Chapter 99: No Surprise
The Great Hall of Hogwarts remained exactly as magnificent as her memories dictated. Thousands of wax candles hovered effortlessly in the mid-air currents, casting a warm, golden glow against the enchanted ceiling that mirrored a clear, starry night sky. The four immense House tables groaned under the weight of gleaming golden plates and polished goblets. Rich, heavy aromas of roasted beef, buttery Yorkshire puddings, and spiced pumpkin juice drifted through the cavernous space.
Draco Malfoy occupied the seat to Tamara's immediate left. He leaned forward, gesturing wildly as he boasted to a captive audience of first-years about the spectacular flying car incident he claimed to have witnessed involving Harry Potter at the train station.
Up at the front, the frayed, ancient Sorting Hat twitched and wriggled atop its stool, belting out its dreadful, off-key song. The terrified first-years shuffled forward one by one.
Tamara paid no mind to the mundane lyrics. Her dark eyes swept over the trembling crowd of newcomers, cutting through the nervous faces until they locked onto a familiar mop of fiery red hair.
"Ginny Weasley!" Professor McGonagall called out, her stern voice echoing off the stone walls.
Ginny flinched. She stepped onto the raised platform with stiff, jerky movements, lowering the oversized leather hat over her head until it swallowed her eyes entirely.
Barely two seconds ticked by.
"Gryffindor!" the brim ripped open to shout.
The table on the far left erupted. Thunderous applause and raucous cheers bounced off the enchanted ceiling. It was the trademark roaring passion of the lions, welcoming another piece of the Weasley legacy into their den.
Ginny yanked the hat off her head. Yet, her first instinct was not to look toward her cheering housemates. Instead, her head snapped sideways, her gaze darting frantically toward the Slytherin table on the opposite side of the hall. She scoured the sea of green and silver, desperately seeking a specific black-haired figure. In this massive, intimidating castle full of strangers, that figure was her sole anchor.
Tamara caught the pleading, wide-eyed look.
'Pathetic little creature,' she mused inwardly, though her outward expression remained flawlessly serene. She did not speak. She merely lifted her golden goblet a fraction of an inch. Across the chaotic sea of bobbing heads and deafening noise, Tamara offered the young Weasley an elegant, distant, yet perfectly encouraging smile.
Ginny's face instantly brightened. She raised her hand, ready to wave back.
"Fantastic, Ginny!"
"Knew you'd make it to Gryffindor!"
Two identical blurs of red hair suddenly crashed into her line of sight. Fred and George Weasley grabbed their little sister without another word, hauling her bodily into the chaotic red and gold sea.
"Hey, Percy! Look at this! The whole family is in Gryffindor now!"
"Mum is going to be absolutely thrilled!"
The enthusiastic twins boxed Ginny in, their loud voices drowning out everything else. Percy marched over a second later. He patted his sister on the shoulder, his expression a comical mix of stern authority and genuine pride, already launching into a lecture about strictly obeying the school rules.
Ginny found herself trapped in the center of the mob. Her ears rang with deafening cheers, backslaps, and boisterous greetings. She strained, pushing up onto her tiptoes, desperately trying to catch just one more glimpse of the Slytherin table.
She saw nothing but robes. There were simply too many people. The overly enthusiastic Gryffindors formed a suffocating human wall, completely cutting off her line of sight.
A sudden, hollow sense of loss washed over the young girl. Everyone here was being exceptionally kind, and she was finally sitting at her brothers' table, yet she felt entirely isolated. She felt impossibly far away from her dear sister Tamara, the only person who truly understood and listened to her. The distance between the two tables suddenly felt like an uncrossable chasm separating two entirely different worlds.
Halfway through the feast, the warm, relaxed atmosphere brought on by the heavy food began to curdle into something strange and electric.
Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley still had not made an appearance.
Whispers ignited like dry brush, spreading rapidly down the lengths of the four tables.
"I heard Potter crashed a flying car straight into the Whomping Willow!"
"Professor Snape caught them red-handed on the grounds!"
"They are absolutely getting expelled for this!"
The mood at the Slytherin table instantly spiked into a festive frenzy. It was livelier than the Christmas feast.
"Did you hear that, Tamara?" Draco demanded, his pale face flushed pink with manic excitement. He completely abandoned the roasted chicken leg resting on his plate. "Potter is out! I knew it! An absolute idiot like him never deserved to step foot in Hogwarts!"
Pansy Parkinson let out a shrill shriek of agreement. "They broke major school rules before they even walked through the doors! Gryffindor is definitely going to be rotting at the bottom of the House Cup standings again this year!"
The surrounding Slytherins dissolved into vicious gloating. They grinned at one another, practically visualizing the Boy Who Lived packing his pathetic little trunk and dragging it back to the Muggle world in utter disgrace.
Only Tamara remained entirely unmoved.
"Do not celebrate prematurely, Draco." Tamara spoke with a chilling calmness. Her voice cut through the noise like a blade of ice, instantly dousing the manic flames of joy dancing in Draco's eyes.
"What?" Draco blinked, his triumphant smile faltering. "But everyone is saying..."
"Everyone is saying?" Tamara echoed, her tone dripping with quiet mockery. She set her silver knife and fork down against her porcelain plate with a soft, deliberate clink. She picked up a linen napkin and elegantly dabbed the corner of her mouth. Her dark eyes reflected a cold, ancient cynicism that looked entirely out of place on a twelve-year-old girl. "In this school, Draco, the rules exist solely to restrain us. They do not apply to those favored by Albus Dumbledore."
"Just watch."
She tilted her chin a fraction of an inch, directing Draco's attention toward the elevated staff table at the front of the hall.
The ornate golden chair in the center sat completely empty. Dumbledore was gone. Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape were conspicuously absent from their usual spots as well.
"If it were you who had made such a catastrophic error, Draco, your luggage would already be sitting in the mud outside the castle gates," Tamara murmured, her voice a silken thread of poison. "But that is Harry Potter. Do you honestly believe the great savior will be expelled over a few insignificant broken rules?"
Draco's expression twisted. His jaw locked tight, and he bit down hard on his lower lip. The youthful excitement that had brightened his eyes just moments ago curdled, hardening into a bitter, simmering resentment.
Right on cue, the heavy oak doors of the Great Hall swung open.
It was not the glorious sight of Harry and Ron being marched out by the caretaker. Instead, Dumbledore strolled in with infuriating calmness, his silver beard swaying as he casually returned to the Headmaster's seat.
Harry and Ron never showed their faces at the feast, but the silence from the staff table was deafening. No grand announcement of expulsion ever came.
By the time dessert vanished from the golden plates, the exact details of the punishment had filtered down through the castle grapevine.
A deduction of house points.
A handful of detentions.
That was the entirety of their consequence.
Bang!
Draco slammed his fist down hard against the polished mahogany table in the center of the Slytherin common room.
"This is completely unfair!" he snarled, his chest heaving. "They flew a Muggle car! They blatantly violated the International Statute of Secrecy! They smashed into the Whomping Willow and nearly destroyed it! And all they get is a pathetic point deduction?!"
The surrounding Slytherins erupted into a chorus of outraged agreement. The emerald-lit dungeon buzzed with furious energy, the toxic sting of injustice spreading like a plague through the gathered students.
Tamara observed the chaos from the comfort of a high-backed leather armchair. A barely perceptible, razor-thin smile curved the corners of her lips.
'Fools. So easily provoked,' she thought, savoring the bitter taste of their collective anger.
"This is reality, everyone," Tamara said.
She did not raise her voice. She did not lose her composure like the screeching children around her. Yet, her calm, measured tone sliced through the noise, carrying effortlessly to every corner of the dungeon.
She let her dark gaze sweep over the room, taking in the flushed faces of the angry first-years and the tight, indignant jaws of the older students.
"I want you all to remember this exact feeling tonight," she commanded softly. "Memorize the taste of it. This is what privilege looks like."
Her voice dropped an octave, becoming low, magnetic, and dangerously seductive. She was a serpent whispering cruel, obvious truths into the dark.
"Under Dumbledore's twisted version of justice, fairness is nothing more than a punchline. He grants his golden savior unlimited immunity, yet he demands that we Slytherins walk a razor's edge, strictly adhering to every petty rule."
"This is precisely why we must pursue power."
Tamara leaned forward slightly, the emerald firelight reflecting in her dark eyes, igniting the cold, bottomless ambition hidden within them.
"Because it is only when you stand entirely above the rules that you earn the right to dictate them," she murmured, letting the heavy silence of the room amplify her words. "We will not spend our lives like we are now—crawling in the dirt, begging for scraps of fairness from an old madman."
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