its paw with absurd contentment.
Her lip twitched faintly.
Reason dictated that it was nothing more than an ordinary cat.
Yet—
That look.
It had been too familiar.
Too reminiscent of someone she once knew.
A woman cursed beyond salvation.
A woman who had ultimately surrendered her humanity entirely to the beast within.
But this was a cat.
Not a snake.
"Come here."
Her voice carried an unmistakable command.
The cat hesitated for half a heartbeat.
Then it padded toward her obediently and rubbed its head against her outstretched hand.
Tamara reached down and stroked its smooth black fur.
Her touch was controlled, almost clinical.
She told herself she was merely completing the task.
Even so, her gaze never left its eyes.
"Whatever you are…"
Her voice dropped to a whisper, audible to no one but herself.
Her fingers drifted lightly across the cat's throat—the most vulnerable place.
"You had better pray I never discover that you're deceiving me."
Her thumb traced the line of its pulse.
"Otherwise, I will show you what it feels like to become a dead cat."
The cat did not recoil.
It did not tremble.
Instead, its eyes softened.
A low rumble emerged from its throat.
Purring.
Loud and steady, like the distant hum of machinery.
"Meow~"
It rolled onto its back, exposing a patch of soft white belly in an utterly shameless display of trust.
Tamara stared at the offered vulnerability.
For a long moment, she did not move.
Then she withdrew her gaze.
She reached for the book once more and reopened it to the section on Blood Curses.
"Perhaps I imagined it."
She told herself the thought was irrational.
Excessive vigilance was not the same as insight.
Still—
As she lowered her head to resume reading, she failed to notice the subtle shift at the edge of her vision.
The cat's purring continued.
Its eyes remained closed.
But only almost closed.
A narrow slit opened.
Through that thin line, golden light gleamed.
Relief flickered there.
Relief—and luck.
Beneath it, something far more complicated lingered.
Fear.
Attachment.
And the fragile gratitude of something that had narrowly escaped discovery.
The dormitory returned to silence.
Outside, the Giant Squid drifted past once more, its vast shadow sliding across the glass like a passing omen.
Inside, under the glow of wandlight, one Dark Lord read about soul rejection.
And at the foot of her bed, something that was not entirely a cat watched her in the dark.
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