Chapter 162 - Love is perceptive

There was a hollow inside Snape, and all day a gale howled through it, shrill and relentless.

Snape had never told anyone that back in his student days, he hadn't looked down on Sylvia. Quite the opposite. The truth was that Sylvia's own fault.

Sylvia, simply by existing, was an insult to him.

Snape's first textbooks had been Eileen's old ones. He treasured them. They were a symbol, he felt, proof that he was getting closer to his witch mother, closer to the wizarding world.

So he imitated Eileen's small, neat handwriting and wrote "the Half-Blood" in front of her lone "Prince." From then on, he could see the wizarding half of his own blood.

The habit stayed with him. "the Half-Blood Prince" appeared on every textbook he owned.

That private ritual was pierced the moment Sylvia Prince appeared.

Sylvia walked up to him, beaming. She said that Laius hoped the two of them, as cousins, could look after each other, just as he and Eileen had once done.

The Sylvia who stood before Snape had rosy cheeks, long black hair that fell in a glossy sheet, a smile that was open and unguarded, and eyes bright with anticipation. She had come in from the other end of the corridor, and nearly everyone she passed — students from every year, greeted her by name. Every few seconds someone called out, "Syl!"

Ha. Look after each other. Snape almost laughed.

Sylvia had been at school two months and already knew more people than he had managed to meet in years. Some of those wizarding children had probably known her before either of them ever set foot in Hogwarts.

She needed looking after?

Snape drove Sylvia away without a moment's hesitation, and watched with contempt as she ran down the corridor to a tall girl carrying a Charms textbook and cried into her shoulder.

It didn't make him feel entirely better. He still found himself glancing toward Gryffindor.

Most of the time he was looking at Lily. Occasionally he looked at that wizard-born cousin of his.

A pathetic fantasy would surface in his mind sometimes: if Eileen had never met Tobias, would he have had a life like Sylvia's?

The thought disgusted him. It kept coming back anyway.

Sylvia was never short of friends, a mockery of his friendlessness.

Sylvia had the ability to score top marks yet lazed through every day, unwilling to exert herself, a mockery of his effort.

Sylvia was all sunshine and easy laughter, a mockery of his own dark, damp existence.

Even Sylvia's name was a mockery.

The name Sylvia was linked in English to the forest goddess, carrying connotations of beauty and nature, symbolizing individuality and wandering and freedom, representing her parents' deep love for her. The name Severus, in Latin, meant severe.

Snape could only steal private moments to write "Half of" in his mother's old textbook, while Sylvia had been born a Prince. She got what he hungered for without lifting a finger.

Inside Snape there was a hollow. So vast. So huge.

He had craved Eileen's love. But Eileen had eyes only for Tobias, drawing out a vein she named love and cinching it tight around her own neck.

He had craved Lily's love, only to find that her moonlight wouldn't shine on him alone. Just as Eileen, in the end, had cared more about Tobias than about Severus.

When Sylvia came looking for him again, Snape told her to get lost. Told her not to stand in front of him and say things that were supposed to be for his own good.

He wanted no one. It was useless, and it was unnecessary.

Snape killed the people he loved one by one inside his heart, and buried them in the graveyard of his soul. The last one shoved into the ground was Severus himself, still living. He would keep watch in that graveyard over every memory connected to them all, lie down in an empty coffin, and wait for death.

Until he learned what Sylvia had done.

It was an illusion, he told himself.

Sylvia was not Eileen, and her daughter was not Severus. Why on earth should Snape play mother for Sylvia's child?

Yet for one moment, when he heard about Sylvia killing her husband, he had felt something savage and clean.

After learning that Eileen had been a witch, he had wanted to confront her countless times: why didn't you pick up your wand? Why did you let Tobias take out his impotent rage on us?

However much Snape had once despised Sylvia, whatever had driven her to act, whether her own will or desperation, in Snape's mind, she had done what Eileen never did.

Dumbledore used words to lure him. To drag him out of that graveyard.

Snape had built a solid wall around himself, and Dumbledore simply kicked it open and thrust two children into his arms.

He bound Snape's hands with two responsibilities, Harry and Praeris, so that Snape could not kill himself, and instead sat day after day at his potions table, compounding equal measures of a persona from scratch.

Among the Princes, there was already a Severus and a Sylvia waiting for death. There was no need to add a Praeris to that number.

A thought rose in Snape, one uncomfortable enough to make his whole body feel wrong. He couldn't feel his own mouth moving.

He heard himself ask Praeris: "Would you like to see Brown and Purnell?"

"Huh?" Praeris's mouth fell open. "See Winnie and Ms. Puli? But — but they can't come to Hogwarts, can they?"

"You will go to them," Snape said.

The Order still had the Weasley twins and daughter and others. This might lead them to discover Praeris's identity. There were a thousand practical objections, and her rational mind had ten thousand more ready to go. Any one of them was enough reason to refuse.

In that moment, I knew. There would be no more summers so calm and beautiful.

On the eve of war, in a twilight already thick with the promise of death and parting, any scrap of reason and clear-headedness could harden into eternal regret.

Snape looked at Praeris. Praeris looked at Snape.

Praeris gave a small nod. "Sir, this is the best Christmas gift I have ever received."

Inside Snape's office, two people and four hands set to work again.

The formula's original test subject had been the Horned Toad, so every ingredient, every ratio and dosage had to be recalculated from the ground up. Powdered honeysuckle, for instance, was replaced with dittany.

Praeris could almost see it, the teacher and student pair from first and second year, busy about in this same office, just like this.

Snape said, without warning: "What do you like about Draco?"

The night before, Snape had sat with a question: why did he have to meddle in Praeris and Draco's relationship at all?

He had convinced himself he had to manage this, to keep Praeris from letting emotion cloud her judgment and jeopardize the larger picture.

But he knew there was more to it than that. He had extra feelings for this child, feelings that had accumulated over years of looking after her.

Perhaps he had truly started to regard her as his own. From the moment she'd walked into his office carrying daffodils and not been thrown out, perhaps she already was.

"Huh?" Praeris glanced up. The professor seemed a little strange today, inexplicably sentimental somehow. "Draco... he's actually very good."

Snape gave a disdainful snort.

As if he didn't know exactly what sort of character Draco was.

Praeris kept her head down, chopping herbs in steady, rapid strokes. "You know, I have a terrible temper. I just put on an act when I have to. Draco looks proud, but he's always been able to put up with me."

In front of Draco, Praeris never bothered to polish over her sharp edges. Draco had been on the receiving end of her tongue since first year, and after three years of it he could still like her. The guy was a walking, capital-letter M.

"He doesn't look all that impressive, hehehe..." Praeris nearly laughed at her own thought. "But he actually has a lot of excellent qualities."

"His Potions is second only to mine in Slytherin, level with Theo's. His Ancient Runes is exceptional because he genuinely loves Alchemy — I've been told the Alchemy professor praises him constantly. His Quidditch is formidable too. Even without a Firebolt, he can hold his own against Harry..."

Once she started on Draco's merits, Praeris was unstoppable. Snape began to wonder, faintly, whether he was even the Head of Slytherin anymore.

Speed told Valentine: if you love her, you can't see her. Because love is blind.

Praeris was the exact opposite. It was through loving Draco that she had actually seen him, and found what was worth finding.

"Sir, you haven't seen his work, have you?"

While the cauldron was still reacting, Praeris started rummaging through her pockets. She pulled out the two-way mirror, stuffed it back, then drew out a pocket watch.

She stroked it once, then held it out for Professor Snape to see.

"Draco made this in third year," Praeris said. "He had only studied Ancient Runes for half a term, but every rune on this was carved by his own hand."

"It's an Emotion Pocket Watch. It stores a person's present feelings in positions marked by numbers." Praeris kept her eyes fixed on the watch. "It's a remarkable design. He doesn't even know it. Emotions affect a wizard's ability to cast spells."

When a person's feelings are thrown into violent upheaval, in the worst cases they can lose the ability to cast entirely.

Some water pumps need to be primed first, you pour water in before the pump can draw water up from underground.

If a person carried an object like this, then even after a Dementor's Kiss, the emotions it had stored, those old, fierce feelings, would work like that ladle of water, pulling back what had been buried deepest in the heart.

The casket Draco had given Praeris, she'd had Theo return to him. But this pocket watch she had kept.

Because it still held some of her feelings inside, and she didn't want to erase them entirely. She also didn't want Draco to see them.

Snape raised an eyebrow. He took a genuine, careful look at the pocket watch.

It was truly hard to imagine Draco having this kind of patience.

The watch was small, so every rune had been carved tiny. They were arranged in orderly rows, packed dense across the case lid, every gap filled with connecting decorative patterns. Opening the lid revealed still more intricate magical design, making the watch function as both timepiece and magical instrument at once.

This was an early work. But no one who looked at it could deny that Draco had a talent for this.

Praeris tucked the watch back into her pocket.

"So it's all settled, then?" Snape said, his tone measured with quiet meaning.

"Sir!" Praeris protested. "Surely you have to allow me to keep one memento!"

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Ron and Harry sat at the kitchen table, slicing purple cabbage by hand. Mrs. Weasley wasn't there, but Ms. Puli was at the stove, simmering soup.

Ron raised his voice toward her: "Ma'am, can't we just use magic for this?"

"No, dear," Ms. Puli said without turning around. "Your mother wants you two to sit quietly for a while."

"She's too honest." Ron scrunched up his face and shook his head. "She could at least have pretended it was some kind of character-building exercise!"

"If you were Ronna instead of Ron," Harry told him, "Ms. Puli would definitely be coddling you right now."

Ron pictured it. His face crumpled up like the cabbage in his hands.

"No, thank you," he said, shaking his head vigorously. "I'm very attached to our brotherhood."

Harry then told Ron what he'd overheard at the Christmas dinner, he'd caught the things Snape said, and then Praeris had caught him.

"Is she a ghost?" Harry said under his breath, aggrieved. "My soul nearly jumped straight out of my throat."

"She definitely used some kind of spell." Ron tapped his chin. "We should ask Winnie later. I want to walk without making any sound too — then I'd never get caught on nighttime wanderings."

Harry glanced back at Ms. Puli, who had moved on to slicing meat, and dropped his voice lower still. "That's not the point. The point is—"

Harry had seen Dumbledore just the day before, and Dumbledore had noticed the change in him at once.

Harry had no choice but to recount the whole conversation with Praeris honestly. Dumbledore's expression had been difficult to read, some helplessness in it, and something that looked like rueful reflection.

Dumbledore told Harry that Snape had always been someone he trusted, and that would never change. Beyond that, neither Harry nor Dumbledore had any evidence that Draco had attempted to murder Katie.

No one could arrest a person without evidence. Harry had learned that firsthand when he himself was falsely accused. The same applied now to Draco.

They were both students of Hogwarts. As headmaster, Dumbledore had an obligation to be fair and not wrongfully accuse anyone.

Draco might very well be engaged in some kind of secret activity. But investigating it was a matter Dumbledore had handed over to Snape, as Head of Slytherin, that was his domain.

None of this did Harry share with Ron. Dumbledore had required him to keep it secret.

What Harry did tell Ron was that he still suspected Snape. Dumbledore hadn't heard what Harry heard that night. He couldn't understand how it felt.

"Maybe Dumbledore and Praeris have both been fooled," Harry said quietly. "He said it himself — he's brilliant at playing a role. We hold our enemies to the highest possible suspicion, don't we?"

Ron scratched his head. "I believe you, obviously. But didn't you say Praeris always knows everything? So how could she be the one getting deceived?"

They knew now that Praeris was Ms. Puli's daughter, not Winnie's.

Bellatrix had nearly killed Ms. Puli. If Praeris really knew everything, why would she help the enemy?

Harry's logic jammed. He said, a little awkwardly: "Even Praeris gets tricked sometimes, right?"

➤ Next: A Brand-New Sun