HP: I Was Reborn as the Dark Lord, But the System Made Me a Saint?! — Chapter 214

Chapter 214: Happiness

With Snape’s special permission, Ginny almost jogged as she half-carried Tamara into the secluded lounge tucked behind the Potions master’s office. The room was entirely empty, blanketed in a heavy silence broken only by the occasional rhythmic bubbling of a cauldron from the adjacent laboratory. Ginny carefully lowered Tamara into a high-backed armchair, her movements gentle, and thoughtfully draped a thick black wool blanket over her trembling shoulders.

“Go away…” Tamara rasped, her voice lacking its usual bite. “I am not hungry.”

A soft pop echoed through the room as a Hogwarts house-elf materialized, levitating two large plates onto the low table. Steaming pumpkin pasties and a bowl of rich, creamy mushroom soup filled the air with a savory aroma. Tamara turned her face away, her posture weak but her expression radiating pure, arrogant disdain. All she wanted right now was to be left alone in absolute peace to endure the agonizing six-hour penalty the system had inflicted upon her.

However, facing Tamara’s icy rejection, the youngest daughter of the Weasley family did not shrink back in fear like an ordinary student. Instead, she seemed completely immune to the oppressive, chilling atmosphere the Slytherin girl was trying to project. Ginny simply picked up the bowl of hot soup, stirring it gently with a silver spoon. Her brow furrowed into a tight knot, and her brown eyes swam with undisguised, agonizing heartache.

“Senior, you usually eat as little as a bird!” Ginny scolded softly. She stared at the sharp, prominent line of Tamara’s collarbone peeking through her neckline. Her tone shifted, carrying an uncharacteristic firmness. “Look at you right now. How weak have you become? If you do not eat something to regain your strength, how are you supposed to fight off the magical backlash?”

“I said…” Tamara began, her eyes narrowing as she prepared to unleash the most vicious, soul-cutting words to curse this ungrateful, meddlesome Gryffindor into oblivion.

“Mmph!”

A piece of pumpkin pasty, heavily soaked in the thick mushroom soup, was shoved directly into her mouth. It brooked absolutely no refusal.

Tamara’s eyes widened to the size of Galleons.

She, the great and terrible Dark Lord. The heir of Slytherin.

For the very first time in her entire existence, someone had forcibly stuffed her mouth shut! And they had done it with a sweet, greasy, utterly mundane pumpkin pasty!

Trembling with sheer, unadulterated rage, Tamara struggled to swallow the mushy pastry. She raised a shaking hand, attempting to push the ginger-haired girl away. But her muscles felt like wet parchment. She lacked the strength to even hold a wand right now. To Ginny, that supposedly threatening push felt weaker than the flailing of a garden gnome in the Burrow’s backyard.

“Senior, take another bite. This soup is very nourishing.”

Ginny completely ignored the murderous glare boring into her skull. Sitting on the edge of the armchair’s cushion, she held the bowl in one hand and the spoon in the other, patiently and methodically bringing the hot liquid to Tamara’s lips.

Every single time Tamara parted her lips to spit out a venomous curse, Ginny would skillfully and precisely seal her words with another spoonful of food.

During this utterly humiliating, one-sided feeding session, Tamara screamed internally. She cursed the damn Virtue System, she cursed the disgusting, light-infused Patronus Charm, and she cursed the entire blood-traitor Weasley family tree.

She, the dignified Lord Voldemort, had actually been reduced to slumping in a chair like a bedridden invalid, being spoon-fed bite by bite by a little Gryffindor brat!

‘If word of this ever gets out,’Tamara vowed in the dark recesses of her mind,’I will personally use the Killing Curse to slaughter every single breathing soul who knows!’

Yet, no matter how ferociously the Dark Lord roared in her mind, her physical body betrayed her. The spreading warmth from the rich food was undeniably effective, slowly repairing her nearly exhausted stamina and chasing away the bone-deep chill.

Finally, the last sip of thick soup was forced down her throat.

Tamara leaned heavily against the back of the chair, her eyes staring blankly at the stone ceiling. She felt entirely devoid of hope, mourning the complete and utter loss of her dignity as a Dark Lord. She turned her head slightly, her gaze falling upon Ginny. The younger girl was sitting beside her, carefully and tenderly wiping the corners of Tamara’s mouth with a clean linen handkerchief.

The red-haired girl’s freckled face was absolutely glowing, brimming with an unguarded, pure sense of satisfaction and joy.

Watching that radiant expression, Tamara suddenly recalled the disastrous failure of her Patronus Charm earlier that day.

Since the exquisite pleasure derived from killing, torture, and domination could not power that wretched piece of White Magic, she needed a different approach.

Tamara’s deep, pitch-black eyes locked onto Ginny.

“Ginny.”

For the very first time, Tamara did not use the distant, formal surname ‘Weasley’ to address her. Her voice was hoarse, rough from the system’s punishment, but it carried a rare, genuine sense of inquiry.

Ginny, who had been busy stacking the empty dishes, paused. She looked up, her expression reflecting a hint of flattery at the use of her first name. “What is it, Senior? Are you still feeling unwell somewhere?”

Tamara studied her face intently. A hint of genuine hesitation bled into her voice as she asked, “Are you… happy right now?”

Ginny froze, taken aback by the sudden, deeply personal question.

This was the first time since the horrifying events in the Chamber of Secrets that Tamara had proactively asked about her internal feelings. For a fleeting moment, the stone walls of the Potions lounge seemed to melt away, and Ginny felt as if she were right back in her small, cramped bedroom at The Burrow during the summer holidays. She remembered sitting on that tiny bed, with Tamara watching her with that exact same patience and gentleness, quietly listening to all her teenage troubles and deepest secrets.

A bright red blush instantly crept onto Ginny’s cheeks, spreading all the way to the tips of her ears. Her brown eyes sparkled with raw, undisguised joy.

As a former victim of Tom Riddle’s diary, her psychological state had always teetered on a fragile, drifting edge. When Tamara paid attention to her, she felt a grounding, healthy sense of satisfaction. But whenever she was ignored, she would spiral into a frantic anxiety, a desperate urge to act out just to seek a sliver of that attention again.

Right now, in this quiet room, she truly felt happy.

“Yes! I am very happy!” Ginny nodded vigorously, admitting her feelings without a single ounce of reservation. “Being able to take care of you, being needed by you… that is what makes me the happiest right now.”

Tamara watched her quietly. A flash of deep, completely genuine confusion flickered through her dark eyes.

“Is that so…” Tamara murmured, narrowing her eyes slightly as her brilliant mind tried to dissect the concept. “Then, dear Ginny, can you tell me in detail…”

She leaned forward just a fraction. “About this emotion of yours called ‘happiness’… what exactly is it made of?”

Ginny blinked, completely stunned. She clearly had not expected her normally all-powerful, all-knowing senior to ask such a fundamental, almost childlike question.

“What is it made of?” Ginny tilted her head, her brow furrowing as she thought seriously about the answer.

“I cannot really explain it perfectly,” she began slowly. “Maybe it is… the first ray of warm sunlight shining onto your bed on a freezing winter morning? Or the feeling of pulling on the new, hand-knitted sweater Mom sends for Christmas? And… even though Fred and George love playing awful pranks, it is the Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum they quietly stuff into my hand when they see I am sad…”

She listed those fragmented, mundane little moments. To Tamara, they sounded like utterly worthless daily trifles, but Ginny’s brown eyes shimmered with genuine warmth as she spoke.

“Of course, there is also the most important thing.”

Ginny’s voice dropped to a soft whisper. She shot a quick, nervous glance at Tamara before rapidly looking down at her hands.

“That day in the Chamber of Secrets, when I thought I was going to be completely swallowed by the darkness… you appeared before me, Senior.”

Ginny took a shaky breath. “Even though I was terrified out of my mind, seeing you there was the most intense and real happiness I have ever felt in my entire life.”

She looked back up, meeting Tamara’s gaze. “Because I knew… I had not been abandoned.”

Tamara listened in absolute silence, but the confusion knotting her chest only grew denser.

A hand-me-down sweater from a poor family? Stupid, childish pranks from twin buffoons? Being saved by someone else?

These pathetic, weak, utterly mundane emotions could actually be defined as happiness?

To the Dark Lord, this concept was even more absurd than a house-elf demanding to wear clothes.

Seeing Tamara remain completely silent, Ginny’s gaze involuntarily drifted downward, falling upon the older girl’s pale, exposed neck.

A faint, jagged mark from a dark magic burn had been left there after the brutal battle in the Chamber of Secrets. But now, the skin was as smooth and flawless as porcelain. The scar had clearly been completely erased by some magical means.

That mark, which had once symbolized the secret, unique, and deeply intimate link between the two of them, was entirely gone.

A sudden, hollow sensation carved itself into Ginny’s chest.

“Is there something else you want to say?” Tamara asked, her voice dropping back into its usual cold, measured cadence as she noticed the younger girl’s hesitant, lingering stare.

“No… it is nothing.” Ginny turned her head sharply, her hair whipping around her shoulders. She hastily began stacking the empty plates again, using the clattering sounds as a desperate distraction.

Tamara decided to stop dwelling on this highly illogical, Gryffindor-tainted theory of happiness. It was a waste of her superior intellect.

Besides, the warmth from the food had indeed taken effect. Her originally freezing limbs were gradually regaining their sensation. It was time to return to the Slytherin dormitory and sleep off the rest of this wretched system penalty.

Frowning, she placed one hand flat against the wooden table and pushed down, attempting to stand up. But halfway through the motion, a sharp, dull ache suddenly flared across her waist.

Tamara sucked in a sharp breath of cold air, her facial muscles twitching as her expression shifted.

She sat back down heavily, a look of deep suspicion crossing her face. Hesitantly, she reached down and lifted the hem of her uniform shirt just above her waistline.

There, stamped starkly against her pale, flawless skin, were several bright red, deeply bruised finger marks.

Tamara stared fixedly at the angry red welts, the corners of her mouth twitching in absolute disbelief.

These marks were from Ginny. Earlier, when the Gryffindor girl had been supporting her out of the classroom, she had held Tamara’s waist so tightly that her fingers had literally bruised the Dark Lord’s flesh. Under that unquestionable, freakish physical strength and continuous pressure, the bruises had been pinched right into existence.

‘What on earth was this girl raised on?’Tamara thought, her mind reeling.’She is clearly about the same height as me, yet her grip is as strong as a fully grown troll rampaging through the Forbidden Forest!’

Tamara lowered the fabric of her shirt, gritting her teeth to endure the dull, throbbing pain in her side. She looked up, ready to deliver a scathing reprimand—only to freeze.

Ginny was staring directly at her.

The younger girl’s face was flushed a brilliant, tomato red. Her breathing had suddenly become shallow and somewhat labored, and her brown eyes were fixed intently, almost hungrily, on the exact spot where Tamara had just exposed her bare waist.

In that heated gaze, there was no longer any trace of simple, innocent worry. Instead, it was tainted with a dark, heavy fervor that made every survival instinct in Tamara’s body scream that she was suddenly in danger.

“What is it, Weasley?” Tamara sneered, masking her sudden unease. She propped her chin on her hand, her tone dripping with dark, mocking amusement. “Are you feeling proud of the artwork you have just created?”