Chapter 67 - Undercurrents — The Conversation

In the silent night, the old floorboards of the Leaky Cauldron creaked faintly under leather shoes.

Praeris pulled her thoughts away from Advanced Potion-Making and looked warily toward the door.

It was nearly closing time for Old Tom. The kitchen hands had long since gone off duty. Who would come all the way to the end of the second-floor corridor at this hour?

TAP, TAP.

"It's me." Winnie's voice came from the other side of the door.

Praeris flicked the wand that had already slipped into her palm. The lock turned without a sound.

A figure slipped into the room and pulled the door shut behind her.

Winnie wasn't wearing any of her sharply designed clothes tonight. She had changed into plain black robes. Her face was pale, and her eyes wouldn't settle.

"This late — is something wrong?"

There was nowhere to sit, so Praeris stacked a few books as a makeshift cushion. Winnie waved a hand and declined.

She wouldn't quite meet Praeris's eyes. "About the Quidditch World Cup," she said, voice low. "We're... not going."

"We? Including Ms. Prim?" Praeris caught the word. "Has something happened? I haven't seen anything in the paper about the Cup being canceled."

"Life is full of surprises." Winnie's gaze drifted, finding nothing to land on. "Honestly, the World Cup isn't that interesting anyway."

Praeris watched Winnie's profile in silence. The quiet settled into every corner of the room, unbroken except for the soft POP of bubbles bursting in the cauldron.

Praeris moved the cauldron off the flame without hurry and said softly, "Miss, I think you know I'm not the sort of person who can be brushed off with a few casual words. Am I right?"

Winnie's eyes fixed on the candlestick in front of Praeris, her gaze hollow. "They came to me. They wanted to test my loyalty. You know I once had a... particular status, and I was fortunate enough to escape the post-war purge."

Praeris felt a jolt of surprise. "You-Know-Who has really returned? Are they planning to cause a scene at the World Cup — to announce his comeback?"

Her expression darkened. This was coming far too fast.

If that were true, what was Professor Snape supposed to do?

3 years of watching him, and his position remained genuinely ambiguous. He had once been a Death Eater, yet he had earned Dumbledore's trust, become Head of Slytherin, and brewed Wolfsbane Potion for Lupin on Dumbledore's orders.

Praeris was a Slytherin. She was Snape's student. His apprentice. And Professor Snape's relative.

Without an absolute conflict of life-and-death interest forcing the issue, Snape's position would very likely determine which side Praeris ended up on.

At least for now, that was how she saw it.

Winnie rolled up her sleeve, baring the inside of her left forearm. A skull with a serpent slithering from its mouth. Sinister. Unsettling.

She shook her head, something frantic in the motion. "I don't know for certain. He didn't summon us in person. But whether it's psychological or he's actually been resurrected, my mark has been giving me strange sensations lately."

"So you haven't responded to their demands yet," Praeris said. Not a question.

Winnie sank onto the carpet and exhaled slowly. "No. Until I make up my mind to attend a gathering, they won't tell me their specific plans. But in any case — you're a half-blood. Even if almost no one knows that right now, you absolutely cannot go to the World Cup. And not just you. Prim can't go either. Who knows what they'll do when they go berserk? Death Eaters have killed pure-bloods before."

"I was never interested in Quidditch to begin with." Praeris poured the potion into a bottle. "Have you told Dumbledore?"

"I don't know if I should." Winnie pressed her hands against her head, anguish written across her face. "What if he really has come back?"

"You don't know how powerful he once was, but I've seen it with my own eyes. Dumbledore cannot stop him. Dumbledore is old — he couldn't stop his rise the first time. Are we really supposed to pin our hopes on Harry Potter? On another miracle? Piling the fates of countless people onto one child's shoulders — what cowardly, helpless behavior!"

Praeris nodded and slid the potion bottle onto the shelf behind her. "I understand. You're torn. You're afraid of Voldemort, afraid that when he returns, he'll come for you, drag your soul down with him. But you can't fully trust Dumbledore either. You refuse to hand your fate over to someone else."

"You didn't have to lay it out quite that plainly." Winnie's voice came out flat, deflated. "Sometimes I feel like I've grown up. Other times I feel like I'm still stuck in the year I quarreled with your mother, and I've never moved past it."

"Winnie." Praeris looked at her steadily. "Do you remember what you told me? That letting go of everything in the past isn't actually that hard for you. You just need to figure out what you want right now."

Winnie was quiet for a moment. It wasn't that she didn't understand.

When life and death enter the equation, nothing is small anymore. Even the simplest decision becomes enormous when it might determine whether you, or someone else, survives.

Choosing to live was easy, in the abstract. No one didn't want to live. But when a choice could be the thing that kills you, or kills someone beside you, it stopped being easy at all.

Still, Praeris's words had pointed her somewhere. As long as she could convince herself, what did it matter which way she went? The Winnie Brown who'd gone mad chasing an ideal was long gone. What remained was the version of her that reality had worn smooth.

Once she'd thought it through to that point, Winnie stopped fighting herself. She pulled her sleeve back down slowly, eyes wandering around the room.

After they had agreed to watch the Quidditch World Cup together, Praeris had kept her word, she hadn't set foot outside the Leaky Cauldron in over 10 days. Even letters from friends were collected on her behalf by Old Tom.

The room in front of Winnie could no longer be called a guest room. It was a laboratory.

Old Tom indulged her like a doting elder and simply let her do as she pleased.

The bed was gone. In its place stood a large wooden rack crammed with bottles and jars of every shape and size, some holding dried herbs, others finished potions. The rest of the room, every inch except the fireplace, was occupied by books of varying thickness, rolls of parchment, and a haphazard tangle of tools.

Praeris sat cross-legged on the carpet, alternating between Advanced Potion-Making and the cauldron.

"Where do you sleep?" Winnie looked as though she were about to fall apart.

Praeris leaned forward and flopped face-down onto the desk. "Like this."

"All of this happened in one month?"

"Evidently." Praeris nodded. "I'll take everything with me before term starts, I found a trunk that holds it all. Don't worry, I'll leave the room exactly as I found it."

Winnie swallowed. "You're even crazier than I was at eighteen."

"Probably not, though. The 'teacher' you chose for yourself was You-Know-Who. Mine is Professor Snape."

"Merlin! Stop digging up my past!"

Professor Snape had written back. In his view, Praeris's essay barely met his standards. That, however, did not mean she was permitted to slacken. Every task he had assigned must be completed before the start of term, not a single one omitted.

Did Professor Snape know about the World Cup situation?

Would he attend the gathering? Perhaps he assumed Praeris had no interest in Quidditch and saw no need to warn her.

Or had the other Death Eaters simply not invited him? Did they suspect him? Did they think a man with no particular love of Quidditch would be too conspicuous there?

Draco was a different matter, and rather funny for it. The son of a Death Eater had written in his letter that he fully intended to attend the Quidditch World Cup, every line radiating cheerful anticipation.

Flush with money as he was, he had even enclosed a ticket for Praeris and invited her along.

Either he had no idea what was coming, or he thought a Death Eater attack was simply another part of the spectacle.

Whether people were looking forward to it or dreading it, the 1994 Quidditch World Cup kicked off beneath a surface of churning undercurrents. Wizarding fans converged on Britain from every corner of the world for the event.

After Winnie left, Praeris went downstairs at the same time each day to collect the morning paper from Old Tom, making sure she didn't miss anything.

Summer dawns came early. When the sky was barely light, Praeris was already downstairs for breakfast.

A stack of newspapers sat beside the counter, the Daily Prophet's daily consignment for sale. Wizards and witches who wanted a copy paid Old Tom and took one.

"A complete disgrace." Old Tom shook his head. "Quidditch fans from all over the world, and this is the kind of chaos that breaks out. The French will never let us hear the end of it."

Praeris took the paper. The front-page headline was printed in bold, unavoidable type: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP. Below it, a photograph of the Dark Mark blazing against a night sky above the forest.

The writer had turned the whole sequence of events into something cinematic, twists, mounting dread, the sense that the Ministry of Magic was on the verge of collapse and the entire world along with it.

Praeris glanced at the byline. Rita Skeeter.

Winnie had mentioned her. The press's premier rumor-monger. Out of 10 sentences, maybe half of one was worth believing.

Notorious as she was, Skeeter's articles always sold. People didn't care about the truth; they cared whether the words could move them, give them something to want, the thrill of discovery, the pleasure of glimpsing someone else's secrets, a legitimate excuse to feel things loudly.

And for everyone who had attended the World Cup and come back unscathed, the more the incident was blown up, the better. That way they could pin every bit of the blame on an incompetent Ministry of Magic and squeeze out compensation for losses they had never actually suffered.

Even if all they'd gotten was a kick from a dung beetle, these wizards could suddenly access talents they'd never shown at school and produce loss reports longer than Praeris's Venomous Tentacula growth agent essay.

She was getting off track. Praeris shook her head, handed Old Tom back his paper, and headed toward Prim Pernelle's Beauty Potions shop.

"Little Prae, so early?"

Ms. Prim had returned from Devon a few days ago. She was watering her flowers at a leisurely pace, entirely unhurried, in quiet defiance of the turbulent world outside.

"Has Winnie come back?" Praeris asked.

"Come back?" Ms. Prim looked mildly puzzled. "She was sleeping in the guest room all last night. She didn't go anywhere."

The first smile of Praeris's day finally appeared. "I was worried she'd snuck off behind our backs to catch the Quidditch on her own."

"I can hear someone talking about me first thing in the morning!" Winnie came clattering down the stairs in slippers two sizes too big. "Prim, aren't you going to say something to her?"

"That's because your track record speaks for itself."

Praeris pulled a face at Winnie. Ms. Prim laughed.

Praeris and Winnie exchanged a glance. In the instant their eyes met, something passed between them that no one else in the room would have caught.

Winnie had not attended the Death Eater gathering the night before.

Whether she had made an excuse or refused outright, the likelihood of her siding with Voldemort had just shrunk considerably. The Death Eaters' distrust of her would grow accordingly.

"Oh! Right!" Ms. Prim clapped her hands together. "I have something for you!"

She bustled upstairs, then bustled back down, pressing an ornately wrapped box into Praeris's hands.

"What's this?"

Praeris opened it. Inside, the fabric caught the light, a color falling somewhere between emerald and moss green. Where light hit it, the fabric went pale and bright; where shadow fell, it deepened. A subtle silken sheen made it ripple as Praeris lifted it, light moving across the surface like water.

Anyone with eyes could see it was worth a fortune.

"Winnie told me you're holding a ball this year," Ms. Prim said. "I imagine you've seen on your supply list that you'll need dress robes. Prae, I have no children. In my eyes, you are my child. Whatever other children have, my child will have too."

"This is far too much," Praeris said reflexively.

Winnie was already drawing breath to back Prim up and steer Praeris toward accepting the gift, when Praeris said, with obvious delight: "Ms. Prim, you're too good to me! I'll take such good care of it!"

She thrust the box into Winnie's arms, spread her own wide, and pulled Ms. Prim into a hug.

Winnie covered her face with her hands. What was I even worried about? She might hold back with me, but never with Prim. Those two are practically mother and daughter.

Professor Snape's assignments had been calibrated to the absolute limit. By the time Praeris finished the last of them, summer was down to its final hours.

At around 11 the next morning, she was already standing before the Hogwarts Express with her trunk.

Midway down the train, she spotted Pansy and Daphne, who had claimed seats well in advance. Pansy looked thoroughly miserable.

"Who's upset you, princess?" Praeris dropped into the seat across from her.

Daphne let out a short, dry laugh. "Who do you think? A woman in love is like April weather, clear skies one second, storm clouds the next."

➤ Next: Mad-Eye Moody — Face to Face