Chapter 92: Protection Fee
The air outside the grimy display window of Borgin and Burkes seemed to freeze solid.
Draco stared at the soot-covered Harry Potter. Across the span of three seconds, the blond boy's expression morphed through a vivid sequence: blank surprise, visceral disgust, and finally, a desperate eagerness to show off in front of Tamara.
"Potter?" Draco drawled. That annoying, aria-like lilt had returned to his voice. He reached up to straighten his collar, which had been tugged into disarray during their earlier scuffle, desperately attempting to claw back his aristocratic air. "Look at the state of you. Anyone walking by would think you were a deranged House-elf who just crawled out of some filthy Muggle's fireplace!"
Harry shoved his half-broken glasses up the bridge of his nose. Though he looked thoroughly disheveled, covered head to toe in gray ash, he glared back without yielding an inch.
"Shut up, Malfoy. I just got lost!"
He brushed a thick layer of soot off his oversized shirt, then turned his gaze toward Tamara. The defiance in his green eyes melted into genuine concern.
"Tamara, why are you here? And with Malfoy..."
Harry cast a wary, sweeping glance at the eerie shop signs looming over them. The shriveled, leathery heads hanging from rusted hooks and the giant, hairy black spider specimens suspended in the murky windows made a wave of nausea churn in his stomach.
"And this place looks... just awful. It doesn't look like anywhere good people would come." He shrank back slightly, his voice laced with unease.
"What exactly are you implying, Potter?" Draco shrieked, his pale face flushing pink. "Who are you calling 'not good people'?"
"Enough."
Tamara coldly interrupted the two idiots before they could start pecking at each other like brainless roosters.
She turned her gaze to Harry. Her expression was perfectly calm, her posture as open and relaxed as if she were standing beneath the enchanted ceiling of the Hogwarts Great Hall, rather than lingering in the most notorious black market in all of Britain.
"You think this place is filthy, don't you, Harry?" Tamara asked. Her tone was indifferent, yet it carried a strange, convincing gravity. "It is true. This alley is filled with Dark Magic, vicious curses, and dirty, underhanded dealings."
She paused, letting the silence stretch for a fraction of a second.
"But power itself has no color, Harry."
Raising a slender finger, she pointed toward the rows of cursed artifacts in the window, items that practically bled an eerie, suffocating aura. Her voice dropped, becoming soft, hypnotic, and brimming with dark allure.
"Only the mediocre label methods as 'good'or'evil'. The truly strong only care whether that power can cut through the thorns blocking their path."
She offered a faint, dismissive smile. "As for why I am with Draco... it is purely a coincidence. I simply happened to pick up this lost peacock on the side of the road."
Harry stood frozen. His mouth hung slightly open, but his vocal cords refused to produce a sound.
Tamara's words carried an extremely dangerous, intoxicating logic. His Gryffindor intuition was screaming in alarm, rattling the bars of his mind. This sounded exactly like she was defending Dark Magic, bordering on outright sophistry.
But... when he met Tamara's clear, open eyes, every single counterargument withered and died in his throat.
He remembered facing that terrifying, two-faced freak, Quirrell. It was Tamara who had stepped into the line of fire to help at the critical moment. In that damned, suffocating cage on Privet Drive, when the entire magical world seemed to have forgotten him, she had appeared outside his window like a knight descending from the heavens.
Besides, the way Tamara spoke sounded so incredibly brave.
The wariness in Harry's eyes slowly dissolved, replaced by a sudden dawn of realization and deep admiration.
"So that is how it is. I am sorry, Tamara. I was doubting you just now..."
Beside them, Draco's gray eyes lit up like lanterns. Although he did not quite grasp the philosophical depth of her words, he felt absolutely certain Tamara was right.
"This is true Slytherin Wisdom! Potter, your thick Gryffindor skull could never comprehend it!"
Tamara rolled her eyes inwardly.
'Good. Two gullible fools.'
Just then, the heavy, iron-wrought door to Borgin and Burkes was pushed open. A sharp chime of bells sliced through the murky air.
Lucius Malfoy stepped out onto the cobblestones with a steady, arrogant stride. He appeared to be in a remarkably good mood, his chin held high, clearly having just concluded a highly profitable deal—or perhaps having successfully disposed of some troublesome Ministry-banned contraband.
"Draco, did I not tell you to wait by the door—"
Lucius stopped mid-sentence.
His pale eyes locked onto the soot-covered Potter, and his aristocratic brow furrowed in immediate, visceral disgust.
Then, his gaze swept past the Boy Who Lived and landed squarely on the black-haired girl standing casually between the two boys.
Tamara Riddle.
Although they had only crossed paths once at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, her tone, her piercing gaze, and that seemingly mediocre Muggle surname had lodged themselves like a poisoned thorn deep in Lucius's heart.
"Ah, Mr. Malfoy."
Tamara turned around.
She did not bow her head like an ordinary, respectful junior. Nor did she fidget with nervous energy like Harry. Tamara simply stood there, perfectly still, her hands hanging naturally at her sides, her chin tilted upward by a fraction of an inch.
Those eyes, as deep and lightless as polished obsidian, drifted lightly onto Lucius from a few paces away.
Then, she smiled.
It was not the bright, innocent smile of a little girl. It was a languid, predatory curving of the lips, a dangerous expression that seemed capable of peeling back flesh and seeing right through to the rotting core of a man's soul.
"What a coincidence."
Tamara's voice was barely more than a whisper. Her gaze slowly tracked downward, finally settling on the exquisite, silver snake-headed cane gripped in Lucius's hand.
"Your taste is as flamboyant as ever, Lucius."
Those words struck like a silent thunderclap, detonating directly inside Lucius's skull.
In that singular instant, the noisy, wretched surroundings of Knockturn Alley vanished entirely. The damp smell of the cobblestones, the distant haggling of hags—all of it was wiped away. Lucius felt as if he had been violently yanked backward through time, dragged over a decade into the past.
He saw that dark, imposing figure sitting at the head of the long table. The one whose name must never be spoken. That monster had used this exact same nonchalant tone—dripping with dark playfulness and casual cruelty—to comment on his attire, his cane, and the fragile nature of his loyalty.
"...You."
Lucius's hand clamped down around his cane. The leather of his gloves creaked. His knuckles turned a stark, bone-white from the sheer force of his grip. His pupils constricted into tiny pinpricks, and his breath hitched painfully in his chest.
The terror, etched so deeply into his very marrow, caused his muscles to lock up instantly. A layer of cold sweat erupted across his skin, nearly soaking through the expensive silk shirt clinging to his back.
Similar.
Far too similar.
It was not merely the physical appearance. It was the aura. The suffocating, crushing sensation of being tightly coiled by a massive, invisible python, slowly squeezing the air from his lungs. And yet, the creature standing before him was clearly just a child.
"Father?"
Draco, entirely oblivious to the psychological warfare unfolding above his head, noticed his father's rigid posture. He tugged at Lucius's velvet sleeve in confusion.
That single, whining syllable snapped Lucius out of his near-death hallucination.
He drew in a sharp, ragged breath, forcing his trembling legs to hold their ground. He fought down the overwhelming, instinctual urge to take a step back. Or worse—to drop to his knees.
Reason screamed at him that Voldemort was dead. Reduced to ash and shadow. The person standing before him was nothing more than a first-year Witch named Riddle.
But... the raw, animalistic fear flooding his veins could not be deceived.
Lucius pressed a trembling finger against the brim of his hat, desperately trying to shadow the naked panic swimming in his eyes.
"...Miss Riddle."
His voice emerged dry and hollow, completely stripped of the sneering arrogance he had so freely displayed toward the Weasley family just an hour prior.
"I did not expect... to see you here."
"I did not expect it either."
Tamara observed Lucius's blustering, cowardly facade. Beneath her calm exterior, her heart swelled with a deeply pleasant, intoxicating contempt.
'Truly a good dog. One who bullies the weak and cowers before the strong. Even showing just a tiny, fractured hint of his master's aura is enough to scare the absolute wits out of him.'
However, now was certainly not the time to reveal her true identity. Letting this seed of terror take root in his heart, allowing it to sprout into paranoid suspicion that would rob him of his sleep for months, was far more entertaining—and far more useful—than simply handing him the truth.
"Draco ran into a bit of trouble in the alley just now," Tamara said nonchalantly, her tone as breezy as if she were discussing the afternoon weather. "A few short-sighted Dark Wizards seemed quite interested in the young master of the Malfoy family."
"What?!" Lucius's pale face lost whatever color remained. He violently yanked Draco behind him, his hands frantically checking the boy's shoulders. "Are you hurt?"
"No, Father." Draco peered out from behind Lucius's cloak, looking at Tamara with pure worship. "Tamara saved me! She used a spell to blast those filthy people away! She even used fire to chase that hag off! She was amazing!"
Lucius finished inspecting his son. After confirming that not a single blonde hair was out of place, he exhaled a long, shaky breath of relief.
When he turned his gaze back to Tamara, the emotion in his eyes had grown infinitely more complex. There was a faint glimmer of gratitude buried beneath the mountain of fear, but above all else, there was a deep, chilling wariness.
A first-year student driving off adult Dark Wizards in the middle of Knockturn Alley? Such raw talent, such ruthless methods...
"In that case..." Lucius forced his aristocratic mask back into place, offering a stiff, shallow bow. "Then I must thank you, Miss Riddle. The Malfoy family never leaves a debt unpaid."
"You are far too kind, Lucius."
The smile on Tamara's lips deepened into something sharp and predatory. This was the exact sentence she had been waiting for.
Reaching into the pocket of her dark cloak, she pulled out a neatly folded piece of parchment. It was the shopping list of materials she had originally intended to purchase with her own hard-earned funds. The parchment was crammed with various expensive, exceedingly rare, and highly prohibited Dark Magic ingredients.
Bicorn horn powder. Shredded Boomslang skin. Intact Ghoul fingernails. And a small, heavily warded vial of extremely expensive Opal powder.
"Since Mr. Malfoy is so generous..."
Tamara closed the distance between them with light, silent steps. Instead of politely handing him the list, she reached out and stuffed the parchment directly into the breast pocket of his expensive, tailored robe. She even gave the fabric a light, patronizing pat.
The action was breathtakingly rude. It was a violation of personal space that would normally result in a duel. Yet Lucius actually froze in place, his breath catching in his throat, not daring to pull away.
"As it happens, I have drawn up a small shopping list for my extracurricular research this term." Tamara looked up at him. Her large, dark eyes sparkled with the unmistakable thrill of extortion, even as she pitched her voice to mimic a well-behaved junior asking a favorite uncle for sweets. "But I have been a bit short on cash lately... As a back-to-school gift, I do not think Mr. Malfoy would mind doing a small favor for a junior, would he?"
Lucius felt the distinct weight of the parchment resting against his chest. Although he had not read a single line of ink, his instincts screamed that this was definitely not a small amount of Galleons.
But did he dare refuse?
He did not.
Not simply because she had saved his heir. He was paralyzed by that suffocating fear. The terrifying, irrational illusion that if he dared utter the word 'no', the little girl standing before him would instantly shed her skin, transform into the Dark Lord, and blast him with a Cruciatus Curse right there on the cobblestones.
"Of course..." Lucius gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached, forcing a strained, bloodless smile. "It is... my absolute honor."
"That is great!" Draco cheered foolishly from the sidelines, completely blind to his father's suffering. "Father, you are so generous!"
Lucius felt a violent urge to strike his troublesome son over the head with his silver cane.
Just as Tamara was preparing to thoroughly enjoy the pained, twisted expression on Lucius's face as he marched inside to pay her tab, a booming voice shattered the tense atmosphere.
"Harry! What are yeh doin' down there?!"
A thunderous roar echoed off the grimy brick walls. Hagrid's massive frame, built like a moving mountain, came rushing from the alley entrance. He was panting heavily, his wild beard flying in all directions. In one hand, he swung a wire cage containing a dead rooster, and in the other, he gripped a large glass bottle labeled Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent.
This sudden injection of loud, chaotic, everyday life instantly shattered the gloomy, oppressive Dark Magic atmosphere of Knockturn Alley.
"Hagrid!" Harry yelled, looking exactly as if he had just spotted a descending angel.
"Get outta there, Harry!"
Hagrid charged forward. Without breaking stride, he grabbed Harry by the back of his collar and yanked him away from Lucius and Tamara, lifting the boy into the air like a helpless little chick.
The half-giant glared warily at Lucius, his beetle-black eyes narrowing. Then, his gaze shifted to Tamara, and his fierce expression melted into instant, gentle concern.
"Oh, yer here too, Tamara." Hagrid looked down at her, his voice softening into a low rumble. "This place ain't safe, it's full o' bad sorts. Are yeh lost?"
In Hagrid's eyes, Tamara was still the sweet, kind-hearted girl who had comforted him in his wooden hut, helped him smuggle Norbert the dragon to safety, and bravely protected Harry.
"Yes, Hagrid." Tamara lied without blinking a single eyelash, smoothly pinning the blame for her presence—and her extortion—entirely elsewhere. "We accidentally took a wrong turn. Fortunately, we ran into Mr. Malfoy, who was... kindly guiding us on where to buy our school books."
Lucius looked exactly as if he had just swallowed a live, buzzing blowfly.
"Hmph. Well then." Hagrid snorted, clearly not believing a word of Malfoy's supposed kindness. "Come on, the Weasleys are lookin' fer yeh!"
Brooking absolutely no argument, Hagrid kept his massive fist clamped around Harry's collar. He extended his other arm, using his sheer bulk to shield Tamara from Lucius, and began herding the two children toward the bright, sun-drenched entrance of Diagon Alley.
As she walked away, Tamara paused and looked back over her shoulder.
She stared at Lucius, who remained frozen in the damp shadows of the alley. With a perfectly elegant, mocking smile, she silently mouthed three words:
'Remember to pay.'
Then, she turned her back on him and stepped out into the warm sunlight.
She left Lucius standing completely alone in the freezing alley, the hand gripping his silver cane trembling violently...
Ten minutes later.
Tamara slipped quietly back to Borgin and Burkes, bypassing the main entrance entirely to collect her packaged materials from the discreet back door.
She weighed the heavy, brown-paper package in her hands. As she shifted it, she listened to the pleasant, muffled clinking of rare ores and glass vials grinding together inside. Her mood was better than it had been in months.
This single batch of premium materials was more than enough to upgrade her crude, makeshift Alchemy room by at least two full levels.
And it had not cost her a single bronze Knut.
"Ha."
Tamara stood in the shadows, her gaze drifting toward the distant, bustling street where Lucius had disappeared. She could easily imagine his grim, bloodless face mourning the loss of such a massive sum of Galleons. A deeply pleasant, wicked smile played on her lips.
"As expected."
She turned away, slipping the heavy package into her robes.
'Only when they are terrified to their very bones do these pure-bloods finally understand the true meaning of generosity.'
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