Chapter 164 - Truth and Accusations

When the conversation ended, the room was already much brighter than outside.

A young woman with pink hair stood beside Winnie, gesturing animatedly, apparently talking about something interesting.

The moment she spotted Praeris at the top of the stairs, Winnie waved her over.

Praeris immediately ignored Harry and the others and walked toward Winnie.

"Tonks, this is our kid." Winnie patted Tonks on the shoulder. "Praeris, this is Tonks."

"Miss Tonks..." The corner of Praeris's mouth twitched. "Getting off work this early — quite rare, isn't it?"

"No no no, don't call me that! Just Tonks! Winnie said you'd figure out what I do in an instant!" Tonks marveled. "That's incredible! You go to Hogwarts? I don't think I've ever seen you in Hogsmeade!"

Praeris shook her head. "My guardian isn't really in a position to sign the forms for me. My friends bring me Hogsmeade snacks anyway."

On this point, Harry had nothing but admiration for Praeris. Could the gap in personality between two people really be this vast?

When he was the only Gryffindor who couldn't go to Hogsmeade, he couldn't help sneaking out under his Invisibility Cloak. Yet Praeris had never once overstepped, as if she simply had no such desire at all.

Winnie said with a beaming smile, "Prae, it was Tonks and Lupin together who saved Prim."

Praeris's gaze toward Tonks immediately turned warm. "Is that so? That's really..." She paused. "When Professor Lupin and Mr. Kingsley visited Winnie's place last time, he never mentioned it to me!"

Fervent was only relative to her own temperament, of course. Praeris found it very difficult to show genuine enthusiasm toward anyone outside her family.

"Compared to you thanking him, Lupin is even more grateful to you." Winnie said with pride. "Your Budget Wolfsbane Potion has changed the lives of many werewolves. Aside from the extremists, the werewolves' stance toward You-Know-Who is wavering."

Since werewolves could now spend relatively little money and live lives not much different from ordinary people's, what need was there to go risk their lives for Voldemort?

Some werewolves who had already begun integrating into normal society had little enthusiasm for fighting and killing. They also feared that helping Voldemort would get them ostracized all over again.

But there were still many werewolves who had grown accustomed to life on the fringes. They couldn't take that first step, and they didn't believe wizarding society would ever truly accept them.

Others had criminal records for murder. Even with Budget Wolfsbane Potion, reintegration was impossible. And then there were those who had no intention of being accepted in the first place, like Greyback, the one who bit Lupin.

Winnie reached for a cigar. Praeris's hand shot out and snatched it away before she got there. She fixed Winnie with a disapproving look and confiscated the cigar cutter for good measure.

"I didn't expect you to have such strong Potions talent." Winnie shifted the subject, her gaze wandering, as people with unhealthy habits tend to do when caught. "I used to think your skill level was just mixing potions in Prim's shop. Speaking of which — you get along decently with your Head of House, Snape?"

Winnie certainly knew Snape, but their relationship was terrible. She no longer remembered exactly when she'd started finding him insufferable. Probably from the moment she'd met him.

"Professor Snape is a true Potions Master." Praeris said without hesitation.

Winnie couldn't deny it. She shifted awkwardly. "If you're planning to become a potioneer at St. Mungo's someday, then yes, you really do need to study under him properly. Ah, having too much talent isn't always a good thing..."

"Why?" Praeris caught something underneath the words.

Winnie shook her head. "If you weren't still a student, stuck at Hogwarts and never going out, You-Know-Who would definitely have his eye on you. You know — you're a Slytherin, very talented. And your potions have caused him quite a bit of trouble."

Beyond Budget Wolfsbane Potion, rumors were already circulating that one or two wizards had slipped through Death Eater attacks thanks to Spirit Elixir.

That did nothing for the Death Eaters' reputation. Slug & Jiggers Apothecary had stopped stocking it altogether. Spirit Elixir had moved into the underground market, available only through private transactions.

"Huh?" Praeris said, genuinely surprised. "I didn't know about this. My Galleons still come in as usual!"

"Didn't say they stopped selling it." Winnie shrugged. "Just more discreetly now. Higher prices."

By the time the Weasley twins came back from their shop, Harry and Ron had to introduce Praeris all over again. They'd spent the entire day filling in holes in her story.

Harry shot Praeris a mournful look. Praeris shrugged, unbothered.

Praeris stayed for dinner. Winnie introduced her to Bill Weasley's fiancée Fleur, Mr. Weasley, and his wife Molly.

Sirius was the last one down. He looked different from before, the gloom on his face had lifted considerably. But his attitude toward Praeris seemed unchanged. He wasn't particularly inclined to get close to her.

Praeris read lips and caught his exchange with Harry.

"Sirius, what's wrong? Your expression is really strange."

"This girl's surname is Prince?"

"Yeah. Is there a problem with that?"

"I really hate to say this — no one told me! There's no question, she's not Prim's biological daughter. Has Snivellus's potion addled Remus's brain?"

"But Sirius, why?"

"It's hard to say... Harry, I need to figure some things out first!"

Sirius felt as though he and Lupin had both been led around by the nose by Winnie Brown.

Lupin had initially told him this girl was Winnie's daughter. Then Winnie said Praeris was Prim Purnell's daughter. And now Praeris's surname was Prince.

He was a sharp-minded fellow. Perhaps the Dementors had blunted him somewhat, but he was nowhere near stupid.

Sirius had gone to Azkaban before Sylvia. By the time he got out, he learned she had been imprisoned too.

He barely needed to guess. Praeris Prince was Sylvia Prince's daughter. She'd taken her mother's surname.

Purnell seemed like someone who despised men on principle. Could she really have married, with the husband coincidentally surnamed Prince, and then kept his surname for the child?

A dog's intelligence is no lower than a human's.

Not that he was a dog.

Damn Winnie. Tricking him again.

After dinner, Madam Prew brought out a plate of desserts and two cups of red tea for Winnie, shooing her and Praeris off to enjoy themselves.

"You eat." Winnie shoved the plate into Praeris's hands. "Little Prae, look how thin you are! You wouldn't fetch much on the scale!"

Praeris blinked. Then she opened her mouth and called out: "Madam Prew! Winnie's trying to mmmph,"

Winnie's hand clamped over her mouth.

"What's Winnie trying to do!" Madam Prew's voice came from inside. "Dear, let me wipe my hands!"

Mrs. Weasley's voice drifted from the kitchen as well. "In my experience with children, it's surely nothing..."

"You little brat!" Winnie cursed under her breath, then raised her voice toward the kitchen. "Molly's right, it's nothing!"

Praeris grinned, wicked and unrepentant. Winnie seethed.

"Ahem." Sirius gave a low cough. "So, uh, Winnie... chat?"

Asking like that was genuinely difficult for him. But he wasn't reckless enough to bring up her imprisoned mother in front of the child. He'd probably get chased down and hexed by Winnie Brown for that.

"Chat with me?" Winnie stared at him. "Are you an M?"

Praeris burst out laughing.

"What's an M?" Sirius asked before he could stop himself, then immediately decided it was nothing good and pushed past it. "Something came up! I have something to ask you!"

"Hold on." Winnie said, then glanced at Praeris.

'What's this dog planning to ask me?'

Praeris read the look clearly.

She reached up and touched the suit waistcoat she was wearing.

'Sylvia.'

The original owner of this waistcoat. Her biological mother, Sylvia.

Winnie and Praeris had built up a remarkably good rapport. Winnie didn't have Praeris's gift, but with Praeris's precise expressions, she could catch the shape of what she meant.

Sirius knew very little about Praeris. He had no idea she had already read straight through him. His so-called evasiveness was completely useless.

Winnie pressed a hand over her face, speechless at his obliviousness.

She said quietly to Praeris, "Prae, go get some rest. Black and I will head up to the top floor to talk."

Praeris blinked. Then she pulled off the overcoat she wore over her waistcoat and draped it over Winnie's shoulders.

"Come back early," she said.

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. The attic.

"Aren't you going to light a cigar?"

Sirius had racked his brain and come up with a truly terrible opener.

Winnie said, with no small amount of pride, "The cigar cutter was confiscated by our kid."

What was there to be proud of!

Sirius bared his teeth in a grin. "Harry told me to go to bed early last night too!"

"Oh." Winnie looked at him with contempt. "You're telling me this so I'll praise you for being a grown man in his thirties who doesn't know when to sleep?"

"I'll have you know." Sirius dropped himself into a wicker rocking chair and announced, "You've been giving me attitude the whole time, this is my house!"

The hostility between Winnie and Sirius stretched back to their school days. They had genuinely traded hexes and blows.

After learning Winnie had gone over to Voldemort's side, Sylvia had wept for days and severed all ties with her. Winnie had become the enemy, and for years after, she and Sirius flung spells at each other openly and covertly whenever their paths crossed.

Winnie was capable. Despite being younger, she never once came out the worse for it. She'd introduced a few significant stumbling blocks into Sirius's otherwise unchallenged school life.

"So." Winnie drew the word out. "You called me up here just to throw me out? At a time like this, expel me from the Order of the Phoenix?"

She made the words as unpleasant as possible on purpose, to block whatever he was about to say. She knew very well that Sirius couldn't throw her out. That would be biting the hand that saved him, effectively sending her to her death.

"Of course — of course not." Sirius said, calm. "Do you still remember Sylvia?"

"More clearly than any of you." Winnie said without hesitation.

"That's not your child." Sirius said with certainty. "Praeris is Sylvia's daughter. Sylvia was our good friend, yet you concealed her daughter's identity. And now Praeris has become a Slytherin!"

Sylvia had been well-liked among the Gryffindors. She was younger than them, but she was their friend all the same.

This future little Seer had done private readings for James and Lily both, love fortunes, Quidditch predictions, whether their pranks and late-night wanderings would land them in detention.

The answer, in the end: no detention.

But only Lupin walked away clean. Both James and Sirius got a thorough dressing-down from Professor McGonagall.

That was worse than detention.

"But you weren't given detention!" Sylvia spread her hands with a triumphant smile. "Was I accurate or not! Was I accurate or not!"

"Too accurate!" James rubbed his hands together, eyes gleaming. "Master, do a reading on Lily, hey! Sirius, I haven't had my turn yet!"

For a while, James splurged regularly on love divinations, which made Sirius want to report this Hogwarts fortune-teller junior to someone, anyone, with actual authority.

Sylvia would clutch her crystal ball and shout at Sirius across the room: "The stars say you're in for a great misfortune, Sirius!"

Later, they found out Lily had also been a regular client. She'd wanted divinations on how to avoid a certain persistent nuisance.

The nuisance being James, who was driving her to distraction.

Of course, later the readings became love divinations.

Sylvia was scrupulously professional. Whatever the client asked for, she never slipped in her own opinions, and she never leaked a word to anyone else.

In short, this Seer junior could be a bit of a menace sometimes, but she was an endlessly interesting and lovable friend.

After Lleian Prince was killed by Death Eaters, Sylvia had sold off most of her family's assets to fund the Order's resistance.

"I hope you win," Sylvia had said, quietly wistful. "And yet I don't entirely hope you win."

Sirius's eyes went wide. "You're not doing a divination right now, are you?"

Why was that so hard to understand!

After that, Sylvia vanished from the wizarding world without a trace.

Those were wartime years. No one's death was truly surprising anymore, no one's, except Voldemort's or Dumbledore's.

When Lily was pregnant, she grew sentimental and often found herself thinking of Sylvia, wondering whether something had happened to her.

James and Sirius would reassure her. With Sylvia's divination talent, they said, she would have seen danger coming long before it arrived. Nothing could have happened to her.

They could never have guessed how completely the world would change.

James and Lily were gone. Lupin fell into hardship. Peter betrayed them all. And both Sirius and Sylvia ended up in Azkaban.

What Sirius found hardest to accept was this: Sylvia's daughter had been right there beside Winnie the whole time, and Winnie had allowed her to become a Slytherin.

Not a single witch or wizard who later turned dark had come from anywhere but Slytherin. And Lleian himself had died at the hands of a Death Eater who came straight out of Slytherin.

➤ Next: The Two Doctors