Dead silence.
Under Tver's pressure, even the sunlight pouring in during the day seemed like a cold sneer cast across their crumbling gravestones.
Cruel, and yet carrying a strangely mocking warmth.
"Make your choice," Tver said, frowning at the wordless crowd.
"I told you, I'm different. Even if you choose Voldemort, I'll let you leave."
"P-Professor," Draco said nervously from where he was peeking out in the corner, "I think they just... can't talk..."
Tver took a closer look.
Right, their faces had gone purple. They really couldn't talk.
"Ahem. Sorry about that. The place is too small to handle the amount of magic I casually let loose."
Tver withdrew his magic with a wave, then beckoned Draco over to stand beside him.
The pure-bloods immediately let out a breath of relief, literally, slumping into their chairs and gulping down precious air.
In less than half a minute, they had felt an overwhelming pressure unlike anything they had ever experienced, as though Death himself had raised a scythe over them.
"Professor?" Draco edged over cautiously, clearly tense.
The professor had always had an imposing side at school, but that air of looking down on all things just now had still given him a fright.
"What do you think?" Tver asked. "About all this. About these people."
He gestured toward the gasping crowd as though he were teaching a lesson, paying no attention whatsoever to their humiliated expressions.
Draco's face stiffened.
His father and Ingus had tactfully kept out of it and stayed away from the meeting, but everyone here was related to him by blood. They were basically all relatives, which made it hard for him to say anything.
"Is that difficult to answer?" Tver asked expressionlessly.
"No!" Draco jolted.
"I think they're..." He hesitated as he looked at the relatives glaring at him. "Pitiful."
"What? Louder."
"They're pitiful!" This time Draco shouted it out, as though encouraged by Tver.
"Their horizons are too narrow. Their heads are full of nothing but selfish thoughts, and they never look at anything from a broader perspective."
"In truth, the most profitable business is always the kind that follows the direction of the world, while the worst kind, no matter how lucrative it looks, is nothing but the moon reflected in water. If it can't actually succeed, then it was never within reach to begin with!"
Tver raised a brow in surprise.
He had only meant to let Draco show off one of his strengths and mock this group a little, so that the more extreme Death Eaters would expose themselves early.
He had not expected Draco, without ever having formally studied anything related to it, to grasp the value of broader economic trends.
In the wizarding world, where most people's perspectives were painfully narrow, that was close to astonishing.
Taking Tver's look as approval, Draco blushed a little.
"Er... I went out of my way to find some Muggle books to read."
"That's a good step forward."
It was not quite what Tver had been aiming for, but he praised him anyway, then turned back to the increasingly grim-faced crowd.
"I assume you've all had enough time to recover. Those who want to do business can stay and continue this meeting." He pointed toward the door. "Those who are still loyally devoted to Voldemort can leave."
"But let me make one thing clear. The next time we meet, we'll be enemies."
Whatever wavering thoughts the pure-bloods still had were instantly stamped out by those words.
Tver had not shown power beyond the Dark Lord's, but that one display had already proved enough. Together with Dumbledore, he absolutely had the strength to stand against Voldemort.
And then there was the teacher Tver had mentioned. Grindelwald.
For these pure-bloods, there would be benefits whichever side they joined.
So the only thing that really mattered was strength.
If they backed the winner, they would have everything. If they backed the loser, then no matter how well their businesses had done, they would lose it all anyway.
Alecto shot to her feet, her body still trembling with fear, but she forced out in a shaky voice, "I know you're powerful, but don't forget this, everyone. Last time the Dark Lord ran rampant, Dumbledore and Grindelwald were both hiding away in their towers..."
"And you, Tver Fawley, were still just a wet-behind-the-ears child!"
The moment she finished speaking, all her courage vanished. She could not even bring herself to meet Tver's smiling gaze.
Amycus rose as well, but even after taking a deep breath, he failed to muster much presence.
"The Dark Lord... the Dark Lord is very powerful!" he said in a voice that leaked all its force.
After delivering that utterly unconvincing threat, the two siblings stumbled out through the door.
"That was pathetic. Good thing they ran off to Voldemort's side."
Tver shook his head in amusement, resting an arm on Draco's shoulder, one hand propping up his chin, and looked at the rest with a playful smile.
"Anyone else?" he asked.
They traded glances in silence, apparently having no experience with a leader urging his own followers to defect.
As if anyone had ever experienced that before.
After waiting a while, Tver had no choice but to do what he did in class when students refused to raise their hands and answer.
He started calling on them himself.
"Young Avery, don't you want to inherit your father's legacy?"
The younger Avery shuddered, lifted his head miserably, and looked as though he might burst into tears at any moment.
"I... I don't want to leave you..."
"..."
Tver looked at him with open disdain, then turned to the next one.
"And you, Gibbon?"
The man whose name had been called gave a start as well, his face bitter, his whole body rigid. Even his headshake came with his whole body swaying.
"All right, then. I'll take that as meaning you're on my side."
Tver sighed helplessly.
The ones who stayed did not seem especially useful either.
"Let me make this ugly in advance. If I discover that anyone has deliberately harmed our allies, such as the Order of the Phoenix, or secretly passed information to our enemies, including the Carrow siblings who just left and any other pure-bloods, then I will deal with them far more cruelly. Understood?"
Sensing the pressure ease, the pure-bloods nodded frantically.
"You can rest assured. I wouldn't tell even my own son!"
"Even if the Dark Lord personally tortured me, I wouldn't tell him a single word!"
"I... I wouldn't leak a thing even in my sleep!"
Tver watched this group of pure-bloods swear loyalty without comment, then waved a hand and repaired the shattered long table.
Draco, however, took the chance to ask quietly, looking puzzled, "Professor, why let those siblings go? Even if you didn't kill them, you could at least have locked them up."
"Draco..." Tver ruffled his hair with one hand and pointed at the lively pure-bloods with the other. "War and killing are the most helpless measures of all."
"Killing the Carrow siblings would only make the others fear that they might be next. Better to let those ticking time bombs walk away. We may even be able to track Voldemort through them."
"To be honest, I was disappointed that more of them didn't leave..."