Chapter 58 - Quidditch "Strategist" — The Conversation

Marcus looked thoroughly displeased. "Are you saying we should stop all off-pitch maneuvering, stop targeting Potter, and just let him catch the Golden Snitch?"

"Of course not. In your eyes, is the world only black and white?" Stella shot him a disdainful glare. "Little P, tell them our plan."

"Is that my new name?" Praeris asked calmly.

Stella reached out to pat Praeris on the head. Praeris dodged. The older Slytherin narrowed her eyes and smiled. "You can never have too many pet names."

Praeris declined to answer that. "Back to the matter at hand, gentlemen. Whatever your original plans were, continue them — so long as no points are deducted from Slytherin."

"I don't understand. Then what's the point of discussing any of this? We just do nothing?" Marcus said, impatient.

Praeris extended a hand and pressed it down. "Marcus. Swallow that restless heart of yours back into your stomach and try using that rusty brain of yours for once. I don't waste time on useless things — I already have enough to do as it is."

She looked toward Draco. "Draco targeting Potter is something we're all well accustomed to by now. Don't look at me like that — am I wrong? So Potter and Wood will absolutely exploit this. They'll use feints to draw your attention."

"Just like against Ravenclaw," Stella added from the side. "Potter dived, pretended he'd spotted the Golden Snitch, and Cho Chang believed it and followed."

Praeris nodded. "According to Miss Stella's analysis, because of Draco's decisive victory last time, our Quidditch point gap with Gryffindor sits at seventy points. So Gryffindor cannot catch the Golden Snitch until after they've scored seventy, otherwise they'd beat Slytherin but lose the match."

"Which means any move Gryffindor makes toward the Golden Snitch before that threshold is a feint," Stella said. "Follow without hesitation."

Marcus looked genuinely baffled. "We already know it's a feint. Why follow at all?"

Praeris shook her head. "I have to take back my praise from yesterday. The facts prove, Marcus, that you've made no progress in over two years."

Marcus crossed his palms in an "I'll shut up now" gesture.

"If you don't follow," Praeris continued, "Potter will know Draco has seen through the plan. He'll stop wasting energy on misdirection and turn his full attention to the actual Golden Snitch. That's not good for Draco."

"Before the seventy-point mark, of course we follow, but only follow. You don't need to figure out where Potter supposedly spotted it, because either he didn't actually see it, or even if he did, he won't catch it."

Stella crossed her legs. "Put one-tenth of your focus into performing the tail. The remaining nine-tenths — same as Draco's training these past days — goes into pinpointing the Golden Snitch's real location through all the interference."

Marcus was quiet for a moment, making sure he was allowed to speak. "So we're betting everything on Draco alone."

Stella scoffed. "It's always been that way, hasn't it? The Seeker is the core of a Quidditch team's victory. Do you think Draco can't handle it?"

Draco was the center of the entire conversation, yet he had remained almost completely silent throughout, just listening to the three of them lay it all out.

Now he finally spoke, his gaze settling on Praeris. "What else did you expect? Of course I'll win. Get ready to celebrate Slytherin's victory."

Praeris raised an eyebrow. That line sounded oddly familiar. She couldn't be bothered to figure out why.

Over the years, she had gradually learned to rein in her thoughts, no longer frantically analyzing everything she laid eyes on, no longer involuntarily digging into the buried histories of everyone around her.

In any case, Slytherin's strategy was settled. This was also the last thing Stella and Praeris could do for them. The two of them could serve as outside advisors to the Slytherin Quidditch team, but they couldn't be their nannies, and they certainly weren't going to manage every last detail themselves.

The next morning, Praeris found the entire Hogwarts castle saturated with panic. Security was tighter than she'd ever seen it. Students were jumping at shadows.

She made her way to the Great Hall. Breakfast matched the school's mood, flat and grim: baked beans in tomato sauce, scrambled eggs, fried mushrooms, grilled sausages, halved tomatoes, toast, yogurt balls, and orange juice.

Millicent looked thoroughly unenthusiastic. She demolished her sausages and scrambled eggs in short order, then started picking through the beans one by one. "What kind of person eats a breakfast like this?"

"The British kind," Daphne said with a shrug. "At least it's filling. You could skip lunch and not even notice."

"Sounds like I missed some excitement last night."

Praeris had arrived late. Pansy had saved her a seat so she could sit with the girls, the only drawback being that Draco occupied the other side.

Last term, she wouldn't have dared sit down facing that arrangement. She would have preferred a seat far away. Thankfully, Pansy had moved on and was currently in the full bloom of a new romance.

It wasn't any of the three girls who answered her. It was Draco. "Sirius Black broke into Gryffindor Tower, nearly stabbed Weasley, and fled after Weasley spotted him."

Across the table, Theodore Nott suddenly looked up. His gaze drifted over their side with an expression of keen interest.

Praeris frowned, unsure why this usually quiet boy was looking at them that way. She lowered her head and poked at her sausage. "Why didn't he just kill Weasley?"

"What?" Pansy asked, confused.

Praeris speared a slice of sausage and stared at it. Her eyes were sharp. "I said, killing one person. It wasn't his first time. Why go soft on Weasley?"

Draco gave a cold laugh. "The Dementors scared him out of his wits. He's terrified even of a sleeping student now."

"Perhaps," Praeris said coolly. "But if you ask me, last night was a decent opportunity. Gryffindor had just beaten Ravenclaw, they were celebrating till late. If someone had actually been killed, even with a bit of noise, Professor McGonagall and their prefects probably would've assumed it was students horsing around."

Draco looked at her with a strange expression. Three parts astonishment, seven parts horror, as if he couldn't quite believe she'd said something that chilling.

Praeris couldn't hold it in. A laugh escaped.

Pansy laughed too, pounding her on the arm. "So wicked, Prae! You scared me to death, I thought Sirius Black had turned into you!"

Millicent burst out laughing. "How could Sirius Black ever be as clever as our Prae?"

The school owls swept in with a rush of wings and began dropping letters.

Praeris found hers, one from Diagon Alley, and one addressed "to spoon."

"Neville, run!" Ron Weasley suddenly shouted.

A tremendous roar followed. Neville's grandmother's voice rang through the Great Hall, loud enough that Praeris winced and pressed both hands hard over her ears.

From the tirade, everyone gathered the same story: Neville had lost a slip of paper with all the Gryffindor passwords written on it. Sirius Black had found it.

"What a pity," Zabini remarked with a mock shake of his head. "Prince didn't treat me to buttered bread this time."

Praeris held her letters, face perfectly still. "Out of the meager house solidarity between Slytherins, I'd advise you to watch your words. I can brew dozens of poisons. I can't guarantee there's an antidote for all of them."

Zabini looked like he had more to say. Pansy waved frantically at him, urging him to leave it alone.

Praeris opened the letter from Diagon Alley. It was from Winnie, filled with all sorts of oddly solicitous words. She held it up, turned it left, turned it right. Something felt off in every direction.

She could confirm it was Winnie's handwriting. She could confirm it wasn't dictated by Madam Puli with Winnie as scribe.

Praeris thought it over and reached a conclusion: Winnie had taken the wrong medicine. She decided to write to Madam Puli and have her take Winnie to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, to check whether Winnie had addled her own brain researching new spells.

The other letter was from Hermione. That girl was under enormous pressure.

Weasley had quarreled with her. Potter was buried in Quidditch. The Firebolt business had passed, but their friendship hadn't recovered. She had to use the Time-Turner to attend a crushing number of classes, and she still had to find some way to defend Buckbeak.

Neither her useless friends nor her pen pal, the one who steadfastly refused to help Hagrid, could offer her any real help at all.

"Spoon, they don't trust me. They think I'm making a fuss over nothing, that I just want to ruin their fun. The Firebolt and Scabbers, and other things I can't tell you about. They think my heart is made of iron, but it feels like someone's jabbing needles into it. My mind has gone sluggish. I can barely breathe."

Praeris picked up her quill.

"Kitty, there's something you need to understand. None of the people around us are born Legilimens, so being misunderstood is simply our fate. In that regard, you can relax. This sort of thing will happen often."

"Last year, I was anxious about the slow pace of your investigation, especially after you were Petrified. But as it turned out, they managed quite well on their own."

"I know you worry about them. Do your best, and then let go. Respect their fate. Some things can't be changed no matter how desperately you intervene. People are not marionettes, they will never do exactly what we want them to do. Even when we can see plainly how absurd it is, some people will still insist on walking the path to ruin."

Kitty was the pen name Granger had chosen for herself. She really did seem to love Crookshanks.

"What are you writing?"

Praeris felt a flicker of irritation. Her advice had apparently made Draco ease up on targeting Potter, so he'd redirected that surplus energy toward keeping track of her instead.

Christmas night had been the same. And now today.

Was Draco really so idle?

"Nothing. Just a reply." Praeris folded the parchment and slid it into an envelope. "How's training? Confident you can fool Potter? Think you can find the Golden Snitch?"

Three questions in a row. Draco had no answer for any of them. He pressed his lips together and stalked off, his leather shoes striking the floor with pointed force.

Back in her dormitory, Praeris unlocked the casket on her bed and placed Hermione's and Winnie's letters inside. She leafed through the stack, a little surprised at how many she'd accumulated.

In the beginning, there had been neither a casket nor letters. Just Christmas cards from one person, the "Half-Blood Prince." She had kept them tucked under her pillow. They were her only comfort in the orphanage, the one thing she had.

Back then she had carried a small, secret hope: perhaps one day the Half-Blood Prince would come to the orphanage and tell Sister Mayne, "I intend to adopt this girl", or perhaps, "I am this girl's family. I've come to take her away."

The most beautiful dream she had ever dreamed as a child was the Half-Blood Prince taking her out of that place.

She had long since stopped dreaming it. But she still found herself wondering about his identity, from time to time.

In her early years, she had even speculated whether the "Half-Blood Prince" might be Professor Snape. After all, he had fulfilled her quiet expectation, he had taken her out of the orphanage.

And he had also given Praeris Galleons, even if it was "compensation" offered jointly with Madam Sprout.

But then, Professor Snape, writing her a Christmas card? With a message like "May you have a happy Christmas"?

How much had he had to drink?

She set the Half-Blood Prince's letters aside. Underneath them lay an old newspaper, a Daily Prophet article about "Sylvia Prince."

The young witch in the photograph looked haggard. Her eyes were full of remorse.

Praeris didn't know what she regretted. She didn't know what she hated.

Ever since confirming that Sylvia was indeed her biological mother, Praeris had stopped digging into her own past.

She was living well now. She had long passed the age of needing a mother. Sylvia's existence was something she could take or leave, in truth, not having her was better than having her.

Compared to a vicious, absent mother, even the Half-Blood Prince, who had only watched her from a distance year after year and sent a single Christmas card, felt more important to her than Sylvia ever had.

Because when she finished scrubbing clothes at night, she could still pick up that card and give herself something small to hold onto, something to dream about. Because when she was hungry enough to want to gnaw on the bed sheets, she could take the banknote tucked inside and bribe the old kitchen nun for a piece of rock-hard black bread.

Saturday came. Her classmates went off to Hogsmeade, and Praeris stayed behind to study. Millicent had chosen to stay with her.

Exceptional mental ability was Praeris's strength, but many brilliant people had faded away in the river of time because they failed to understand that a sharp mind alone was never enough. Wisdom and cleverness were not the same thing.

"Ugh!" Millicent dropped her head back in despair. "I feel like I have absolutely zero imagination. Come on, tell me what my tea leaves look like!"

➤ Next: Millicent's "First Battle"