Chapter 29: Privilege
She didn't even bother hovering her hand over the splintered wood. Tamara merely stared down at the battered school broomstick, her obsidian eyes cold and expectant.
"...Up."
The worn broom on the grass shuddered violently. With a sharp whoosh, it snapped upward, slapping precisely—and almost subserviently—into Tamara's waiting palm.
The surrounding Slytherins didn't even blink. They were already intimately acquainted with Tamara's terrifying brand of excellence. To avoid drawing her ire, the few who hadn't yet managed to summon their mounts began shouting at the dirt with frantic, sweaty desperation.
Gregory Goyle, in particular, looked as though he might cry. His thick neck was flushed red, terrified that Tamara might decide to personally tutor him again.
Madam Hooch stepped forward, raising her silver whistle to her lips.
"Listen for my whistle. Three... two..."
She never made it to one.
Neville Longbottom, the round-faced Gryffindor boy who had been trembling like a leaf since he stepped onto the pitch, panicked. Terrified of being left behind on the ground, he kicked off with all his might a full second before the whistle sounded.
"Come back, boy!" Madam Hooch shouted, her voice cracking like a whip.
It was useless. Neville shot upward like a cork violently popped from a shaken champagne bottle. Twelve feet. Twenty feet. Pure, unadulterated horror stretched across his round face. His knuckles turned stark white as he gripped the handle for dear life. Then, inevitably, his weight shifted. The broom tilted sharply.
A shrill scream tore through the crisp autumn air. Neville slipped from the polished wood, plummeting from mid-air to crash heavily onto the unforgiving grass.
A sickening, wet crack echoed across the pitch.
Tamara stood several meters away, but the sound of snapping bone was unmistakable. It grated against her ears.
Neville writhed on the turf, clutching his right wrist to his chest. Heart-wrenching, breathless wails erupted from his throat.
"My hand! My hand is broken! Waaaah..."
Madam Hooch sprinted across the lawn, her face draining of color as she dropped to her knees beside the boy.
"Oh, dear... yes, a broken wrist," she muttered, her hands hovering helplessly. "Don't move, boy. Just stay still."
Neville only cried louder. Snot and tears streamed down his cheeks, mixing into a pathetic, glistening mess on his round face.
The Slytherins immediately began snickering behind their hands. The Gryffindors broke into a chaotic frenzy, shouting over one another in a useless panic.
Tamara pressed two fingers to her temples, rubbing the sudden ache there.
'Too noisy.'
This undignified, pathetic blubbering was absolute torture to her auditory nerves. She genuinely considered casting a Silencing Charm just to preserve her sanity.
Just as she pivoted on her heel, fully intending to walk away from the irritation, a familiar, overly cheerful chime rang in her skull.
[Ding! Injured patient detected.]
[Emergency Quest Triggered: Benevolent Healer.]
[Quest Description: Your classmate is in extreme pain! As one who has mastered the mysteries of life, rather than enduring the noise, why not show a miracle of mercy? This will make your image even more glorious and grand!]
[Reward: Life +2.]
Tamara's foot paused mid-step.
Life plus two.
'Every little bit counts,'she reasoned coldly.'And this is certainly the fastest way to make the idiot shut up.'
"Move."
Tamara shoved past Goyle's massive frame. He stumbled out of her path instantly. She strode straight toward the wailing Gryffindor.
Madam Hooch was just wrapping an arm around Neville's shoulders, preparing to haul him up toward the hospital wing, when she caught sight of the approaching Slytherin girl. The instructor blinked in surprise.
"Miss Riddle? Please return to the line. I am taking Mr. Longbottom to..."
"Stop shouting."
Tamara's voice was a flat, icy command that cut straight through the clamor.
She stopped beside the howling boy, looking down at him from her superior height. Enveloped by her dark, imposing shadow, Neville choked on a sob. He let out a startled hiccup, his crying abruptly pausing.
Tamara sank to one knee. She drew her holly wand with fluid grace, aiming the tip directly at Neville's wrist, which was currently bent at a grotesque, unnatural angle.
"What do you think you're doing?" Ron Weasley yelled from the crowd, his freckled face tight with suspicion. "Don't touch him!"
Tamara didn't even grant the redhead a glance.
She kept her dark eyes locked on the broken bone. Deep in her mind, the complex magical pathways of the spell she had unlocked days ago flared to life. She hadn't bothered using it in this new life yet, but magic like this—once mastered—was carved into her very soul. It was instinct.
"Episkey."
She murmured the incantation softly.
A cool, brilliant white light flared from the tip of her holly wand. It washed over Neville's arm, enveloping the mangled wrist in a soothing glow.
Snap.
A crisp, clean sound echoed in the quieted courtyard.
Neville flinched, his eyes squeezing shut in anticipation of agony. But the pain never came. Instead, a pleasant, icy tingling sensation sank deep into his flesh.
Right before the eyes of the stunned crowd, the twisted wrist snapped back into perfect alignment. The angry purple swelling vanished into thin air. The skin smoothed out, entirely unblemished.
Neville blinked, slowly opening his eyes. He flexed his fingers.
It was fixed.
Completely, flawlessly healed.
"...Eh?" Neville stared blankly at his own hand, a fat tear still clinging to his eyelashes.
Dead silence fell over the training grounds.
Even Madam Hooch looked entirely paralyzed. Her mouth hung slightly open, her piercing, hawk-like eyes bulging as she stared fixedly at the first-year Slytherin.
"A healing charm?!"
Madam Hooch's voice shot up an entire octave. "This... this is advanced medical magic! It is only encountered in the sixth or seventh-year curriculum! You are clearly only a first-year!"
The surrounding students didn't fully grasp the academic difficulty of the spell, but seeing a shattered bone mend itself in the blink of an eye was enough. A collective gasp of awe rippled through the crowd.
"What is so difficult about it?"
Tamara stood up, her movements deliberate and elegant. She slid her wand back into her robes with the casual indifference of someone who had just swatted away a mildly annoying fly.
"It is a simple matter, provided one understands basic human anatomy and proper mana channeling."
She looked down at Neville, who was still sitting dumbly on the grass, and her brow furrowed in genuine distaste.
"Why are you still sitting in the dirt? Are you waiting to take root and become part of the lawn?"
Neville scrambled to his feet, stumbling slightly. He looked at Tamara with wide, reverent eyes, as if he were staring at Merlin reborn in the flesh.
"Th-Thank you..."
[Ding! Quest Completed: Benevolent Healer.]
[You have healed a classmate with divine skill and once again shattered a Professor's worldview! Excellent work!]
[Reward: Life +2.]
[Current Life: 14.]
Tamara allowed a faint, satisfied smile to touch her lips as she brushed non-existent dust from her pristine robes.
"Alright. Well. Although the wrist is perfectly set, just to be absolutely safe..." Madam Hooch finally shook off her stupor. She looked at Tamara with an incredibly complex expression, a mix of awe and wariness.
"Mr. Longbottom still needs to visit the hospital wing to let Madam Pomfrey examine him. It was a severe fracture, after all."
The instructor took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. "As for Miss Riddle... I am awarding twenty points to Slytherin! For astonishing magical talent and timely assistance!"
Madam Hooch gripped Neville's good shoulder, steering him toward the castle. Before she marched away, she turned a fierce glare on the remaining students. "No one is to move until I return! Leave those brooms on the ground! If I see a single person in the air, you will be out of Hogwarts before you can say Quidditch!"
Naturally, the moment the professor's back disappeared around the stone pillars, her absolute authority evaporated.
"Did you see his face? That great big blubbering lump?"
Draco Malfoy laughed loudly, stepping forward to snatch a small, glittering object from the grass. It was the glass Remembrall that Neville had dropped during his fall.
"Give it here, Malfoy," Harry Potter demanded, stepping out from the Gryffindor ranks. His voice was low, carrying a dangerous edge.
"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find." Draco smirked, swinging his leg over his broomstick. "How about the top of that tree?"
"No!"
Harry shouted. He grabbed his own broom, mounted it in a flash, and kicked off hard against the earth, shooting straight into the sky.
Tamara remained firmly planted on the ground. She made absolutely no move to stop the unfolding farce.
She had just secured two Life points. Her mood was relatively pleasant, which made this the perfect time to stand back and watch the monkeys perform.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she tilted her head slightly, tracking the two blurs chasing each other through the crisp autumn sky.
Specifically, her dark eyes were locked on Harry Potter.
The bespectacled boy was displaying an entirely unnatural affinity for the air. It was his first time ever touching a broomstick, yet he cut through the wind like a falcon. He dived, banked, and accelerated with a fluid, terrifying grace. It looked as though he had spent the last ten years living in the clouds.
Then came the final maneuver. A fifty-foot, near-suicidal vertical dive, plunging straight toward the earth just to catch a worthless glass ball.
'Typical Gryffindor.'
Tamara snorted inwardly, her eyes flashing with deep-seated distaste.
This was exactly the breed of idiot Dumbledore adored. Reckless, impulsive, driven by emotion, and willing to risk life and limb for some pathetic display of so-called heroism.
In stark contrast, Tom Riddle's calculated brilliance had never once earned Dumbledore's true recognition.
Just as Harry pulled out of the dive, a furious voice echoed across the grounds. Professor McGonagall came sprinting out of the castle, her tartan robes flying, angrily ordering Harry to the ground at once.
Harry was swiftly marched away toward the castle, his head hanging low.
Draco touched down on the grass, a triumphant, nasty sneer plastered across his pale face.
"He's finished!" Draco crowed gleefully to his fellow Slytherins. "He is absolutely going to be expelled! And it's only the first Flying Class!"
The Slytherin students erupted into cheers and cruel laughter.
Only Tamara remained entirely silent. Her face was an unreadable mask.
"Do not celebrate prematurely, Draco."
Tamara's voice was flat, slicing through the cheering like a blade. Her gaze remained fixed on the heavy oak doors where Professor McGonagall and Harry had just disappeared.
"What do you mean?" Draco blinked, his smile faltering. "Madam Hooch said anyone who moves will be expelled! It's a rule!"
"Professor McGonagall's expression just now was not that of a disciplinarian catching a culprit."
Tamara turned slowly, her cold eyes sweeping over her naive, simple-minded followers, throwing a heavy wet blanket over their premature victory.
"The way she looked at Potter just now... it was exactly like a goblin staring at a mountain of Galleons."
"If I am not mistaken..."
Tamara's lips curled into a slow, mocking smile. The sheer irony of it all tasted bitter on her tongue.
"Gryffindor is likely about to welcome the youngest Seeker of the century."
"Impossible!" Draco shrieked, his pale face flushing with indignant rage. "First-years aren't allowed to have their own brooms! It's a school rule! They can't play on the team!"
"School rules?"
Tamara let out a low, contemptuous laugh. She casually tossed her own worn broom back onto the pile of splintered wood.
"Draco, do you truly not understand yet?"
She stepped closer to him, her voice dropping to a soft, dangerous murmur that carried the weight of absolute certainty.
"In this world, rules are merely tools used to constrain the mediocre."
"For the privileged—or the so-called savior—rules... are nothing more than decorations, practically begging to be broken."
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