Chapter 248 - Millicent’s Rebellion — What Was Lost

"When I was a first-year student at Hogwarts, the Quidditch pitch was, in my eyes, the cradle of dreams, courage, and friendship."

"We applauded Gryffindor's courage, marveled at Ravenclaw's tactics, cheered for Hufflepuff's unity, and admired Slytherin's adaptability."

"But when I saw the British Ministry of Magic announce in the Daily Prophet the revival of international Quidditch competition, my heart filled immediately with deep worry and fear."

"Because I know, from the bottom of my heart, that the sport we love — the sport that has brought us so much joy — is being exploited as a tool to whitewash the status quo. While people revel in these games, who still remembers the missing persons who have been disappearing, one by one, for the past half year and more?"

In the passage that followed, the journalist listed the persecution of Muggle-born witches and wizards, and the Ministry's paralysis in the wake of the Azkaban breakout.

"As a witch born and raised in Britain, I cannot help but question the current British Ministry of Magic: Under such unjust policies, how can fairness and transparency in sport be guaranteed? In such an unsafe world, how can the lives of players and spectators be protected?"

"Among the Quidditch teams of many nations, there is no shortage of outstanding Muggle-born players who have given us moments worth remembering."

"If these players are about to face biased rulings because of their blood status, it will become a scandal in the history of Quidditch."

"If these players are about to pour everything into winning a match, only to be arrested moments later because of their blood — that will become an eternal, grotesque scar on this sport's history."

"Even if none of the above comes to pass, participating in a tournament hosted by the current British Ministry of Magic is itself a betrayal and a defilement of the Quidditch spirit!"

"Let it be known: beneath our cheers lies the silent, soundless vanishing of countless witches and wizards. The true spirit of Quidditch is fairness, courage, and freedom, not fear, oppression, and lies!"

"I, Anna Fianney López, issue this warning to every journalist, commentator, Quidditch player, and spectator who still possesses a conscience: every report covering the upcoming Ministry-hosted tournament adds legitimacy to this dark regime. Every ticket purchased may become a spell aimed at our fellow witches and wizards."

"The Golden Snitch may be caught and locked in a box. But truth and love never will be, they are hidden deep within our hearts."

"My thanks to my assistant, Miss B., for the substantial help she provided in this report."

The letter had been tucked inside Millicent's parcel. Miss B. was, without question, Millicent herself.

Praeris Prince folded the newspaper and passed it to Pansy Parkinson. Pansy Parkinson handed the letter to Praeris Prince and murmured, "Millicent must have gone mad eating poisonous mushrooms in the South American rainforest!"

Without another word, Praeris Prince simply opened Millicent's envelope to see what she had to say to her good friends.

The letter was short. Millicent explained that her mentor, Mrs. López, had wanted to write this piece, and that Millicent had completed the vast majority of the factual research herself.

"I've hidden this letter among the snacks for Pansy Parkinson. There's no magic on it, and they won't specifically tear open a chocolate bag. I hope it reaches you."

"Auntie allowed me to do this, but she made me promise to stay anonymous when it was published."

"I don't think my mother will be proud of what I've done. But I will be proud of myself. Prae, Pansy Parkinson, Daphne, you may think this is absurd and foolish. I still had to do it."

"I often wonder: if my mother had been able to hear a different voice back then, might she not have become the person she is today? Sometimes I wonder: if my father were still alive, would our family have been a little happier?"

"Quidditch is the path on which I search for myself. The path on which I liberate myself. And the path on which I grow."

"I hope that as I walk this path, when I look up I see cheers and laughter. And when I look down, I see no tears and no blood."

Before long, all three had finished reading.

The Slytherin girls sat together in a circle, the atmosphere heavy.

"Honestly, her brain must have been smashed by a Bludger!" Daphne said crossly. "And Rebecca Bulstrode actually supports her? Should I be grateful she at least listened to her aunt and wasn't stupid enough to put her real name on it?"

Praeris Prince had a different view. "I think it might be because of Mr. Bulstrode," she said quietly. "Millie and Aunt Becky have always felt that Mr. Bulstrode and their family were victims of You-Know-Who."

The other two fell silent. They both knew something of Mr. Bulstrode's story.

Mr. Bulstrode had been entirely innocent. He had neither served the Death Eaters nor opposed them. He was even a pure-blood. And still he had given his life to that organization.

"Since we've all finished reading." Pansy Parkinson hung her head, her bangs and the hair on both sides of her face veiling her expression. Then she looked up, and her voice was decisive. "Burn it. This letter and this newspaper will bring trouble to all three of us."

Praeris Prince raised her wand and murmured. The paper on the table burst into flames, and for one brief moment the firelight lit all three of their faces at once.

When you spend enough time with someone, it's hard to notice them changing.

Pansy Parkinson always seemed the same, willful, sharp-tempered, unreasonable, and easily frightened. She made a fuss over every possible danger when it came to the people she cared about, and she cared about every single one of them.

Daphne was passionate about pure-blood ideology but rarely led with it. Her mouth was made for sharpness, carrying a tongue as caustic as Beatrys's, though occasionally something warmer surfaced beneath it, well-hidden and brief.

Praeris Prince had initially seemed so calm and rational that she came across as a little cold. Get to know her, and you'd find, unexpectedly, that she was actually gentle and tolerant, and that beneath all that rationality lurked something deeply, stubbornly rebellious.

But Millicent's letter had cracked the stability between them. All three girls were quietly looking at one another again, as if for the first time.

"I'm going to write to that idiot!" Pansy Parkinson spoke first. She looked at Praeris Prince and Daphne, almost pleading. "Promise me, you two won't do what Millicent did. Right?"

She said it to both of them, but her eyes stayed mostly on Praeris Prince.

"Rest assured," Daphne said drily. "I'm not Barnabas the Barmy. Dancing with trolls isn't exactly my ambition."

Praeris Prince thought for a moment. "Pan-Pan," she said, "I know of a potion that works opposite to Muggle invisible ink. No writing appears in the cold, but heat brings it out. We can use that for the letter. What do you think?"

Scotland had barely left Christmas behind, the cold still holding. South America was sitting right at the turn of summer into autumn, perfectly suited to the potion's properties.

Daphne swept the ashes of the letter clean and tipped them into the fireplace. Praeris Prince went to prepare the wizard's invisible ink. Pansy Parkinson was left alone to worry.

"Daph." Pansy Parkinson's voice was low. "Prae didn't promise me."

Daphne dusted off her hands. "If worrying were useful," she said carelessly, "my mother, the Queen of Worry, wouldn't still be losing sleep over Rhea's latest act of deviance."

"Honestly, Praeris Prince's brain is far better than ours." Daphne strolled over and sat down across from Pansy Parkinson. "Worrying about her is like Filch — that useless old Squib — worrying about whether Professor Snape is competent enough. Save your energy."

It sounded exactly like calling them both useless idiots. But Pansy Parkinson knew it was comfort, and she nodded, reluctantly.

In the end, the three of them sat with the invisible ink for a long while and didn't manage anything particularly cutting. They simply told Millicent not to do something so dangerous again. Anonymity didn't mean she couldn't be traced. If this letter were intercepted, Millicent could very easily find herself in real trouble.

The letter was finally tucked into Daphne's parcel, Daphne, who had a well-established reputation as a pure-blood supremacist. She wrinkled her nose. "I genuinely don't know what's gotten into Millicent, speaking up for Mudbloods."

"And yet you're willing to help send the letter?" Praeris Prince said, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Daphne let out a cold laugh. "Isn't this letter meant to talk some sense into Millicent and bring her back to reality? Call it making up for the fact that I didn't say a single decent thing to her before she left."

Praeris Prince stood beside Daphne and watched her hand the parcel to her owl. She watched the owl climb and vanish into the sky.

Fate had a strangeness to it sometimes that left you genuinely marveling. Millicent's commentator teacher turned out to be Anna Prince, the very journalist from the South American Sports Gazette whom Praeris Prince had once researched.

Anna Prince was a special correspondent and contributor for the South American Sports Gazette, and a well-known commentator and referee for South American Quidditch tournaments. A few years ago, Anna had married López, a Quidditch star who had graduated from Castelobruxo, and taken the name Anna López.

It was because of all this that Aunt Becky had been able to connect her niece with a transfer opportunity to Castelobruxo. And Millicent had never once thought there was anything coincidental about her teacher Anna sharing a surname with Praeris Prince, let alone thought to mention her teacher's name to her friends.

That afternoon, after classes ended, a younger student delivered a summons from Headmaster Snape. Praeris Prince arrived as requested.

This time, it was not Snape issuing a one-sided warning to Praeris Prince. It was something closer to a mutual understanding, acknowledged by both sides without ceremony.

Through Praeris Prince's conduct, Snape had confirmed that this girl was not unaware of the purpose behind Voldemort's test. And Praeris Prince had confirmed that Snape held certain expectations of her intelligence.

"It seems, Miss, that you understand very well why I invited you here today," Snape said, with the particular weight he reserved for things left half-spoken. "Unfortunately, the Dark Lord has selected a rather demanding subject for you."

"Your task is to research a potion that addresses the after-effects of Dementors. It must be this, and only this." The warning in his voice was unmistakable. "Any results that stray beyond that scope will be considered a complete failure, and the consequences will be far beyond what you are able to bear."

The message was clear to Praeris Prince. Snape was confirming that they shared a real, substantive understanding, and warning her to keep her research within its proper limits.

There was no question that Snape doubted whether she could produce a creditable result. After the Limb-Regrowing Potion, his concern was the opposite entirely: that she would create something beyond the scope she was given and inadvertently hand Voldemort something he should never have.

So he was demanding that the result she ultimately delivered be confined, strictly, to the first step. Nothing capable of truly repairing a soul. Not even close.

"Of course, sir." Praeris Prince inclined her head slightly, her gaze sharp. "The scope and stability of the research are paramount. Within observable and quantifiable parameters, I will do everything I can to complete the experiments on emotional repair, and not disappoint that great one's earnest expectations of me."

A lie, naturally. What she intended to disappoint were precisely Voldemort's expectations of her.

She could not fail to deliver the emotional healing research, she understood that much. If she did, Voldemort would conclude she was refusing to serve him, and punishment would follow. But that was all she would give him. Emotional healing, and nothing further. That madman would not see a single extra result.

"Very good." Snape lifted a parchment scroll from his desk and held it out. "I have outlined the books and materials available to you as references. I expect to see your progress at each stage, Miss."

"I trust, Miss Praeris, that you understand the necessity of that."

What Praeris Prince read on the parchment was not a reading list. It was: Your professor is warning you a second time not to go off on your own. He will be watching your experimental progress, and he will stop you the moment you overstep.

She unrolled it slowly and answered his request. "I understand. You will receive complete records of my emotional repair research, every stage of progress, every experimental product."

When Praeris Prince left the headmaster's office with the parchment in hand, an odd feeling settled over her, quiet and unexpected.

How surprising, Professor Snape. You actually have that much confidence in me.

Soul repair. The mountain that had loomed over the path of potion research for a thousand years, the mountain no wizard had ever crossed.

What concerned him was not whether she could produce something passable enough to satisfy Voldemort. It was whether her research might release something into the world that should never exist.

Praeris Prince found herself genuinely wondering whether Professor Snape had developed some strange and rather generous impression of her abilities. He might be overestimating her.

But alongside the pressure of Voldemort's test, something else had taken root, a quiet, real happiness at being recognized, fully and without reservation, by Professor Snape. It eased something in her that she hadn't quite named.

The Praeris Prince of now was no longer, entirely, a student in the presence of her mentor and elders. She was a collaborator, one who had earned full respect, and the right to speak as an equal.

➤ Next: Advancing in Secret