Chapter 157 - Him Across the River

"I can't take it anymore!" Hermione cried from the other side of the mirror. "I don't think I was wrong, but he just keeps being so snide about it!"

Praeris slit open the Horned Toad and used a small silver knife to poke around inside the kidney.

She cleaned the knife, set it aside, and picked up her notebook to record the results.

"Hermione, human nature is always like this." Praeris didn't look up, her quill scratching across the parchment. "People always save their kindness for the ones they don't care about."

Praeris was used to it. Ron treated Hermione that way. Draco treated her that way too.

Did hurting the people you loved somehow feel satisfying?

The more you analyzed a person, the sooner you hit the wall at the end of their character, and that wall was human nature. In the face of human nature, everything you thought you knew about someone became worthless.

In situations like this, Praeris had stopped wanting to analyze anyone further. It soured her stomach too easily.

"If you were just some random girl around him," Praeris said, voice cold, "I doubt he'd treat you like this."

She meant Ron Weasley, of course.

For Draco, equality and tenderness were the things that were truly rare.

Hermione thought of Ron's long, lingering gaze at Madam Rosmerta. Then she thought of him in The Three Broomsticks, putting on that air of deep mystery.

Praeris had once said Ron liked Hermione.

Hermione didn't believe that anymore.

The way she saw it, Ron treated the girls he actually liked far better than he treated a friend like her.

The reason Hermione had been driven to tears was Harry. Harry had tricked Ron into believing he'd drunk Felix Felicis. But Harry hadn't only tricked Ron, he'd tricked her too, making Hermione think Ron had cheated during the match.

Ron had yelled at her for it. He'd imitated her, thrown her words back in her face, and insisted he could save goals just fine without Felix Felicis.

Praeris began washing her cauldron, her voice even: "Your reaction is exactly the proof that convinced Ron. Because you're a person of principle. If you hadn't reacted so strongly, Ron never would have believed Harry spiked his pumpkin juice with Felix Felicis."

"But I never said he couldn't save goals!" Hermione sobbed. "I just didn't want Harry to cheat for him! Fine! They're both right, and I'm the only one who looks down on him!"

"You weren't wrong." Praeris kept washing the potion vials. "But a lot of things in this world aren't measured by right or wrong. Your principles made you seem like you weren't on his side."

Praeris looked at the Two-Way Mirror, her gaze sharp. "So — if you had to do it again, would you still stand by your principles?"

Hermione lowered her head. "I would," she said softly. "As long as I believe something is wrong. Even if it were Viktor, I'd still stop him."

"Then that's settled." Praeris began chopping herbs again. "Good girl, don't be foolish. Love, friendship, all of it — those are extras. The only thing that's always yours is yourself."

"Maybe we change, for better or worse, because of the people we love. But the core of who you are should never be shaken — otherwise you wouldn't be Hermione anymore, would you?"

Hermione sniffled and let out a muffled "Mm."

Friendship and principles were the most important things in Hermione's life. In the tension between the two, she had learned to bend, and she had tasted the pain of being pulled in both directions.

"It's because I cherish our friendship that I didn't stop him from going onto the pitch." Hermione's voice broke. "And it's because I have principles that I tried to stop them beforehand, and tried to make them see it afterward."

"If he stops treating me as a friend because of this —" Hermione said, and her voice went firm, "then I really will look down on him."

"Mm-hmm." Praeris started on a vine-like herb, the knife moving steadily. "As long as your heart stays clear, you'll get over the mountain. Won't you?"

"Ron and Lavender were kissing in the common room." Hermione's voice floated a little. "To be honest, I felt a little uncomfortable — but I already promised to be by Viktor's side."

"I've already got a Viktor filling my heart. How can I stand there looking at Ron in the shop window? That would make me seem so fickle. I'm not that kind of person."

"And now?" Praeris asked. "You don't seem troubled anymore."

"No." Hermione said it firmly. "You once told me that what you think and what you do are two different things. Emotions can't be controlled, but actions can — and I already made my choice. I shouldn't waver anymore."

"Over these five-plus years, I may have developed feelings for Ron. But we each made our own choices. I'll wish him well. I hope he and Lavender are happy."

What you think and what you do are two different things.

That insight had come to Praeris from looking at her own behavior in first and second year. It kept her from feeling guilty over the contents of her own head.

Human emotions were complicated. The heart could waver. But actions admitted no excuses, what was done was done.

Both Praeris and Hermione were sharp-minded, and sharp minds were more easily trapped by their own thoughts. But they had been lucky enough, in all the world, to find each other, the kind of friends who asked nothing and judged nothing.

Then Hermione told Praeris about Draco skipping the match, and about Harry's suspicions.

"Don't be sad. I don't think it's true, maybe he's doing something else entirely." Hermione hesitated. "Someone like Draco... I mean, Death Eaters only take adults, don't they?"

Hermione swallowed what had nearly come out: Someone as cowardly as Draco, how could he possibly do something like that?

That was even harder to believe than the school bully at a Muggle primary school being a murderer.

Praeris blinked. "Is that so?" she said slowly.

The last time she'd gone to deliver her latest potions results, Professor Snape had asked her about Draco. It was unlike him.

"I believe you know what he's been up to."

Snape had fixed his gaze on her face, as if expecting to find something there.

It was useless.

Unless he tried Legilimency on Praeris directly, and even then, it might not work.

If resistance alone was the goal, without worrying about detection, the labyrinth of Praeris's mind was enough to swallow most people whole.

"I don't know, sir." Praeris had kept her voice even. "We've had a falling-out. Like the Headless Hunt and their heads. Won't you take a look at this?"

Praeris had turned the problem over. Absurd as it was, only one answer fit: Voldemort wanted Draco to kill Dumbledore.

She and Draco stood on opposite banks of a river. On this side, she was straining every nerve to keep Dumbledore alive. On the other side, he was deploying every scheme he had to kill him.

People were always hypocrites.

As an outsider, clear-headedness cost nothing. Philosophical truths rolled off the tongue like rumors from The Daily Prophet, easy to produce, cheaply made.

But when it fell on you...

Praeris began to have stupid thoughts. Why are there no windows in the underground classroom?

She couldn't even stare into the distance. Couldn't let her mind go somewhere else.

"Pra! We lost!" Millicent slammed the classroom door open, fuming. "I have no idea what got into Ron Weasley!"

Praeris flipped the Two-Way Mirror face down without changing expression, ended the connection, and looked at Millicent.

Millicent came charging in like a bull calf with too much energy and nowhere to put it. She hauled a chair over and dropped into it, and was about to prop her feet on the table.

Praeris moved fast and smacked her calf. "My table!"

She ran experiments on that table.

After that tidy little intervention, Praeris finally registered what Millicent had actually said.

"Well," she said, with a particular weight to it. "He did take fake medicine, didn't he."

Not that she hadn't done something more or less the same herself. But that didn't stop her from taking a dig at Gryffindor. It was practically a tradition, the latent house ethos of Slytherin, passed down through recent generations.

"And Draco, honestly..." Millicent muttered. "Was it really necessary? Missing practice and the actual match!"

Was it really necessary?

It was.

In the Room of Requirement, Draco knelt on one knee before a battered old cabinet.

Beside him sat a portable toolkit and an opened bottle of red wine. Inside the toolkit, among the heap of magical instruments and supplies, was a jeweled, ornate box.

Draco stared down at it, his expression sardonic.

You're so extravagant. So elaborate and unique. And what good has it done you? You'll still be abandoned. Cruelly abandoned.

Cruel.

Yes. In just over half a year, Draco's world had flipped upside down, showing him a monstrous face he hadn't known how to read, or maybe this had been the world's true face all along.

The Dark Lord's return had not brought glory to the family. The Death Eaters looked down on a half-grown boy. Even his aunt believed the failure at the Department of Mysteries was his father's fault.

How laughable.

Of course! Father was still in Azkaban, he couldn't open his mouth to defend himself like all those people out here who had so much to say. He could only be judged however people pleased.

A few months ago, Draco had been given a mission. It appeared important. It was, in truth, a punishment, for his father's failure. A cruelty dressed up as an honor.

Did they think he didn't know it was cruel?

Did they think he didn't understand this was the Dark Lord's punishment for their whole family?

Did they think he could still be as naive as before? As self-righteous?

Praeris understood Draco, the way Draco understood Praeris. Not completely, not every corner of each other, but well enough to read each other's moods without trying.

Children learned love from their parents. They caught their first glimpses of what love looked like from watching the people who raised them.

Draco thought: She knows I'm suffering. She cares about me this much. This must be love, the way Mother wept over Father's imprisonment.

When he knew Praeris was hurting because of him, his heart nearly shattered. He thought of his father in Azkaban, and understood: Is this how Father worries about us? Pacing in that cell, frantic, unable to reach us?

Before all of this, Draco had never hidden anything from Praeris. He was transparent, easy to read, a spoiled child, a little terror who did whatever he pleased.

But Draco had never learned to conceal himself, and it showed. Every attempt he made now was clumsy. He was like a child playing hide-and-seek who ducked behind the curtain with his feet sticking out.

Draco finally understood: he couldn't keep going like this in front of her. He couldn't stand to watch Praeris suffer over him anymore.

If Father had never let Mother take part in Death Eater activities, if he had never yielded to Mother's pleas to the Dark Lord, and instead resolved to complete this cruel mission alone, then Draco, too, had no right to drag Praeris into the same mire.

In the end, this was a bloody mission he had to carry alone. How could he pull someone who loved him into the water with him? How could he make the person who loved him ache and weep at his side?

Cruelty and mercy lived together in this world, each as real as the other. Once, he had felt nothing but the boundless love of his parents, and the world's infinite patience with him.

Now, all that mercy had been replaced by cruelty. And he, too, had been forced to raise a cruel dagger, against Dumbledore, against innocent Katie Bell, and against himself.

Perhaps only by being crueler than fate could you defeat a cruel fate.

Narcissa had stopped trying to keep her son from loving whoever he loved. She only hoped Draco could feel even a little better. But Draco had no choice. He had to find a way to push away the girl who had once made his heart pound like a drum.

He raised fate's cruel dagger and split himself in two. One half: the Draco of before, reckless, happy, soaking in Praeris's warmth without a second thought. The other half: the Draco of now, withdrawn, obsessive, carrying a bloody mission on his back.

He convinced himself that all of this was glorious. Something to be proud of. A mission that had to be completed.

He had thought he could keep the two halves completely separate, the way he had learned to hide his thoughts when his aunt taught him Occlumency over the summer. Easy. Clean. A door shut and locked.

But it wasn't.

It wasn't like that at all.

Too absurd. Like the Gryffindor ghost's head that couldn't quite fall off, his old self and his new self stayed stubbornly tangled together, severed but connected.

He did murderous things, and feared both failure and success. He pushed Praeris away, quietly relieved he hadn't dragged her down, and then in class, stole glances at her from the corner of his eye.

There is no prison in this world that love cannot break into.

Draco remembered. That was from a book Praeris had read once. He'd been sitting across from her, carving ancient runes, scoffing at her taste for Muggle books.

Now, Draco thought: their family, separated by Azkaban's walls, had never truly been apart.

And now, he also thought: the reason his old self and his new self stayed tangled together, that was probably love too.

Come to think of it...

Draco had given up on dignity entirely. He was sprawled on the floor, pouring wine down his throat the way a cow chews a peony, no refinement, no appreciation.

A thought surfaced like a bubble: Was what he was drinking wine, or blood?

He shook it off and kept thinking.

Come to think of it, the moment he learned Praeris was a half-blood, he had been stunned. His heart had lurched through a whole tangle of feelings: confusion, disbelief, the hot anger of having been deceived.

But when he looked back carefully, the signs had always been there. Praeris had never hidden anything from him. She had never once claimed to be pure-blood.

First year. Praeris had tied him to the sofa and read aloud to him, the Muggle play. A Midsummer Night's Dream.

➤ Next: Christmas Party