HP North Star's Radiance

Baron quickly applied the medicine to Praris, adding, "It might hurt a little..."

“That would be best,” Praris said.

"Huh?" Barron thought he had misheard. "What did you say?"

Praris said, "It's nothing, you go ahead with your work."

The pain brought her to her senses and allowed her to feel the same pain as Draco, slightly calming her turbulent emotions.

Pansy and the others arrived before dinner.

Pansy was terrified when she heard that Draco was injured, and she was terrified again when she saw Pralis and Draco's appearance.

“Are you alright?” Pansy whispered. “Honestly, you don’t look much better than Draco, except you’re sitting down.”

Praris then looked at herself. Her cloak didn't reveal anything, but her white shirt was stained with gruesome bloodstains—from when she was helping Draco. In addition, her knees were bandaged, which was quite frightening.

Praris could only repeat what she had said countless times: "The blood is Draco's."

Praris knew that the people who said these things cared about her, but they inadvertently reminded her of Draco lying in a pool of blood.

Chapter 184 The Education of Death

Cool-toned gray-white clouds spread across the sky outside the window. The Black Lake was ruffled by the wind, its waters splashing against the cliffs, creating ripples of white foam. Torches adorned the walls and crystal chandeliers were lit in the school clinic.

Excessive blood loss caused Draco to fall into a coma, but unexpectedly, it also allowed him to forcibly relax his tense nerves while unconscious. However, this relaxation did not last long, and he frowned again in his sleep, as if he was troubled by some nightmare.

Pralis sat by his bedside for a long time, like an unconscious statue. She only left once, to get Draco a bottle of Dreamless Sleeping Elixir.

Pansy and Milison came twice in one day, one to check on Praris's mood and the other to bring her bread—which Praris didn't eat.

That evening, Baron came to examine Draco and said to Prarese with concern, "Prarese, you should at least eat something..."

Unable to get a response from Prarese, Baron then called for his teacher, Mrs. Pomfrey.

Mrs. Pomfrey said lovingly to Prarese, "I think he would want to wake up and see you first. Prarese, you can't fall down with him."

When Barron returned, the paper wrapping the bread was found discarded in the trash can.

Out of the corner of her eye, Prarese saw Barron's eyes light up as he quickly jotted something down in his notebook—probably some humanistic care techniques unrelated to professional treatment knowledge.

Praliss said she regretted it, and she wasn't lying. The Shadowless Sword was recorded in the Half-Blood Prince's notebook; she had countless opportunities to stop Harry, but she didn't.

Prader simply indulged her competitive spirit, wanting nothing more than to defeat Harry, achieve victory, and prove her abilities. It wasn't until she could no longer tolerate it, and until it involved Professor Snape's work, that she took action.

Prareas questioned herself: Didn't she bear any responsibility for Draco's injury?

A long black robe floated before her like a ghost. Praris slowly raised her head and silently looked at her mentor, her cousin.

“Miss, we need to talk,” Snape said almost softly. “Tell me, what troubles are you carrying?”

What trouble is she carrying?

There are too many to count; it would take three days and three nights to explain them all.

Long——

The long-brewing clouds began to display their power, a bolt of lightning tore through the black veil of the sky, followed by a series of rolling claps of thunder. The sound of rain accompanied the thunder, and the rain swept across the room in bursts, violently pounding against the windows and soaking the corridor outside the school clinic.

In the dim light of the torches, half of Prader's and Snape's faces were illuminated, while the other half remained hidden in darkness.

Snape interrogated him, asking, "Where did Potter learn his curse?"

“You know perfectly well,” Praris said, head bowed.

Snape then asked, "When did you find out?"

“Not long ago,” Praretan said honestly.

"Where's the book?" Snape said sarcastically. "I don't recall ever taking on an extra 'good student'."

When he said the words "good student," his tone was one of gritted teeth.

Praris said, "It wasn't approved by you; Professor Slughorn gave it away by mistake. I got it back; it's in the bookcase, under Wuthering Heights."

"I never realized you two were this close," Snape said coldly. "I noticed he's quite pleased with his stolen 'talent,' to the point that he's willing to give the book to you?"

“My name is Prince, sir.” Praris’s soft voice was almost drowned out by the sound of the rain. “There is no better reason for Prince to get his book back.”

The raindrops, blown off balance by the wind, pattered over the railings and splashed more into the corridor, briefly interrupting the conversation and masking Snape's heartbeat, which had been disrupted by those words.

Both of them took a step back and regrouped.

Snape struggled to maintain his unfriendly tone: "You admitted to him that he's my... relative?"

“No,” Praris said. “I told him that the ‘Prince’ in ‘The Half-Blood Prince’ and my ‘Prince’ are not essentially different.”

Snape couldn't tell if he felt relieved or something else. He only said, "Let's go, Dumbledore is waiting for you."

“No,” Praris refused firmly, “Sir, I’m not going now…”

“Miss, you’re not calm.” Snape interrupted her before she could finish, “You’re throwing a tantrum.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Praris said expressionlessly. “I’m just being temperamental, is that not allowed?”

"Anyway, Draco's still lying in bed and hasn't had a chance to do anything good. Why can't I throw a tantrum?"

Snape suddenly fell silent, like a television set stuck in a rut. He hadn't expected Prader to throw a tantrum in such a rational way. At first, he naturally assumed Prader was blinded by love, but he never imagined that the boy had actually considered the bigger picture so seriously.

Is this how he educates this child?

Is it because of him that this child has to consider so many things even when he gets angry?

“I’m sorry, Prareas,” Snape finally spoke, but his words were almost cruel: “No.”

In the candlelit corridor, Snape strode ahead, while Prarese followed slowly behind.

Compared to the morning, Snape did not slow down to wait for his only blood relative, but he had no doubt that she would catch up.

He left a long distance, giving Praris space to process his emotions, and also giving himself space to control his own.

Snape's black cloak was reflected in Praris's dark eyes from afar, causing Praris to repeatedly ponder his words.

Ten minutes earlier, he had said to Praris, "I'm sorry, miss. I shouldn't have stopped you from taking revenge; after all, I'm more vengeful than anyone else at seventeen."

“Miss Ke,” Snape turned to look at the rain, his voice distant, “things far worse than what you see today have happened to me countless times.”

“Every day, someone falls, and I just watch,” Snape repeated to himself, “just watch.”

Praris had seen ghosts, but she had never truly witnessed a murder. The closest she came to death was not when Sylvia murdered Dipole, but when the children in the convent died of illness.

No matter how Sister Maine punished Praris, she never linked her punishment to death. Therefore, Praris only ever saw white coffins surrounded by flowers.

At that time, she stood far away in the middle of the crowd, mourning her departed companion like the other children, watching her return to the embrace of the Lord.

Praris asked in an inquiring tone, "Sir, I thought this wasn't your first time facing death."

This was something Prarese could never understand, and it was an emotion she had been trying to learn in second grade—to grieve for the life of a stranger.

Yes, she couldn't bear to see any of her loved ones die.

But Father Dorian didn't have a deep connection with those children before they died. He didn't even know the names of some of them.

The amazing thing is that when they died, things changed drastically. Father Dorian would weep for them, regretting that he hadn't done better, that he hadn't allowed them to return to the Lord's embrace after truly completing their earthly journey.

What Prarese couldn't understand was that this was Father Dorian's genuine emotion. Sister Maine, on the other hand, would shed real tears even when a child she didn't love died.

It's like when someone dies, she becomes someone everyone should grieve for.

"If I die."

"Will these people feel sad for me too?"

"Even though they tormented me in every way?"

This wasn't Professor Snape's first experience with war, was it? He had been serving Voldemort for over a decade and was one of Voldemort's most valued subordinates.

Why is it that now, he has begun to feel sad for strangers, to the point that he cannot remain calm in front of Praris and can only look into the rain?

Prareas didn't know that this was the same question Snape was asking himself.

How could a wizard who had seen death so often, a wizard who had mastered countless dark magic spells, a wizard who had served darkness and facilitated death, be so pained by the death of a stranger in front of him?

“Miss, that’s how war is. Murder doesn’t disappear just because it doesn’t happen in front of you,” Snape said with his back to Praris. “It’s fair, fair to the point of being cruel, cruel to the point of being so easy.”

Snape had never been so meticulous before. He said gently, "Perhaps it is not your professor who has fallen, but someone else's. Perhaps it is not your relative who has died, but someone else's. Perhaps it is not your lover who has been murdered, but someone else's."

He took a deep breath, turned to Praris, and said, “Perhaps it won’t be you who dies, but any one of them. As young as you, as talented as you, as intelligent as you, as caring as you—about their family and loved ones.”

Snape had never spoken so much to Prareas at once. He always assumed Prareas could easily grasp the knowledge, yet he showed unprecedented patience when it came to the topic of "death."

Prarese looked into Snape's dark eyes, which were similar to hers but more mature.

The same black eyes, the same black hair, similar talents and unfortunate pasts, the same blood flowing in different bodies... Snape stood at the end of the corridor, soaked by the rain, while Prarese's position was dry.

Prarese then asked, "Sir, did anyone tell these things to seventeen-year-old Severus Snape? Did anyone teach him this?"

Boom—

The rain intensified, soaking Snape's cloak completely, making it stick to his body. Even so, he refused to go to Praris and find a dry place.

“I’m sorry, miss,” Snape said, “he had nothing then.”

—Until fate made him realize all of this through real experience.

After that, the unusual teacher and student said something to each other, but Praris didn't go on to recall it.

Because she had been completely persuaded to temporarily set aside her revenge on this matter.

What convinced Prarese was not the reasoning behind her words, but the genuine and moving emotions that came from her mentor, who was not actually good at expressing himself.

Prareas thought that perhaps Professor Snape was telling him these insights from his own experience not only to get her to talk about the Death Eaters' plot, but also to teach his student now, and to teach his younger self, Severus.

The cloak, dried by magic, billowed in the wind with Snape's steps, like a black guiding banner.

“I’m so glad you’ve come to me at this time,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “How about a cup of chocolate milk, boy?”

“Thank you,” Praris said politely. “I don’t need this to control my emotions.”

Dumbledore wasn't embarrassed that his usual soothing trick had been exposed. He simply said kindly, "Plares, be kind to your emotions. It's a lovely friend of ours, and sometimes we need it to make ourselves stronger. It can be mischievous, though."

Praris blinked, and asked in an inquiring manner, "Did I make your time so plentiful?"

cough--

Snape couldn't help but cough.