Chapter 219: Side Effects
Draco left the Room of Requirement with a look of inexplicable excitement plastered across his face. As the heavy wooden door swung shut on its iron hinges, the cavernous space finally returned to a deathly, echoing silence.
Tamara let out a long, slow breath. Her shoulders dropped. She turned around, focusing every ounce of her attention on the small crystal vial resting in her palm. Inside, a thick, liquid silver potion swirled with a captivating, metallic sheen.
This was it. Her first definitive step toward ripping that disgusting parasite of a system out of her soul.
Without a single shred of hesitation, Tamara popped the cork stopper. She tilted her head back and downed the blended Soul Separation Potion in one fluid gulp.
The icy liquid slid down her throat like liquid nitrogen, only to instantly detonate into a mass of roaring, burning fire the second it hit her stomach.
"Ugh..."
A muffled groan tore from her throat. Tamara's knuckles turned white as she gripped the rough edge of the wooden alchemy bench. She could clearly feel the violent, tyrannical medicinal force racing frantically through her magic circuits. It tore through her veins, acting like a magical scalpel attempting to forcibly carve away the foreign entity parasitic in the deepest recesses of her soul.
But the resistance was immense. It was painfully obvious that she had added far too many soothing and neutralizing agents during the brewing process. She had been forced to compromise, adapting the volatile recipe so this fragile, thirteen-year-old body would not simply explode from the strain.
Because of those compromises, the toxicity of the potion was severely weakened. Although the initial stripping force gave her a brief, intoxicating sense of liberation, that damn, chipper voice did not vanish into the void as she had so desperately hoped.
[Ding! Warning! High concentration of illegal potion ingredients detected in the host's body!]
[System under malicious attack! Starting Emergency Purification Program... Neutralizing toxins...]
Tamara's expression instantly darkened into a murderous scowl. Her jaw locked, teeth grinding together so hard they nearly chipped.
'Did it still fail... Damn it.'
[Ding! Toxins neutralized by 70 percent. Residual toxins detected to cause slight paralysis of the host's vocal nerves. The system has automatically enabled—Soft Voice Mode!]
[In this mode, the host's voice will be forcibly converted into a gentle, sweet, and highly personable tone. Duration: Six hours.]
The great Dark Lord felt a hot, suffocating wave of pure humiliation rush straight to her head. A vein throbbed violently at her temple.
She opened her mouth, fully prepared to curse this hellish, parasitic trash with the most vile, soul-shattering words known to wizardkind.
"You hellish piece of trash, deactivate this for me immediately—"
However.
When those words actually left Tamara's lips, her originally cold, arrogant, and commanding tone had completely vanished.
In its place was a soft, mushy, sugar-coated voice that even carried a sickening hint of grievance and a coquettish whine.
"You annoying bad thing, turn it off for me quickly..."
The Room of Requirement fell into a silence so deep it felt like a tomb.
Tamara stood frozen in place. Her dark pupils contracted, filled with a mixture of absolute horror and deep self-doubt.
That hair-raising, nauseatingly cute voice just now... came from her?!
If a single Death Eater had been standing in this room to hear that sentence, she swore upon her magic she would have immediately rewarded them with a point-blank Avada Kedavra just to silence the witness.
Tamara took a deep, shuddering breath. She forced her chest to expand, deliberately trying to lower her vocal cords to regain her intimidating, gravelly tone.
"System, you are looking for death..."
As a result, when she spoke, the threat melted into a sticky, low-pitched, breathy murmur.
"System, do not make me angry anymore..."
Smack!
Tamara slapped the heavy wooden table, her face turning as black as the charred bottom of a cauldron.
She closed her eyes in utter, bottomless despair.
It was over.
Now, she had to accept the grim reality that this damn, humiliating voice and tone would accompany her every time she opened her mouth for the next six hours.
'Fine...'Tamara compromised in her mind, her mental voice dripping with venom.'Anyway, as long as I do not open my mouth, no one will know.'
Having made up her mind, Tamara mechanically cleaned the alchemy bench without uttering a single syllable. She turned on her heel, marched to the exit, and pushed open the heavy door of the Room of Requirement.
She just wanted to stand in the drafty corridor, get some fresh air into her lungs, and calm her overwhelming urge to commit mass murder.
However, Merlin himself seemed absolutely determined to make a complete joke out of the Dark Lord today.
Just as the door creaked open.
A girl carrying a ridiculously thick stack of heavy, leather-bound books came panting up from the corner of the stone stairs.
Hermione Granger.
Ever since they formed that tentative alliance in this very room, this insufferable Miss Know-It-All had completely treated the hidden space as her own private, secret study base.
When Hermione lifted her head and saw Tamara standing in the doorway, her tired brown eyes immediately lit up like Lumos charms.
"Tamara! Great, you are still here!"
Hermione walked up quickly, her arms straining under the weight of the ancient texts. Her face looked slightly pale and weary from staying up far too late to study, yet it was absolutely overflowing with an irritating thirst for knowledge.
"I was just calculating a compound rune formula about magical superposition down in the common room, but I cannot seem to solve the variable for the Third Law. Can you help me take a look?"
Tamara stared expressionlessly at this mudblood who had so foolishly delivered herself right to her doorstep. She narrowed her eyes, fully intending to use a single, freezing glare to tell the girl to get lost and jump off the Astronomy Tower.
Suddenly, the persistent, cheerful electronic voice in her mind rang out, sounding as if it had just ingested a massive dose of Cheering Charm.
[Ding! Triggered random daily task: Love your classmates, help each other!]
[Task requirement: Please use your gentle and sweet voice to patiently and encouragingly solve the problem for Hermione Granger!]
[Task reward: Wisdom +2! And immediately clear residual toxins from the body, deactivating Soft Voice Mode!]
[Task failure penalty: Soft Voice Mode will be forcibly locked for 72 hours!]
Tamara's breathing flat-out stopped. Her lungs froze.
Seventy-two hours?!
A full three days! If she had to use that disgusting, sugary voice to answer questions in Hogwarts classes for three entire days, facing the likes of Potter and Snape...
She would rather press her wand to her own temple and cast a Killing Curse right this very second!
"Tamara? What is wrong? You do not look very well."
Seeing Tamara staring at her intensely without speaking for a long, uncomfortable minute, her dark eyes projecting a genuinely terrifying aura, Hermione could not help but lean in a bit closer, her brow furrowing with genuine concern.
"I am fine."
After doing some extremely tragic, soul-crushing psychological construction in her mind, Tamara finally forced the stiff muscles of her face to twitch into the vague shape of a smile.
When she humiliatingly opened her mouth, that sweet, honey-dripping voice echoed out into the empty stone corridor.
"Come in, Hermione. Let me see which bad problem has stumped our clever little witch?"
Thud.
As soon as those disgustingly sweet words were spoken, the massive stack of books in Hermione's hands slipped from her grasp and crashed directly onto the stone floor.
Looking as if she had just seen the Bloody Baron perform a tap dance, Hermione stared at the Slytherin girl in front of her. Her mouth hung slightly open in horror and sheer disbelief, her lungs completely forgetting how to draw in air.
This... this was Tamara?!
Hermione could swear on her own life that ever since she met Tamara in their first year, the version of the Slytherin she had seen was either ice-cold, dangerously duplicitous, or radiating a suffocating aura of arrogance.
When had she ever, in the history of their acquaintance, heard Tamara speak to her with such a... such a voice that was gentle enough to melt solid ice?!
She had even called her... clever little witch?!
In the brief second after saying those words, Tamara had already mentally tortured Hermione with the Cruciatus Curse a hundred times over, her internal face twisted in dark fury. But to complete this cursed task as quickly as humanly possible, she could only swallow the rising bile of disgust and continue to urge the girl forward in that sickeningly sweet tone.
"It is windy out here in the corridor, be careful not to catch a cold. Come in quickly."
Her face flushing a bright, brilliant red, Hermione hurriedly dropped to her knees, scrambled to pick up the fallen books, and followed Tamara into the Room of Requirement in an absolute daze.
The next half hour was, without a single doubt, the absolute darkest moment for Tamara since her rebirth into this wretched body.
Hermione sat stiffly on the plush sofa, spreading the complex, ink-stained rune formula out on the low wooden table.
Tamara stood beside her, using every ounce of her legendary Occlumency shields to suppress the overwhelming urge to smash the table into splinters with her wand. Instead, she pointed a pale, slender finger at the parchment.
"Look, this variable is actually deceiving your eyes; it is not an independent rune."
Although Tamara was viciously cursing the mudblood's entire bloodline in her mind, what actually flowed out of her mouth was a stream of endless, nauseating gentleness and encouragement.
"It is okay, Hermione. This kind of trap is very common in advanced translations. You just need to reverse the structure of the second line slightly, like this... There! You are so wonderful, you understand it instantly!"
Hermione sat frozen beside Tamara.
Listening to that soft, sweet voice brushing right against her ear, and feeling Tamara's unmatched, almost maternal patience and gentleness, Hermione's heart beat so fast and hard it threatened to crack her ribs and jump right out of her chest.
So... this was the truth. After Tamara pulled back those cold, defensive thorns she always wore, she was actually such a warm, gentle person underneath.
Not only did she not mock her for failing to understand the third law, she had even been actively encouraging her!
"I... I understand now."
With a face as red as a Gryffindor banner and brown eyes sparkling with unshed emotion, Hermione looked up at Tamara exactly like an eager little beaver who had just received the highest praise. She nodded her head vigorously.
[Ding! Problem solved successfully! The target character felt strong friendliness and encouragement!]
[Task complete! Reward Wisdom +2! Current Wisdom: 46. Residual toxins cleared, Soft Voice Mode deactivated!]
Hearing that heavenly, robotic prompt echo in her skull, Tamara's painfully tense nerves finally snapped back into a state of complete relaxation. The burning humiliation began to recede.
Her hand instantly dropped to her pocket. She pulled out her wand, fully intending to point it right between Hermione's eyes and use Obliviate to completely, permanently erase that humiliating display of sweetness from the other girl's mind.
But the very next second, that damn system voice suddenly chimed in again.
[Detected host's attempt to use 'Obliviate' on the target character! Friendly reminder: The Memory Charm will also clear the magic knowledge just taught!]
[In that case, the system will not only retract the reward but also immediately deduct points and—re-force the 72-hour Soft Voice Mode penalty!]
Tamara's right hand froze stiffly in mid-air, her wand tip hovering just inches from Hermione's forehead.
She slowly lowered her arm, straightened her spine, and quickly took two large steps back, sharply increasing the physical distance between her and Hermione. That face, which had just been wearing a mask of fake, sugary gentleness, instantly snapped back to its usual, freezing coldness and untouchable arrogance.
That innate, suffocating aura of a dark superior returned to her in full force.
"Since you understand the formula, leave quickly. And... do not mention tonight's events to anyone."
Tamara coldly issued the absolute order to leave, her original, chillingly smooth voice fully restored.
Hermione was stunned for a moment, blinking at the sudden drop in temperature. Although she was somewhat used to Tamara's terrifying speed of changing faces like flipping the pages of a book, that extreme, intoxicating gentleness from just a moment ago still made her feet feel heavy, making her a bit reluctant to actually leave.
As she slowly packed the heavy books back into her arms, she paused, seeming to suddenly remember a detail from earlier.
"By the way, Tamara."
Hermione held her books tightly against her chest and turned her head, a sharp flash of inquisitive, calculating light cutting through her brown eyes.
"When I was coming upstairs just now, I saw Malfoy at the corner of the eighth-floor stairs."
Hermione's tone sounded exactly like casual, meaningless small talk, but her gaze was fixed intently, almost aggressively, on Tamara's pale face.
"He looked... like he was in a very good mood."
"Were you with him just now?"
Tamara had completely recovered from the potion's lingering side effects by now. She was methodically tidying the empty potion bottles on the bench, her back turned entirely to Hermione.
Hearing the question, she did not even bother to turn her head, answering with a frank, freezing indifference.
"Yes. Why?"
The air in the Room of Requirement seemed to physically stagnate for half a second because of that blunt, unapologetic reply.
Hermione's fingers tightened slightly around the leather spines of her books, her knuckles paling.
This Miss Know-It-All possessed a strange, inexplicable sense of exclusivity towards the very few friends and inner circles she had personally identified and claimed.
In Hermione's view, she was the one who had built a unique, intellectual ally relationship with Tamara.
Not those pureblood idiots who could not even comprehend half the words Tamara was saying.
"...Nothing."
Hermione lowered her eyes, letting her thick eyelashes hide the sudden flash of dark gloom that swam beneath them.
She bit her lower lip, hesitating for a fraction of a second, before she finally could not help but ask in a seemingly light, joking tone.
"I was just thinking... Tamara."
"Did you speak to Malfoy with that voice just now too?"
As soon as those words hit the air.
Tamara's precise movements in tidying the crystal potion bottles froze abruptly.
Her face turned extremely dark in an instant, twisting into an expression of pure, unadulterated revulsion, as if someone had just stuffed a whole, rotting dungbomb directly into a flawless potion she had just finished brewing.
At the mere thought of herself using that kind of sickening, coquettish voice to speak to Draco Malfoy, and the kind of nauseating, arrogant expression that blonde idiot might show in response...
The great Dark Lord genuinely felt like she was going to violently vomit up tonight's dinner of pumpkin juice and roast beef.
"Put away your ridiculous thoughts, Granger."
Tamara spun around, her dark eyes burning with obvious humiliation and raw irritation. She spat each word out through tightly gritted teeth, her wand hand twitching.
"That was just a temporary side effect of a potion. If anyone else saw it, they should seriously consider whether they would like to have their memory drained until they become a drooling, total idiot."
Looking at Tamara's murderous appearance, clearly radiating the desire to slaughter everyone in the castle just to keep them quiet.
Hermione was stunned for a brief moment.
Immediately following that realization, the heavy gloom in her brown eyes was swept away, vanishing completely into the ether.
It was only a side effect of a potion. She had not used that special, sweet voice with that annoying Malfoy.
A deeply pleasant, almost victorious emotion quickly spread through Hermione's chest, warming her from the inside out.
In other words, she was the only one in the entire world who had heard Tamara's unique, gentle voice.
The corners of Hermione's mouth curled up uncontrollably. She hugged the heavy books in her arms even tighter and gave the iron-faced, furious Tamara a bright, utterly radiant smile.
"That is good."
Hermione said with a sweet smile, though her tone carried a sudden, chilling sense of matter-of-factness.
"That way, I will not have to go through the trouble of finding an opportunity to use Obliviate on Malfoy."
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