Hogwarts was awing, she had never seen anything like it. Looking across the lake se believed it was part of something bigger and better, nothing with such raw magnificent majesty could be a bad place.
As a Alice, a girl she had met on the train pulled her toward somewhere saying "all the first years are supposed to come this way, hurry up Sybil! I want to get a good spot, we only get to cross the lake once, Sybil are you listening?"
Alice gave her a tug and elbowed her way through older students while Sybil smiled at the castle dreaming of years to come and a better life. Surely her nightmares would stop here, nothing bad could ever happen here. Alice was great and would be an awesome best friend. She had made other friends, too. Which she thought was especially impressive because it wasn't even the first day of classes.
Oh, Sybil knew here parents would protect her from whatever they could but her mother didn't have magic and Sybil was afraid she had stopped loving she had been small maybe six or so Sybil had bad dreams for as long as she remembered first they had been small nothing's that she barely remembered. A pretty boy almost a teenager talking to a very large snake in a castle. She had told her mum and dad. They had thought nothing of it, but then she had continued dreaming of the boy, and he was not a good boy.
She saw him to tell the snake to do bad things, it terrified her awake. Even more scary someone had to have been in her room when she was sleeping, her things were moved. She asked her parents they said no one had been in the room. She kept dreaming of bad things with the boy and the snake, they turned people to stone. She told her dad about her bad dreams, and he would hug her and say "Sweetie it didn't happen, there are no snakes that will come to turn you into stone." Then she would always snuggle in-between her mum and dad, falling asleep for a second time to have better dreams she would never quiet remember.
Sybil had believed her father, until one night she had woken up from her worst bad dream yet. This time the snake had looked at a girl and she had died, Sybil did not want to be the next girl the snake looked at. She went to her parents room to tell them and get a good cuddle, but she heard them talking, and hesitated.
"I'm worried about all this childish nonsense, she wakes up every night and tells us outlandish story's."
"It's nothing to worry about sweetheart."
" Nothing, she's like you with all that strange magic and it's doing this to her giving her night terrors and making her babble about nightmare creatures."
"My love, magic wouldn't do this it doesn't give children dreams like this."
"You said your great grandmother or some such, saw things. What if our little girls mad and she's just getting old enough for us to notice."
"Mary, my great grandmother wasn't mad she was a seer, and before you say it. A seer doesn't just have true dreams. True seers rarely know when they've prophesied something, they are simply a conduit for the magic. Even if she was a seer some of her dreams would be coming true, I've looked into snakes that petrify people and only basilisk victims do anything like that. We've had no clear basilisk victims in a long time, and the most recent petrification victims happened years ago. I saw them while I was at Hogwarts and they were most definitely not turned to stone, more frozen."
"Then how on earth did she get this idea into her head if it's not magic, nothing else makes sense. Doesn't it have to be magic when we watch her sleep everything in her room flys about and makes a mess."
" No it doesn't have to be magic, things are fly about sine she's upset children her age are prone to accidental magic. As for where she got the idea she could have read it in my journals from school, I did let her take a look at a few of mine when we had our talk about magic. I'll just have to explain to her that my silly Ravenclaw friend thought that it might be a Basilisk but people we just falling under the sort of stasis charms I use to keep lunch cool when we go out."
"But isn't it a-"
"Mary, it might be stretching the truth but it's best and these dreams cause her pain. If I caused them I've got to fix them and this is the best way for her."
Sybil had slinked off quietly, they didn't believe her about the boy and the snake. They would never believe her, so in the morning when they asked how she slept she put on the brightest smile she could muster and said good. When they asked about her dreams she said she didn't remember, her dreams made people sad and they didn't remember anyway.
Going to Hogwarts now Sybil still dreamed about the boy, but he was a man now and he did much horrible things. Once her parents had given her a tonic to help her sleep it had just made her dreams more terrifying and confusing. She always knew he was doing bad things, he even had a sign a skull with a snake. She just tried not to bother with them she told herself the he wasn't real, even if she knew it was a lie.
But this was Hogwarts her dad told her she would learn magic and she believed him. He had also talked to her mum about a wizarding war to her mum (she hadn't spied just listened when they thought she was reading). They had argued about sending her, but her father had convinced her mum that this was the safest place for her. Sybil agreed, she felt like while bad things still happened Hogwarts would be her haven it would be her safest place. Her dreams were still horrifying but she just felt this aura of safety and protection like any of the bad people who followed the snake man couldn't just pop in here whenever they pleased like they did in her dreams.
Riding across the lake had been fun she had hoped for and more. Going into the palace was fun, she had chatted with Alice. Alice wanted to go into Gryffindor like their other friends (two boys!). Sybil assured them they'd both get in and she'd go into Ravenclaw but Alice giggled and said "Sybil you can't possibly know that! Sometimes your so funny how come you want to go into Ravenclaw?"
"They know lots, and it's the beginning of the first wizarding war. My dad said a lot of the old family's are fighting each other because they feel differently about muggleborns. I want to be with people who want to learn not to fight."
"Well we do have to help muggleborns, they don't know anything about magic! I met Ernie on the train and he's awesome and muggleborns." Said Alice's friend Frank while swinging his arm around his new friend Ernie, the boys smiled and laughed. To them the war wasn't there problem it was something adults dealt with while they had fun. It was best to avoid anyone to wound up or upset about it.
"But I can't help anyone until I learn magic and I need to learn!" Sybil exclaimed
"You get in trouble for accidental magic too?" Chucked Frank
"Something like that." Sybil giggled back weakly "Now hurry up I don't want to miss the sorting!" She exclaimed racing up the stairs.
Alice, Frank and Ernie never thought anything of it when they three were placed in Gryfindoor while Sybil was sorted into Ravenclaw. Afterall the hat must have known everyone would do best where they wanted to be.
Sybil was right about Hogwarts, it was a good place. She was so happy she got to go all over the most amazing castle, had the most amazing food, an amazing library and most importantly she learned magic. Things didn't break when she got upset at all anymore! Sure sometimes people thought she was odd and she got teased because she said something silly every now and then. But she barely ever remembered what she said and she could usually laugh it off with the other Ravenclaws. Her dreams were easier to deal with when she was so happy.
One had woken her up this morning though, and it was late enough she could just wake up early for today. Yesterday, she had heard the older girls talking about Professor Kettleburn (Care of Magical Creatures, which was only for older students, bummer) showing them unicorn today. Sybil thought she might be able to sneak a peak, they said there lessons were by the gamekeepers Hut and unicorn were supposed to be extra special creatures. Both Muggles and Wizards thought so so they must be super important.
So she begged a bucketful of carrots and apples from a house elf (horses liked those and they were kind of like Unicorn). The house elf had insisted she eat breakfast before she explored this morning. He brought food saying " It's too early for young misses to be about without at least a hot porridge." So she gulped it down as he watched, then he whisked the dishes away, but made her promise not to skip any meals, he thought she was too skinny and she should even go for a second breakfast this morning. She liked how nice he was if a bit silly.
After tromping through the groundswell skinning her knees and hands a few times she found an amazing magical creature. He might not be a unicorn but she'd never heard of a creature like him, she'd heard about a pegasus but that didn't quiet suit him, even if he was a winged horse. He had a big, bony figure and face she imagined was kin to a dragon except he had the purest white eyes she had ever seen. His eyes glittered which was both strange and special since there was no pupil to glitter but he still moved them around happy as can be. He as room a carrot from her earring the entire thing even going so far as to like her fingers clean.
For the next hour she prattled to him and a few of his other horse friends about all her problems while sharing carrots. They didn't look like friendly creatures but they were happy to play with her and they raced for fun over the lake. They snorted and made horse-laughing sounds when she told them stories and they nuzzled her better when she told them people told her she said things she didn't remember. When she told them about her dreams they listened patently.
"Hello there, it seems like you've been making friends with the Thestrals this morning, but I wasn't quiet sure." Said Professor Kettleburn startling her a little bit.
She looked at him surprised " Of course we're friends, can't you tell."
"Well they do tend to frighten those who can see them sometimes, young miss."
"What do you mean? Why would I be frightened?"
"Well not everyone can see them, and because not everyone can see them. Only a person who has glimpsed death may see a Thestral, and an ill-informed group mistakenly took them as omens of death."
"Why?"
" Thestrals have a very rare magic, to not be seen by a simple magical eye is very peculiar. All rare and strange magics have some effects." He chuckled, "Some people have a hard time they even exist."
"That's silly!" Sybil giggled "Of course they're real. We can see them and look they even like carrots."
"Very right, Miss Trelawney, if anyone who can't see Threstrals came by they would see the air munching on your carrots. It would be rather confusing."
"I guess that might frighten people, I said something Evelyn Prince didn't understand and she called me a crack pot fool who couldn't wait to make up stories about things. I guess she was just scared of what I said."
"What did you say to her?"
"I'm not quiet sure I remember professor. People keep telling me I said that 'the halfblood prince would be a hero because of love ever lasting. And he would be happiest in death' But I don't remember saying that and I don't know Evelyn Prince enough to say anything like that to upset her so much."
" Don't worry about it child. Miss Prince is the unreasonable sort and she's old enough to know better than to get upset with much younger students like yourself about something silly. Now I better take care of these fine Thestral friends of yours and you better get off to breakfast."
Later at breakfast, Sybil saw the skull with the snake inside of it on the profits front page. The article was entitled "Murder or war? Strange symbol marks they sky over massacred homes.".
Sybil knew it was just the beginning and she knew what the mark meant. The snake boy would be causing all the terrible things from her dreams to come true again, but this time she would see it before it happened. She knew she'd be seeing more things and saying things she didn't remember. Would it drive her mad? Seeing horrors that hadn't happened yet? She had dreamed about the strange mark in all manner of places; Diagon alley, the town her grandparents lived in, close to a sign saying Godricks hollow, and she had even dreamt the mark on people's arms. She had dreamt the picture on the front page of the paper what felt like ages ago. It was a green skull with a serpent slithering out of an eye socket and it distinctively lit up the night sky over a large home blocks from Diagon ally. It was the first of many and Sybil knew she couldn't stop any of the dreams or visions. She had tried before, she tried to be sorted into Gryfindoor but the hat had told her that she could change many things, but she couldn't change herself.
She felt like the dreams,the visions, everything was a tide she had to swim against. But it was pulling her under and bashing her so hard against the rocks she was loosing her way. Perhaps the only way to beat this tidy was to swim with it. Immediately she knew the longer and harder she fought, the more it would break her. But how does one ride any tide so large and vast, kin to madness?
Maybe she could be like the Thestrals, people thought they were scary because they could only be seen after you saw a death. Sybil was pretty sure she was a seer, it meant she made omens by saying them. What she was doing had to be some kind of rare strange magic, that few people would understand. But how was she to get help if they didn't understand and were scared of what she said? If the omens she made were anything like her dreams they were so horrid no one would ever believe her, and composed of strange cryptic flashes that rarely made sense until she saw them happen. She would have to find a way to make them less scary, perhaps if she said silly things too. People would think she was being funny instead of crazy like Evelyn Prince. Maybe Professor Kettleburn would help; he was nice, a fellow Ravenclaw and he wasn't afraid of Threstrals.
After all Hogwarts is home and leaving wasn't an option. If she left she wasn't sure she could handle the dreams again. She would have to figure out a way to stay at Hogwarts no matter what. She would need help to make that happen, her problem was fairly big- but she knew the more people who helped her with the problem would make it smaller.
If people decided she was mean or crazy they would probably make it harder for her to live here. Kids would be scared of a crazy person and parents would complain even if they weren't. Plus she wasn't sure if they let crazy people learn magic. It was better to say weird things and be a nice kind of strange person like an eccentric. Professor Dumbledore was an eccentric and he was headmaster of Hogwarts. Maybe Professor Kettleburn would help her arrange a time to speak to him.
Sybil knew a lot of things were going to happen, but any single thing that happened would require work and preparation to make it happen. Sure the snake man was going to do all manner of awful things, and maybe she couldn't stop them – but she could prepare for them. The snake man was a problem but he wasn't just her problem anymore. The mark was his and she had seen it outside of her dreams. The mark was so intertwined with the snake man it meant he had to be real in some shape or form. Since he was real he wasn't just her problem anymore. In the end it would alright, she knew Professor Dumbledore would help her with the snake man problem. In fact she was pretty sure he would be instrumental in stopping him.
AN: thank you for your time, I would really appreciate thoughts on the rating. I think it's safe for kids to read and an important way to think about problems but I'm not sure if it's complex enough I should up the rating to T. Thoughts would be much appreciated.