Chapter 159 - Anti-Eavesdropping — Words Unspoken

Pansy really was a warm-hearted girl.

It was just that this kind of event was a bit much for Zabini.

Praeris and Zabini exchanged their "polite" "greetings," then agreed to part ways and find their own corners of the room.

Praeris lifted her foot to leave. Zabini blocked her.

He let out a short scoff and jerked his chin behind her. "Prince... I'd say you need to turn back."

The words had barely left his mouth when Argus Filch's voice cut through the noise behind them. "Professor Slughorn! I've caught this boy lurking in the upstairs corridor — no telling what he was up to!"

Argus Filch had Draco by the ear. His bulging goldfish eyes gleamed with undisguised malice. "Did you send him an invitation?"

Draco wrenched himself free with a furious jerk, his face tight with humiliation and anger. "I wasn't invited! I came on my own — so what!"

"So what?" Argus Filch's lip pulled into a nasty grin. "Boy, you're in trouble."

He rattled off the specific school rules Draco had violated, visibly delighted by every syllable.

It had been a bad stretch for Argus Filch. There'd been pranks all over the castle lately, big ones and small ones, and he hadn't caught a single culprit. The frustration had been eating him alive. Draco had walked straight into his crosshairs.

Professor Slughorn's mouth opened instinctively. The old instinct, playing the gracious mediator.

One small favor earned, the situation resolved quickly, the party's warm atmosphere preserved. Why not?

"I'm so sorry!"

Draco's head turned toward the voice.

Praeris had somehow moved from the edge of the room to its center.

"I'm so sorry." She parted the crowd and addressed Professor Slughorn directly. "Sir, I was the one who invited Draco."

She kept her head down, visibly flustered, doing her best to ignore the dagger-stare Professor Snape was drilling into the side of her face. "I invited Draco, but we had a fight, so..."

She let the sentence trail off and gave Professor Slughorn's imagination room to work.

"Argus, there's no problem here at all, then!" Professor Slughorn laughed warmly. "Praeris — young people! A little squabbling is perfectly normal! Lighten up!"

He turned to Draco, gesturing grandly. "Such a kind, outstanding girl — how rare! And tonight is Christmas... hic. Draco, one must be magnanimous with the ladies!"

A drunken hiccup punctuated the speech.

Draco's expression reset almost instantly. He smiled at Professor Slughorn as though the whole scene had been a minor inconvenience. "You're absolutely right, sir. I was being narrow-minded. My grandfather spoke of your gentlemanly bearing many times..."

Praeris studied him.

He looked different. Paler than before, shadows under his eyes, barely any color in his lips. She had never seen Draco turn on this kind of social ease with any elder besides Professor Snape. But somewhere beyond her sight, he had apparently learned how to work a room.

Snape stepped back two paces, his face cold, and dropped his voice. "I sincerely hope your brain hasn't been kicked in by the hind legs of a Horned Toad. Tomorrow, I want an explanation."

Then he stepped forward and cut Draco off before the flattery could continue. "I have something to say to you, Draco."

"Oh, come now! Severus! It's Christmas!" Professor Slughorn said, somewhat muffled. "Whatever it is, hic, surely it can wait until after the holiday..."

"I am his Head of House." Professor Snape gave Draco a single glance. "When I choose to speak with him is my decision. Come with me."

Praeris didn't watch them go. She was already tracking Harry out of the corner of her eye. The boy looked like he couldn't sit still in his own skin, and a moment later he slipped out of the party entirely, some excuse on his lips.

This time, Praeris let her gaze follow his retreating back a beat longer than usual.

Out in the empty corridor, she glanced left, then right. She raised her wand, tapped her boot once, and moved in silence.

"I have made an Unbreakable..."

Under his Invisibility Cloak, Harry had pressed himself so close to the classroom door he was practically flush with the lock, straining to catch the voices inside.

He was completely absorbed. So he didn't hear anything. Didn't see any warning.

Something pointed pressed into the small of his back. A hand with long, slender fingers seized him and pulled him away from the door.

Harry's pupils blew wide. His scream lurched up his throat,

And stopped there. Not a sound escaped.

Another classroom.

Praeris worked through the room methodically, casting Anti-Eavesdropping Charms on all four walls.

"Preventative measure," she said, looking Harry up and down, "for running into someone like you. A rude little creature."

Setup complete, she pointed her wand briefly at his throat and gave him his voice back.

Harry sucked in a breath, ready to argue, then stopped, because he couldn't exactly defend eavesdropping as polite behavior. He stared at her. "How did you find that spot? And how did you detect me?"

"Those questions are too simple." Praeris settled onto the desk and crossed her legs, looking down at him from her perch. "I suggest the student work out the answers himself."

"Fine!" Provoked, Harry let a flare of temper sharpen his voice. "You heard everything, didn't you? Even if you didn't, someone as clever as you must have already figured it out. Malfoy is planning something, he's already hurt Katie Bell! And Snape is helping him, because he made a vow to Malfoy's mother!"

"Sir," Praeris said flatly.

"What?" Harry blinked.

"Rude little creature." She looked at him steadily. "It's Sir. Professor Snape."

Harry could not believe this. Right now, in the middle of all this, she was correcting his forms of address. Was this just how clever people worked? Both Dumbledore and Praeris had the exact same fixation on this completely irrelevant courtesy.

"Fine! All right!" He bit the words off. "Professor Snape. Happy?"

Praeris nodded. "Of course. Even better if you could manage to keep it up."

She folded her arms, tilted her head back to look at the ceiling, and considered for a moment.

"Harry." Her voice settled into something quieter, more serious. "Everyone has their own part to play. You, me, Professor Snape, we all have things we're meant to do."

"Did Dumbledore assign you something?" Harry asked, startled.

"No. I took it on myself." She shook her head. "But that's not the point. Harry. Don't you know what happens when you stop trusting your teammates?"

She let that sit for a beat.

"You already learned that lesson last year, didn't you?" Praeris knew exactly where to press. "If you had trusted Professor Snape, the Order of the Phoenix wouldn't have had to pay any of those costs. You'd have known Sirius was perfectly fine."

Harry lowered his head. His hands closed into fists.

Looking at him, Praeris didn't press further. She knew he was hurting.

"I understand," she said, her tone calm and even. "Something in your past made it hard to trust adults. But when you're facing an enemy, it doesn't matter whether someone's an adult or something else entirely. Everyone is tied to the same rope."

She looked at him.

"Why not tell Dumbledore what you've found?

Why not tell Dumbledore what's worrying you?

Why not ask Dumbledore what's actually going on?

Why, when you trust Dumbledore so much — are you unwilling to trust Dumbledore?"

Harry stared at her. "I appreciate it, Praeris! And I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes last year, but it wasn't only my fault. Do you really think every single problem came down to me not communicating with Dumbledore?"

How much time had Dumbledore even spent at the school this year? How long were their lessons? How abruptly did every single one of them end?

Had she thought about any of that?

"Harry, clear your mind." Praeris's voice stayed level. "Breathe in, one, two, three, four, five. Breathe out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Stop."

Harry's body followed the instructions before his brain caught up. By the time he'd finished the sequence, the anger had drained out of him completely, leaving nothing behind but the urge to roll his eyes.

This again.

Occlumency lessons ended a long time ago, thanks.

Praeris nodded. "Good. Then let's continue. Harry, go back to the first three questions I just asked. Those weren't accusations. They were a framework."

Harry paused. The first three questions.

First: tell Dumbledore what he'd found.

Second: tell Dumbledore what he was worried about.

Third: ask Dumbledore what was actually happening.

Praeris slipped off the desk and put a hand briefly on his shoulder, meeting his eyes with that unnerving directness of hers. "After last year, both you and Dumbledore took something away from it. If you're not getting answers right now, it's one of two things: either you don't want to ask Dumbledore, or Dumbledore doesn't want to answer you."

"And those two possibilities point in opposite directions about whether you're supposed to know. If you're meant to know, you'll get your answer, or at least an explanation."

Harry stood there. He thought about every lesson that had ended in a rush. Every time he'd had a hundred questions stacked up at the back of his throat, and somehow, every time, he'd swallowed them back down without quite knowing why.

He had told Dumbledore about Malfoy. He'd laid it out clearly. And Dumbledore had simply said there was no proof, that Malfoy shouldn't be accused, and moved on as if it barely registered.

Praeris glanced at his face. Something in his expression seemed to answer a question she hadn't asked out loud.

She smiled. "It looks like you're not supposed to know about this, Harry. But I do think you should ask Dumbledore anyway. Talk to him. Share a bit of what's going on in that head of yours."

"Why?" Harry asked automatically.

"You should bring that same energy to Dumbledore, Mr. Chosen One."

She seemed to consider something for a moment, then answered him with a candor that surprised even her. "It connects to something I'm working on. But the odds of it coming together are very low, so it's not time yet. Just think of it as... a sincere piece of advice."

Harry had absolutely no idea what she'd just said.

Praeris's words were harder to crack than a Sphinx's riddle. At least a Sphinx stated the question clearly. Praeris left him unable to locate the question at all.

How on earth did Hermione manage to have conversations with this person?

"That's about all for tonight. Oh, and one more thing." Praeris's tone shifted, almost casual. "Harry, copying homework isn't a healthy way to study. Regardless of whose homework you copy."

She tilted her head slightly. "Wouldn't you agree?"

By the time Harry came back to himself, he was standing in the middle of the party again. He looked around instinctively for Praeris, and found her across the room, chatting with the vampire Professor Slughorn had invited.

Her voice floated over faintly.

"Books say vampire blood is black, would that be a dark reddish-black, like crude petroleum, or an entirely pure black..."

No wonder she and Hermione got along. At a Christmas party, she was conducting field research.

Wait.

Questions.

Harry stopped.

Had Praeris actually answered a single one of his questions?

She had pulled him away from the door before he could hear anything. She'd made him agree to talk to Dumbledore more. She'd slipped in a warning about the Half-Blood Prince's homework.

But what about what he'd asked her?

Not one substantive answer. Not one.

He might have imagined it. But he could have sworn, in the moment before he registered he was back at the party, he'd seen the corner of Praeris's mouth move in his direction.

The next day, most students left for the long Christmas holiday.

Harry arrived at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place and immediately lodged a formal complaint about Praeris's conduct with Winnie and Madam Prewett.

Order members had told him Praeris was Winnie's daughter.

"Who told you that?" Winnie had a cigar clamped between her teeth, her whole manner easy and a little roguish. "Silly boy. Plai is Madam Prewett's daughter."

"What?" Sirius's head appeared around the kitchen doorframe. "Then why didn't you correct me when I said it?"

Winnie flashed a grin. "I read somewhere that dogs have lower IQs than people. I wanted to test it."

Sirius spluttered with helpless rage, but he couldn't exactly take a swing at the woman who had saved his life. Caught between his dignity and his debt, he swallowed the whole thing and seethed quietly.

Lupin raised a hand. "What about me?"

"Wolves and dogs are both canines." Winnie shrugged. "Two birds, one stone." Bullying wolves and dogs together was equally convenient.

Harry shook his head, took two steps back, and looked between them. "Winnie, Praeris is absolutely your biological daughter."

That streak of mischief? Madam Prewett didn't have a drop of it.

The adults in the room all laughed at once.

Winnie was the most delighted of all. "I'll take that as a compliment!"

She was a troublemaker, Winnie, but Harry was genuinely grateful to her. Under her relentless, cheerful assault, Sirius's mental state had improved more than anyone else had managed.

Were all writers like this?

Winnie never used a single dirty word when she went after someone. Somehow that made it worse than profanity.

There had been one afternoon over the summer when she'd said something that even Lupin couldn't sit through without flinching, quietly terrified that Sirius might eventually decide gratitude had its limits.

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