Seeing and Believing

Chapter One

Pounding and throbbing. Throbbing and pounding. It was a truly wonderful beginning to a new school year if you had been one Severus Snape seeing as how Harry Potter had the headache. Even better was the fact that it was the beginning of Harry's seventh and final year at Hogwarts. Such a wonderful beginning.

The Sorting and feast were nearly if not completely ignored by Harry as he tried to rid himself of his headache by glaring at it. It didn't seem to help any. He finally just gave up and laid his head on the table. Being nudged awake several moments later after the announcements had ended, Harry glared at the person not caring who it was. He got up and left for the Gryffindor Common Room to sleep off his headache. If it was still there in the morning he would go to Madam Pomfrey.

The sleeping got rid of his headache, but it was more fitful tossing and turning than actual sleep. The total hours of sleep couldn't have been more than two at most. Even then, the dream he had was the oddest one he had ever had. It involved some goblin, a princess, and a big battle that seemed totally pointless. Harry shook his head of sleep and went down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

The schedules for the school year were passed out at the end of breakfast and Harry groaned. First was History of Magic followed by Divination. Harry knew he should have dropped those two classes, but he didn't want to just have core classes. Oh well, at least he could catch up on his sleep he lost last night.

The class was nearly over and Harry hadn't been able to fall asleep. All the while, Professor Binns was lecturing on goblin rebellions, as per usual, when he started speaking of Eldgar the Fearsome of the early twelfth century. There was a fierce battle between the goblins and wizards because Eldgar's daughter had been stolen away by the wizards for a reason Harry couldn't quite understand. The battle seemed almost familiar to him, a sort of déjà vu. All he knew though was Professor Binns was wrong about this rebellion. Doing what a student normally does, he raised his hand to ask his question. Harry held his hand up for five minutes without acknowledgement.

"Professor Binns?" Harry asked out loud and rather loudly also as to get the ghost teacher's attention. Professor Binns faltered in his lecture mid-sentence and turned around astonished by the interruption. No one in his class ever had a question as they were usually all asleep.

"Yes Mr. Potter?" Professor Binns sounded mildly interested in what this student had to say and used a different tone of voice instead of his boring, monotone voice. This roused a few students out of their light slumber only to see Professor Binns actually turned around and Harry Potter asking a question. Several of the students started waking the other students.

"I just wanted to say that you're wrong about this goblin rebellion." Harry spoke slowly as if fearing the possible impending wrath. Professor Binns lifted a ghostly eyebrow.

"Really Mr. Potter, why do you think that?" Harry fidgeted. He wasn't sure how or why he knew, he just knew.

"Well, Ariya wasn't a goblin and the wizards didn't take her away from Eldgar." Harry stopped nervously while Professor Binns floated there silently. The whole class looked on silently waiting for the next move, possibly an explosion from the professor. Professor Binns made a gesture for Harry to continue.

"Well...uh...Princess Ariya's parents were a wizard and an elf. No part of her family was goblin. Her parents married as a sort of peace treaty between the wizards and elves. Uh...Eldgar figured that if he married Ariya, he would have a very strong chance of becoming king even if he was a goblin." Harry stopped unsure of what to say and wondering if he was making a mistake by challenging a professor in their area of expertise. Professor Binns nodded his head in understanding and what looked like comprehension as if he had already known this.

"Yes, it has been long suspected by many historians of goblin rebellions that this was actually likely the case." Harry relaxed knowing that he was more than likely off the hook. "However, this theory has never been written in any books, a sort of unspoken truth between many of the historians as there is no proof for this theory. I am curious Mr. Potter, how did you come to hear about this theory?"

Harry tensed again and fidgeted again as well. He just knew, he wasn't sure how because he knew he had never read any History of Magic book. Harry was about to open his mouth to spout off the first reasonable thing that came to mind, but the bell sounded for the end of class. The class sat still for a moment after being disrupted by the bell, but someone got up and the rest of the class followed. Many shot glances at Harry as he still sat stunned before they walked out of the class and started gossiping. Harry jumped up and ran out of the class towards the Divination class wondering what was going on.

The topic of the day in Divination was trance visions. This seemed easy enough to Harry, just act like he was in a trance then make something up. Easy enough task for the day, to bad it wouldn't be an easy task. Harry was the first one to be picked. All he had to do was relax and let his Inner Eye take over. Wonderfully easy, supposedly.

Harry relaxed himself ready to make something up on the spot, but felt himself become slack and disembodied. He almost thought about what could be wrong, but this moment felt too good to sully by thinking in it. He looked around in the space he was currently occupying and found so many colorful strings; he just wanted to...float...here all day and play with the strings, seeing what they were. All the strings connected into a huge string floating above him made up of many different colors.

Harry felt himself drawn to Professor Trelawney's string particularly and so he touched it. He felt himself being pulled by his navel as if by a portkey.

"It's the past...Hogwarts Express...the first day of the year...there's a first year...Trelawney...two boys...second years...Potter and Black...knock her over...don't help her...another second year...Evans...helps." The description Harry gave in his head was said out loud to the class, but it sounded distant and hollow to him, not anything like him.

Harry was being pulled again by the navel, but this time away from Professor Trelawney's string and into a more full view of the class and its strings. So many colors and strings, so very tempting to go see all of them, to see all of the interactions between them and how they affected the giant string floating above.

Before Harry could investigate anymore strings he was being pulled back into his body. Back into reality where there wasn't always complete bliss, where there wasn't disembodiment, and where there were no bright and colorful strings to look at and explore. Harry's bodily and motor functions returned to him. Harry blinked lethargically and lackadaisically trying to come back into the real world and focus on the things around him. It was hard to do while laying on the ground looking up into the faces of the other kids in the class.

"The colors, they were amazing." Harry shook himself slightly while saying his thoughts aloud. Many students looked at each other in confusion wondering what the Boy Who Lived was talking about. "I don't think it worked Professor."

"That...That children is what a trance vision is like. Mr. Potter, it worked, you were successful in your trance vision attempt and on the first try too. I would like to see you after class. Who wants to go next?"

Harry still lay on the ground. It had worked, but it didn't seem as if it had to Harry. It felt like he had taken a cat nap instead of actually going into a trance vision. It hadn't felt real, but it was. The strings with the bright and beautiful colors, how they were all woven together in someway into a gigantic string floating above him in that place he had been. It was all real.