Chapter 188: No Compulsion
After the start of term feast, the Slytherin students followed the dark stone staircases back down to their common room beneath the Black Lake.
At the beginning of every new school year, it was customary for the prefects to establish their authority over the younger students and remind everyone of the House rules.
Gemma Farley stood before the fireplace.
After finishing her formal speech, her gaze shifted almost imperceptibly toward the figure seated in the high backed armchair nearby.
Tamara Riddle.
Gemma understood perfectly well that although she wore the prefect's badge, there was someone else who occupied the true seat of authority in the Slytherin dungeons.
Tamara immediately noticed Gemma's glance.
She gave the prefect a slight nod, acknowledging her sensible behaviour.
The transfer of authority was silent and effortless.
There was no struggle for power, only mutual understanding and submission.
"All right."
Tamara set down the cup of black tea in her hand.
Her cool voice spread throughout the common room, instantly silencing the remaining whispers.
"A new school year has begun, and I have no interest in repeating the same tired speeches."
Her gaze moved slowly from face to face, sharp as a blade.
"I ask only one thing of you. Do not disgrace the name of Slytherin."
"In this school, where anything can happen, intelligence and strength are the only things you can truly rely upon."
She paused.
Her eyes passed over the nervous first and second years, and a trace of undisguised impatience flickered within them.
"If there is nothing else, return to your dormitories. I want some quiet."
The crowd dispersed almost immediately, as though they had just been granted a pardon.
The younger students, along with several of the older ones, quietly left the common room like a receding tide.
Within moments, only a few dozen third years remained in the once crowded room.
Clearly, after choosing some of Hogwarts' most demanding elective subjects, these third year students could hardly claim that they had nothing else to do.
Apart from Crabbe and Goyle, who possessed enough self awareness to retreat to their dormitory and go straight to sleep, nearly everyone who remained had gritted their teeth the previous year and selected Ancient Runes and Arithmancy.
Now, these self proclaimed elite young snakes were gathered miserably around several long tables.
Thick textbooks were stacked before them, each looking heavy enough to crush someone.
"This isn't meant for human beings to read!"
Draco glared furiously at the runes written across his parchment. The symbols twisted before his eyes until he felt as though his head might split apart.
"Why does Ehwaz suddenly mean betrayal when it appears reversed? Doesn't it represent horses and trust? There's no logic to this!"
"Because it's reversed, Malfoy."
Pansy lay sprawled over the table as though all desire to live had abandoned her, absently twirling a quill between her fingers.
"And those Arithmancy calculations... I'd rather drink an entire cauldron of Professor Snape's badly brewed Swelling Solution than work through another set of numbers."
"If you cannot understand something this simple, perhaps you should have chosen Divination instead."
Theodore Nott, usually one of the quieter members of their year, spoke without looking up.
"You could sit with the Hufflepuffs and listen to that lunatic predict that you'll choke on water tomorrow."
His thin face showed clear signs of exhaustion as well, but the rune notes spread across his parchment were considerably neater than Draco's.
"As though you understand the magical framework in Chapter Three."
Draco sighed heavily.
He felt as though he had already exhausted a lifetime's supply of sighs in a single evening.
"Stop arguing. I've been stuck on this grammatical derivation for half an hour."
Daphne Greengrass rubbed her temples, frustration obvious in her voice.
Had Tamara not been sitting near the fireplace, these pampered young witches and wizards might already have thrown the cursed textbooks straight into the Black Lake.
Tamara remained seated in the high backed armchair, calmly reading a book on Dark Arts theory that she had obtained from the Restricted Section.
Without raising her head, she listened to every complaint and argument around her.
Fools.
These people could barely understand the most basic structures of runic magic, yet they still dared to call themselves pure blood elites?
Even so, Tamara offered them no assistance.
Based on past experience, she silently counted down three seconds.
By the System's usual logic, this was exactly the sort of situation in which it would suddenly issue some revolting task about helping classmates and encouraging mutual cooperation.
Tamara shifted into a more comfortable position and lightly tapped one finger against the page.
She was in no hurry to answer these idiots' questions.
If she was going to explain everything anyway, she might as well wait for the System to issue a task first and collect a few attribute points in the process.
One minute passed.
Then two.
Apart from Draco furiously scratching at his hair, Tamara heard nothing inside her mind.
Her brow furrowed slightly.
"Are you dead?" she asked coldly.
[Oh my. Since you haven't died yet, Host, how could this System possibly bear to leave you alone?]
The System's lazy, teasing voice finally sounded.
[This System merely noticed that the Host is currently immersed in the vast ocean of Dark Arts theory and appears to be in a particularly unpleasant mood.]
[This System has become very considerate! Since you genuinely do not wish to help your dim witted classmates, this System absolutely refuses to force you.]
[Good deeds lose their meaning when they are forced, after all. How could this System possibly compel the noble Dark Lord to perform acts of kindness? What if you became ill from sheer irritation?]
Tamara's finger froze against the page.
She very nearly tore the fragile parchment in half.
This damned thing...
It was actually playing games with her now?
The greatest irony was that, for once, Tamara had genuinely intended to help them.
The reason was simple.
In the past, Lord Voldemort had controlled the Death Eaters through absolute fear and the Cruciatus Curse.
Now, however, those methods were unavailable to her.
Without death and agony to serve as chains, Tamara needed another means of creating absolute devotion and reinforcing the principle that strength ruled above everything else.
She wanted these future heads of pure blood families to understand one fact beyond all doubt.
Without Tamara Riddle's guidance, they were nothing more than a collection of mediocre fools.
She was not tutoring classmates.
She was training hounds.
With that thought, Tamara closed the book, rose from her chair, and walked toward the long table with measured steps.
Draco immediately stopped complaining.
Pansy and Daphne straightened in their seats at once.
"Bring me those parchments covered in nonsense."
Tamara sat down.
Her voice remained icy, yet to everyone present it sounded almost like salvation.
She first snatched Draco's parchment from the table.
"Ehwaz does represent trust in this context."
Tamara drew her holly wand and casually traced the rune in the air.
Emerald light followed the movement of its tip, leaving behind a perfect glowing symbol.
"But when it appears in a reversed structure and interacts with Laguz, which represents water, the flow of the runic enchantment is inverted."
She tapped the parchment.
"Trust reversed becomes betrayal."
Draco stared at her for a moment.
Then his eyes lit up.
He nodded rapidly and immediately began writing.
Tamara turned toward Theodore.
"Nott, your general line of reasoning is correct, but in the framework introduced in Chapter Three, you ignored the way runes extend across space when used as the foundation of ancient enchantments."
Her finger tapped one section of his notes.
"You are trying to analyse a flat runic structure as though it were a three dimensional spell construct. That is why your final result refuses to resolve properly."
Theodore looked down at his parchment.
After several seconds, surprise flashed across his face.
A problem he had struggled with for the entire evening had been unravelled by Tamara in only a few sentences.
"As for the Arithmancy the two of you are struggling with..."
Tamara shifted her gaze toward Pansy and Daphne.
"Stop staring at the numbers as though they matter by themselves. Look at the magical relationships behind them."
Her eyes moved over their calculations.
"In predictive calculations, prime numbers indicate variables rather than fixed outcomes."
For the next hour, Tamara suppressed the repeated urge to turn everyone at the table into slugs.
Instead, she used concise, mercilessly precise explanations to dismantle each problem that had been driving them mad.
The process was accompanied by no shortage of humiliation.
Yet none of them could deny that Tamara's explanations cut straight through the complicated wording of their textbooks and exposed the underlying magical principles with frightening clarity.
"Do you understand?"
Tamara asked coldly.
Around the table, the Slytherins were writing furiously, their expressions suggesting that someone had finally opened a window inside their heads.
No one dared allow the word no to escape their lips.
Not unless they wished to become breakfast for the Giant Squid the following morning.
More importantly, they genuinely did understand.
Seeing their obedient expressions, Tamara finally withdrew her gaze in satisfaction.
"Good."
"Since you understand, I expect your marks in both subjects to remain at a level I find satisfactory for the rest of the year."
Tamara leaned forward slightly and folded her hands upon the table.
Her voice softened.
That somehow made it considerably more frightening.
"If, by the end of term, I discover that anyone's marks are dragging us down..."
"I would not object to sacrificing some of my personal time to provide individual instruction here in the dungeons."
Her pitch black eyes moved slowly across each of them.
"Until those runic structures are permanently engraved into your minds."
....
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