Chapter 224 - Murdering a Silver Arrow Frog

Praeris turned and walked away, leaving Argus Filch holding the portrait, his eyes wide.

Perhaps it was the school rules that gave him purpose. A Squib like him couldn't wield magic, but the rules let him discipline students who could, let him restrict their behavior and feel some measure of authority. Under those conditions, Filch had become a man who valued rules, though in truth, he preferred rules that bent in his favor.

Take Hogwarts rules, for instance. He preferred Umbridge's version. Those gave a Squib like him far more opportunities to throw his weight around and put these disobedient little brats in their place.

Students weren't supposed to use magic in the corridors. But when Umbridge sent the Inquisitorial Squad into the corridors to catch Dumbledore's Army with magic, Filch hadn't uttered a single word of protest.

Now Praeris had repaired Snape's portrait and bolted. The permission to use magic in the corridor had come from Filch's own mouth. The school's headmaster favored her. There was no angle, no grounds whatsoever, to punish Praeris.

The anger lodged in his throat, stuck between rising and falling, choking him.

"She's gone bad! Mrs. Norris, she's gone completely bad!" Filch muttered furiously to himself. "Just you wait until I catch her making a mistake! I'll teach her a proper lesson! Straighten her right out!"

"...Straighten out your wrong-headed ideas. Thoroughly. Through practice."

Amycus stood before the students. His gaze was malicious, like a bat licking a wound, spreading its saliva over every person in the room.

Praeris's lashes barely moved. Amycus seemed even more energized than he'd been in the first lesson. Was he planning something?

"Do you see the small animals and insects in front of you?" Amycus said with a sinister grin. "In the last lesson, you observed the Cruciatus Curse in use. I instructed you to practice afterward. Surely no one failed to follow that instruction?"

His ugly, bloated face shot forward right into Lavender's, and he bellowed: "Have you practiced the Cruciatus Curse?!"

"Ah!" Lavender flinched backward in fright, stumbling into Goldstein and stepping hard onto his foot.

Goldstein hadn't been frightened by Amycus at all. Being stepped on by Lavender, however, made his mouth fly open like the lid of a trash can, a silent scream, hissing in sharply through his teeth.

Amycus lurched over to Parvati next and demanded the same of her, startling her just as badly.

"It seems none of you are very obedient!" Amycus said with a meaningful look. "And how do you expect to learn anything in Dark Arts — Defense class with that attitude?"

He strode out from among the students, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. "I understand, I understand. Some students don't particularly enjoy Professor Alecto's theoretical lessons. They find them dull. Am I right?"

"So this lesson," he said, unable to contain his excitement, "is a practical one! I want you to practice the pronunciation and wand movements for the Cruciatus Curse. Your targets will be the insects and small animals in front of you!"

Lessons had to be built up gradually. When Barty Crouch Jr. had been a professor, Amycus hadn't yet returned to Voldemort's side. He had no idea that Barty Crouch Jr. had used Unforgivable Curses to torture spiders in front of students.

So his first lesson had been a demonstration. His second lesson was when he finally demanded students cast the curse themselves.

Amycus was a fraction wiser than his sister Alecto. His approach was incremental, a slow, methodical process of eroding the students' moral baseline and dismantling their compassion piece by piece.

The result was this grotesque scene: Amycus, with unlikely patience, began explaining the finer points of the Cruciatus Curse. "When casting, you must cast aside every weak thought. Firm conviction. Resolute will. A powerful desire for the curse to succeed. Now — begin."

Praeris looked down at the salamander in front of her and said nothing.

Every spell in the Hogwarts library, every spell from Winnie's memories, she could call them up without effort. In sheer breadth of Dark Arts knowledge, Amycus probably didn't have more than she did. But she had no desire to torture anything. Not a person, not an animal.

People who derived pleasure from tormenting others were, to her mind, the weak ones. Their own spirit and strength weren't sufficient, so they had to anchor their happiness to someone else's pain.

Pansy was slumped over her desk, watching the tiny Silver Arrow Frog sitting still in the transparent jar in front of her.

The Silver Arrow Frog was a frog-type magical creature with silver markings across its back. Similar in appearance to the golden markings of its "brother," the Golden Arrow Frog, but the Golden Arrow Frog was poisonous, and the Silver Arrow Frog was not.

A single dose of the Golden Arrow Frog's venom could kill a medium-sized magical creature. That venom, while protecting the Golden Arrow Frog itself, also indirectly shielded the harmless Silver Arrow Frog from predators.

Before a storm, large groups of Silver Arrow Frogs would gather by the riverbanks and croak, warning the magical creatures and wizards of South America to take cover. Their saliva was also an excellent ingredient for potion-making.

The Silver Arrow Frog was a friend to South American wizards. Even when they needed its saliva for a potion, wizards would release it back into the forest when they were done.

Much like the British feeling toward robins, in South American wizarding culture, harming a Silver Arrow Frog was an unforgivable act. It was simply evil.

And now,

This non-toxic, harmless creature that had guided storms and helped wizards sat quietly in a jar, waiting in complete ignorance for whatever was coming.

"What are you all hesitating for?" Amycus swept his gaze across the room and suddenly roared. "Cowards! The wizarding world's future is being ruined by students like you — students who can't even bring themselves to cast a curse!"

He let out a cold laugh, picked up the roll, and walked among the desks. He looked down at the small name tag embroidered on his own robes. "Ernie Macmillan. Can't get the incantation out?"

Macmillan said loudly, "Professor Carrow! I don't want to learn this curse! This is an Unforgivable Curse —"

"Talking back to a professor. Disrupting classroom order. Twenty points from Hufflepuff, and a week's detention." Amycus cut him off with a vicious look. "Boy, you disgrace the blood in your veins."

He moved on. The next student was Crabbe. Crabbe had successfully cast the Cruciatus Curse, torturing the small lizard in front of him until it rolled belly-up.

"Now that's more like it." Amycus grinned wide. "Twenty points to Slytherin."

Pansy watched Amycus getting closer. Panic crept in. She grabbed her wand, jabbed it at the Silver Arrow Frog, and hurried through the incantation: "Crucio!"

The light that flickered from her wand tip was nearly colorless. The Silver Arrow Frog didn't react at all.

"I thought you wouldn't dare," Praeris said quietly.

After the last lesson, Pansy had shown real fear of what Amycus was capable of. She'd been frightened by the brutal way he'd tormented that wizard. She'd sympathized with Draco. But faced with the Silver Arrow Frog just now, Pansy had moved without much hesitation, even without any genuine desire to hurt the thing.

Pansy looked a little lost. "But it's just a frog, isn't it? It's not like they're asking me to do it to a person."

"That's right," Praeris said, glancing toward Amycus. Her voice was calm. "It's just a little frog."

She hadn't thought about something like this in a long time. This was the foot-in-the-door effect.

Demand that students use a cruel Unforgivable Curse from day one, and you'll get fierce resistance. But break the process into steps, observing the Cruciatus Curse, learning the Cruciatus Curse, casting the Cruciatus Curse on small insects and animals, casting it on people, enjoying casting it on people, and once someone begins accepting the earlier, easier steps, they get pulled into the current. Gradually, incrementally, they're moved toward things they never would have done otherwise.

Looking around the room, Praeris saw that the Slytherin students all had larger amphibians in front of them. Lizards, salamanders, frogs.

The other three houses had arthropods, spiders, praying mantises. And over in the Gryffindor section, the threshold was even lower. Tiny insect-type magical creatures, the smallest in the room.

"It's fine if you can't cast it properly," Praeris said softly to Pansy. "Let's swap. I'll sit on the outside."

Pansy had been forcing herself from the start. The moment she heard that Praeris was willing to sit on the outside and face Amycus's inspection herself, the tension drained right out of her. She switched to the inner seat without a second thought.

Praeris settled into Pansy's place. She looked at the innocent Silver Arrow Frog with a quiet, steady gaze, and sighed, only inwardly.

She closed her eyes and searched her memories for a moment when she had genuinely wished for someone else to feel pain.

Those moments were rare. Like searching for snow at the equator.

After Harry had injured Draco? She had wished for Harry to feel the same pain, yes. But she hadn't taken pleasure in the idea. What she'd wanted, more than anything, was for Draco not to have been hurt at all.

When she'd hit Umbridge with that jinx? That hadn't been it either. She'd simply been standing up for Professor Sinistra.

Praeris's emotions had always been restrained. Even in her worst anger, reason sat like a valve, present, holding.

All right. No more delaying.

Imagine it, Praeris.

In all those hours I wasn't there, what pressure did Professor Snape face from Voldemort? What kind of crushing torment was Draco enduring? How did Winnie kneel before him and plead?

Did that bastard use Legilimency on them? What curses did Voldemort use? What leverage did he hold over them? What words did he use to humiliate them?

Across the ocean of Praeris's consciousness, dark clouds gathered and thickened. The wind rose. The tides swelled into walls of water, mountain-high.

Amycus stopped in front of her.

He watched as she raised her wand, her expression cold and utterly detached. She aimed at the Silver Arrow Frog. Her voice was perfectly level.

"Crucio."

A flash of light. The Silver Arrow Frog lifted into the air and struggled like something drowning, legs twitching violently, then dropped onto the desk and went still.

Praeris looked up at Amycus. She wore the expression of someone mildly pleased with herself.

Something lit up in Amycus's eyes. He could barely conceal his excitement at finding a prospective Death Eater. "Excellent work, Prince! Thirty points to Slytherin. I'll be reporting your performance to Headmaster Snape personally!"

The sheer indifference to life she had displayed, it delighted him.

Over on the Gryffindor side, Seamus had watched the whole thing. He nudged Neville with his elbow. "You see that? Reckon Snape had that same expression when he murdered Dumbledore?"

Neville opened his mouth, then stopped. His fingers twisted together in front of his chest, wringing and curling, close to tangling into something resembling sign language.

Not long ago, Ginny had quietly told him the truth: Talia was Praeris. Only the three of them — the DA leaders — knew.

He thought about how Praeris had stopped them from going to the Department of Mysteries. How she had given Harry Felix Felicis. He thought back even further, to Praeris teaching him about herbs and potion ingredients while he was serving detention, making those long punishments bearable.

Neville couldn't work it out. He just had a feeling. Praeris didn't seem as cruel as what he'd just witnessed. And Hermione, with all her compassion, wouldn't have become close friends with someone who was.

"Professor Carrow," Praeris said, the corner of her mouth twitching upward. "May I have the Silver Arrow Frog? As a potion ingredient."

"Of course." Amycus had turned accommodating almost immediately. "You've earned it."

He moved on to the next student.

Only once Amycus was well out of range did Pansy reach under the desk and take Praeris's hand. "How did you do it?" she asked, her voice tight. "Are you all right?"

She already regretted it. She didn't believe Praeris was capable of that kind of feeling, genuine cruelty, genuine coldness. Like Draco, Pansy had grown used to relying on Praeris, always assuming there was nothing Praeris couldn't handle. So she'd accepted the swap happily, instinctively, without thinking twice.

But a person only has one heart. Pansy didn't believe that extreme gentleness and extreme indifference could live in the same body. Even steel turns brittle when it goes from scalding to freezing too many times.

And yet the evidence was right in front of her. The same person who had held Pansy gently and murmured soft comfort to her had just wielded the Cruciatus Curse without blinking. And she'd only had to face Amycus at all because she'd traded places with Pansy.

Other people wondered what kind of person Praeris was. Pansy only wanted to know if Praeris was okay right now.

Praeris closed her eyes. Took a slow breath. Opened them and smiled at Pansy. "Of course. I'm Praeris. This is nothing."

That smile cracked something in Pansy's chest, like a glass cup touched by scalding water, splintering apart all at once.

When class ended, Praeris and Pansy walked out hand in hand, the jar with the Silver Arrow Frog tucked under one arm, all the whispers and stares left behind them.

Pansy spun around and shrilled at the room: "Anteaters! All of you! Go lick your ants with those long tongues!"

She whipped back around, and found Draco standing there, seemingly materializing from nowhere. He got the full force of her fury too. "Draco! What is your mouth for?! Why didn't you say anything to defend Praeris?!"

Draco pointed at himself. His expression was one of pure, baffled bewilderment: I'm in the wrong again?

Praeris laughed despite herself and reached up to stroke Pansy's short hair, which was as silky as it always was. "Pansy is so good."

Right, Draco thought. I'm the spare.

"Did he single you out?" Praeris asked, turning to Draco.

Draco looked down slowly, eyelids dropping. "You could say that."

➤ Next: Draco's New World