Chapter 69 - Duel

The room was almost exactly as Praeris remembered it. Dim, a few candles burning low, the fireplace throwing steady heat it had probably been throwing for hours. The potion bottles on the wooden shelves cast colored shadows across the walls in the candlelight.

Praeris set her things down on the homework pile and got to work without being asked, sleeves rolled, dragon-hide gloves pulled on. "Skele-Gro, Essence of Dittany," she said. "For the Triwizard Tournament, Professor?"

"Obviously." Snape's voice was low. "Did Winnie Brown attend the gathering?"

"No." Praeris didn't bother hedging it. Then, just as straightforwardly: "Did you?"

"Don't make the mistake of thinking you need to know everything." His tone was ice. "Staying ignorant about certain things is good for you. Stay away from Moody. He won't go easy on Death Eaters or Slytherins."

"But I'm a student," Praeris said, genuinely puzzled.

Snape gave a cold laugh. "Miss, why don't you take a guess at why they call him 'Mad'-Eye? Dumbledore is always bringing unsafe things into this school. You should have learned to live with that by now."

"All right, all right." Praeris nodded. "That's honestly impossible to argue with."

She left Professor Snape's office and headed for the Herbology classroom, where the lesson was devoted to collecting pus from Bubotubers.

The plants were, to put it charitably, an assault on the eyes. They looked like slugs that had hauled themselves out of the mud, bodies covered in bloated, bulging pustules filled with undiluted pus.

The students' job was to pull on dragon-hide gloves, squeeze the pustules out, and collect the results in bottles.

It was thoroughly disgusting and deeply satisfying at the same time. Praeris had done it in first year. She worked with clean efficiency, outpacing the students around her without any apparent effort.

"You look like one of the old nurses at St. Mungo's." Daphne Greengrass's expression had gone slightly wrong as she faced her Bubotuber. "When I was little and my parents took me in, those nurses had exactly that energy. I was like a fish on a chopping block."

Praeris raised an eyebrow. "I'm choosing to take that as a compliment on my professionalism."

After Herbology came Care of Magical Creatures. Praeris had dropped that class the year before, so the period was hers.

Professor Snape hadn't assigned her anything new yet. She took the window and ran to an empty classroom to practice the spells Winnie had been teaching her.

Winnie was every bit the spell master Professor Flitwick was, just operating on the wrong side of orthodox. Where Flitwick was a scholar of the discipline, Winnie was something stranger and harder to categorize.

Her knowledge was vast. Her practical experience was extensive. Never mind where that experience came from; the point was she had a lot of it.

But she had one flaw that couldn't be ignored.

Professor Flitwick was patient. He guided students carefully, building understanding from the ground up. Winnie was the opposite. She would rip out the core of a concept and shove it directly in front of your face, skipping virtually every step that required a student to think for themselves.

Fast, precise, ruthless.

A teacher like that was excellent for learning quickly. She was terrible for long-term development. Students who learned from her stopped thinking independently. They became dependent on her ability to do the thinking for them.

Winnie had, on the first occasion this was pointed out to her, revealed the full shape of her arrogance: "You're not wrong. Most of the people I've taught were idiots. My teaching method is completely foolproof by design — they show up, they learn, they can use it. Thinking? That would be giving their almond-sized brains far too much credit."

Praeris, however, was something else entirely. Her mind moved in ways that had no ordinary comparison. Winnie could skip straight to the key point, and Praeris would already have the rest worked out before the sentence was finished.

That was why Winnie had been so genuinely surprised after the first time they worked through a new spell together. She had found someone who could actually keep up with her, someone whose thinking ran at the same frequency. The teaching satisfaction was unlike anything she'd experienced before.

Which was how Winnie had, rather quickly, followed in Snape's footsteps and become the second person dedicated to cramming everything she had ever learned into Praeris's head.

Big spells, small spells. Respectable ones, questionable ones. Textbook charms and obscure hexes that had no business being in any curriculum. Winnie taught whatever occurred to her, whatever she thought might be useful, in whatever order it happened to surface.

"You're only thinking about how much fun you're having," Praeris finally said. "This is completely unsystematic."

"Mmm." Winnie laughed, looking slightly guilty. "But you'll organize it all yourself once it's in there, won't you?"

As the start of term drew closer, Winnie showed no sign of considering whether Praeris had time to absorb any of it. She was confident Praeris could hold it in memory. The practice could wait until school started.

The teacher creates the chaos. What can the student do but survive it?

Praeris practiced straight through until dinner, then reluctantly left the empty classroom and walked toward the Great Hall.

"Praeris," Draco said, drawing it out, "it's genuinely enviable that you dropped Care of Magical Creatures. Thanks to you, at least one person at this table still has an appetite."

Pansy's voice climbed half an octave. "After the Bubotubers, we had to feed the Blast-Ended Skrewts frog livers. Merlin, what even is a Blast-Ended Skrewt! The thing smells like rotting fish and shrimp from every direction, the males have stingers, the females have suckers all over them —"

She shoved her plate aside. "I have no idea what sewer he dragged those things out of. It's been dreadful. Genuinely dreadful. I haven't had one good day since last term ended."

The Slytherins nearby made noises of agreement. Evidently several of them were regretting that class choice.

"I've never heard of Blast-Ended Skrewts," Praeris said, considering. "New species? Is the gamekeeper running some kind of animal-hybridization experiment?"

"I am going to sincerely pray to Merlin that it fails." Pansy pushed the seafood soup away with open disgust. "As long as we're still raising those things, I am never touching seafood again."

The afternoon was considerably cleaner. They sat through a History of Magic lesson that made the whole room drowsy, then went to Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class.

First year was inanimate to inanimate. Second year was animate to inanimate. Third year was inanimate to animate.

Fourth year was animate to animate, cross-species transformation. Professor McGonagall's class had a structure that was rigorous and precisely layered, each concept building on the last, and somehow knowledge settled into the mind without any sense of effort.

To bring students into the challenge of animate-to-animate, she started with hedgehog to pincushion, an animate-to-inanimate transformation, as a doorway.

"Before we attempt animate-to-animate, we need to understand the properties of animals. Take the hedgehog and the pincushion. Can anyone tell me what they share? Yes, Miss Avery — very well said. The hedgehog's spines and the needles on a pincushion are structurally very similar. We treat the spines as needles, and the hedgehog's body as the cushion itself."

"Jumping directly to animate-to-animate transformation is still a considerable leap. But what if, in the early stages, we break it down, animate to inanimate first, then inanimate to animate? That returns us to what we studied in second and third year."

"So: identifying the shared properties between two animals, and using the inanimate object as the bridge between them, that is the foundation of cross-species transformation."

There were classrooms, and then there was Professor McGonagall's classroom. The difference was the logic.

The Slytherins filed out when the bell rang. Millicent was muttering under her breath. "She makes complete sense. If only my brain and my hand could agree on that."

Praeris took Millicent's hand gently and smiled. "Then you'd better have a word with it. Milly's hand, are you there? Did you hear what your owner just said?"

She paused. "Oh, it answered! Milly, it says its talent points are in brawling and boxing."

Pansy and Daphne dissolved. They were laughing and shoving each other as they walked.

Millicent yanked her hand back. "Traitor," she said, addressing the hand.

"Weasley! Hey! Weasley!"

Draco's voice rang out as they reached the entrance hall, loud and self-satisfied.

Pansy grabbed Praeris's arm. "Let's go, quickly, there's no Flint or Farley here to run interference!"

She still hadn't forgotten the day Weasley and Longbottom had beaten all three of them half to death.

Terence and Selwyn were the prefects now. They were not their predecessors.

Terence had picked up some social awareness, but under Selwyn's personality he came across as spineless. Selwyn, for her part, enjoyed watching things play out. If the fight was going well for their side, she watched. If it wasn't, she remembered, belatedly, every time, that she could go find a teacher.

By the time anyone capable of actually handling things showed up, it would be far too late.

"Get out of the way, Malfoy!" Potter shouted. "Ron — Ron, don't —"

By the time Praeris and the others shoved their way into the crowd, Weasley looked like a bull that had already made the decision.

Draco, apparently unsatisfied with the current level of disaster, asked sneeringly whether Mrs. Weasley was as fat in real life as she looked in the photograph.

Pansy was still pulling Praeris along, breathing hard. "We're here. The interference has arrived."

Praeris, who was being pressed from all sides, said flatly, "Miss Parkinson, you've got the wrong person. I don't run interference."

"I do," Pansy said. "And if they hit me, you'll help. Right?"

"Is your mother any better, Malfoy?" Potter's voice had heat in it now. "Look at that expression, anyone who didn't know would think she'd just smelled dung. Has she always looked like that, or did she catch it from you?"

Draco's face went from white to red in an instant. "How dare you, you actually dare to insult,"

"If you don't want me to keep going," Potter said, "shut your mouth."

BANG!

The moment Harry Potter turned his head, it happened. Draco vanished. The screams of several Slytherin girls cut through the air, Pansy among them.

"Boy! I will not allow that!"

The roar came from the direction of the staircase.

Praeris stared at the white ferret on the floor. It was shaking. Then she looked at Moody, who was furious.

Dumbledore is always bringing unsafe things into this school. You should have learned to live with that by now.

Professor Snape's voice, low and quiet, moved through her head.

So it was real. There were teachers who would use punitive magic on students. Not detentions. Not labor assignments. Actual punitive magic.

Moody asked Potter if he was hurt. Potter said nothing had happened.

"Don't touch it!" Moody bellowed.

Praeris raised her wand. The movement was barely visible. There was a flash. Draco, who Crabbe had been pulling backward, shifted back from a ferret into a person. He was shaking. He stumbled behind Praeris.

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Moody's voice was a snarl. "Damned Slytherin brat."

And then he raised his wand at Praeris.

Her heart slammed against her ribs like it was trying to get out.

Snape's voice: Stay away from Moody.

Winnie's voice: As long as you know enough spells, as long as you know them the way you know your own mind, it doesn't matter if your magical power isn't strong enough.

Praeris retreated and fought at the same time. Strange spells, obscure spells, spells that had no business being combined, she combined them. They came at Moody from angles that shouldn't have been possible.

Her mind had never moved so fast. Like the broken gears of a clock spinning free of their housing, just spinning and spinning. Every movement Moody made was stretched out in her head, slowed down, slowed down again, taken apart frame by frame.

But she had almost no real dueling experience. The only people she had ever truly crossed wands with were Granger and Winnie.

Winnie was a Death Eater with real combat experience. She was powerful. But the way she fought Praeris leaned toward teaching, not punishment.

Less than 2 minutes. That was how long it took before Praeris lost the ground she was standing on.

Amid the crackle and collision of their spells, Pansy's voice broke through: "Professor McGonagall, hurry!"

"Professor Moody!"

Professor McGonagall came at a near-stumble, pulled along by Pansy.

BANG. Their spells collided. Both stopped. They stood at opposite ends of the entrance hall.

Moody's face was completely calm. The expression of a man who had not just transformed a student into an animal, and had not just opened fire on another one.

Millicent had her arm around Praeris, who was standing with her head down, legs unsteady. Millicent's face was wet. She pointed directly at Moody.

"Were you trying to kill her?"

"You, what exactly are you doing?" Professor McGonagall looked, for a moment, like she couldn't process what she was seeing.

"Just a lesson," Moody said, easy and light.

Millicent's eyes didn't move from Moody's face. Her voice came out with something that was very close to hate. "Professor McGonagall. He turned Malfoy into an animal. When Prae changed him back, he went after Prae."

"Transforming a student as punishment has never been done at Hogwarts," McGonagall said, and there was something tightly controlled in her voice now. "Neither has dueling a student outside of Dueling Club. Dumbledore told you that. I know he did."

"There may have been something like that mentioned," Moody said, unbothered. "A small lesson. Nobody was hurt. If you don't frighten these little brats occasionally,"

"We have detention," Professor McGonagall said, cutting straight through him. "We have labor assignments. We have House Heads who can be notified."

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