Chapter 143 - Things Have Changed and People Are Gone

Praeris pressed down on Heidi's hand and shook her head.

Heidi let herself be pulled away from the cluster of street vendors. She was fuming. "Did you think I couldn't beat him? I was the dueling competition third-place champion seven or eight years ago!"

Praeris smiled and raised one finger to her lips. "Shh. Listen."

About 7 or 8 seconds passed.

Behind them, someone screamed.

Heidi stiffened. "You did that?"

"Rather than arguing with one vendor," Praeris said pleasantly, "better to teach them all a lesson at once. Don't you think? Come on — let's go to Madam Malkin's."

Heidi watched Praeris stroll ahead without a backward glance. She couldn't help muttering to herself, "That was incredible. Professor Flitwick, I want to learn that."

Then something occurred to her, and she hurried after her.

"Praeris!" Heidi called out urgently. "Students can't use wands during the holidays."

"Look around." Praeris didn't break stride. "Do you see any long-nosed Ministry dogs?" She sounded utterly unconcerned. "Heidi, wake up. This is Diagon Alley. And besides — when did I use a wand?"

Praeris spread both hands wide. Her pale, clean hands held nothing at all.

"Alright, alright." She patted Heidi on the shoulder. "Stop worrying. Whatever happens, Praeris will always find a way."

Heidi drifted along in her wake, not quite sure anymore who was supposed to be the adult here.

Old Tom had sent her along to look after Praeris. But was it possible he'd actually sent Praeris to look after her?

Madam Malkin was clearly moved to see Praeris walk through the door.

Prim Purnell had always had a special fondness for women, and she'd never made any secret of it. There wasn't a single female shopkeeper in Diagon Alley who didn't like Ms. Prim for it.

"Little Prae, do you remember?" Madam Malkin said, her voice warm with memory. "They used to bring you to my shop, and we would make clothes ourselves..."

The customers coming in today were all in a hurry. No one dared linger outside for long. Madam Malkin had no one to talk to.

Praeris had always known how to make clothes. Ms. Prim had learned from Madam Malkin.

In the glass cabinet along the wall, there were still accessories the two of them had practiced making, bow hair clips and silk headbands.

"Time really does fly." Madam Malkin sighed. "When you first came here, you were so thin and bony. Like a refugee who'd crept in from nowhere. And now look at you."

"Madam Malkin." Praeris was quiet for a moment. "This year, next year. Even after graduation. When I'm as old as Heidi — I'll still come to you for my clothes."

It sounded like a promise. It felt even more like a wish.

Madam Malkin paused mid-measurement. When she spoke again, her voice had gone a little rough. "Of course. I'd like that very much."

Praeris walked out of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions with her new robes tucked under her arm, then stopped at Flourish and Blotts for new textbooks.

On the way back, they passed the door of Prim Purnell's Beauty Elixir shop. Then the door of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Then Ollivanders.

At the ice cream parlour, Winnie had once held up a giant skull-shaped cup and done her best impression of a child begging for free ice cream.

Florean had threatened to report her for acting cute at her age.

The next day, Winnie had sat herself right outside his door eating iced watermelon, very deliberately.

At the door of Flourish and Blotts, Heidi had once pushed a Four Founders crossover novel on her with the force of personal conviction. The shopkeeper Blenkin had said he personally preferred the Arthur and Merlin friendship arc.

At the cauldron shop, the shopkeeper Patch had once pointed her toward a reliable herb dealer.

At Slug and Jiggers Apothecary, Praeris had sold the very first potion she'd ever made.

In the middle of Diagon Alley, she had once spread her arms wide and let the summer evening breeze wash over her.

Praeris felt a quiet ache move through her chest.

Things had changed and people were gone. Diagon Alley was no longer the place she carried in her memory. The old friends couldn't all gather together anymore.

If this was the price of growing up, then fate was far too cruel.

Someone bumped into Heidi. Hard. The offender didn't even glance back to apologize. He said, with the instinctive arrogance of someone who'd never once been told no: "Watch where you're going."

Heidi put her hands on her hips. "Maybe I wasn't watching — but my mouth is a lot cleaner than yours!"

"Draco?" Praeris's voice came from just behind Heidi, shaded with genuine surprise.

Draco had already puffed himself up like an indignant blowfish, fully prepared to take Heidi apart word by word.

Praeris's voice landed, and his expression shifted completely. He muttered, "Praeris, why do you always surround yourself with..."

He looked Heidi up and down with open contempt and let the sentence finish itself in a single, slow word.

"Friends."

Heidi's eyes went wide.

He, what, what did he mean by that!

"Oh, come off it, Draco," Praeris said calmly. "I haven't complained about Crabbe and Goyle."

Draco actually appeared to consider this. Then he said, with apparent sincerity, "That's fair. We can't always expect the people around us to be on our level."

What could Heidi possibly say to that?

He looked down on his own friends.

Praeris thought privately: Young master, you should be thanking me. I haven't demanded you be on my level either.

"Heidi Travers," Praeris said, turning to Draco. "Employee at Obscurus Books."

Draco's eyebrow went up. "Travers — pureblood?"

Heidi shot Praeris a look that said everything: How do you have a friend like this?

Praeris's look came back immediately: I haven't even complained about his friends.

Heidi's look replied: Respect.

"Draco," Praeris said, with a small sigh. "Didn't you say you couldn't leave your mother's side? So what exactly are you,"

Draco suddenly remembered what he'd been rushing off to do. He was supposed to be back at Twilfitt and Tatting's.

Speak of Madam Malfoy, and Madam Malfoy appeared.

"Draco!" Narcissa Malfoy spotted him and moved toward him with visible urgency. "Where did you run off to? I told you that you can't be alone,"

She noticed the others. The urgency on her face faded at once, replaced smoothly by the cool, composed expression she wore like armor.

"Mother! I ran into a classmate." Draco's eyes flickered. "You may not have met her. This is Praeris Prince, the Slytherin prefect. Professor Snape thinks very highly of Praeris."

Praeris glanced at Draco sideways.

He had not left his mother's side because he'd spotted Praeris.

Narcissa's expression eased by a fraction.

"I've heard of you." She fixed her gaze on Praeris and spoke slowly, measuring each word. "A talented witch. You saved Draco, didn't you?"

Narcissa perhaps believed her tone was warm enough. To everyone else present, it rang as pure condescension.

As though saving Draco had been an honor Praeris ought to feel grateful for.

Heidi's first instinct was to turn around and walk away. Who did these two think they were?

People who've raised beagles learn to tolerate most dogs' barking. Faced with Narcissa's manner, Praeris wasn't provoked. But she wasn't without a temper, either.

"You mean, saved Draco?" Praeris's gaze moved from Narcissa's face to Draco's. Her voice was perfectly, pleasantly ordinary. "Which time are you referring to, specifically?"

COUGH. COUGH. COUGH.

Draco pressed his fist to his mouth and coughed with great urgency.

Narcissa drew a slow breath. A brief pause. Then she spoke again. "It seems the safety at Hogwarts is not particularly trustworthy."

"I agree completely." Praeris said it lightly. "A pity it's not very safe out here, either. Lingering too long on the street wouldn't be wise for anyone."

She looked at Draco. "Let's catch up another time. I'll look forward to your letter."

Praeris and Heidi turned and walked away.

Behind them, Draco hurried to explain. "Mother, Praeris is a genius, and geniuses are always like this. You know, Professor Snape is also always,"

"Draco." Narcissa's voice was measured. "It seems you two get along quite well?"

Draco shrugged. "We're both Slytherin prefects."

He didn't particularly want his mother to know what he actually felt.

She had always cared about him deeply, of course. But she always treated him like a child. Wouldn't let him go out alone. Didn't think he was capable of carrying out the Dark Lord's task.

Narcissa said, with the certainty of someone who already knew the answer: "She must be a pureblood."

Draco didn't even pause to think. "Is there any other possibility?"

After parting from Draco, Praeris and Heidi made their way back to the Leaky Cauldron.

Heidi felt like she had spent the entire day doing nothing but getting angry.

Real life was never anything like novels. Novels kept her happy. Reality kept her furious.

"I should have known," Heidi said, slapping her palm on the table. "Slytherins are all exactly like that!" She caught herself. "Not you, of course, Praeris."

"Even if you meant me," Praeris said, without a trace of offense, "it wouldn't matter. I am a Slytherin."

With new textbooks, new robes, and newspapers from June and July tucked under her arm, Praeris returned to Black Moon Alley.

Being alone was never a hardship for her. If anything, it was the constant management of other people that wore her down.

Stella had left her textbooks behind when she graduated, but her upper-year elective choices didn't fully overlap with Praeris's course load.

The Department of International Magical Cooperation was, after all, a well-worn groove for pureblood families. Stella's dedication to her NEWTs had simply been her laying the groundwork for her own career.

Though, to be fair, her former upperclassman had already been promoted to Director of the International Magical Law Office. Fast didn't quite cover it, she'd gone up like a rocket.

Praeris bought the extra textbooks she needed and put in the time to fill the gaps.

Beyond that, she researched new types of high-efficiency healing potions.

Once the fight between Voldemort and Dumbledore began in earnest, casualties would be inevitable. Fast-acting potions might save lives that slower ones would lose.

Her working theory was straightforward: some potions were excellent, but their onset was too slow. A person could die waiting for them to kick in.

In the field of potion research, Praeris had already made a name for herself before finishing school. The cheap Wolfsbane variant and the Venomous Tentacula Growth Serum had been enough to put her on the map. She was still a student, and people were already talking.

But she also had more controversial work to her name. The Spirit Elixir and the Dream Elixir, specifically.

The Spirit Elixir was designed to briefly heighten a person's creative intuition and sharpen their sensitivity to fate. Praeris had formulated it from a blend of mushrooms, spices, and Runespoor eggs.

Certain prominent Seers had declared it a shortcut. A shameless cheat.

"Those who toy with fate will eventually be toyed with by fate. Those who cheat at divination will receive ominous returns in kind."

That was, more or less, what they said.

The accusations did nothing to hurt her reputation. If anything, they helped. People reasoned: the Spirit Elixir must actually work, or the Seers wouldn't be so upset about it.

Some of those Seers had middling talent at best. They joined the criticism publicly and quietly bought the potion anyway.

Other customers were Hogwarts students who had signed up for Divination in a daze and discovered, rapidly, that they couldn't even figure out how to fabricate their homework. The Spirit Elixir solved that problem.

There were also people who used it as a daily hazard check, a swig first thing in the morning to get a feel for whether today was worth going outside.

So Praeris's reputation in potion research ran in two directions: praised for the cheap Wolfsbane, condemned for the Spirit Elixir and the Dream Elixir. Sometimes in the same week.

She didn't particularly care. If she'd cared what people thought of her, she would have found a rope back at the convent.

Professor Snape had opened the door to Potions for her. Everything after that had been her own legs carrying her forward, at whatever pace she chose.

When she produced something useful and well-regarded, she rewarded herself by releasing something that would inevitably draw complaints.

Summer break was always too short. It felt like nothing had happened, and then it was over and school was starting.

Most students had parents to see them off. Praeris and Heidi just looked at each other.

Heidi said, with great seriousness, "Little Prae, you have to protect me."

"Dueling competition third-place champion," Praeris said, in a tone that landed somewhere between a question and a citation.

Heidi waved her hand. "That was ages ago!"

"Seven or eight years ago." Praeris said it calmly.

Heidi looked horrified. "Why do you remember that so precisely!"

Praeris reflected, not for the first time, that everyone else at a send-off like this was here specifically to protect the student. But here she was, having identified the one healthy, capable person in this entire situation, Heidi, a dueling competition third-place champion from seven or eight years ago, and somehow Heidi was the one asking to be protected.

She might honestly have done better setting off alone.

They made it to the Hogwarts Express without incident.

Of course they did. She wasn't Harry Potter. She didn't attract catastrophe every single day.

"Goodbye, Little Prae."

Heidi hugged her once and murmured against her shoulder, "This one's from Winnie."

She hugged her a second time. "This one's from Prim."

She hugged her a third time. "This one's from me, Old Tom, and the other elders of Diagon Alley."

Then she stepped back and placed both hands on Praeris's shoulders. "Be happy at school. Don't worry about us."

Praeris hugged her back and murmured something in her ear.

Heidi's eyes went wide.

"I hired someone to write you a Grindelwald and Dumbledore romance novel. Six bonus Four Founders stories included. Left it all with Old Tom."

➤ Next: Slughorn — Words Unspoken