Chapter 117 - Nightmare

Hermione flipped the copper mirror over and shoved it into her pocket.

"Who were you talking to?" Ron asked as he walked in, curiosity plain on his face.

Hermione shrugged. "My pen pal. We have a pair of Two-Way Mirrors."

"So writing letters to Krum isn't enough for you anymore?" Ron's tone was almost accusatory. "Now you have to see each other every day?"

"I believe Viktor isn't my only pen pal," Hermione said, annoyed. "This mirror was a gift from Talia."

"Talia?" Ron said. "Last time you said Talia was a friend of ours—"

"Isn't she?"

"But I've never even met her—"

"I have," Hermione said. "And Dumbledore trusts her too. That means there are solid grounds to trust her. Alright — have you finished your homework?"

"You know I can't finish it..."

On the other end of the mirror, Praeris called Myrtle back inside. Myrtle had been keeping watch. The two girls caught up.

Praeris had never really thought about it before. Myrtle, this girl's life had stopped at fourteen.

When Praeris first met Myrtle, she'd been younger than her. Now she was older.

This time, Myrtle didn't cry. She just spoke about her and Barren with a dreamy, faraway expression.

Barren was a Ravenclaw too, an extremely scatterbrained one. Even in his third year, he still couldn't find his way around Hogwarts. He'd accidentally wandered into the girls' lavatory and startled Myrtle badly. From there, a romance between the living and the dead had unfolded.

Well, knowing Myrtle's mouth, this might have been a one-sided romance on Myrtle's part. Barren's own feelings on the matter were probably irrelevant.

Still, maybe Barren didn't exactly reject it either. Whether out of curiosity, pity, or something else, Myrtle said he'd come to see her several times.

"Either way," Praeris said, "I'm happy for you, Myrtle. I hope you find happiness."

Love is more mysterious than death itself*, so not even death can stop love from happening.

"I'm already dead, Praeris. Barren and I have no future! So being happy right now is enough!" Myrtle laughed, besotted. "Romance between Ravenclaw ghosts and students is our tradition. As for the future, at least I feel happy right now, don't I?"

A few nights later, Harry came back from a DA meeting and went to bed early.

Everyone has people they can't help caring about, and things they can't help doing, even when they know it's pointless. For Harry, that person was Cho Chang.

Whenever she came to the meetings, Cho Chang greeted everyone she ran into. She always said the same thing: "Good evening, Harry, have you eaten?"

The first time, Harry had been completely thrown. He'd stammered, "Eaten. I've eaten."

During a break, Cedric told him, "It's nothing, Harry. Cho's grandmother always greets people like that. Good morning, have you eaten? Good afternoon, have you eaten? Good evening, have you eaten?"

Cho Chang's greetings forced Harry to pay attention to what he'd actually had for dinner, just so he'd have an answer ready: "The roast lamb tonight was lovely, wasn't it?"

Harry knew it was meaningless. It was just Cho Chang's polite greeting. He also knew she already liked someone else.

When he forgot those facts, he'd slow down as he passed her, hoping to catch a "Have you eaten?" When he remembered them, he'd lower his head and hurry past.

Christmas was coming. Cho Chang bought a few apples, one for Cedric, one for Marietta, and one for Harry.

"Harry, thank you for teaching us Defense Against the Dark Arts!" she said.

Harry stood there holding the apple, completely at a loss.

Cedric said, "In Cho's hometown, apples symbolize peace. They call Christmas Eve 'Peaceful Night', so on Peaceful Night, you eat an apple."

Cho Chang looked at him, surprised. "You understood it?"

The homophone pun from her hometown was a bit hard for British people to grasp. She hadn't expected Cedric to get it.

"I didn't understand it. But I remembered it," Cedric said honestly. "It's a lovely blessing either way, isn't it?"

Cedric and Cho Chang exchanged a smile, the kind shared over a secret only the two of them knew.

Harry placed the apple by his bedside. Its fragrance lingered around him.

Cedric's apple must be sour, Harry thought.

Then he thought, maybe the apple he'd gotten was the sour one.

Drowsy, he thought, maybe both apples were sweet. Maybe only he was sour.

He began to dream. He dreamed of Cho kissing Cedric under the mistletoe, pouring their hearts out to each other.

Cho's grandmother, a woman with Cho's face and graying hair, clapped and blessed them.

In a blink, Cedric vanished. Cho Chang turned into Hermione.

Hermione spoke the same words she'd said to him that day:

"Harry, this apple is just gratitude. Not love."

Harry shot back, furious:

"Didn't I tell you ages ago — I know that!"

Hermione disappeared. Harry felt like he'd been shoved into a Dursley-style tumble washing machine, spun round and round. When he crawled out, he'd become something soft and slick...

He slithered forward. Everything around him was purple and blue. On the ground lay a red human-shaped thing, and somehow, he knew. That was a person.

The person woke up. "He" had no choice. He bit the person savagely, again and again. His body was cold, but the liquid flowing into his belly was hot, almost scalding.

Harry's forehead seared with pain. But through the dream, he heard a familiar sound.

BANG BANG BANG BANG,

BANG BANG BANG,

CRACK!

The moment something crashed to the floor, the pain in Harry's forehead vanished, just for an instant.

"Harry!" Ron stood at his bedside. "What's wrong with you!"

In Ron's hand was the dreamcatcher, now completely broken apart.

"Your dad's been bitten by a snake!" Harry's face was pale. "I saw it, and my dreamcatcher shattered too."

The night dissolved into chaos. After Harry traveled to 12 Grimmauld Place through Dumbledore's Portkey, they waited for what felt like forever. Finally, word came: Arthur Weasley was alive.

He told Sirius he felt like there was a snake inside him. Sirius didn't believe it and told him to sleep.

Harry lay curled up on the bed. The disintegrated dreamcatcher sat on the nightstand.

He didn't dare fall asleep. He knew the dreamcatcher couldn't make his headache vanish anymore, not even for a moment.

Christmas was coming. The school filled with trees, mistletoe, and all the usual decorations.

Praeris climbed the stairs floor by floor until she spotted a curly-haired boy. He was clutching a thick book.

She swept her eyes over it, Magical Trauma and Care.

"Do you want to become a Healer?" she asked.

The boy ducked his head shyly. "Are you the Miss Prince that Miss Warren mentioned?"

Miss Warren?

Probably the only person in Hogwarts who'd refer to Myrtle that way.

"Yes. Barren, may I call you that?" Praeris said. "If you're interested, I can recommend you to Madam Pomfrey. The Hogwarts curriculum keeps her terribly busy. I don't think she'd turn down an aspiring assistant."

Barren practically buried his face in his chest. "Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh! And, Miss Warren and I thought about it for a long time. There's a magnificent diadem in one of the Ravenclaw portraits. It's engraved with our founder's motto. We thought that would best represent Ravenclaw."

"You don't need to thank me for this. Every Ravenclaw student knows it. If it hadn't been Miss Warren and me, it would've been some other Ravenclaw."

Praeris shook her head. "But I'm not a Ravenclaw. Without you two, how would I ever have known?"

The Christmas holidays began. Draco agonized over whether to go home.

He wanted to stay and spend Christmas with Praeris. He also wanted to go home to his parents, mostly because he couldn't exactly explain what he'd be doing at Hogwarts if he didn't.

"Are we never going to see each other again?" Praeris set down her quill.

Draco's eyes went wide. "What did you just say!"

She smiled. "After Christmas — won't you be coming back?"

Draco stared at her, mournful, accusing her of not caring at all whether he stayed.

But in the end, he meekly went home, after giving Praeris her Christmas present early.

Praeris had no academic worries. She didn't even need to study for OWLs, she could sit the NEWTs right now and pass most of them.

Honestly, even Madam Pince probably didn't know the contents of every book in the Hogwarts library as well as she did. Praeris could search in her mind, flip through, summarize, and recite aloud.

Her Potions skill had earned recognition from both the market and the experts. Her Charms had earned Winnie's approval. Divination, pure innate talent, she wasn't lacking there. Transfiguration, she simply hadn't had time to attempt the Animagus transformation.

History of Magic and Muggle Studies only required memory. Herbology she'd slacked on these past two years, but her practical skills still outmatched most. Astronomy, that went without saying.

Her only weak point was Care of Magical Creatures, a class she'd attended exactly once. She had no idea whether pure theory and improvisation could carry her through that exam.

Under these circumstances, she only ever paid lip service to "taking the OWLs this year," cultivating an atmosphere of tension in Slytherin.

In reality, she took no steps to prepare. She devoted herself entirely to figuring out how to take down Voldemort.

On Christmas Eve, Praeris strolled toward the girls' lavatory as usual, wine bottle in hand.

"Don't try to bribe me with wine, I can't even drink it!" Myrtle said, agitated. "Are you really going to do this? I never should've run my mouth in front of you! She hates Slytherin!"

"She doesn't hate Slytherin," Praeris said. "She just hates the Bloody Baron."

"You're right." The Grey Lady drifted over, unhurried. "I don't hate Slytherin."

The Grey Lady had no wish to revisit her past. But Slytherin, Slytherins always had a way with words.

This girl told the Grey Lady that someone had used Ravenclaw's diadem for terrible things. To protect her family, she needed to know where the diadem was.

"How do I know you're not deceiving me too?" The Grey Lady's eyes flickered. "One Slytherin student deceived my mother. He said he feared I would come to harm out in the world, and in the end, he was the harm I encountered. Another Slytherin student said he understood me, and in the end, he only wanted to take something from me."

"My lady," Praeris said, "what use would I have for the diadem? Surely you've heard, I'm already the top student in this school. Perhaps the diadem can grant greater wisdom, but I have no further ambition in that regard."

"What do we need so much wisdom for?" she added, softer. "Extraordinary wisdom is a treasure, but sometimes it can also be a torment."

At those words, the Grey Lady drifted closer. "You don't crave more wisdom? You don't want greater power?"

"If it were possible," Praeris said, looking up at her, "I would trade these for a happy life. Even if the me who got that were mediocre and accomplished nothing."

Praeris didn't deny she'd once had such thoughts. But now she was only saying it for the Grey Lady's ears. She still needed her power for what lay ahead.

Still, if sacrificing her intelligence could make Voldemort vanish from this world, could let her and Winnie and Mrs. Prewett live peaceful, good lives, she'd rather be as dim-witted as Crabbe and Goyle.

The Grey Lady's thoughts drifted elsewhere. She remembered what Salazar Slytherin had once said to her: Helena, people are sometimes composed of the lives they never lived, shaped by the things they yearn for but cannot have.

Helena hadn't understood. She'd thought people were forged by what they possessed, composed by their experiences.

How could things you didn't have, things you'd never obtained, shape who you became?

But as it turned out, Salazar Slytherin's words held truth.

The care she'd lacked and the wisdom she'd craved had turned her from Helena into the ghostly Grey Lady. This girl's longing for family and happiness had brought her here, standing before her.

She and I are opposites, Helena thought. And so,

"Myrtle, leave us for a moment," Helena said.

Once Myrtle was gone, Helena spoke. "I stole the diadem from my mother."

"So I should address you as Miss Ravenclaw?" Praeris asked.

"Call me Helena," she said. "Praeris, do not trust the words of men, especially men of Slytherin lineage."

Miss Helena had stolen Ravenclaw's diadem for the sake of extraordinary wisdom. The Bloody Baron, who claimed to love her, a Slytherin student, had been sent by her mother to find her...

➤ Next: The Room of Requirement