Chapter 62: Leverage
Saturday night carried the damp scent of rain soaked earth.
Only a few hours remained before the plan to move Norbert.
Tamara Riddle had just finished her final check at Hagrid's hut and was making her way back to the Castle alone along the path skirting the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Harry and Hermione had stayed behind to help Hagrid with the last preparations. After all, cramming a restless young dragon into a crate was hardly easy work.
Tamara was in an unusually good mood.
Once tonight was over, that dragon would be on its way to Albania, where it would become the first true asset of her future restoration.
However, just as she was about to step out from the shadows of the trees onto the stretch of lawn leading up to the Castle, a sharp crack split the silence.
A dry branch.
Someone had stepped on it.
Tamara stopped at once.
She did not turn around immediately. Instead, she shifted her weight slightly, her hand already closing around the wand hidden in her sleeve.
"Who's there?"
From the darkness, a pale blond head slowly emerged, followed by a face that was just as pale and currently lit with excitement and malice.
Draco Malfoy.
He had clearly been lurking there for quite some time. Dew clung to his robes, and grass stains marked the hem, yet none of it had done anything to dull his excitement.
"I knew it."
He lowered his voice, but the thrill in it was almost feverish.
"I knew that great oaf was hiding something dangerous. I saw everything."
He pointed toward Hagrid's hut, where the curtains had not been drawn quite tightly enough. Through one narrow gap, the occasional spark of fire still flickered.
"That is a dragon. A real dragon."
Draco was so excited he was almost tripping over his own words.
"Potter and Weasley are in there too. They are all involved."
Tamara looked at the boy in front of her, who resembled an overexcited squirrel that had stumbled across a mountain of nuts, and did not show the slightest trace of panic.
"So?" she asked.
"So?" Draco repeated, staring at her. "I am going to report them, of course. I am going straight to Professor McGonagall. No, better yet, Professor Snape."
He clenched his fist, already seeming able to picture Harry Potter being thrown out through the school gates.
"Keeping a dragon is a serious crime. That idiot Hagrid will be sent to Azkaban for it. And Potter... Potter will be expelled. This is the perfect chance to get rid of them."
With that, he spun round, clearly intending to run back to the Castle at once.
"Stop."
Tamara's voice was not loud. It was cold.
That alone was enough to halt him in his tracks.
Draco stopped and turned back, baffled.
"Tamara? Do you not want to see Potter expelled?"
Tamara walked slowly towards him, looking down at him with cool, unreadable eyes.
"Stupid."
She said the word without mercy.
Draco froze, the triumph on his face dying at once.
"What?"
"I said you are stupid, Draco."
She reached out and flicked a fallen leaf from his shoulder. The motion was elegant. Her gaze was not.
"Do you really think you gain anything from reporting them?"
"Of course I do." Draco protested at once. "Potter gets expelled. Gryffindor loses points."
"And then?" Tamara cut in.
Draco faltered.
"Hagrid is one of Dumbledore's people. Do you think Dumbledore will truly let him go to prison over a dragon? At worst, the dragon is confiscated and Hagrid is dismissed."
She let out a faint sneer.
"And Potter? Unless he actually murders someone, Dumbledore will always find a way to protect him."
She stepped closer.
"So what will you gain? Nothing. Other than the hatred of the entire Gryffindor House and a reputation as a sneaking little informer."
Draco opened his mouth, then shut it again.
He hated that her logic made sense.
"Then what are we meant to do?" he asked at last, unwillingly.
Tamara's tone turned lower, more measured, like a teacher instructing an inferior pupil.
"This, Draco, is where the Slytherin philosophy of survival comes in."
He blinked.
"Remember this. Destroying your enemy directly is what a reckless Gryffindor does."
"A true Slytherin understands leverage."
"Leverage?" Draco echoed.
"Exactly."
Tamara leaned in slightly and spoke beside his ear.
"At this moment, this secret is in our hands. So long as we keep silent, Hagrid owes us. Potter and Weasley owe us. Whether they admit it or not, they will always have to consider our goodwill from now on."
"If you report them now, that leverage disappears."
"But if you keep this secret..."
A calculating light passed through her eyes.
"It becomes an invisible chain around their throats. Any time in the future, if you want something from Hagrid, or need Potter and Weasley pressured into silence, or want access to something valuable from the Forbidden Forest..."
She smiled faintly.
"You only need to tug on the chain."
"That is control."
Draco stared at her.
He had never thought about things this way.
In his world, if you hated someone, you crushed them immediately. Yet what Tamara described sounded far more refined. Far more elegant. Far more Slytherin.
Control.
Utilisation.
Leverage.
It sounded infinitely grander than simple expulsion.
"That is... brilliant."
The excitement in Draco's grey eyes slowly shifted into something deeper. Admiration. Awe.
"I never thought of it like that."
Tamara gave a cold inward snort.
Behind this grand lesson in Slytherin doctrine lay only one simple truth.
If Draco ran to the professors now, the Ministry would come. And if the Ministry came, the dragon would be taken.
That was her dragon.
There was no universe in which she intended to let Draco ruin that.
Naturally, she did not say any of that aloud.
"So. Nothing happened here tonight."
Tamara straightened, her expression returning to its usual cool indifference.
"You saw no dragon. You saw no Potter. You saw nothing at all. Do you understand?"
"Understood." Draco nodded hard, his earlier disappointment already replaced by renewed enthusiasm. "This is our secret weapon, then."
"Exactly."
Tamara's tone softened by the smallest degree.
"Now go back and sleep, Draco. Be a clever Malfoy, not a child who runs to the teachers the moment he sees something interesting."
"Right. Of course. Goodnight, Tamara."
With that, Draco hurried back towards the Castle, looking thoroughly enlightened and absurdly pleased with himself.
Only after he had gone did Tamara allow herself to exhale slowly.
[Ding! Detected that the host has successfully prevented a malicious reporting incident.]
[System Evaluation: Not only did you save that poor half giant from the disaster of imprisonment, you also taught a misguided classmate the value of restraint and long term thinking.]
[This was a perfect piece of moral education.]
[Reward: Wisdom +1.]
[Current Wisdom: 31.]
Tamara looked at the system panel and let out a faint, mocking laugh.
"Restraint?"
"Long term thinking?"
"System, you should really go to St Mungo's and have your eyes examined."
She turned and looked back toward Hagrid's hut.
Rain was still falling.
In a few hours, that dragon would be hers.
"Everything is proceeding exactly as planned."
.....
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