Chapter 75 - Lakeside Chat — Words Unspoken

After leaving the Great Hall, Pansy tossed a word at Millicent, grabbed Praeris by the sleeve, and ran.

"Millie, I need to talk to Prae."

On the lawn by the Black Lake, Praeris stretched out in the grass with easy, unhurried comfort. Pansy sat beside her, arms propped behind her.

"Is it what I think it is?" Pansy said.

Praeris blinked. "Probably."

"When did it happen?"

Praeris said slowly, "Do you mean when I noticed it, or when he first started feeling that way?"

"Is there much difference?" Pansy asked.

Praeris thought for a moment. "Maybe there's also the question of when I think I should have noticed."

"I want to know all of it!" Pansy said.

Praeris gave a small laugh. "Is there any point?"

"I liked him once. It barely counted as love, but he's still an important friend to me." Pansy turned on her side and looked down at Praeris. "But compared to him, you're the one who truly understands my feelings, who knows what I'm thinking, a friend almost like family. I don't want either of you to get hurt."

Praeris shifted her gaze to Pansy and looked at her for a long moment. "You think he could hurt me? With his intellect?"

Pansy couldn't help a short laugh, but quickly pulled her expression back to serious. "Not necessarily. It depends on whether you like him."

"I don't know. I don't understand love." Praeris looked up at the clouds drifting and changing overhead. "But I know we won't end up together."

"Why?" Pansy lay down on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. "Is there a reason?"

A mischievous look crossed Praeris's face. "You really want to know? You'll regret it."

Pansy waved her hands frantically. "Then I don't want to know! Don't tell me!"

Praeris sat up in one swift motion and pinned Pansy beneath her, not letting her escape.

She leaned close to Pansy's ear and whispered, "Miss Parkinson, too late —"

One sentence. The moment the words landed, Pansy's whole body went rigid. She stared at Praeris in shock.

What Praeris whispered was: "I'm a half-blood."

Pansy stared blankly at the air in front of her, frozen solid, her mind already running through everything at once in a frantic loop.

Then, face flooded with disbelief, she lurched to her feet. Praeris had been flipped over in the scramble and simply lay there where she'd landed. Pansy stared down at her.

"What did you just say!"

Praeris giggled, utterly delighted by Pansy's reaction.

Pansy dropped back down and leaned in close, voice low. "How is that possible? I mean, you've known so much about the magical world since first year. No, wait, a half-blood could still know all of that. But you have such extraordinary magical talent, no, wait, Hermione Granger also..."

Her head was buzzing. She couldn't help asking herself: why had no one ever suspected Praeris's identity?

Wait. Daphne had suspected something back in first year, hadn't she? But she'd dismissed the thought almost immediately.

After that, Praeris's performance left people with only one thing to remember: her intelligence, her erudition, her strength. She had become one of Slytherin's defining students. The question of whether she was pure-blood simply never came up again.

"How could you tell me?!" Pansy's voice was half-furious, half-desperate. "What if I say something to someone!"

Praeris folded her hands behind her head, yawned lazily, and said, "It wouldn't matter much either way. Besides, the moment you asked that question just now, it was already decided you'd never say a word."

"Praeris!" Pansy's teeth were practically grinding. "All those things we said — how could you just — aren't you angry at all?!"

"It's nothing. I don't care. Those are ideas you were raised with from childhood, not ones you ever chose for yourself." Praeris waved a hand. "Are you going to distance yourself from me over this?"

Pansy pressed both hands to her head. "Of course not! Oh! Does Professor Snape know? Merlin's beard, how do you manage to keep things buried so deep?"

"Of course he knows." Praeris said. "What could possibly be hidden from him?"

Praeris took Pansy's hand and drew her down to lie beside her. "Pansy, you don't need to worry. Even if every Slytherin found out I was a half-blood tomorrow, nothing would change. What I've learned, my wisdom, my strength, none of it goes anywhere. I have not one shred of shame about who I am."

Pansy took a deep breath, gritted her teeth. "You can do the forgetting charm, can't you? Just make me forget this."

"Are you sure?" Praeris raised an eyebrow. "And then what will you do the next time you ask me about Draco?"

Pansy let out a string of strangled noises. "I hate you, you wicked girl! Fine. Fine, I'll just have to forget it myself."

"Ha!" Praeris burst out laughing.

They lay on the lawn for a long time after that. Then Pansy said quietly, "Draco doesn't know about this. But he's fallen for you. Theodore knows, doesn't he?"

"Perhaps." Praeris's voice came out almost cold. "For the sake of our friendship — and so he doesn't get hurt — I'd better keep up the act. Pretend I don't know anything."

"I thought we Slytherins used any means necessary." Pansy said. "How can you give up this easily?"

Praeris smiled. "Then why did you give up on Jacob so easily?"

"It wasn't easy. I thought about it for a very long time." Pansy's voice went rough. "Can't even one of us have something real?"

"Don't be sad. I think maybe it's just that I don't like him that much. He's just an immature boy, that's all." Praeris paused, then turned her head to look at Pansy. "Then I suppose it falls to you to find happiness, Miss Parkinson."

Pansy rolled over and buried herself in Praeris's arms. "I don't want it either."

She didn't believe a word of what Praeris had said. If Praeris didn't like Draco, then why had she gone out of her way to find Stella Stewart last year to build strategy for the Quidditch team? If Praeris didn't like Draco, then why had she stepped in for him and dueled Moody?

Praeris patted her on the back, soft and steady. "Pansy, this is a good thing. I knew long ago there was no future in it, so I won't let myself build castles in the air. May the gods grant me escape from a love I never knew, so that in the cold emptiness of great heights, I might have freedom."*

The Triwizard Tournament drew closer. The Slytherins were unanimous in their disappointment that Praeris wasn't yet seventeen.

Miles had already started daydreaming out loud. "If only she were of age. I mean, she can hold her own against an Auror, winning the Triwizard Tournament would be nothing for her, right?"

Praeris looked genuinely baffled. "Me? Compete in the Triwizard Tournament?"

She gave a short, rueful laugh and shook her head. "What exactly do you all think I am? I'm fourteen. Fourth year. Please stop talking me up like this. If Moody actually treated me as a real opponent, you should have already been deciding what to carve on my tombstone."

The talk eventually reached Professor Snape's ears, and Praeris was lectured thoroughly for it. The professor was deeply worried she might pick up a certain Chosen One's habit of self-importance, the belief that she could handle anything, that her own life was a secondary concern.

Praeris used the opening to bring up the Moody problem. She laid out her analysis piece by piece, talking it through at length, but the professor's expression gave nothing away.

"Miss," Snape said coldly, "your information is useful. But these are matters for adults to handle. You should know that."

Praeris agreed out loud. In her mind, she filed the instruction away and ignored it entirely. Professor Snape had unilaterally appointed himself her guardian, and from that position he had decided she deserved a proper childhood, the kind of happy, ordinary life a child should have.

But Professor. It was far too late for that. Long before she had ever understood what childhood was, hers had already ended, scrawled through carelessly, like a line crossed out before it was finished.

People move forward. Her spirit had already arrived at the present. No matter how far back she looked, she could never reclaim the feelings that belonged to a child.

Childhood was gone. But she still had her youth.

And so, in one of her rare acts of outright defiance, she ignored what the professor had asked of her. Outside of classes and practicing Winnie's spell packs, Praeris watched Moody, quietly, constantly, looking for the root of whatever was wrong with him and what exactly he was after when it came to the professor.

It was a game of cat and mouse, except she was a cat with her paws half-tied, terrified of knocking something over.

She had to probe the source of Moody's wrongness without letting him discover she'd noticed anything. She had to identify his target without letting him Legilimize anything useful from her. He could reach into her mind at any moment. All she could do was hold the line.

By the time Halloween approached, October 30th, the Slytherin students were all cloaked and lined up in the Entrance Hall early. From there, they were led out onto the lawn in front of the castle.

October had brought the cold in gradually. Tonight at least was dry, which was something. The night sky had deepened to a clear blue-violet, the moon white and clean, the air sharp with the kind of freshness that only comes when the temperature has finally dropped for good.

Draco turned and angled himself toward Praeris. "My father originally thought about sending me to Durmstrang." He paused. "But my mother wouldn't hear of it. She didn't want me going somewhere so far away."

Praeris let her eyes curve into a smile. "The weather is lovely tonight. Pansy, does Durmstrang get weather like this?"

Pansy Parkinson answered, "They're up in the north of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Freezing cold. Barely any sun in winter."

"Then you're quite lucky," Praeris said to Draco, "getting to stand out here and enjoy this view with us."

A long pause followed. Draco said, with some effort, "Barely passable."

The delegations from the other two schools were nowhere to be seen. Praeris started to drift, her head tipping forward as drowsiness crept in.

Pansy reached out to steady her, then stopped. She had noticed Draco quietly shifting his position.

He'd been standing at an angle before, tilted so he could easily turn back and talk to both of them. Now he was almost directly facing Praeris.

If she actually fell,

Pansy let out a quiet sigh.

His heart must be hammering right now, she thought. Same as it had been for her once, back when she had pretended to stumble, eyes bright with tears she wouldn't let fall, waiting for Jacob to be fooled into sweeping her up.

"There!"

A shout rang across the lawn. Praeris lifted her head blearily and caught sight of a powder-blue carriage drawn by winged horses cutting a streak across the sky.

The carriage swept downward. It hit the ground with a crash that sent a ripple of startled students stumbling back.

"Watch it!"

Terence snapped, all composure gone. Neville had been spooked by the landing and had come down hard on his foot.

A young man in pale blue robes jumped out of the powder-blue carriage and felt around the edge of it, patting here and there until he found the folded-up steps.

A woman considerably taller than Hagrid came down those steps, unhurried and graceful. The students in blue silk robes followed behind her, one by one.

There were no younger students among them. They all looked of age.

Draco curled his lip. "Beauxbatons."

Hogwarts sat in the Scottish Highlands. Beauxbatons was in the south of France. The difference was written on every one of those thirteen faces, they were trembling in the mountain cold, dressed for a different climate entirely.

Through the exchange between Dumbledore and the towering headmistress, they learned her name was Madame Maxime. She was concerned for her students and asked to be taken inside. Dumbledore agreed at once, warmly.

The Beauxbatons students went in. The Hogwarts students stayed out in the wind, waiting for Durmstrang.

The home side had the home advantage. It also had the hosting duties.

"In the lake!"

The shout came from the Gryffindor side, as usual. No one could explain where they got all that energy.

The center of the Black Lake caved downward. A great whirlpool opened on the surface, and then a ship rose from beneath it, dark and massive, the kind of vessel that belonged to a legend. It moved toward the bank without hurry, and a wooden plank was laid out near shore. The students came off it in a steady stream.

"Oh!" Pansy let out a short, vexed sound, then pressed her mouth shut.

Praeris looked at her sharply, then at the Durmstrang students making their way ashore.

There, standing in the middle of the group, was a tall boy with blond hair and grey eyes. He was talking to another student, hooked nose, thick eyebrows.

The Beauxbatons students were already inside. The Durmstrang delegation followed their headmaster Karkaroff in step with the Hogwarts students as everyone filed into the Great Hall.

After a brief hesitation, the Durmstrang students settled at the Slytherin table. Draco, never able to resist a Quidditch conversation, fell into talk with one of them immediately.

The boy he was speaking to was the same one who had been talking to Jacob out on the shore. His name was Krum. Word was, he was a Quidditch star.

Praeris's knowledge of him stopped at the World Cup. She remembered he had caught the Golden Snitch. She also remembered his team had still lost.

"I thought you'd want to sit at the other end of the table," Praeris said to Pansy Parkinson.

*Adapted from a poem by Fernando Pessoa.

➤ Next: The Great Age Battle