Be A Quack.
"Are you mad?"
"She's a muggle!"
"How could she possibly – "
"Silence!" Dumbledore exclaimed, stilling the room with a wave of his hand. "We are all adults and can behave as such. Now yes, Booker is a muggle, but she was born with a very powerful gift. You, my fellow witches and wizards, know how I feel about the sight. But this girl has even me questioning my beliefs on the subject."
A quiet murmer broke out around the room before a tall man with shoulder-length inky locks looking to be in his mid-thirties, stood and respectfully waited for a nod from Dumbledore before inquiring, "How do we know what she's saying is true?"
Booker had only seen a few visions of this man – she thought his name was Professor Snape – mainly tormenting the poor boy with flyaway hair and glasses she knew as Harry. The man she saw in her visions was not a man she considered worth knowing or liking, but she noticed he didn't say this comment rudely, just curiously. She respected the man for posing the question in a non-threatening way. Only her stoner friends had ever done that for her and she promised herself she would thank Snape once she convinced the congregation that she could be trusted. Of course, she already knew what plan of action to take. She had started thinking about it months ago, narrowing down the best ways to gain the councils trust by making different decisions and seeing the effects of each. Shoulders squared and taking a deep breath, Booker stepped out from around Dumbledore.
"I can prove it," Booker didn't have to raise her voice much as most of the congregation had quieted the moment they noticed her stepping forward, away from Dumbledore's protection.
"Do it then," the black-haired man said. He wasn't trying to be nice – he thoroughly doubted her so-called 'gift' – but his respect for Dumbledore kept him from being mean.
Booker turned her head back to the man from before. Slowly she turned her focus to her hands, slipping her fingers free of their soft cotton confines before stepping closer to the man. He stared at her questioningly until she lifted her hand out to him in a gesture that clearly told him she wanted him to take it. Slowly the man raised his own hand, wondering exactly how powerful she – a muggle – could really be. The moment his skin touched hers, they both took in sharp breaths.
Booker had always found it odd how her sight worked through touch. People touching her didn't automatically mean the other person would see her thoughts, but if there were no layer between her hands and another person, her subject would catch glimpses of her mind. She'd stopped touching anyone but her mom at a very young age, and still shied away from hand contact without barriers. Her mom had actually made the black cotton gloves she was wearing – one of the pair of matching mother-daughter gloves Whaley had made when she was little.
Her heart wrenched upon seeing the first glimpse of what Snape was thinking – the man as a boy hanging upside down in the air, a boy with flyaway hair and glasses laughing with a group of friends. Booker squeezed the man's hand as she saw a scene from her own memory come into focus, knowing Snape was seeing it as well – a teenage girl with shocking blonde hair being cornered by three girls, throwing her arms up to block her face as the middle girl throws a punch. Their visions intermingled, neither playing over the other nor fading away completely – the boy from Booker's previous visions studying with a redhead boy and curly-haired girl, the blonde girl losing her footing and falling to the ground, Snape's hand pulling Harry's face out of a bowl of water, the blonde girl's skin raising with smatterings of bruises and her clothes spotting with blood, Harry's look of astonishment and shame, a solid kick landing on Booker's head before a yelled 'freak' and pounding footsteps fading away.
Allowing their hands to fall apart, Booker stepped back and quickly pulled her black glove back over her slender fingers.
"She's telling the truth," Snape said dazedly, looking at this muggle in a whole new light. She had obviously lived one hell of a life, and she was very brave to willingly continue other people's scrutiny of her gift when she could easily just pretend it didn't exist.
The group didn't look much convinced and Booker knew she'd have to do the touch seeing again, so she turned to the man she knew would sway the most people in the room. All she needed was a majority vote; she'd worry about convincing any other non-believers after that. Booker pulled off her glove again with a sigh as she walked toward Arthur Weasley. Holding her hand out, she watched as the older redheaded man's eyes lit up with excitement and eagerly gripped Booker's hand.
Again, the first vision sent Booker's gut churning and her own memories melded with the man's – a younger Arthur looking down into the eyes of his first baby boy with eyes glistening, a small child wearing a bear hat sitting huddled in a dark room hearing screaming and yelling close by, Arthur comforting a crying Molly with kisses and whispered words of comfort and love, a portly black woman turning to a bony young girl and declaring how long she'd been waiting for Booker. As the visions faded, their hands fell apart and Mr. Weasley smiled broadly at the young lady before him.
"Now that was something," Arthur beamed. Turning to the rest of the group, Arthur declared, "She's the real deal alright. I've never known anyone that could do what she just did. Brilliant. Shall we put it to a vote then?"
There was a murmured agreement and Booker saw a flash of a room almost full of raised hands, and she started beaming before the vote had even commenced. She had done it again. Surprised everyone, and proven herself. She'd never been this open with her gift before, and it was both exhilarating and terrifying.