Chapter 59: Primary Schoolers' Quarrel
In early spring at Hogwarts, the thick layers of snow had finally begun to melt, turning the grounds into a slushy, freezing mess. The air was heavy, permeated with a damp, biting cold that seemed to seep directly into the bones.
But what irritated Tamara Riddle far more than the miserable Scottish weather was the endless, brainless squabbling between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Watching them go at each other's throats day after day was like watching toddlers violently fight over a dropped piece of candy.
She had already delivered a perfectly calculated speech in the Slytherin common room, instructing her housemates that indifference was the ultimate form of contempt. 'Learn to use your enemies, not brawl with them in the mud,' she had told them. But clearly, to the underdeveloped brain of an eleven-year-old boy, deep Machiavellian theory was far less stimulating than screaming, "Your dad is poor."
Lunchtime, outside the Great Hall.
A large group of students, having just eaten and drunk their fill, were gathering in the Stone Courtyard.
"What is the matter, Weasley? Why is there a gaping hole in that tragic sweater of yours?" Draco Malfoy's drawl cut through the crisp air, sharp and dripping with aristocratic malice. "Was it bitten by that useless rat of yours? Or is it because your mother fished it out of a rubbish heap?"
Ron Weasley's face instantly flushed a violent, mottled shade of purplish-red, resembling a bruised pig's liver. He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles popped white against his freckled skin.
"Shut your mouth, Malfoy!"
"Ha! Getting angry because you know it is true?" Draco preened, his chest puffing out triumphantly. Beside him, Crabbe and Goyle offered their usual, synchronized grunts of laughter. "Seriously, Weasley. If I were you, I would not wear such a thing out in public. It looks like a filthy dishcloth."
"You..." Ron trembled, his chest heaving with rage. He suddenly yanked his battered wand from his robes. "Eat Slugs!"
Draco's wand snapped up in an instant. The air crackled with the pathetic, unrefined magic of first-years. It looked as though a full-blown brawl was about to break out.
Neville Longbottom, standing near Ron, swallowed hard. His round face was pale, but he forced his trembling hand to raise his own wand, pointing it squarely at Draco.
"Do not bully Ron!"
"Oh? Longbottom wants to make a move too?" Draco sneered, his grey eyes flashing with contempt. "What? After being saved by Tamara last time, you think you are a hero now?"
"Tamara would never act like you!" Neville shouted back, his voice cracking.
"Do not mention her name!" Draco snarled, genuinely provoked. "Are you even worthy of speaking it?"
The scene instantly spiraled out of control. The surrounding students scrambled backward, leaving a wide open space in the center, while the usual chaos-lovers began cheering and egging them on from the sidelines.
Not far away, under the shadowed arches of the cloister.
Tamara Riddle leaned gracefully against a cold stone pillar. A heavy book rested in her hands. Her dark eyes swept over the pathetic display with absolute freezing detachment.
'Boring.'
She snapped the book shut, preparing to turn her heel and leave. Watching such low-level, primitive bickering was a deep waste of her time. Draco possessed a marginal amount of intelligence, but the moment his fragile ego was poked, he reverted to a screeching infant. As for Weasley and Longbottom... they were worse than rotting driftwood. Why waste energy trying to carve a masterpiece out of decaying wood when she could simply find better material to cultivate?
However, just as her polished shoe took its first step into the shadows.
[Ding! A serious school violence incident is detected to be escalating.]
The System's voice, sickeningly cheerful and practically vibrating with positive energy, echoed in her skull with an ear-gratingly earnest tone.
[Maintaining a good campus atmosphere is the responsibility of every outstanding student. Host, although you disdain this kind of fight, if this matter gets out of hand, Slytherin will lose points, and your image as a perfect leader will also be damaged.]
[More... if your subordinates get beaten up in public, it would not look very good, would it?]
Tamara's footsteps paused.
She slowly lowered her foot back to the flagstones and turned her head, her gaze locking onto the battlefield. The System had a point, however irritating it was to admit. If spells started flying, Slytherin would not necessarily come out on top in a chaotic brawl. And when Professor McGonagall inevitably arrived, her rigid sense of justice would ensure Slytherin lost points regardless of who started it. Gryffindor would lose points too, of course, but Tamara did not care about Gryffindor's hourglass.
'...Truly a bunch of troublesome wastes.'Tamara exhaled a soft sigh, her gaze turning dead and cold.'System. Can I kill them?'
[You cannot. Please resolve the conflict with love and peace.]
[Task: Messenger of Peace.]
[Reward: Courage +2.]
[Task Punishment: Praise Dumbledore for a whole day.]
"..."
Tamara's jaw locked. A vein gave a faint throb at her temple. Praising that hypocritical old fool for twenty-four hours? She would rather swallow broken glass.
Her slender fingers slipped into her robes, drawing her yew wand. A cruel, razor-thin smile curved at the corner of her mouth.
'Fine. Then let us give them a little peace.'
Back in the courtyard, both sides were already at each other's throats. Several incorrect, butchered incantations were being shouted by the first-year children. Aside from being somewhat funny to watch, the misfired sparks did not cause much harm. But even so, the scene was already a chaotic mess.
"Petrificus Totalus."
The voice was not loud. It was cold, precise, and carried a suffocating surge of magical pressure that exploded directly over everyone's heads like a physical shockwave.
The spell did not come from Draco's mouth. It did not come from Ron's.
It was fired from the side. And there was more than one.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
Several blinding streaks of white light tore through the damp air with the speed of striking vipers. The spells accurately slammed into Neville, ricocheted to strike Goyle, and snapped onto Seamus Finnigan just as the Irish boy was preparing a sneak attack.
Crack. Thud. Thud.
Accompanied by several crisp sounds, the boys who were about to make a move instantly stiffened. Their arms snapped to their sides, their legs locked together as if they had been placed in a deep freeze, and they fell straight to the ground with dull, heavy impacts.
The entire courtyard fell into absolute silence.
Draco and Ron were both scared witless. They froze in place in their ridiculous spell-casting stances, the blood draining from their faces. They even forgot to lower their wands. Slowly, mechanically, they turned their heads.
Only to see Tamara Riddle walking slowly toward them.
She was still wearing her dark green Slytherin robes, holding her yew wand loosely in her pale hand. Her beautiful face was an unreadable mask of porcelain perfection, but those obsidian eyes harbored a freezing abyss that sent a visceral spike of dread down the spines of everyone watching.
"Since you like pointing wands at others so much..."
Tamara's footsteps clicked rhythmically against the stone. She glided between the two, nonchalantly stepping directly over Goyle's stiff, paralyzed body. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper, yet it scraped against their eardrums like a serrated blade of ice.
"...at least have the basic ability not to be taken down in a single move."
She paused, her gaze dropping to Goyle and Neville, who were lying rigidly on the frosty flagstones. Her eyes swam with unfiltered disgust.
"How does it feel to lie on the ground and be looked down upon? Memorize this feeling. This is the perspective of the weak."
She shifted her cold gaze back to the standing boys.
"You cannot even dodge a basic Petrificus Totalus, and you want to duel here?" Her lip curled. "It is simply a disgrace to Hogwarts."
Draco swallowed so hard his Adam's apple bobbed violently. He instinctively shoved his wand behind his back, shrinking under her gaze.
"Ta... Tamara, he was the one who insulted me first!" he stammered, frantically trying to shift the blame.
"Shut up."
Tamara swept a dead, freezing glance over him. "What did I teach you? If you are bitten by a dog in the street, are you going to drop to your knees and bite it back?"
Hearing this, Ron's face, previously pale with shock, suddenly flooded with a furious, sickly green hue. "Who are you calling a dog?!"
Tamara turned her head slowly. She looked at Ron Weasley. The absolute void of emotion in her stare was worse than any sneer. She looked at him the way one might look at a particularly loud, irritating Chihuahua barking behind a fence.
"Weasley." Her tone was flat, devoid of any inflection. "If you feel that battered stick of yours can only be used to fire those wildly inaccurate Tickling Charms, then I suggest you keep it for stirring a cauldron."
She tilted her head slightly. "At least that way you will not hurt yourself."
Ron opened and closed his mouth like a suffocating fish. He was choked into absolute silence, his face burning a humiliating crimson.
"And you. Potter."
Tamara's gaze slid to Harry, who had been standing on the periphery without speaking, frozen in shock. Harry flinched. He had not expected the crosshairs to suddenly lock onto him.
"Since you claim to be friends," Tamara said softly, "should you not stop this meaningless argument? Or do you also find this barbarian-like brawling interesting?"
"I... I just..." Harry stammered, his green eyes wide behind his glasses.
"Enough."
Tamara cut him off. She had zero interest in hearing the stuttering excuses of a child. She gave her wand a lazy, dismissive flick.
"Finite Incantatem."
The invisible bindings on Neville and Goyle shattered instantly. The boys gasped, their limbs going slack as they scrambled awkwardly to their feet.
"All of you, get back."
Tamara did not raise her voice, but it carried an unquestionable, crushing authority that left no room for debate.
"If I see you here shouting like a pack of baboons again..." She narrowed her dark eyes, the tip of her yew wand lightly tapping against the stone floor. Tap. Tap. "...I do not mind turning you all into Petrificus Totalus and placing you in the courtyard as statues."
She smiled, a chilling, hollow expression. "Until next semester."
Not a single soul doubted her words. That aura, that absolute, terrifying certainty of her control, made every student present feel a primal spike of fear.
The crowd dispersed instantly. The Gryffindors and Slytherins, who had been ready to tear each other apart moments ago, suddenly chose to retreat with surprising, unified consistency.
Draco lingered, his head bowed. He followed sheepishly behind Tamara like a scolded puppy, not daring to utter a single syllable.
They walked in silence until the damp chill of the courtyard faded into the heavy, torch-lit gloom of the dungeon corridors. Only then did Tamara stop.
"Draco."
"Yes... Yes!" Draco snapped to attention, his spine ramrod straight.
"Next time you want to humiliate Weasley..." Tamara turned around to face the disappointing young heir. Her tone lost its icy edge, replaced by a heavy, almost exhausted frustration. "Use your grades, use your family background, or at least use your brain."
She sighed. "Do not use this Primary Schooler way of quarreling anymore."
"What is a Primary Schooler?" Draco frowned, his pure-blood upbringing leaving him entirely ignorant of Muggle terminology.
"A disgusting kind of creature."
Tamara's eyes darkened, a shadow passing over her features. The torchlight flickered, casting long, sinister shadows across her face. For a fleeting second, she remembered that noisy, crowded, and sweat-smelling Muggle school near Wools Orphanage. The screaming brats. The stench of unwashed bodies.
"They have no magic," Tamara murmured, her voice dripping with venomous disdain. "They only know how to resolve disputes by pulling hair, telling on each other to the teacher, and scribbling on desks... just like you did just now."
She looked at Draco, her expression hardening. "That is the behavior of lower beings."
Draco froze for a moment, the insult hitting him like a physical blow. Then, a spark of fierce realization lit up his eyes. He nodded vigorously, looking at her with an almost fanatical admiration.
"I understand, Tamara! You are right!" Draco puffed his chest out again. "I will let them know that Slytherin nobility is not something you shout about!"
Watching Draco's sudden, revitalized fervor, Tamara rolled her eyes internally.
'Idiot.'
He talked a good game, but in reality, he became hot-headed as soon as a conflict arose, bypassing his brain entirely. It seemed she still had a very long, exhausting road ahead before she completely tamed these useless subordinates.
[Ding! Task completed: Messenger of Peace.]
[System Evaluation: Although your methods were full of intimidation and violent threats, it must be admitted that you did effectively stop a brawl and maintain the school's tranquility.]
[Reward: Courage +1.]
[Current Courage: 17.]
Tamara slid her wand back into her robes, her foul mood lifting by a microscopic fraction.
'Peace?'She sneered in the dark confines of her own mind.'So-called peace is nothing more than Absolute Order. And Absolute Order is merely the final, perfected result of violence reached to its extreme.'She turned and continued down the dark corridor, her footsteps echoing softly against the stone.'As long as you make them careful even about breathing in your presence, the world will naturally be quiet.'
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