Chapter 179 - Dumbledore's Plan — Face to Face

By the end of March, green had crept quietly up the Scottish Highlands. Daisies and cowslips bloomed across the hillsides.

When you love someone, you gain a weakness that can be used against you.

Ms. Prim was that for Winnie. Parents were that for Draco. And Draco was that for Praeris.

Praeris arrived at the Hospital Wing with her cork satchel and said calmly, "Headmaster, let me take a look at your new hand."

"Much obliged!" Dumbledore rose and extended his hand, his tone cheerful. "Harry is always so curious about my new glove — I ended up giving him one as well."

"But when I actually offered it, he didn't want it anymore." Dumbledore looked genuinely a little regretful. "I'd specially picked out the prettiest one. Purple!"

Uh,

Praeris blinked.

Was there not a possibility that Harry was worried about Dumbledore's hand, rather than having any interest in ladies' long gloves?

"'As well'?" Praeris asked.

"Scrimgeour was also very curious about my new glove. I gave him a green one." Dumbledore smiled. "He didn't want it either."

Scrimgeour's reasons were an entirely different matter. He was almost certainly suspecting that Dumbledore's injury had worsened, questioning whether Dumbledore could still hold his ground against Voldemort.

Praeris pulled off Dumbledore's glove and began pressing different points on his palm. "Any unusual reactions?"

"The joints are a bit stiff sometimes." Dumbledore said mildly. "Occasional pain."

"Sir, you have been far too careless with this hand." Praeris's tone was stern. "Normally it's the patient who comes to find the doctor."

Dumbledore had the sudden feeling he was looking at a younger Madam Pomfrey. Did every healer carry this kind of presence? Even a Potions apprentice filling the role on a temporary basis.

"I'm very busy and haven't been able to attend to it." Dumbledore offered by way of excuse. "And Severus says he doesn't handle this."

Snape didn't handle this. He was a butcher who did the killing and left the burying to someone else.

Once the hand was severed, his task was done. Limb regeneration was Praeris's own independent research.

On the surface, the two of them were sparring over Dumbledore's new hand. Beneath it, the currents ran darker.

Dumbledore was hinting that the situation outside was dangerous. Praeris was leveraging her contributions to demand concessions. That was the real reason she had used the examination as a pretext to come up to the Headmaster's office in the first place.

Dumbledore, for his part, was shamelessly indicating that he didn't particularly care about this hand. He had lived long enough. He still had that plan of his, the one that ended with him walking toward his own death.

"You actually know that Professor Snape is very busy?" Praeris said, her surprise not quite feigned. "I would have thought you had ten thousand matters demanding your attention and no awareness of anything else at all."

She was mocking Dumbledore for using people like machines. Hinting, too, at everything she and her uncle had given.

"It does seem that way." Dumbledore said. "It's regrettable, Praeris — but adults always have endless things to attend to. We give our time and energy to the children willingly."

Translation: thank you, but Snape volunteered.

Praeris pursed her lips. "Truly regrettable. I'm starting to wish I could go back to being a minor."

"I miss the old days too." Dumbledore said mildly. "But none of us can go back."

Child, you're already on the pirate ship.

Praeris gave a cold huff, turned, and began pulling things out of the cork satchel on the chair.

"Would you mind using Muggle medicine?" she said. "These are leftovers from when I had growing pains — calcium tablets and vitamin D. Suitable for your situation."

"Oh?" Dumbledore took the bottle from her with evident interest. "But I don't see my palm growing any larger."

Praeris looked at him without expression. "You should have taken that glove off long ago. No sunlight gets through, calcium absorption slows down, and the joints ache. That's all this is."

Dumbledore studied the calcium tablets for a long moment. Praeris assumed he was contemplating the flavor. She was wrong. He looked up and asked the kind of question that makes any doctor want to commit a minor act of violence: "Praeris, if I don't take the glove off, will taking this medicine still work?"

Praeris stared at him. Her gaze had weight.

Dumbledore, seeing her expression, had the audacity to smile at her.

Praeris said one word, cold and flat: "No."

"Sir, this is only medicine." She kept staring. "Medicine cannot replace the body's own functions. It needs sunlight."

Dumbledore was starting to believe what Snape had told him. Praeris really was in her rebellious phase. Not at all as endearing as she'd been in her first years.

Which brought to mind the small argument they'd just had, over the matter of a student being harmed.

"Dumbledore, if you ever want another hand chopped off, you know where to find me." Snape had said it with his coldest face. "Everything after that is her own research."

"I assumed asking either of you would amount to the same thing," Dumbledore had said.

"Hmph!" Snape had pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. "As if you've never had to clean up Potter's messes when he wouldn't listen!"

If Praeris were obedient, Dumbledore's new hand would never have been necessary in the first place. And that was before getting into the whole business with her and Draco, Snape thought about it and wanted to dock both of them points on the spot. He kept having to remind himself that he was the Head of Slytherin. He couldn't just do that.

Back in the present, Praeris and Dumbledore concluded their doctor-and-patient back-and-forth. Dumbledore agreed to switch to a thinner glove and to go without one entirely when no one was around.

Praeris suspected the real reason: Dumbledore intended to let the hand appear as though it were "failing." A show of weakness. Bait for the enemy.

It also explained why he hadn't stopped his private lessons with Harry Potter. Everyone already believed he was grooming Harry with intention. If his health appeared to be declining, no one would expect him to stop, and that made the whole arrangement even more convincing.

"I genuinely dislike discussing matters of the heart with young people." Dumbledore said mildly. "It makes an old man like me envious. Reminds me that I've grown old."

"Even the dead can love," Praeris said. "Let alone the living. Being older isn't the problem."

Dumbledore laughed. "You mean Miss Warren? I was very surprised when Nick told me. Madam Pomfrey has even expressed hope that I could offer Barron a position as school healer once he graduates."

"Did you agree?" Praeris asked.

Dumbledore smiled. "No. I told Madam Pomfrey that unless Barron can obtain credentials matching St. Mungo's hiring requirements, and pass the trial I've entrusted her to design."

The school healer position was unlike any other. Dumbledore was not willing to gamble with students' lives.

If Barron thought that Myrtle and Madam Pomfrey could smooth his path into employment, his thinking might shift over time. Feelings might become a tool. A bargaining chip.

Dumbledore had asked Madam Pomfrey to design a trial of character, to ensure Barron genuinely loved the work of a healer, and wasn't simply trying to stay at Hogwarts.

"You approve of this kind of relationship?" Praeris asked.

Dumbledore smiled. "I have seen every kind of relationship there is."

Could Praeris say that an entire library of fan fiction had just flashed through her mind, all starring Dumbledore?

The titles ran something like: Dumbledore and his nemesis Grindelwald. Dumbledore and his prized students Scamander and Harry. And, impossibly, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. Written by a Gryffindor alumna, if you could believe it.

Praeris was sincerely grateful for two things: her Occlumency was reasonably well-practiced, and she had spent years studying micro-expressions and body language. Otherwise she would have been thrown out of this office already.

Ahem.

Praeris smiled. "I hope Barron passes your trial and Madam Pomfrey's. If there's nothing else — I'll be going."

She picked up her cork satchel, gave Dumbledore a slight bow, and turned toward the door.

"Praeris, don't rush off!"

Dumbledore hadn't expected it. The moment he'd opened the real subject, she'd acted as though she'd forgotten what they were there to discuss, turning to leave with the air of someone who had finished the examination and had nothing further to say.

"Hm?" Praeris turned, looking genuinely puzzled. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

What could Dumbledore do? He smiled. "A clever person who starts talking in circles can never quite find their way back, can they? I don't believe you came here only to examine my hand."

Praeris smiled faintly and set the satchel back down on the chair. "Then what do you believe I came for?"

One old pair of eyes and one young pair locked together.

"Scrimgeour came to see me," Dumbledore said. "He was very interested in the matter of Ron Weasley being poisoned. Do you have any thoughts?"

Praeris threw Slughorn directly under the bus. "I think Professor Slughorn ought to be more attentive. A Potions professor who doesn't even know his own food is poisoned, that's a problem."

This was entirely unreasonable on Praeris's part, and she knew it. If Slughorn had never opened the bottle of mead, there was no way he could have detected the poison.

"I don't think we can fault Slughorn for that, can we?" Dumbledore said mildly. "He's old and has a very wide circle. And who would genuinely suspect their own colleagues and students of trying to poison them?"

Praeris had the grace to look thoughtful. "That's fair. I was thinking about it wrong."

"So," Dumbledore said. "Who do you think would put poison in the wine?"

Praeris adopted a contemplative expression and let a pause stretch out. "An enemy of Professor Slughorn's, I imagine."

Dumbledore was running out of patience. He had walked her right up to the door, and now she was standing there holding the key and insisting she didn't know where the key was.

But he couldn't treat Praeris the way he treated Snape. This girl had covered her own eyes out of love. She hadn't truly harmed anyone.

"Praeris." His voice was earnest now. "Bad things do not stop happening simply because we refuse to look at them. If we love someone, we don't sit by and watch them walk toward the abyss. Do we?"

Praeris noticed something.

Dumbledore's expression was asymmetrical when he said it.

A Muggle psychology book published the year Praeris turned five, Emotions Revealed, noted that when a person is experiencing intense emotion, an inconsistent expression can flash briefly across their face, usually in the moment just before or after they attempt to suppress what they feel.

Dumbledore did not want her to see his real feelings. And what he was suppressing was this: those words carried deep personal weight for him. He felt them. He grieved them. And that grief was exactly the kind of thing that could have moved her, and he had chosen not to use it.

Praeris didn't think he was faking it to that degree. He genuinely felt the same pain. He simply refused to weaponize it.

She exhaled slowly.

Dumbledore already knew, didn't he? If Praeris had truly made up her mind, she wouldn't have come here at all, and there would be no chance of persuading her. But she had come. That meant she was open to it. That was why he had asked her to stay.

Hearing the sigh, Dumbledore looked at her immediately.

Her eyes held grief. "Sir, if we love someone, we are also willing to go to hell for them. Aren't we?"

They both knew who she meant. Draco loved his family. So he had taken on a task that would send him straight there.

"We will find a better way." A sharp gleam crossed Dumbledore's eyes. "It doesn't necessarily require going to hell."

Praeris straightened. "You mean..."

"Draco wants to kill me." Dumbledore said it plainly. "But I'm afraid he can't. In every sense."

Both in terms of capability and in terms of what it would cost him, psychologically, to actually do it.

Dumbledore continued in a tone of perfect, unhurried calm: "But I can 'die.' In the eyes of everyone else."

Praeris drew a sharp breath. "You mean — faking your death."

Dumbledore nodded. "I've asked Harry to get the total number of Horcruxes from Slughorn. I know you've provided them with some assistance."

Harry had mentioned Praeris's psychological theories during their private lessons.

"We have already destroyed 4 Horcruxes," Dumbledore said. "I believe the number is more than six, but won't exceed ten."

"Six." Praeris counted on her fingers. "Ginny's diary. The diadem and the cup I've seen. And whatever injured your hand, a ring, I think. That's the 4 we've destroyed."

The fifth, she guessed, was probably a Slytherin relic that hadn't been found yet.

Dumbledore confirmed it. "I believe the fifth is indeed a Slytherin relic. And Voldemort used the death of Bertha Jorkins to turn his pet Nagini into a Horcrux. That would be the sixth."

He wasn't hiding any of this from Praeris because she had already known about the Horcruxes for some time, and had helped destroy two of them.

"Once you confirm the exact number," Praeris said slowly, "you'll know whether there are others beyond these six. Then you can fake your death and slip away, make them lower their guard..."

Two things still puzzled her, though. First: why was Dumbledore so certain the number exceeded six? And second,

"Headmaster Dumbledore." Praeris looked at him directly. "Draco absolutely does not have the ability to kill you. Your fake-death plan is far too fake."

➤ Next: Confession and Redemption