Chapter 175: Punishing the Wicked
The dense, grey-green mist of the Albanian Black Forest clung to the canvas of the sprawling tent, bringing with it a biting morning chill. Inside, Tamara Riddle's eyelids fluttered open. Instantly, a familiar, suffocating weight pressed down on her lungs.
"Ugh..."
Her brow furrowed. It felt as though a rogue Bludger had parked itself directly over her sternum. Each breath required a conscious, strained effort. She didn't even need to glance down to identify the culprit.
Her face a mask of deadpan irritation, Tamara reached out, buried her fingers into a mass of heavy, fluffy black fur, and unceremoniously hurled the creature off her bed.
The black cat hit the thick Persian carpet with a soft thud, rolled twice to absorb the momentum, and immediately arched its spine. It shot its master a look of deep, venomous grievance, its amber eyes glowing with feline resentment.
Four times. This was the fourth time this week.
Whenever she stayed up too late immersing herself in the Dark Arts or managing the tedious logistics of her hidden camp, she occasionally forgot to latch the brass cage. And whenever she forgot, this infuriatingly stupid cat—absurdly named Nagini—would somehow pick the lock, slink into her bed, and plaster itself over her chest like a rapidly expanding lump of dough.
It was a deep indignity. The once-feared Dark Lord, conqueror of death, waking up every morning gasping for air and utterly exhausted by a house pet.
"Get out."
Tamara pressed two fingers to her throbbing temples, her voice thick with sleep and murderous intent. Sensing the genuine threat of violence in the air, the black cat tucked its head down and practically scrambled beneath the tent flap, disappearing into the mist.
Sitting up, she flicked her wrist. Her yew wand answered the silent call, snapping into her palm. With a lazy swish, a set of pristine, pitch-black wizarding robes soared across the room and draped themselves perfectly over her shoulders.
She mentally tallied the days. Nearly a week had passed since she established this secret outpost in the Albanian wilderness. It was time to return.
It was a pity. The ambient magic here was thick, ancient, and delightfully dark—a miasma that soothed her fractured soul. Better yet, out here in the untamed wilds, she didn't have to plaster on a sickeningly sweet smile and play the role of the tragic, golden-hearted honor student.
But cold logic dictated her next move. If she lingered in the shadows much longer, the flawless facade she had spent an entire year constructing back in Britain would begin to fracture.
Her fabricated excuse—visiting a fictitious, ailing Aunt Quirina—was flimsy at best. It certainly wouldn't survive a dedicated inquiry from Albus Dumbledore or the Ministry of Magic.
To protect the lie, she had severed all ties with the outside world the moment she left London. She hadn't sent a single owl regarding her summer whereabouts. Not to Hermione, who would undoubtedly fret and demand constant updates, nor to Draco, who would use any correspondence as an excuse to boast.
'Lies breed lies,'Tamara thought coldly, adjusting her collar.'The simplest solution is a void.'
Letting the sweet, pitiful Tamara Riddle vanish from the face of the earth for a few weeks was infinitely safer than weaving a tangled web of forged letters.
A shuffling sound outside broke her train of thought, followed by a trembling, deeply respectful voice.
"Master."
"Come in."
The heavy canvas flap parted. Quirinus Quirrell stepped inside, bowing low. His usually pristine robes were snagged with brambles and caked in damp, grey mud, indicating he had been trekking through the deep woods since before dawn.
"I am... very sorry, Master," Quirrell stammered, his chin practically touching his chest. A distinct tremor of panic laced his words. "Peritus and I have scoured the outskirts of the Black Forest. We waded through several hidden swamps over the past few days, but... but we still haven't found the... the giant venomous snake you described."
He braced his shoulders, squeezing his eyes shut as if anticipating the blinding agony of a Cruciatus Curse to strike him down where he stood.
But the torture never came.
Instead, Tamara merely glided toward the small wooden table in the corner, her movements fluid and unbothered. She lifted a silver teapot and poured a steaming stream of dark, fragrant tea into a porcelain cup.
"It doesn't matter."
Her voice was a calm, icy drawl. She took a slow sip. The real Nagini—the true, terrifying beast of her past—was not some common garden snake to be stumbled upon by a pair of bumbling wizards in a mere week. If the Maledictus could be captured that easily, she wouldn't be worthy of standing at the Dark Lord's side.
"Consider this a long-term objective for you and Peritus," Tamara instructed, setting the cup down with a soft clink. "The moment you uncover even a whisper of her trail, you are to report directly to me. Do not attempt to engage her yourselves. You would only end up as her dinner."
"Yes, Master!" Quirrell exhaled a ragged breath, looking as though he had just been pardoned from the executioner's block. He hastily dragged a trembling sleeve across his sweat-beaded forehead.
He hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "There is... one more thing, Master..." He swallowed hard. His expression twisted into a complicated knot of awe and apprehension.
"Speak."
"It concerns... your... cleaning operations around the forest perimeter over the past few days," Quirrell offered, choosing his words with agonizing care.
"Because you have... eliminated so many of the exiled Dark Wizards and murderous brigands entrenched along the Albanian border, the entire underground magical society of Eastern Europe is in an absolute uproar." Quirrell's voice dropped to a hushed, reverent whisper. "The few remnants who were lucky enough to flee are spreading wild rumors. They are saying that an ancient, unspeakably evil, and terrifying entity has awakened within the Black Forest..."
Tamara's hand paused mid-air, the porcelain rim hovering just inches from her lips.
Slowly, a genuine, chillingly beautiful smile curled the corners of her mouth.
'An unspeakably evil and terrifying entity.'
It was, without a doubt, the most exquisite compliment she had received all year.
Over the past week, Tamara had dedicated nearly half of every day to conducting what the System would classify as battles of justice. It was a necessary experiment to verify a delightful little loophole she had discovered on the Hogwarts Express.
Whenever her scouting revealed a camp of murderous Dark Wizards or cutthroats preying on the weak, Tamara didn't bother with grand speeches or negotiations. She simply walked straight into their heavily warded hideouts, dismantled their defenses, and systematically sent every breathing soul to the afterlife.
"Who the hell are you?! Are you insane?! We didn't even provoke you!"
That was usually the screaming chorus from the bandit leaders, their faces twisted in absolute horror and despair as their subordinates fell around them.
In response, Tamara would step elegantly over the severed limbs and smoking remains littering the forest floor. She would look down at them, her expression the picture of angelic sorrow, and reply in a tone dripping with compassionate warmth:
"Oh, please don't be nervous. I am merely a kind passerby."
Twirling her wand lazily between her slender fingers, she would gaze down from her position of absolute dominance, her crimson eyes as cold as the deepest glaciers. "But you see, wherever my eyes reach, I simply cannot bear to witness bad people committing evil deeds."
It was a sickeningly holy script. And yet, the sheer irony of a kind passerby torturing seasoned killers with methods a hundred times more sadistic than the average Dark Wizard was entirely lost on her victims.
In truth, Tamara hadn't wanted to drag things out. She preferred efficiency. But under the draconian, ever-watchful gaze of her parasitic Virtue System, she couldn't just throw around high-efficiency spells like the Cruciatus or the Killing Curse without suffering agonizing electrical shocks and being forced into humiliating, frail states.
To vent her bloodlust without triggering the System's punitive measures, the Dark Lord had been forced to get creative.
She took low-tier, benign spells—healing charms, growth hexes, and life-assisting white magic—and weaponized them. A bone-knitting charm applied to an unbroken arm. A localized warming spell amplified until the blood boiled beneath the skin.
After experiencing the highly artistic, agonizingly slow torture methods of this kind passerby, the most hardened, heinous Dark Wizards of Eastern Europe completely broke.
They threw themselves to the dirt, weeping like infants. They slammed their foreheads against the ground until the soil was stained red, screaming their sincere repentance.
"We were wrong! We have seen the light! Please, have mercy! We swear upon our magic we will be good people! We will only do good deeds!"
Faced with such a deeply moving display of moral redemption, Tamara merely tilted her head. A flicker of cold, unadulterated pleasure danced in her eyes.
She raised her wand for the final strike.
"Be good people? What a truly wonderful wish," she whispered, her voice a soft caress. "Perhaps, after you die, some damn voice in your head will give you a second chance to start over."
A flash of light illuminated the canopy. The one-sided redemption arc came to a sudden, violent end. The desperate pleas for mercy were silenced forever, bleeding into the damp, foul-smelling soil of the Black Forest.
The memory faded, leaving Tamara standing in her tent, gently rotating the porcelain teacup in her hands. She let out a soft sigh, pulling herself back from the lingering euphoria of the slaughter.
Thinking of her little crusade, she realized she hadn't actually checked the final tally.
'System,'she commanded coldly in her mind.'I have spent the last week purging the absolute scum of the magical world. Show me my attribute rewards.'
A sickeningly cheerful electronic chime echoed in her skull. A translucent blue panel materialized directly in her field of vision.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for completing the epic chain mission: Eastern Europe Border Cleanup!]
[Mission settlement rating: Perfect! You have purified the soil of sin with thunderous, righteous means!]
[Reward settlement: Courage +5! Current Courage: 56.]
Tamara stared at that pathetic, lonely number 5. Her expression instantly darkened into a scowl that could curdle milk.
'Five points?'Her mental voice was a venomous hiss.'I casually swatted three pieces of teenage trash on the Hogwarts Express, and you awarded me two points of Courage. I have systematically slaughtered my way through at least four heavily fortified Dark Wizard camps, sending dozens of hardened murderers to hell, and you give me five points?!'
[Ahem... Respected host, please calm down.]
For the first time, the perky, robotic voice actually sounded slightly guilty.
[The system has detected that your recent 'punishing the wicked' behavior frequency is excessively high., your methods are... far too cruel and repetitive.]
[To prevent the host from falling into the simple, base pleasure of mindless killing, and to prevent the improper exploitation of system loopholes to maliciously farm points, the system has automatically enabled the 'Anti-Addiction Mechanism' for your benefit!]
[All combat behaviors of the same type and within the same region over a short duration have been merged into one single special action! Please do not be discouraged! Continue to shine brightly in other fields, and strive to be a well-rounded, wholesome good person!]
'Damn you to the deepest pits of Tartarus...' Tamara ground her teeth together, unleashing a string of vicious curses in her mind.
When it came to restricting her freedom and stifling her ambitions, this parasitic entity always operated on the most nauseatingly restrictive underlying logic.
Yet, the burning anger faded almost as quickly as it had flared. She merely sneered and mentally swiped the glowing panel away.
Farming attribute points was, ultimately, just an incidental bonus. The true reward of her Albanian bloodbath was something far more deep, far more vital than a handful of ridiculous Courage points.
She had found herself again.
At her core, the Dark Lord had never been a rabid lunatic who slaughtered merely for the sight of blood. What she craved—what she had always craved—was supreme power. Immortality. The absolute, intoxicating superiority of standing as a god above all mortal things.
Murder was simply a tool. A ladder built of bones to help her reach those desires.
When she wielded that tool, she did so without a shred of pity. There was a distinct, obvious thrill in the act of depriving others of their lives—a vindictive pleasure in proving her own greatness by casually extinguishing the existence of those who dared to stand in her way.
Over the past year at Hogwarts, submerged in the sickeningly warm, mundane routines of student life, a quiet panic had begun to fester in her chest. A terrifying doubt about her own identity. She had genuinely feared that playing the saint might eventually assimilate her, that the hypocritical emotions of friendship and kindness might actually infect her soul.
But this week's uninhibited massacre had perfectly, beautifully dispelled those doubts.
When she stood over those broken Dark Wizards, listening to their pathetic wails as they died at her feet, that morbid, familiar desire for absolute control surged through her veins. Holding the fragile thread of their lives in her palm, she felt it with crystalline clarity.
She was still Voldemort. She was still the cold, cruel, calculating Dark Lord who would stop at absolutely nothing to claim her throne.
Anchored once more by the certainty of her own dark essence, Tamara felt an unmatched wave of relaxation wash over her.
Returning to Hogwarts no longer felt like a suffocating chore. Continuing to play the gentle, friendly, brilliant honor student, trading fake smiles with Dumbledore and her painfully naive classmates—it was all just a game. Since her core remained utterly uncorrupted by the light, this hypocritical cloak of kindness was nothing more than the perfect, impenetrable armor she would wear to ascend the throne.
"Master...?"
Quirrell's trembling voice broke the silence. He had been watching her stand there for several minutes, staring into the middle distance while clutching her teacup, a deeply unsettling, predatory smile stretched across her face.
"Pack up the camp, Quirrell."
Tamara set the teacup down with a decisive clack. She turned to face him, her posture radiating the absolute, terrifying composure of a ruler in total control of her domain.
The Albanian Black Forest had been a wonderful retreat, a nostalgic playground of shadows and blood. But her absurd vacation with the fictitious Aunt Quirina had run its course.
It was time to return to London. Back to the dreary, miserable walls of that damn Wool's Orphanage.
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