At age seven Persephone Weaver was struck with the very odd sensation that this was all very familiar to her. In fact, she had a memory of sitting in this very room at this very age. It was fuzzy and warped, the way memories got as years went by but it was most certainly just that- a memory. Her mother had walked in from the other room to catch her with a snack she wasn't supposed to have and forbade her from having dessert that night.
The snack she was currently holding in her hand.
Persephone frowned and considered the cookie in her hand. It had been quite difficult to get in the span of time it took for her mother to disappear outside to tend to the garden. It had involved a kitchen chair and more than a little convincing to get the cookie jar at the top of the refrigerator to come to her then return to it's proper spot once her stolen snack had been acquired. It was not something she had attempted before, convincing inanimate objects to listen to her. Stolen cookies, after all, were the reason the jar had been moved so high.
Yet here was a memory telling her that her efforts were all for naught. A memory that shouldn't yet exist or perhaps not exist at all, she originally had plans to eat the cookie. Her mouth pressed into a thin line as she eyed the baked good. It provided no answers, the chocolate chips only began to melt under her fingers.
Persephone was too perplexed by the memory-that-had-yet-to-occur to eat her hard-won prize and was promptly caught by her mother. She had tossed the cookie the moment she had heard the door open but the chocolate on her fingers and the family cat only licked the cookie instead of eating the evidence like a proper pet.
From that day on Persephone considered her memories more carefully. There was one from when she was perhaps four and had used a pair of scissors to cut her long mahogany hair from her face and then promptly burst into tears when she saw herself in the mirror. Only that wasn't how it had happened. Instead she had used her grandfather's wand and burnt herself. She had the scar on the top of her right ear to prove it.
She could remember late nights in the large and expansive library at Hogwarts, surrounded by the smell of ink and parchment, old books, and the tea she had smuggled in. Of watching the ceiling of the Great Hall turn from sunset to star speckled sky while drinking pumpkin juice. Of first kisses in empty hallways and crying in the greenhouse.
But she was seven and none of these things had happened- could not have happened. They felt real and Persephone could recall a number of details, but it was impossible that any of these memories could have happened. She was seven and Hogwarts was four entire years away. Though she would dream of the Hogwarts Express and some days, in the early hours before sleep left her, Persephone would recall lists of tasks for the day no seven year old would be responsible for. She would think of a life she did not have.
Sunlight filtered through the large windows on the living room. Persephone laid stretched out on her stomach in one particularly strong beam of sunshine, legs kicking idly behind her as she scribbled on sheets of paper with markers. The family cat walked directly across her papers, not caring at all if he kicked the markers out of her reach, and lept up on the windowbox seat to nap.
Persephone frowned as the yellow marker- the perfect color for Hufflepuff ties and drapery, thank you very much- rolled under the couch and out of sight. "You know, the last time I was seven we had an owl instead and I dare say I liked him better than you, Franklin."
The black and white cat opened one amber eye to stare at the little girl for a long moment, then yawned. Franklin, it seemed, did not care one bit what sort of pets she preferred as long as it didn't interrupt his nap.
"Wait," Persephone paused, turning her words over in her mind. Felt the shape of them on her tongue. She knewwhat she had said, it had seemed perfectly natural in the instant she had spoken them, but not why she had said those words. "What?"
The gears of her mind that clicked into place did not form the conclusion that she had a knack for Divination. Instead the realization dawned, bright and clear as the afternoon sun surrounding her, that she had done this all before.
And that revelation scared her more than knowledge of the future ever could.