Chapter 64: Punishment
The three of them crept toward the tower like thieves, keeping close to the wall.
Although they had just escaped Filch, their hearts were still lodged in their throats.
"Don't worry," Harry whispered. "Ron is keeping watch by the Trophy Room corridor. If a professor comes, he'll signal us."
Tamara rolled her eyes and let out a cold snort.
"I trust Malfoy more than that redheaded idiot. I sent him to the Trophy Room as well."
Harry and Hermione stopped at the same time and stared at her in horror.
"You said what?" Hermione hissed. "You sent Malfoy to keep watch too? In the same place?"
"What? Is there a problem?" Tamara raised an eyebrow.
Before she could finish, a burst of arguing erupted in the distance, followed by the sound of a spell being fired.
"That's the problem!" Harry covered his face in despair.
Five minutes earlier, in the corridor outside the Trophy Room, Ron had been idly playing with his wand out of boredom.
Then Draco Malfoy stepped out from the shadows.
Their eyes met.
Draco had originally intended to start cursing him out, but Tamara's teachings suddenly flashed through his mind. A true Slytherin knew how to ignore ants.
So he took a deep breath, lifted his chin, and tried to copy Tamara's lofty, indifferent expression.
"Move aside, Weasley," Draco said coldly, though the imitation was a little stiff. "I do not want to waste time on you."
Ron froze for a moment, then looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
"Are you sick, Malfoy? Why are you acting all moody in the middle of the night?"
"I am on an important mission," Draco said in a low voice, with obvious superiority. "Unlike you, just loitering around."
"Mission?" Ron instantly caught onto something, and a sneer appeared on his face. "That Riddle sent you, didn't she? Stop pretending."
"What is it to you?" Draco frowned.
"Of course it's my business. It's pretty funny to watch."
Ron crossed his arms, his tone full of contempt and pity.
"Look at yourself now, Malfoy. You're like Riddle's lapdog. You bite whoever she tells you to bite, and you stand guard whenever she tells you to stand guard."
"You don't even look like a Slytherin anymore. You look like her House elf."
House elf.
The words hit Draco like a slap across the face.
For a Malfoy, being compared to something so lowly was more painful than the Cruciatus Curse.
Worse still, deep down, Draco knew Ron was right.
In front of Tamara, he really had become more and more obedient.
Having the thing he least wanted to admit thrown back in his face by his greatest enemy instantly shattered what remained of his self control.
"Shut up, you pathetic penniless loser!"
Draco's face flushed all the way to his neck. His borrowed composure vanished as he yanked out his wand.
"How dare you call me a servant? I'll rip your mouth apart!"
"Was I wrong, lapdog?"
"Die! Locomotor Mortis!"
A deafening metallic crash shattered the silence, louder than a dragon's roar.
The two of them stared at the smashed suit of armour on the floor, both dumbstruck.
"We're doomed..."
Before either could react, a stern green light flooded the corridor.
Professor McGonagall stood at the far end in a tartan dressing gown and hairnet, the glow from her wand lighting up her furious, trembling face.
"What are you doing?"
Her voice cracked like thunder.
Draco and Ron nearly jumped out of their skins. Just as they turned to run, they were pinned in place by Professor McGonagall's Full Body-Bind Curse.
"In the middle of the night, duelling in the corridors, and destroying school property?" Professor McGonagall's lips trembled with rage. "What do you think Hogwarts is? A coliseum?"
At that very moment, an extremely ill timed voice came from nearby.
"Professor... actually..."
Harry, Hermione, and Tamara had just arrived. Before they could hide, they were caught cleanly by the sudden turn of events.
Professor McGonagall snapped her head around and stared at the three first years stepping out of the darkness, dusty, sweaty, and looking guilty.
"Potter? Granger? And... Riddle?"
Her eyes widened even further.
Three Gryffindors and two Slytherins, all gathered in the middle of the night and looking a complete mess. The scene was absurd.
"What on earth is going on?" she demanded. "Why are you all together? Why are you not in bed at this hour?"
The five of them exchanged looks.
No one dared mention the dragon.
If they did, Hagrid would be finished, and they themselves would most likely be expelled.
"Um..." Hermione stammered, trying desperately to think of an excuse.
"Professor."
Tamara looked up, her face calm, even carrying a trace of arrogance.
"We meant no harm. This was actually... a field observation for Astronomy."
She pointed toward the window and started talking nonsense with a straight face.
"Mars has a very special trajectory tonight, and I wanted to show Potter and the others. Unfortunately, we ran into a sleepwalking Weasley and Malfoy, who was trying to wake him up..."
Harry and Ron nodded frantically, despite clearly having no idea what she was talking about.
The excuse was dreadful.
Even though Tamara activated [Harmless], Professor McGonagall, who was already furious and in no mood to believe such rubbish, resisted it completely.
Professor McGonagall took a long breath.
She plainly did not believe a word.
To her, this looked like nothing more than a group of overexcited first years sneaking out for some pointless prank or adventure, only to end in a house feud.
"Enough."
Her voice cut through Tamara's sophistry like a knife.
"I do not care what you were doing. Wandering the corridors at night, private duelling, destroying school property, and lying."
Her gaze passed over every face before settling on Harry and Tamara.
"I am deeply disappointed in all of you."
"Fifty points from Gryffindor."
Harry and Ron gasped.
"Each," Professor McGonagall added.
"What?" Harry nearly fainted.
That made one hundred and fifty points.
"The same for Slytherin." Professor McGonagall turned to Tamara and Draco. "Fifty points each."
Draco's face turned ghostly pale. He could already imagine Professor Snape's expression when he heard.
Two hundred and fifty points in total.
Enough to send both Gryffindor and Slytherin plummeting in the House Cup standings.
"Now all of you, back to bed."
Professor McGonagall's voice was glacial.
"As for detention, I will inform you later."
The five of them walked away like dogs that had been whipped.
Only after they had turned two corners and were sure Professor McGonagall could no longer hear did the strained silence finally explode.
"It's all your fault, you penniless mole!" Draco hissed. "One hundred points! Professor Snape is going to kill me!"
"You're the one who started it!" Ron shot back. "If you hadn't acted like some rabid dog..."
Listening to those two brainless idiots bickering again, Tamara came to a stop in the corridor.
"Shut up."
She had been walking behind them, and her voice, when it came, was so cold it seemed to drift straight out of hell.
Tonight, she was truly exhausted.
Physically exhausted. Mentally even more so.
She had done manual labour, lost the invisibility cloak, been stripped of points, and was now facing detention.
And all because these two morons had started fighting while supposedly keeping watch.
A tide of memories from her previous life rose in her like black water.
Whenever subordinates had ruined something through stupidity, the Dark Lord had always responded in only one way, merciless punishment.
That instinct, carved into her soul long ago and now as natural as breathing, made a flash of red light cross her pitch black eyes.
Tamara's hand slid into her sleeve and closed around her holly wand.
Through the fabric, she aimed it at the two backs ahead of her, still shoving each other like idiots.
She did not need any advanced Dark Magic.
A simple Cruciatus Curse would be enough to teach them what silence and respect for the strong truly meant.
"Crucio..."
The vicious incantation slipped from her lips.
But before the spell could take form, a piercing alarm exploded in her mind.
[Warning! Extremely malicious intent to attack classmates detected from the host!]
[Violation of the Amity Principle! Initiating Level 2 Punishment: High Voltage Electroconvulsive Therapy!]
A numbing current surged straight down her spine.
"Ugh..."
A broken gasp escaped her throat.
Her knees gave out, and she slid downward uncontrollably, catching herself against the cold stone wall with one trembling hand.
A flush spread instantly across her cheeks in an unnatural wave of heat.
Her eyes filled with tears from the sheer physical shock. The murderous look that had filled them moments ago now made her look as though she had suffered some terrible grievance.
"Tamara?"
Hearing the noise, the four in front whirled around and rushed back toward her.
Tamara glared at the large faces leaning over her and wanted nothing more than to tear them all apart.
But the aftereffects of the shock left her too weak even to raise a hand.
She wanted to roar at them.
Instead, all that came out was a strained mutter.
"...Go away. All of you."
Even though Tamara repeatedly insisted she was fine, the others refused to leave her there and insisted on escorting her back to the dormitory entrance.
Though she struggled with all the strength she could muster, under the lingering aftereffects of the system's punishment, her resistance was weaker than a cat's.
In the end, Harry and Draco carried her like a wounded soldier all the way to the entrance of the Slytherin common room.
"Hang in there!"
"Don't die!"
Their absurd voices buzzed around her the entire way.
Only once she was finally lying on the soft bed in her dormitory did the deep, bone shaking current slowly begin to fade.
As she lay there staring at the bed curtains as if sheer hatred alone could set them on fire, the culprit in her head spoke again in that nauseatingly cheerful tone.
[Ah... what a touching scene, host.]
There was even a hint of tears in the system's voice.
[This is the bond of youth! Being supported when you fall, having someone to lean on when you are weak. It seems your daily kindness has finally borne fruit.]
[Even after you made a mistake, everyone still stayed beside you. Is this not far warmer than those Death Eaters of yours who only knew how to kneel?]
Tamara took a long breath and forced out a few words through clenched teeth.
"...I am going to kill you."
.....
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