Chapter 136: Return Gift
The edge of the Forbidden Forest.
A biting, frost-laced wind howled through the skeletal canopy, tearing at the withered branches until they let out eerie, agonizing creaks.
Back inside the castle, Gilderoy Lockhart had successfully transformed the corridors into a nauseating, chaotic disaster zone. The air in there was currently choked with floating pink bubbles, raining confetti, and the suffocating stench of cheap, floral perfume. Compared to that Valentine's Day nightmare, the damp decay and freezing temperatures of the forest edge gave Tamara a long-lost sense of absolute comfort.
"Only in a deathly quiet place like this can one's mind become a bit clearer," she murmured to the empty woods.
Tamara pulled her heavy black robes tighter around her shoulders. Her leather boots sank into the thick, rotting layer of fallen leaves, letting out dull, rhythmic thuds with every step. She paused, her pale fingers toying with a withered branch she had just snapped off a nearby Wiggentree.
This little piece of dead wood was the raw material for the return gift she had so thoughtfully prepared for Ginny Weasley.
Pulling a small silver knife from her pocket, Tamara began to shave away the rough bark, her movements absentminded yet precise. She had no intention of crafting some exquisite, delicate amulet. She simply carved a single, jagged ancient Rune directly into the bare wood: Suppression.
According to the System's rigid definitions, this crude carving could barely count as a 'blessing'. Practically speaking, however, it was a leash. It would conveniently suppress the crazed, fragmented remnant soul lingering within Ginny—a soul that had become violently unstable ever since it lost its dominance over the girl's body.
'A good deed for a junior,'Tamara thought, a dry, mocking smile touching her lips.'How wonderfully virtuous of me.'
Just as she pressed the silver blade deep into the final stroke of the Rune...
Rustle.
A sharp sound broke through the howling wind, originating from the dense bushes to her left.
Tamara's dark eyes snapped toward the noise, sharpening into twin blades. Years of ingrained paranoia flared to life. Before her conscious mind even registered the movement, her wand had already slipped from her sleeve and rested perfectly in her palm, ready to unleash a lethal curse.
However, the things that crawled out of the underbrush were not dangerous magical beasts looking for a meal.
It was a line of palm-sized spiders, their bodies covered in thick, bristling black hair. They skittered over the dead leaves in a panicked, disorganized row, their many legs moving in a frantic blur. They were fleeing directly from the direction of the castle grounds, desperately trying to bury themselves deep within the shadows of the Forbidden Forest.
Following close behind the smaller ones, several massive hatchlings—each easily the size of a washbasin—scrambled past in an absolute frenzy, knocking over rotting logs in their haste to escape.
"This is..."
Tamara lowered her wand slightly, her eyes narrowing as she watched the nauseating, multi-legged creatures tumble over one another.
Acromantula.
Why would these highly dangerous, flesh-eating creatures, which were strictly native to the dense jungles of Borneo, suddenly appear on the grounds of Hogwarts?
There was only one possible explanation.
"Rubeus Hagrid," Tamara uttered.
The name rolled off her tongue dripping with incredulous mockery.
"It has been fifty years, you lumbering oaf, and your brain hasn't improved in the slightest?"
Half a century ago, it was precisely because Hagrid had secretly smuggled an Acromantula into the school that Tom Riddle was handed the perfect, silver-platter opportunity to frame him. It had allowed her to effortlessly pin the crime of opening the Chamber of Secrets onto the half-Giant, leading directly to his wand being snapped and his immediate expulsion.
And now, this colossal idiot was actually still raising them?
Logically speaking, any normal human being who had experienced such a devastating injustice and severe punishment would stay as far away from those specific creatures as physically possible for the rest of their natural life.
But that half-Giant was truly a special breed of stupid. Not only did he fail to learn his lesson, but he had actually doubled down, raising an entire nest of the man-eaters right in the Forbidden Forest. Judging by the sheer scale of the hatchlings scurrying past her boots, they had likely already bred into a massive, self-sustaining colony.
"Truly typical of a Gryffindor brain. All courage, zero capacity for thought."
Tamara shook her head slowly, though a playful, bone-chilling sneer curled at the corner of her mouth.
In her past life, she might have viewed this growing colony as a potential threat to her control, or simply as filthy, chaotic creatures that needed to be purged with Fiendfyre.
But now, her mindset had undergone a rather practical shift.
Looking at those fast-moving, hairy spiders, she didn't see monsters. She saw a pile of running Galleons and premium Potion ingredients. Their venom was a highly restricted, incredibly precious material on the black market. Their silk could be woven into high-strength, spell-resistant armor. Even their molted carapaces held immense alchemical value.
"Keep raising them, Hagrid," Tamara whispered, withdrawing her gaze. Her dark eyes softened into the calculating look of a wealthy farmer surveying a particularly bountiful vegetable garden.
"After all, the Forbidden Forest is my back garden too. Once you've fattened them up properly... I'll come to collect the harvest."
Afternoon. The Castle corridors.
Having finished whittling her crude handmade gift, Tamara began her second task of the day: tracking down the little Weasley girl to deliver this damned return gift.
But Ginny Weasley had completely disappeared.
Or, more accurately, she was actively avoiding Tamara like the plague. Ever since that horrific, heavily perfumed Dwarf had delivered his musical message and left, Ginny had acted like a startled rabbit, vanishing from Tamara's sight the moment she entered a room.
It wasn't until the very end of the lunch break, as the dense crowds of students began trickling away toward their respective afternoon classrooms...
...that Tamara finally caught a glimpse of that messy red hair.
Ginny was huddled near a shadowed corner of the third-floor staircase. She looked absolutely terrible.
Her face was as pale as a sheet of parchment, the skin stretched tight over her cheekbones. Heavy, bruised-looking dark circles hung under her eyes, and she had thinned down so significantly that her school robes hung off her narrow shoulders like a sack. She swayed slightly as she walked, her knees buckling every few steps as if she might simply collapse into a heap on the stone floor.
Ginny didn't know what was wrong with her anymore.
She had clearly thrown away that horrible, whispering diary. She had gotten rid of it! But... why were the gaps in her memory only growing larger?
Just an hour ago, she had only wanted to walk to the library to study. But when she suddenly blinked and came back to her senses, she found herself standing in a dark, unused corridor, staring down at a rooster with a violently snapped neck. Her hands had been covered in dirt and white feathers.
Even more terrifying, she had overheard the older students whispering that Senior Tamara had received a horrific, threatening Blood letter for Valentine's Day, and that the Dwarf who delivered it was someone she had supposedly hired!
Currently, Ginny was hovering on the absolute brink of extreme mental exhaustion.
Although the diary had been recovered by Tamara, the six agonizing months of possession and continuous life force drainage had already carved indelible, jagged scars into her young soul. And the dark remnant soul still lingering within her veins refused to die quietly. It continued to intermittently seize control of her motor functions, causing her to violently oscillate between terrified lucidity and blank amnesia.
She was so afraid.
She didn't know why she kept waking up in strange, cold places, or why the metallic smell of blood and feathers clung to her skin no matter how hard she scrubbed with soap.
Even less did she understand why, upon seeing Senior Tamara from across the Great Hall, a sickening, contradictory impulse would well up within her chest—a twisted mixture of a desperate longing to be close to the older girl, and a violent, screaming desire to destroy her.
"Ha. Found you."
Tamara stood at the very top of the marble staircase, looking down through the gaps in the railing, her dark eyes locking onto the trembling red-haired figure below.
'Since you dared to send me such a disgusting piece of trash,'Tamara thought, her fingers tracing the rough edges of the wooden Rune in her pocket,'you should be fully prepared to receive your return gift in person.'
Tamara had no desire to create a dramatic scene in front of the lingering Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws in the hallway, so she didn't call out. Instead, she stepped into the shadows and followed her silently.
At the bottom of the stairs, Ginny suddenly looked back, her instincts screaming at her. The moment her wide, bloodshot eyes met Tamara's pitch-black, unblinking stare from the shadows, the young girl shuddered violently from head to toe. She spun on her heel and bolted.
Tamara merely raised a delicate eyebrow.
In this castle, no one could outrun its true Heir.
It became a silent, terrifying chase. Ginny scrambled frantically through the winding corridors and up narrow, shifting staircases, her breath tearing through her throat in ragged gasps. She took random turns, ducking behind tapestries and sprinting down hidden passages, desperately trying to shake off the elegant black figure that followed her like an inescapable shadow.
But no matter how wildly she circled, no matter how clever she thought her evasions were, every single time she paused to catch her breath and thought she was finally safe... she would turn around.
And there Tamara would be.
Standing in the dim light at the end of the hall, casually tossing that crude wooden charm into the air and catching it, her beautiful face a mask of cold, expressionless calm.
Pure, suffocating fear spread through Ginny's chest.
Finally, her legs gave out, and she was cornered with nowhere left to run. Blind with panic, she instinctively threw her weight against the heavy wooden door she was most familiar with lately—which also happened to be the only one standing slightly ajar in this deserted corridor.
Second floor.
The abandoned Girls' bathroom.
Ginny stumbled inside, her shoes slipping on the damp floor tiles. She caught herself against the cold porcelain of the central sinks, panting heavily, her heart pounding so violently it felt like it might crack her ribs.
It was dark and freezing in here. The stagnant air was thick with the suffocating smell of mold and old plumbing, broken only by the occasional, pathetic sobs of Moaning Myrtle echoing down from the U-bend of a distant toilet.
"Did you really have to hide in here?"
An elegant, smooth voice suddenly cut through the gloom, coming directly from the doorway.
Ginny snapped her head up, her breath hitching.
There stood Tamara at the bathroom entrance. The dim light from the corridor silhouetted her slender figure, her black school robes swaying slightly in the cold draft.
Click.
Tamara stepped inside and pushed the heavy door shut behind her.
She didn't even bother to utter a locking spell. With a casual, almost lazy flick of her wand, the heavy brass bolt on the door slammed shut as if shoved by a massive, invisible hand. It let out a sharp, echoing bang, completely sealing the only exit.
That nightmarish, beautiful voice echoed through the damp acoustics of the bathroom, bouncing off the tiled walls.
Tamara walked slowly, deliberately toward the trembling girl. The sharp clack, clack of her low heels striking the floor tiles sounded exceptionally clear, cutting through the empty space like the ticking of a countdown.
As she walked, Tamara's dark eyes swept over the familiar surroundings.
The tarnished copper tap carved with the shape of a small snake. The hidden entrance leading down into the Chamber of Secrets, buried deep underground.
And the exact spot on the floor where a certain Ravenclaw girl in glasses had once dropped dead, fifty years ago.
"Did you do this on purpose?"
Tamara finally stopped just inches in front of Ginny. She looked down at the young girl—who had been tortured by the diary out of all human semblance, her face hollow and her eyes wild with terror. Tamara's expression shifted into something complex, her voice dropping to a soft, dangerous whisper.
"Choosing to meet me in a place exactly like this..."
Tamara slowly reached out. Her pale, ice-cold fingers clamped firmly around Ginny's jaw, forcing the trembling girl to tilt her head up and meet her gaze.
"Was it to remind me of my masterpiece from back then?" Tamara murmured, her thumb brushing against Ginny's pale cheek. "Or is it..."
The corners of Tamara's lips curved upward.
"...that the thing inside you is simply homesick?"
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