Chapter 140 - Hufflepuff's Cup

Praeris lifted Hufflepuff's Cup from its shelf with dragon-hide gloves.

The blood-red thorns coiled around it pierced straight through the leather and into her skin.

Without his beard and glasses for cover, a flicker of worry crossed Dumbledore's eyes.

Winnie had been determined to return to Voldemort's side for her dearest friend's sake. So Dumbledore had briefly rewritten her memories — just enough for her to fool Voldemort at the start.

Voldemort used Legilimency on his followers without restraint, but he always underestimated the timid. Winnie's Occlumency was nothing remarkable. Her cowardice, though, was perfect camouflage. It was enough to fool him.

After Ms. Purnell was rescued, Winnie Brown asked Snape to carry a message to Purnell.

As Winnie's closest friend, Purnell knew Winnie the way she knew herself.

First: Purnell would look after Praeris without being asked.

Second: neither Purnell nor Praeris was short of money.

Given that, Winnie's message had seemed almost unnecessary.

The ailing Purnell turned it over in her mind for a long time. She hesitated for a long time.

Then she made up her mind and told the Order member watching over her that she wanted to see Dumbledore.

"The old place is Gringotts." Prim Purnell's face was pale. Her voice was soft. "Take care of Praeris."

"Gringotts... take good care of Praeris?" Dumbledore nodded, his expression thoughtful.

Winnie's words were never meant for Purnell. They were meant for Dumbledore.

The Fidelity Jinx kept Winnie from speaking the real answer directly. If she tried, the curse would turn on her. So Winnie, who understood curses better than almost anyone, found a way around it. She buried the information inside her words of care for Prim and Praeris, and in doing so, kept the promise she had made to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore pulled out what mattered: Hufflepuff's Cup was in Gringotts, and he would need Praeris to retrieve it.

He worked through the possibilities carefully. Among the Death Eaters Voldemort trusted with something that precious, the trail led to Bellatrix Lestrange and the Lestrange family vault.

The one thing that gave him pause was Praeris herself. What role had Winnie intended for her?

If he'd had any other option, he wouldn't have pulled an underage student into this. But after the Department of Mysteries, Harry had changed how Dumbledore thought about that. The willingness to trust — that was part of who Dumbledore was.

He retrieved a strand of Bellatrix's hair from beneath Winnie's fingernail and decided: the girl would be part of the Gringotts operation. She would brew the Polyjuice Potion. She would impersonate Bellatrix.

Snape had said she was sharp. Dumbledore's own quiet observations had confirmed it. Praeris thought carefully, and she thought well.

Hermione, from a Muggle family. Praeris, of mixed blood. Bloodline had never been the measure of ability.

Dumbledore felt something close to gratification. He hoped that Praeris's presence might, in time, unsettle a few Slytherin certainties.

While the two of them worked through everything, teacher and student, the cup drew steadily closer as Praeris reeled in her arm.

Then, at the last moment, Praeris's voice cut through the air.

"Bloodthorns?!"

Dumbledore went still.

That was why Winnie had told him to bring Praeris. Not just for the vault. For this, to break a curse Dumbledore hadn't even known was there.

Praeris raised her wand without hesitating and aimed it at the cup.

A soft white light bloomed from the tip. "Tides!"

The glow fell gently over the cup and her hand. Around them, the sound of ocean waves rose and filled the air.

Dumbledore was watching her hand. Praeris caught it.

"Headmaster, it's fine. I mean — it's not a dark curse."

She said it lightly. Easily. As if the thorns hadn't just punched through dragon-hide leather and into her skin, as if her blood wasn't soaking the glove right now.

Bloodthorns was not a dark curse.

It was the opposite.

In the seventeenth century, there was a powerful witch named Freya. She lived with her young daughter high in the remote snowy mountains of Northern Europe, far from the rest of the world.

One day, her daughter fell ill. She needed medicine. But Europe's witch hunts were spreading and growing worse, and Freya could not bring herself to leave her daughter alone.

She watched her daughter suffer, and she made her choice.

Freya invented the Bloodthorn curse. It wrapped their home in a cage of thorns. Even if someone slipped past a repelling charm by accident, they would die on the spikes, each one nourished by the witch's love.

Freya believed that every witch was, at her origin, a child of the moon. The moon governed the tides of the earth. Moonlight guided the water. And that same pull moved through the blood of every witch.

Only a witch's gentle tide, her moonlight, could coax thorns grown sharp from love back into something soft.

In the white light, in the sound of the sea, the spikes dissolved one by one. The thorns became ordinary vines, then nothing at all.

Dumbledore's eyes were bright. "I must say — that is a remarkable piece of magic. A mother's deepest love, and it grows the sharpest thorns."

Praeris nodded. She handed him the cup, then opened Draco's pocket watch.

Twenty minutes left.

The third Horcrux fell under Gryffindor's sword.

Praeris peeled off the dragon-hide gloves. They looked like a sieve. She stared at them for a moment, then set them aside carefully.

Maybe the future great alchemist Draco could patch them up.

She raised her wand and put the vault back in order. Dumbledore transfigured an ordinary golden goblet into a copy of Hufflepuff's Cup, then handed it to her.

She understood immediately. She closed her eyes. She thought about the people she wanted to protect. "Thorns entwine!"

Blood-red thorns erupted across the surface of the fake cup.

Dumbledore moved quickly, layering it with additional spells including the Iron Fire Charm, then floated it back to the highest shelf with a Levitation Charm.

Praeris took a breath. "Headmaster. Fifteen minutes."

They left the vault and climbed into the cart.

Metal rattled and clattered as the cart hurtled through the dark.

When they stepped off, ten minutes remained.

Polyjuice Potion doesn't end all at once. Three to five minutes before it expires, the drinker's real features start bleeding through.

When that happened, Praeris's cover would be blown. The goblins would see. The whole operation would be exposed.

"Wald." "Bellatrix's" voice was harsh and sharp. "Stop dawdling. Do you think I would lose something that important?"

"Bellatrix" couldn't see the angle "Wald" chose to roll his eyes, but the goblins could. "Lestrange. You can never be too careful about something like this."

Praeris counted in her head. Eight minutes.

The goblin who had escorted them into the vault walked toward the one behind the counter. The counter goblin leaned in and murmured something.

Praeris tracked them from the corner of her eye, reading their faces, trying to tell if they suspected anything.

Her chest felt tight. Of all the moments to be called back and questioned, it couldn't be now.

Seven minutes.

Two Death Eaters who couldn't stand the sight of each other walked briskly toward the doors.

They walked out. No one stopped them.

Two cloaked figures moved through the streets near Gringotts and disappeared into the shadows.

Praeris landed on the carpet in Winnie's living room with a thud.

She spun toward the mirror immediately. In the reflection, "Bellatrix's" hair had already started to go straight.

It had been that close. A minute later, and her hair would have given her away.

Neither of them could know if tonight's work would hold. If no one noticed, everything was fine. But if it unraveled, it could go one of two ways: the Death Eaters would believe they'd failed to break through Gringotts's defenses and never found the cup, or they would realize the cup was a fake and understand that the Order of the Phoenix was destroying Horcruxes.

Either way, one thing had been sitting uneasy in Praeris's mind.

As of now, 3 Horcruxes had been destroyed. The diary. The diadem. The cup. But it didn't feel close to finished.

Of the four founders' relics, only Slytherin's remained — and there wasn't a single lead.

And beyond that? What else might Voldemort have used? Was he still making them?

No answers. Not yet.

"Would you like to join the Order of the Phoenix?" Dumbledore asked. He sounded almost cheerful.

Praeris shook her head. "Headmaster, I can't."

Not won't. Can't.

Professor Snape was a double agent. Both sides had accepted him moving between them. Praeris wasn't in that position.

And the Order's headquarters wasn't just Order members. There were others. Ginny Weasley, for one. The Weasleys were the sort of family that charged straight through walls and called it a plan. No instinct for concealment. Any one of them could accidentally expose her, and she would lose the ground she'd spent years building.

Dumbledore smiled. "I wouldn't stop someone from going to the people she loves."

"Headmaster." Praeris's voice was steady. "It's because I love them that I won't. A brief separation now is worth a long happiness later."

Dumbledore looked at her for a moment.

"Praeris," he said, "Severus will be proud of how you've grown."

Proud?

Praeris sat with her chin in her hand, reading Draco's handwriting on the page. She could almost picture his face as he wrote it.

Since summer started, Mother hasn't wanted me out of her sight. She's on edge constantly, convinced something will happen to me the moment she looks away.

Personally, I think I'm sixteen. Think about it (a wild, crooked line scrawled across the page) what's the problem!

My guess is it's because Father isn't home and she can't settle. So I follow her around all day and let her see me whenever she needs to.

The first few letters were mostly Draco complaining about Narcissa Malfoy's nerves. After Lucius was taken away, she had locked onto her only son and wouldn't let go, terrified of losing him too.

Draco had wanted to find a way to slip out and meet up with Praeris. Under Narcissa's watch, it was basically impossible.

Praeris wrote back:

Draco, don't worry about me. Your mother needs you more than I do right now.

I'll see you. If not now, then when school starts.

Millicent sent me a lot of Italian chocolates. She said she knew I'd be thinking of you, so she bought two boxes. I'm sending yours with this letter.

What Praeris left out was that Millicent had been very clear: the chocolates were for Praeris. Draco was not, under any circumstances, to thank her. She would be sick.

Missing the chance to meet up was a disappointment, but it didn't really upset Draco. What actually made him unhappy were the Death Eaters, the ones who fawned and flattered when things were good and turned on people the moment they fell.

There was something about putting it on paper, at a distance. He said things there that he wouldn't have said to her face.

You're right. Mother needs me.

I shared the chocolates with her. She couldn't eat.

The chocolates you sent are good.

My aunt and her crowd think every failure is Father's fault. Mother is furious.

Right! How capable Father is, as if they were the ones fighting, and Father was the one cutting them down from behind!

I found some spell books here. Sending them along.

The handwriting was a mess. He was in a bad mood and not hiding it.

Millicent never got her chance to be nauseated. Draco didn't mention her once. He thanked Praeris for the chocolates.

Praeris wrote back:

Someone always has to carry the blame for mistakes and failure. It's just unfortunate that your father was handed that role, and then got caught.

I found a book on alchemy. Sending it with this letter.

Are you thinking of taking the alchemy elective next term? OWLs results should be out soon.

After she sent it, her OWLs results arrived.

She was, uncharacteristically, nervous. Her mind kept drifting.

She thought about how she would explain to Professor Snape that one of her marks had come in below Outstanding.

Then she thought: what if, somehow, it hadn't?

She pulled the slip out slowly. Not too fast, she didn't want to see Care of Magical Creatures before she was ready. Not too slow, either. Drawing it out was its own kind of torture.

From the top of the list to the bottom, every single subject had the same letter beside it.

O.

Outstanding.

➤ Next: The Heart's Choice