Chapter 65: Sophistry
The next morning, the Great Hall's entrance was a scene of absolute chaos.
Students passing through the heavy oak doors stopped dead in their tracks, their jaws dropping at the sight of the giant house point hourglasses. The Slytherin hourglass, usually brimming with glittering emeralds, looked as though it had been gutted. Only a pitiful handful of green gems rested at the very bottom. Gryffindor's rubies were in an even more tragic state, the crimson stones practically scraping the glass floor.
Overnight, the two rival houses had hemorrhaged a combined total of two hundred and fifty points.
Whispers tore through the corridors like wildfire. But down in the dungeons, inside the Slytherin common room, there were no whispers. The atmosphere hung heavy, suffocating and thick as the air right before a violent thunderstorm. The emerald flames crackling in the grand hearth cast long, dancing shadows over a sea of grim, stony faces.
The heavy stone door slid shut behind Tamara and Draco. Instantly, dozens of pairs of eyes snapped toward them. The stares coiled around their ankles and slithered up their spines like venomous vipers. Jaws were clenched tight. Wands were gripped tightly in pale hands. The hostility radiating from the older students was thick enough to choke on.
"Fifty points."
Marcus Flint stepped out from the shadows. He stood directly in their path, his thick arms crossed over his barrel chest. His large buck teeth practically ground together as a muscle ticked violently in his jaw.
"Fifty points each. That means you two little brats lost us a hundred points in a single night."
The surrounding students shifted. Boots scuffed against the cold stone floor as they slowly closed in, forming a tight, inescapable ring around the two first-years.
"We bled for those points all year!" a towering sixth-year roared, his face flushing an ugly mottled purple. "We earned that lead for the House Cup! And you threw it away because you felt like taking a midnight stroll? Or what, were you having a damn tea party with that scar-headed idiot Potter?"
Draco shrank back. His pale face lost whatever color it had left. He had never been on the receiving end of a mob before. Being isolated, despised, and hunted by his own house felt infinitely more terrifying than enduring Professor McGonagall's sternest lectures. His knees actually knocked together.
"Ta... Tamara..." he whimpered, his voice barely a squeak as he grabbed the edge of her sleeve.
Tamara remained perfectly still in the center of the tightening circle. Accusations rained down on her, fingers pointing like drawn blades, yet she did not flinch. She offered no apologies. She sputtered no frantic excuses. There was not a single microscopic trace of guilt on her flawless features.
Instead, she slowly tilted her head back. Her dark, abyssal eyes swept over the furious mob with the detached amusement of a queen inspecting her unruly peasants. A faint, razor-thin smile tugged at the corners of her lips—a smile dripping with absolute, unadulterated mockery.
'Idiots,'she mused internally.'A room full of supposed pure-blood elites, crying over colored glass like toddlers dropping their sweets.'
"Move."
She spoke the single word softly. It was not a shout. It was not a plea. Yet, the quiet command carried a strange, icy weight that sliced straight through the clamor. The noisy common room instantly fell dead silent, the sheer authority in her tone freezing the anger in their throats.
Flint blinked, his thick brow furrowing as if he could not comprehend what he had just heard. "What did you just say?" he snarled, taking a threatening step forward. "You threw our honor into the mud, and you still dare to act like you own the place?"
"Honor?"
Tamara let out a soft, breathy scoff. It was a beautiful, musical sound that somehow conveyed the feeling that she had just heard the most pathetic joke in human history. She took a slow, deliberate step toward the fireplace. Without even realizing what they were doing, the furious upperclassmen instinctively parted, creating a clear path for the first-year girl.
She glided to the hearth and turned slowly. The roaring green flames cast her in a brilliant, eerie backlight, stretching her shadow across the stone floor until it loomed large and monstrous over the crowd.
"You call a pile of cheap glass beads honor?" Her gaze sharpened, shedding its polite veneer to reveal the aggressive predator lurking beneath. "Those gems are nothing but biscuits used by teachers to train their pets. They are the shiny dog chains Dumbledore uses to maintain his pathetic, sterilized order. And for those few meaningless points, you all tuck your tails between your legs. You tiptoe around the castle, bowing to the rules like a pack of sniveling House-elves begging for a pat on the head."
She let the silence stretch, her dark eyes pinning Flint to the spot.
"Is this the grand ambition of Slytherin?"
The room exploded. Outrage flared across the older students' faces. A fifth-year opened his mouth to shout a curse, but Tamara's voice suddenly cracked through the air like a whip, drowning out the rising tide of fury.
"Last night, we indeed lost points." She reached back, grabbed the trembling Draco by the shoulder, and shoved him squarely into the spotlight before the crowd. "But ask yourselves why those points were deducted!"
She paced behind him, her voice ringing with righteous, theatrical fury.
"Because a Weasley dared to insult Slytherin! Because that red-headed, blood-traitor disgrace spat upon our very name!" She pointed a dramatic finger at the pale blonde boy. "Draco did not choose to swallow his pride! He did not cower in the shadows like a beaten dog just to protect a few pathetic rubies and emeralds! He drew his wand! He fought to defend the absolute dignity of the Slytherin house!"
Draco blinked, utterly stunned.
Was that what he was thinking last night? His mind raced. He was fairly certain he had only drawn his wand because Ron Weasley had mocked him for acting like Tamara's personal servant. But listening to Tamara's fiery, inflammatory speech, he suddenly felt a surge of heroic pride. His posture straightened. He wasn't a sniveling lackey; he was a pure-blood warrior!
"That's right!" Draco puffed out his chest, squaring his narrow shoulders as he shouted at the crowd. "I couldn't just stand there and let him insult us!"
Tamara shot him a brief, approving glance—a master rewarding her hound—before turning her piercing stare back to the audience.
"Professor McGonagall stripped our points because we broke their precious rules. But in my eyes, breaking the rules is exactly what a true Slytherin must do." She took a slow step forward, her voice dropping into a hypnotic, dangerous cadence. "The truly strong are never defined by the boundaries set by the weak. If all you care about is whether there are a few extra shiny rocks sitting in a glass jar, then you will never defeat Dumbledore. You will never crush those self-righteous, arrogant Gryffindors."
"What I intend to bring to this house is not some hollow metal cup gathering dust on a forgotten shelf."
Tamara slowly raised her hand, her slender fingers curling inward as if grasping the very fabric of the air. Her dark eyes burned with a terrifying, magnetic ambition.
"I offer you true power. The kind of absolute fear and awe that forces the rest of this school to lower their heads and avert their eyes when we walk past." She lowered her hand, her gaze locking onto Flint, then sweeping over the rest. "Tell me. Do you want to beg for a few pieces of candy bestowed by a teacher... or do you want the whole world?"
The common room plunged into a dead, ringing silence.
But the texture of the quiet had completely shifted. It was no longer the heavy silence of impending violence; it was the breathless, stunned quiet of minds being violently shaken to their core.
Slytherins, by their very nature, worshipped strength. They craved power above all else. Tamara's words were dripping with arrogance, yet they struck a primal chord deep within their souls. She was right. Bowing their heads and playing nice just to win a schoolboy competition felt entirely beneath their noble bloodlines. Tearing up the rulebook to brutally defend their dignity? That was power. That was ruthlessness.
The ugly sneer melted off Flint's face. The tension in his thick shoulders vanished, replaced by a complicated, grudging look of sheer admiration. He slowly took a step back, lowering his chin in a gesture of submission.
"That... actually makes sense," he muttered.
A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd. One by one, heads began to nod. The suffocating hostility that had been aimed at Tamara's throat evaporated like morning mist, swiftly replaced by a feverish, almost blind reverence.
She lost a hundred points? Who cared? That trivial detail no longer mattered. What mattered was the sheer audacity radiating from this first-year girl. She had stood before a mob, effortlessly twisted black into white, and lectured them all with her head held high. She had taken their fury and forged it into a weapon for her own use.
This was not just a student. This was the obvious aura of a true leader.
[Ding! A highly successful... speech has been detected.]
The System's perky, synthesized voice chimed inside her head at the perfect moment.
[Mission Accomplished: Speech in the Darkest Hour.]
[System Evaluation: Through the superb techniques of shifting concepts, diverting conflict, and painting grand delusions of grandeur, you have successfully transformed a massive crisis of trust into a carnival of personal worship! Bravo!]
[Though the logic is absolutely full of holes, as long as the momentum is strong enough, these gullible children will believe anything!]
[Reward: Obtained Passive Skill — [Dictator's Sophistry]. During a speech, the audience's IQ is temporarily reduced by 10%, and their fanaticism is increased by 20%.]
Tamara looked out at her classmates. Their eyes were wide, practically glowing with newfound fanaticism. A deeply satisfied, predatory curve formed at the corner of her mouth.
'Very good,'she purred internally, mentally patting her future Death Eaters on the head.'Points? I can manipulate these fools into earning those back whenever I please.'
But a thought suddenly paused her internal gloating. Did this actually count as a virtue?
Tamara possessed virtually zero morality, and she understood even less about the System's bizarre definitions of goodness. Deception, gaslighting, exploiting the fragile psychological weaknesses of children... if these were considered virtues, then she, Lord Voldemort, would never have been reviled as a Dark Lord in her past life. She would have been canonized as a saint.
Before she could even voice her sarcastic inquiry, the System cheerfully provided the answer.
[Of course it counts, Host!]
[Being able to unite a disorganized rabble around oneself, regardless of the manipulative means used, falls firmly under the Virtue of Leadership!]
[As for their severe logical confusion caused by your speech... well, that only proves they aren't very smart and desperately need a great, shining leader like you to guide them toward the light!]
'...Is that so.' A deep flash of suspicion crossed Tamara's dark eyes. This System's moral compass was starting to look just as delightfully twisted as her own. But she wisely kept her thoughts to herself.
She turned and gently patted the shoulder of the still-dazed blonde boy beside her.
"Let's go, Draco," she said, her voice returning to its usual smooth, polite cadence. "Since everyone here finally understands our good intentions, let us go have breakfast."
Draco stared at Tamara's retreating back. His throat suddenly felt inexplicably tight, a heavy lump forming in his airway.
He had messed up. He had lost a massive chunk of Slytherin's points, dragged the house's name through the mud, and watched as the very people who usually kissed his boots looked at him like he was absolute trash. According to the cold, unforgiving laws of survival in the Slytherin dungeons, a loser like him should have been mocked, isolated, and ruthlessly tossed to the wolves. Tamara should have discarded him like a dirty rag to take the fall. After all, he was the one who had drawn his wand first.
But... she didn't.
She hadn't scolded him once. She hadn't told him to get lost. And she certainly hadn't uttered the soul-crushing words he feared most: I am very disappointed in you.
Instead, she had stepped right in front of him. She had used her impeccable lies and her overwhelming, terrifying presence to shield him from the mob's malice. She had taken the raging fire that wanted to consume him and casually trampled it beneath her polished shoes.
And then, just like any other normal morning, she had simply invited him to breakfast.
'She didn't abandon me...'
Draco sniffed hard, aggressively blinking back the hot tears threatening to spill over his eyelashes. He quickened his pace, scurrying to catch up and falling perfectly into step half a pace behind her right shoulder.
Staring at the back of the girl who wasn't particularly tall, Draco made a silent, unbreakable vow in his heart. For this singular kindness—for the grace of not throwing him away—if Tamara ever asked him to burn Malfoy Manor to the ground in the future... he would strike the match himself without a second of hesitation.
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