[Cinema Competition: Beauty and the Beast - Write about someone who is not who they seem to be. "Well.. there's the usual thing... flowers, chocolate... promises you don't intend to keep..."]

[Fanfiction Categories Competition: Prompt: write about a role model.]

[Interesting Words Challenge: 52/101 words, listed at the bottom]

The first letter Sybill writes is just after her great-great-grandmother's funeral, and it is blurred and smudged from all the tears.

Deere Cassandra,

I had a dreem last nite abowt the rain. What dose that meen?

I know you can't rite me back, but please send me a sine.

Love,

Your grate-grate-grandawter, Sybill, age 5

The second letter isn't until years later.

Dear Cassandra,

I hate going to Muggle school. All the boys tease me about my glasses, and all the homework leaves me with no time to practice my predictions. I've become terribly rusty. I can hardly see anything in the crystal ball you left me.

I begged Mother to let me do my schooling at home, the way we did it when you were here, but she says I must stay in school until my Hogwarts letter arrives. Mother has been very cold with me ever since Father left; there's an emotional distance between us that didn't used to be there, and every time she looks at me she adopts a yonderly expression. I think it's hard for her to be alone.

She hasn't actually told me this, Cassandra, but I think she hopes I won't get a letter.

I miss you.

Sybill

The third letter is exactly twelve weeks after that.

Dear Cassandra,

My Hogwarts letter came! It was waiting at the breakfast table, along with a giant birthday cake, when I came downstairs this morning. I've read it through dozens of times.

We're going to Diagon Alley after school to pick up my books and robes. I'm finally going to have a wand! And a crystal ball of my very own. If only you could be here, Cassandra.

Joyfully yours,

Sybill

The fourth letter she writes in the middle of the night.

Dear Cassandra,

I'm scared. I've just woken from a terrible dream about a fire. My head aches terribly. I don't know what to do. I'm afraid it might have been a premonition, but I don't know how to decipher it. It all felt so real. I could feel the heat on my face and everything, and I think I'm the one who caused it. I'm too afraid to so much as light a candle, for fear it evolves into something more, so I am writing this using only wand-light (which is strictly forbidden for students outside of Hogwarts) to starve off the intrinsic darkness of night.

(Even the night, which usually brings me comfort, is terrifying to me in the wake of this dream.)

I hate feeling so panicked in my own bedroom. This is supposed to be a sanctuary for me, an abditory where I can hide from the words that cause me pain, where I can feel safe and comforted even in the darkest of times, and yet here I am: tormented by my own mind.

What does it mean? Help me, please.

Sybill

The fifth letter is the day she loses everything.

Dear Cassandra,

It's gone. My house, I mean. It burned to the ground while I was at school. They couldn't save anything. My wand is gone. My books are gone. Your crystal ball is gone. My mother is gone.

I have an overwhelming sense of nemesism about all this. I didn't set the fire, I know. But I didn't warn anyone about my dream, either. And that makes it my fault, in a way.

I begged so hard to stay home from Muggle school today, but Mother made me go. The last thing she said before I walked out the door - the last thing she ever said to me - was, "You never know what you might miss."

Do you think my mother was a Seer? Do you think she knew?

But that's impossible. If she knew, why would she have stayed?

Yours,

Sybill

The sixth letter comes from her Common Room.

Dear Cassandra,

I don't really have much to report. I just needed a short break to clear my head. It's exam time here at Hogwarts, and I'm struggling. The rest of my House feels confident that they'll do well - we areRavenclaws, after all, and I suppose it's expected of us - but all I can focus on is the way my crystal ball shows nothing but my reflection anymore. I don't know why I'm losing my Sight. I could See just fine when you were alive. Remember when I was small, and I would foresee visitors just before your neighbors came to the door? Or when I knew odd weather was coming, and the next day it began to snow in the middle of summer? There is nothing like that now. But I suppose Divination is an Orphic art, and if it were easy to understand, then we Seers would not be quite so rare.

Still, I've become so frustrated with my crystal ball that last night I forgot how fragile it was and threw it across the room. It broke into seven pieces.

(I ached when I saw them lying there. It was as if I'd broken my own child.)

I could have restored it easily with magic, but instead I chose to repair by using a gold lacquer to fill in the cracks. That way my crystal ball won't seem so empty anymore; it will shine enough to give me hope, even though all I see within is my own face staring back.

There are people here - one boy in particular comes to mind - who have told me Divination is a farce. They offer all kinds of evidence and proof, but I ignore it all. Maybe that is unwise of me, but I fear they'll actually convince me that my own heritage is a lie, and I'm not quite prepared to begin such a life-altering journey. I'm busy enough just studying for these exams, I don't have time for such a metanoia!

Speaking of that, I'd better get back to History of Magic.

Exhaustedly yours,

Sybill

The seventh letter comes pouring directly from her heart.

Dear Cassandra,

I think I love him - Rufus Scrimgeour, I mean. He's a boy in my year, one of the ones who's often teasing me, but recently he's been standing up for me. He actually told off the girl who was spouting charientisms about the validity of Divination. I haven't ever been defended before. I quite like it.

(And it only hurts a little that I couldn't see it coming.)

A few weeks after that was our first trip to Hogsmeade, and I found myself accompanied by none other than Mr. Scrimgeour. He took me into the Three Broomsticks and bought me a butterbeer, which he paid for with his own money. And later, when we were walking back down to the castle, he offered me his arm in case I should slip. In spite of the brumous weather, I felt warm and sunny on his arm. I couldn't keep the grin off my face, and it's the happiest I've been since the day my Hogwarts letter arrived.

We spent the rest of the day talking in the Common Room - Rufus is extremely interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he wants to be an auror someday. He taught me about the Patronus charm, which wards off dementors. His Patronus is a lion - which makes sense. Rufus is utterly impavid; I don't think he knows the meaning of the word "fear."

I don't know what my Patronus is. I tried to perform one, but I'm not quite happy enough for the charm to form fully. I'm too full of nostalgia, too full of bittersweet memories and whelved emotions.

Maybe someday Rufus will be my happy thought.

In the days that followed, he and I were inseparable. Then, just before he left for the Christmas holiday (I elected to stay here, as I always do. There is no home waiting for me, after all.) he pulled me under the mistletoe hanging above the entrance to our Common Room and he kissed me.

It had a positively foudroyant effect on me. Never have I felt so dazzled in my entire existence.

I know I've built this all up in my head. I haven't found the redamancy I crave. He doesn't - can't possibly - return my love in full. I don't even know what he thought of the kiss. But it is something happy to wonder about, it gives me some childish form of raison d'être, and Merlin knows I need something to live for.

Hopelessly in love,

Sybill Trelawney (Scrimgeour)

The eighth letter comes from her heart, too, but only once it's been broken.

Dear Cassandra,

I have always thought of my heart as a place from where I can draw strength. It is stout, and willful, and courageous, and a little silly, at times, but certainly not weak.

And now I know that none of it is true.

Hearts are friable. They can crumble as easily as soil between a child's fingers. And it doesn't matter how strong you think you are: the heart is brimming with viridity, with naive innocence that makes it absolutely disintegrate the moment the real world steps in.

The real world has stepped in, Cassandra. And my poor, naive heart is filipendulous.

Rufus is not in love with me anymore.

He said it today, at breakfast, with perfect equanimity, as if it's a normal thing to say to your fiancee.

At first I didn't understand. How can a man who has been with you for seven years, a man who lives in a flat with you and lies down with you every night and wakes you with a kiss every morning - how can a man who kissed you under the mistletoe back when you were children - how can he just decide he doesn't love you anymore? Where does this anagapesis come from, and what brought it on, and Merlin, how long has he felt it?

He told me it's his wanderlust. He doesn't want to settle down until he's seen more of the world. He wants to watch the evening grow into night in India, and then rush to Spain to see the matutinal moments just before the dawn. He wants to wander, solivagant, through a forest and listen to the wind rustle the trees and just appreciate the psithurism without anyone else at his side. He wants to sit on an island at midnight and look at the road-like reflection of the moon on the water, and he wants to be serendipitous enough to be standing in a desert as the rain starts to fall so he can inhale the stale scent of petrichor, and he wants to do all of it alone, without me.

If I'm being perfectly honest, I think I would have waited for him, if not for what he told me next.

"I need an escape from you," he said. "I need to be in a place where I can leave my iced tea on the table without being nagged at for leaving a mark. I need to be able to make a mistake and then say, with the greatest pleasure, 'To hell with it!' instead of agonizing with you about why you couldn't see it coming in your crystal ball. And I need to get away from this hypophrenia you have, Sybill, because you're bloody depressed all the time, and I can't even fix it for you because you don't have a bloody reason to be."

(I do have a reason. My Sight has faded down to nothing at all. I can't predict visitors. I can't predict weather. And I certainly did not predict this.)

So he's gone. He packed up his things and left, and I have done nothing today but stare out the window and practiced becoming an eccedentesiast. When I look at my flase smile in the mirror, I see my mother staring back. I know now that she never tried to escape our burning home. Death by flame would be preferable than death by loneliness.

This flat is no home for me anymore. It is too filled with memories, of flowers and chocolates and promises that went unkept.

The only other home I have is Hogwarts.

So as soon as I finish this letter, Cassandra, I am going to put on my false smile and gather up my belongings and I am going back to Hogwarts, where hopefully I will mend my heart the same way I once mended my crystal ball: with gold, so that it comes out even better than it was before.

Yours,

Sybill

The ninth letter is unfinished.

Dear Cassandra,

I have a strange sense of anticipation today. It's as if I can sense that someone is coming, and I can't stop looking out the window to see whether they've arrived.

(I hope to Merlin it isn't Rufus. Even if it is him, there will be no happiness upon our reunion. I spent far too much time believing myself to be in Hell just because we are separated. I have convinced myself that he is worthless and choked to death the piece of my heart that ever loved him, and I have finally, after two years, begun to cicatrize. Seeing him again will do nothing but reopen the wounds that are starting to scar over. I would rather leave him to rot down in a mental oubliette.)

Maybe I'm just nervous. I have my final Hogwarts interview today. I'm in the running to become the official Divination Professor. This position will be good for me, I think. It's high time for a novaturient, and what better life change can I make than becoming a teacher?

I've also started to regain my Sight, just a little, and I have a suspicion this anticipation is related to that in some way. I wonder if it means a prediction is on its -

The tenth letter is about Harry Potter.

Dear Cassandra,

The Boy Who Lived is destined to die. I can see it. There is an outline of a giant dog within the crystal ball, and I know it can only be the Grim.

What a vicissitude for poor young Potter! What a drastic change of fortune! The irony of it all - the Boy who Lived is destined to die! - sickens me.

I don't know how to tell him. I have run the words over in my head ten-thousand times, going as far as staging the conversation with imaginary Harrys, but even this variation of sciamachy has proven unhelpful. How do you tell someone he's going to die? How do you reveal that it will be brutal, and probably all for naught?

I don't know what to do. I am terribly glad to have my Sight working again, even if everything seems a little foggy, but at the same time I wish I could dive into the Lethe and sink into oblivion. Knowledge of this variety is a curse as well as a gift.

Yours in confusion,

Sybill

The eleventh letter is short.

Dear Cassandra,

Rufus is dead. I heard today.

Sybill

The twelfth letter is blurred and tear-stained, just like the first, and also like the first it is written just after a funeral.

Dear Cassandra,

The Dark Lord has fallen. Everything is over. Harry Potter did not die, after all, though many of my friends and collegues did. I know in my mind that they died for us, for our cause, and I am eternally grateful, but at the same time I wish they had not left. So many people have left me. I have yet to find the beauty in the cycle of life and death.

I've packed away my crystal ball in my trunk. I do not intend to use it anymore. I spend far too much time trying to see what's going to happen, and it's made me miss out on everything. I never did find my Patronus. That's my deepest regret, I think; that's what makes me feel as though I've failed to become someone great.

So I'm going to take a trip. I haven't decided where yet, but I'm leaving behind everything I own and I do not intend to come back for it. I want to be free of the burdens of my past, free of the burdens of the future, free of bloody Divination, and I'm sorry for abusing your memory this way, Cassandra, but I can't keep living like this.

Because when you're as sad as I am, it isn't a life at all.

This is the last time I will write you, I think. Not that you've read any of my letters - how could you have? But it's high time I moved on from my past. Thank you for being so loving to me during the time we had together.

Yours for the last time,

Sybill Trelawney

The thirteenth letter is the one she will never read.

Dear Sybill,

There is no such thing as Divination, my love. It is merely the pareidolia built into human nature - we find comfort in shapes and patterns, and so we seek them out amidst the chaos of clouds and fog. There was never anything in my old crystal ball but fog. When you made guesses about visitors and weather phenomenons, I conjured up nosy neighbors and snow in July just to humor you. How could I help it? It brought you such joy. You created your own imaginary world, and I encouraged you, I helped build your paracosm, and then, in the blink of an eye, I was gone. It happened so suddenly that I never got the chance to tear it down. And so the child with the inability to distinguish between life and fantasy grew into a woman suffering from the same oneirataxia, and I am plagued with the knowledge that it is entirely my fault.

My legacy never existed, either. It was a story made up for your entertainment. Every prediction I made was a lie; I enchanted them to come true. No part of it was authentic. Not then, and not now, and not in the future, either - although how could I possibly know that?

I wish I could be there for you, my love, but alas, no life lives forever. I will watch over you from afar instead, and I will do all in my power to help your predictions come true, just as I did when you sat at my feet and used your tiny fingers to trace pictures in my orb.

Yours forever and ever,

Cassandra

Words from the Interesting Word Challenge, in the order that I used them

Words in italics were not explicitly used; however, they were implied by their definitions.

(I'm certain I used at least a few of these words in the wrong context. If you know how they should actually be used, feel free to correct me in a review!)

Yonderly - mentally or emotionally distant (Word 21)

Caim (Scottish and Gaelic) - "sanctuary"; an invisible circle of protection, drawn around the body with the hand, that reminds you that you are safe and loved, even in the darkest of times (Word 43)

Abditory - a place into which you can disappear; a hiding place (Word 7)

Latibule - a hiding place; a place of safety and comfort (Word 28)

Eigengrau - "dark light" or "brain grey"; the color seen by the eye in perfect darkness (Word 18)

Nyctophilia - love of darkness or night; finding relaxation or comfort in the darkness (Word 47)

Nemesism - frustration, anger, or aggression directed inward, toward oneself and one's way of living (Word 31)

Utiwaaien (Dutch) - "to walk in the wind"; to take a break to clear one's head (Word 33)

Orphic - mysterious and entrancing; beyond ordinary understanding (Word 2)

Kintsukuroi - "to repair with gold"; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken (Word 3)

Metanoia - the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life (Word 4)

Charientism - an artfully veiled insult (Word 75)

Brumous - of grey skies and winter days; filled with heavy clouds or fog; relating to winter or cold, sunless weather (Word 12)

Impavid - not afraid; fearless (Word 96)

Nostalgia - a sentimental hearing for the happiness of a former place or time (Word 87)

Whelve - to bury something deep; to hide (Word 56)

Foudroyant - dazzling, stunning in effect (Word 51)

Redamancy - the act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full (Word 78)

Raison d'être - a reason for existing (Word 20)

Friable - easily broken into pieces or reduced to nothing (Word 100)

Viridity - naïve innocence (Word 83)

Filipendulous - hanging by a thread (Word 19)

Equanimity - mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation (Word 10)

Anagapesis - no longer feeling any affection for someone you once loved (Word 71)

Wanderlust - the irresistible, incurable desire to travel or wander (Word 36)

Advesperascit - the approaching dark; the evening draws near (Word 99)

Matutine - just before the dawn (Word 55)

Solivagant - wandering alone (Word 39)

Psithurism - the sound of the wind through the trees (Word 27)

Mangata (Swedish) - the road-like reflection of the moon on the water (Word 13)

Serendipity - finding something good without looking for it (Word 79)

Petrichor - the scent of rain on dry earth (Word 38)

Culaccino (Italian) - the mark left on a table by a cold glass (Word 15)

Strikhedonia - the pleasure of being able to say "to hell with it" (Word 9)

Hypophrenia - a feeling of sadness seemingly without a cause (Word 25)

Eccedentesiast - someone who only pretends to smile (Word 85)

Iktsuarpok (Inuit) - the feeling of anticipation that leads you to keep looking outside to see if anyone is coming (Word 14)

Retrouvaille - the joy of meeting or finding someone again after a long separation; rediscovery (Word 16)

Dozakh - a place of torment one believes they are in when separated from their lover; hell (Word 59)

Floccinaucinihilipilification - the act of deciding that something is useless (Word 26)

Cicatrize - to heal by the process of forming scars (Word 97)

Oubliette - a dungeon with a door only in the ceiling; a place you put people to forget about them (Word 63)

Novaturient - desiring or seeking powerful change in one's life, behavior, or situation (Word 54)

Vicissitude - a change of fortune, especially one that is unwelcome or unpleasant (Word 22)

Sciamachy - a battle against imaginary enemies; fighting your shadow (Word 57)

Lethe - oblivion or something to make you enter oblivion and forget; a river in the Greek underworld that, when drunk from, made souls forget the sufferings of life (Word 29)

Wabi-sabi (Japanese) - the discovery of beauty in imperfection; the acceptance of the cycle of life and death (Word 101)

Manqué - having failed to become what one might have been (Word 8)

Pareidolia - the instinct to seek familiar forms in disordered images like clouds or constellations; the perception of random, stimulus as significant (Word 5)

Paracosm - a detailed, prolonged imaginary world created by a child that includes human, animal, or alien creations (Word 30)

Augenblick (German) - "in the blink of an eye"; a decisive moment in time that is fleeting, yet momentously eventful and incredibly significant (Word 93)

Oneirataxia - the inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality (Word 64)