Chapter 115: Not What I Thought
Tamara gritted her teeth and forced the words out, her voice trembling with weakness and fury.
Lockhart froze beneath her oppressive, murderous stare.
He actually took a step back, frightened by a second year girl. He did not even dare retrieve the wand that had fallen into the muddy water.
Harry Potter, still lying in the mud, was also completely stunned.
For one brief moment, the sharp pain in his arm seemed to vanish, as if someone had cast a Memory Charm on it. All he could see was the girl standing in the icy rain, trembling slightly as she raised her wand to protect him, not even caring that she had no umbrella.
She was crying.
Harry stared blankly at the tear that finally slid from the corner of Tamara's eye because of the lingering pain wracking her body. For a moment, even his breathing seemed to stop.
Tamara, who always called him an idiot.
Tamara, who always looked at him as if she were standing far above him.
Tamara, who was always so powerful and arrogant.
She had actually... cried for him?
"Tamara..."
Harry's voice turned hoarse as an emotion he had never felt before surged through his entire body.
The feeling of being cherished and protected so desperately was something the saviour, who had grown up starved of affection, had never truly experienced.
"I'm fine..." Harry lifted his uninjured hand, wanting to touch Tamara's still trembling arm. His eyes were full of gratitude and attachment he could not put into words. "Don't cry... I'm really fine..."
Tamara waved his hand away.
"...Shut your mouth."
Looking at Harry's deeply moved expression, as if he would gladly die for her on the spot, Tamara felt only a violent churn in her stomach.
Cry?
Right now, she wanted to pull out his broken bone and shove it straight into his brain.
"Don't flatter yourself, Potter."
"I simply did not want to see that buffoon make your bones disappear, then have to endure you showing off in the Great Hall like a boneless slug."
However, that malicious explanation had somehow transformed into the awkward cover of someone too dishonest to admit concern.
"I know, Tamara." Harry smiled foolishly. Even while gasping from pain, his eyes were startlingly bright. "I know you're doing this for my own good."
Tamara closed her eyes in despair.
She felt there was no hope left for this world.
"Draco!"
Tamara did not want to remain in this mud pit filled with disgusting delusions for even one second longer. She turned her head and issued a weak but stern command to Draco, who had just run over.
"Don't just stand there gawking! Go get Hagrid! Get this... damned trouble to Madam Pomfrey!"
"Immediately!"
"Oh! Right! Right away!"
Draco was intimidated by Tamara's aura. He did not dare offer even a single word of mockery or rebuttal, and obediently turned to call for Hagrid.
Lockhart stood off to the side, awkwardly putting away his empty hand as he muttered, "Actually, I really could have cured him... young people these days are so unreasonable..."
But under the furious, contemptuous gazes of the surrounding students, he could only slink away.
Soon, Hagrid's massive frame arrived, and Harry was carefully lifted onto a stretcher.
At the moment he was carried away, Harry still twisted his head around. His green eyes clung to Tamara, filled with suffocating gratitude and reluctance to leave.
[Ding! Mission accomplished: Terminator of Medical Disputes!]
The system's cheerful firework sound effects rang out right on time in Tamara's head, which already felt as if it were about to explode.
[Congratulations, host! You have not only successfully prevented a terrible medical accident, but also completely pierced through the saviour's emotional defences with your fragile tears and desperate rescue!]
[Reward issued: Designated Skill Book x 1. Can ignore virtue point restrictions to forcibly learn one standard second to third year spell.]
[Basic Mana Potion x 1. Allows you to experience the magical reserves of a normal Wizard for ten minutes, but please do not harm anyone.]
[Life +5!]
[Current attribute panel updated: Life 26.]
[System Evaluation: This is the power of bonds! Looking at that affectionate gaze as he left, don't you feel that the electric shock you just suffered was worth every bit?]
Tamara stood in the cold wind and rain, letting the water soak through her cloak.
She did not look at the rising Life value or the precious items on the system panel. Nor did she care about the students whispering around her, their eyes full of admiration.
She merely stood there blankly, her eyes terrifyingly hollow.
As the Dark Lord of an era, her arrogant dignity and cold blooded nature had been smashed to pieces by her own hands on this hellish afternoon, all under the coercion of this damned system.
"Tamara..."
A figure holding a black umbrella approached, blocking the cold rain above her head.
Draco stood beside her, looking at Tamara's pale profile and mud soaked skirt. His grey eyes were filled with unconcealed distress, but beneath that was a sour, bubbling grievance.
"Let's go back to the Dungeons. It's too cold here."
Draco lowered his voice, his tone carrying obvious resentment. "Ending up like this for that Scarhead... it isn't worth it at all."
Tamara did not speak. She only turned her eyes woodenly toward him with a gaze usually reserved for the dead.
But Draco clearly failed to notice the dangerous pressure around Tamara, who was already on the verge of exploding.
He remembered the nauseatingly affectionate look Harry had given Tamara while being carried away, and the dissatisfaction building inside him finally burst out.
"...I don't understand, Tamara."
Draco bit his lip and kicked a muddy clump of turf with the tip of his shoe. His voice carried an awkward, wounded edge.
"You clearly hate that Scarhead so much, but the way you looked just now... it looked like you were truly afraid something would happen to him!"
The more Draco spoke, the more aggrieved he felt. He looked up, staring fixedly at Tamara, and finally asked the question buried deepest in his heart.
"If today... I mean, if."
"If the person being chased by the Bludger in the sky, the one who fell off his broom and got a mouthful of mud, had been me..."
Draco's voice grew smaller, carrying a trace of expectation and tentative hope.
"Would you... rush over and help me regardless of everything, just like you saved Potter?"
The rain continued to fall, striking the umbrella with dull, steady taps.
Tamara closed her eyes.
Her head hurt even more.
Why exactly had she stopped Lockhart just now? Could she possibly tell him it was because she feared being shocked by the system into a drooling idiot?
Tamara slowly opened her eyes. In those eyes, still reddened from the electric shock, the so called fragility had completely faded, leaving only cold mockery.
She turned and looked directly at Draco's expectant face.
"If the person who fell was you?"
Tamara's voice was hoarse, but her tone was full of contempt.
"Listen carefully, Draco."
She leaned in slightly, carrying a chilling pressure, and spoke each word with merciless clarity.
"If you were stupid enough that you couldn't even dodge a tampered Bludger, and you let yourself fall from the sky like a sack of rags, breaking your arm in front of the whole school..."
"Then not only would I refuse to run over and save you."
Tamara let out a cold laugh, her gaze cruel and without the slightest warmth.
"I would personally walk over and use my foot to snap your other hand as well."
Draco's eyes widened, and the hand holding the umbrella trembled.
"Because Slytherin does not need trash who cannot even protect himself and still needs someone else to fish him out of the mud. If you dare let yourself fall into a pathetic state like Potter's..."
Tamara brushed her rain soaked cuff with distaste, her tone sinister.
"Then don't tell anyone you know me. It would be embarrassing."
After saying that, Tamara turned away without the slightest lingering attachment. She pushed aside Draco's umbrella and walked alone into the icy rain.
Draco was left standing there, thoroughly pierced by those barbed words.
But after a few stunned seconds, the grievance on his face miraculously disappeared.
Not only did it disappear, but his eyes grew brighter and brighter. Even the corners of his mouth could not help lifting.
"Did you hear that..."
Draco looked at Tamara's cold departing back, the sourness in his heart vanishing instantly and being replaced by feverish pride.
"What she meant just now was that Potter is a piece of trash who needs pity, while her standards for me are higher! She wants me to become powerful and never embarrass myself like Potter!"
"I knew it! Sympathy and pity are for the weak! And I am the Slytherin who will stand by her side!"
Draco nodded vigorously, then immediately lifted the umbrella and chased after her like a loyal guard injected with adrenaline.
"Wait for me, Tamara! I'll cast a Drying Charm on you right away!"
.....
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