Chapter 95: Living Under Someone Else's Roof
Lucius's unpleasant drawl cut through the stuffy, ink-scented air of the crowded bookstore. He stood before Arthur Weasley, whose knuckles were white at his sides, a superior sneer stretching the corners of his pale face.
"Look at this family..." Lucius let his cold gaze drag over the cluster of red-haired children, finally dropping to rest on the battered, frayed textbook in Ginny's hands. "I feel sorry for you, Arthur. Throwing away your entire family's dignity for that pittance of a salary."
He let the silence stretch for a heartbeat, his tone dipping into a venomous purr.
"If you do not even have the galleons to buy your children decent textbooks, then what is the point of calling yourselves pure-bloods? You are an absolute disgrace to the Wizarding World."
"How dare you insult my family!"
Arthur, the usually mild-mannered father of seven and the undisputed pillar of the Weasley family, finally snapped. He lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of expensive dark robes and slamming Lucius hard into a towering bookshelf.
Screams erupted from the surrounding shoppers.
Heavy, glossy copies of The Collected Works of Gilderoy Lockhart rained down from the high shelves, clattering against the floorboards in a chaotic avalanche.
Under normal circumstances, Tamara would have stood back with a cup of tea, thoroughly entertained by the sight of two grown pure-bloods engaging in a primitive, Muggle-style fistfight.
But right now, she could only lean weakly against Molly's plump shoulder. Her muscles still twitched with residual spasms from the vicious electric shock the System had blasted her with earlier. She was trapped in the humiliating position of a fragile, helpless victim, forced to watch the farce unfold.
Amidst the flying books and shouting, Lucius shoved Arthur back with a furious snarl. A dark bruise was already blooming around his left eye.
He viciously yanked his rumpled robes straight and snatched Ginny's worn copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration from the scattered pile on the floor.
"Here, girl. Take your book."
Lucius hissed the words, a flicker of subtle, calculated malice flashing across his aristocratic features. He shoved the battered textbook back into Ginny's tin cauldron.
But Tamara saw it.
Her nerves, currently hypersensitive from the lingering pain of the punishment, caught the microscopic shift in his movement.
In the exact fraction of a second that he returned the textbook, Lucius's long fingers discreetly gripped a black, frayed old diary. He slid it deep into the shadows of the little girl's cauldron.
Tamara's pupils contracted to pinpricks.
That was the first Horcrux she had personally crafted at the age of sixteen. The very vessel she had torn her soul apart to create, forged through murder and the darkest of magic!
'Stop it...'Tamara roared in the confines of her own mind.'That spendthrift fool! He actually took the great Dark Lord's Horcrux and used it as a cheap prop to frame a political rival? He casually handed a piece of my immortal soul to a first-year red-headed brat?!'
She gritted her teeth, desperately trying to lift her trembling fingers. She just needed a spark of focus. A simple, non-verbal Summoning Charm to rip the diary back into her own hands. Even with her body paralyzed by the shock, if she could just force out a single drop of magic...
[Ding! Warning! Host detected attempting to illegally misappropriate another person's property!]
The System's sickeningly cheerful, heartless voice chimed directly against her eardrums.
[The diary in question has currently been legally gifted by Lucius Malfoy to Ginny Weasley. Snatching a little girl's schoolbag is an extremely despicable act of bullying! Please be a law-abiding Wizard!]
'That was mine to begin with, you useless piece of junk!' Tamara screamed internally, the metallic taste of blood flooding her mouth as she bit the inside of her cheek.
[Regrettable as it may be, robbery is wrong, dear. We must set a good example!]
'Go to hell...'
Tamara was so consumed by absolute fury that her vision literally went dark at the edges. Her already pale complexion turned a ghastly, translucent white, making her look even more like a traumatized angel on the verge of fainting.
She could do nothing but watch as Hagrid's massive, beetle-eyed frame pushed through the crowd, easily plucking the two brawling men apart like unruly kittens.
She watched as that stupid, freckled girl, Ginny Weasley, clutched the cauldron containing her precious Horcrux to her chest, shrinking behind Arthur like a frightened quail.
This was the ultimate disgrace.
The great, terrifying Lord Voldemort was currently being held hostage by a so-called virtue mandate, forced to watch helplessly as a piece of her own soul drifted into the grubby hands of commoners.
"Let us go, Draco."
Lucius spat, clearly unwilling to breathe the same air as these people a second longer. Pressing a hand to his swelling eye socket, he grabbed his son by the shoulder and dragged him toward the exit.
Draco stumbled along, clearly still in shock from the sheer indignity of the brawl. Yet, as his father pulled him away, his pale gray eyes remained fixed on Tamara, who was still slumped against Molly's side.
Why?
Draco's young mind spun in circles. He simply did not understand.
Tamara was clearly the pride of Slytherin. She was brilliant, elegant, and powerful. Why would she rather go to the Weasleys' dilapidated shack—a place his father claimed was unfit even for garden gnomes—than spend the rest of the summer at the luxurious Malfoy Manor?
Could it be... that she actually preferred hanging around with Potter and his blood-traitor friends?
Draco's face crumpled slightly, his eyes swimming with the raw hurt and confusion of a betrayed puppy.
Just as the Malfoys passed within a few feet of her, Tamara forced down the sickening nausea in her stomach and struggled to stand upright, gently pulling away from Molly's embrace.
Catching the devastated look on Draco's face, she could not help but sneer inwardly.
In her past life, no one would have dared to question her decisions. A single look of doubt would have earned them a Cruciatus Curse. She certainly would never have wasted her breath explaining her motives to a child.
But her current reality was different. She needed to maintain her carefully crafted image, one that kept the pure-blood heirs blindly loyal to her.
"...Listen."
Tamara's voice was barely a breath, pitched so low that only Draco could catch the syllables over the noise of the crowd.
Draco blinked, his boots scuffing the floor as he subconsciously dragged his feet, slowing his pace.
Tamara met his gaze, her dark eyes deep and heavy with unspoken secrets. Her pale lips barely moved.
"If you want to destroy the enemy, you must first infiltrate them from within."
At that exact moment, the hurt completely vanished from Draco's eyes.
It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck his brain, illuminating the grand, shadowy chessboard of her mind.
Undercover!
So that was it!
Tamara was not abandoning her Slytherin roots. She was doing this to gather critical intelligence, to dismantle Gryffindor's golden boy and his influence from the inside out. She was sacrificing her own comfort, enduring the stench and humiliation of poverty, all to strike deep into the heart of the Weasley family!
What kind of absolute dedication was this? What a noble, self-sacrificing Slytherin hero!
The way Draco looked at Tamara instantly shifted from childish resentment to sheer, unadulterated reverence.
He nodded vigorously, his posture straightening. He puffed out his chest and followed his father out into the cobbled street of Diagon Alley, wearing a fiercely determined expression that screamed he would take this secret to his grave.
Done.
Tamara let her heavy eyelids droop, exhaling a long, weary breath.
'Tricking children is so exhausting...'
Half an hour later.
When Tamara stepped out of the soot-stained fireplace and finally stood inside the Weasley home, looking around the architectural disaster known as The Burrow, it took every ounce of her formidable willpower not to physically gag.
This place... was the literal embodiment of chaos.
Several chipped teapots wearing knitted sweaters were flying haphazardly through the air, bumping into the ceiling beams. Soapy water splashed aggressively over the edges of a rusted sink in the kitchen, scrubbing pans of its own accord. A rhythmic, hollow banging echoed down the pipes from the upper floors, courtesy of the resident ghoul, while a muffled explosion rattled the floorboards from some unknown bedroom above.
It was cramped, it was deafeningly noisy, and it reeked of poverty and boiled cabbage.
"Welcome! Welcome to The Burrow!"
Arthur Weasley greeted her warmly, stepping out of the kitchen. His mouth was still swollen and bruised from the earlier fistfight, but his smile was blindingly genuine.
"I am so sorry, the house is a bit of a mess right now... Oh, Fred! Throw that Gnome that is biting the sofa out the window!"
Tamara wrapped her dark cloak tightly around her shoulders, pulling the fabric close as if letting it loosen even a fraction of an inch would allow the common dust to permanently taint her noble soul.
"It is quite alright, Mr. Weasley."
Tamara offered a weak, perfectly measured smile. Her voice still carried a faint, pathetic tremor from the System's shock, making her sound incredibly brave just for standing up.
"It is... very lively here."
Molly Weasley's heart practically shattered into a million pieces at the sight.
Looking at this beautiful, tragic little girl who maintained her elegant pure-blood manners even while standing in their chaotic, soot-covered living room, Molly felt a powerful surge of maternal instinct. She was so sensible, so polite, it made the older witch want to weep.
"Oh, you poor dear, you must be absolutely exhausted from all that shouting."
Without allowing a single word of argument, Molly ushered Tamara forward, pressing her down into a faded, lumpy, but heavily cushioned armchair by the hearth. A moment later, a massive tray piled high with steaming, buttery biscuits was shoved into her lap.
"Have something to eat first, dinner will be a while yet. Harry! Take Tamara for a walk out in the garden to get some fresh air. The Gnomes out there were just cleared out, so it should be safe enough for a stroll."
And so, five minutes later, Tamara found herself standing in the Weasleys' overgrown, weed-choked garden.
She watched with dead eyes as Harry expertly grabbed a potato-like creature with knobby legs by its ankles, spun it in a wide, dizzying arc, and launched it high over the ragged hedge.
"Is it a bit crazy?"
Harry brushed the loose dirt off his palms and turned to her, offering a somewhat bashful, self-deprecating smile.
"I mean... this must be very different from the places you usually live."
Tamara leaned her hip against the rotting wooden fence, keeping her posture rigid to ensure not a single stray leaf or messy vine brushed against her pristine robes.
"It is indeed different," she replied, her tone perfectly flat. "The orphanage was cold and lonely, but at least it was not this noisy."
Harry went silent for a long moment.
The warm, golden afterglow of the setting sun spilled across his face, illuminating his bright green eyes. Beneath his messy fringe, those eyes held a heavy, complex melancholy that seemed far too old for a boy his age.
"Actually... I really like it here."
Harry spoke softly, his voice barely carrying over the rustling leaves. It sounded as if he were talking to himself, yet also as if he were finally confiding in the only other orphan who could possibly understand the hollow ache in his chest.
"Mrs. Weasley is very good to me, and so is Ron. Here, sitting at their table, I feel something I have never felt before in my entire life... the feeling of a real home."
"But, Tamara."
Harry looked up, the light in his gaze dimming into something fragile and insecure.
"Sometimes, watching them all together... watching them be so happy, so loud and harmonious... I feel like an intruder instead. My name is not Weasley. I do not have red hair. I know, deep down, that this happiness does not truly belong to me."
"No matter how good they are to me here, I always feel a bit... out of place."
Harry sighed, his shoulders slumping. He kicked a loose pebble near his worn trainers, watching it skitter into the tall grass.
Tamara watched him in absolute silence.
'This pathetic creature is the fated enemy destined to kill me in the prophecy?'
Tamara let out a vicious, contemptuous sneer in the dark corners of her mind.
To the true Dark Lord, so-called family and love were nothing more than heavy iron chains used to bind a wizard's hands and feet. They were a cheap anesthetic, swallowed by the masses to mask their own glaring incompetence.
Only the weak would act like a starving stray dog, weeping with gratitude over a meatless bone tossed into the dirt by passing strangers, only to spend the rest of their miserable lives living in constant terror that the bone might be snatched away.
If this stray dog truly found living under someone else's roof so painful, what he should do is unhesitatingly tear out the master's throat. He should seize this territory for himself, claim the house, and then crush all those generous donors beneath his heel for ever making him feel humiliated in the first place.
He should not be standing in this pile of a junk garden, wallowing in pathetic self-pity over a few flying Gnomes.
But, as she stared at his bowed head, a cold, brilliant realization washed over her.
This was perfect.
The great savior of the Wizarding World was willingly exposing his softest underbelly to his future murderer. This vulnerability could easily become the very blade she used to gut him.
In fact, she could use this exact moment of weakness to drag this lost, desperate boy completely into the dark.
Dumbledore was currently trying to weave a warm, suffocating cage of love and kindness to keep his golden weapon docile and loyal.
Then she would personally step in and feed him a far more lethal, addictive poison—the intoxicating allure of power and absolute control.
She would nurture the unease and inferiority festering in his heart. She would water it bit by bit, making him doubt the hypocritical sympathy of the adults around him, until he gradually became utterly dependent on the harsh validation and brutal truth that only she was willing to provide.
"The reason you feel out of place..."
Tamara finally spoke, her voice dropping into a chillingly calm, magnetic cadence.
She did not offer the gentle, motherly comfort Harry was clearly expecting. Instead, she took a scalpel to his fragile illusions, tearing open his facade with an almost cruel, obvious logic.
"...is because your subconscious understands the truth. Living by relying on the kindness and charity of others is, in its purest essence, simply a form of begging."
Harry's head snapped up. He stared at her, his green eyes wide with shock at the bluntness of her words.
"A true sense of belonging is never something handed to you out of pity."
Tamara leaned in slightly. The dying sunlight cast long shadows across her face, making her look like a beautiful demon casually imparting the ancient laws of survival.
"It is only achieved when you are powerful enough. So powerful that no one dares to ignore your existence, let alone pity you."
"When you reach that point, 'home' is simply wherever you choose to stand."
"By then, it will never be a question of whether you need to fit into the Weasley family. It will be a question of whether they feel honored to even be allowed to host you."
Harry stood frozen, the breath catching in his throat.
Her words sounded so cold, so entirely devoid of standard human warmth.
Yet, beneath the ice, this rhetoric was saturated with a raw, obvious sense of power. It hit his system like a direct shot of adrenaline, instantly burning away the weak, suffocating haze of self-pity that had been clouding his mind.
"Only... by becoming stronger?"
Harry whispered, his heart rate suddenly accelerating against his ribs. He looked into Tamara's bottomless black eyes, watching the fierce, unapologetic ambition flickering within them under the sunset.
For some inexplicable reason, he suddenly felt that this girl standing before him was infinitely more real, more grounded, and more reliable than any of the adults who constantly patted his head and muttered about poor Harry.
"...Thank you, Tamara."
Harry took a deep, shuddering breath. The lost confusion in his eyes dissolved, replaced by a quiet, burning clarity.
"I think... I understand now."
Tamara turned her face away, no longer bothering to look at the gullible, easily molded savior.
She shifted her gaze toward the crooked silhouette of The Burrow, listening to the chaotic noise spilling from its open windows. She watched the plump, red-haired witch bustling happily at the kitchen sink—the same woman who had just crushed her in a fierce, unearned hug.
'Stupid love.'
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