The Difference a Year Makes
Chapter 1
The apprentice looked at his watch once again. It had been a long day filled with sewing and cutting threads from the Tapestry of Fate. He only had two more threads to sew before he could call it a day and finally get some sleep. After removing two threads from one of the various drawers, he started to place them within the tapestry carefully. And that is when the Master of Fate decided to return and check up on the apprentice. The Master watched what the apprentice was doing and suddenly had a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Apprentice, which drawer did you take those threads from?" the Master asked.
"The top right, just like you instructed me to." Replied the apprentice.
"Then why is the top left drawer, the one with tomorrow's threads, open?" asked the Master.
The apprentice looked shocked for a moment. "Oh crap!"
Outside of the Realm of Fate and back on Earth, two boys were born only a day apart from one another on July 30th and 31st, and a year ahead of Fate's schedule. While differing greatly in appearances, these two boys had within them the same potential to do great things and from the day of their births their fates would forever be intertwined with that of another. It will be interesting to see all the difference a year can make.
In an upstairs room at the Hogshead, Albus Dumbledore looked at his watch one more time before turning his attentions back to the young woman in front of him. As he listened to young Miss Sybil Trelawney prattle on about her divining abilities he could only think to himself that it was perhaps time that Divination was no longer taught at Hogwarts. The interview had been going on for the past hour and Dumbledore had observed that although Trelawney descended from a very powerful seer, she had almost no seer's blood within her. Deciding that it was about time that this interview ended, Dumbledore spoke to Trelawney in an almost sympathetic tone.
"I must apologize Miss Trelawney, but at this moment I do not believe that Hogwarts will be continuing to teach the class of Divination as there is no longer much demand for it from the students. I would like to tha-"
At that moment, Sybil Trelawney interrupted with the rasping intake of breath before she spoke with an almost inhuman tone.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord lives … born to those who thrice defy him, born as the seventh month died … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord was born as the seventh month died …"
Dumbledore looked at the young woman as if he had been poleaxed. He understood what the Trelawney had just said was a prophecy and a rather hopeful one at that. His thoughts about the prophecy were halted though as Trelawney seemed to regain her wits.
"I'm sorry Professor, you were saying something?" Trelawney asked apologetically.
"When can you start?" replied Dumbledore with a smile.
At that moment, neither of the occupants of the room knew that there had been a third person listening to their interview. He had been ejected from the bar in the middle of the telling of the prophecy by the bar's owner. And as the greasy haired man picked himself up and dusted off his robes, a rather evil smile played across his lips. An almost giddy feeling of excitement took hold of him as prepared to apparate so he could tell his Master about what he had heard. The young man knew that he would be rewarded for informing his Master about the child born at the end of July to parents who thrice defied his Master was prophesized to kill him. And with a quiet 'crack', the young man was gone.