Chapter 193 - The Funeral of a Living Dead Man

Praeris sighed, then bent down and fished a battered poetry collection out of the junk pile beside her. She patted the dust off it.

"You may not believe this, but this book kept me company for a very long time." She handed it to Harry. "For certain reasons, I traded it away once. Someone wrote a great many notes in it, then returned it to me — as an alternative form of apology."

"You're not suited for the Half-Blood Prince's notes," Praeris said. "But you can have a look at this one."

That Christmas at Grimmauld Place, Dumbledore had apologized to Praeris for the origin of the alias Talia.

After their conversation ended, he had drawn this small poetry collection from his robes and returned it to her.

"Silvanus gave this to me when he retired," Dumbledore had said gently. "I am very fond of it, but I believe it should return to its original owner."

"I am not its original owner."

Praeris said that, yet she still accepted the poetry collection.

Harry held the book and looked at the familiar handwriting inside. It was remarkably similar to the handwriting on every parchment roll he had received this year, each one inviting him to lessons.

Their owner was obvious. It was Dumbledore.

Harry lowered his head and pressed his forehead against the cover. A raw, broken sound tore out of him, venting everything he had kept locked inside.

After a long while, he said with a bitter laugh, "Am I ridiculous?"

"You saw through me?" Praeris put on an expression of exaggerated surprise. "I thought I hid it rather well."

Harry choked. He was quiet for a moment before speaking. "Deep down I believed you. I knew it. Yet I still came to question you. I knew you must be busy with Bill's potion, yet I still came to disturb you."

"I don't know what I was doing. I just — I just wanted to say something, to hate something. Anything at all."

His words were incoherent. Any normal person would have struggled to follow him. He was like a silkworm, unaware of why it spins silk, hollowing itself out on nothing but blind instinct.

"You should be grateful I'm not Neville Longbottom." Praeris shot him an exasperated look. "Otherwise we'd both have been sent to St. Mungo's because of an exploding cauldron."

"Simply put, you're in too much pain, and this emotion has no proper outlet." Her tone was steady and clear. "Too many times in my presence, you've been forced to lay bare your innermost feelings, and each time you came away unharmed."

"So your body has decided I'm your mind healer." Praeris shook her head and pointed at the poetry collection. "I'm busy. Very. Your mind healer is right there. Only you can save yourself — don't bother me, please?"

For Harry, this was the first time he had truly faced the death of someone older. Sirius Black had survived by luck, and that luck had let Harry narrowly skirt the full terror of it. But Dumbledore had died right in front of him.

Harry could not calm down, and he was not capable of it. That he was still willing to believe Praeris at all was the accumulated trust of these years doing its work.

Harry was sent out of the underground classroom. Praeris even assigned him a task on his way out, demanding he go get more Basilisk venom. "For Bill Weasley — off you go!"

Harry Potter left. Praeris looked down at the case he had brought back, and a meaningful smile crossed her face.

Potter had to be grateful that hatred had not completely blinded him. Even having witnessed Professor Snape kill Dumbledore with his own eyes, he had still kept a thread of reason and carried out what Praeris asked.

Otherwise, the one who killed Dumbledore would have been Harry himself.

Praeris set Bill's potion aside, sorted through the case, took out a clean cauldron, and began to brew.

The days remaining at Hogwarts were harder to get through than any potion.

Just as people had always assumed Harry knew where Dumbledore disappeared to, the Ministry now believed Praeris might well know where Professor Snape had gone. She was, after all, Snape's most valued student.

It severely disrupted her experimental schedule. She turned to Ron and Harry with venom in her voice: "If one more person interrupts my work without good reason, I will let Bill Weasley fend for himself."

Ron and Harry had no choice but to stand guard in the entrance hall. The moment they spotted anyone from the Ministry, they found ways to stall until Praeris put down the work in her hands.

"To think we're letting Snape's student order us around." Ron's tone was pure disbelief.

Harry had the poetry collection open and was reading with quiet focus. His voice was distant. "No. We're helping our companion. And we're helping Bill."

Ron pursed his lips. "I know. But believing and hating can coexist."

Yes. Hatred and trust can coexist.

Harry hated Snape for what he had done, hated it so much the feeling spilled over onto Praeris, yet in the end he still chose to trust her.

How contradictory. How real.

Around the day before Dumbledore's funeral, Praeris produced a vial of potion, deep green as the leaves of wood anemones.

The one wielding the scalpel was Madam Pomfrey, a true Healer. It was something genuinely admirable, tender kindness and professional decisiveness living inside the same woman at once.

With this treatment method, Bill's condition was more difficult than Dumbledore's had been. The hand could simply be cut off; the flesh on the face had to be carved away piece by piece.

Madam Pomfrey did the bloody work of excising the flesh while Praeris stood beside her, passing instruments and wiping away sweat. The face was too close to the brain. Even with magic, it was not easy.

Madam Pomfrey was soaked through by the time it was over. Outside the door, the Weasley family paced in endless tension.

They moved back and forth like ants on a hot griddle. Mrs. Weasley pressed her palms together and prayed to gods drawn from every mythology she could think of, even though wizards did not believe in gods.

Ron sat on the corridor floor, muttering. "If Bill gets better, I will never hate her for any reason. Never. I'll be grateful to her. I'll owe her for the rest of my life..."

"But the surgery might not succeed." Hermione could not help saying it quietly. "If she fails, will you still hate her? I'm not cursing Bill."

Ron buried his face between his knees. "I don't know. I don't want that to happen. I think... I wouldn't hate her either. It's not her fault. She hasn't done anything wrong. I know I shouldn't feel this way, but I can't help it."

Knowing something in your mind and doing something about it in the real world are two different things. Some people know perfectly well that exams are coming and they need to study. In the end, they just play with a knot of anxiety in their chest.

The deep green potion dripped onto Bill's face. The flesh writhed, and new tissue sprouted and stretched rapidly, like the first shoots of spring breaking through soil.

Madam Pomfrey stared at it in wonder. The words came from somewhere deep inside her. "This is truly miraculous. Your name will be written into the history of Potions. Your research will enter the textbooks. You are changing the world. St. Mungo's Spell Damage ward needs this!"

Just think. An Auror with a fatal curse wound, as long as the infected parts were cut away before the curse and toxins could spread, all that was needed was to grow fresh flesh.

A miracle. That was the only word for it.

"But it can't be distributed widely yet, because of an issue with one of the ingredients." Praeris said it levelly. "If I have time, perhaps I can find a substitute for its core ingredient."

She paused for a second. "Or perhaps its core ingredient can't be substituted at all, and it will simply become a remarkable legend."

The Basilisk was dead. Its venom diminished with each use. If Praeris still had not found a substitute before the last of it ran out, the Severed-Limb Regeneration Potion would still be written into history. But it would remain only history.

The surgery went on for a very long time. Darkness fell.

Mealtime came and went. Not a single Weasley left the corridor outside the hospital wing. Not one of their friends either.

A creak. The door opened.

The Weasley family truly was large, and they had a great many friends. They crowded the doorway, packed shoulder to shoulder, all of them talking over each other asking how Bill was.

"Quiet! All of you!" Mrs. Weasley's voice rang out.

Her eyes were wet. She looked at Madam Pomfrey and Praeris and said in a trembling voice, "Bill. My son. Is he all right?"

Madam Pomfrey drew Praeris forward. "Molly, this is the attending healer."

The words had barely landed before a dozen pairs of eyes fixed themselves on Praeris.

"Can you accept —" Praeris paused. Every person in the corridor went rigid with dread. "— that your son will look somewhat different from before?"

The surgery had disrupted the original muscle structure, though the bones were unchanged. Bill Weasley would have a face that still strongly resembled his family, but not necessarily one that still looked like himself.

"I don't care what Bill looks like." Molly's eyes were red. "I only want him healthy. Safe and sound."

Behind her, Fleur nodded hard. "I feel the same. I love Bill. Not his face."

Praeris nodded calmly. "Then there's no problem. He will wake in half an hour. The moment he does, call for me and Madam Pomfrey immediately. No matter how thirsty he is, do not give him water. Do not feed him anything unless the two of us have approved it first."

"Ah!"

Molly and Fleur threw themselves into each other's arms. The others erupted into joyful noise. One by one they shook Praeris's hand with a fervency that would have done credit to the Queen of England greeting her subjects.

It took considerable effort for Praeris to get clear. She lifted her cork bag, skirted around the throng, and started for the exit, only to be stopped by Ron just as she was nearly through.

Ron's eyes were unsteady. He got the words out in fits and starts. "Praeris. I... I'm sorry."

"Are you apologizing for your words and actions because I saved Bill?" Praeris asked. No mercy in it at all.

"Yes." Ron looked ashamed. "But even if you hadn't healed Bill, I would still apologize. You were clearly helping us. I hated you for what happened to Bill anyway..."

"How remarkable," Praeris said, with perfect courtesy. "I hope you remember what you've said today."

Ron had never wished harder for the floor to swallow him. He bowed his head and stepped aside.

The next day was Dumbledore's funeral.

Since the "murderer" was their own Head of House, the one leading Slytherin fell to the former Head, Slughorn.

Slughorn had dressed in an exceedingly splendid set of bright green robes with silver ornamentation. He looked, without question, like the Slytherin Christmas tree from years past. The Slytherins followed behind him in a procession toward the funeral grounds.

The feeling was deeply strange to Praeris.

This was unlike any funeral she had ever attended. This was a funeral for a living man, and she was the only person present who knew the truth.

A person's merits and faults across an entire life are sealed in the moment they die. Perhaps Dumbledore was the first person to learn all of this while still alive. Perhaps he did not care about any of it, either.

Most people were weeping. Some shed genuine tears. Others dabbed at nonexistent stains with handkerchiefs and made a good show of it. Even the Slytherins around her bowed their heads in silence.

Praeris did not weep. To cry for someone she knew full well was not dead, that would be strange. She simply watched, composed and still, waiting to complete what she had come here to complete.

The moment the eulogy ended, Dumbledore's body blazed with wondrous white flames, rising and hardening into a snow-white tomb that enclosed his body and the table beneath him together.

The crying grew louder all around her. Praeris only thought: this is going to be a bit troublesome. She should have asked for more compensation.

"Professor McGonagall!"

The funeral was over. Praeris went after the middle-aged witch who had just lost half her life's teacher, and looked her in the eyes. "Where will Dumbledore be buried?"

Professor McGonagall stopped. She looked at Praeris for a long moment, then asked gravely, "Praeris, I'm sorry to ask this. But, why are you asking? Who are you asking for?"

"For myself, Professor." Praeris's voice was quiet. "I heard that Dumbledore once spoke in defense of my mother. And that he asked Professor Snape to look after me."

Professor McGonagall went still. Her eyes grew wet again. She pressed a hand over her face in grief. "I let my thoughts run away from me, Praeris. Yes. That was the kind of man he was. I had nowhere to go, once, and it was he who invited me to Hogwarts."

Professor McGonagall did not ask where Praeris had learned any of this. She did not want to hear the answer. It would have broken her heart.

"His hometown," Professor McGonagall said, her voice catching. "Godric's Hollow. To the southwest."

Good. It matched Praeris's own guess. She would not need to invent any lies.

"Will you join the Order of the Phoenix?" Professor McGonagall asked quietly. "Winnie and Plum..."

"No." Praeris was perfectly calm. "You're reconfiguring that place, aren't you?"

With Dumbledore, the Secret-Keeper, "dead," his arrangements at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place had been destroyed in an instant. The Order would need to rebuild everything from the ground up and choose a new Secret-Keeper. That was not something anyone outside their number should know.

"Besides," Praeris said, without a trace of sarcasm, "the other members wouldn't agree, would they? They would be afraid I might pass information about the Order to Professor Snape."

➤ Next: Grave-Digging Under the Moon