After dinner on Friday, Tamara did not head to the library as she usually did. Instead, she returned directly to the Slytherin common room.
The past few weeks had been immensely productive.
Everything is proceeding exactly as planned.
In high spirits, Tamara approached the bare stretch of stone wall and murmured the password. The concealed doorway slid open with a low rumble. She stepped into the green-lit underground chamber—
—and immediately sensed that something was wrong.
At this hour, the common room was normally alive with quiet conversations, the scratch of quills against parchment, or the soft clack of wizard's chess pieces shifting across the board.
Tonight, however, an unnatural silence hung in the air.
The fireplace burned brightly, yet the warmth it cast failed to dispel the chill creeping through the room. It felt less like a gathering place and more like a waiting chamber before judgment.
In the center of the common room, the space usually occupied by first-year students had been deliberately cleared.
Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Gregory Goyle, and Vincent Crabbe were clustered together in one corner. Their usual arrogance was gone. They watched anxiously, not daring to speak.
Blocking the only path to the girls' dormitory stood four or five upper-year boys.
They wore Slytherin's green robes, prefect badges gleaming on some chests, Quidditch emblems pinned proudly on others. Their expressions were uniform—cold, critical, hostile.
At the front stood Marcus Flint, captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, broad-shouldered and heavy-featured. He was flanked by several fifth- and sixth-year pure-blood students, their gazes sharp and contemptuous as they fixed on the newly arrived Tamara.
Tamara stopped a short distance away.
Her face remained calm.
"Is something the matter?" she asked lightly, as though she had not noticed the obvious blockade.
"Of course there's something, Riddle."
Flint folded his thick arms and stepped forward, fully obstructing her path.
"We need to have a talk with you. About Slytherin's dignity."
"Dignity?" Tamara raised a brow. A faint, amused smile curved her lips. "How curious. And how, exactly, is Slytherin's dignity connected to someone like you?"
A sharp intake of breath came from the corner where Draco stood.
Flint's face darkened instantly, flushing an ugly shade of red. The students behind him bristled.
A sixth-year prefect spoke coldly. "Don't assume that just because Professor Flitwick favors you, you can trample on Slytherin's reputation."
"We've been watching you," Flint growled, lowering his voice. "It's only been a few weeks since term started, and you've already made yourself the social butterfly of Hogwarts."
He sneered.
"Giving a scarf to that Hufflepuff idiot on the Astronomy Tower. Defending that Gryffindor, Longbottom, in the corridor. And now you're even cozying up to Potter."
His lip curled in disgust.
"The Hufflepuffs are calling you a good person. A good person. Do you know what that sounds like? It's an insult to Slytherin."
"Slytherin is meant to be noble. Mysterious. Feared."
"Not…" His gaze raked over her with disdain. "Not a spineless people-pleaser currying favor with mudbloods and blood traitors."
A murmur of agreement rose from the boys behind him.
"You make us sick, Riddle."
They tightened their circle subtly. Wands became visible in their hands.
"We're going to teach you what a true Slytherin looks like. Stay away from the other houses… or else."
Tamara listened without interruption.
She did not flare in anger.
If anything, she felt faint amusement rising within her.
So this is what Slytherin has become?
A nest of narrow-minded fools, clinging desperately to a crumbling notion of pure-blood superiority.
Small. Defensive. Afraid.
No wonder the house had declined so pitifully in the years since its former glory.
"Are you finished?" she asked calmly.
She lifted her gaze.
The warmth in her dark eyes vanished, replaced by something vast and glacial.
It was not anger directed at any single individual.
It was judgment.
And it fell upon the entire room.
"This," she said softly, "is your idea of Slytherin dignity?"
She stepped forward.
Though she was shorter than Flint by nearly a head, the shift in presence was unmistakable. It felt as though she were the one looking down on him.
"Locking yourselves in a damp cellar. Praising each other's bloodlines. Hissing at the world beyond these walls."
Her voice sharpened.
"You fear being isolated, so you isolate others first."
A single word dropped from her lips like ice.
"Pathetic."
Flint's restraint snapped.
"You're asking for it!" he roared, wrenching out his wand. "Flipendo—"
"Too slow."
Tamara did not even fully draw her wand.
She merely lifted a finger and flicked it lightly toward him.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
The spell moved with breathtaking precision.
In an instant, Flint's wand jerked violently from his grip. It did not spin away chaotically as it would under a Disarming Charm. Instead, it shot forward in a perfectly straight line, guided as though by invisible strings.
It landed neatly in Tamara's open palm.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
No flash of red light. No visible struggle.
The upper-year students froze mid-motion.
Accio? someone wondered.
But that was a basic summoning charm.
How had she seized it so cleanly? So decisively?
Tamara regarded the crude wand with mild disdain, turning it once between her fingers.
"In the hands of a true wizard," she said softly, "removing a wand is no more difficult than lifting a feather."
With a casual motion, she flicked it back.
The wand shot through the air like a thrown dagger and embedded itself into a crack in the stone floor near Flint's feet. It quivered there, humming faintly.
No one moved.
"Listen carefully," Tamara continued.
Her voice was no longer raised, yet it carried effortlessly into every corner of the chamber.
"The essence of Slytherin is not exclusion."
"It is utilization."
She let the word linger.
"Hufflepuff's naivety. Ravenclaw's arrogance. Gryffindor's recklessness."
"These are not flaws to despise. They are resources to exploit."
She began to pace slowly, forcing the older students to track her movements.
"When Hufflepuffs call me kind, I gain loyal shields who would stand between me and danger without hesitation."
"When Ravenclaws invite me into their circles, I gain access to knowledge they hoard so proudly."
"And Potter…" A faint, elegant smile touched her lips.
"Instead of barking at him like fools, I let him lower his guard. One day, if I require a sacrifice, he will step willingly onto the altar."
The words were spoken with chilling clarity.
"That," she concluded, "is Slytherin."
"Hide your fangs behind a smile."
"Weave your web with mutual benefit."
"Win without appearing to strike."
Her gaze swept across them, sharp and merciless.
"Not this childish display of bullying masquerading as pride."
The room felt smaller.
Heavier.
The older boys who had moments earlier stood ready to intimidate her now avoided her eyes.
"Now," Tamara said quietly.
"Move."
"I intend to sleep. I have lessons tomorrow. I will not waste another minute debating strategy with intellectually unevolved hominids."
The insult landed harder than any spell.
And yet—
They moved.
Almost instinctively.
The burly fifth- and sixth-years stepped aside, clearing the path without conscious agreement.
Flint retrieved his wand from the floor. His palm was slick with sweat.
He watched her small figure ascend toward the dormitory staircase.
He felt something foreign twisting in his chest.
Not rage.
Not humiliation.
Fear.
By the time Tamara disappeared from sight, the common room remained locked in stunned silence.
No one dared speak first.
Eventually, Draco Malfoy exhaled shakily.
His cheeks felt warm. His pulse thundered in his ears.
Excitement flickered in his eyes.
So did shame.
And beneath both—
A thin thread of fear.
"Fear…?" Draco murmured under his breath, clutching at his chest.
"How could I feel fear?"
He did not understand it yet.
But somewhere deep within him, a realization had begun to take root.
Slytherin had not been defending its dignity tonight.
It had been shown how small it truly was.
And for the first time, someone had demonstrated what power without noise looked like.
Upstairs, behind closed doors, Tamara allowed the faintest trace of satisfaction to cross her face.
The board was shifting.
And tonight—
She had overturned it.
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