Chapter 65: Sophistry
The next morning, the entrance hall of Hogwarts was in uproar.
Students passing through stopped in shock when they saw the great hourglass for Slytherin. It was far emptier than it had been the day before, with only a pitiful scatter of emeralds left at the bottom.
Gryffindor's rubies were in even worse shape. Their hourglass was practically scraped bare.
Overnight, the two houses had lost a total of two hundred and fifty points.
The entire school was buzzing with gossip, and inside the Slytherin common room, the atmosphere felt as heavy as the stillness before a storm.
Firelight flickered across a row of grim faces.
When Tamara and Draco stepped into the common room, every eye turned toward them at once.
Anger. Confusion. Blame. And a deep, poisonous hostility.
"Fifty points..."
Marcus Flint stood in front of them with his arms folded, his large buck teeth clicking with fury.
"Fifty points each. You two lost Slytherin a hundred points in one night."
The surrounding students slowly closed in, forming a circle around them.
"We've worked for the House Cup all year!" one of the older students shouted.
"And you threw away a hundred points because you were wandering around after curfew? Or was it to have some stupid midnight party with that idiot Potter?"
Draco had never faced anything like this before. Being hated and isolated by his own house was even more terrifying than being scolded by Professor McGonagall.
"Ta... Tamara..." he whispered weakly, as if begging for rescue.
Tamara stood in the center of the circle, facing the accusing fingers and hostile looks from all sides.
She did not apologize.
She did not explain.
She did not even show the slightest trace of guilt.
She merely lifted her head and let her black eyes pass slowly over each furious face. A faint, slightly mocking smile touched the corner of her mouth.
"Move."
She spoke softly.
Her voice was not loud, but it carried a strange force. For one brief second, the noisy common room fell silent.
"What did you say?" Flint glared at her in disbelief. "You cost us our honour, and you still dare act like this?"
"Honour?"
Tamara gave a quiet laugh, as though she had just heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.
She walked slowly toward the fireplace, and the crowd instinctively parted for her.
Then she turned, with the fire behind her, her shadow stretching long and dark over everyone in the room.
"You call that pile of coloured glass beads honour?"
Her gaze sharpened, turning fierce and cutting.
"Those are biscuits handed out by teachers to tame pets. They are the dog chains Dumbledore uses to keep his absurd order in place. Yet for the sake of a few points, you all tremble, obey rules, and wait for praise like a pack of house elves."
"Is that the ambition of Slytherin?"
The room stirred immediately.
Someone started to retort in outrage, but Tamara's voice rose at once and drowned them out.
"Yes, we lost points last night."
She grabbed Draco, who had been half hiding behind her, and pulled him forward into the light.
"But why did we lose them?"
"Because a Weasley insulted Slytherin. Because that red haired disgrace of a pure blood mocked our name."
"Draco did not choose to swallow the insult. He did not lower his head like a coward just to protect a few pathetic points. He drew his wand and fought to defend Slytherin's dignity."
Draco was stunned.
Was that why he had done it last night?
It seemed... not exactly.
Had it not really been because Ron mocked him for acting like Tamara's house elf?
But under Tamara's words, the entire thing was suddenly transformed. His image seemed to rise all at once.
"That's right!" Draco straightened instinctively and shouted, "I couldn't let him insult us!"
Tamara gave him a satisfied glance, then turned back to the others.
"Professor McGonagall deducted points because we broke the rules. But in my view, breaking rules is exactly what a true Slytherin should be willing to do."
"The truly strong are never defined by rules."
"If all you care about is whether that hourglass holds a few more gems or a few less, then you will never surpass Dumbledore. You will never surpass those self righteous Gryffindors."
"What I want to bring you is not some trophy left to gather dust on a shelf."
She lifted one hand and curled her fingers as though trying to seize the air itself, her eyes burning with something close to fanatic ambition.
"I want to bring you true power. The kind of fear and awe that makes others not even dare to meet our eyes."
"Tell me."
Her gaze swept over the room.
"Do you want a few sweets thrown to you by a teacher... or do you want the whole world?"
The common room fell into silence.
But it was no longer the silence of anger.
It was the silence of people who had been shaken.
Slytherins admired strength. They craved power.
Tamara's words were arrogant, but they struck directly at something buried deep inside them.
Yes.
Crawling obediently for the sake of a few points did feel unworthy of Slytherin.
Breaking rules to defend dignity... that sounded ruthless. That sounded glorious.
The fury on Flint's face slowly faded, replaced by a complicated sort of admiration.
He took one step back and lowered his head.
"That... actually makes sense."
Someone nearby muttered agreement.
Then more voices followed.
One after another, heads began to nod.
The hostility directed at Tamara dissolved. In its place came something far more dangerous, a kind of blind, nearly fanatical worship.
She had lost the house a hundred points?
That no longer mattered.
What mattered was that, even while standing in the center of accusation, she had remained calm, turned black into white, and lectured them all with her chin lifted high.
That was the quality of a leader.
[Ding! A highly successful... speech has been detected.]
The system's voice chimed in at exactly the right moment.
[Mission Accomplished: Speech in the Darkest Hour.]
[System Evaluation: Through superb techniques of shifting concepts, redirecting conflict, and painting a grand vision, you have successfully turned a crisis of trust into a carnival of personal worship.]
[Though the logic was full of holes, as long as the momentum was strong enough, they believed it.]
[Reward obtained: Passive Skill [Dictator's Sophistry]. During a speech, the audience's IQ is temporarily reduced by 10%, and fanaticism is increased by 20%.]
Tamara looked at her classmates, whose eyes had once again become feverishly bright, and the corner of her mouth curved with satisfaction.
"Very good," she thought.
"Points? I can win those back whenever I want."
Still... could this really be counted as a virtue?
Tamara had very little morality and understood even less about virtue.
Deception. Sophistry. Manipulating human weakness.
If those were virtues, then Voldemort would never have been hated by the entire wizarding world.
Before she could even ask, the system answered.
[Of course it counts, host.]
[The ability to gather a mob around oneself, regardless of the means, belongs to the virtue of leadership.]
[As for their logical confusion after hearing your speech, that only proves they are not clever enough and need a great leader like you to guide them.]
"...I see."
A flicker of suspicion passed through Tamara's eyes, but she said nothing.
She gave the still dazed Draco a light pat.
"Come along, Draco."
"Since everyone understands our good intentions now, let's go have breakfast."
Draco stared at her back, and something tightened painfully in his throat.
He had failed.
He had cost Slytherin a mountain of points. He had embarrassed the entire house. Even the people who usually flattered him had looked at him as if he were rubbish.
According to the cold law of survival in Slytherin, a loser like him should have been mocked, discarded, and pushed out without hesitation to take the blame.
After all, he had been the one to make the first move.
But... she had not done that.
She had not scolded him once.
She had not told him to get lost.
She had certainly not said the words he feared most.
"I am disappointed in you."
Instead, she had stood in front of him and used those flawless lies, along with that overwhelming presence of hers, to crush all the accusations and malice beneath her feet.
And then, as if nothing had happened, she simply told him to come eat.
"She didn't abandon me..."
Draco sniffed hard, forcing back tears, and hurried after her, falling into place half a step behind.
Looking at that not particularly tall figure ahead of him, Draco thought silently to himself,
For the sake of this kindness, this mercy of not casting him aside, even if Tamara asked him one day to burn down Malfoy Manor itself... he would strike the match without hesitation.
.....
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