Praeris truly did not want anyone to know she was living in Diagon Alley.
Think about it, what child with a real home would skip the holidays and stay in Diagon Alley instead?
But she could only delay the gift exchange until school started again. Letters were another matter entirely. She could hardly tell people not to write, could she?
Praeris thought for a moment. "Send them to the Owl Post Office in Diagon Alley. I'll go pick them up after a while."
Millicent let go of her luggage and pulled Praeris into a hug. "I will definitely write to you."
.
Diagon Alley. The Leaky Cauldron.
This was Praeris's first week back.
Yes, back. That was the word she preferred for the Leaky Cauldron.
For Praeris, home was whatever place made her happy, not simply wherever she slept. Even paying for a room here felt safer than the orphanage ever had.
At the orphanage, she used to imagine what a real home might look like. Somewhere with a warm fireplace, plenty of food, soft blankets, and people who actually cared about her.
Later, she realized that place was the Slytherin dormitory at Hogwarts.
Before that, it had been the Leaky Cauldron.
Tom was not surprised to see her at all. Professor Snape had apparently arranged everything in advance.
"Of course I knew you'd come back." Tom's face broke into a wide grin. "You said so yourself — you still wanted my buttered bread."
He welcomed her like an old friend.
"Hogwarts is a good place. I imagine you think so too."
Praeris cradled her teacup and nodded.
Yes. She had never felt so well in her life.
"So you ended up in Slytherin?" Tom looked mildly surprised, then his expression shifted into quiet understanding. "Actually, that suits you perfectly."
"I thought you'd find it distasteful," Praeris said. "At the very least, no one from the other three houses has much love for us."
Tom bent his head and polished a glass, turning something over in his memory. "These days, maybe. But it wasn't always like that. Little Prae — do you think a house determines what kind of person someone is?"
"No," Praeris said, without hesitation. "Professor Quirrell was a Ravenclaw. And I imagine you've heard about what he did this term."
Most people didn't know the full details of the Philosopher's Stone incident, but as students trickled home, enough of the story had gotten out.
"If Slytherin is the only rotten house and everyone else is perfectly virtuous, then how do you explain Professor Quirrell? You can't say he simply had one bad day while Slytherins are just born wicked, can you?"
She finished speaking and the corner of her mouth curved into a sardonic smile.
"You still call him Professor Quirrell?" Tom asked, which had nothing to do with anything.
Praeris nodded. "Sir, I call him professor because he taught me in a classroom. That is respect for his profession. Not for the man."
Tom narrowed his eyes and smiled slowly. "That is very good. You have your principles, and you don't let other things shake them. I'm old, as worn out as this bar. I've met Slytherins who frightened me to my bones. I've also met Slytherins who deserved every ounce of respect. What makes you who you are is not which house you belong to. It is who you choose to become."
"I don't think I'm purely good," Praeris said, her expression calm. "But I'm not purely evil either. I think most people in the world are somewhere in between — before the day that breaks them arrives, or the day lucky enough to keep them from ever falling."
Tom had half a mind to ruffle her hair, but he didn't want to ruin it. So he crouched down instead, rummaged behind the bar, and surfaced with a tin of cookies, which he held out to her.
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"Good girl. I think that's quite enough to carry for now, at your age. Think about it — old Tom, as ancient as I am, still gets frightened. Last year, you scared me half to death. If grown adults are like this, how can we expect a child to have it all figured out?"
The conversation with Tom shifted her perspective a little. Not much, but a little.
Who doesn't care what others think of them? Slytherin students were no exception to that.
It had become an unspoken rule, though. Even when Praeris hadn't done a single thing to Gryffindor, a Weasley would still point at her and announce, "That one's a Slytherin."
Tom's words hadn't given her peace exactly. But her own thinking, turning it over during their conversation, had convinced her.
It simply wasn't worth it.
What others thought of her could not change who she actually was.
If she let herself grow furious over their judgments, sought revenge, started thinking, since you all believe it anyway, I might as well give you a reason to, then she would be walking straight into a trap of other people's making. The Pygmalion effect. Their low expectations reshaping her from the outside in.
She wasn't going to do that.
"Thank you, Tom." Praeris raised her teacup and smiled at him.
She was still herself, curious, studious, always reading. But this time she didn't shut herself away on the second floor.
Diagon Alley was a good place.
There was always a stream of people flowing beneath the Leaky Cauldron, and Praeris caught news from wizards of every kind. Some were Aurors, speaking loudly about the last war, calling You-Know-Who by the name "Voldemort", though most of the other patrons went very quiet when that name came up. Some were half-rate alchemists, claiming they'd heard a rumor of Nicolas Flamel's whereabouts in some distant country and were heading off to hunt down the secret of the Philosopher's Stone. Some had spent years living among Muggles, drew inspiration from what they'd seen, and invented useful little spells for everyday housework.
That last group caught Praeris's attention immediately.
One witch in particular went by Winnie. She shared her work with Praeris without a second thought. "This is a laundry charm, dear. Do you know what a washing machine is? A machine Muggles use to wash clothes. That's where I started." She flicked her wand, and the water in her glass rose up and followed the movement, becoming a thin river hanging in midair. "I planned to use it to rinse clothes, but there was a problem. One pass and the water's gone." She laughed. "So I worked out how to make it roll like a tornado, cycling back and forth, the way water moves inside a washing machine."
"Muggles add laundry soap," Praeris pointed out. She had done a great deal of laundry in her life and could see the gap immediately. "If you skip that, oil stains won't come out."
Miss Winnie's face lit up. "Exactly right, I didn't expect you to know so much about Muggles! That's precisely what I solved. You add cleaning agents directly into the water. The water carries them through the fabric. And you can switch scents, so your clothes come out smelling of whatever you like."
"Why not just use a Scouring Charm?" Praeris asked.
Winnie shook her head. "It isn't the same thing. A Scouring Charm handles surface grime. Oil stains fall outside its range entirely. The Whirlwind Sweeping Charm has the same limitation. But the Water-Wash Charm can carry whatever cleaning agent you choose. That's the difference." She was clearly delighted to explain it.
Praeris was genuinely impressed. Miss Winnie was a talented witch, whatever her chosen field.
"I have a column in The Wizarding Household Gazette," Winnie added happily. "I share my household magic there every week!"
She pressed a copy into Praeris's hands before they parted.
"You're a remarkable witch," Praeris told her sincerely. "Your magic is stronger than it looks. If you modified the Water-Wash Charm, it could become a proper Waterspout Curse. With enough power behind it, you could alter the weather."
Winnie shook her head, not offended, just certain. "Perhaps. But I don't want to. Miss Prince, I worked at the Ministry of Magic. I had a career. Some people think I've wasted myself on trivial household magic." A peaceful smile settled on her face. "I haven't. I'm making myself happier. There is nothing small about taking good care of your own life."
She paused, then added, "Every witch and wizard has the right to choose how they live. I understood that when I made my decision. The real measure of my strength is that I have the courage, at any point, to walk away from everything I built before and start again from nothing."
Praeris was genuinely grateful for Miss Winnie's generosity. In a single afternoon, the woman had shown her how to invent a spell from nothing, how to read the difference between what various charms could and couldn't do, how to submit an article to a newspaper, and, perhaps most importantly, that choosing your own life was not the same thing as giving up.
A great person hiding in plain sight. That was the Leaky Cauldron. Half the wizards who looked perfectly ordinary were carrying something remarkable underneath.
Praeris also worked out a few ways to earn money.
There was Madam Primpernelle's Beautifying Potions in Diagon Alley, and Praeris could brew for her, easy work, since Madam Primpernelle was nowhere near as demanding as Professor Snape.
She also tried submitting articles to the papers. Her first attempts were serious pieces. No market for those.
So she threw caution to the wind. She dug through the dustiest shelves in the library for half-forgotten legends with questionable sourcing, threw in some biblical mythology, some Greek, some Norse, stirred the whole lot together, and wrote it up as something vaguely ominous and unexplained. She didn't even think anyone would read it. It was a complete hodgepodge.
The papers published every single one. They even sent her sample copies and payment.
Apparently, wizards and Muggles alike could not get enough of mysterious, rambling, thoroughly unverifiable stories.
Praeris collected her payment, went directly to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, ordered 2 flavors, and ate until she gave herself a stomachache.
When Tom found out, he laughed until he had to set down his cloth. "Only at moments like this do I remember you're still a little girl! Little Prae, children are not supposed to eat that many cold things, you know!"
➤ Next: The Most Charming Wizard