HP: TSH — Chapter 313 - Extra: The Later Praeris Prince

Extra: Praeris Prince, Later

Passing the N.E.W.T.s was easy for Praeris Prince. In truth, hardly anyone could challenge her in Potions, Charms, or Defence Against the Dark Arts.

In the first few years after graduation, she followed her own wishes and took a position at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries as a potioneer.

The potioneers at St. Mungo's are not what most people picture. The Healers brew their own decoctions and most potions themselves; potioneers are not the harried, miserable drudges the public imagines.

Praeris Prince and another potioneer, Kya Lawrence, were responsible for developing potions for rare and specific conditions.

The two of them worked in the Special Potions Research Centre on the basement floor. The area was closed to the public, so thoroughly that it did not even have a floor directory sign. The department had no official name or title, but the people inside had reputations, standing, even a recognised place in the broader field of potions research.

The centre had originally housed a third potioneer, the senior Gallagher. Mr. Gallagher was already past ninety and still at his post. But Voldemort's reign overworked the old man until he could bear no more. He rushed through his retirement paperwork as fast as he could, packed up, and left.

The basement floor also held a vast quantity of medical and financial archives, likewise off-limits to the public. The potioneers, however, could request access to any files they needed at any time.

The underground location was chosen for its quiet and stability, so that nothing would interfere with experimental precision. Kya once joked over afternoon tea: "Maybe the director is hoping we'll blow the archive room sky-high, so all the troublesome things just disappear."

Both of them were notorious workaholics. The two witches treated the Research Centre as home and the archive floor as an inexhaustible material library, and between them they had effectively launched a potions arms race.

There was one difference between Praeris Prince and Kya, though. Praeris Prince had a boyfriend. Draco Malfoy brought food every day at noon and again in the evening.

"I have a potions workspace at home too, don't I?" Draco said, working an angle, his tone coaxing. "You've worked there before. It has everything. That way we could spend the whole day together."

"Don't even think about it." Praeris Prince kept eating, merciless. "There are no medical archives there. No bizarre patients either."

Draco: KO.

Fine. He had been defeated again.

Praeris Prince poked his sulking face, craned her neck, and asked, "Are you actually angry?"

"You know perfectly well," Draco knew Praeris Prince. This woman was asking a question she already knew the answer to.

"All right, don't be angry." Praeris Prince smiled. "Aren't you going to make the most of the time we have together? Tell me how the research is going."

Alchemy had a great many directions. By subject matter, the most famous was Nicolas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone, the transmutation of metals into gold and the alchemy of life. After that came temporal-spatial alchemy: the Time-Turner, space-expanding magic, objects that extended interior dimensions. Beyond those lay a sprawling range of studies that resisted neat classification, including certain alchemical structures, Hogwarts Castle and the Ministry of Magic among them.

After listening to Draco's explanations every day, Praeris Prince had developed a decent basic grasp of alchemy. But it was superficial at best, nowhere near professional. It was not her field.

Some magical objects are born by accident. No particular thought went into them, no research, no intention, and yet there they are.

That does not mean they are unworthy of study. The principles behind them are precisely where the true significance lies.

Muggles have been watching lightning char trees black since ancient times. That has never meant electricity is unworthy of study. The use of electricity transformed Muggle society.

Draco had recently turned his attention to the Arabian tradition of alchemy: mineral alchemy. Mineral alchemy divides broadly into metal alchemy and gemstone alchemy. The latter obviously sounds far more impressive, but it does not play well with anyone who has budget constraints.

Draco had no budget constraints, and he did not care about prestige. He was in a period of broad study and research, building the foundation from which he would eventually choose his direction.

"...Arabian alchemy was shaped by Chinese alchemy." Once Draco got going on the subject, there was no stopping him. "Chinese wizards' alchemy was originally called pill-refining. Their alchemy and Potions were never separate disciplines. Arabian alchemy draws heavily on Chinese materials, Chinese copper, sal ammoniac, and others. The more well-known branch is wet-method alchemy."

"You find all of this genuinely interesting, don't you," Praeris Prince said, chin resting in her hand, listening.

Honestly, without any foundation in alchemy, she could not fully follow what Draco was saying. She could not offer useful opinions. Wet-method alchemy, for instance, she had never so much as heard the term before.

But that was no reason to stop listening, or to grow impatient. The desire to share things with someone: that is one expression of love.

"Absolutely." Draco had talked himself into a proper fervour. "Didn't you all say you wanted to travel to China? When you get a holiday, bring Pansy and Millicent along. My treat!"

"Praeris Prince is taking a holiday?" Kya passed by with the bread she had just bought, grinning. "Now there's something you don't see every day."

"Hey! As if you're any better than me!" Praeris Prince called after her at once.

She turned back and found Draco staring at her. She raised one finger and moved it to the left. Draco's eyes followed left. She moved it right. His eyes followed right.

Draco snapped. He grabbed her finger and shouted, "Hey!" Praeris Prince burst out laughing.

"The Easter holidays next year," Praeris Prince said, composing herself. "How does that sound? We'll invite Zabini and Theodore too."

Draco made a couple of unhappy noises. "Theodore isn't going to want to see you."

Praeris Prince had publicly named her mother as "Sylvia." Most people did not know what that meant, but pure-blood families are sensitive to bloodlines. The case of Sylvia murdering a Muggle and going to prison carried a rumour attached to it: that the Muggle had been her husband. Many did not believe it. Consider the facts: Praeris Prince and her mother had both worked under the Dark Lord, and her boyfriend was a Malfoy. A half-blood? Impossible. And besides, she was that powerful. How could she not be pure-blood?

Slytherin had its own methods of reasoning through such things. Most people had no desire to investigate whether Praeris Prince was truly pure-blood. They cared about her value, full stop: her endurance, her foresight, her extraordinary talent.

But there were those who saw it differently.

Praeris Prince's own circle of friends covered the full range.

First, Millicent. She and Aunt Becky had quietly buried Mrs. Bulstrode together.

"I don't want to call her Mother. I'll just call her Dolly." Millicent said it with a kind of distant melancholy. "Dolly wanted to kill me, but Ron saved me. So she decided to kill us both together. How ridiculous, it was a Gryffindor protecting me."

"Ron could handle her on his own. But I couldn't bring myself to hurt her. She was, after all, after all, she was my..." Millicent's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "So she kept attacking me, forcing Ron to expose an opening trying to save me. That's when Peter — Ron said it was the rat he used to keep — came charging out and attacked Dolly. Dolly was killed by Peter. The next second, Peter was strangled by his own silver hand."

Millicent closed her eyes. "I was very sad," she said quietly. "Extremely. Whether it was Dolly or Anna — whether good or bad — no one should live or die for something so empty and intangible."

"Praeris, I know what people are saying. I don't care about any of it. Or rather, I hate these endless ideologies. Every last one of them should have died in that war."

Millicent's family had been torn apart by Voldemort's ideology. The fact that Praeris Prince had driven Voldemort to fury at the end filled her with deep satisfaction. She hoped Praeris Prince really was a half-blood, it would infuriate every fool and fanatic who had ever sworn blind allegiance to those ideas, make them see exactly how pitiful and wretched their precious ideology truly was.

Next, Pansy. Pansy had known for a long time that Praeris Prince was a half-blood, and had helped her keep it hidden. Individualism and personal loyalty were Pansy's principles. She cared about Praeris Prince the person. Not some ideology, not bloodlines, not any of that.

Last was Daphne. She had simply heard the news, Praeris Prince was a half-blood, and quietly withdrawn.

Astoria had a blazing row with her sister over it. "Just because Praeris isn't pure-blood, does your entire friendship count for nothing?!"

Daphne looked at her, then turned away. "You mean," she said coldly, "a friendship built on lies?"

"Praeris Prince never deceived you. She never once told you what blood status she was." Astoria stepped around to face her. "If you had known from the beginning that she was a half-blood, would you still have become her friend?"

"No." Daphne said it cleanly.

"Daphne, you frighten me." Astoria stepped back. "The one who said she would cut me off for befriending Qiqi was you. The one who got down on her knees and begged for my life was you. The one who was friends with Praeris for seven years was you. The one distancing herself over blood status is also you. Which one is actually you?"

"All of them," Daphne said.

Praeris Prince had foreseen this when she first became friends with an extreme blood purist. She did not hate Daphne. She only felt, quietly, a little regret.

Victory cannot solve everything. The rifts between people persist. The complexity of human nature, its contradictions, none of that has ever gone away, not for a single moment.

The shrewd opportunist is Slytherin. The rebel who breaks free of chains is Slytherin. The individualist who is loyal only to herself is Slytherin. The one still bound by blood-purist ideology is also Slytherin.

Mentioning Theodore brought Daphne to mind, the same extreme blood purist, the same closed door. It stirred up a quiet sadness in Praeris Prince. Draco, in an unusual moment of awareness that he had put his foot in it, shrugged. "Anyway, he hardly sees anyone these days. Zabini might come, at least."

Old Nott had been tried as a Death Eater. Theodore had withdrawn from the world after graduation, rarely going out, rarely seen.

Zabini and Praeris Prince had bickered plenty back in the day, but he never took it personally. Like the early Praeris Prince, he was an equal-opportunity critic: he found fault with everyone. He was no blood purist. Pure-bloods were not safe from his tongue either. His primary contempt was reserved for Gryffindor.

At night, Praeris Prince still lived in Diagon Alley.

Draco had wanted her to move into Malfoy Manor. Praeris Prince declined. She did not stay at the Leaky Cauldron. She had made a long-term home on the second floor of the beauty shop.

Hermione, Ron, and Harry were all there. Hermione was trying on lipstick at the counter. Ron and Harry were watching Winnie perform a small trick.

"That one suits you." Madam Pria smiled. "You're a pretty girl. This shade makes you look sharper. More formidable."

Hermione studied herself in the mirror for a long moment. "If only female Ministry employees weren't expected to wear lipstick... Ah, I mean, wear it if you want to, don't if you don't."

"Then my business would suffer a little," Madam Pria said, with quiet warmth. "But I would be very happy."

Winnie tapped a glass of water with her wand and nodded at Ron to take it. The moment it was in his hands, the water turned orange-yellow. Ron stared. It turned red.

"Look at that! Ron was in quite a good mood just now, but now he's completely surprised, very excited!" Winnie grinned. "Ron, pass it to Harry."

Harry took the glass. The colour shifted at once to blue.

Winnie glanced at him. "Looks like something is weighing on you."

Harry handed the glass back without a word. Winnie did not press him about it. Instead she began teaching them both the trick. "This charm is suited for underage wizards. It was one of the very first spells I taught Praeris. The incantation is, Animo Revelio!"

"Kids are going to love this." Ron clenched his fist, practically bouncing. "Winnie, I want to learn it. I'll use it to entertain little Teddy!"

"Ron!" Hermione turned around. "Don't make it sound like you're playing with a dog!"

Ron muttered, "Harry, she's projecting her filthy thoughts onto my pure intentions."

"To be fair," Harry said honestly, "it did sound a bit like that."

Praeris Prince pushed the door open and walked in. "What's this about a dog? Who got a dog? Sirius?"

"Hermione, there you go!" Ron pointed. "This is entirely your fault!"

Hermione shot him a look that could have drawn blood. Ron immediately pulled his neck in.

Seeing Praeris Prince, Harry stood up at once. "Are we heading out now?"

"What's the rush!" Praeris Prince waved him off. "I just got off work. Can't you let me get a few bites in first? Hermione, what do you want? I'll have the Leaky Cauldron's cook make it."

"Women are natural allies." Ron shrugged. "Is there roast meat?"

"If that's what you want —" Praeris Prince paused a beat. "No. Eat beans."

Hermione giggled. "Women are natural allies, aren't they?"

"I was wrong! I'm sorry!" Ron said immediately. "You're not actually going to make me eat beans, are you?"

Harry patted his shoulder and shook his head with a slow tsk.

"Harry, will you share yours with me?" Ron asked, hopeful.

"Absolutely not," Harry said, looking genuinely alarmed. "Help you? I'd like to actually eat dinner tonight."

The merciful female alliance, in its great generosity, allowed Ron to have his roast meat after all.

➤ Next: Extra: Later Praeris 2