Chapter 137 - End of Fifth Year

In the Slytherin common room, Crabbe and Goyle sat across from Draco, talking.

Draco was fiddling with something in his hand, shifting his posture every so often. He looked anxious.

There was no doubt he already knew what had happened at the Department of Mysteries, even if it hadn't made the papers yet.

Praeris walked up beside him and asked softly, "Are you feeling better?"

Technically, what Praeris knew should have stopped at delivering the action team to the Hospital Wing yesterday evening. So this was the only way she could express her concern.

"Of course." Draco forced his emotions down and answered in his usual tone. "Did you really think those Gryffindors could do anything to me?"

Crabbe and Goyle exchanged a look and found an excuse to leave.

"You're not happy." Praeris stated flatly.

Draco said slowly, "Didn't I just say? I'm perfectly fine."

"Then you should learn how to lie." Praeris mimicked his tone. "Did you really think I don't know you?"

If Draco truly didn't care, he wouldn't be clutching the Felix Felicis bottle. He was praying for his father's luck.

Draco sat up straight, his expression serious as he looked at Praeris. "Praeris, let me ask you something."

Praeris blinked. "Ask."

Draco took a deep breath. "If... just if. If my family—"

His question cut off. Like a videotape suddenly hitting pause.

Praeris tilted her head, as if puzzled by the silence.

"Never mind." The words had made it all the way to his lips. He swallowed every one of them back down.

Before, he had believed he was meant to be the center of attention. Potter was always in the way, yes, but it had seemed only natural that Praeris would like him.

After the Triwizard Tournament, the Dark Lord had returned. His family would reclaim the past glory his father always spoke of.

But now? His father had failed. Had not completed the task the Dark Lord demanded. And was very likely already on his way to Azkaban.

He couldn't help recalling what Praeris had once said to him: "Draco, Mr. Malfoy must give more. Must be more useful than others."

A kind of worry that would never have existed in him before now gnawed at him, nearly pushing a ridiculous question out of his mouth.

He was actually doubting whether his family would fall because of this.

He was actually doubting whether Praeris would leave him because of this.

As if Praeris had ever cared about his family background in the first place.

How ridiculous.

He murmured quietly, a trace of self-mockery in his voice. "What am I thinking... of course not..."

"Whatever you wanted to say. Whatever you're facing." Praeris placed her hand over his, over the hand still gripping the Felix Felicis. "If you need me, come find me anytime. Like before."

Draco's gaze dropped to their overlapping hands.

A long moment passed. Silently, he placed his other hand over hers.

Outside the window, the giant squid drifted past without a sound, peering curiously at the small figures inside the castle.

She knew, of course. Of course she did.

Potter thought Draco and she were not the same kind of people. Hermione couldn't stand Draco's arrogance. Even Pansy, who had pushed them together, wondered why she liked Draco at all.

She was nothing like her birth mother. Sylvia had never understood Deepure's feelings, but Praeris knew with perfect clarity that Draco was a little bastard.

But was love a commodity on display in the shops of Diagon Alley, to be measured out in Galleons?

Smart people with smart people. Good people with good people. Kind people with kind people. Love doesn't get weighed on a scale like that, and people are not pets to be bred.

If that were the measure, Miss Winnie, with her dark past, wouldn't even have the courage to become friends with Ms. Pully.

At the very beginning, she had let Draco stay by her side for selfish reasons. She wanted to enjoy love without being ready to bear the responsibility it carried. And Draco's pride made him unwilling to put feelings into words.

But those who have felt love are not stingy in giving it. Draco had his arrogant, contrary way about him, yet he never fell short in action.

She knew, truly and fully, that Draco's heart beat for her. And she had not been entirely unmoved by him, either.

They were different, naturally. Honestly, who falls in love with a perfect copy of themselves?

Please. She wasn't Narcissus.

If there were another person in the world highly similar to Praeris, if they got along, she would appreciate them the way she appreciated Hermione, and work alongside them. If they didn't get along, she would simply keep her guard up.

Perhaps it was beauty in the eye of the beholder. She could accept Draco at his worst, and she believed, genuinely, that he was not a particularly bad person.

After the Quidditch World Cup, Draco had written to her about what happened between him and Potter.

His focus at the time had been on the Cup itself and the Death Eater march. But reading between the lines of his account, Praeris had noticed something: he had warned Hermione, that Mudblood witch, to know her place and hide.

Even though he could never manage to say anything decent about Gryffindors.

On Saturday morning, Fudge announced the Dark Lord's return through the Daily Prophet, along with Dumbledore's reinstatement.

All the Death Eaters involved in the Department of Mysteries incident were imprisoned in Azkaban. But the Dementors who guarded Azkaban had already struck a deal with Voldemort.

The British wizarding world was suddenly gripped with tension.

Pansy had been discharged from the Hospital Wing. She sat on the lawn in front of the castle, pulling up tufts of grass one by one, then tossing them out into the sun.

"Ugh!" Pansy groaned.

Praeris glanced sideways at her. "What's wrong, my lady?"

Pansy leaned her head against Praeris's shoulder and dropped her voice. "That business — you absolutely cannot tell anyone."

"What business?" Praeris asked, playing dumb.

Pansy pinched her lightly with her clean hand. "You know what!"

"Don't we all know the Dark Lord returned long ago?" Praeris pushed her hand away with a smile. "Isn't it a bit late to start worrying now?"

"Look at that smug face!" Pansy straightened up and glared at her, lowering her voice to barely above a murmur. "Is it the same thing? The Dark Lord's return has been made public! He won't hold his followers back anymore!"

Pansy often teased the Greengrass sisters about their contradictions. But now that it was her turn, she finally understood Astoria's feelings about her good friend Jones.

Praeris was a half-blood.

Just thinking about it made Pansy's heart run cold.

"You won't tell, I won't tell." Pansy said it with more conviction than she felt. "Who would even know you're, uh, that?"

Praeris laughed softly and pulled Pansy down to lie on the lawn beside her. "Pansy, cheer up. This shouldn't be your burden."

Pansy's thinking was still too simple. When it was useful, half-bloods could serve Voldemort just as well, Professor Snape, for instance. When he wanted someone dead, pure-bloods died too, like Mrs. Weasley's brother.

It was no certainty that if no one knew Praeris was a half-blood, she could sleep easy.

"No, Prae." Pansy said, almost to herself. "This is exactly what I should worry about. If I had never met you, I wouldn't lose sleep over any of this. But I have met you. It's like Millicent taking in Nina."

If Millicent had never had Nina, she wouldn't have panicked when Mrs. Norris was petrified. In the same way, if Pansy had never built a friendship with Praeris, Voldemort's return would have been someone else's problem.

A person is not an isolated island, cut off from the world and untouched by it.

Everyone is connected to the people around them. They change. They develop thoughts entirely unlike the ones they had before.

Praeris had used precisely this to help Astoria see the egalitarian ideas quietly living in her own heart.

But when that same kind of thinking troubled Pansy...

"You know, Draco has a theory I like very much, and it fits perfectly here." Praeris propped herself up on one hand and looked at Pansy. "If we can't find happiness now, what will we do when we're facing something truly sorrowful?"

Pansy, childhood friend to Draco that she was, looked genuinely startled. "He can actually say something that sensible?"

"Does Draco know you think of him that way?" Praeris burst out laughing. "Pan-Pan, just admit you love me. Look at you, losing sleep over me. My charm really is something else."

"Praeris—" Pansy lunged at her, fingers outstretched to tickle.

Praeris rolled away across the lawn, sprang to her feet, and bolted.

Pansy, not to be outdone, jumped up and gave chase. "I won't tickle you, just stop!"

"No!" Praeris shouted without looking back. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"I really won't!"

"I really won't stop!"

Draco had just finished provoking Potter, come out the worse for it, and was storming out of the castle in a fury when Praeris came running straight toward him.

"Praeris? Pansy? What are you two—"

He hadn't finished his sentence before Praeris ducked behind him. "Draco, Pansy said you can't say anything that makes sense!"

"Draco, Praeris has transferred her affections!" Pansy jumped, trying to grab Praeris over his shoulder.

"What?" Draco stiffened. "Transferred to who? Miles or Marcus? They're both ancient!"

"Is that the only thing you heard?!" Praeris complained. "I've transferred to Pansy!"

"Look at what she's saying! Do something about Praeris!"

"Do something about Pansy!"

Draco rolled his eyes and raised both hands in surrender, with full self-awareness. "Look how capable I must be, managing the two of you."

He was completely lost.

These girls. Every so often they'd go slightly unhinged, tussling and bickering for no apparent reason, and then the next second they'd be attached at the hip again.

The whole thing was like a book where the inner pages had all fallen out, leaving only the cover. You open to the first page, and suddenly you're at the last.

He watched them squabble. Then he watched them walk off arm in arm.

"What are those two doing now?" Draco muttered.

Crabbe thought Draco was asking him. He was just about to answer "don't know" when Draco walked on ahead without waiting for a reply.

The end of the year brought the usual feast. Hardly anyone was looking forward to the House Cup.

In past years it had been fought over tooth and nail. This year, after everything that had happened, it just seemed rather beside the point.

The last day finally came. Praeris was looking forward to going home, and then the thought stopped her cold.

Where was her home?

Diagon Alley? Since last year, Winnie had forbidden her from staying there.

Black Moon Crescent Lane? Winnie was in hospital. Ms. Pully was with the Order of the Phoenix. What was even the point of going back to Black Moon Crescent Lane alone?

Aside from those, where else could she go?

She turned it over and over in her mind, and felt only a hollow space in her chest. If she kept still and listened, she could almost hear it echo.

Praeris had always been drifting, it seemed. From Southend-on-Sea to St. Mary's Convent. From Diagon Alley to Black Moon Crescent Lane. And woven through it all, nearly five years at Hogwarts.

Every place had been somewhere she could rest for a while. None of them had ever been home.

Perhaps because none of those places held anyone who was truly, in the real sense, her family anymore.

Praeris stood on the platform and looked back toward Hogwarts Castle.

The train let out a long, loud whistle, as if urging the last stragglers to board.

She turned back around, picked up her luggage, and stepped onto the Hogwarts Express.

"Prefect!" Astoria waved at her from down the corridor. "There you are, I was just looking for you!"

"What's wrong?" Praeris asked, lowering her head.

"Um... just come, you'll see." Astoria tugged at her sleeve and led her toward the rear compartments. "Grace went to the bathroom and saw..."

They stopped near the bathroom. Praeris took one look at the scene in front of her and felt a headache coming on.

Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle had been knocked unconscious. All three of them piled together in a heap.

This journey was not going to leave her any time for melancholy. Not when she had this mess to deal with first.

She would bet anything that Draco had gone after Harry to avenge his father, and Harry and his friends had beaten him flat.

Eagerness to avenge his father, clearly, because everything she had taught him had gone straight out of his head.

Plan before you act? Gone.

Leave no trace? Forgotten entirely.

When Draco opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a pair of familiar dark eyes.

Praeris looked down at him without expression. "Are you getting up, or would you rather lie there until your mother comes to comfort you?"

"Damn Potter!" Draco winced as his fingers brushed the wound on his face.

Praeris fixed him with a glare. "Damn Draco, more like. You'd better still remember what I taught you."

Draco went quiet immediately. Crabbe and Goyle hunched their shoulders and fell in behind her.

"If you had even a shred of brains between you," Praeris said through her teeth, "you wouldn't be lying here."

The DA members sat in their compartment, listening to the telling-off from the corridor outside.

Ginny giggled. "I have to say — the Slytherin prefect is not wrong."

Luna looked up from The Quibbler in her usual dreamy way. "Sounds a bit familiar."

"Everything sounds familiar when you're half-asleep," Hermione said, and let the matter drop.

➤ Next: A Conversation on Black Rose Lane