Chapter 212 - Persuasion — The Conversation

"Not all Seers are the same," Dumbledore said, shaking his head with a smile. "Professor Trelawney's gift is unstable, but that doesn't mean every Seer is like her."

Dumbledore had known true Seers, ones who possessed the full gift of prophecy. A prophecy didn't entirely determine how the future would unfold, but the existence of a Seer was still a complicated thing.

"To my knowledge, Sylvia never had the gift of prophecy," Praeris said calmly. "Otherwise she would have known long ago that she would kill Dipul."

Dumbledore shook his head. "No. Prophecy doesn't work that way. In fact, a prophecy is sometimes only a brief scene, a fragment of the future."

"Perhaps Sylvia saw William being murdered, but she didn't believe she would be the one to do it. She would have assumed it was from someone else's perspective. She might have even doubted her own ability."

"According to the files, she argued that she never had any intention of killing William. That it was all an accident."

"Then what do you hope I'll do?" Praeris asked. "Or rather, what is your purpose in keeping me here?"

Things had taken a turn for the worse.

Harry and the others had endured a chaotic flight and finally made it back to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

But the witches and wizards connected to the Order of the Phoenix had all suffered for it. They had destroyed Dedalus Diggle's house, used the Cruciatus Curse on Tonks's parents, and turned The Burrow upside down.

Harry hated his aunt's family, but the Order had made the sensible decision to get them all settled and safe before leaving. Hermione, too, found herself grateful now for choices she had once felt terrible about making.

Ron pestered Lupin the moment he returned to the old Black house, desperate for news about his family. But Lupin didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to abandon the pregnant Tonks and throw himself into carrying out Dumbledore's last orders alongside Harry and the others.

Harry and Lupin had just had a furious row. Lupin believed his decision to marry Tonks had been a mistake. He had made her an outcast among other witches and wizards, and even Andromeda and Mr. Tonks felt a creeping unease about it all.

"You should have thought of all this from the very beginning!" Harry said, his voice shaking with anger. "Did these problems only come into existence now? You wait until Tonks is carrying your child before you say you've let her down, do you think that's right?"

Lupin said, his voice raw with pain, "I was blinded by love. I made an irrational decision, and I've regretted it every day since."

"Do you dare say any of this to Sirius Black!" Harry kicked the sofa as if it were Lupin himself. "Go on, tell him! Tell him you're planning to abandon Tonks! Can you live with your own conscience? Because I'll tell you something, from the moment you had the first thought of regret, you had already let Tonks down!"

"Harry! Harry, stop." Hermione grabbed hold of him, crying.

She stopped Harry from wrecking the room. She did not stop him from shouting at Lupin, because she still remembered what Praeris had once said about Ron.

Praeris had said, "When love wears down, in the end it all comes down to conscience. If Ron treated Lavender like that, then he clearly isn't someone with much of one."

It wasn't until Ron bravely admitted his mistake, and Lavender slapped him across the face for it, that Hermione reluctantly forgave him.

Hermione wiped her tears frantically with the back of her hand and turned to Lupin. "Remus! Tonks must have been fully prepared for everything when she chose you."

"Wasn't her mother the same? Sirius's cousin turned her back on her entire family to be with Mr. Tonks. Tonks knew exactly what she was walking into, she watched it happen when she was a child!"

"No, she doesn't know!" Lupin sat down on the floor and struck his own head with his fist. "Nobody knows what becomes of a werewolf's child. I have never heard of a child whose father was already a werewolf before it was born. He will be ashamed of my existence!"

"If you just run away like this, I will be even more ashamed of yours!" Harry fought to hold himself together, pried Hermione's hands away, and pointed straight at Lupin. "My father may have been a real git back at school. But I can still find reasons to be proud of him, because in the last moment of his life, he was standing between me and my mum!"

"If he had cast us aside like you're doing now, and gone off to do something else, I would have been ashamed of him for the rest of my life!" Harry's jaw was tight. "As a son, I'm telling you: unless you're dead, you have no right to abandon your wife and your child!"

Harry's chest heaved. He threw down one last sentence.

"When you taught me Defense Against the Dark Arts, I never once imagined you were such a coward."

Lupin fled. Harry was still furious.

He paced back and forth across the living room, breathing hard.

After a long while, he said quietly, to no one in particular: "I don't regret it. Even if he hates me for it, as long as it makes him figure out what he's supposed to be responsible for."

August in London. Bright sunshine.

A young woman stood on the street with a well-proportioned figure, dressed in a brown leather jacket, riding breeches, and boots. Her hair was coiled high in a bun. A cigarette rested between her fingers.

"You've taken a wrong turn." Stella Stewart dropped the cigarette and crushed it underfoot. Her face was cold. "I'll pretend I heard nothing. No one will ever know you said any of this to me. Now go."

Praeris shook her head. "I'm not leaving."

"You've lost your mind!" Stella's fury was barely contained. "Listen to yourself. Tell me, who exactly do you want to help?"

"Harry Potter," Praeris said calmly. "I hope you'll give them a hand when they enter the Ministry."

Stella crossed the distance in three strides, stopped right in front of Praeris, and jabbed a finger at her face. "You're a Slytherin! Have you forgotten how they've insulted us? Have you forgotten who your mentor is? Mr. Snape killed Dumbledore!"

"Wake up!" Stella glared at her, furious. "There is no road back for Slytherins!"

Praeris looked completely calm. Not a flicker of confusion in her eyes. "Stella," she said, her pace even and clear, "do you think I've been fooled by them? You're right that we were fooled, but the one doing the fooling is the Dark Lord. He's been using us as a weapon."

"I don't see it that way." Stella gave a cold laugh. "In fact, these past days, our standing in the Ministry has finally started to improve. Mr. Snape should have received his recognition long ago, and now he's finally Headmaster of Hogwarts. If that isn't a benefit, what is?"

"But isn't that exactly what we deserved all along?" Praeris stepped closer, her voice dropping. "We always had the support of fellow Slytherins. We were close allies with real strength behind us. You, you should have reached your current position years ago."

"But." Praeris paused. Stella's gaze slowly drifted toward her. "If the Dark Lord hadn't lured so many Slytherins into becoming his followers — hadn't caused an entire generation of us to nearly vanish, some dead, some imprisoned — we would be far stronger now, and our position far higher. Wouldn't we?"

Stella swallowed. Her eyes flickered.

"The Dark Lord is a half-blood," Praeris said with a smile. "Did you know that?"

Stella turned her head sharply. Her face went blank with shock. "What?"

Praeris raised her hand and lightly tapped her own temple. "Nothing could be more true."

"You know I don't support blood purism, and you don't care about it either." Praeris's pace picked up suddenly. "But every time I think about how many Slytherins gave everything for that ideology — marched forward one after another, bled and died for it — and then realize it was nothing but a lie from start to finish, I feel sick with grief for all of us."

A tear pressed out from the corner of Praeris's eye. Her voice was tight. "Stella. Draco was made a Death Eater before he even came of age. He ordered Draco to kill Dumbledore. If — if it hadn't been for Professor Snape—"

She tilted her head back to stop the tears from falling. One finger bent to brush them away. "He does not care whether we live or die. He doesn't care about our souls. He doesn't care about Slytherin. He only cares about his own interests, he's used us all as a blade, and the moment the edge dulls, he throws it away without a second thought."

Stella stumbled back a step, unsteady, and bumped into the plane tree behind her. "I need to think. I need to think."

"I don't dismiss the idea of sacrifice entirely, victory always comes with a price." Praeris placed her hand gently on Stella's shoulder and looked at her directly, eyes still bright with tears. "But what if the price is us? Our people, our families? And the so-called victory is built on a lie?"

"I understand where you're coming from." Stella patted her own cheek, trying to cool down the heat behind her eyes. "But the Death Eaters still have one goal, to conquer death. The Dark Lord has already been resurrected. At least that much is real, isn't it?"

Praeris shook her head. Then she laughed. "You believe that? Potter killed him once; he can do it again. Perhaps you don't know, he planned to ambush Potter around the time Potter came of age. What do you think the outcome was?"

Stella searched her memory. She hadn't heard any news that Potter was dead. Right now, the Ministry was busy proclaiming that Potter had killed Dumbledore, and he was wanted.

"Guess," Praeris said, with a mocking little smile. "How many times has it been now?"

Stella felt the absurdity of it wash over her. If the Dark Lord was nothing but a violent fraud, what was left for Slytherin's future?

Praeris lowered her voice. Her words were completely sincere. "Senior, this is our last chance. You don't need to take any open stand. All you need to do, when you cross paths with them, is look the other way and give them a little help. That's all."

Stella closed her eyes.

After a long moment, she said, "All right. I promise you."

Moments later, thoughts in a jumbled mess, she Disapparated and was gone, leaving Praeris standing alone.

"A most brilliant piece of persuasion." Dumbledore stepped out from somewhere, smiling.

Praeris pulled out a handkerchief and a mirror and tidied herself up. "Which part of what I said was a lie?" she asked, curious.

Dumbledore shook his head honestly. "None of it."

Spending time with Praeris was both a comfort and a torment. When nothing was happening, she was a reliable ally. When something was, she made people uneasy in a way that was hard to name.

Dumbledore didn't find it troubling. Great strength was great strength, he himself had walked both roads that power could take a person down. Since Praeris was using her talents to bring about a final peace, there was nothing to be suspicious of.

"My suspicion," Praeris said, looking up at the seeds drifting from the plane tree, "is that if he needed Sylvia to obtain some information, he was either looking for the locket, something to put his mind at rest."

"Quite right," Dumbledore said.

Praeris frowned. "I'm not sure whether he chose not to divine the Horcrux's location, or whether Sylvia's indication wasn't clear enough, but he hasn't found the locket."

"Then," Dumbledore asked, his tone mild, "what do you think he is still looking for?"

"I think you already know exactly what it is. You simply haven't told me." Praeris shook her head. "If it isn't a guarantee of his survival, then it must be something to make him more powerful."

Dumbledore smiled. "It is a powerful weapon. But he is destined never to be its master. We need not worry."

Dumbledore had already confirmed it at the graveyard. The wand's master was no longer himself. It was the boy who had disarmed him, Draco.

But he would tell no one. The wand's master had to remain a mystery. Only then would Voldemort be unable to draw its full power in the final battle.

Dumbledore smiled warmly. "I would have thought you'd guess he was searching for Harry?"

"Of course he's searching for Harry, but Harry can run!" Praeris looked almost surprised by the question. "Divining Harry's location would be completely useless!"

Dumbledore burst out laughing. Praeris didn't quite understand why, but watching him, she found herself laughing too, for no reason she could name.

Dumbledore patted her on the shoulder. "You're far too tense. Always trying to finish everything in the shortest possible time."

"Is this not the moment to give everything we have?" Praeris said earnestly. "We have to get everything in order before the war begins, so that when the final battle comes, we're in the best position we can be, and the losses are as few as possible."

Dumbledore looked at her with quiet, steady eyes. "But you are only one person, Praeris. I do need your help. And what you're doing right now is enough."

Praeris frowned. "I still have half a month before term starts."

"You should rest." Praeris was certain there was nothing else behind the words when Dumbledore said them. "Until the start of term, you don't need to go on any more of these adventures with me. This is something I promised Severus. All you need to do is prepare some Polyjuice Potion, and leave the rest to me."

"Just some?" Praeris asked.

Dumbledore was quiet for a moment. "A great deal?"

Praeris kept her face perfectly straight. The expression said everything: I knew it.

"One more thing." Dumbledore's tone shifted. He was serious now. "I need you to return to Hogwarts and help Severus protect the students from the Death Eaters. And then, as much as possible, do again what you did today."

➤ Next: Extra: Before Hogwarts 2