Praeris shook her head. "Of course not. But I can't think of a second reason you'd seek me out."
"You smell of fresh herbs. I'd guess you finished an experiment not long ago. A man as busy as you wouldn't spend his time on something trivial."
"And there is exactly one matter of importance concerning me."
Snape swept his gaze around Praeris's room. Very tidy, the kind of tidy that comes from having nothing. Bare walls. Everything exactly as it had been when she first arrived, except for the suitcase by the wall and the single book on the table.
His face betrayed almost nothing. "Tomorrow Tom will take you to King's Cross Station. You'll board at Platform 9¾."
Praeris was quiet for a moment. She had never heard of a platform with a fractional number, but the magical world was naturally different from the Muggle world, ordinary people couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron, after all. Platform 9¾ likely had a hidden entrance, something like that.
And since Tom would be escorting her, she wouldn't fail to get in. Besides, she wasn't the only one starting school. Presumably others would be entering this Platform 9¾ as well.
"All right." Praeris nodded.
Snape gave her a long, measured look. "I imagine you have no desire to return to the convent. So you won't be foolish enough to do anything out of line."
Praeris disliked the threat in those words, the way they assumed she would inevitably make a mistake. She couldn't help wondering if Sister Mayne's account had colored his view of her. But she was living under someone else's roof. She didn't have the luxury of objecting.
She met Professor Snape's gaze and nodded, very obediently. "Of course. I don't believe I've given you any trouble during this time, either."
"Good. Keep it that way." Professor Snape withdrew his unfathomable gaze and turned to leave.
The door closed behind him. Praeris exhaled slowly.
She had always known this. Fate never favored her. All peace, all happiness, all quiet, it was temporary, every last bit of it. Like bubbles drifting under an open sky, floating along until they burst without a sound.
She didn't dislike Snape. She didn't dislike his wariness, either. In fact, she didn't dislike anyone. People judged others from their own position; that was simply how it worked. If Praeris stood where Snape stood, she too would keep a closer eye on potential troublemakers, before they caused problems for her work.
The next morning, Praeris carried her suitcase out and climbed into the delivery truck Tom used for stocking supplies.
Tom had been a little afraid of Praeris once. He had forgotten all about that now.
He was in a sentimental mood, and it made him ramble. "Little Prae, youth is so fleeting. The age of innocence fades before you even notice. When I think back on my days at Hogwarts, I wish I could go back. Ah — I hope you can enjoy your youth like an ordinary child."
Praeris took the owl cage from his hands. "I don't understand what you mean," she said, not unkindly. "I am an ordinary child."
Tom settled into the driver's seat and kept going. "Little Prae, a bar sees all kinds of people. I've seen them all. Trust me — when you're older and you look back, nothing is ever as big a deal as it seemed."
Praeris didn't know what to say to that. Tom's words didn't apply to her life, and she had no intention of explaining why. She offered a polite smile instead, the kind of response that wasn't really a response.
Tom believed everything could be gotten through. He was old now, his hair nearly gone, his teeth few and far between. When a person's world has narrowed down to the question of life and death, most things stop seeming important. And the Leaky Cauldron had given him not just steady income but something rarer: regular human company in his later years. For a wizard in his twilight, that was already a great deal.
King's Cross came up fast. Praeris stepped out of the truck, suitcase in her left hand, owl cage in her right.
Tom opened his mouth, hesitated, then decided to say it anyway. "Platform 9¾ is between Platforms 9 and 10. You just walk straight at the dividing wall between them. Boldly. That's all."
Praeris was clearly clever beyond the ordinary, but Tom still wanted to think of her as a little girl heading off to school.
Praeris paused, then nodded. "Thank you, Tom. Your egg sandwiches were wonderful, by the way. I'll come back to the Leaky Cauldron over the holidays."
She could admit it to herself: she had deliberately frightened Tom once. She had hated the way he stared at her. Most people's thoughts were transparent to her, and Tom had been no different.
What she hadn't anticipated was that Tom, the same Tom she had frightened, would now be the one quietly making sure she knew how to get on the train.
How contradictory she was. She hated when people directed malice at her, and yet she found it even harder to face their kindness.
So there's someone else here all alone?
Harry Potter, standing on the platform and trying to prepare himself for the train, couldn't help the thought.
Platform 9¾ was loud. The voices of a hundred families, the rumble of trunks rolling across stone, the periodic shriek of owls, all of it pressed in at once, loud enough to make his heart race.
Though maybe it wasn't the noise. Maybe it was the excitement. He was about to enter a magical world.
Still, he couldn't ignore the one thing that stuck out: he seemed to be the only person here who had arrived alone. Everyone else had someone. Parents, siblings, someone waving them off. Until he spotted her, a girl in a plain black dress, pulling her suitcase past him without slowing down, without anyone beside her.
She didn't look excited. She didn't look sad. She looked like someone taking a quiet walk down a familiar street.
Maybe she wasn't a new student. Maybe only first-years like him felt this lost. But knowing he wasn't the only one alone, that helped, even a little.
Praeris had no idea what Harry Potter was thinking. She only noticed that a boy with extremely messy hair had looked at her a beat too long.
She catalogued him without meaning to. Living conditions, modest at best. His glasses were cracked and hadn't been fixed. His clothes were too large, the cut and fabric decent, but clearly worn by someone bigger before they reached him. Hand-me-downs.
Glasses could be repaired with magic, yet he wore them broken. His expression carried both excitement and the specific unease of someone facing something entirely unfamiliar. No family with him. That meant no wizard relatives nearby, he had likely grown up in a Muggle household. Either a poor one, or one that didn't treat him well.
Given that his clothes were decent quality despite being the wrong size, it was the latter.
And yet: his owl was an expensive breed. His trunk was large, full enough that carrying it was a visible struggle.
His finances had recently changed. Dramatically.
A windfall. Either someone had paid for all of this on his behalf, or he had come into an inheritance.
Praeris shook her head. Enough. He's just a stranger.
She found an empty compartment and stowed her suitcase in the corner, then sat down by the window. Outside, the platform was still full of families. Children clinging to parents. Reluctant goodbyes.
She couldn't quite reach what they were feeling. Their families must be something worth missing.
All she felt was a hollow ache. At five years old, before the memories went, had she done that too? Held onto someone's hand and not wanted to let go?
The train pulled out of the station. The families on the platform fell behind, then the station itself, then London, until all of it was gone and there was nothing but the English countryside through the glass, and Praeris's past somewhere far behind her.
She had woken early. The rhythm of the train made her drowsy, and she fell asleep against the window and didn't wake until noon.
The food trolley vendor's voice pulled her out of it. She waved off the cart, dug into her satchel, and ate the egg sandwich Tom had packed for her.
After eating, the drowsiness was gone. She pulled out a poetry collection and opened it.
The convent had held a great many books, mostly psalms and collections of saints' writings, with some miscellaneous volumes donated by believers over the years. French, English, and for the older ones, Latin. Praeris had never been entitled to take any of them. But this particular book had been pressed into her hands by a believer who had seen her reading in the garden, given as a private gift.
The collection was the work of a destitute poet. Beginning to end, it praised beauty and love in the grandest terms, love conquers all, love saves all.
Unfortunately, love had not saved him. He had frozen to death on a cold winter night. The manuscripts he left behind were considered an ill omen by his landlord and burned for fuel. What ended up in this collection was only what survived: sold cheaply by the landlord's son to the editor who eventually published it.
For Praeris, the book's only use was that it quieted her mind. It let her stop thinking. Without it, she had a tendency to analyze everything in front of her, and she couldn't always make herself stop.
CLACK!
The compartment door was yanked open.
"Have you seen a toad? Neville's lost a toad."
The intruder had a thick head of brown hair and the look of someone who had never missed a meal in her life, healthy complexion, good build. She had already changed into her Hogwarts robes, clearly eager to begin. She was here helping her classmate, which spoke well of her, but she had thrown the door open without so much as a knock. She liked to be seen doing things; that much was obvious.
Outgoing. Expressive. Well-off family. A girl who enjoyed making an impression.
"What does the toad look like?" Praeris set the poetry collection on the table. "If you mean a golden-backed toad — gold along the back, black on the belly, brown where the two meet — I saw one five minutes before the train departed. Front of the door on the left side of the third carriage's corridor."
The girl blinked and turned to the round-faced boy hovering behind her.
"Oh, I don't actually know what a golden-backed toad is," the boy said, shifting awkwardly, "but that sounds exactly like Trevor."
The girl swung back around, face lighting up. "Oh my goodness, I don't know how to thank you! We've been looking in completely the wrong direction, we should have been going forward this whole time! I'm Hermione Granger, and this is Neville Longbottom. Your memory is extraordinary. I'd love to have a proper conversation with you sometime, I really would, but right now I have to go help Neville check the third carriage!"
➤ Next: The Sorting Ceremony