Chapter 56 - Winnie's Memories — Tears Unshed

Dumbledore winked, his expression unreadable. "Her name is Praeris Prince — black hair, black eyes, very clever. Go to the Leaky Cauldron during the summer holidays, and trust me, you'll find her straight away."

The description was so vague that Winnie almost suspected he'd come to toy with her, that he had no intention of letting her find the child at all. Yet miraculously, finding the child turned out to be exactly as easy as Dumbledore had said.

She didn't press for details. It wasn't only that she trusted Dumbledore. It was that she had already sunk into old memories before the conversation was even over.

Her closest friend from school had carried the surname Prince. Their friendship hadn't survived. Before they even graduated, the two of them had gone their separate ways over nothing more than differing ambitions.

The falling-out had been ugly. Hill believed Winnie was walking straight into ruin, that she was helping evil thrive, and they had a screaming row over it. Winnie believed Hill simply didn't understand, didn't understand her ideals, didn't understand her hunger for knowledge.

"Hill! Darling!" she had said. "I'm not going to commit murder or set fires! He's a capable man, and I'm just learning from him!"

Sylvia was shaking with fury. "Once you've truly followed him, whether you commit murder or set fires won't be yours to decide!"

"What I do is different from the other Death Eaters. They call him Master — I call him Teacher. He promised me I'd only need to study and do research. What's wrong with that?"

Sylvia laughed, but there was no warmth in it. "That's now! Do you really think he'll be generous to you forever? The devil always dresses his deceptions in something noble-sounding!"

They fell out completely after that. Sylvia made her position clear through cold silence. Winnie was furious that Sylvia had picked up their friendship and set it down like a bargaining chip.

The Mysterious One had been patient, unhurried, drawing her along gently. "Winnie, if your friend truly cared about you, truly understood you — how could she not respect your choice?"

Winnie thought: exactly. If Hill truly valued what they had, how could she place it on a scale to be weighed?

He had added: "Of course, I believe your friend will find her way back. You must believe in the power of your friendship too. She will see the steadfastness in your heart, when you are standing firm on the right path."

For the rest of that final year, Winnie stayed in a simmer of wounded pride and refused to go anywhere near Gryffindor Tower.

Gryffindor Tower was so close to Ravenclaw Tower. And so far.

After graduation, she followed the Mysterious One, and the real world unfolded before her, slow and merciless. She was pushed into doing things she hadn't wanted to do. After that, she could never face Hill again.

She still missed her, though. Even without being able to face her, she missed her good friend and wanted to know she was all right.

Winnie paid a certain price. She asked Narcissa to find out what had become of Sylvia Prince.

Among the Mysterious One's followers, Narcissa was one of the few Slytherins she could stand even marginally, despite the fact that Narcissa's mind seemed perpetually occupied with that husband of hers who looked down on everyone he met.

The bad news was that there was no news. The good news was that, at least, there was no news.

Narcissa had found nothing on Sylvia. It was as though she had simply vanished into the vast world and left no trace behind.

It was wartime. Life and death were uncertain. Someone could be perfectly fine today and gone forever by tomorrow. Sylvia wasn't on the same side as her, which made inquiring even harder.

Without a definitive answer, Winnie could at least imagine her friend living somewhere quiet and happy, somewhere no one knew to look.

To make the price Winnie had paid worth something, Narcissa promised her: the moment she had any word of Sylvia, she would come and tell her immediately.

It was around the fourth or fifth year after the Mysterious One's fall, Winnie wasn't certain which, that Narcissa found her again to honor that promise.

She looked Winnie over first, a slow sweep from head to toe. "You've let yourself go. What a waste of your talent."

"Narcissa, it isn't waste. When you chose family, I don't imagine you thought of it as waste either," Winnie said, unbothered.

"Fair enough. Let's get to the point." Narcissa's tone was light, almost breezy. "I'm not sure whether you'll want to hear this. But a promise is a promise."

Sylvia had been brought before the tribunal. The verdict: Azkaban. The news would appear in the Daily Prophet the next day.

"Absolutely certain?"

"Beyond doubt."

Lucius had attended a trial the day before, Narcissa explained, then hurried out again that same evening. It had caught her attention. She looked into it, and that was how she learned: the person on trial was Sylvia Prince, a Gryffindor graduate. The charge was using the Imperius Curse on a Muggle.

The Imperius Curse is meant to control. But that particular Muggle had a formidable will, and he resisted fiercely. Sylvia lost control of herself, pushed the magic harder, and killed him.

That Muggle was her husband. Deepol William.

Their last quarrel was still vivid in Winnie's memory. And now here it was: Winnie, who had joined the Death Eaters, had somehow managed to skirt the edge of the abyss without killing anyone with her own hands. And Sylvia, who had fought so hard to keep her from joining, had killed a Muggle with her own.

Winnie couldn't make sense of it. Why would Hill use the Imperius Curse on her own husband? She hadn't been that kind of person.

Fate was sometimes this absurd. It didn't spare anyone.

Lupin's letter had dredged all of it back up again. But even so, Winnie still didn't believe Prae was Hill's child.

First: neither Narcissa nor the Daily Prophet had ever mentioned Hill having a child at all. From Winnie's own time at the Ministry, standard procedure had always been to arrange care for a convict's underage family. And Hill had mentioned once that she had a very unpleasant cousin.

Second: Prae and Hill, beyond the hair and the eyes, looked almost nothing alike.

Third: Hill was a Gryffindor. Prae was a Slytherin. They were pointing in completely opposite directions.

Fourth: Prae's mind and her capacity for learning were simply not within the reach of ordinary people. But Hill had been the girl who dozed off in class, who spent her free time reading Muggle novels, and who considered an "A" on an exam cause for celebration.

If Hill truly had a child, why wasn't that child placed with her cousin? Why had she ended up an orphan? And if she really was Hill's, why hadn't Dumbledore said a single word about it?

None of it added up.

Whatever the truth was, Remus Lupin's letter had lodged itself in Winnie's chest like a splinter, working its way in a little deeper every time she thought of her friend behind those walls.

She opened the wardrobe and looked at the clothes inside, the outfit Praeris had worn on her summer outing.

What a coincidence. The blouse in that set had been bought for Winnie by Hill. Back then, Hill had been deep in her obsession with studying Muggle culture. She'd dragged Winnie to Liberty's department store and bought her this blouse: ruffled tie-neck collar, lantern sleeves, the sort of thing Hill had loved instantly.

Over dinner at an Italian restaurant that summer, Praeris had brought up the old tensions between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Winnie had casually mentioned the story she knew, how Potter, a Gryffindor prefect, had once hung Snape upside down.

When she'd told Hill the same story, Hill had gone still, then furious, and had moved to storm out.

Winnie stopped her. "What are you so angry about? It wasn't Gryffindor that came off worse!"

Hill looked ready to breathe fire, like a lioness, chest heaving. But when Winnie pushed her for an answer, she couldn't produce one. It left Winnie completely baffled.

Finally, Hill had said through gritted teeth: "When they fight, I can call them hot-blooded. Brave. But what is this? This is just humiliating someone."

The memory stayed with Winnie. When she stood looking at the blouse she had given Praeris, she found herself turning it over again.

If Prae really was Hill's child...

There were threads between them. Small ones, but there. They both had the same kind of soul, something kind underneath it all.

Winnie closed her eyes. The pain was quiet and total.

If it was true, how would Prae face it? How would she face the fact that the mother she had never met was a murderer?

Praeris had no idea that Lupin had written to Winnie. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: Lupin had told on her to the professor.

Professor Lupin! How are you this accomplished at tattling on students!

Snape's face was a closed door. When he spoke, his words came out like icicles dripping from a roof. "Miss, the professor who has taught you for two and a half years nearly failed to recognize you. He almost thought you were a Gryffindor student."

He moved. Slow, measured steps, circling her, attacking from every angle with nowhere to hide. "First to stand up. Correct? Do you think your life is made of iron?"

"Running experiments on a werewolf, were you? Do you think your neck is made of iron? Do you think a werewolf in a frenzy cares who you are?"

Praeris stood like a soldier called to attention. Whatever Snape threw at her, she didn't make a sound.

"Gone quiet, have you, Miss Praeris?" His voice dropped lower. "You're usually so eloquent."

"Professor. I'm very sorry."

Her mouth said it. Her mind didn't agree. She had her own means of protection. She wouldn't have died so easily.

Snape saw through it. She could tell the moment it happened: a sharp exhale, something between a laugh and a snarl, and behind his expression, fury going white-hot. "Fine. Then tell me exactly what you did wrong."

An hour later, Praeris stood before Caretaker Filch for the first time in the capacity of a student being punished.

She had explained herself to Snape, carefully, honestly. She laid out her reasoning on the prophecy. She argued that she had the ability to protect herself. When she was done, she had even offered a tidy summary: "I believe my mistake was in not consulting you first. You might have had a better approach."

She had thought it was a perfect answer.

Professor Snape had looked even angrier.

And that was how she ended up in front of Filch.

Filch's expression was the color of a bad mood. "Miss Prince, Professor Snape almost never punishes Slytherin students. But you've gone bad. You've let those troublemakers put ideas in your head, and you've gone and angered him." He shook his head, faintly righteous about it. "Hard work and suffering, that's the real teacher. You should have taken this lesson a long time ago."

Punishment, in practice, meant polishing the trophies in the Trophy Room. No magic permitted, that was the only real inconvenience. Compared to Sister Mayne's housework punishments back at the convent, it was still remarkably light.

There wasn't even much dust on the trophies.

Later, leafing through the punishment logbook, Praeris found the name of the last person to have done this same task. Ron Weasley, a year ago.

She smiled, but there wasn't much warmth in it. So she'd been promoted, it seemed. From the professor's trusted student to his most troublesome one.

The Christmas holidays passed quickly. If she were being honest, the only real gain from the start of last term to now was completing the replication of the Wolfsbane Potion under the professor's guidance.

She couldn't have done it alone. The final result made that clear, she had taken several wrong turns along the way, and had only corrected course each time because Professor Snape had pointed her back in the right direction.

Still, it had been a genuinely valuable exercise. She understood the shape of independent research now in a way she hadn't before.

The only downside was what it had cost Professor Snape. He'd gone off like a cannon, and since then, apart from class, he hadn't given her a single new task.

Praeris redirected the time toward her other coursework. Occasionally she tried brewing something new on her own, or made the rounds to her two employer professors to see what she could scrounge.

"We beat Ravenclaw!" Marcus was practically vibrating. "Great work, Draco! Praeris, you should have seen it — Draco was brilliant!"

Draco lifted his chin. The smugness was radiant.

"I thought Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were supposed to play first?"

She didn't follow Quidditch. She had never cared enough to learn how the tournament worked.

Marcus, in his element, became noticeably more coherent. "You've got it wrong — you're not familiar with the format. It's a round-robin. Each house plays all three other houses once. Highest total points wins. If points are tied, the winner of the head-to-head match takes it."

"Take this year. Slytherin needs to beat all three houses — we just need to take down Hufflepuff and Gryffindor from here. Say Slytherin beats Hufflepuff and then faces Gryffindor. Gryffindor beats Ravenclaw and then faces Slytherin. At that point, Slytherin has two wins with one left to go. Gryffindor has one win with two left to go."

"If Slytherin beats Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff sits at two losses and is out. If Ravenclaw loses to Gryffindor, Ravenclaw is also at two losses and out."

"If Slytherin beats Gryffindor in the final match, that's three to one, we win clean. If Gryffindor wins instead, we're both at two and two, and Gryffindor takes it on the head-to-head result." He spat to the side. "Knock on wood. Either way, only the first thing is happening."

Praeris had a sudden, rueful clarity. "If only you'd been able to explain things like this when you were studying for your O.W.L.s."

Marcus covered his face. "Alright, alright. My fault entirely, Professor Prince!"

Draco gave a short, cold laugh. "Strip all that down: either we win three-to-one outright, or two houses tie at two each and it goes to a deciding match."

Marcus looked at Praeris. Then at Draco. "Then why didn't you just say that from the beginning? I just explained the whole thing!"

➤ Next: An Unfamiliar Ear