Chapter 81 - Slander-as-News — Words Unspoken

Ancient runes were commonly used in the engraving of magical artifacts and alchemical items.

The rune representing "invitation" typically referred to the summoning of a natural force.

In ancient times, some witches and wizards did not yet understand the power within their own bodies. They believed their ability to wield certain natural forces came from having extended an "invitation" to nature itself.

Modern magical theory leaned toward a different interpretation, utilization, or communication.

Runes for "good luck" and "wealth" were frequently carved onto protective talismans, embodying the most primal blessings ancient witches and wizards knew how to give.

Praeris also made an unexpected discovery: one rune happened to be homophonous with Miss Winnie's name, and it meant joy and happiness.

A delightful coincidence, and a small, pleasant surprise tucked inside an afternoon of study.

Her green quill swept left and right across the parchment. Praeris wrote without pausing once, each stroke smooth and unhurried.

Unlike the champions, Praeris wasn't exempt from end-of-term exams. She still had to sit them!

Ancient Runes translation was nothing like Muggle foreign language classes.

In Muggle assignments, a teacher would hand out a page of foreign text and students would translate it. Ancient Runes was far more hands-on. Professor Babbling would bring in photographs and rubbings of pottery shards, tile fragments, wooden slips, amulets, ancient magical artifacts, and alchemical items, and students were expected to identify the inscriptions before rendering them into modern language.

Draco did well in the subject, though only because it supported his alchemy work.

Miles had originally planned to make a small effort, asking Praeris a few questions under the guise of academic discussion. Foster some closeness, show off a little knowledge as an upper-year student. Two birds, one stone.

After a few sidelong glances at Praeris, he abandoned the idea entirely.

When Praeris studied, she was completely absorbed. She would lose all awareness of the world around her, both eyes locked onto her book like iron drawn to a lodestone.

In those moments, she had a peculiar kind of gravity. Others didn't dare steal more than one glance, let alone interrupt. The atmosphere she created made everyone nearby feel a creeping guilt about their own laziness, made them think: how do I still have the nerve to let my mind wander?

Miles was no exception. He had arrived with plenty of small schemes in mind. Somehow, before long, he had actually sunk into his reading for real.

Praeris had come here straight after her Tuesday afternoon elective. The two of them stayed like that from the height of the afternoon until the sun tilted low and orange across the windows.

When Draco finally rushed over to break up Miles's "schemes and machinations," this was the scene he walked into:

The parchment under Praeris's quill had grown so long that a good stretch of it draped over the front edge of the desk, hanging in midair, swaying faintly with every stroke she wrote.

In front of Miles, several books lay open. He was cross-referencing between them, scratching his head every now and then.

You two are actually studying?!

Draco was genuinely shocked. Then he remembered one of those two people was Praeris, and it stopped being surprising at all.

Romance would never interfere with Praeris and her work. When she and Millicent Bulstrode had their falling-out, she'd been just as focused in class as any other day. If a full-blown argument didn't touch her concentration, what was a mere boy?

When Draco thought this, he completely failed to notice that he belonged to the same category, boys who could not affect her. He even felt proud of her "ruthlessness." What exactly he had to be proud of was anyone's guess.

Even though she was deep in study, Praeris spared a thin sliver of peripheral vision for the doorway. Draco was there, arms folded, leaning against the frame.

She looked up and gave him a puzzled glance. "?"

Draco received the signal and sauntered in. "Madam Parkinson sent an express delivery of pastries for Pansy Parkinson. The kind with ice cream cake. She was worried it would melt and has been looking for you everywhere."

Madam Parkinson had indeed sent such pastries. Pansy Parkinson had indeed been looking for Praeris, asking once counts as looking, doesn't it?, but the pastries were never going to melt. They were all wizards. Conjuring a bit of ice wasn't exactly difficult.

Praeris stood up immediately. "Miles, that's all for today then. Pan is looking for me — I'm off!"

Pan was Pansy Parkinson's nickname.

Praeris mixed it up depending on the day. Sometimes Pan. Sometimes PanPan.

That was just how young girls were with their closest friends. They never held back their affection, always finding new things to adore, loving each other in that sticky, honey-sweet way that stuck and never quite let go.

Sometimes they even made promises that stretched out a decade or several, become each other's children's godmother, grow old together, say things that contained words like "always" and "forever." Promises that sounded like vows.

Praeris packed up at lightning speed, offered Miles one word of farewell, and left without looking back.

As Draco turned to follow her out, he made sure to toss back a smug, provocative sneer at Miles on his way through the door.

Miles stared after him, speechless.

What a childish boy.

He hadn't been oblivious, before this, to the difference in how Draco treated Praeris.

If there had been a girl who'd protected him the way Praeris had stood in front of Draco, shielding him from a powerful Auror who had captured so many Death Eaters, Miles would have been deeply moved too. Anyone would.

But back then, Draco clearly hadn't understood his own feelings yet. And honestly, even now, he probably didn't have a clean grasp of them. He was just running on instinct.

Miles was different. He was in sixth year. He was a popular Quidditch player.

He had watched plenty of people around him fall in and out of love. He'd gone on a few dates himself with girls in his year.

He was warm, and he was genuine. But don't forget, he was also a Slytherin.

Love was no different from honor or power. If you wanted something, you fought for it. You seized it.

A few small schemes in pursuit of love? Perfectly reasonable.

Being her friend served a dual purpose: stay in the game if nothing came of it, or close the gap from friend to boyfriend if something did.

And "basking in her academic aura"? That was just a convenient excuse to spend time with her.

Even so. Praeris really was a different kind of girl. Spending time with her, Miles found himself becoming a noticeably more diligent person. That part hadn't been part of the plan, but it was real.

Praeris, for her part, had no interest in probing the boys' small schemes. She was eating the cake Pansy Parkinson had saved for her.

Pansy Parkinson said, looking puzzled, "It's nothing much! My grandmother made some cake and wanted me to try it too, so she had Mum send it over. You came back at just the right time — there's a share for you too."

Pansy Parkinson didn't often talk about her family. The Parkinsons were pure-blood, and mostly Slytherin, but they had no particularly prominent standing, no great fortune, and no burning political ambition.

Even so, the Parkinsons had always lived comfortably. A family content with modest prosperity. They had never survived a major purge so much as simply never required one. They had never known genuine hardship, and they had never fractured or fallen apart.

The Parkinsons were not the wolves at the front of the pack tearing into the kill. Politically flexible, they were more like hyenas trailing behind larger predators. Others ate the meat. The Parkinsons drank the broth.

More than two hundred years ago, the family had even produced a Minister for Magic, though he hadn't distinguished himself, and failed to win a second term.

Praeris cut a brief sidelong look at Draco. "Is that so?"

His little schemes were completely transparent. But she could only pretend not to see them. Perhaps Miles could serve as a convenient shield, but Praeris wasn't eager to use his genuine feelings for that purpose. Not unless she had no other option.

After Halloween, autumn was moving quickly toward its end.

Leaves fell without a sound. The grass turned dry and yellow. Wind moved through the dead leaves and made them rasp.

Professor Sprout had already gathered many sacks of magical fruits and sorted them carefully.

Some went to the cellar for storage. Some went to Professor Snape. Some were sold at fair prices to merchants who came to buy. And she took the opportunity to select and purchase a fresh batch of seeds.

In the glass greenhouse, Professor Sprout offered Praeris a fruit with a skin so thin it was almost like paper. It was called the Sweetness Fruit.

It was a fruit, Professor Sprout explained, that could make a person happy.

Praeris considered that. "Then if someone wanted to learn the Patronus Charm, couldn't she just eat a Sweetness Fruit and skip the hard part?"

Professor Sprout laughed. "Of course not, Prae. Happiness that comes from an outside source — how could it ever be the same as joy that springs from inside yourself?"

Praeris nodded. "Fair enough."

She brought the Sweetness Fruit back to the Slytherin common room and shared it out among her friends.

"You haven't read today's paper!" Millicent shifted on the sofa by scooting sideways without actually standing up, propelling herself along the cushions entirely by means of her backside until she arrived beside Praeris.

She was laughing in little convulsive bursts. "You have to read this — hahahaha!"

"Hm?" Praeris took the paper. "Potter's pre-match interview? Heartbroken warrior boy, weeping nightly for his parents... Beneath a strong exterior lies a sensitive and bewildered heart... We cannot help but suspect that hidden within him is a fragile, pitiful little girl,"

Hold on. Was there actual interview content in here?

Was this still the same Potter that Praeris knew?

"Keep going, keep going!" Millicent tugged the paper upward.

"Potter's first love... Granger?! A Muggle-born witch of astonishing beauty, and alongside Potter the most gifted witch and wizard in Gryffindor... A perfect match of talent and looks, a golden pair... How many tears has Potter shed beneath her tender, liquid gaze... How many lonely, sorrowful nights has he spent in the arms of his beloved, pouring out the misfortunes of his past?"

According to Skeeter, this came directly from the firsthand account of Potter's close friend Colin Creevey.

The corner of Praeris's mouth twitched.

Anyone who could put Hermione Granger and "tender, liquid gaze" in the same sentence had clearly never met the actual Hermione Granger.

"There's still more!" Millicent tugged the paper up again.

Praeris's eyelid twitched. "I'm not sure I can keep going," she said, pained. "This is pure fabrication. Fine. Fine. One last bit."

"Oh, Sirius Black — wait — a wrongfully imprisoned, strikingly handsome godfather, crossing a thousand miles for his godson... An unequal, secretive, shadowed, false parent-child bond... In him he seeks the youth he lost; in him he mends his own broken childhood."

"When Sirius Black gazes deeply upon this young warrior, does he see Potter himself, or the long-departed friend he once loved? On scales tipped by feeling, has young warrior Potter, starving for family, found in this bond something like healing, or only the pitiable comfort of quenching thirst with poison..."

The accompanying photograph showed Sirius Black "deeply" embracing Harry Potter inside a tent. He was looking down, saying something. In his arms, Potter's expression held nothing but absolute trust and open adoration.

All of the above, naturally, per Skeeter's description.

Praeris was profoundly unsettled. She sat with it for a long moment and could not settle down.

It seemed the Sweetness Fruit wouldn't be needed after all. Potter's scandal was enough to keep Slytherin fed with after-dinner entertainment for weeks.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Daphne was nearly laughing herself senseless, every shred of ladylike composure gone.

She turned to Praeris. "Done? Hahaha, I genuinely don't know how that woman Skeeter does it! Everyone has a copy by now. The ones who couldn't get hold of one are actually writing to the Daily Prophet demanding a reprint."

Daphne smacked her lips. "Got to say. It's quite compelling writing."

Praeris reached up and manually propped her own jaw back into place. She shoved the paper into Millicent's hands. "Take it away. My mind feels unclean."

She regretted reading it.

With her memory, never mind ten days or half a month, she would probably still be able to recall "Potter's inner little girl" and "tender, liquid-gazed Granger" when she was forty. Along with the unnameable, warped undercurrents Skeeter had insinuated into the bond between godfather and godson.

Skeeter, exactly how many pounds of toxic mushrooms did you consume to produce an article capable of startling the heavens and moving spirits to tears?

How unhinged Skeeter truly was remained difficult to measure precisely, St. Mungo's had no psychiatric ward, after all. Millicent was right. St. Mungo's really did need to open one. But whatever the state of Skeeter's mind, her article had sparked widespread public discussion.

Driven by the public's insatiable voyeuristic appetite for celebrity gossip, that issue of the Daily Prophet sold explosively, with sales rocketing skyward.

Slytherin inevitably shared certain classes with Gryffindor, which gave the Slytherins ample opportunity to enjoy themselves at Potter's expense.

Even someone as focused as Praeris couldn't stop words like "sensitive," "fragile," "broken," and "gazing deeply" from surfacing in her head mid-class. She could only imagine the state of the other Slytherins.

Any opening to needle Gryffindor, and these lot would not let a single one pass.

Hermione Granger came to Praeris multiple times and asked whether she might use the Astronomy Tower classroom to sit quietly for an hour or two. "There is not a single place left in this school where I can have any peace!"

Hermione Granger had originally retreated to the library, but Viktor Krum from Durmstrang was also studying there. His admirers had turned the library into something equally impossible.

As the number of times Praeris borrowed the key mounted, the looks Professor Sinistra gave her grew increasingly pointed.

Stella wrote in her letter: "Ol suspects you're in a relationship. The Astronomy Tower does have a lovely view. Rather a romantic spot, don't you think?"

➤ Next: Try — What Was Lost