Chapter 134: Valentine's Day
February 14th.
For Tamara Riddle, this should have been nothing more than an ordinary, tedious Friday.
Instead, she woke up feeling a rare, genuine spark of satisfaction.
Ever since that fateful night in her mental space—the night she had utterly crushed the arrogant sixteen-year-old phantom of Tom Riddle and devoured his essence to assimilate into her own—the magical core within her chest hummed with a newfound vitality. The sluggish, restrictive chains that had bound her magic since her rebirth had fractured. A fraction of her true, terrifying power had returned.
Though she still couldn't cast Unforgivable Curses with a mere flick of her wrist, the ambient magic around her responded to her will without the need for incantations. It was a glorious omen.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the Dark Lord tasted the sweet, intoxicating air of freedom.
And then, she walked into the Great Hall.
Her good mood shattered the instant her hand pushed open the heavy oak doors.
Tamara froze on the threshold. Her fingers hovered in mid-air. For a fleeting second, she genuinely wondered if she had stepped through a portal into a localized hell, or perhaps triggered a mind-altering Black Magic trap designed to induce madness.
The solemn, ancient majesty of the Hogwarts Great Hall had been violently assassinated by a sea of aggressive pink.
Garish, oversized pink flowers clung to the stone walls like a parasitic fungus. The enchanted ceiling, usually a stunning reflection of the morning sky, was currently vomiting a relentless downpour of heart-shaped confetti. The air itself was thick, choked with the cloying, suffocating stench of cheap perfume mixed with a sickly-sweet candy aroma. It was a sensory assault far worse than a cauldron of overcooked Flobberworms left to rot in the dungeons.
And the crowning horror...
Trudging through the falling confetti were twelve exceptionally ugly dwarfs. They wore sullen, murderous expressions, clutching golden harps, with tiny, humiliating golden wings strapped to their backs.
'What... in Salazar's name... is this?'
A vein throbbed violently at Tamara's temple.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Tamara!"
The booming, theatrical voice belonged to Gilderoy Lockhart. He strutted down from the staff table like a peacock in heat, draped in blindingly bright turquoise robes with a hideous pink cloak forced over his shoulders.
He threw his arms wide, gesturing toward her as he announced to the entire staring hall:
"Look at our Slytherin star! On this day filled with love, even an iceberg should melt, shouldn't it?"
Tamara stared at him. Her dark eyes were flat, devoid of any warmth, radiating a chilling, absolute zero aura.
'If some half-wit had dared to defile Hogwarts like this fifty years ago,'she thought, her jaw locking tight,'I would have hung them by their ankles from the Astronomy Tower until they vomited a shade of pink to match these wretched walls.'
"I was under the impression that school was a place for learning magic."
Her voice did not rise above a conversational volume, yet the piercing, icy edge in her tone caused several nearby upper-years—who had been inching closer to jeer—to flinch and step back.
"Not a venue for hosting such... vulgar circus performances."
Ignoring Lockhart's painfully frozen smile, she swept past him, her robes billowing like dark storm clouds as she headed straight for the Slytherin table.
She cared nothing for this ridiculous mortal holiday. To the Dark Lord, Valentine's Day was merely a pathetic excuse for hormone-crazed, intellectually stunted trolls to exchange bodily fluids and bacteria.
Unfortunately, her desire for peace was entirely one-sided.
As the undisputed jewel of Slytherin House and the apex predator of the school's social hierarchy, Tamara could not simply fade into the background. She was the ultimate prize.
Before she even had the chance to sit down, the invasion began.
Several boys from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, clutching beautifully wrapped boxes of chocolates and overly decorated cards, attempted to breach the Slytherin perimeter. There was even a Gryffindor first-year, trembling like a leaf, clutching a bouquet of Singing Daffodils clearly pilfered from the Herbology greenhouses.
"Ta... Tamara..."
The freshman swallowed hard, finally scraping together the Gryffindor courage to speak.
Before he could take another step, a haughty figure stepped directly into his path, blocking his view of Tamara.
"Get lost, you ungrateful brat."
Draco Malfoy sneered, looking down his nose at the younger boy like a vicious guard dog protecting a prime cut of meat. With a sharp flick of his wand, he swatted the stolen daffodils right out of the freshman's hands. The flowers hit the stone floor with a pathetic squeak.
"Who gave you permission to pollute Tamara's air with this cheap trash?" Draco demanded, his upper lip curling in disgust.
"But... this is my..."
"Shut up."
Draco raised his chin, his pale grey eyes flashing with pure, unadulterated Slytherin superiority. He turned his back on the trembling first-year and projected his voice to mock the restless crowd of hopeful boys hovering nearby.
"Listen up, all of you! Don't embarrass yourselves by bringing that cheap junk bought from Zonko's Joke Shop or Honeydukes over here." Draco's gaze swept over them with utter contempt. "What value do your pathetic chocolates and homemade cards have, other than taking up space in the rubbish bin?"
Having sufficiently humiliated the competition, Draco turned back to Tamara. The arrogant sneer vanished instantly, replaced by a fawning, incredibly smug smile. He reached into his robes, produced a dark green velvet box, and slid it carefully across the table toward her.
"Don't mind them, Tamara."
His voice dropped to a conspiratorial, boastful tone. "Only a gift carefully selected by the House of Malfoy is worthy of your taste. My father had this sent specifically from France. Even there, it is a treasure that only the most ancient pure-blood families are eligible to pre-order."
Tamara glanced down at the velvet box. Then, her dark eyes flicked toward the surrounding boys, who were red-faced and fuming, yet entirely too intimidated by Draco's verbal lashing to step forward.
Draco's boasting was incredibly childish. The phrase 'only Malfoy is worthy' grated against her nerves like a rusty blade.
Yet... she had to admit the tactical advantage.
He was an exceptionally useful shield. The blond nuisance had just successfully warded off ninety percent of the tedious harassment she would have otherwise had to endure.
"...How thoughtful of you."
Tamara offered a faint, noncommittal response. She did not open the box. She merely pushed it an inch to the side, claiming it without showing an ounce of excitement.
This cold, aloof attitude did not deter Draco in the slightest. On the contrary, seeing that he had publicly repelled all competitors and that Tamara hadn't banished his gift to the trash, his chest puffed out. In his mind, he had already won the day.
A short distance away, at the Gryffindor table, a different sort of tension was brewing.
"That Malfoy is a complete jerk!"
Harry Potter stabbed his fork viciously into a sausage, though his green eyes kept darting across the hall, fixated entirely on the Slytherin table.
"What right does he have to make decisions for Tamara? He drove everyone away! Even a Hufflepuff who just wanted to give her a card!"
"Maybe he's right, Harry."
Hermione Granger sat across from him, not even bothering to look up as she methodically spread strawberry jam across her toast.
Hermione had finally recovered. According to Madam Pomfrey, the faulty Polyjuice Potion had been triggered by some unknown external force, causing the feline transformation to be incredibly intense but significantly shorter in duration. This stroke of luck had allowed the Gryffindor know-it-all to end her humiliating stint as a cat-girl far earlier than expected.
"What do you mean he's right?" Harry stared at his best friend in absolute disbelief. "He's bullying other students!"
"He is helping Tamara clear away trouble."
Hermione set down her butter knife. Her sharp brown eyes locked onto Harry, analyzing him with ruthless precision.
"Use your brain, Harry. If Malfoy weren't standing there acting like a guard troll, Tamara would be surrounded by dozens of boys right now. Her plate would be buried under a mountain of messy chocolates and screaming love letters."
Hermione tilted her head. "Do you really want to see that scene?"
Harry froze.
His mind instantly conjured the image: Tamara, surrounded by a horde of older boys, smiling sweetly as she accepted their gifts, carefully opening sappy, perfumed love letters one by one...
A strange, hot knot of irritation instantly twisted in his chest.
Harry blurted out, his tone so defensive and firm it even startled himself.
"Exactly."
Hermione offered a small, knowing smile—the kind of smile that proved she had seen through his transparent excuses long ago. She shook her head like a weary adult dealing with a stubborn toddler.
"Admit it, Harry."
She leaned in slightly. "You hate Malfoy being over there not because he's bullying people... but because he's blocking the card you want to give her. And because you don't want to see any other boys getting close to Tamara at all."
"I... I do not!"
Harry's hand instinctively flew to his robe pocket, clutching the fabric tight. Hidden deep inside was a handmade card. He had stayed up late into the night, wasting over a dozen sheets of perfectly good parchment to get the wording just right, and he hadn't even found the courage to hand it over yet.
"I just... I just think everyone has the right to give gifts!"
"Yeah, yeah, mate."
Beside them, Ron Weasley chimed in. His mouth was entirely stuffed with toast, but that didn't stop him from delivering a stinging, muffled observation.
"Anyway, I wouldn't dare. Giving a Valentine's gift to that she-devil? How is that any different from blowing a kiss to a Hungarian Horntail? Only you and those other hopeless fools would entertain such suicidal thoughts."
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