Praeris is not a proactive person. She doesn't write letters to people about her own life unprompted. Usually it's the other way around, someone has something to say, and they write to her.
Millicent wrote her three letters over the summer. The first said she was happy to be on break and her family was planning a trip together. The second said her mother was complaining that her grades weren't good enough. The third said finishing homework was a pain.
Praeris couldn't find a single reason in any of that for Millicent to suddenly be angry.
So she could only yank up a Mandrake seedling with brisk efficiency, stuff it into a pot, thud-thud-thud the compost in, and then casually slap the lively Venomous Tentacula beside her.
The Mandrake hadn't even finished its first wail before it was forcibly silenced. The Venomous Tentacula, deeply aggrieved, curled its sprouting bud back in. Every Slytherin who witnessed this felt a phantom ache somewhere on their person.
"Praeris's technique is perfectly correct, but please do not imitate the way she hits the Venomous Tentacula — the spikes will get you. Simply avoid them. Five points to Slytherin," Professor Sprout said.
By the time class ended, every student was covered in mud and dripping with sweat. Every student except Praeris, who treated the greenhouse like a second home.
"I have to go shower!" Daphne Greengrass announced, her face a picture of revulsion. "I smell like dirt and fertilizer!"
Praeris broke into a jog and finally caught up with Millicent.
"Millie, we need to talk. I think there's a misunderstanding between us. Maybe I've done something wrong — you can tell me directly. I might not change, and I might not agree with you, but even if you want to hand down a death sentence, you at least have to give me the reason, don't you?"
Pansy Parkinson jabbed Daphne with her elbow, face twisted in disbelief. "I'm starting to wonder what I was ever jealous of. Is that supposed to be an apology?"
"Praeris doesn't think she's done anything wrong," Daphne said, and shrugged. "She just wants to know why Millicent is angry."
Millicent almost laughed. "Look at that — of course our top student couldn't possibly have any faults. The one at fault is naturally me!"
"Who's at fault isn't the point. Maybe we're both wrong. Maybe neither of us is. The point is why. You haven't just met me today, have you? You know exactly what kind of person I've always been. I don't think that's a reason for us to fight."
The truth was, Praeris felt that Millicent knew her better than anyone, her abilities, her way of looking at things, all of it.
"If you know everything, then how can you not know what I'm thinking!" Millicent said, and then she was gone, walking fast.
Praeris stood frozen, lost.
Pansy's love life was complicated. Millicent's friendship, it turned out, was complicated too. Praeris thought that even brewing a bottle of Felix Felicis wouldn't be more complicated than this.
She didn't go back to the Slytherin common room. Millicent probably didn't want to see her right now.
Professor Sprout had been injured treating the Whomping Willow and couldn't move through the flower beds and greenhouses with her usual ease. Praeris quietly took on some of her work.
"Friendship." Professor Sprout repeated the word softly. "That is indeed a very difficult problem. Not everyone can accept the gap between themselves and the people they care about."
"But Millie and I have always been like this." Praeris worked her trowel through the soil around a row of herbs. "Nothing between us has really changed."
"Hmm. That's true." Professor Sprout's voice stayed steady. "But Miss Bulstrode cares a great deal about her mother, doesn't she? You've mentioned that they argue often. And there were disagreements over her grades this summer."
Praeris blinked a few times in quick succession, turning Millicent's letters over in her mind. "So it's possible she's built up some distance from me because of her mother. Or maybe she doesn't actually hate me at all. Maybe she's just suffering because she can't meet her mother's demands."
Praeris stood out in Slytherin, that was simply a fact. And that meant the people around her lived in her shadow, even though she never meant for it to be that way.
Professor Sprout put an arm around her shoulders. "When we're young, we don't yet have a stable sense of ourselves. We don't have enough ability, and we can't find our direction. That's entirely normal. Give your friendship some time."
Praeris nodded, firm and certain. "I understand."
The next morning brought Transfiguration and then Charms. Professor McGonagall wanted them to transfigure beetles into buttons.
Professor McGonagall's curriculum had a clear logic to it, they'd started by turning inanimate objects into living things, and now they were working in reverse. Living things into inanimate ones.
The problem was that beetles, unlike needles, did not sit still and wait to be transfigured.
Pansy's spell missed again and again. Every time she moved, the beetle moved. It was driving her absolutely mad.
"Do I have to learn a Freezing Charm first just to make it stop!" she said through her teeth.
Draco Malfoy said, with great smugness: "Watch carefully. You have to cast very fast, like this — or you wait and aim for where the beetle is going to move next."
"Draco, you're incredible!" Pansy turned her head and caught sight of Praeris. "Wait — Prince, you haven't done it yet?"
Pansy swore she wasn't being cutting. She was genuinely shocked.
Who could imagine Praeris being slower than anyone at anything academic?
Praeris had her chin resting on her hand, poking at her beetle with idle curiosity. When she heard Pansy, she finally picked up her wand and aimed it at the beetle, unhurried, almost bored.
The beetle scurried away. Praeris's spell hit empty air.
"Prince, has Brown's household magic actually rotted your brain?" Draco Malfoy frowned, looking at her with undisguised disdain.
Praeris shot him a flat look, aimed again, and the beetle became a magnificent emerald butterfly cufflink.
Even with Professor Sprout's insight about Millicent, Praeris still hadn't figured out how to actually fix things between them.
If she left it alone, Millicent might just keep on hating her. If she tried to do something about it, she didn't know what that something was.
Should she try to make Millicent more like herself? That seemed nearly impossible. Maybe she could teach her to build a memory palace, keep everything organized, retrieve it as needed?
But Millicent routinely forgot what she'd eaten at her last meal.
Maybe the answer was to pull herself down to Millicent's level, so there'd be nothing to feel unbalanced about. But that felt like looking down on Millicent, and it meant Praeris couldn't be herself anymore either.
In any relationship, friendship, love, it didn't matter, the moment someone had to sacrifice who they were, it became unbalanced.
She couldn't keep pretending she was less than she was. And Millicent had no way to suddenly become someone she wasn't.
Under the weight of that, Praeris's transfiguration spells began to go crooked.
Millicent couldn't deny the inferiority coiled up somewhere inside her. If you'd ever had a friend like Praeris Prince, you'd understand what it felt like to stand beside someone who simply shone.
She thought Ron Weasley probably knew the feeling.
From the moment on the Hogwarts Express, Millicent had known Praeris would be an extraordinary witch. Who else could have a talent like that? Dumbledore? The Dark Lord?
She hadn't envied Praeris at first. The girl was pale and gaunt, like a small vampire. Millicent herself was healthy and strong. Praeris had once said she genuinely wished she could be built like that.
But Mrs. Bulstrode didn't see it that way.
Death Eaters mostly wanted something. Some wanted wealth and glory. Some wanted power. Some wanted status. Some just wanted to survive. What Mrs. Bulstrode wanted was strength, raw magical power. Her own talent was limited, and she'd hoped the Dark Lord would grant her what she lacked, even though she'd barely registered on his radar.
Millicent's aunt said that when the Dark Lord disappeared, Mrs. Bulstrode fell apart like a widow.
So she turned all of it toward her daughter.
When Millicent was eight years old and hadn't shown so much as a flicker of magic, Mrs. Bulstrode started to unravel. In one of her worst moments, she threw Millicent off the attic landing.
Fortunately, Millicent was not a Squib. If she had been, Mrs. Bulstrode would have been worse than a werewolf.
She wasn't a Squib, but her magical talent was thoroughly, stubbornly ordinary. She learned her first spell several weeks after everyone else.
The Levitation Charm. Yes, that one.
Praeris was her exact opposite. Millicent had almost never seen her fail to learn something immediately, never seen her forget anything she'd been taught. The one exception was broomsticks.
At the time, Millicent had just felt a stunned kind of awe. Merlin, the gap between one person and another was bigger than the gap between a person and a troll.
Professor Snape appreciated Praeris too, of course. He'd never praised her publicly, but who else would have been qualified to be his assistant?
Adults and children notice different things.
At first, Mrs. Bulstrode was genuinely happy to see Millicent come home. It had been a long time, after all.
The happiness didn't last. She reached out her hand and demanded the report card.
After she read it, she smashed a teapot and two cups, then covered her face with her hands.
"How can my daughter be as stupid as you!"
"If I hadn't given birth to you, I wouldn't be like this. I would still be a free witch."
"Mother has sacrificed so much!"
"Is it really that hard? Other students get seven O's and an E. What do you do all day? Does every bite of food just turn into flesh on your body?"
Millicent stood there and let Mrs. Bulstrode hurl things at her and at her feet.
Then one day, Mrs. Bulstrode stopped crying. She sat down on the leather sofa and looked at Millicent calmly.
"I hear you're close with that Prince girl. Prince, Malfoy — you should have been cultivating people like that from the start. Have them teach you to use magic properly, instead of spending every day thinking about food."
"When I was young, I followed that great Lord, even if only briefly. He taught me things I never would have dared to imagine. Learn from that. Get close to the people worth getting close to. Don't walk around with an empty head."
Millicent felt sick. Her stomach turned, churning like something inside her had flipped over.
Putting Prae in the same sentence as the Dark Lord.
Just the thought nearly made her retch.
Mrs. Bulstrode pushed her to write to Praeris. Millicent sat with it for a long time, couldn't figure out what to say, and finally just filled the page with nothing: can't finish my homework, it's so annoying.
She'd told herself that once school started, everything would be better. She'd counted on it.
But when she got back, she found she simply couldn't do it.
The first moment she looked at Praeris, all she saw were those bloody reports about the Dark Lord. Mrs. Bulstrode's twisted face.
I'm probably the only Slytherin who hates him, Millicent thought.
Mrs. Bulstrode wanted her to befriend Praeris. Millicent couldn't do it.
And the thing was, in Millicent's eyes, Praeris was genuinely a good person. When Millicent had wanted to lose weight, Praeris had praised her muscles instead. When nearly all of Slytherin was at war with Gryffindor, Millicent had never once seen her bully anyone.
I'm already rotten. How could I drag her down on top of that? She deserves better friends. Not me, not someone who'd only approach her because her mother gave the order.
When Praeris started talking about disliking Lockhart, Millicent had seen her opening. Plenty of witches liked Lockhart, even if Millicent herself felt nothing particular about the man.
But it was a good reason. Wasn't it?
The words came out before she could stop them.
And after they were out, she realized with a jolt: so I really was jealous of her. Somewhere underneath everything else, that had been true all along.
Fine. She'd said what was real. Praeris would have even less reason to think it was an act. Let her believe it, let her believe the friendship ended because of jealousy, plain and simple.
"Prince, has Brown's household magic actually rotted your brain?"
Millicent heard Draco Malfoy's voice, and her whole body went still.
Praeris Prince, failing? Still unable to turn a beetle into a button after all this time?
Millicent couldn't believe it. Nobody could believe it.
Her chest was a mess, like something was trapped inside and throwing itself against the walls.
"She's like this because of you."
The voice in her head was sharp and vicious.
Millicent recognized it. That was Mrs. Bulstrode's voice.
Mrs. Bulstrode screamed inside her: "It's you! You've gotten into her head. You're disrupting her thoughts!"
Another Mrs. Bulstrode screamed: "It's you! She's jealous of you, she's holding herself back for the sake of your friendship, so she won't outshine you!"
"Despicable. No ability of your own, so you drag everyone else down."
"Shameless. No talent, and you hold back people who could have been something."
And then, underneath all of it, Millicent heard a different voice.
Her own.
"Millicent. You're worried about her, aren't you? What does it matter what Mother says? You didn't become friends because of her."
.
Praeris checked her schedule. Defense Against the Dark Arts at three. She had time to eat and take a nap first.
Because she'd been off her game, Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick had both assumed she was struggling with the coursework. They each pulled her aside after class to check in.
Praeris had never quite realized the professors paid that much attention to her.
She felt a quiet wave of relief. Good thing there was no Potions today. From that quarter, being off her game wouldn't earn her concern, it would earn her sharp words and a cold look.
By the time Praeris reached the Great Hall, most students had already finished eating.
➤ Next: Dark Arts