Chapter 213 - Extra: Before Hogwarts 2

Extra: Before Hogwarts 2

At a staff meeting, Professor McGonagall had once warned young Snape with absolute seriousness: "You must keep those children within fifteen feet of you, five meters — or there will be great trouble."

Snape, leading students for the first time, took those words to heart. He furrowed his brow and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Flitwick looked from one to the other and burst out laughing, clapping Snape on the back. "Relax, Severus! Do it a few more times and you'll see it's not such a difficult job!"

As it turned out, Professor McGonagall was right. And Professor Flitwick was right too.

It all depended on what kind of student you got.

On his very first day, Snape lost a student. He asked every shopkeeper along the way and finally found the boy outside Florean's Ice Cream Parlour.

From that day on, Snape came down firmly on Professor McGonagall's side. Before they even reached the Leaky Cauldron, he would deliver the sternest possible warnings, wearing his most terrifying expression, hammering home the dangers of the magical world.

"Do I make myself clear." Snape said coldly. "If you have any questions, you had better raise them now."

Thin, small Praeris Prince nodded, then shook her head, as a form of answer.

The child was obedient. At first, afraid she might fall behind, Snape walked slowly. But Praeris kept up so well that he nearly forgot about it and gradually returned to his normal pace, almost forcing her to lose him anyway.

Fortunately, once they began shopping for school supplies and moved from shop to shop, no accident could occur purely because Snape walked too fast.

For Snape, escorting a student like this was comfortable. For Praeris, it was the complete opposite.

Heaven knows what had gotten into this professor. His feet seemed to have rocket boosters strapped to them.

Behind him, Praeris kept getting a faceful of black cloak. She stumbled along, struggling to keep up, too new to everything to dare voice a single complaint.

"Professor Snape!" Madam Malkin called with a smile. "Bringing a new student for school robes?"

Snape stepped to the left, revealing the small girl behind him, and pointed at her. "The usual."

"Oh my! Has this child really turned eleven?" Madam Malkin said, surprised. "One would never guess!"

Praeris sensed no ill will from the plump woman and relaxed a little. Madam Malkin simply thought Praeris's size did not match what a normal eleven-year-old ought to look like.

Madam Malkin had her stand on a footstool and draped a second-hand robe over her to check the fit. Standing a little higher now, Praeris finally caught the look on Professor Snape's face. His brow had furrowed. Something in his eyes looked faintly displeased.

Praeris had no idea what she had done wrong. Nervousness tightened in her chest. She turned her head and pretended she hadn't noticed, focusing carefully on Madam Malkin's instructions. She already knew the woman's name, it was written right on the shop sign.

This seemed to be an unwritten rule of the magical world: many shopkeepers simply used their own names for their shops.

That notion got complicated at Flourish and Blotts. The owner there was called Blotts, not Flourish. And then, the landlord of the Leaky Cauldron was still called Tom.

The rule only seemed to hold when the shop name actually looked like a person's name.

The school bursary was limited. Praeris came away with second-hand textbooks, second-hand robes, a second-hand cauldron, second-hand scales, second-hand glass phials, and a second-hand telescope. She was almost starting to forget what the word "second-hand" even meant.

There was too much to carry easily, so Professor Snape bought her a carrying case separately to hold all the uniforms and equipment.

While she waited inside the general store for Professor Snape to pick it out, Praeris overheard a red-haired boy complaining nearby: "Mum — everything I have is second-hand!"

The boy's older brother was tall and lean, quite handsome, but wore his hair in a small ponytail and was dressed like the rock singers you'd see on the streets of London.

He laughed and ruffled the younger boy's hair. "Don't like my old robes? Once I earn some money, I'll buy you new ones!"

"Never mind Ron! You've only just graduated!" The boys' round mother put her hands on her hips and spoke to Ron. "Which of our children hasn't gone through exactly this?"

"Bill didn't!"

"Bill did too! Half his things were your father's!"

Ron had no answer to that.

Bill put a hand on Ron's shoulder and grinned. "Cheer up. At least our lives aren't second-hand!"

Praeris liked that line.

These things were already astonishing to her, she didn't care in the slightest whether they were second-hand or not. And back at the convent, had there been a single item she used that wasn't eighteenth-hand?

The train of her life was about to set off down a track she had never imagined before. Everything on this journey was new. Her uniforms and equipment might be second-hand. Her future was brand new.

Professor Snape came out of the general store and tossed a carrying case to Praeris. Not very large, but to her it was still a bit big, and she had to stretch her arms wide to get them around it.

It had no weight at all. She blinked. Was there some kind of magic on it?

This was the first completely new object Praeris could remember that belonged entirely to her. She couldn't help tightening her arms and hugging it close.

A few days later, she made a point of going back to that same general store. She found the price tag on the same model of case and stood in front of the shelf, reading it, blinking slowly.

The case cost more than her entire bursary put together.

"Do you have a second-hand one of these?" Praeris asked, pointing at the same model.

The shopkeeper poked his head out and glanced over. "This model only comes new. Second-hand ones are over this way!"

Praeris narrowed her eyes.

She did not believe in kindness without reason. Professor Snape did not seem like someone who went in for grand acts of charity, and he had shown no particular pity toward her, yet for some reason he had spent a significant sum of money on her without even mentioning it.

What exactly was his goal? Or did he want something from her in return?

She couldn't think of anything on her worth exploiting. An investment in her future? An interest in some organ inside her body? Honestly, it was hard to say.

But Praeris didn't know any of this at the time. They arrived at their final stop: Ollivanders Wand Shop.

There was still no pet. The bursary wouldn't stretch that far, and Professor Snape did not consider a pet an essential. The acceptance letter had said "may bring", not "must bring."

The wand shop was full of long, narrow boxes stacked in towers all the way to the ceiling. Praeris found herself wondering how the shopkeeper ever retrieved them from up there, oh, right. Magic.

She still wasn't used to these things. They were ordinary here, part of the backdrop. Outsiders were easy to spot; she needed time to blend in, to make herself look no different from any other young witch or wizard.

"Good afternoon!" A hand braced on the counter, and an old man rose from behind it. "Professor Snape, it's been a long time! It's been years since you last brought a student here — what is your name, child?"

Snape said flatly, "That is correct."

"Praeris Prince," she said.

Ollivander looked as though something had just come back to him. "Ah, yes, yes. Prince. I once sold two hornbeam wands with different cores on the very same day to two close friends. I thought both would end up in Ravenclaw, but one of them, a girl by the name of Prince, went to Gryffindor."

"The owner of a hornbeam wand is a person of deep passion. They are often consumed by something and pursue it with unwavering dedication."

Praeris offered an obliging "Oh," but wasn't particularly interested. She simply asked, "What about me? What kind of wand do I need?"

"It is not a purchase — it is a mutual choice," Ollivander corrected her. "Now then, Praeris, which hand will you be using?"

"My left."

What followed was strange. She only needed a wand, yet Ollivander's measuring tape went over her from head to toe as though he were tailoring a suit.

He explained, in an unhurried and rather mystical way, that every wand was unique, and that only a perfect fit would produce good results.

It all sounded rather arcane. In medieval England, common folk and soldiers bought their swords straight off the rack. Only the nobility bothered with custom work, and even then, only to have gemstones inlaid or family crests engraved, nothing more.

"To a wizard, a wand is like a part of your own body," Ollivander said, poking his head out from the shelves. "If your hand refused to obey your brain's commands, that would be rather unfortunate, wouldn't you say?"

"Can't you exchange it if it doesn't fit?" Praeris asked.

Ollivander looked faintly put out. But he seemed to work through it. "When you are trying wands, of course you may exchange one that doesn't suit. But a wand tends to stay with its owner for a lifetime, unless it is completely destroyed."

That sounded like it mattered quite a lot.

He carried out a large pile of boxes, drew one out, and held it toward Praeris. "Try this one. Walnut, unicorn hair, quite pliable, nine inches, give it a wave!"

She had barely raised it before Ollivander plucked it back, leaving her with her hand still in the air.

She looked toward Professor Snape, searching for some explanation. Professor Snape was not looking at her. Ollivander was already pressing another wand into her hand.

"Applewood, phoenix tail feather, ten inches — give it a try!"

This one at least got waved once before being consigned back to its box.

Then came aspen, blackthorn, black walnut, cherry, pine, yew. Ollivander showed no impatience whatsoever. If anything, he looked excited. He pulled a box from deep inside the shelves and slid it toward Praeris. "This one. I think it must be this one."

"Cedar, phoenix feather, eleven inches, very supple!"

The moment Praeris took hold of the pale yellowish-brown wand, something shifted. A strange certainty settled into her. She gave it a gentle wave, and a bright ribbon of light streamed from the tip, cutting through the air like a shooting star across the sky.

"Oh my! Oh my!" Ollivander clapped his hands in delight. "Nothing could suit better, clever girl. Get on well enough with this wand, and I think you will become a powerful and celebrated witch!"

"Why?" Praeris asked, curious. "Can you see a person's future from their wand? What's the basis for that?"

It sounded like unscientific divination, astrology, Tarot cards, that sort of thing. But then, magic existed, so unscientific was fine, she supposed. Actually, did the magical world have Gypsy fortune-tellers?

She never missed a chance to gather common knowledge about the magical world, and she asked her questions readily.

"As to that, I remember every witch and wizard who has ever taken a wand from my shop," Ollivander said, with some pride. "Wand and master choose each other. Wands tend to favor wizards whose nature matches their own. Cedar wood always chooses an owner with keen perception. And its owner often carries the potential to become a truly formidable opponent."

A formidable opponent. Praeris liked the sound of that. Being feared was always better than being seen as easy to push around.

Ollivander had opened with "it is not a purchase", and yet, in the end, she still had to pay. Praeris, privately begrudging every Knut, tried to console herself: look. You already have another thing that is completely yours. A wand.

She tucked the wand box under her arm and followed Professor Snape out of the shop.

"Professor Snape," she asked, curious. "Did you buy your wand here too?"

Snape, who hadn't said a word throughout, replied without expression, "No. There is more than one wand shop in the world, but that is none of your concern."

"Now. I am taking you to the Leaky Cauldron. Starting today, you will live there until term begins. You are not to wander about at will. You are not to attempt magic at will. You are not to stay out overnight. Old Tom will keep an eye on you for me. You had best not let me hear you've caused me any trouble. Understood?"

"Understood," Praeris said.

That seemed to be exactly who Professor Snape was. Outwardly fierce, but he would usually answer a straightforward question, he simply couldn't be bothered to go very deep.

Her first night away from the convent, Praeris couldn't sleep.

The room on the second floor of the Leaky Cauldron wasn't new, but it was clean. The mattress was thick. The blankets were soft. She wasn't used to any of it.

She sat up, opened the carrying case, and took out every single item one by one, turning each over in her hands, running her fingers across every surface, like a kitten encountering a ball of yarn for the very first time.

She closed the case. Then she leaned onto the windowsill and stuck her head out to look.

At this hour, back at the convent, everyone would be asleep. But the Leaky Cauldron still had people coming and going. Praeris watched with open eyes, studying each passerby carefully, turning them over in her mind, wondering at their histories.

On her first night in the magical world, she stayed just like that, watching and watching, until she drifted hazily off to sleep.

➤ Next: Registration — Words Unspoken