Chapter 114 - Manslaughter — Heartbreak

Deppur got into the car and waited at the church entrance.

Not long after, Matthew came running out of the church with Praeris in his arms, calling out something as he ran.

The priest, who had been catching up with parishioners, looked over in confusion, then hurried toward Matthew.

Seeing this, Deppur started the car and drove toward Southend-on-Sea.

Southend-on-Sea.

Sylvia's eyes snapped open.

Her hair was drenched in sweat, plastered to her skin and face, sticky and miserable.

Sylvia rarely dreamed. She had a gift for Divination, and for her, every dream was less a dream than a forecast. Five or six years ago, after her grimy cousin Snape had sneered at her, she dreamed she was drinking at The Three Broomsticks. The landlady served her a drink, but not any type The Three Broomsticks actually sold. Vodka.

"Vodka can warm your body," Madam Rosmerta said in the dream. "But students shouldn't drink too much, it's bad for you."

Vodka pointed toward Siberia. So Sylvia found her beloved drink on the icy plains.

Today, dozing in her chair, she had another dream. Aunt Eileen. Eileen had married Tobias Snape for love, but her marriage was filled with misery.

Sylvia had heard it from family: her aunt's husband was a drunkard and a wife-beater. A worthless man.

Sylvia's father, Ryan Prince, had fiercely opposed the romance. Ryan declared that if Eileen dared marry that Muggle, he would act as if he had no sister at all.

Nevertheless, when he learned that his nephew Severus Snape was living in terrible conditions, Ryan gave Sylvia a sum of money and told her to help her cousin.

Snape, of course, would not accept it.

He batted the Galleons away. Amid the clinking and clattering, he sneered: "I don't need anyone's pity."

Sylvia, who had thought she was gaining a relative and companion her own age, flew into a rage. That filthy, greasy Snape! Let him rot with his laughable pride!

In Sylvia's dream, Aunt Eileen was still a little girl.

She was rummaging through her bedroom, the room that would later become Sylvia's.

"Eileen, dinner!" Ryan called.

"Wait, Ryan!" Eileen's voice was urgent. "I'm looking for something!"

Ryan pushed the door open and poked his head in. "What are you looking for?"

"My Peter Rabbit." Her voice wavered on the edge of tears. "My Peter Rabbit is gone."

"Maybe Mum took it to wash!" Ryan said carelessly. "Come eat first."

Eileen wiped her face and walked out crying.

Sylvia had dozed off at an awkward angle, and her neck was stiff. She twisted it out as she made her way to the second-floor balcony.

On the small table sat her recent stargazing notebook.

"Mercury in retrograde... yes, that does connect to loss." She turned it over in her mind. "The star chart isn't here... let me think, Scorpio and Pisces, and loss would mean... inability to let go. Prolonged solitude. Deep emotional trauma?"

Eileen's lost Peter Rabbit. Father Ryan saying Grandmother had taken it to wash.

Sylvia couldn't think of anything she herself might have lost. Her Divination items left with Sophia, maybe? If those were gone, she'd just buy replacements.

A car engine rumbled from downstairs. Sylvia shook off her tangled thoughts and headed down.

"Deppur, what did Winnie say?" she called as she walked.

Deppur William was standing in the middle of the living room. He didn't answer.

Sylvia frowned. "Did she mess with you? Use magic on you?"

Deppur shook his head.

Sylvia exhaled. "I didn't expect it, after all these years, her temper's actually improved."

Deppur pressed his lips together. His Adam's apple moved. His eyes wouldn't settle.

"Hill." He hesitated. "If... I mean, if Pubby suddenly lost her magic, would you be sad?"

"What kind of nonsense is that?" Sylvia said, astonished. "A witch who is mentally healthy doesn't just suddenly lose her magic."

A wizard thoroughly drained by Dementors might temporarily lose the ability to use magic. But that was a different matter entirely.

"That's not necessarily true, is it?" Deppur kept moving, hanging up his keys, pouring water, not standing still. "I've read in legends that some witches lose their magic because of a priest's holy water..."

Sylvia blinked. Then, slowly: "William. Tell me what you're nervous about."

Deppur stopped moving.

"You're hiding something from me?" Sylvia said.

Deppur was silent.

Sylvia gripped the stair railing, stepped down, and crossed the room to him. "William. What do you mean, a witch loses her magic because of a priest's holy water?"

Deppur closed his eyes. "Hill, I didn't go to your witch friend's house."

"Then where did you go?" Sylvia held onto one last shred of hope. "Doctor Antonio's?"

"A different Anthony." His voice dropped. "A priest."

"Deppur William." Sylvia's eyes went wide. "Are you out of your mind?"

"I'm not out of my mind!" Deppur took hold of her arms, urgent. "Once Pubby's baptism is finished, I'll bring her straight back. Around the end of the Christmas holidays, not long at all. I've arranged everything."

Slap.

Sylvia struck him hard across the face. His head snapped to the side.

"William. You are her father." Her voice shook with fury. "She is a witch. You sent her to a church. What kind of person does that?"

Deppur said nothing. He stood motionless, as if he had forgotten how to make sound.

Sylvia's hands were trembling. Her mind was chaos, Mercury in retrograde, the water signs, her little girl's face flashing back and forth through her memory.

What had been taken without permission wasn't a Peter Rabbit.

It was her daughter. Her daughter, Praeris.

"I am not a person." Deppur's voice came out low and flat. "I've wronged Pubby. But everything will be fine soon. All that abnormal power — that terrifying power — it will disappear."

"Deppur Joseph William!" Sylvia's voice cracked into a scream. "Did you ever stop to think, by your standards, the most abnormal one here is me! I am the child of a wizard and a witch, through and through! I am the one who can use magic best! Why didn't you send me away instead of sending away my daughter!"

"You are my beloved!" Deppur shouted.

"Pubby is your daughter!" Sylvia's voice broke apart.

Deppur went silent again.

"Where did you send Pubby?" Sylvia asked. "I'm going to bring her back right now."

She no longer wanted to understand what was going through her husband's mind.

One goal. Bring her daughter back.

"Hill, I won't tell you." Deppur's voice was steady. "After Christmas. After Christmas, I will personally bring her home."

Sylvia drew a slow breath. How she wished she were Severus Snape right now, then she could pour a bottle of Veritaserum down Deppur's throat and make him tell her where their daughter was.

But she had only ever excelled in Potions class and had no intention of becoming a potioneer. And Hogwarts didn't teach Legilimency.

There were no more choices left.

Pain moved through her entire body, her head, her stomach, her legs.

But these were her mistakes to own. Falling in love with Deppur was her mistake. Hiding her identity was her mistake. Trusting him was her mistake.

Every one of these errors traced back to her. So she would correct them. She would get her innocent daughter back.

She raised her wand and pointed it at Deppur.

He stared at her, stunned. "Hill, you're going to use magic on me?"

"I will never apologize to you for this." Her voice came out hoarse and wet. "Imperio!"

Deppur's head tilted slowly back. His expression went dazed and distant.

It was nearly impossible to achieve that on a wizard. But a Muggle's willpower was nothing compared to a wizard's trained will. Deppur offered no resistance at all. He spoke the truth.

"Tell me," Sylvia said. "Where did you send Praeris?"

"London... Tulip Street... Maria Orphanage..."

The next day. Auror Office, Ministry of Magic.

"Sylvia Prince — hmm, Gryffindor, were you? Tsk — using the Imperius Curse on her Muggle husband..."

"Her mental state was unstable when she cast it. The magical output was too high. It went — boom, and crushed her husband's brain."

"That's a life sentence. Who's handling her case? Where is she being held?"

"She's not being held anywhere. She's at St Mungo's. She miscarried."

"Ah? A miscarriage? Does she have any family?"

"Her husband's relatives? Her father was caught in the crossfire of a Death Eater battle near the end of the war and killed. The neighbors at her father's house say the other relatives cut off contact years ago. Her only daughter is also missing without a trace."

"This,"

The night before the trial.

Under the moonlight, Sylvia knelt before a Healer at St Mungo's, her face the color of ash.

The kind Healer helped her to her feet and agreed to send a letter. On the envelope was written: Spinner's End. To Severus Snape.

The trial concluded. Sylvia Prince, for using magic on a Muggle, for using an Unforgivable Curse, for killing a Muggle, was sentenced on multiple charges to life imprisonment in Azkaban.

In truth, Praeris's memory of all this only reached as far as the night before she was taken away. She had been fully conscious. She had watched with open eyes as her mother cast Obliviate on her.

Everything after that was inference. Imprecise. Pieced together from guesswork.

Pansy assumed Praeris was afraid that Draco might fall out of love with her.

Praeris answered: why couldn't it be that she was afraid of falling out of love herself?

But that wasn't really it either. What she feared was becoming the kind of person her parents were.

Neither Sylvia nor Deppur had been remotely qualified parents, even if Sylvia had ultimately turned her wand on her husband for Praeris's sake. Nor had either of them been any good as lovers.

Heredity had its own logic. Their shadows would appear on Praeris, at certain moments, whether she liked it or not.

Just as Praeris, before she had ever studied Divination, had received help from her dreams and used it to assist Professor Snape. At that time, she hadn't even read The Dream Oracle.

After her memories came back, Praeris understood: that was a gift inherited from her mother, Sylvia.

Draco was pure-blood. Praeris was half-blood. Draco had loving parents, a warm home. Praeris had only a father who had committed the crime of abandonment and a mother serving life in Azkaban.

Perhaps many people now thought Praeris was the superior one, that Draco was the one getting the better deal. But Praeris knew the truth: falling for her was Draco's downfall. He just didn't know it yet.

In the past, Sylvia had hidden from Deppur the fact that she was a witch. Now, Praeris was hiding her origins from Draco.

She hadn't grown up at her parents' side. It hadn't mattered. Their shadows still fell across her. She still made the same choices they had made. The recognition of that was terrifying.

But Praeris would never lay those choices at her parents' feet. They were hers. Made by her, after careful thought, with no one else to blame.

She was simply selfish. Only very, very selfish.

Being with Draco had its benefits, didn't it?

Draco liked her. He was happy to keep her company.

Beyond the fear and respect most Slytherins already held for her, his presence gave her even more advantages.

The moment she revealed her blood status and her history, those days that had brought her happiness might all collapse into memory, and never come back.

Praeris had also wondered, once or twice: if Sylvia had broken the Statute of Secrecy from the very start and told Deppur William the truth, would things have turned out differently?

But she already knew the answer.

Before Sylvia fell in love with Deppur, she had no reason to break the law and tell him anything.

After Sylvia fell in love with Deppur, she could not bear the possibility of losing him.

The only lesson humanity has ever learned from history is that humanity never learns any lesson from history.

Running through human blood, unchangeable: the refusal to change.

The road humanity is destined to walk is the road of repeating its own mistakes.

Pansy caught the look on Praeris's face and nudged her. "Don't overthink it! It's just feelings, talk about them or don't. I'm just saying, you know? You don't have to take responsibility for any of it. And even if you do, it's no guarantee of eternal happiness, right?"

She grinned. "Blaise's mum has been married seven times, and every dead husband left her a pile of money. See? The socially-defined morality we sacrifice just converts straight into gold Galleons, stacks and stacks of them. Not a bad trade."

Praeris laughed. "The other party here is Draco. Is it really okay to say that?"

"Mmm," Pansy paused for a whole three seconds. "My feeble friendship with Draco is worth exactly seven seconds of hesitation."

"Only seven?" Praeris asked.

Pansy tilted her head. "If he were willing to share a bit of his fortune with me, I'd probably need a little longer."

"Ha, hahahaha!" Praeris doubled over laughing.

What could be done about it, really?

Praeris had grown up with nothing, so she was greedy. She wanted everything.

Draco had grown up with everything, so he was arrogant. He looked down on everyone.

A cracked pot and a battered lid. Each of them was exactly the retribution the other deserved in this life.

➤ Next: The Slytherin Choir