"I'm glad you didn't do anything foolish." Snape's gaze swept over her and Malfoy. "And that you didn't add to my troubles."
"I'm glad of that as well." Praeris shook the cloak draped over her shoulders. "It's late. Get some rest. Sweet dreams, Professor."
"Hey — wait, what about me!"
Malfoy scrambled to his feet in a panic, terrified Praeris had forgotten the spell she'd put on him. Then he stood all the way up and realized it had already been lifted.
The corner of Praeris's mouth curled. "Mr. Malfoy, I believe you're capable of walking back to the dormitory on your own. No escort required."
Draco coughed twice, muttering something shapeless under his breath. He headed toward the boys' dormitory with his hands and feet suddenly in the way of each other, unsure where to put any of them.
Staying up late had its price. Praeris's head felt thick and heavy, not quite a headache, but her eyelids were lead. She drifted to the dining table like she was still half-asleep and mechanically spooned porridge into her mouth until Pansy's elbow connected with her ribs.
"Well done, Prince. Did you see the look on those Gryffindors?" Pansy sneered.
The jab had knocked Praeris's spoon sideways. She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped porridge off her face.
"What look?" she asked, voice flat.
Broomstick drills in the daytime. Tutoring Marcus in the evenings. Pinning down a squirming Malfoy in the middle of the night. She was completely spent.
Her health had never been good to start with. The convent's meals only ever asked whether a child could survive, never whether a child could live well.
Millicent barked out a laugh. "Let me tell it. The version going around right now: One, Potter spun Draco some story about a dragon to get him out sneaking at night. Two, Longbottom overheard Draco talking and tried to stop him. Result? Two Gryffindors caught on the staircase by Professor Snape, and Professor McGonagall caught Longbottom separately. Fifty points from each!"
Praeris blinked slowly.
She wondered: why?
Why hadn't Professor Snape caught the dragon?
Because this had been her doing. She was the one who had tipped Professor Snape off about it.
It wasn't hard to understand. She was a Slytherin. Professor Snape had taught her, academics, and life beyond that. Marcus and she had held each other up; he had risked his life coming out to find her. Malfoy was an insufferable prat, but he had told the truth about her absence, treated her as someone worth consulting, and trusted what she said. Millicent cared about her safety and stayed close. And all of them had wanted a win so badly.
Slytherin wants. Slytherin gets.
Rubeus Hagrid had created this opening himself. He had made a mistake, and the Gryffindors had tried to cover for him. Praeris had simply used what was there. No one could fault her for that.
The dragon hadn't even been found.
"Draco, good thing you didn't go." Pansy spoke with her mouth still half-full.
Draco Malfoy glanced left, then right, his eyes not quite settling on anything. In the end, he said nothing about the dragon being real. "So Gryffindor lost a hundred and fifty points?"
"And detentions!" The Slytherins erupted.
Praeris felt her stomach turn. She set down her spoon. "I'm done. I'll head off," she said to Millicent.
She should have been happy.
She had passed on the information. Professor Snape had caught the Gryffindors and docked them heavily. She had kept Malfoy in line and left Slytherin's points untouched. She had gotten exactly what she wanted.
The feeling was still wrong.
Praeris wandered without direction, turning down one corridor and then another, until she reached a dead end.
A painting hung on the wall. Two women held each other. The figures in it didn't move, it looked more like a Muggle painting than a wizard's.
She stood looking at it, and her mind drifted, unprompted, to Sylvia. What did she look like now? She would be around this age by now, wouldn't she?
When Sylvia had given birth to her, had she wanted anything for her? Had she only hoped she'd be safe, or had she hoped she'd become someone exceptional?
Whatever it was, surely not an informer.
And there it was. Praeris finally understood. The thing stirring inside her was the conscience she had assumed she didn't have.
It wasn't that she felt guilty for informing. It was that in the moment she did it, she had thought, just for an instant, about whether they might be expelled because of the dragon. And after that thought, she had informed anyway.
Draco believed she had only wanted to stop him from going out, that she was protecting Slytherin's points. But she had harbored something darker than that. The worst hadn't come to pass, but she had still let that malice loose.
In a conventional sense, maybe it didn't even count as informing. In a practical sense, she had only hinted at the Gryffindors' nighttime activities. But she knew what had been in her own head.
"I thought only old men like me ever stopped to appreciate a painting. I didn't expect to find a student with that kind of taste."
Praeris startled, then turned slowly.
It was the Headmaster. Dumbledore.
Dumbledore smiled with that familiar warmth, eyes on the painting. "This is a Muggle. Her name was Talia. Her neighbor was a witch. Talia's town launched a witch hunt. The witch had never done her any harm — but in those days, if you didn't point someone out as a witch, there was every chance they would point at you."
Praeris felt something click. "So she..."
"And so Talia denounced her neighbor." Dumbledore's voice was unhurried. "She told herself: the neighbor really was a witch, after all. She wasn't wronging anyone. And if the woman truly had magic, perhaps she wouldn't even be hurt by the fire. Surely she could withstand it better than an ordinary person." He paused. "And so the neighbor was bound to the pyre and burned."
"The witch survived?" Praeris guessed, following his thread.
Dumbledore gave a quiet chuckle. "One day passed. Then two. The witch never came back. Talia began to doubt herself. She began to wonder whether she had wronged her neighbor. Whether she had destroyed an innocent person."
"Being a witch doesn't mean she deserved to burn," Praeris said, her brow creasing.
Dumbledore tilted his head toward her. "Young people are always so eager for the answer. But before that — shouldn't we let ourselves enjoy the story? That part has its own beauty, doesn't it?"
Praeris said nothing.
"Talia was terrified. Deep guilt and unease wore away at her until she fell gravely ill." Dumbledore drew a slow breath. "Her daughter learned the truth of her mother's sickness. She went to the witch's door and left a letter asking forgiveness on her mother's behalf, hoping that if the witch was alive, she would come back and release Talia from it."
Praeris shook her head. It wasn't the witch who refused to forgive Talia. It was Talia who refused to forgive herself.
"At her daughter's pleading, the witch did return to the town. But Talia was already dying. The witch held no grudge. It didn't matter. Talia's guilt swallowed her whole, and she died." Dumbledore's voice was quiet. "But in her last moments, she was smiling. She was holding her daughter. That is the scene in this painting."
"Is this meant for me?" Praeris asked, without pausing to think. "Do you think I'm Talia?"
"No, child." Dumbledore removed his spectacles and wiped them on his sleeve. "I heard the unease in you. I'm asking why it's there."
Praeris was quiet for a moment. "Everyone does what they believe is right. But a right action doesn't always come from a right thought."
She looked at Talia in the painting. "The witch survived. That doesn't mean Talia did nothing wrong. I think she shouldn't have done it. But she was a Muggle, and Muggles fear witches. For the world she lived in, maybe what she did was rational. That still doesn't make her blameless. It doesn't mean the thought behind it wasn't wrong."
"Everyone carries dark thoughts." Dumbledore's expression softened. "I made mistakes in my youth too. Worse ones than Talia's."
"Your witch..."
Dumbledore sighed. Then, quietly: "But Praeris — in your eyes, am I a terrible person?"
"I believe nearly every wizard respects you," Praeris said.
Dumbledore laughed, warm and genuine. "Then I shall have to be careful not to let it go to my head."
"Child." He smiled. "Our past choices don't define everything. Well, sometimes they do. Some choices carry more weight than we'd like. But we cannot let ourselves drown in them. What matters is who you choose to become, going forward."
He let that settle, then added: "A good heart matters. But so does what we actually choose to do with it."
Praeris left, turning his story over in her mouth like something she hadn't finished chewing.
Dumbledore looked up at Talia and let out a long, slow sigh.
Strange how things go. What he had come prepared to say had been something else entirely. But Praeris had arrived already guilty, and that had forced his hand. He had changed course before he could begin.
She was not like the Slytherins of recent years. Not like Snape. Not like Sylvia, though of course, Sylvia had never been a Slytherin.
She was full of contradictions. Complex. Mature and yet unfinished. Sharp, and still somehow her own trap.
.
Harry had been having a rough time lately. Then again, no one could feel fine after losing a hundred and fifty points.
Snape had appeared on the staircase of Gryffindor Tower like he'd known exactly where to stand, and Harry had left his Invisibility Cloak behind in the Astronomy Tower like a complete idiot.
It was over. He'd bet every Gryffindor in the castle hated him.
And now Filch was going to give him detention. Merlin knew what Filch would do to him.
Then Hedwig swept down and dropped a small parcel into his hands.
Harry couldn't think of anyone who would send him something right now. Maybe someone had finally had enough of him and sent something unpleasant as a parting gift.
The note inside read:
You don't need to know who this is from.
Clearly, I've done something my conscience won't let me move past. So that I can sleep at night, this is my way of making it up to you.
➤ Next: Dreamcatcher