Chapter 173: Going Home
Iron wheels screamed against rusted tracks, throwing a shower of orange sparks into the gloom. The international express train shuddered to a violent halt at a desolate, nameless border station deep in Eastern Europe. The carriage doors hissed open, vomiting a gust of cold morning wind onto the cracked concrete platform. It carried the heavy, unmistakable stench of the deep woods—damp earth, rotting pine needles, and centuries of undisturbed decay.
Tamara stepped out into the chill. She was swallowed entirely by a voluminous black cloak, the fabric woven with a potent Confundo Charm. Only the sharp, pale curve of her chin caught the dim station light. Quirrell scurried down the iron steps right behind her. He lugged a battered leather suitcase in one hand and awkwardly balanced an iron cage in the other, sticking close to his master's shadow.
They crossed the boundary line and plunged into the Black Forest of Albania.
The ancient trees here were monstrous, their trunks twisted like agonizing limbs, their dense, overlapping canopies choking out the morning sun. The deeper they trekked, the thicker the air became. A heavy, oily miasma clung to the roots and hung in the fog. To an ordinary wizard, breathing this tainted air would invite violent hallucinations and a complete loss of direction. But to Tamara? This suffocating atmosphere, saturated with the metallic tang of pure, unadulterated Dark Magic, felt like slipping into a warm bath. It felt like coming home.
Inside the swinging iron cage, the black cat was having a miserable time. It yowled irritably, its claws scraping frantically against the metal bars as if trying to dig its way out of the oppressive magic.
Tamara paused. She turned her head, shooting the wretched furball a glare so cold it could freeze boiling water. Looking at this so-called 'Nagini'—a creature entirely useless aside from shedding everywhere, whining constantly, and sitting on her chest to induce sleep paralysis—the Dark Lord felt a deep, aching nostalgia for a real pet.
During those miserable, spectral years after losing her physical body, wandering these very woods as a wraith, she had stumbled upon a magnificent creature. A rare, lethal venomous snake. It was no mere beast, but a human soul condemned by a Blood Curse, trapped forever within a serpentine shell. That snake had been brilliant, deadly, and possessed an absolute, pure obedience to her every whim.
That was a companion worthy of the Dark Lord. Not this scruffy, flea-bitten idiot currently hissing at a fern. Reclaiming her true Nagini was paramount on this trip.
"Quirrell." Her raspy, heavily disguised voice grated from beneath the thick hood. "Over the next few days, you will scour the nearby Dark Wizard settlements. Gather information. Keep your eyes open for any rumors of an unusually massive venomous snake, or one radiating obvious magical fluctuations within this forest. The moment you find a trace, report to me."
"A-as you command, Master," Quirrell stammered, bowing so low his nose nearly brushed the damp soil.
They pressed on for three grueling hours. The miasma eventually thickened into a near-solid wall of black fog. Suddenly, the trees broke, revealing a hidden clearing ringed by scorched, twisted thorns and massive, ancient boulders. This was it. The private sanctuary Tamara had abandoned over a decade ago.
She glided toward a towering stone pillar, its surface deeply scarred with jagged Runes.
"Open..." she commanded. The word slithered from her lips in the sibilant, spitting hiss of Parseltongue.
The wall of thorns, dense enough to swallow light itself, shuddered. Slowly, the briars uncoiled and parted, revealing a pitch-black passage into the earth.
The moment their boots crunched against the gravel inside the camp, a voice drifted out from the absolute dark. It was theatrical, neurotic, and dripping with affected manners.
"Shh... my little darlings. It seems we have uninvited guests today, rudely disturbing the peace of the Master's sanctuary."
Leather shoes clicked sharply against dry branches. A man strolled leisurely into the dim light. He wore a faded, threadbare suit that had clearly seen better decades, yet his hair was slicked back with careful, obsessive care. He twirled a wand between his fingers, his hands encased in pristine, pure white gloves. His head was tilted at a sharp angle, whispering sweet nothings to a rotting carrion crow perched on his shoulder. Beneath his polite smile, a bone-chilling madness danced in his sunken eyes.
Peritus.
A flicker of genuine, unexpected satisfaction warmed Tamara's chest. This bloodthirsty gentleman, infamous among the Death Eaters for his signature 'killing with white gloves,' had actually stayed. Hunted relentlessly by the Ministry of Magic, he had chosen to remain in this gloomy, forgotten camp to guard her gate. Ten years of absolute isolation, coupled with the corrosive erosion of ambient Dark Magic, had clearly shattered his mind. He was now a lunatic who conversed with beasts and venomous insects, yet he hadn't abandoned a single ounce of his morbid obsession with high-society etiquette.
"Oh? Look who the forest dragged in." Peritus stopped, his manic gaze snapping to Quirrell. "If it isn't our stuttering little scholar."
His tone dripped with venomous mockery. "Quirrell, you scurried out of here just days ago, boasting to the heavens that you were going to find the great Master. I fully expected your useless bones to be rotting in a British gutter by now."
Peritus's smile vanished. His eyes turned dead and cold, locking onto the hooded figure standing silently beside the professor.
"So, not only did you crawl back empty-handed, but you dared to drag an unidentified piece of trash into the Master's sacred domain?" He raised his wand with terrifying elegance. "Shall I rip your entrails out with my own hands, Quirrell? The wolf cubs in the woods are looking dreadfully thin."
The killing intent rolling off Peritus was thick enough to choke on. Quirrell panicked, his hands waving frantically. "N-no, Peritus, you m-misunderstand! This is—"
"Shut up, Quirrell."
Tamara's raspy voice sliced through the damp air, instantly silencing the professor. She didn't bother reaching for her hood. For a fanatical zealot like Peritus, seeing her face was entirely unnecessary. She only needed to remind his very soul of the absolute, dominating terror of the dark.
Slowly, deliberately, Tamara raised her pale hand, her fingers curling loosely around her holly wand. She spoke no incantation. Instead, from the pitch-black shadow of her hood, she locked eyes with the madman.
Legilimency.
A mental strike, cold and cruel as a striking viper, violently tore through Peritus's fragile mental shields, sinking its fangs deep into the core of his soul. The temperature in the clearing plummeted. Frost crept over the ancient boulders. The shadows cast by the ruins suddenly writhed and twisted, taking the shape of countless squirming serpents that slithered across the ground, converging in absolute submission at Tamara's boots.
"Peritus..."
She abandoned human speech entirely. From the depths of her throat, a bone-chilling hiss echoed through the clearing—the unmistakable, terrifying Parseltongue unique to the Dark Lord.
"Your loyalty... is pleasing."
That freezing mental intrusion, a sensation etched permanently into his marrow, combined with the absolute authority of the snake language, shattered Peritus's theatrical composure in an instant.
His wand slipped from his white-gloved fingers, clattering uselessly against the gravel. The crow on his shoulder shrieked in mortal terror, frantically beating its wings as it fled into the canopy. Peritus stared, his sunken eyes wide with the terrifying fervor of a zealot witnessing a divine miracle. Rapid, ragged gasps tore from his throat, as if the mere act of breathing in her presence was a blasphemy.
He dropped.
His knees slammed into the jagged gravel, instantly tearing through the fabric of his carefully preserved suit trousers, but he didn't even flinch. He threw his upper body forward, prostrating himself completely. He pressed his forehead hard against the freezing dirt, his trembling lips kissing the edge of the shadow cast by Tamara's cloak.
"Mas... Master..." Peritus convulsed, hot tears carving tracks through the grime on his face and splashing into the mud. His voice was thick with a morbid, desperate devotion. "It really is you... You've returned... I haven't spent a single day without waiting for your summons... My soul belongs to you... forever..."
Tamara stared down at the fanatic weeping at her feet. A man who prized his gentlemanly elegance above all else, now willingly grinding his dignity into the dirt just to express his absolute submission.
Beneath the heavy hood, Tamara's lips parted. The corners of her mouth stretched upward, curling into a wild, breathtakingly arrogant smile.
Exhilarating.
So utterly exhilarating.
This! This was the absolute grandeur a Dark Lord was entitled to! This was the blind, intoxicating worship she was born to command! To hell with playing nice! To hell with classmate camaraderie, and to hell with that pathetic Hogwarts Special Award for Merit! All the shiny little school medals and hypocritical smiles in the world couldn't hold a candle to a single, fervent tear shed by a broken man kissing her boots.
"Stand up, Peritus," Tamara commanded, savoring the heavy, intoxicating weight of her long-lost authority. Her voice was cold, languid, and dripping with dark promise. "Take me to the back. I want to see how that little gift I sent last year has grown."
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