Chapter 33: Turning the World Upside Down
After dinner on Friday, Tamara did not go to the library as usual. Instead, she returned straight to the Slytherin common room.
The past few weeks had been extremely productive.
Everything was moving exactly as she had planned.
In a fine mood, Tamara stopped before the stone wall, whispered the password, and watched as the hidden door slid open.
The moment she stepped into the green tinted underground room, however, she sensed something was wrong.
At this hour, the common room was usually full of low conversation, homework muttering, and the occasional clack of Wizard chess pieces.
Tonight, it was unnaturally silent.
The fire in the hearth burned bright, yet the air felt colder than an ice cellar.
In the middle of the room, the area normally occupied by the first years had been cleared.
Draco, Pansy, Goyle, and Crabbe were huddled in one corner, staring in her direction with tense expressions, none of them daring to speak.
And on the only path leading to the girls' dormitory stood four or five older boys.
They wore Slytherin robes, with prefect badges or Quidditch emblems pinned to their chests.
At the front stood a tall boy with a broad, heavy face and a brutish build. Marcus Flint, captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, a fifth year.
Beside him stood several fifth and sixth year pure blood students, all staring down at Tamara with open scrutiny, contempt, and hostility.
"Something the matter?" Tamara asked, stopping where she was.
Her tone was calm, as though she did not notice the obvious blockade.
"Of course there is, Riddle," Marcus Flint said, folding his thick arms and stepping forward to block her path completely.
"We need to talk about Slytherin's dignity."
"Dignity?" Tamara raised an eyebrow, and a faintly amused smile touched the corner of her mouth. "Do explain. How has Slytherin's dignity become connected to someone like you?"
In the corner, Draco sucked in a sharp breath.
Flint's face went dark at once, and the older students behind him looked equally furious.
One sixth year prefect spoke in a cold voice.
"Do not think that because Professor Flitwick likes you, you can trample all over Slytherin."
"We have been watching you for some time, Riddle," Flint said, lowering his voice like a bull about to charge. "It has only been a few weeks since term started, and you have already turned yourself into Hogwarts' little social darling."
"Giving your scarf to that Hufflepuff idiot in Astronomy. Stepping in for that Gryffindor Longbottom in the corridor. Even batting your eyes at Potter."
He spat the last word with disgust.
"Those Hufflepuff gluttons are going around saying you are a good person. A good person. That is the biggest insult Slytherin could suffer."
"Slytherin is meant to be noble, mysterious, and feared."
"Not like you, turning yourself into a spineless crowd pleaser so you can curry favour with mudbloods and blood traitors from other houses."
"You make us sick, Riddle."
The older students slowly spread out, faint wand shapes visible in their hands.
"We are going to teach you what a Slytherin ought to look like. Stay away from those lowly houses, or else..."
Tamara listened to the accusations in complete silence.
She did not feel anger.
If anything, she found it almost funny.
So this was what Slytherin had become.
A pack of narrow minded fools, clinging to their stale pride and pure blood delusions while huddling together in fear of the world outside.
No wonder the house had declined so badly in the years after his fall.
"Are you finished?" Tamara asked.
She lifted her eyes.
The calm blackness in them turned abruptly into something colder, something that seemed to drain the warmth from the entire room.
That chill was not aimed at one person. It spread over everyone in the common room alike.
"This is your idea of Slytherin dignity?"
Tamara took one step forward.
Though she was far shorter than Flint, in that moment it felt as if she were looking down at him.
"Locking yourselves in a cellar, praising each other's blood, and resenting the outside world with equal parts fear and hatred?"
"You are so afraid of being excluded that you try to exclude others first."
"Idiots."
She spat the word like ice.
"You asked for this!" Flint roared, yanking out his wand. "Flipendo..."
"Too slow."
Tamara did not even fully draw her wand.
She merely flicked one finger with lazy elegance, just as she had done in Charms.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
A precise surge of magic locked onto Flint's wand.
Before he could finish the spell, his hand suddenly went empty.
His wand did not spin away as if struck by Expelliarmus. It flew straight and fast, as neatly controlled as a feather, and landed in Tamara's open palm.
The room dropped into dead silence.
The older students, who had been about to move, froze where they stood.
There had been no red flash. No dramatic curse.
What had she used to snatch it? Levitation?
Tamara turned Flint's wand in her fingers, her eyes full of disdain.
"To a true witch or wizard, taking a wand from your hand is no harder than making a feather float."
With a careless flick, she sent the wand back.
It shot like a dart and drove into a crack in the stone floor beside Flint's foot, quivering faintly.
"Listen carefully, fools."
Tamara looked around the room, her cool voice carrying into every corner.
"The essence of Slytherin is not exclusion. It is utilisation."
"Whether it is Hufflepuff's stupidity, Ravenclaw's arrogance, or Gryffindor's recklessness, all of them are resources to be used."
"When Hufflepuffs praise me as a good person, it means I have gained a flock of shields who will gladly take a blow for me."
"When Ravenclaws invite me into their clubs, it means I now hold keys to their knowledge."
"Even Potter..."
A cruel, elegant smile curved her lips.
"Instead of barking at him like a pack of mongrels, it is far more useful to let him lower his guard around me. When the day comes that I need a sacrifice, he will walk to the altar himself."
"That is Slytherin."
"Hide your fangs behind a smile. Spin a web from advantage."
"Not this childish little game of bullying in a corner, as if you are a pack of overgrown infants."
Silence swallowed the common room.
Everyone stared at her.
This absolute utilitarianism, this icy way of reducing everyone to pieces on a board, this effortless superiority in her voice.
It stunned them.
"Now," Tamara said, looking at the pale faces of the older students before her, "move."
"I am going to bed. I have lessons tomorrow, and I refuse to be late because I wasted time on a group of intellectually unevolved hominids."
The older boys stepped aside before they seemed to realise they were doing it.
A clear path opened.
Flint gripped his recovered wand, his palm slick with sweat. Watching Tamara walk away, he could not summon even a shred of resistance.
She was too terrifying.
After Tamara disappeared around the stairway corner, the common room remained silent for a long while.
At last, Draco let out a long breath from where he sat in the corner.
A feverish gleam flickered in his eyes, and his cheeks felt strangely warm.
Excitement. Shame. And something else.
Fear.
"Fear...?" Draco muttered, pressing a hand to his pounding chest.
"Why would I feel fear?"
.....
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