Chapter 172: Thoughtful Bella
Night swallowed the Eastern European Plain as the international express train carved a smooth, rhythmic path through the darkness.
Inside the luxurious first-class cabin, the brass wall lamps had been dialed down to a faint, amber glow. Tamara Riddle lay back against the plush pillows of the oversized bed, her chest rising and falling in a steady, quiet cadence. The sheer exhaustion of playing the perfect, angelic student for an entire year at Hogwarts, compounded by the draining physical toll of her recent heroic crusades against evil, had finally dragged her into a rare, dreamless sleep. Here, sealed within the safe, soundproofed walls of the carriage, the Dark Lord rested.
Yet, in the deepest shadows of the cabin's corner, a pair of eyes snapped open.
Nagini—the black cat that was supposed to be dead to the world under a heavy Sleeping Charm and securely locked inside a brass cage—was wide awake. Those golden, slit-like pupils did not hold the vacant stare of a beast. They flickered with a distinctly human, calculating gleam in the dark.
Click.
A furry black paw slipped through the narrow gaps of the brass bars. With eerie, impossible dexterity, the claws hooked around the complex latch, fiddling with the mechanism a few times.
With a soft metallic click, the cage door swung open on silent hinges.
The feline dropped onto the thick, woven carpet without a single whisper of sound. It padded forward, melting through the shadows until it reached the edge of Tamara's bed. Bathed in the pale, fragmented moonlight bleeding through the window blinds, the black cat sat back on its haunches. It stared up at the sleeping girl's face with absolute, unadulterated obsession.
Had Quirinus Quirrell or any surviving Death Eater been present to witness this, their blood would have run cold. It was an expression entirely alien to the animal kingdom—a sickening cocktail of morbid worship, fanatical devotion, and a ravenous madness that would gladly burn the world to ash for a single glance.
For trapped beneath that sleek black fur and feline anatomy was the soul of the Dark Lord's most fiercely loyal, utterly deranged servant. Bellatrix Lestrange.
Gazing upon her master's peaceful, breathing form so intimately close, Bella's mind drifted back to the freezing abyss of Azkaban. On that cold, isolated rock in the sea, the Dementors had glided past her iron door day after agonizing day, their rotting breaths siphoning every drop of warmth and happiness from her marrow. The despair had nearly shattered her mind completely. The only anchor keeping her tethered to reality, the singular burning ember in the ice, was the absolute certainty of waiting for the Dark Lord's return.
Until one fateful day, starved, shivering, and hovering on the razor's edge of consciousness, a sickeningly cheerful, unnatural electronic voice had suddenly echoed within her skull.
[Ding! Strong obsession detected! Madam, you have a chance to stay by the great Dark Lord's side forever, to be looked at every day, and even to be touched personally. Would you like to accept?]
At that time, Bella had possessed no concept of a system. She assumed it was a manifestation of some ancient, esoteric Black Magic contract forged by the Dark Lord himself.
'I am willing!'she had screamed in her mind, her physical voice nothing but a dry, rattling wheeze in the freezing cell.'As long as I can return to my master's side, even if I have to give up my soul and flesh! I am willing to do anything!'
In that desolate cage, she uttered the most fanatical oath of loyalty.
Then, the invisible contract was established.
And that infernal voice had indeed honored its end of the bargain—albeit with a twisted, humiliating sense of irony. When Bella next regained consciousness, she was not standing proudly at a Death Eater rally. Instead, she found herself transformed into a cat, locked inside a cramped wire cage at the Magical Menagerie in Diagon Alley. She had lost her wand. She had lost her human voice. For the vast majority of her waking hours, her very consciousness was violently suppressed by overwhelming, primitive feline instincts.
But what did any of that matter?
The moment that black-haired, dark-eyed girl had strolled into the dingy pet shop and pinned her with that intensely familiar, freezing glare—even if it was laced with utter disgust—and bought her, Bella knew she had won. Every humiliation was worth it. To be classified as her master's exclusive, private property. To sleep curled at her master's feet every day. To brazenly climb into her master's bed without consequence!
It was a level of intimate grace that the cowardly hypocrite Lucius Malfoy, or that greasy, brooding Snivellus Snape, could not even dream of achieving!
The memory faded, snapping her focus back to the present reality. The black cat coiled its hind legs and executed a flawless, silent leap onto the soft mattress. She crept closer, inching toward Tamara's resting cheek.
A deeply familiar scent washed over her sensitive nose.
Abruptly, the feline's creeping advance halted. Her golden gaze locked onto the slight gap in Tamara's sleepwear collar.
Just beneath the fabric, deeply branded into the girl's porcelain skin, sat a jagged ring of magical backlash scars. Though faded, the bruised tissue still bled an aura of pure, unadulterated darkness and metallic blood. That kindred scent, carrying Tamara's raw, unfiltered magic, suddenly pierced straight through the animalistic haze, striking the core of Bella's soul.
The moment she inhaled that suffocating darkness, the rigid system restrictions binding her soul violently shuddered. The overwhelming stimulation of such concentrated Black Magic forced the invisible chains to temporarily loosen.
Beneath the silver moonlight, the black cat's body began to tremble violently. Eerie, sickening crunches echoed in the quiet cabin as bones snapped, lengthened, and realigned. Flesh stretched and twisted in a grotesque, rapid metamorphosis.
Seconds later, the small feline form was gone.
Kneeling on the mattress in its place was a woman. A wild, untamed mane of thick, curly black hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing a gaunt, deathly pale face twisted by neurotic fanaticism. Yet, the transformation was bizarrely incomplete. Protruding directly from the crown of her messy hair were two twitching, furry black cat ears. Behind her, a long, sleek black tail whipped back and forth through the air in frantic excitement.
Bella's fractured mind, however, still firmly believed she was a cat. Having been trapped within the feline vessel for so long, compounded by the blinding mental euphoria surging through her veins at this moment, she remained entirely oblivious to her sudden human state. Her manic gaze was fixated entirely on the scar on her master's neck.
'Master... my poor master is hurt...'
A suffocating wave of heartache seized Bella's chest. Driven entirely by her ingrained animal instincts, she lowered her upper body, bringing her face mere inches from Tamara's throat. Parting her lips, she extended her tongue. The surface, still retaining the rough, barbed texture of a feline's, dragged gently across the darkened strangulation marks where the Black Magic aura lingered.
It was a warm, wet caress, leaving behind a terrifying, abrasive tingle against the sensitive skin.
"Mmm..."
That bizarre, inherently dangerous contact acted like a tripwire. The Dark Lord's deeply ingrained paranoia flared to life. Tamara's brow pinched sharply in her sleep. Every muscle in her slender body locked into rigid tension. Her eyelids began to quiver, and a freezing, terrifying killing intent was awakening within her.
Someone was approaching her.
Someone was touching her most vital weak spot.
Tamara's consciousness clawed its way out of the depths of sleep, her magic already boiling beneath her skin, fully prepared to tear this reckless attacker to bloody pieces.
Bella froze mid-lick. Seeing her master about to open those eyes full of catastrophic rage, absolute panic seized the deranged witch.
It is over! If I wake the master, she will definitely be furious!
The horrific consequences flashed through her mind. She would be mercilessly kicked off the bed. She would be shoved back into that freezing brass cage, never again allowed to sleep so intimately close to her master!
'No! I must be with the master!'
Driven by a disastrous fusion of feline panic and the utterly unhinged logic of a fanatic Death Eater, Bella bypassed rational thought entirely. Tapping into the raw, ambient magic swirling around them, she threw her right hand forward. In her desperate panic, she considerately pressed her palm flat against Tamara's smooth forehead and unleashed a wandless spell at point-blank range.
"Stupefy!"
A condensed, violently precise flash of crimson light detonated directly against Tamara's skull.
The poor Dark Lord. Her consciousness had barely breached the surface of the waking world. She had not even managed to pry her eyes fully open before the sheer concussive force of her most loyal servant's loving physical hard control slammed her right back into oblivion. Her body went entirely limp, slumping heavily back onto the pillow.
Watching the harsh tension melt from her master's furrowed brow, listening as the shallow breaths smoothed back out into a deep, rhythmic slumber, Bella's racing heart finally settled.
'Great, the master can keep sleeping.' She let out a low, breathy chuckle of absolute satisfaction.
Then, without a shred of guilt, the former top female Death Eater—the very witch whose name had once terrified the entire wizarding world—slid down the sheets. She wrapped her arms securely around Tamara's waist in a vice-like grip, buried her face deep into the agarwood-scented fabric of her master's robes, and closed her eyes contentedly.
The bizarre half-human state, however, did not last long.
Deprived of the active, continuous stimulation of Tamara's pure dark magic, the system's absolute restriction slammed back into place. A faint, distorted ripple of magical energy washed over the bed. In the depths of her slumber, the woman's body rapidly shrank, bones compressing and flesh melting away until she was nothing more than a black cat once again, clinging to Tamara's chest like a stubborn piece of sticky rice cake.
The next morning.
As the first pale rays of Eastern European sunlight sliced through the gaps in the train car blinds, painting golden stripes across the cabin, Tamara slowly peeled her eyes open.
"Hiss..."
The moment consciousness returned, a sharp intake of breath hissed through her teeth. A violent, dull ache pulsed from the very center of her brain, radiating outward as if someone had taken a solid wooden stick directly to her skull. Compounding the agony was a suffocating weight crushing her lungs. It felt as though a heavy stone had been unceremoniously dropped onto her chest during the night.
Tamara snapped her chin down, her dark eyes widening in sheer disbelief.
There, sprawled shamelessly across her chest, was Nagini. The beast that was supposed to be securely locked away was dead to the world, sleeping so soundly that its tiny pink tongue was sticking out. Wincing against the pounding in her head, Tamara shifted her gaze toward the corner of the room. The brass cage sat empty, its complex latch flicked completely open.
'When did this damn beast get out?'
Tamara's pale face darkened with a stormy, ashen fury. Her lip curled in absolute revulsion. Reaching up, she clamped her fingers around the thick scruff of the black cat's neck, peeled the heavy creature off her chest, and ruthlessly hurled it through the air onto the carpet like a discarded rag.
"Meow-ow!"
The feline let out a startled yowl mid-air. Agility took over, allowing it to twist and stick a flawless landing on the ground. It immediately sat back, arching its spine and staring up at Tamara with wide, impossibly innocent, aggrieved eyes. It looked entirely baffled, seemingly not understanding at all what it had done wrong.
Tamara ignored the stupid cat's protest. She pressed her fingertips hard against her throbbing temples, trying to massage away the blinding spike of pain. A sharp flash of confusion, quickly followed by icy alertness, darted through her dark eyes.
'What... happened to me yesterday?'
She sifted through her fragmented memories. Yes, she had been a bit tired last night, but she should not have slept so soundly. And this specific, nauseating, splitting headache... it felt entirely too much like being hit by a solid Stunning Spell.
In a blur of motion, Tamara's hand dove into her pocket, her fingers wrapping reassuringly around the smooth wood of her wand. She sat up rigidly, her predatory gaze sweeping every inch of the perfectly sealed cabin. There were no signs of the door lock being broken, nor any indication that the protective charms layered over the room had been triggered. Aside from her own breathing, the only moving thing in the room was that idiotic cat, which was currently attempting to sidle up and shamelessly rub its cheek against her boots again.
The statistical probability of a cat getting up in the middle of the night to cast a Stupefy on her was simply too low.
Ultimately, her jaw tightened. She could only attribute this strange, agonizing situation to having exhausted too much energy dealing with that patronizing, idiotic system lately, leading to an uncontrollable fatigue response deep within her soul.
Pushing the lingering headache aside, Tamara straightened her somewhat messy robe collar. She shot one last, freezing glare at the black cat purring by her feet.
"Quirrell," Tamara commanded, her voice slicing through the quiet cabin. Gone was the vulnerable, sleeping girl. The tone returned to its high-and-mighty, absolute coldness. "Prepare to disembark. We have arrived."
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