Praeris shook her head. The toad had most likely already left its spot, but whether she could find it — what did that have to do with her anyway?
When she woke again, the sky had turned the color of violets. Layered mountains and dense forest stretched away into the distance.
She pulled the book off her face, turned her head, and spent a long moment adjusting to the lights inside the train.
What had woken her seemed to be a voice amplified by a Sonorus Charm, reminding students to disembark.
Praeris walked with the crowd. She glanced back. The jostling young witches and wizards in the darkness looked like a flock of small black ghosts.
The path ahead of the train was slippery, the sky very dark, the road very narrow. The young witches and wizards picked their way carefully and still stumbled and swayed.
The only road she could recall that was harder to walk than this was the road to church on winter nights. Every Christmas Eve, Sister Mayne would take them to pray.
The sky would be pitch black. Snow would be falling. Each step sank unevenly into the drifts, one foot deep, the next shallow. By the time she reached the church, she could barely feel her legs. Whether or not there was a God in this world, the moment she saw the church lights blazing through the dark, she had already been close to meeting Him.
Compared to Christmas Eve, this road posed little challenge at all.
They walked all the way to the end of the path. A towering, ancient castle appeared suddenly in the distance. Below it lay a pitch-black lake with no visible bottom, and along the shore were moored many small boats.
Praeris followed the crowd onto a boat. Her eyesight was exceptionally sharp, and she put it to use immediately, scanning every structure she could see.
Outside the castle was dense forest. She speculated that Care of Magical Creatures classes were probably held out there. The castle had many spired towers, difficult to see clearly in the darkness, but the architectural style looked to be somewhere between early and middle medieval. The interior blazed with light. Most of the students around her wore wide-eyed, curious expressions, which meant the older years had already arrived by other means.
Soon they disembarked and came to an enormous oak door. The person leading them was a large fellow several times their size, somewhere between an ordinary human and a giant. Praeris figured he had to be a half-giant.
The "big fellow" Hagrid knocked, and the great door swung open on its own.
Standing behind it was a tall witch in emerald-green velvet robes. Her expression was severe, her gaze sharp. For one disorienting moment, Praeris saw Sister Mayne, the person she got along with least.
Presumptuous of her. That was an insult to this witch. Praeris quietly lowered her head and pushed the thought down. This was transference.
Because this witch's stern face resembled Mayne's, she had reflexively mapped one onto the other. But judging by what she could actually observe, this witch's character was likely the upright, principled sort. She wouldn't fly into a shame-fueled rage the way Mayne did when her secrets surfaced, and so she had no reason to target Praeris for it.
If she went in already expecting this witch to be an enemy, that self-suggestion would steer her straight toward conflict. Entirely unnecessary.
Professor McGonagall had no idea what was churning through Praeris's head. She pushed the entrance hall doors open and led the students forward.
They were brought into a small empty chamber, noticeably smaller than the entrance hall corridor, and briefed on what came next.
In short, exactly as Praeris had read before: they would be Sorted, and would attend classes, sleep, and go about their lives alongside their housemates. Their conduct would reflect on the house. Their successes and failures would be tied to the house's points.
Praeris disliked this kind of rule. She was less a member of a group and more a lone wolf.
Under this system, one person's mistake could drag down the entire house and earn blame from classmates with a fierce sense of collective honor.
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It wasn't friendly to inter-house relations either. A typical student would focus on boosting their own house's points. The more flexible-minded ones might find it easier to let a rival house lose points than to earn them. One side's gain from the other's loss — a zero-sum game. As long as a competing house's score dropped, your own house moved ahead in the House Cup race.
"You don't look nervous at all," the girl beside Praeris said, curious. "Do you know something?"
Everyone around them was buzzing about the Sorting. The girl had no idea that Praeris's thoughts had already drifted far from the room.
Praeris's calm demeanor had led Millicent, standing next to her, to assume she already knew what the Sorting involved.
Praeris smiled. "No need to overthink it. We'll find out soon enough. It's probably an open secret by now — the older students' idea of a little fun."
The girl who had spoken to her was dark-haired. She looked far healthier than Praeris, tall and solidly built.
Next to her, Praeris probably looked like a malnourished little vampire.
The girl nodded, as if Praeris's answer had satisfied her. "When I'm an older student, I'm going to haze the new ones too... Did you think I'd be kind enough to tell them the truth?"
"No," Praeris said lightly. "I meant to say, your thinking is exactly right. After going through something this interesting, how could we selfishly let the next lot skip it? This is part of the initiation, isn't it?"
Terrible. She hadn't even grown into a mischievous adult yet, and she was already beginning to scheme.
"Ha!" The dark-haired girl burst out laughing. "I like you! I'm Millicent Bulstrode."
"Praeris Prince."
The words had barely left her mouth when a piercing shriek cut through the air.
Praeris turned. Bursting straight through the wall came a swarm of semi-transparent figures. They had human-like upper bodies, but their lower halves faded and dissolved into nothing. They drifted from one wall to the other, murmuring things she couldn't make out.
Praeris watched them with focused attention, unwilling to miss the chance for a proper firsthand look. She had read about them in Hogwarts: A History — the school ghosts.
Bulstrode grabbed her arm. "What are you still staring at? It's time for the Sorting."
Bulstrode had a remarkably strong grip. Praeris nearly lost her footing.
The new students were told to form a single-file line. Bulstrode stood in front of Praeris, and behind her were two girls of Indian descent.
They followed the line out of the small chamber, back through the entrance hall, and finally through an enormous set of double doors.
Everything beyond was exactly as Hogwarts: A History had described it. The first thing she registered were the countless candles floating in midair on their brass holders. Then the raised platform at the far end of the hall, several feet above the floor, where the teachers sat, she spotted the only face she recognized, Professor Snape. Then the massive portraits above the staff seats and the vast, dark windows. And finally, closest to her, the four long house tables.
No description in a book prepared you for the real thing. Even knowing she would be living here from now on, Praeris couldn't help herself, her gaze kept pulling in every direction.
Professor McGonagall led them into the open space between the teachers' platform and the student tables. They stood facing the students, their backs to the staff.
Professor McGonagall set a stool down in front of them, then placed a pointed wizard's hat on top of it. The hat was not the usual black but a dull brown, heavily patched, and looking extremely worn.
So this was the Sorting. Since Professor McGonagall had placed it here, it had to be connected, either the test itself, or the equipment used for it.
Then the hat moved.
The creases along its surface rearranged themselves into what looked like eyes, and the fold below them opened like a mouth and produced a sound, a dreadful, peculiar song.
It declared itself the Sorting Hat, there to determine where each student belonged. Gryffindor for the brave and chivalrous. Hufflepuff for the just and steadfast. Ravenclaw for the sharp-minded and learned. Slytherin had true friends among its own, but those cunning and treacherous sorts would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.
Praeris blinked. She suspected the hat's original owner had been a Gryffindor. Its bias against Slytherin was completely undisguised.
And given how remarkable the hat clearly was, she made a bold guess: it had once belonged to the founder of Gryffindor himself, Godric Gryffindor.
Professor McGonagall began calling names. One by one, students were summoned forward.
"Prince, do you think there could be someone who doesn't get sorted into any house?" Millicent poked her. "The Sorting song sets out all these requirements. What if someone just can't meet them? I mean, there have to be some completely useless people, right?"
Praeris had just turned to look when she caught someone familiar snapping his gaze toward them.
The boy she had seen before boarding the train?
The moment Praeris met his eyes, he looked away quickly.
"No," Praeris said calmly. "Hagrid, who brought us here, is already sitting at the head table. He's even chatting. His work for the night is clearly done."
The instant she said it, the boy turned sharply to look at Hagrid. When he found him there, the tension in his shoulders visibly dropped.
Praeris found it faintly amusing. That wasn't actually the reason she had said it.
The real reason she knew the Sorting couldn't bar anyone from Hogwarts was Professor Snape. He had already purchased school supplies for her, an orphan, and covered room, board, and a period of tuition assistance.
Did they think Hogwarts was some kind of charitable pushover?
The wait was growing long enough that Praeris was almost drowsy. Millicent had been chattering away beside her at the start, but her surname began with "B," and she was called up quickly.
Praeris stood alone and, with nothing better to do, began quietly predicting where each student would land.
"Potter. Harry!"
The Great Hall erupted. Every head turned, every neck craned, the whole room leaning forward as if waiting for something.
➤ Next: Slytherin