Chapter 19: The Speech in the Common Room
The damp stone wall slid shut behind them, sealing the first-years inside the Slytherin common room.
It stretched out as a long, narrow subterranean hall resting at the very bottom of the Black Lake. Rough-hewn stone formed the walls and ceiling, illuminated by round, emerald-green lamps suspended from heavy iron chains. Near the crackling fireplace, exquisitely carved ebony tables and high-backed chairs waited in neat, orderly arrangements.
Beyond the grand windows, the murky, submerged world of the Black Lake pressed against the glass. The occasional thick tentacle of the giant squid or a slow-gliding grindylow drifted past, casting dappled, shifting shadows across the floor in the dark green light.
For the average eleven-year-old wizard, this cold, subterranean gloom usually inspired immediate dread, or at least a fleeting worry about developing early-onset rheumatism.
But for Tamara Riddle, the heavy, ancient scent in the air—a rich blend of damp stone, deep water, and old magic—felt exactly like coming home.
"Welcome to the Slytherin common room."
Prefect Gemma Farley stood before the grand fireplace. She was a senior with sharp, aristocratic features, though deep bags under her eyes betrayed a lingering weariness. She clapped her hands, attempting to cut through the relentless chatter of the newly sorted first-years.
"The password is 'Pure-blood.' It changes every two weeks. Do not forget to check the noticeboard."
She paused, clearing her throat to project her voice over the din. "In here, we are a family. No matter what the other houses think of us, within these walls, we must stand united..."
Her words fell flat against the stone.
The freshmen were still riding the high of the Sorting Ceremony, their adrenaline spiking as they explored their new territory. A mere prefect lacked the gravity to crush that kind of chaotic enthusiasm. Gemma shouted for quiet twice more, her voice straining, but the noise barely dipped. She simply did not possess the sheer, suffocating authority required to dominate a room—especially not with arrogant little lords like Draco Malfoy already holding court among his cronies.
Tamara lingered at the very edge of the crowd. The flickering firelight danced across her pale, flawless features, casting long shadows behind her.
She watched in silence. Her dark eyes tracked every movement, every loud boast, every nervous whisper.
Decades of past-life experience had branded one absolute truth into her soul: Slytherin House worshipped power and demanded order. Show a fraction of weakness, and these little vipers would trample you into the dirt. Show too much aloofness, and they would isolate you, cutting off your influence. Her earlier display of cold, untouchable superiority on the train had successfully established her authority, but it had also built a wall of ice between her and her peers.
That simply would not do.
A true Dark Lord could not rely on fear alone. Fear made enemies tremble, yes, but it took genuine charisma to forge fanatical loyalty. She needed these young wizards. They were the heirs of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the future elite of magical Britain. They were her unbranded Death Eater reserves, the very foundation upon which she would rebuild her empire.
And putting on a sickeningly sweet, universally beloved facade? That was her specialty.
'Watch and learn, you little idiots,' Tamara sneered in the privacy of her own mind.
Her cold, calculating black eyes blinked once. When they opened, the glacial frost had entirely melted away. In its place bloomed a deep, gentle, and utterly captivating warmth. She smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her pristine robes, adjusted her posture to project absolute grace, and glided toward the center of the room.
She stepped right up to Gemma Farley's side.
The older girl flinched slightly, caught off guard. Staring down at this exceptionally beautiful, unnervingly poised first-year, the prefect instinctively yielded, taking a half-step back to surrender the floor.
"Just as the prefect said," Tamara spoke.
Her voice lacked any trace of the prickly, dismissive ice she had wielded earlier. Instead, it flowed like liquid silk—soft, elegant, and perfectly modulated to carry into every dark corner of the subterranean room.
"We are a family."
She turned slowly, sweeping her gaze across the sea of freshmen. A flawless, angelic smile graced her lips. There was no hidden mockery in her expression, no haughty contempt. She projected nothing but absolute confidence and a warm composure that seemed to embrace every single person in the room.
Draco Malfoy stopped mid-sentence, his mouth hanging slightly open. Pansy Parkinson stared blankly, her earlier haughtiness evaporating. Even the rowdy cluster of half-blood wizards in the back involuntarily snapped their mouths shut.
The chaotic noise died a swift, sudden death.
"I know what you are all worried about." Tamara began to pace, her movements slow and deliberate. Her gentle gaze met the eyes of her peers, making sure each one felt seen. "People outside these walls say that Slytherin is nothing but a cradle for Dark Wizards. They call us cunning. They call us devious. They call us evil."
She let the heavy words hang in the damp air for a second.
"Just now, at the Sorting Ceremony, you all heard it. When Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor, the Great Hall erupted in cheers. But when the Sorting Hat shouted 'Slytherin' for us? They whispered. They stared. They judged." She tilted her head, her tone laced with a perfectly manufactured sorrow. "It feels terribly unfair, doesn't it?"
The raw indignation in the room ignited instantly.
"That's right! That filthy Weasley was glaring daggers at me the whole feast!" Gregory Goyle grunted, his heavy fists clenching.
"They're just jealous!" Draco shouted, stepping forward to claim the spotlight. "Jealous that we have actual pedigree! Jealous that we're pure-bloods!"
Tamara did not reprimand the boy for interrupting her carefully crafted monologue. Instead, she offered him a slight, encouraging nod.
"Malfoy is entirely right," she agreed smoothly. "But it is not merely a matter of bloodline."
Tamara shifted her tone. The soft sorrow vanished, replaced by a rising, infectious energy that demanded their full attention.
"It is because we are exceptional."
She stopped pacing and stood tall, commanding the space. "Salazar Slytherin did not choose his students at random. He chose us for our shrewdness. For our ambition. For our unyielding thirst for greatness. We are not satisfied with scraping by in mediocrity. We disdain the unremarkable, dull existence of a Hufflepuff, just as we reject the brainless, reckless bravado of a Gryffindor."
Her voice rang off the stone walls, crisp and authoritative. "We pursue excellence."
She raised a slender hand, pointing gracefully toward the massive green banner hanging above the mantle, where a great silver serpent coiled in eternal vigilance.
"Because we are excellent, we are envied. Because we hold the potential for true power, we are misunderstood." She lowered her hand, looking back at the crowd. "This is the burden of greatness. This is the fate of Slytherin."
The common room fell so silent one could hear the crackle of the burning logs and the distant shifting of the lake water against the glass. Every single eye was locked onto her. Even the cynical upper-years, lounging in the shadowy corners, had slowly lowered their textbooks to stare at this astonishing first-year.
It was a masterclass in manipulation.
With a few carefully chosen sentences, Tamara had taken the bitter ostracization these children felt and spun it into gold. She weaponized their insecurity, transforming their fear of being hated into a soaring sense of elite superiority. They were not hated because they were dark; they were hated because the weak feared the strong. It was a brilliant, inflammatory piece of rhetoric that instantly soothed their anxieties and ignited a fierce, collective pride.
As for the actual historical reasons why the rest of the school despised them? Minor details. Best left ignored.
"So, my friends." Tamara's gaze softened, yet retained a core of unyielding steel. She looked at the eleven-year-olds not as children, but as her closest, most valued comrades-in-arms. "Do not waste your energy on the finger-pointing of the masses. That is merely the desperate bluster of the weak."
She took one final step forward. "In the next seven years, we have only one objective."
She let the silence stretch for a heartbeat.
"Prove our absolute superiority."
Her voice dropped to a fierce, magnetic whisper that carried effortlessly. "We will seize the House Cup. We will dominate every single academic subject. We will use our absolute strength to force everyone in this castle to recognize exactly why Slytherin is the greatest house at Hogwarts."
She paused, letting the heavy promise settle over them. Then, she turned her attention directly to the pale, pointy-faced boy in the front row. A warm, challenging smile touched her lips.
"Draco. Are you willing to prove the excellence of the noble House of Malfoy to the entire school? For the glory of Slytherin?"
Being singled out by this radiant, commanding girl sent a rush of pure adrenaline straight to Draco's head. His pale cheeks flushed pink.
"Of course!" Draco shouted, his excitement so intense his voice cracked slightly on the vowel. "I'll definitely show them! I'll show Saint Potter what a real wizard looks like!"
"Very good."
The smile gracing Tamara's lips deepened into something deeply satisfied. She swept her gaze across the room one last time. Wherever she looked, she saw the exact same expression staring back at her: wide-eyed, burning fanaticism. The seeds were planted.
"Then, let us do it," she murmured softly, her voice a velvet command. "For Slytherin."
"For Slytherin!" a boy in the back roared.
The spark caught. The entire common room erupted. The freshmen threw their fists into the air, their voices merging into a rhythmic, deafening chant that shook the ebony furniture.
"For Slytherin! For Slytherin!"
[Ding! Highly inflammatory speech detected.]
[Achievement Triggered: Junior Leadership Charisma.]
[System Evaluation: Although your rhetoric relies heavily on the aggressive brainwashing techniques commonly found in mortal pyramid schemes, it is clear that you have successfully united your classmates, eliminated the freshmen's fear, and motivated their academic ambition!]
[This is True Positive Energy! This is the beautiful spirit of collectivism!]
[Rewards: Charisma +3, Wisdom +2.]
[Current Attributes: Love 10, Life 7, Wisdom 17, Courage 5.]
Listening to the system's obnoxiously perky voice echoing inside her skull, the smile on Tamara's face only grew gentler, radiating a saintly warmth.
'Positive Energy?'she sneered viciously in the dark confines of her mind.'This is called the Art of Manipulation, you absolute idiot.'
...
In the immediate aftermath of her speech, Tamara's popularity within the house skyrocketed to an untouchable peak.
The very same students who had shrunk away from her intimidating, icy aura on the Hogwarts Express now swarmed around her like moths to a brilliant flame, practically shoving each other aside for the chance to introduce themselves.
Tamara handled the mob with the patience of a saint.
She cataloged every single face, committing their names, blood statuses, and family affiliations to her flawless memory. Even when dealing with the most inconspicuous, politically useless half-blood wizards, she made sure to offer a warm nod and a tailored compliment.
"Your robes are impeccably kept," she would say to one.
"You have a very focused, intelligent gaze," she would murmur to another.
This shockingly approachable demeanor completely short-circuited the young snakes. Raised in households that strictly ranked human worth by pure-blood pedigree and wealth, receiving such genuine-sounding validation from someone so clearly superior left them utterly overwhelmed by the favor.
"She's just perfect, isn't she?" Pansy Parkinson whispered, a deep blush staining her pug-nosed face as she clutched Daphne Greengrass's arm. "So powerful, so elegant... and just so gentle."
Finally, the adrenaline faded, the crowd thinned out, and the exhausted first-years began retreating to their respective dormitories.
Tamara handled the winding stone corridor leading to the girls' quarters. She pushed open a heavy oak door to reveal a spacious, circular room. Five grand four-poster beds, each draped in thick emerald-green velvet curtains, were spaced evenly along the curved walls.
Her roommates had already arrived. Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, Daphne Greengrass, and Tracey Davis were gathered near the center rug, chatting animatedly.
The moment Tamara stepped through the doorway, the conversation died instantly. The four girls stiffened, looking at her with a mixture of deep awe and nervous reverence.
"Goodnight, everyone," Tamara said, her voice a soft, melodic chime. The perfect, angelic mask remained flawlessly glued to her features. "I truly hope we can spend a wonderful seven years together."
"Good... goodnight, Tamara," Pansy managed to reply, stumbling over the syllables as she offered a clumsy, nervous wave.
Tamara glided past them toward the innermost bed situated right beside the large, arched window. It was undeniably the best spot in the room, offering a prime view of the dark waters outside. The others had clearly left it empty specifically for her.
Her heavy brass-bound trunk already sat neatly at the foot of the mattress. Up on the plush pillows, that stupid black cat she had named Nagini was sprawled out on its back, dead to the world and snoring softly.
Without a word, Tamara drew her wand. A sharp, precise flick of her wrist sent the heavy green velvet curtains sliding shut along their brass rings with a solid clack.
The outside world was finally cut off.
In the suffocating dark of that small, private space, the illusion broke.
The gentle, elegant, and infectious smile on Tamara's face vanished without a single trace, sliding off her features like a melting wax mask. In its place settled a bone-deep exhaustion. A heavy, inescapable gloom pooled in the depths of her dark eyes.
"A bunch of easily manipulated fools," she murmured under her breath, the venom returning to her tone.
She let out a long, ragged sigh and threw herself face-first into the soft blankets.
Acting was so utterly exhausting.
It was draining enough to pretend to be a normal eleven-year-old, but playing the role of a radiant, saintly girl overflowing with Positive Energy while under the constant, patronizing surveillance of that damn system was pure torture.
She turned her head against the mattress, glaring at the black cat sleeping so defenselessly beside her pillow.
Nagini II seemed to sense its master's dark mood. Half-asleep, the feline cracked open one golden eye. It lazily reached out a soft paw, hooking its claws gently around Tamara's index finger. It rubbed its furry little head against her knuckles and let out a tiny, vibrating sound.
"Meow."
Tamara's finger instantly stiffened.
Her first instinct was to violently shake the creature off.
But as she felt the slight, steady pulse of real warmth radiating from that tiny paw against her cold skin, her hand remained frozen. She ultimately didn't move.
"At least you don't have to act," she whispered to the dark.
She stared at the cat, a fleeting trace of envy—one she didn't even recognize herself—flickering in her cold eyes.
"Goodnight, Nagini."
The Dark Lord closed her eyes.
And in her dreams that night, there was no Hogwarts. There was no cheerful system. There was only a blinding flash of sickly green light, and the sensation of her own body lying broken in a spreading pool of blood.
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