Chapter 80: Things Won't Always Go Your Way
The warm, heavy weight of the Philosopher's Stone pressed against her chest through the thick lining of her robes. It thumped against her skin, mimicking the rhythm of a second, beating heart. Tamara could practically taste the sheer density of the magic contained within the jagged gem—a concentration of raw power potent enough to drive any ordinary Wizard completely insane.
True, she lacked the immediate means to brew the Elixir of Life right this second. But that was a trivial detail. As long as this legendary artifact remained in her grasp, it was only a matter of time before she bent the entire wizarding world to her absolute will.
'I've won.'
The corners of Tamara's mouth curled upward, forming a sharp, uncontrollable smirk.
Quirrell had been discarded like the useless pawn he was. The pathetic main soul had fled with its tail between its legs. And the so-called savior of the wizarding world had been thoroughly, completely hoodwinked.
Tonight, she stood as the sole victor.
However.
Just as she prepared to pivot on her heel and concoct a suitably gentle, dismissive excuse to send Harry Potter away, the familiar, grating chime echoed in her skull.
[Ding! Congratulations host on completing the mission: Guardian Angel.]
[System has detected that the crisis is resolved; current environment is safe.]
[Please uphold the traditional virtue of "returning lost property" and return the valuable item that does not belong to you—the Philosopher's Stone—to its original guardian, or hand it over to Headmaster Dumbledore, who will arrive shortly.]
The triumphant smirk on Tamara's face shattered like brittle glass.
'What did you just say?' she hissed coldly in the confines of her mind, her mental tone dripping with lethal danger.
[Please return the Philosopher's Stone!] the system repeated, its synthetic voice entirely too cheerful and patronizing for the situation.
'Absolutely not,'Tamara snapped back with ironclad resolve.'What falls into my hands belongs to me. You expect me to just hand it over? Even if Merlin himself clawed his way out of his moldy grave to beg on his knees, it would be absolutely impossible.''I claimed this through my own superior ability. It is called the spoils of war, do you understand? You utter idiot,' she sneered internally.', did you not explicitly state that keeping the Philosopher's Stone away from that evil main soul was an act of supreme justice?'
Her barrage of perfectly sound, albeit entirely self-serving, logic left the artificial entity completely silent for a long, tense moment.
[Ding! Correcting logical error...]
The system paused for another second before speaking in an overly earnest, sickeningly sweet tone, exactly like a nursery teacher scolding a greedy preschooler.
[Host, please do not substitute concepts and play word games!]
[The system's instruction to "stop evil" refers to preventing someone from possessing it out of selfish desire, not for you to engage in "robbing a robber."]
[Taking a wallet back from a thief is done to return it to the rightful owner. If you take it back and stuff it into your own pocket, then you are simply a second thief!]
[We are a "Positive Energy Virtue System," not a "fencing system for a criminal syndicate!"]
[Given that the host has displayed extreme greed, used fallacious reasoning, and attempted to rationalize illegal behavior...]
[In order to correct the host's erroneous values, the system has decided to initiate the Level Three Electric Shock Punishment Program—]
'You dare—!!!'
Tamara's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Almost entirely out of conditioned reflex, the very instant the word "punishment" echoed in her skull, her physical form reacted far more honestly than her brilliant mind. It was a deeply ingrained physiological instinct, brutally conditioned by countless previous electric shocks.
Her spine locked rigid. The nerve endings just beneath her pale skin seemed to possess a terrified memory of their own, initiating a slight, uncontrollable tremor a mere fraction of a second before the actual current struck.
The invisible lightning surged straight up her spinal column.
It brought a bizarre, bone-deep sensation of overwhelming numbness and debilitating weakness. It felt exactly as if every single bone in her body had been magically siphoned out in an instant, reducing the proud Dark Lord into a pathetic, boneless mollusk.
Tamara discovered with absolute horror that the harder she mentally commanded her fingers to clench around the hidden stone, the faster the strength drained from her limbs. The system's current seemed specifically engineered to cure all forms of defiance, forcibly converting the iron will she was so immensely proud of directly into a pathetic, physiological limpness.
"Ugh..."
The process of her fall lacked any trace of dark majesty. Her knees simply buckled beneath her weight, and she crumpled slowly to the cold stone floor. She desperately wanted to grit her teeth, to snarl in defiance, but even her jaw muscles had turned to mush. All she could manage was to squeeze a few pathetic, whimpering gasps from her throat.
It was an absolute, unforgivable humiliation.
Tamara's pristine black hair, usually kept carefully groomed to perfection, now scattered in a messy, chaotic halo around her cheeks. The strands were soaked with a fine layer of cold sweat, clinging desperately to her unnaturally pale face.
Those striking black eyes, normally brimming with calculated coldness and supreme arrogance, were now clouded by a misty, tearful haze brought on by total physiological loss of control. A faint, deeply humiliated flush painted the corners of her eyes.
Against her will, she looked incredibly fragile, easily breakable, and completely devoid of any threat.
Noticing Harry's wide-eyed gaze locked onto her, Tamara tried to glare back with all the ferocity she could muster. If looks possessed the power to cast the Killing Curse, Harry Potter would have died ten thousand agonizing deaths right then and there.
Unfortunately, through Harry's thick glasses, this supposedly fierce glare took on an entirely different meaning.
To the Gryffindor boy, it did not register as ferocity at all. He saw only the ultimate, desperate helplessness born of extreme, agonizing pain.
Just a second ago, Tamara had been standing tall, holding her ground like an invincible, battle-weary Valkyrie. But the very next second, right after she tucked the Philosopher's Stone into her robes, it looked exactly as if some delayed, highly lethal curse had finally erupted within her. She had let out a suppressed, heartbreaking groan of pure agony before suddenly collapsing into a heap.
"Tamara!" Harry turned chalk-white with sheer fright. He scrambled across the floor, rushing over to catch her shoulders and support her trembling weight.
Up close, Tamara looked exactly like a victim suffering the aftershocks of a terrible Dark Arts curse. Her eyes fluttered, her lower lip was bitten raw to the point of drawing a thin line of blood, and her slender body curled tightly into a defensive ball. Her hands clutched the fabric over her chest so fiercely that her knuckles turned stark white, acting as if whatever rested beneath the cloth was actively burning a hole straight through her heart.
"What's happening?! What's wrong with you?!" Harry panicked, his voice cracking. He could feel the delicate body in his arms trembling violently, shaking like a leaf in a winter storm. Her body temperature felt terrifyingly low against his hands.
"Is it... is it an injury from the fight just now? Or did that two-faced monster do something to you before he died?"
"Get... away..." Tamara managed to squeeze the command past her numb lips.
But under the continuous, agonizing torture of the system's electric current, the harsh dismissal sounded incredibly weak and breathy. To Harry's ears, it sounded exactly like a desperate, fading cry for help.
Harry's frantic gaze dropped to Tamara's tightly covered chest, right where her hands were clamped.
That was exactly where she had stashed the Philosopher's Stone.
A sudden bolt of terrifying realization flashed through the boy's mind.
"It's that stone!" Harry's green eyes widened in absolute horror. "That's the thing Voldemort wanted... it must be coated in Black Magic! It's hurting you! It's draining your life force!"
To the young, heroic Gryffindor, this logic was entirely flawless. After all, that monstrous Dark Lord had just attempted murder to acquire the gem. Therefore, the stone itself had to be inherently, dangerously evil!
"Throw it away! Tamara! Quickly, you have to throw it away!" Harry shouted, his voice echoing in the chamber. He reached out, desperately trying to pry Tamara's rigid fingers open to remove the supposedly cursed object.
"No..." Tamara gasped.
Although she hovered on the edge of semi-consciousness from the relentless shocks, her mind screamed in protest. That was her only spoil of war! It was her ultimate hope for a glorious comeback! Drawing upon the Dark Lord's incredible, deeply buried willpower, she desperately guarded her pocket, refusing to let the meddling boy touch her prize.
"Don't... touch..." she rasped.
However, under the system's overbearing electrical interference, her physical strength bled away faster than she could summon it.
Misinterpreting her resistance entirely, Harry suddenly erupted with a burst of reckless Gryffindor brute force. He genuinely believed Tamara was refusing to let go out of a noble desire to protect him from the curse.
"Leave it to me!" Harry gritted his teeth. With a violent yank, he forcefully pried Tamara's weakened fingers apart and snatched the heavy, blood-red stone right out of her inner pocket.
The very moment the magical artifact left her person, the punishing current ravaging Tamara's nervous system weakened slightly, allowing her to finally drag a ragged breath into her lungs.
"Give it... back to me..." Tamara reached out a violently trembling hand. Her dark eyes swam with a potent mixture of raw murderous intent and desperate longing.
But in Harry's hero-tinted vision, her reaching hand clearly looked like a selfless girl terrified that her friend would be harmed by the dark magic!
"I'll be fine, don't worry about me!" Harry declared bravely. He stared down at the jagged stone in his palm, watching it emit an eerie, pulsing red light. He then looked back at Tamara, who lay crumpled on the cold floor, gasping weakly for air.
Righteous anger entirely overcame any lingering hesitation.
Harry stood up abruptly, his jaw set, and raised the Philosopher's Stone high above his head.
Tamara's eyes widened to comical proportions, her pupils shrinking violently as she realized what the idiot was about to do.
'Potter! You—!!!' she let out a soundless, desperate roar of pure fury within the confines of her mind.
Using absolutely every ounce of his twelve-year-old strength, Harry hurled the priceless Philosopher's Stone—the legendary artifact that fueled the wildest dreams of countless Wizards across centuries—violently against the unforgiving stone floor!
Had it been an ordinary rock, it might have merely bounced and skittered away into the shadows.
But this particular Philosopher's Stone had already endured far too much volatile magical impact during the preceding struggle., its ancient creator, Nicolas Flamel, had long ago woven a delicate self-destruct backdoor into the alchemical matrix of the gem.
Combined with the sheer kinetic force of Harry's full-strength blow...
Crack!
A sickeningly crisp sound of shattering echoed through the underground chamber.
The moment the blood-red gem made contact with the floor tiles, it violently burst apart into countless tiny red fragments and a cloud of glittering crimson powder. The eerie red light pulsed one final, pathetic time before extinguishing completely.
The legendary Philosopher's Stone was utterly destroyed.
The entire hall plunged into a heavy, deathly silence.
Tamara lay paralyzed, staring blankly at the pathetic pile of red dust scattered across the floor.
Her guaranteed immortality.
Her hard-won spoils of war.
Her glorious future.
Just now, it had all been casually smashed to absolute pieces right in front of her very eyes by this insufferable, four-eyed idiot—all for the sickening sake of so-called "saving" her.
"Cough, cough..."
Overcome by a tidal wave of apocalyptic fury, violently combined with the lingering, agonizing aftereffects of the system's electric current, Tamara suddenly tasted a metallic sweetness rising in the back of her throat. She choked, nearly spitting out a mouthful of actual blood. Her peripheral vision went entirely dark. This time, she genuinely hovered on the absolute brink of fainting.
'Potter...' Tamara's trembling fingers dug into the stone floor, her nails practically clawing permanent marks into the ancient rock. She swore a blood oath in the darkest depths of her soul that, sooner or later, she was going to murder Harry Potter!
She would cast the Cruciatus Curse on him a thousand times over until his mind shattered!
Just as she reached a level of rage so deep she was liable to spontaneously combust on the spot, the cheerful chime returned.
[Ding! Detected that the host is extremely sorrowful; psychological shadow area is excessively large!]
The true culprit behind her misery popped up once more, entirely unbothered by her homicidal aura.
[Oh dear! Although the stone is broken, it truly is for your own good. After all, it belonged to someone else!]
[Besides, even if you had successfully pocketed it, Headmaster Dumbledore would have certainly investigated the matter to the very bitter end.]
[However, given that you have just suffered immense physical and mental trauma, and the core essence released when the stone shattered has not yet fully dissipated into the atmosphere...]
[The system has initiated the 'Waste Utilization' compensation protocol for you!]
[Absorbing the residual essence of the Philosopher's Stone for you...]
Following the system's perky prompt, the broken, scattered red powder on the floor began to emit a faint, ethereal glow. The dust dissolved into wisps of crimson light, drifting through the air and silently sinking directly into Tamara's prone body.
Tamara instantly felt a rich, soothingly warm current spread rapidly through her limbs, seeping deep into her very bones and washing away the lingering numbness of the electric shock.
[Absorption complete!]
[Congratulations, host! Although you have lost the physical Philosopher's Stone, your body has successfully fused with several of its core characteristics.]
[Obtained new constitution: Golden Bloodline.]
[Effect 1: Your body will naturally generate the equivalent of one bottle of life-extending potion within a fixed internal cycle.]
[Effect 2: Alchemical Blood. Your blood now possesses weak "Philosopher's Stone" properties. It is considered a top-tier alchemical material and can be used to perfectly replace various expensive magical catalysts.]
[, to prevent certain malicious incidents and exploitation, this system has forced a safety setting: only active blood flowing from your own subjective will, drawn through self-inflicted skin damage (such as pricking a finger), will possess these alchemical effects.]
[This attribute only takes effect for the first three drops of blood drawn each month.]
[Any blood drawn exceeding this strict quota, no matter how much you slice yourself open, will automatically lose its magical properties and revert back into ordinary, worthless human blood.]
[Please remember, host: rarity increases value, and a thin stream flows far! Do not even think about turning yourself into a mobile blood bank for quick cash.]
[How about it? Do you feel much more emotionally balanced now?]
Tamara lay quietly, feeling the strange, thrumming new power settling deep within her veins. Although this passive ability was nowhere near as overwhelmingly powerful as possessing the entire, intact Philosopher's Stone, at the very least... it wasn't a total, humiliating loss.
also, this power was permanently fused into her very biology. No thief could ever steal it away, and more, it could never be casually smashed against the floor by a blundering idiot like Harry Potter.
'...At least you have some semblance of sense,' Tamara snorted coldly in her mind, finally relinquishing the vivid fantasy of crawling across the floor to physically strangle the boy who lived.
And right at that exact moment, the heavy wooden doors behind them burst open with a resounding crash.
Albus Dumbledore strode into the chamber, his robes billowing behind him.
The ancient wizard's piercing gaze swept the room in a fraction of a second. He saw the glittering, smashed powder of the Philosopher's Stone scattered across the tiles. He saw young Harry, thoroughly exhausted, covered in soot, and radiating frantic concern.
And finally, he saw Tamara lying crumpled on the ground. She was deathly pale, drenched in cold sweat, and looked incredibly fragile, exactly like a brave child who had just barely survived a harrowing, life-and-death ordeal.
"Professor!" Harry shouted the moment he registered Dumbledore's presence, his voice cracking with a desperate sob. "Quick, you have to save Tamara! That stone... that cursed stone almost killed her! So I smashed it!"
Dumbledore froze mid-stride.
He looked down at the ruined alchemical powder dusting the floor, and then shifted his gaze to the seemingly dying Tamara. Within those ancient, wise blue eyes, for the very first time, a flicker of deep, deep self-doubt and confusion appeared.
Could it truly be... that he had completely misjudged this innocent child?
Not only had she apparently fought tooth and nail to the bitter end to protect Harry, but she had even nearly allowed herself to be killed by the Philosopher's Stone's supposed dark curse rather than surrender it?
Shaking off his shock, Dumbledore stepped forward quickly. He knelt gracefully beside Tamara's prone form, gently taking her slender wrist between his aged fingers to check her erratic pulse and magical condition.
Knowing the old man's penchant for passive Legilimency, Tamara immediately took the opportunity to flutter her eyes shut. She expertly arranged her delicate features into an expression of lingering pain masked by brave, stubborn strength. To complete the masterpiece, she managed to squeeze a single, crystalline tear from the corner of her eye at the absolute perfect moment.
"Headmaster Dumbledore..." she whispered weakly, her voice trembling with perfectly calibrated sorrow. Her acting skills in that moment could have easily rivaled the greatest performers in the Muggle world. "I'm so sorry... I couldn't... I couldn't protect the stone..."
"No, child," Dumbledore murmured.
The Headmaster's usually commanding voice softened incredibly, carrying a heavy, unmistakable hint of genuine guilt. He gently patted her trembling hand.
"You have already done more than enough." He paused, his blue eyes softening as he looked down at the battered girl. "Better than I could have ever imagined... far better."
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