Chapter 148 - The Half-Blood Prince

Praeris turned slowly, gaze drifting toward the Gryffindors, and fell into thought.

Beside her, Draco said irritably, "Has the old man gone blind? Better than you? Potter? What kind of joke is that?"

The other four Slytherins muttered their own resentment. Zabini included.

Zabini had never warmed to Praeris. A domineering, sharp-edged witch like her didn't fit his idea of what a woman should be.

That said, he recognized her strength, in Potions and Charms especially.

And as a Slytherin, he couldn't stomach watching Gryffindor take the win.

So he turned a cold snort toward their table and rolled his eyes.

Over at Gryffindor, surprise ran deeper than joy.

None of them could wrap their heads around it. Harry had actually produced a potion like that.

Even Hermione asked, urgent: "How did you do it?!"

The moment class ended, Praeris crossed the room and stopped in front of Harry, looking down at him. The other four Slytherins fell in behind her, the effect was less study group and more Sicilian mob boss arriving with her crew.

Hermione and Harry knew she wasn't there to start something. Ron wasn't so sure. He took one look at the four Slytherin boys at her back and stood up.

Macmillan went further. "What do you want?" he called out. "Prince, can't you handle losing?!"

Praeris gave him a flat look and a cold little laugh. "Macmillan — forgive me — are you using that rather unique thought process of yours to speculate about what's in my head?"

"You — you —!" Macmillan sputtered.

He'd walked himself into a trap. If he hadn't thought it, why had he said it? And if he had, he'd just announced his own pettiness to the room.

"If it's Slytherin," he said, louder, "nothing is off the table!"

The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students nearby perked up, openly rubbernecking.

Draco surged forward, eyes fixed on Macmillan. He had something to say. Praeris's arm came up and stopped him.

"Of course," she said pleasantly. "Thank you for the compliment. I've always believed Slytherin can do what others can't."

She didn't spare Macmillan another glance. She turned to Harry. "Potter, do you mind if I take a look at your Draught of Living Death?"

Harry went still. Every small, fidgety movement in his body stopped. "...Sure."

She didn't look at him. She looked at the potion, leaning in, murmuring under her breath. Could it be... yes... it should be... I see now...

Then she straightened up. "Very ingenious. Let's go, Draco."

"We're just leaving?" Draco fell into step beside her, still chafing. "I refuse to believe Potter actually beat you."

"Draco, I know you're trying to defend me." Praeris's voice was quiet. "But I haven't sunk to lying to myself. A bet is a bet. I have never been afraid of losing, and I don't make excuses for it."

Her eyes were sharp and steady. "Potter won. I won't pretend otherwise. But the next victory will be mine. The next one will be Slytherin's. If not this time, then the next."

She tucked Advanced Potion-Making under her arm and walked away.

Arrogance is the tombstone of genius.

Praeris had shown her gift for Potions from the beginning. Even Snape, a Potions master who gave nothing away, had never truly dismissed her talent. He had been willing to spend time on her. That said something.

By third year, she was already trying to replicate potions from scratch, without recipes, modifying formulas left by those before her, building her own. The potions she made back then weren't ready for human use, but she was making them.

By fourth year, she was developing potions intended for wizards. By fifth year, her work had earned her recognition from a handful of apothecaries and potion researchers. She was starting to be known.

Praeris didn't deny that she had natural talent. She also believed she had earned what she had. She was proud of both.

Before today's class, she had never once considered the possibility that any sixth-year at Hogwarts could surpass her in Potions. Not even Hermione.

Over the summer, the Spirit Elixir she had developed drew skepticism from Seers. The owner of an apothecary had said to her, gently, "Prince, most potions go through this when they first come out."

"The Spirit Elixir?" Praeris had raised an eyebrow. "It's fine. Time will give it the evaluation it deserves."

That had been generous of her. What she actually thought was that the Spirit Elixir was exactly as good as she'd made it, and the skeptics would eventually catch up.

That was her confidence in Potions.

Today, Harry Potter's Draught of Living Death had been a genuine surprise.

Or perhaps shock was the better word.

Praeris shook off the other four Slytherins and found an empty classroom in the dungeons, laying out every tool and leftover ingredient from class across the workbench in a row.

She ran through it in her head, dozens of possible herb-handling methods, dozens of brewing techniques Potter might have used. Her dark eyes held on the cauldron.

After a long silence, she picked up a Sopophorous bean and began her first attempt.

At the Gryffindor table.

Harry walked Hermione through what had happened. The further into the story he got, the tighter her expression became.

"I know what you're thinking," Harry said, frustrated. "You think it was cheating."

Hermione's tone left little room for interpretation. "You didn't complete the process on your own, did you?"

Ron looked between the two of them and felt a headache coming on.

"Hermione," he cut in, "Harry tried something. He had no idea whether following those notes would land him top of class or a zero. He took the risk, he got the reward. Before he took it, he didn't know which way it would go, that's the whole point, isn't it?"

Having made his argument, Ron went back to muttering under his breath about how the copy of the textbook he'd ended up with had nothing useful in it at all.

Ginny, sitting nearby, had caught enough of it to go pale. She'd thought Harry was following mysterious instructions written in a book. She had feelings about that. Strong ones.

Hermione had the same thought and actually cast a Revealing Charm on the book.

Harry went red. "Happy now? Nothing there!"

"That's not the point!" Hermione said, just as heated. "It's still unfair — to Prae, to Prince. You didn't beat her cleanly."

Ginny looked at Hermione sideways and leaned toward Ron. "Is Hermione defending a Slytherin?"

Ron hunched his shoulders. "She's Hermione. She can't help it."

He was thinking of Kreacher and the rest of the house-elves, the way they treated Hermione like dirt, and how she fought for their liberation anyway. He was thinking about how Hermione had believed, from first year, that Snape wasn't a bad person.

"So I used despicable methods?" Harry said, voice tight with anger and embarrassment. "What about her, didn't she learn her little Potions tricks straight from Snape? I used a method written in my own textbook. I brewed that potion with my own hands."

"That's completely different!" Hermione said.

"I don't see how," Harry said flatly. "We both learned techniques from someone. Just different someones."

He grabbed the textbook off the table. It slipped, hit the floor. He picked it up.

Nobody saw the line of tiny, cramped handwriting at the bottom of the back cover:

This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince.

From across the hall, Hermione looked toward the Slytherin table. Parkinson and Bulstrode were there. Malfoy was there.

Praeris was not.

Millicent sat at the table with a ladyfinger biscuit wedged in her mouth, both hands busy wrapping slices of bread and bacon in wax paper.

Pansy hovered beside her. "Should we add the scones?"

"Mmph mmph mmph." Millicent worked the ladyfinger to the back of her teeth and chewed. "Praeris doesn't usually eat that much."

"Potter obviously cheated," Pansy said loudly, not bothering to lower her voice. "He got a zero in that class last year. How does he suddenly end up ahead of Praeris? I don't believe it for a second."

Daphne leaned over. "Is Praeris upset?"

Pansy nodded. "Draco said she didn't pay him any attention at all. Just went off to brew the Draught of Living Death on her own."

The three girls put together a parcel of food for Praeris, two or three times what she normally ate, and made their way down to the dungeons.

Pansy carried the food. Millicent rose onto her tiptoes to peer through the classroom window. Daphne stood to one side with her arms crossed.

"What is she doing?" Daphne said, looking at Millicent. "That posture is appalling."

Millicent turned around. "Brewing."

"I know she's brewing!" Daphne fixed Millicent with a withering look. "Does she look like she's succeeded?"

Millicent scratched her head. "I don't actually know what a successful Draught of Living Death is supposed to look like."

Daphne pinched the bridge of her nose. "At your level, did you really think I was asking you to evaluate the potion? I was asking you to look at Prae,"

BANG!

The door swung open from the inside.

Praeris looked them over, and her gaze settled on the bundle in Pansy's arms. "For me? Why didn't you come in?"

"Those two thought you might be crying," Millicent said without missing a beat, before Daphne's hand clamped over her mouth.

"Nothing!" Daphne said brightly.

Praeris smiled despite herself. "I wasn't crying, you three. Come in."

Inside the classroom, the cauldron was empty. The workbench was covered in ingredients.

"Why would I be sad about this?" Praeris asked, her voice easy. "If anything, this is good news."

Millicent blinked. "Good news?"

Praeris picked up a potion vial from the table and opened the textbook to the Draught of Living Death. She pointed to the description on the page.

"This vial," she said, "matches the potion Potter turned in today."

Three heads leaned in at once.

Praeris planted her hands on the desk behind her and pushed herself up to sit on it. "Potter's handling method gave me something to think about. I believe I can use the same underlying approach to improve how I work with certain herbs and potions."

"So your methods get better," Pansy said slowly. "But,"

"But there is a saying." Praeris let the pause breathe. "Those who learn from me shall live. Those who merely imitate me shall die. If all I do is improve my methods by copying Potter's,"

She exhaled. "Then I become Potter's shadow. At best, I keep pace with him. I never actually pass him."

That was not something Praeris could accept.

Before today, she had barely registered Harry as someone worth watching in Potions. And right now, at this moment, she had only pulled even with him on a single potion.

Even if she had now fully grasped the thinking behind his improvements to the Draught of Living Death, would Potter stop there? Would he have no new ideas, no better ideas, after today?

If he could find a method superior to the textbook today, he could do the same with any potion tomorrow.

She couldn't spend her time waiting for Potter to come up with something, then spend her time reverse-engineering it.

Praeris felt it then, a genuine weariness. She had been slack. Or perhaps she had let arrogance blind her.

Professor Snape had been right to be stingy with his points. She was a student he had personally trained. She had just been beaten by someone else.

She looked at her three friends and said, with some gravity, "I'm going to be spending more time on Potions going forward. Can I count on you to keep bringing me bread?"

Pansy, Millicent, and Daphne looked at one another.

The same thought crossed all three minds at once.

Merlin. Thank goodness we didn't take Potions.

The girls didn't stay much longer. They left the time and the space to Praeris and headed back up.

Praeris sat with her eyes fixed on the cauldron, mechanically working through a piece of buttered bread.

She knew there was a shortcut. A quick way to close the gap with Harry Potter.

She could go to Professor Snape. Tell him what had happened, ask for guidance. He would be more than willing to help her dismantle Harry's advantage, and she would hear about it at length, in his preferred tone. But he would help her.

Most Slytherins, she suspected, would see no problem with that. If an outside advantage guarantees the win, you use the advantage. Simple.

And she had no illusions. Whatever Harry was capable of now, he was not Professor Snape. Professor Snape was a Potions master in a category of his own.

But from the very beginning, since she had begun studying under him, he had never once told her what to do. He had never done her thinking for her. He stepped back and let her work.

His method, consistent and unyielding: only when Praeris thought it through herself, only when she produced the result herself, had she actually learned anything.

Praeris finished the bread and jumped down from the desk. She walked toward the cauldron.

This was between her and Potter. That was all it was. To beat him by going around him wouldn't be a victory. It would mean nothing to Snape, and she knew it would mean nothing to her.

She believed she could do this on her own.

➤ Next: Not Very Pleasant to Drink