Chapter 18: Actively Participate in School Activities
"Alright, no dessert." Goyle shrugged his thick shoulders, scooping a massive, trembling spoonful of chocolate sponge cake onto his plate. "You really don't know how to enjoy life. This is a House-elf specialty."
Finally, the last remnants of the feast vanished from the golden platters, leaving the tables spotless.
Tamara exhaled a slow, measured breath. She swore to Salazar himself that she did not want to look at another piece of food for the next three days... no, an entire week. Her stomach felt uncomfortably stretched, a mortal weakness she despised.
At the head table, Albus Dumbledore rose to his feet. The buzzing chatter echoing throughout the Great Hall died down instantly, replaced by an expectant hush.
"Ahem—just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered," Dumbledore began, his voice carrying effortlessly across the vast room. "I have a few start-of-term notices to give you."
His gaze swept across the four long tables, seeming to linger for a fraction of a second as it brushed past the Slytherin side.
"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is strictly forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."
Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes darted specifically toward the Gryffindor table, locking onto the unmistakable red hair of the Weasley twins.
"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors."
He paused, his expression turning unusually grave. "And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
Over at the Gryffindor table, Harry Potter blinked. "A very painful death?" he muttered, leaning forward. "Is he serious?"
"He's a madman, who knows?" Ron Weasley mumbled back, his cheeks bulging with a half-chewed mouthful of pie.
Meanwhile, amidst the sea of green and silver, Tamara merely curled her lips into a faint, scornful smirk.
'The third-floor corridor on the right-hand side.'That was precisely where the Philosopher's Stone was hidden. She knew exactly who had placed it there, and exactly whose benefit this little theatrical warning was meant for.'A very painful death...'Tamara sneered inwardly, her dark eyes flashing with cold amusement.'What a pathetic phrase, meant only to frighten the weak.'
Though her current physical vessel was frustratingly fragile, it did absolutely nothing to dampen her mental contempt for the old fool's grandstanding.
"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" Dumbledore cried out, his eyes crinkling with delight.
Tamara's face instantly drained of color.
If there was anything in this miserable world more unbearable than being force-fed like a prize pig, it was participating in that utterly unrhythmic, unaesthetic, and childishly appalling school song alongside a mob of drooling idiots.
Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick. A long, shimmering golden ribbon flew from the tip, rising high above the tables and twisting itself into glowing words like a serpent suspended in midair.
"Everyone pick their favorite tune," Dumbledore instructed cheerfully. "And off we go!"
The entire school erupted into a bellowing, chaotic cacophony.
Tamara sat perfectly rigid. Her lips remained tightly clamped shut, her face an unreadable mask of cold stone. She reasoned that if she simply refused to open her mouth, she could preserve her dignity and avoid this collective mental pollution.
However.
[Ding! Collective activity detected.]
[Virtue Quest triggered: Integrate with the Group.]
[Quest Description: The school song is a symbol of Hogwarts' spirit. How can a good, virtuous student who loves her school not sing along?]
[Quest Requirement: Sing out loud! Even just a single syllable!]
[Failure Penalty: Randomly play a recording of the host humming in the shower at the orphanage across the Great Hall.]
'You wouldn't dare?!'
Tamara's fingers clamped around her golden goblet with such sudden, vicious force that the metal groaned.
This wretched, parasitic system actually kept recordings?!
She took a sharp, ragged breath, feeling the majestic dignity of the Dark Lord crumbling into fine dust. Her jaw locked. A vein pulsed faintly at her temple.
With extreme, agonizing reluctance, she parted her lips. Her voice emerged barely louder than the drone of a dying mosquito:
"...Hogwarts, Hogwarts..."
Though the sound was so faint that even Draco Malfoy sitting right beside her couldn't hear a thing over the roaring crowd, the system cheerfully registered her pathetic compliance.
The auditory torture finally concluded, with everyone finishing the tune in a ragged, disjointed, and utterly tone-deaf chorus.
"Ah, music," Dumbledore sighed, wiping a tear from his eye. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"
The Slytherin first-years scrambled to their feet, gathering behind their prefect, Gemma Farley.
Just as Tamara moved to step away from the bench, a wave of biting, unnatural cold swept over her from behind. The temperature in the previously warm Great Hall plummeted, turning the air crisp and heavy.
Several silvery, pearly-white figures glided effortlessly through the stone walls—the resident ghosts of the Hogwarts houses.
And at the far end of the Slytherin table, a truly terrifying apparition drifted slowly forward.
He was gaunt and spectral, his aristocratic robes ruined by dark, silvery bloodstains. His empty, vacant eyes stared fixedly ahead, and heavy, rusted chains wrapped tightly around his translucent form, clinking and clanking with every movement.
The Bloody Baron.
Slytherin's resident ghost, and the single most feared entity within the castle walls, save perhaps for Peeves the Poltergeist.
Even Draco flinched. The haughty blond boy instinctively shrank back, hiding half his body behind Tamara as the phantom drifted closer.
"Merlin, I don't like him," Draco whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "Look at the blood on his robes... is it real?"
The Baron stared straight ahead, gliding directly through a cluster of Hufflepuff first-years. The badgers shrieked in terror and scrambled frantically out of his path.
He floated straight toward the front of the Slytherin line.
Prefect Gemma Farley stiffened, offering a nervous, respectful bow. "Good evening, Baron."
The Baron completely ignored the prefect.
His dead, fish-like eyes swept over the huddled crowd of first-years, finally locking onto the black-haired girl standing near the front. The girl in the dark green robes with the impossibly cold expression.
Tamara Riddle.
Fifty years ago, when that very name still belonged to a devastatingly handsome boy, the Baron had seen him. He had watched that boy wander the dungeons late at night. He had seen him open the Chamber of Secrets—a place that terrified even the dead—and he had sensed the pure, suffocating serpentine aura that only a true, undisputed descendant of Salazar Slytherin could possess.
Tamara stood her ground. Unlike the trembling children around her, she showed absolutely no fear.
She lifted her chin a fraction of an inch. Deep within her dark pupils, a faint, dangerous flash of crimson light vanished as quickly as it appeared.
She was projecting a pressure—a heavy, suffocating weight perceptible only to spirits and serpents, vibrating at a distinct Parseltongue frequency.
The Baron drifted slowly until he stood directly before her.
The surrounding first-years held their breath, their eyes wide with terror, fully expecting the dreadful ghost to suddenly go berserk.
The Baron stopped. He hovered barely a step away from Tamara.
He stared at her for a long, agonizing moment, his vacant eyes seemingly piercing through her flesh, confirming the ancient, dark soul hiding beneath the shell of this delicate little girl.
"...Ancient blood."
The Baron spoke. His voice was a harsh, hoarse rasp—his first words of the entire night—sounding like two heavy tombstones grinding against one another in a forgotten graveyard.
"...Still flows."
He did not expose her identity. He merely acknowledged her absolute legitimacy to stand in this House.
Having spoken, the Baron drifted to the side, standing like a silent, chained statue by the edge of the path. He was waiting. Waiting for Tamara to pass first.
The entire Slytherin line fell into a deathly, suffocating silence.
Even the prefect's jaw dropped, her mouth hanging open in an expression of utter, unadulterated disbelief. The Bloody Baron was notoriously temperamental; he rarely even yielded the path to Albus Dumbledore!
"My goodness..." Pansy Parkinson covered her mouth, her dark eyes wide as saucers. "The Baron... is yielding the way to her?"
Draco was completely dumbfounded. He stared at the ghost, then at the girl standing in front of him.
"Ta... Tamara?" Draco stammered, his usual arrogance entirely evaporated. "Do you know him?"
Tamara casually smoothed out the sleeve of her robe where Draco had crumpled it in his panic. She showed not a single hint of being flattered. Her posture remained perfectly poised, as if a terrifying phantom bowing to her authority was simply the natural order of the universe.
[System Notification: Detection of reverence from an ancient spirit.]
[Evaluation: It seems in Slytherin, some things are more effective than virtue—like bloodline supremacy.]
Tamara snorted inwardly at the system's patronizing tone. She turned her head slightly toward Draco, a mysterious, chillingly beautiful smile curling at the corner of her lips.
"In this world, some rules transcend life and death, Draco," she said softly.
Her voice was light, yet it rang with unusual clarity in the silent, freezing corridor.
"When your bloodline is pure enough, when your power is strong enough..." She cast a silent, sidelong glance at the Baron hovering nearby. "...even the dead will yield the path to you."
With that, she turned and took the lead, her black shoes clicking softly against the stone floor as she strode confidently toward the dungeons.
At that exact moment, a collective realization washed over the watching students.
Tamara Riddle. A first-year, on her very first day.
Though she had not cast a single spell, she had already planted a deep, unshakeable seed of awe within the heart of Slytherin House, wrapped in an inexplicable aura of absolute mystery.
"So cool."
A dark-skinned boy near the back named Blaise Zabini let out a low whistle. "I like her."
"Shut up, Zabini," Draco snapped, finally shaking off his daze and hurrying forward to catch up with her. "She's my friend! I noticed she was special ages ago!"
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