Chapter 17: Every Grain is Hard Work
Tamara Riddle released her grip on the Sorting Hat. The ancient, frayed piece of magical headwear was visibly trembling against the wooden stool, looking very much like it had just suffered a severe psychological break. She paid its pathetic state no mind. Smoothing the front of her robes with practiced elegance, she descended the steps as the Slytherin table erupted into a deafening burst of applause.
She ignored the complicated, suspicious glances cast her way by the Gryffindor table, keeping her chin high as she walked straight toward the silver and green banners—the long table reserved exclusively for the elite and the purebloods.
"Over here! Tamara!"
Draco Malfoy's voice cut through the noise. He patted the empty space on the bench beside him with frantic enthusiasm, simultaneously driving a sharp kick into Gregory Goyle's shin to force the larger boy to the far end of the table.
Tamara offered a measured, aristocratic nod and took her seat, acknowledging his eagerness with the grace of a queen greeting a loyal subject.
"I knew you would come to Slytherin." Draco's pale, pointed face flushed with a bizarre sense of personal pride. He puffed out his chest, making it seem as though Tamara joining the house of snakes was an honor he shared, or perhaps a brilliant political maneuver he had personally arranged.
At the staff table, Albus Dumbledore rose to his feet.
The ancient wizard beamed at the sea of students, his arms spread wide as if he wished to physically embrace the entire Great Hall. He looked utterly delighted simply to see the room full of children.
"Welcome!" Dumbledore's voice echoed warmly off the stone walls. "Welcome to Hogwarts for a new school year! Before the feast begins, I have a few words to say: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
He sat back down to a chorus of cheers and clapping.
"Is he mad?" Harry Potter leaned over and quietly asked Percy at the Gryffindor table.
Meanwhile, observing from the Slytherin table, Tamara allowed a microscopic sneer to touch her lips.
'Just pretending to be crazy,'she analyzed coldly in her mind.'A calculated eccentricity to disarm his enemies. Pathetic.'
But the old fool's mental state was not important right now. What was important was that when she looked down, her previously empty golden plate was instantaneously piled high with a magnificent feast.
Roast beef, glistening roast chicken, thick pork chops, tender lamb chops, plump sausages, and perfectly seared steaks covered the table. Bowls overflowed with boiled potatoes, roasted potatoes, golden chips, Yorkshire puddings, peas, and carrots. The rich, savory aroma assaulted Tamara's senses, making her mouth water instantly.
To be completely honest, she was starving.
The dishwater cabbage soup and rock-hard black bread at Wool's Orphanage had been an absolute torture to the human digestive system. This developing, fragile body was currently sending frantic signals of starvation directly to her brain.
Maintaining her poised facade, she picked up her silver knife and fork. She targeted a small, perfectly roasted lamb chop, intending to cut a ladylike portion suitable for a refined pureblood heiress.
However, the very instant the tines of her fork grazed the porcelain plate, Draco Malfoy's brow furrowed in deep offense. He aimed another vicious kick under the table at Goyle, who sat directly opposite them.
"Goyle, what are you staring at?" Draco drawled, adopting the haughty tone of a lord addressing a particularly dim-witted serf. "Can you not see Miss Riddle's plate is empty? Do you expect a lady to serve herself? You have absolutely no initiative."
Goyle froze, a half-eaten chicken leg dangling from his thick fingers. His heavy brow furrowed as his sluggish brain tried to process the situation.
"Serve her some of that roast beef! It is the specialty here!" Draco ordered, clearly using his crony to show off his own authority and hospitality.
"Oh... oh!"
Goyle dropped the chicken leg with a wet thud and seized a massive silver serving spoon. In his deeply simple mind, generous hospitality equated to sheer volume. Or perhaps he looked at Tamara's slender frame and decided she needed to bulk up to his own formidable dimensions. He wielded the serving spoon like a coal miner shoveling fuel into a furnace.
Whoosh!
A colossal, steaming mound of roast beef slapped down directly on top of the delicate lamb chop Tamara had just selected.
"And pork chops!" Draco directed from the sidelines.
Splat!
Two massive, grease-glistening fried pork chops were slapped onto the beef.
"Mashed potatoes!"
Plop!
A gargantuan blob of mashed potatoes, oozing with thick brown gravy, sealed the top of the meat mountain like a culinary avalanche.
Watching Goyle's crude, heavy-handed movements, Tamara stared at the monstrosity. Her fingers tightened around her knife and fork until her knuckles turned a stark, bloodless white.
"That is enough," she stated, her voice dropping a few degrees toward absolute zero.
"You absolute idiot!" Draco finally realized the catastrophic scale of Goyle's serving and sneered in disgust. "Are you trying to bury the entire plate? Who could possibly eat all of that?"
Goyle blinked his small, piggy eyes in genuine innocence. He looked at the towering pile of meat on his own plate, which was still marginally larger than Tamara's, and then looked back at her with a blank expression.
"It is fine."
Tamara drew in a slow, measured breath, fighting to keep her outward elegance intact. She set down her cutlery, fully intending to push this plate of despair aside and summon a clean one.
However, the instant her manicured fingertip brushed the golden rim of the plate, a cheerful chime echoed in her skull.
[Ding! Detecting host attempting to waste food.]
[Triggering Virtue Daily Quest: Every Grain is Hard Work.]
[Quest Description: Do you know how many children in this world are starving? For example, the 'you' in the orphanage. Wasting food is an extremely shameful act, especially when it is the result of the hard labor of the Hogwarts House-elves.]
[Quest Objective: Eat all the food on the plate; not even a single pea is allowed to remain.]
[Quest Reward: Life +2, Constitution slightly enhanced.]
[Failure Penalty: Loudly burping in public for three minutes.]
Tamara's hand turned to stone.
She stared at the mountain of gravy-soaked meat, listening to the perky voice in her head with mounting horror.
'Are you serious?'she roared in the dark confines of her mind.'This single plate holds enough calories to sustain a mountain troll! You expect me to consume all of it? My stomach will rupture!'
[Host, please rest assured! Your body is currently in a critical period of growth and development. Due to long-term malnutrition, while your stomach capacity is small, your cellular absorption needs are massive. The System will assist you with rapid digestion—no one will die. Please commence your Clean Plate Action!]
She absolutely could not eat this much. But she also absolutely could not sit at the high table of Slytherin House and belch like a drunken sailor for three minutes straight.
'Gregory Goyle.'
Tamara took a mental chisel and carved his name at the very top of her Death Blacklist, placing him several ranks higher than Harry Potter.
She picked up her knife and fork once more.
"No need to change it," she said, flashing a smile at Goyle that carried the distinct chill of an open grave. Goyle, who had been reaching out to take the plate back, flinched. "Thank you for your... enthusiasm. Since it has been served, it cannot be wasted."
With that, she speared a massive chunk of roast beef and shoved it into her mouth.
The next twenty minutes became a horrifying spectacle for anyone sitting within a ten-foot radius of the Slytherin table.
The seemingly delicate, fragile, and aristocratic Tamara Riddle was systematically demolishing a mountain of food. She ate with impeccable, terrifying elegance, her movements precise and astonishingly fast.
"Merlin..." Pansy Parkinson murmured from across the table. Her own fork hung suspended in mid-air, entirely forgotten. "She... she looks absolutely famished."
"You would not know it by looking at her," Blaise Zabini noted, raising a dark eyebrow in amusement. He watched the new girl with deep fascination. "How can such a slender body hold so much mass?"
Only Tamara knew the sheer, agonizing torment she was enduring.
As the heavy food slid down her throat, her stomach stretched tight like a drum. Even with the System's magical digestive assistance working in overdrive, the physical sensation of being gorged to the bursting point was agonizingly real.
'System... I cannot do this anymore...'she pleaded internally, her dark soul crying out for mercy.'If I swallow one more bite, I am going to vomit all over Draco Malfoy.'
[Keep going, Host! Just the last half of a pork chop and two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes! For the sake of not burping! For the glory of Slytherin! Sprint!]
Tamara felt genuine, physiological tears prick the corners of her eyes. She drew a shallow breath, speared the final, gravy-soaked piece of meat, and shoved it into her mouth with the tragic resolve of a martyr marching to the gallows.
The moment she swallowed, she felt the dense mass of food pressing directly against the base of her throat.
[Ding! Quest complete: Every Grain is Hard Work.]
[Reward issued: Life +2.]
Tamara lacked the energy to even formulate a curse against the System.
She slumped back in her heavy wooden chair. Her normally rigid, perfect posture collapsed into a slight backward lean, while her left hand slipped beneath the table to discreetly unfasten the silver buckle of her uniform belt.
She was too full.
She felt exactly like a python that had just unhinged its jaw to swallow an entire cow, desiring nothing more than to coil up beneath a warm heat lamp and digest for the next month.
"Wow, Tamara, you are amazing."
Goyle stared at her sparkling clean plate, his piggy eyes shining with sincere, awe-struck praise. It was as if he had finally found a true kindred spirit. "I thought girls like you only ate tiny little portions."
Tamara turned her head slowly. She fixed him with a glazed, dead-eyed stare radiating pure, unadulterated malice.
"Shut up, Goyle," Draco snapped, shoving the larger boy away with a sneer of dismissal. "Do not measure Tamara by your own gluttonous standards."
Right on cue, the savory remnants of the feast vanished from the golden platters, instantly replaced by towering displays of dessert. Blocks of ice cream in every conceivable flavor, steaming apple pies, sticky treacle tarts, and rich chocolate cakes materialized out of thin air.
"Hey! There is a pudding here!" Goyle announced happily. He grabbed his massive serving spoon again, his face lighting up with the eager desire to demonstrate his excellent hospitality once more.
Tamara snapped upright so fast the sudden movement nearly sent the roast beef making a return trip.
She forced a sweet, angelic smile onto her face, her eyes locking onto Goyle's thick wrist. "Thank you, Gregory," she said softly, her voice dripping with polite restraint. "But if you insist on putting anything else on my plate, I will have to stab your hand to the table with this fork."
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]