Harry Potter: The Slytherin Heiress

Malfoy's mouth opened and closed, working furiously, but in the end, not a single word of rebuttal came out.

"Say whatever you want! I came here out of kindness to warn you!" Malfoy huffed. "There are rumors going around the upper years — that you and Marcus are fooling around, and that you've been going out of your way to suck up to Professor Snape. Ambitious, they're calling you."

Praeris froze. For a moment, she almost wanted to take back everything she'd said.

Ever since first year, she and Draco had never crossed paths without snapping at each other. Most of the time, Draco ran his mouth without thinking, and she struck back with sharp sarcasm until he choked on his own words and couldn't say a thing.

Today, the moment Draco opened his mouth, she had snapped back on reflex. She hadn't expected that he had actually dragged his long-neglected goodwill out into the sunlight.

"There's nothing going on between me and Marcus," Praeris said. "If I had to say anything, we only tutored each other. If Stella's relationship had been stable last year, she probably would have been the one teaching me instead."

She explained herself anyway. When Moaning Myrtle had said the same thing, Praeris had only found it absurd. She hadn't expected the rumor to keep growing.

"Like you said, it's ability that makes people fear you. Ambition isn't a bad thing either." She paused. "As for the professor — if washing bottles could earn you casual guidance from a Potions master in his spare time, I imagine plenty of people would be tempted. Provided they weren't afraid to face him."

Praeris smiled faintly and turned to leave.

Snow blanketed the rooftops of Hogwarts Castle, burying the distant mountains and forests under a vast, unbroken white.

She stood in the corridor, staring at that empty expanse, and thought, again, of the Christmases from her childhood. Back then she was still at the orphanage. The church windows were painted stained glass, thick with color, opaque. You couldn't see the snow outside through them at all.

The nuns stoked the fireplace until it roared, but she never felt warm. She stood in the middle of the crowd, dressed in heavy robes, singing hymns alongside the other orphans, receiving her "blessings."

"Praeris," Sister Mayne had said, her tone heavy with meaning, "your today comes from the Lord's grace. He has granted you shelter."

Grace. How utterly condescending.

She said the Lord loved all mankind. Then why had He granted Praeris the fate of being abandoned?

Praeris did not feel that being taken in was grace. By the same logic, she did not feel that being abandoned was grace either. She loathed gifts she had no hand in choosing. Whether good or bad, she would rather reach for them herself, ask for them herself, seize them herself.

When she suspected Millicent Bulstrode was about to "abandon" their friendship, Praeris had, unexpectedly, chosen to hold on. She had thought she despised being abandoned, and yet she had reached out and grabbed hold of that precarious, crumbling bond.

"This is a friendship I chose," Praeris thought. "I will not allow anyone to leave before I do."

At five years old she'd had no choice. But the moment she chose to leave the orphanage, she had resolved that everything would follow her own will. Never again to be chosen for. Never again to be decided for.

The rumors called her ambitious. Ambitious she was. That part was no rumor.

Praeris breathed a puff of mist onto the windowpane and traced an inverted cross in the fog with one finger. Becoming a witch was her rebellion against the fate she had been graced with.

Now. Time to go see Myrtle. She was hardly the only lonely person in this school.

Christmas Eve settled over Hogwarts in near-perfect silence. The corridors held nothing but the swaying shadows of candlelight.

Praeris stopped in front of the bathroom.

Strange. The weeping drifting through the door was unfamiliar, nothing like Myrtle's thin, mournful sobs.

"Myrtle, it's me."

The crying stopped dead.

"Are you alright? I folded a piece of mistletoe for you. I thought you could use it to decorate your toilet." She paused. "Er. If you want it."

Myrtle drifted out from her stall looking more delighted than Praeris had ever seen her. "Oh, thank you, Praeris. You're always so thoughtful."

Praeris hesitated. "Just now — I thought I heard crying. That wasn't you?"

"Of course not! It was that Gryffindor girl!" Myrtle said. "It's absolutely dreadful!"

Dreadful?

Praeris walked toward the closed stall and said quietly, "Are you alright in there? Do you need help? You might not trust me — but if something's wrong, I can speak to a professor for you."

She didn't think of herself as warmhearted. But a Gryffindor girl, crying alone in a bathroom. It was hard not to think of Ginny.

Her hand hadn't even reached the latch when a familiar voice snapped through the door: "No! I don't need help!"

Praeris's hand stopped in midair. Her right eyebrow rose. "Granger?"

Her memory did its work instantly, pulling the voice and matching it without effort.

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"I, I..." Granger clearly hadn't expected to be identified so fast. "My potion experiment went wrong. I can't let anyone see me right now."

"Er, do you need me to ask a professor? I mean Professor Snape." Praeris couldn't help herself. "What were you thinking, experimenting on yourself?"

Granger had actually used herself as a test subject. That kind of dedication to research was genuinely humbling. Clearly Praeris wasn't putting enough into Potions, she really ought to take a page from Granger's approach.

Not including the part about making herself unpresentable. Obviously.

"Thank you," Granger said through sobs, "but I don't want anyone to see me. I'll go find Madam Pomfrey myself."

"Alright, alright." Praeris leaned slightly toward the door. "How do you see me, anyway?"

Granger sounded thrown. "What?"

"I don't think I've ever gone after any Gryffindor. And I suppose I helped you with the Nicolas Flamel matter before," Praeris said.

"...That's true."

Praeris nodded. "Then a sincere piece of advice: Weasley ought to pay more attention to his little sister. Her color hasn't been good lately."

"What do you mean? Is something wrong with Ginny?!"

The rustle of robes. Granger had stood up.

"I imagine you wouldn't take a Slytherin's word for it," Praeris said. No desire to invite trouble. "If something really is going on, it's better for you to check yourselves. With your abilities, that part won't be hard. The hard part is finding the first clue, and I've just given you one."

"That sounds terribly complicated," Myrtle said.

Praeris gave her a gentle smile. "Not complicated at all. It just takes a little time."

With Granger still behind that door, Praeris didn't want to linger and make things worse. She said her farewells to Myrtle and headed back toward the common room.

"You lot, what use are you?! Getting knocked out and impersonated like it was nothing!" Draco's voice rang through the corridor, tight with barely-contained fury.

"Impersonated?" Praeris said quietly. "What happened?"

"Someone drugged them with food, disguised themselves as them, and walked right into the common room!"

"Slytherins don't need to sneak in," Praeris said. "And if they're not Slytherins, how did they get through the door?" She looked at him. "You're this furious about it, did you bring them in yourself?"

Draco looked like a rooster with its neck wrung, face going red.

Praeris shook her head and walked over to Crabbe. "Let me see. Just ate something bad? Does anything hurt?"

"Does the back of my head count?" Goyle said.

Praeris looked and nearly laughed. "That's from when you fell. You hit the back of your head on the floor, didn't you."

"You're gloating," Draco said.

"I'm not the one who let them in," Praeris said easily. "Am I supposed to cry for you to prove I'm a decent person?"

She finished her check and added, "Perfectly fine. You just ate too much at dinner. Walk a few laps and work it off."

She turned around and found Draco's expression had gone distinctly sour. She crossed the room toward him. "You saw them and didn't suspect anything at all?"

"They looked exactly like Crabbe and Goyle!" Draco said, indignant. "If I were standing right here, would you suspect I was a fake?"

Praeris leaned forward suddenly, closing the distance fast. Draco startled and sat down hard on the sofa.

She wore the expression of someone whose prank had landed perfectly. "Seems you're real."

Snapping at Draco or startling him, the reaction was always enormous. It never got old.

"You, you, you—" Draco sputtered, completely incoherent.

Praeris settled herself comfortably on the sofa. She already had a good idea who had impersonated Crabbe and Goyle. Potter and Weasley.

Anyone with half a brain could work it out, provided they'd first discovered Granger in the bathroom.

In which case, the potion Granger had ruined must have been Polyjuice Potion. Bicorn horn. Boomslang skin. Wasn't it?

Everything connected. One of the trio caused a disruption in class so a companion could steal ingredients. The professor retaliated against Potter at Duelling Club. The three of them brewed Polyjuice Potion to sneak into Slytherin and pull information out of Draco.

Why? Because they thought the Heir of Slytherin was Draco?

"What did they get out of you?" Praeris said.

Malfoy's face had the exact look of someone thinking how do you know they got anything out of me. "They asked about the Chamber of Secrets, so what? Everyone knows it was opened fifty years ago and a Mudblood died. Every Slytherin knows that!"

"But they're not Slytherins."

Malfoy turned his head away and went quiet. Even he apparently knew better than to try to out-argue Praeris.

"Anything else?" she said.

Malfoy opened his mouth. Closed it. There were things, it seemed, that he couldn't bring himself to say out loud.

Praeris didn't need to know everything. "If you let something slip that can't get out, you know what to do, right? Don't tell yourself no one else will find out. No one has any obligation to keep your secrets for you."

Across the castle, Hermione and Ron were arguing.

"Prince is absolutely not like that!" Hermione said, furious.

Ron held his ground. "Oh? You know her that well? A Slytherin?"

"She's different! She stopped the moment she beat me in the duel. I told her I didn't want to be seen, and she didn't push the door open. She cares about Myrtle! She, she even told us about Nicolas Flamel!" Hermione's voice was fierce. "She is not like the other Slytherins!"

Ron's words came fast. "She's still a Slytherin! Nearly every Death Eater came out of Slytherin. For all we know her parents are You-Know-Who's servants. Ginny isn't your sister, of course you're not worried. And if she hasn't done something, how would she know Ginny's been off lately?"

Harry looked left at Ron, right at Hermione, and had absolutely no idea what to do.

He barely managed to wedge a word in. "Maybe let Hermione rest for a bit? I mean, her face."

During the duel, Hermione had pulled a "hair" from the sleeve of Prince's robes, certain it was Prince's.

They'd all agreed that using Prince's hair was risky, she had stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas, which meant she was still in the castle. But they had no better option. They couldn't get their hands on any other Slytherin's hair.

The problem was that the hair on Prince's sleeve wasn't hers at all.

It was a cat hair.

And so Hermione ended up with a face full of fur, and got found out by Prince in the bathroom.

Praeris had no idea she was responsible for Hermione's new look. She was busy feeding Nina. Before Millicent Bulstrode left for the holidays, she had made Praeris promise, again and again, to take good care of Nina.

Christmas came and went. Sometimes Praeris caught herself thinking that something always seemed to happen at Hogwarts around Halloween or Christmas. What about last Christmas, then? What had she missed?

Though, the more accurate way to put it was that every year, Hogwarts had its one great crisis. The Philosopher's Stone last year. The Heir of the Chamber this year.

She really wondered what next year would bring.

About a week or two later, Praeris noticed that the notebook beside Ginny had disappeared. Ginny's color had improved a little.

Ever since she had passed the Ginny matter off, Praeris felt lighter. She was still curious about what had actually happened, but the weight was gone.

Carrying the life of another person on your conscience was a terribly heavy thing.

Apart from Ginny, though, Praeris had been turning over a new clue.

Draco had said the Chamber was opened fifty years ago, and a Muggle-born student had been killed. Fifty years. It was a very familiar number. Myrtle had died over forty, nearly fifty years ago.

The dead girl and that bathroom were intimately connected.

How could a Basilisk move through Hogwarts without being seen? Why had Myrtle died in the bathroom? Why had Mrs. Norris been found near one too?

Praeris watched the giant squid drift past outside the window. The puddle of water in the corridor flashed into her mind.

Water. The pipes.

That was it. The Basilisk moved through the plumbing, which was why there had been a puddle near Mrs. Norris, and why Myrtle had been killed in the bathroom. The entrance to the Chamber had to be somewhere connected to the pipes. A drain. One of the bathrooms.

But it was already over, wasn't it? No new victims had surfaced in weeks. Granger must have handed the information to a professor long ago.

Praeris had considered speaking up herself, maybe earn her House some points, same as they had done last year. But then she thought of Professor Snape's expression.

She let it go.

➤ Next: Valentine's Day Surprise