Chapter 150 - Struggle and Resolve

Praeris laughed softly and gave Astoria a meaningful look. "Leah, have you ever considered that maybe this is selfish?"

For a Slytherin, selfishness was nothing. One could even call it a Slytherin virtue. But the problem was...

"I know she's your best friend. She chose you, and you chose her. Because of how much you care for each other, you can't bear to see her leave."

"But with the Dark Lord rising, Muggle-borns only have two outcomes — lucky or unlucky. And luck can turn into misfortune. Have you ever thought that your choice right now might be what leads to her misfortune someday?"

The Leah of today was the Winnie of the past.

Praeris wanted the seed of equality in Leah's heart to take root. She just didn't want Leah to become the next Winnie, suffering over the next Ms. Prim.

This was a perfect opportunity, Praeris thought.

Whether she could truly shift Astoria's stance depended on this moment.

Astoria bit her lip. Conflict flickered across her eyes.

She wanted Grace to stay. She did. But she wanted a Grace who was alive and well.

She covered her face. "I don't know, Praeris. I don't know."

"I want Gigi — Grace — to stay. I don't want her to get hurt. I'll protect her, but I don't know if I can."

The corner of Praeris's mouth moved. She patted Astoria's shoulder with quiet satisfaction, then circled around to face her. She planted her hands on her own knees and bent down, looking up into Astoria's face from below.

Astoria was above. Praeris was the one looking up.

"Of course," Praeris said, her voice gentle. "I understand how you feel. This is awful, isn't it? We all want to protect the people who matter to us. But it isn't easy. Not at all."

Astoria's eyes shifted, betraying her unease.

Praeris reached out and took hold of her arm. "You know," she said quietly, "I earned twelve O's on my OWLs. My Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts are both... let's say decent enough."

Astoria nodded. She'd heard about this from her sister. Decent was a spectacular understatement.

"I watched you come to Hogwarts," Praeris said, smiling. "Watched you grow up. In my eyes, you're my little sister."

"You shared your troubles with me. How could I just stand by?"

"If you genuinely want to protect Jones — I'm willing to share some practical spells and study techniques with you."

Astoria went still. It took a long moment for the words to fully land.

"Really?" She lit up. "You'd teach me?"

"No, Leah." Praeris shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm very busy and I can't spare the time. At most, I can write things down on parchment. You'd have to do the work of learning and understanding them yourself."

"That's enough!" Astoria said, already brightening. "I — Gigi and I will both thank you!"

"This stays between the two of us," Praeris said, her tone firm. "You can't tell anyone. Not even your sister. She wouldn't allow me to help you with something like this, especially not protecting a Muggle-born witch."

"I know!" Astoria nodded hard.

Praeris smiled and straightened up. "Come on, silly girl. Cheer up. Everything will be fine."

Praeris had been watching Astoria and her friend Grace for a long time.

Among all the pure-blood witches in Slytherin, Astoria was the one Praeris had identified as the most likely to change, the most reachable.

Back then, they had been nothing to each other: Daphne's rebellious little sister and Daphne's little sister's lowly friend.

Praeris and Daphne were friends, but that hadn't stopped her from quietly tracking Astoria's development, or from stepping in at the right moment.

She had never directly changed Astoria's choices. Not once.

What changed Astoria's thinking, step by step, was the friendship itself. The decision to grow stronger and protect a Muggle-born witch, that had come from Astoria alone.

Praeris had only given her a nudge at the right time.

If Jones lived, Astoria would stand against the Death Eaters for her sake.

If Jones died...

Praeris didn't want to think about that. But even without thinking it through, she already knew the answer.

Whatever her reasons for helping, Praeris had her reasons. But Astoria looked up at her, this friend of her sister's, and felt only gratitude.

Prae was truly something. Clever, powerful, and kind.

The moment Praeris delivered Astoria to the common room, Draco's voice reached her from across the entrance, dripping with sarcasm. "What a dedicated prefect. I thought you hated doing that sort of thing."

Astoria gave Praeris a quick wave and bolted.

Right. That was a thing, wasn't it. Praeris had once been notoriously reluctant to carry out prefect duties.

She knew what Draco was angry about. She'd been run off her feet lately and had let him fall to the side. Oddly enough, Draco hadn't sought her out either, hadn't come to find her once, until today.

Praeris shrugged. "Did you not recognize her? That was Astoria. Daphne's sister."

"I know who she is," Draco said. "I thought you were busy putting Potter in his place."

Praeris didn't think of it in those terms. But realistically, if she wanted to grow stronger, getting there would mean surpassing Potter eventually.

She frowned. "Something like that. What have you been doing lately? You didn't hand in your Transfiguration homework?"

Pansy had told her. Draco had missed the last submission, and Professor McGonagall had pulled him aside afterward to warn him.

"Praeris." Draco stepped closer and dropped his voice to a grumble. "Yes, how terribly out of line of me. You disappear to do whatever you like, and the one time you actually see me, this is what you lead with?"

She noticed the deflection immediately. He did not want to talk about the Transfiguration homework.

She felt a headache forming. She was the one who had pushed him to take on extra courses. If he was falling behind on assignments now, maybe she had no right to blame him for that.

"Fine," she said. "That's my fault. But if it gets to be too much, you come to me. I can always make time for you."

Some of the tension left Draco's face. He said, with deliberate reluctance, "Obviously. I'm not an idiot."

In truth, finding time in Praeris's schedule for Draco was still going to be extremely difficult, no matter what she'd just promised.

This semester, Harry seemed to have completely clicked into place. He was displaying an extraordinary talent for Potions, and the whole class had noticed.

Slughorn had announced it publicly, in front of everyone: "Even I have rarely encountered students as gifted as the two of you, especially Harry. And of course, Praeris, your progress has been very rapid as well!"

Yes. It was always like that.

Praeris had been reduced to the dismissive "as well" tacked on after the real compliment.

She didn't like it. But she had no choice but to swallow it.

Encountering a genius was a despairing thing.

This wasn't her first time knowing Harry Potter. That was precisely the problem. Because she knew him, she understood exactly how sudden this transformation had been.

If Harry had always been this formidable, maybe it wouldn't have hit her so hard. If he had fought his way past her through relentless effort and she had watched every step of it, she could have accepted the loss with genuine respect.

But it wasn't either of those things.

Harry was like the Muggle Odin in the old Nordic wizarding legends, the one who drank from the enchanted spring and was suddenly blessed with extraordinary power and wisdom, a legendary sorcerer born overnight.

She thought she understood, now, how others had felt when they faced her. Heavy as a mountain. Impossible to climb.

She had given her first batch of Felix Felicis to Harry. At the time, all she had wanted was for him to survive, for all the sacrifices people had made for him to mean something.

Looking back on it now, it almost made her laugh.

Had that help meant anything to Harry at all? Like a commoner dropping a coin into a billionaire's palm? Was she, now, nothing more than a small snowman caught beneath an avalanche?

This was the 3rd time she had declined Slughorn's dinner party.

In the dim amber firelight of the underground classroom, Praeris sat alone in front of her cauldron and watched it bubble softly.

A loneliness she had never felt before settled over her. She was like this cauldron, something hot and restless churning endlessly inside, and only a few small bubbles ever rising to break the surface before vanishing.

It wasn't as though she had never encountered genius. Professor Snape, who had taught her, was proof enough of that.

But the young Professor Snape had not been her contemporary. Who, while still a student, would go looking to measure themselves against a professor twenty years their senior?

This was the first time Praeris had felt this particular pressure. The weight of a peer.

She stood up and looked to her front-left.

There was another cauldron.

It was smaller than the one she normally used. The liquid inside was a vivid yellow, bright and flowing like molten gold.

Felix Felicis.

After sending away the last vial, she had started a new batch. A precaution. Something to have ready.

And then, unbidden and ugly, a thought surfaced in her mind: What if she drank the Felix Felicis before class? Began her brewing with luck on her side? Would that be enough to beat Potter?

She had gone mad.

Praeris dropped her head into her hands, fingers pressing hard against her skull, the inside of her mind a dull, buzzing roar.

After a long moment, she slapped herself across the face.

Hard.

Praeris. What is wrong with you.

No excuses. Not a single one.

There was no Ravenclaw's diadem in front of her. No external temptation, no bewitchment. Nothing had done this to her.

She had simply been jealous. She had thought about taking a shortcut.

Don't you already know?

There are no shortcuts to becoming stronger.

She could win by any means she chose, yes. But Felix Felicis only elevated a person's ability and state for a limited time. It couldn't make her truly surpass Harry. Once the effect wore off, once the luck ran out, she would still be the one who had lost.

Cheating meant conceding defeat. It meant she had been genuinely beaten by her opponent. It meant accepting, in her own heart, that Harry Potter was beyond her reach.

Praeris drew a slow breath and let her gaze travel across everything arranged before her.

Her first cauldron. A second-hand one, bought with Hogwarts hardship funds. It had been with her for years.

Advanced Potion-Making, gifted by Miss Stella, who had once believed Praeris would become the next great Potions master.

The herbs she used for brewing, some of them given by Professor Sprout herself. She had told Praeris once: if your order doesn't come in time, you come to me. I'll always have some for you. I'll always support you.

The cauldron Professor Snape had given her, the one he said was unused, the one Praeris had known from the moment she touched it was actually new.

And her first cauldron bought with her own money. The one she had brewed batch after batch of Venomous Tentacula growth solution to afford.

Praeris closed her eyes. She tilted her head back and let out a long, slow breath.

She would defeat Harry Potter.

By her own strength. In Potions. Completely and without question.

"Praeris!"

Hermione's heart leapt.

Thank goodness. Merlin knew Harry and Ginny had been absolutely insufferable about this. The two of them kept hiding behind Quidditch practice as an excuse to dodge Slughorn. Only Hermione had been unable to find a sufficient reason, and so here she was, trapped at yet another dinner party.

She had always wondered what excuse Praeris used. Praeris never came to these things either, but Slughorn never seemed to push her the way he pushed everyone else.

Though right now Hermione was also quietly terrified that Praeris might ask about Harry. Harry had been completely consumed by the Half-Blood Prince's old textbook lately, and Hermione genuinely didn't know how she'd explain that.

"Praeris! Welcome!" Slughorn rose from his chair with a booming laugh, arms wide. "This is your first time at one of my little dinners!"

He ushered Praeris to a seat. "Now, you told me you were working on a new potion. Have you had any results?"

Praeris shook her head. "No. I think my progress has stalled. I need to rethink my approach."

"That's the nature of Potions research," Slughorn said warmly. "Sometimes it takes a sudden flash of inspiration, and those moments cannot be forced. Sometimes the best thing we can do is step back and let the mind recover." He smiled and looked around at the other students. "I'm not sure all of you are aware of this, Praeris is the inventor of several new potion formulas!"

He went on at considerable length, heaping praise on her achievements. Anyone who didn't know better might have thought she was about to be announced as the next Damocles or Snape.

"In particular," Slughorn said, leaning forward with interest, "the Affordable Wolfsbane Potion. Praeris, what gave you the idea to improve the Wolfsbane formula?"

Hermione looked up, genuinely startled. The Affordable Wolfsbane Potion was Praeris's work?

It had done so much. It had opened a real path for werewolves to integrate into wizarding society, making the treatment accessible to those who could never have afforded the original.

Zabini's gaze slid toward Praeris, cold and contemptuous. He hadn't expected this. That Praeris would spend her time and talent on something like that, showing charity to creatures like werewolves.

Praeris didn't seem to notice, or didn't care. "I was learning to replicate the standard Wolfsbane Potion at the time," she said. "It was an accidental byproduct of that process. I'll say this for it, though, it's earned me a decent amount of pocket money."

➤ Next: Disappointment and Fighting Poison with Poison