Prologue. How I Met Your Father


It started with a teacup.

Abhorrently pink and despicably flowery, no, this teacup was not to be taken for granted. So reviled was this mere cup that drastic measures had to be taken against it. So drastic, her arm reached out and by a totally, completely, utterly mere chance of Fate, the hated thing dropped to the floor (its untimely doom perhaps foretold by the unnoticed Grim in its tea dregs).

Note the sarcasm when emphasizing the entirely accidental cause of this unfortunate event.

"Merlin, I'm so sorry, Professor! It just—it just happened! Like Fate."

Her voice reached over the shattering of the china teacup, loud enough to be carried across the classroom to the Divinations professor. Loud enough so it drowned out the sounds of her classmate's muted laughter at how she was blatantly lying, because everyone knew that she wasn't the type of person to let a cup—an expensive cup, at that—just fall by accident off a table from where it sat. It was obvious to pretty much everyone but the professor that she was lying her socks off, and that nothing "just happened" to that teacup, unless you count Winona Way as "just happened".

"Oh no, dear, it's quite alright. Fate acts however it chooses to, and I have foreseen the end of this particular teacup ages ago. Do go fetch another, Miss Way."

The professor's airy voice was about as truthful as a hinkypunk, which were not very truthful creatures at all. Everyone had pretty much accepted the fact that Professor Trelawney was a fraud by the time they exited their first class with the crackpot.

After the laughter had subsided, and Winona's incident with the dreadful, horrid teacup had long passed by forgotten, Winona finally got up from her seat to fetch herself another teacup. It was only sensible to prolong the inevitable, really, especially when the inevitable detailed of more Divination horseshit.

Here you may notice that Winona does not hold much affection for this particular subject. In fact, one may even go as far as to say that Winona despises all that has to do with it, only taking it because of the easy Outstanding it would merit. Of course, being a Ravenclaw, she's also taking Ancient Runes and Arithmancy because she has an image to uphold.

But the narrative is getting off track, here. Winona had just gotten up from her seat to find a new, preferably blue teacup to read her future with. Tea dregs, the thought of it! Who would be as barmy as to believe that they could see something in the leftover bits of a well-brewed cup of Earl Grey, Darjeeling, or even Orange Pekoe—if you like that sort of thing.

Thinking this, Winona shook her head as she made her way down the steps to retrieve a hopefully less gaudy and fluorescent kind of teacup. It was for this reason that she happened to completely ignore the Professor's spiel on how exactly one must interpret their dregs, as "the slightest of mistakes may cause misfortune". What also slipped by Winona was the homework assignment for next week—list six ways famous Seers may have made a slip-up in their interpretations of tea dregs that would lead to misfortune of their client. Later this would prove doubly useful, but there is a time for later and there is a time for now.

Having retrieved her plain blue teacup—in no way abhorrent nor flowery, she might add—Winona proceeded to fill her chosen cup with Darjeeling tea, fresh off Trelawney's kettle. Apparently special types of tea produce special types of dregs, and Darjeeling dregs are notorious for their bad omens. Of course, being the sensible sort, Winona did not believe this. She just figured Trelawney had an absurd fondness for the type of tea.

Properly seated, with a half-cup of tea grasped in her hands (Winona may or may not have been thirsty from the incense permeating the room, and may or may not have had a sip or two or ten), Winona noticed the Professor making rounds across the classroom, slowly but surely drifting her way towards Winona herself! Spurred on by the Professor's inevitable visit to her little table in the corner, Winona took it upon herself to bullshit her way out of this. With a deep breath, a sharp mind ready to fast-talk her way into a bad omen, and a swift prayer to any such deities that might be watching, Winona looked down to her tea dregs.

She looked down, and sucked in a sharp breath.

She looked down, and saw a Grim.

"The Grim! Miss Way has seen the Grim!" Professor Trelawney loomed over Winona's shoulders to peer with her round eyes into the offending teacup. The Professor suddenly appeared stricken—she began to shriek of "such an ominous figure of death and doom" and the like to the class, warranting their attention towards Winona. Some pitying, some sympathetic, some frightened.

Winona, pale and trembling, had her eyes locked on the teacup the entire time, almost as if she were unable to tear her gaze away from the inauspicious tea dregs. No, it was no longer the Grim—it was a lightning bolt, reminiscent to that of one Harry Potter's scar.

The Grim, and Harry Potter, and the Grim—it was all Winona could think of. Her mind was racing, trying to interpret the meaning of this new revelation. Like a bolt of lightning, it struck her.

Harry Potter was in grave danger.

This was the start of her third year at Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Winona Way, a promising Ravenclaw who traveled alone. She was All-Seeing, observant and forewarning. She did not know this, but Winona Way's third year at Hogwarts was going to change her life.


There's no end-game romance in this fic guys, the title was a joke. Actually, for the time being, there is no end-game, period. I don't know where I'm going with this.