By the time Praeris got back to the dormitory, Millicent was nearly dying of laughter. "Darling, this is absolutely absurd! Everyone else is memorizing textbooks and practicing wand movements, and you're putting in overtime on a broomstick."
"After exams I never want to see a flying broomstick again. Quidditch included." Praeris collapsed onto her bed, eyes unfocused.
Even with invisible cushioning charms, staying seated on a broom meant clamping her legs tight the entire time. The insides of her thighs were rubbed raw and red. Her bones ached.
Was there really no way to fly without riding a broomstick?
Hermes had winged sandals. Icarus had wings of wax and feathers. Magical world predecessors, could you have shown a little creativity?
Regrettably, the predecessors couldn't hear Praeris's complaints, so she had no choice but to keep fighting the broomstick.
And this was exactly why, when she'd been searching for her relatives, the Quidditch player Anna was the first name she'd crossed off the list. Proof enough that she and Quidditch were not fated for each other.
At least Flying class was only one term. Next year she'd be rid of this damned broom.
.
"You were right!" Malfoy pivoted, drawing out his words. "I really didn't expect you'd want to join the Quidditch team too. Looks like you're not a completely tasteless wizard after all."
Praeris ignored him and turned to say goodbye to Marcus. "Marcus, fourth-floor classroom tonight."
"What are you two doing? Are you going on a date with him? He's five or six years older than you!" Malfoy looked utterly incredulous, his eyes going round as a Mooncalf.
Praeris shot him a disdainful look. "Malfoy, if your head is packed with this kind of useless garbage, you ought to concede to Potter sooner rather than later. At least that way you'd lose a little less face."
Malfoy shuddered inwardly. Why did he keep feeling like Prince's tone and the expression she wore when she looked at him were getting more and more like Professor Snape's?
"Can you even blame me!" Malfoy pulled his neck in. "Didn't you say..."
"Cut the nonsense. What do you want? Library retrieval service, five Sickles a time." Praeris crossed her arms, her expression flat with boredom.
She still had five unread books. Five essays to match. After the essays, she had to prepare for whatever questions Professor Snape might decide to throw at her. To avoid being sarcastically dismantled by her Head of House from every possible angle, she had to prepare far more than the essays themselves.
Snape's sarcasm rarely came in the form of direct analogies. Calling someone a troll, that sort of thing. Praeris had only encountered that once.
As it turned out, that had absolutely been a beginner's grace period, and she'd have gladly taken it over what came after. Most of the time, he would simply pick out your flaws and point out your mistakes, voice dripping with that particular brand of venom: "For someone as gifted as yourself, I can only assume it is not that you failed to think of it, but rather that you were unwilling to display such precious knowledge to your poor professor?"
Every time after Snape finished with her, Praeris would spiral into a deep well of self-doubt. Am I really that ignorant? Am I really that childish? Such an obvious mistake, why didn't I catch it? I genuinely never thought that.
Merlin's sake, Professor Snape was clearly not like this with the other Slytherins!
Just look at what he said to Malfoy.
"Listen to me."
"You've already done well enough."
"Sit down. This is nothing remarkable."
Praeris's black eyes rested on Malfoy. Dark and still, like black whirlpools. It made his skin crawl.
"Prince, uh — look what I found!" Malfoy hastily changed the subject. "You were right. Weasley got bitten by the dragon. His finger's swollen huge. I found an excuse to get inside and got hold of this."
A letter tucked inside a book. A letter saying they were planning to send the Norwegian Ridgeback away on Saturday night.
"You should admit it," Malfoy said smugly. "I can do things you can't."
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"Looks decent. No charge for you." Praeris scanned the letter's contents with something approaching mild interest, unhurried. "What are you planning to do with it? And why haven't you been bringing Crabbe and Goyle around lately?"
"You know how it is — their injuries only just healed. Tell me, if I could catch Potter red-handed..." Malfoy's voice lit up with excitement.
Praeris shut the book with a snap. "Look at this. What is our young Master Malfoy saying? Catch him red-handed? Saturday midnight? If my comprehension hasn't completely deteriorated, you're planning to wander the corridors at night?"
"Otherwise they could just deny everything." Malfoy frowned. "I wouldn't admit it either, if it were me."
"I think you just want to see the dragon." Praeris gave a helpless laugh. "If you don't want Slytherin losing points too, drop that stupid plan. Say you do catch Potter — that means you were out at night as well. Potter loses points, you lose points. Are you two competing to see who can rack up more?"
Malfoy's face twisted with the irritation of someone who's just been seen through. "Prince! I came to discuss ways to deal with Potter, not to listen to you recite the school rules! You little Slytherin goody-goody!"
"Thank you for the compliment. I am indeed Slytherin's good little prefect-in-training. Regardless, drop the plan. Saturday night, you do not set one foot outside the common room. Prince is watching you."
Praeris pointed two fingers at her own eyes, then turned them on him.
Malfoy was seething. "I will prove to you that my plan is perfectly viable!"
Praeris didn't care what he thought. She genuinely could not understand why Malfoy always wasted so much time fixating on the Gryffindor trio. Did he have nothing else to do?
The memory of him asking whether she was going on a date with Marcus drifted back to her. Could it be, was Malfoy gay? Did he have some kind of twisted feelings for Potter?
It wasn't as though Praeris was ignorant of such things. After all, the Epistle to the Romans had addressed the subject, even if in opposition.
She shook her head quickly and flung the thought out of her brain. Had she lost her mind? That was more revolting than any garbage rattling around in Malfoy's head.
In any case, Malfoy strode off with his chin high, swaggering all the way out.
Praeris couldn't be bothered. She went back to the dormitory, grabbed her notebook, and headed to the fourth floor.
There, a not-very-bright Marcus was waiting for her.
Honestly, Praeris and Marcus had already entered the stage of mutual torment. Marcus knew nothing no matter what she asked. And Praeris on a broomstick had discovered she existed in a state of dual nature, cowardly to the point of paralysis and reckless to the point of absurdity, sometimes within the same 10 seconds.
She'd known struggling students were hard to teach. She hadn't known a struggling student could be this hard to teach.
Marcus's knowledge base could be described like this:
You say: to put a wine glass in the cupboard, you open the door, place the glass inside, close it.
Marcus asks: The cupboard has a door?
You explain the concept of a cupboard door. You clarify that the door is part of the cupboard.
Marcus asks: Then how do you open it?
You say: Reach out your hand, grasp the door handle, pull it open.
Marcus asks: And which knowledge point is the door handle?
Praeris felt like a god of creation, building Marcus's knowledge base from the void, one particle at a time.
She'd even started to wonder whether asking Marcus for special training just to pass Flying class had been a mistake. Maybe she should have gone to Stella, even with Stella currently dealing with a breakup.
Being a teacher must feel exactly like this, she thought. Which, in a way, made it easier to understand why Professor Snape wore a permanent scowl.
She could barely survive one Marcus. If the four Houses decided to produce four of him for her to teach, she would personally blast Hogwarts into the sky.
When the session finally ended, Marcus was visibly moved. "If I manage to graduate, I'll be grateful to you forever, Praeris."
Praeris's updo had long since come loose. She'd lost count of how many times she'd yanked at her own hair. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Believe me, I want you to graduate even more than you do."
The only consolation was that Marcus had handed over all his pocket money as tutoring fees.
Praeris decided, with great conviction, that this counted as compensation for emotional damages.
She had no idea that Marcus would go on tormenting her for far longer than she'd bargained for. Even after her Flying class grade climbed to an "E," Marcus's tutoring sessions were nowhere near over.
Saturday night. Praeris sat on the sofa in the Slytherin common room, hair loose around her shoulders, wearing a long black nightdress with her school cloak draped over it.
"Prince!" Malfoy let out an exasperated laugh. "Don't you think you're being absolutely barbaric?"
"Thank you for the compliment. I believe 'barbaric' is praise for female authority. When men can't do anything about us, they call us barbaric." Praeris leaned back against the sofa and gave her wand a casual flick. "If it were Potter or Weasley who'd tied you up, you'd only call them despicable."
"You let Potter and his dragon get away! When are we going to get a better chance to have him expelled? Let me go!" Malfoy struggled hard against the binding.
Praeris yawned. "I'll let you go when the moment is right. Would you like to hear a story? Let me think, what should I read to you?"
"I don't —"
"Comedy or tragedy? It's late, we should hear something cheerful. How about A Midsummer Night's Dream?"
Praeris held court like a dictator. No matter what Malfoy said, she wouldn't release him.
Before long, Malfoy frowned at the pages. "This Muggle's father is terrible! My father would never make me do something I didn't want to do!"
A little while after that, Malfoy said with heat: "Stupid Muggle, forgetting his whole purpose just because of some potion!"
Praeris was growing drowsy, her voice going soft and blurry. "It's a bit like Amortentia. But just like Amortentia, love from a potion isn't real love. Even if there's happiness in it for a while, someone who has tasted false love will only hunger for the real thing. And whoever uses the potion, even while drunk on love, will spend every moment in fear that the other person might suddenly wake up."
"That's not fair to Demetrius..."
Malfoy was about to say more. Then the door to the Slytherin common room opened.
Wind rushed in and caught the fireplace. The flames roared and guttered, throwing shadows across the walls.
Praeris straightened up and looked toward the entrance.
Snape stood in the doorway. His robes moved like churning black clouds as he swept into the Slytherin common room.
➤ Next: Talia the Muggle