The Slytherin common room had its fireplace lit, burning warm. In the faint red glow, half of Praeris's face was bright. The other half was swallowed by darkness.
The common room was underground. There was no view of the snow. Yet Praeris felt cold so deep it was as though the Scottish snow were falling on her directly.
No child in the orphanage had ever stopped fantasizing beautiful things about their families, hoping their parents were kind and loving, forced to give them up only by some unavoidable circumstance.
"What else are we supposed to do? What can we do without those fantasies? Are we supposed to believe they're murderers, monsters without a shred of humanity?" Fiona had once said to Sofia.
Garshin wrote in Night that the most despicable lie in the world is the lie one tells oneself. But orphans had no choice. Without those fantasies, all that remained was naked, bloody, brutal reality. What else could they lean on to keep walking?
Long before she ever set foot in Hogwarts, Praeris had already known this place could give her an answer.
But not everyone can bear the weight of the truth. The closer she got to it, the more Praeris felt something she rarely felt: fear. She forced herself busy, reading, helping teachers, provoking certain people.
I have too much to do. I can't investigate right now. She told herself that, even though the truth was separated from her by nothing thicker than a sheet of paper held up to the light.
But the Christmas holidays came anyway. No one needed her help. Her knowledge already surpassed most of her peers. There was nothing left to do. The Half-Blood Prince's letter had become the alarm clock she could no longer ignore.
Sylvia Prince murdered her Muggle husband in January of the year after Praeris turned five. Less than a month after Praeris became an orphan.
This was Praeris Prince's mother. A woman with the same black hair. Gaunt and mad.
Time rewinds half a month.
"This is too cruel for her," Professor Sprout said to Dumbledore. "She's still a child, and a kind one. We don't have to drag everything out into the sunlight."
"Pomona, nothing stays hidden beneath the surface forever. We should trust Praeris. She can handle it." Dumbledore glanced at Snape, who stood silent beside them.
Dumbledore made a point of watching certain students. That list included Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville of Gryffindor; Cedric and Susan of Hufflepuff; Cho Chang of Ravenclaw; and Draco and Praeris of Slytherin.
Without question, each of them possessed something special.
That evening, Praeris's dinner was a bread boat, a large loaf hollowed out in the middle, the cavity stuffed with a thick slab of cheese and dusted with rosemary powder.
Praeris ate quite a lot for once, finishing the whole thing. Draco, who hadn't gone home yet, stared.
"You look like a troll on a feeding frenzy," he said, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Praeris glanced at him sideways. "Ha. If my troll brain hasn't eaten your intelligence too, you'd have noticed my mood is decidedly foul. And then you'd know that the best way to avoid getting blown up is to stay away from a cauldron that's about to explode."
"No, the best way to avoid getting blown up is to put out the fire under the cauldron first and stop the reaction." Draco retorted on reflex.
Praeris pulled her gaze away, thoroughly weary. "Fine then, silly Barnabas. Dance with the troll if you like."
Draco scoffed. "Prince, I've never seen anyone insult someone else and manage to insult themselves in the same breath."
"Then you should thank me for broadening your horizons." She walked over to Marcus. "You haven't touched this one, have you? It's mine."
"No. Hey — no, Prince, underage drinking isn't —" Marcus looked up quickly.
Before he could finish, Praeris had already downed it in one go.
"Marcus, you're underage too!"
"Oh, come on, I've had my birthday. I'm seventeen!" He took the glass back. "No next time."
Praeris waved a hand. "Malfoy was drinking red wine in the common room last time."
"Hey, what's that got to do with you! I mean, a little drink isn't a big deal, is it? My father's let me have some too."
Malfoy's voice faded behind her as she walked away.
After that, the Slytherin students went home one by one to reunite with their families, leaving Praeris alone.
Er, that's strange, isn't it? Harry thought.
He'd been absorbed in the Mirror of Erised lately, but there was no ignoring the fact that among the first-years staying at Hogwarts for Christmas, besides him and Ron, there was also that Slytherin girl.
Harry had wanted to visit during the day too, but with a Slytherin planted in the library, it didn't feel safe.
They had already found information on Nicolas Flamel, thanks to Praeris. But they still hadn't figured out the business with the Philosopher's Stone, the materials were far too vague, and the three-headed dog wasn't exactly easy to get past.
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Hermione decided they should keep researching, and she'd think of a plan after the holidays. "There has to be a way. But the three-headed dog and the Philosopher's Stone, I still need to look into all of it bit by bit. Damn it. If only I had a photographic memory like Prince."
"What's so great about that?" Ron threw up his hands. "I don't think we need to know that much. Her head's probably stuffed full of rubbish."
"You shouldn't underestimate her. We need to keep our distance," Hermione said, voice low. "She's clever. Too many encounters and I'm afraid she'll figure out what we're up to."
"What are you doing?"
In the corridor outside the library, a quiet voice came from behind.
Harry spun around. It was Praeris Prince.
"Er — I'm — I'm going to the library to read. You know, we've been interested in Nicolas Flamel lately." Harry babbled nervously.
Praeris blinked. "You swallowed. You shrugged. You're lying. Going into the library isn't something that requires much thought."
I swallowed? Harry froze. He hadn't even noticed. How did she notice I swallowed?
"Your Adam's apple moved," Praeris said, as though she could hear him thinking.
Harry stepped back. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Left?" Praeris said suddenly. Then: "No — right!"
Right was exactly the direction Harry had fled the night Filch found him.
Harry was going mad. Was she even human?
"The Philosopher's Stone." She said it like she was confirming something to herself. "Yes. That does seem to be the case. I was careless last time." A trace of regret. She'd been too impulsive.
When a person lies, they usually mix in some truth, most people believe it makes the lie easier to swallow. So Praeris had figured the first thing Potter said held a kernel of truth.
So she'd diverted his attention, made him burn energy suppressing his reaction to a false target, then picked a likely target and struck.
Sure enough: when Praeris suddenly said "Philosopher's Stone," Harry Potter was so shocked he couldn't hide it at all. His whole face gave him away.
Harry let out a breath. "What exactly do you want? I don't think I've done anything to you."
"You haven't." Praeris tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "But I told you about Nicolas Flamel, didn't I? If you end up stirring something up, I don't want to be held responsible."
"Don't worry. I would never hold you responsible." Harry deflated slightly. What she said was true.
Praeris smiled faintly. "Good. I'd rather not be in the same boat as you."
Harry looked left and right, not daring to meet her eyes. She was unsettling, she might see straight through him, right down to the bottom.
He'd rather face a troll. Or anything else. Anything but this.
"Same here. Nothing more to say. Goodbye, forever!" Harry turned and bolted, as if something were chasing him.
Something's off, Praeris thought.
Clearly this was connected to the Philosopher's Stone. But how could the Philosopher's Stone be at Hogwarts? Did Dumbledore bring it here? Bring a dangerous object inside the school?
The greatest white wizard of the century wouldn't do something so foolish. Unless he had other intentions.
Potter's reaction couldn't be faked. He really was doing something connected to the Philosopher's Stone. So where was it? Dumbledore's office? Where else? Praeris thought back to the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side, mentioned at the start of term.
The headmaster's tone that day had been very deliberate. Interesting. Rather than "None of you are to go there!" it had sounded more like: "There's a secret here. Come and see."
A trap, or a test. Did Dumbledore mean to lure out an enemy? Test his colleagues? Train his students?
Or perhaps, all three at once.
Praeris felt a flicker of excitement. Prying into someone else's secrets was considerably more entertaining than prying into her own filthy origins.
So. What was Harry hiding even more desperately than Nicolas Flamel?
Harry Potter had been standing at the library entrance looking for his bearings. That meant he'd set off from here last time. He knew to start from the right but couldn't remember the exact route.
Why forget? Under what circumstances does someone forget? When nervous, when afraid, when they can't see clearly. All three conditions at once: being caught during a nighttime wander.
Harry Potter had been doing something in the library in the middle of the night. Someone found him, Madam Pince, Filch, or a patrolling teacher. He panicked and ran right, and stumbled onto something. Something unrelated to the Philosopher's Stone, but important enough to him to come back for in daylight.
One really shouldn't fixate on a single thing. It makes the emotions too easy to pull in one direction. Finding more to do helped. At least it kept a person from drowning in their own feelings.
As for what Potter was after? That didn't matter.
Harry Potter's mysterious important object remained unreadable for now. But the third-floor corridor wasn't going anywhere.
Praeris headed upstairs. At the end of the right-hand corridor on the third floor stood a wooden door. She pressed her ear against it and heard heavy breathing.
She took a deep breath. The books in her mind began to turn.
"Astolpho!"
Heat bloomed behind her eyes. The wooden door vanished from her sight. What she saw instead was what lay behind it, a massive, three-headed dog, crouched low on the floor.
Astolpho was one of the Twelve Paladins, possessing eyes of insight. After his death, his companion the magician Maugris drew inspiration from him and invented a spell, the Insight Charm, with "Astolpho" as its incantation. It couldn't perceive enemies from a hundred leagues away as Astolpho himself could, but it allowed one to see many things otherwise hidden. In time, certain wizards mastered it and paired it with unlocking charms, and never missed a single heist.
Astolpho himself had probably never imagined he would become an object of worship for thieves.
In any case, Praeris had used the Insight Charm to see the three-headed dog behind the wooden door. She breathed out.
For the short term, at least, there was no need to worry about Harry Potter or anyone else getting past a beast that size.
The relief carried a strange sense of familiarity, one that made her uneasy, somehow. She couldn't work out why. She set the feeling aside.
As for Harry Potter's little secret: Praeris had apparently frightened him too badly last time. He avoided her at all hours except meals and was nowhere to be found. The investigation stalled.
Christmas passed. Some things would never pass so easily. But time, time is always unreasonable. It carries everything away.
After the holiday, Draco Malfoy no longer came to her huffing and glaring. Whatever he'd gotten up to over the break, he'd learned the Leg-Locker Curse and was now going around looking for people to test it on.
"Draco, find a Gryffindor to use it on, that way you can mess with them too." Pansy offered her terrible advice. She hadn't expected Malfoy to find it genuinely agreeable. He was already preparing to head out.
Millicent frowned. "Should we bring Prae along? She knows the counter-curse. I mean, let's not cause any real trouble."
"Millicent, you're a Slytherin! Afraid of this, afraid of that! Against Gryffindors, of all people, you actually think we need a counter-curse?" Pansy said with contempt.
Millicent tugged at Praeris's sleeve. "Prae, what do you think?"
Praeris lowered the newspaper she'd been holding and looked at Malfoy. "Professor Snape isn't at school today. Do as you like. As long as no one tattles by the time he gets back, I don't think it'll be a problem."
Draco let out a whistle. "Cheers. I'll just find some coward to try it on."
He turned and left with a devil-may-care air, Crabbe and Goyle lumbering after him.
"Prae, are you unhappy?" Millicent said, worried. "I keep feeling like something's different about you."
"Oh? Maybe I've grown a year older. Matured, perhaps." Praeris said it without any particular concern.
"Marcus, should we put up a banner for Hufflepuff?" Stella was already offering terrible ideas of her own.
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