Chapter 122 - Embrace

The future Minister for Magic whose name would go down in history, Hermione Granger, made an early and important statement to war hero Harry Potter: "If you want something known by everyone, forbid it."

Umbridge furiously summoned a group of Slytherin students and ordered them to plaster notices across the walls banning all reading of The Quibbler.

Praeris and Draco were assigned to supervise this "grand undertaking."

"Praeris, I read that magazine—" Astoria said, helping the younger students paste sheets while sneaking a glance at Draco a short distance away. "Potter says You-Know-Who has returned. And he published a list of Death Eaters."

The list included the parents of Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Bulstrode, and others.

Draco's face went iron-gray with fury. He stood over the students diligently pasting the walls and picked apart every tiny flaw he could find.

The students kept their hands moving without pause. Their feet quietly shuffled sideways toward Praeris, inching out of Draco's attack range.

"Lia, you haven't read it." Praeris turned her head back around. "Just focus on pasting your paper."

Astoria bit her lip and lowered her head uneasily. She had nothing to personally fear from Death Eaters. Her friend, however, was a Muggle-born witch.

"We're finally almost done." Anderson planted his hands on his hips and turned to Praeris. "Prefect, why do we have to do this? Are we her servants?"

Anderson pouted. His own parents had never made him do menial work like this. And now here at Hogwarts, he was doing exactly that.

Praeris took the small bucket from his hands. "Mr. Anderson, at this particular moment in Hogwarts, there are no students and no professors. There are only supporters of Ministry policy and opponents of it. Which would you rather be?"

Umbridge did favor Slytherin, yes. But to actually believe that favor could override her own interests...

You might as well board the Hogwarts Express and go straight home. Dig out the baby pacifier from the storage room, pop it in your mouth, burrow under the covers, close your eyes, and let your dear parents pat the wind out of their precious foolish little darling.

Anderson was instantly left with nothing to say. He turned and started murmuring to his good friend Johnson.

Praeris could vaguely make out the words "Gryffindor" and "blow off some steam."

The next day, same location. Praeris stood with arms folded again, supervising another batch of Slytherins putting up notices.

This time, Umbridge wanted to ban the Wizarding Home Journal from Hogwarts. That paper had moved quickly, reprinting Potter's interview in full.

On the third day, Praeris was back at the same spot. Today it was Witch Weekly, the very magazine that had awarded Gilderoy Lockhart the Most Charming Smile Award five times over.

That same afternoon brought The Niffler Gossip Gazette, a publication that treated gossip as pure gold.

This one hadn't reprinted Harry Potter's interview. Instead, Rita Skeeter had exercised her own initiative, adapted to the spirit of a gossip rag, and produced a piece rich with sourced speculation about an unspeakable political scandal between Minister Fudge and the Death Eaters.

The same brand of rumor-mongering journalism Rita Skeeter had once turned on Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

After those papers, smaller tabloids began popping up like mushrooms after rain, faster than the Ministry and Umbridge could stamp them out.

Draco was furious beyond words. He sprinted to the lake, snatched up a stone, wound his arm back, and hurled it with everything he had. It skipped across the water in a burst of white spray.

HUFF. HUFF. HUFF.

Draco bent forward, hands braced on his knees, face dark. "Have those reporters had their brains sucked dry by Swooping Evils?! They actually believe Potter, of all people — that persecution-complex headcase!"

Draco shouldn't have known the term "persecution complex" by rights. Some Muggle-born students had used it to describe the fake Moody. It fit Potter so perfectly that Draco had adopted it on the spot, deploying it regularly to get under Potter's skin.

The moment he found out it was a Muggle term, he'd dropped it like a dirty sock and never touched it again.

Until today.

"What?" Praeris walked over to stand beside him. "I thought this was already common knowledge."

Draco clapped his hands clean and stepped back two paces. "Do you really think everyone has our political awareness and sound judgment? Most people out there are just waiting to believe whatever the papers print and repeat whatever they're told."

When public opinion said Potter was mentally ill, Potter was nothing but a chuunibyou boy deluded into thinking he was a savior. When the truth came to light, those same people thought Potter was commendably brave.

Was he Don Quixote, that delusional knight charging windmills as giants? Or was he a hero genuinely worth admiring? That all depended on how the writers wanted to spin it.

Draco lifted his chin. "Yes. My father is a Death Eater and holds the Dark Lord's favor. But this should never have been exposed. It reduces our room to maneuver."

Praeris began walking toward Draco, steady and unhurried. Draco found himself stepping back without quite meaning to.

"Did you think of that yourself?" she asked.

Draco's lashes flickered. "What? Can I — can't I have thoughts like that?"

Praeris said quietly, "Draco, have you seen the homework Millicent copies?"

"Uh." Draco hedged. "Fine. My mother said it."

Then he straightened up and announced it with full confidence: "Hey! What's your point?! Do you think where the words came from matters more than what I'm feeling?"

Draco was a proud white peacock who considered himself naturally magnificent and believed the world owed him accommodation as a matter of course. He deserved love. He enjoyed love. He had no shame whatsoever about demanding it.

That was the bedrock logic of Draco's life.

Praeris understood exactly what he wanted. He wanted her to soothe a heart that wasn't even all that wounded. But Draco's unhappiness right now had been partly stoked by her own hand.

When she had resolved to help Hermione Granger shake the willfully oblivious public awake, Praeris had already known this moment was coming.

Rita Skeeter would never let a story as explosive as the Death Eater list pass her by. And Harry Potter wanted nothing more than to drag the truth into the light.

A single Quibbler could be killed easily enough. But wave after wave of public opinion was a different animal entirely.

Journalists chased heat. Once four outlets were in the fray, the rest would circle like hyenas and tear into whatever scraps were left.

When this combination of blows connected, Voldemort's plans would be thrown into disarray.

The price for that was the exposed Death Eaters finding themselves in an impossible position. That included the Malfoy family.

The feeling was painful. It was a torment.

To check Voldemort's momentum, she couldn't stop. She had to keep doing what she was doing. But every action she took damaged Slytherin's power, specifically the part tied to Death Eaters, like Draco's family.

And then, after doing all of that, to comfort Draco with a straight face. What would that make her?

Utterly hypocritical.

"I'm sorry," Praeris said, abruptly.

Draco blinked. "Uh — I was just talking, it's nothing. I just can't stand Potter, that's all!"

His pale eyes met Praeris's deep black ones, and he stopped. There was something in them he hadn't expected. A struggling, aching sorrow.

Sorrow? Why?

He couldn't work it out. Was she sorrowful for his sake?

He reached out and draped his arm around her shoulder. "I'm not unhappy — maybe a tiny bit irritated, but it's nothing. Praeris. I don't mind lending you my shoulder."

A thought surfaced in Draco's mind, unbidden: could it be, that there actually came a moment when someone else relied on him?

Right now, he was the one being leaned on. Not him relying on his parents' power, on Professor Snape's favoritism, on Praeris's strength to prop himself up and throw his weight around.

He had no clear shape to the thought. But somewhere underneath, he sensed it: compared to being loved, the feeling of loving someone was actually rather good too.

Two people who cared for each other stood in an embrace, carrying entirely different thoughts. Two hearts pressed so close together, and yet so far apart.

The Ministry's authority had been shaken, and Umbridge's counterattack came down hard.

On Monday morning, the Divination professor was replaced by the centaur Firenze. Umbridge had sacked Trelawney, and the centaur had volunteered to step into her place.

Praeris had no particular feelings about the change.

After recovering her childhood memories, she knew that Divination was not a subject that could truly be taught.

Dumbledore had built the course, she suspected, not because he believed in it, but because he wanted to keep Trelawney, an erratic Seer, unreliable but genuine, on his own ground, out of Voldemort's reach.

Even so, Praeris carefully lit her sage as Firenze instructed and stared into the drifting smoke with hollow attention.

"Professor Firenze," she said politely. "This is the first time I've looked and seen nothing at all."

"That is quite alright," Firenze said, calm and unhurried. "Human eyes are clouded. They cannot trace the paths of fate."

Praeris kept staring, stubborn, wanting to see something. "But Professor Trelawney said I have some talent."

It was the first time she had genuinely wanted a glimpse of the future. The first time she had wanted guidance.

"It is in misfortune that people come to believe most deeply in divination and fate."

That had been her view of Divination once. And now it was proving itself true in her.

When her heart wavered and her footing felt unsure, she had started reaching for something intangible, something that floated.

"Prince?" Firenze glanced at the roll sheet. "Prophecies are not always accurate. To place your faith in fate is a very foolish thing."

"But sometimes they're accurate enough to kill," Praeris said. "Aren't they?"

Firenze's face was unmoved. "That is because those who believe such words run stubbornly toward the fate that was written for them. Before the great sweep of destiny, individual lives are far too small to matter. And precisely because they are so small, they are difficult to predict."

Praeris went still.

She had turned a question over in her mind before: was Harry Potter born Voldemort's fated enemy? Or was it that whoever Voldemort chose would become his fated enemy, the so-called Chosen One?

There was no answer to that question. The world didn't rewind like a videotape, didn't play out an alternate branch where Neville Longbottom was the savior.

But what if Voldemort had chosen no one? What if he hadn't believed the prophecy at all? Then he would never have triggered Lily Potter's magic of love, and the war would simply have ground on.

It was because he believed in a boy born in July that the prophecy was fulfilled.

Just like Hamlet. Once you know the prophecy, it becomes your cage. You circle and circle, and every turn brings you back to the same track.

That was why Sylvia had once told the young Praeris: "The ignorant are fearless. The ignorant carry infinite possibility."

Sylvia had read the futures of countless others. She rarely read her own. She had gone out of her way to avoid glimpsing her own fate, even by accident.

And yet she had still fallen into the trap. She had run toward destruction headlong, without once looking back. Those who think they can use fate will ultimately find fate using them.

Was that what she was doing now? Because her heart had wavered, was she reaching for divination as a shortcut, hoping to solve what lay ahead by knowing what came next?

Praeris drew a sharp breath.

What was she thinking? She had never believed in fate. She had always believed in the power held in her own two hands.

It was the residue of the Horcrux diadem.

The diadem was gone. But the hunger it had stirred didn't vanish with it. That hunger came from somewhere deep in a person, somewhere that didn't yield easily.

No grueling training. No suffering to endure. Just reach for something outside yourself and cheat your way there. Who wouldn't want that?

After class, Praeris walked quickly to the washroom and threw a handful of cold water hard into her face.

"I waited for all of you to finish," Pansy said, catching her breath. "And you didn't even glance at me. You ran faster than a rabbit!"

"What is it?" Praeris asked.

Pansy said, put out, "Professor Umbridge wants us."

"More notices?" Praeris asked, her guard going up immediately.

She was at her limit too. She was barely managing to keep the disgruntled Slytherin students in line.

This was completely beyond the pale.

Every corridor of this thousand-year-old school was plastered with notices like cheap advertisements. It was an eyesore, and it was frankly embarrassing.

"Who knows," Pansy said. "Let's hope it's something actually interesting for once."

Outside Umbridge's office.

Praeris arrived a little late.

Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and a number of the older Slytherin students were already assembled.

"What are we doing?" Pansy asked, impatient.

Draco folded his arms. "Waiting for the announcement. Trust me. It's going to be something big."

Praeris fell into step beside Draco naturally.

Not only for Draco's sake, though. She wanted to know what Umbridge was planning.

As it happened, Draco was standing closest to the office door.

Praeris cast two wordless spells in quick succession. The office door turned transparent before her eyes.

Standing in front of Umbridge was a frightened, unsteady girl. Ravenclaw's Marietta Edgecombe.

Praeris's eyes narrowed. This girl was a member of the DA.

Umbridge had a sweet smile on her face. She spoke to the girl in a soft, gentle voice. "Marietta, is it? Madam Edgecombe's daughter."

Marietta had been pressed down onto a stool, wringing her hands.

Umbridge touched the corner of her eye with one finger, the picture of gentle concern. "I've heard Madam Edgecombe speak of you. She says her daughter is especially well-behaved, especially easy to manage. Never gives her a moment's trouble."

➤ Next: Mary Etta — Words Unspoken