A/N: As usual, I do not own Harry Potter. If I did I wouldn't resort to writing fan fiction.
Chapter 9: I Know How it Usually Goes
Ivy
I stopped breathing, my hands covered my mouth, and my eyes trained on the line of green zooming through the air toward Angelina. She clutched the Quaffle and swerved, trying to avoid the Slytherins.
They scattered when Harry on his Firebolt zoomed toward them; Angelina's way became clear.
Beside me, Ingrid clutched her face in agony and watched with baited breath, the lion Maisie had painstakingly painted onto her cheek slowly smudging off from her rubbing it absentmindedly.
"SHE SCORES! SHE SCORES! Gryffindor leads by eighty points to twenty!"
The stands erupted with cheers, I leapt up and screamed in excitement, "YES!"
Ingrid clutched my leg tightly and laughed, "Look!"
I followed her finger and watched as Harry pelted after the Slytherin seeker –
He pulled out of his intense dive, his hand clutched tightly into a fist and one of the widest smiles on his face. As suddenly as he had caught the Snitch, he was tackled in a mid-air hug by a sobbing Oliver Wood, followed by the rest of the team.
"Come on!" shrieked Ingrid in my ear. She grabbed my forearm and yanked me down the rickety steps and onto the pitch and into a sea of crimson.
People were screaming themselves hoarse, it was all a confusing mess of Gryffindor red and gold. Percy Weasley was jumping all around, his horn-rimmed glasses askew on his nose, and Professor McGonagall leaning heavily on a second year student, sobbing almost as hard as Oliver Wood and wiping under her eyes with a painfully scarlet flag.
Fred clapped me on the back as I passed him, but George was nowhere in sight. Ingrid pulled me toward Alicia and Angelina and engulfed them in a tight group hug, Katie Bell tacking onto us not a moment later, followed by Lee and a few other students that I'd never met.
The group moved toward Dumbledore, and suddenly I was swept into someone's arms.
George rested his chin on my head. I grinned and watched as Oliver handed a gleaming Quidditch cup to Harry.
"Say butterbeer!" Ingrid pulled a camera out of her bag and took a picture of me and George. A puff of bright purple smoke was emitted from the top of the camera.
Winning the cup seemed to have cast a spell on the entirety of Gryffindor house. For a week at least, the team's victory wiped any thoughts of exams from everyone's minds. June crept up on the school in the blink of an eye, and it had injected everyone with an energy that could only be explained as anticipation for the summer holiday.
"It's because of the Quidditch World Cup," Fred had explained to me one day, "it's in Britain this summer."
A different kind of mood settled around the fifth and seventh year students. June not only meant summer, but also OWLs and NEWTs. They tended to linger near windows and gaze out at the grounds wistfully, before trudging along with their bags laden with heavy textbooks.
Our teachers had also started to kick into 'revision mode', deciding to just drill us during classes rather than set us with homework. I didn't have any more time for any extra lessons with professor Lupin, although I did stop by for a cup of tea and to thank him for all of the help he had given me.
"There you go, Agnes," The owlery was deserted, besides the other owls, so George and I had crept up there to send something off. I tied my continuation of enrollment to her ankle, to be sent to Dumbledore. I'd nearly forgotten all about the deadline, so it was a good thing that Max had reminded me. I would have been stuck trying to find a time to send the letter right in the middle of exams. Agnes nipped my finger affectionately and took off through the tall owlery windows.
"I still can't believe you're staying," George murmured into my ear. I grinned and wrinkled my nose.
"Let's get out of here, I've got a big stack of notes to be sifting through... "
"I'm pretty sure most of it is games of hanger-men," said George.
I pushed open the door and led him down the spiraling steps, "It's hangman, and I seriously regret teaching it to you and Fred. It just gets more and more inappropriate the longer you two play it."
"It gets more and more fun, you mean."
"Sure," We had reached the fat lady, "Carpe Diem," I said to her.
"Absolutely," she said with a smile, swinging open for us.
The common room was nearly silent when we entered it, everyone had their heads bent low over books and sheaves of parchment. The quiet was broken only by the occasional sniff, the scratching of a quill, and rustling papers. A window sat open, stirring the air in the room with a slight breeze.
McGonagall had told us our exam schedule only yesterday, and everybody was cramming like mad. Even Fred and George, who had yet to give a damn about school work, put a bit of effort into studying. Our first exam, Theory of Charms, was slated for Monday morning.
Ingrid was absolutely freaking out about her Divination and Transfiguration exams. She sat huddled in a corner if the common room, with textbooks on both subjects spread out on either side of her, going from one to the other as quickly as she could. The second she caught sight of me, she began beckoning wildly. I sighed and settled down next to her, waving George off to finish studying with Fred.
We would be receiving the results of our exam 'sometime in July', according to Professor McGonagall, so I had that to look forward to.
After a while of last-minute revision, my eyes started to get heavy with sleep and the words on the page started blurring together. Realizing that I was getting nowhere, I trudged up to my dormitory and sank heavily onto my bed, not even bothering to change, and drifted off in exhaustion.
The following two weeks rushed past, in a blur of questions and spells.
I felt confident about how I did on my Charms and Transfiguration exams. The questions were rather straightforward, and the practical portion was mindlessly easy. The Herbology exam, on the other hand, was a disaster. I'll be lucky if I even scrape an Acceptable. The Fanged Geranium I was tending to shriveled up and died in the middle of the exam – I just hope the written part of the test can float me. The exams for Defense and Potions were both easy enough, although I mixed up the blasting curse and the cutting hex in Defense.
The exams for Care of Magical Creatures and Astronomy were both alright, although I don't feel like I did as well as I could have. I'll have to thank George. Because of his help with Arithmancy, I understood the exam better than I ever could have. I actually feel like I did really well on it.
I don't even want to think about that History of Magic exam. I know I absolutely bombed that thing. I only knew the answer to three questions on the entire exam. Three.
"Oh, that History of Magic exam was absolutely dreadful," moaned Ingrid. She trudged into the common room and rubbed her face tiredly, "but, we're done."
"I didn't think it was that bad," said Maisie. She had joined me and Ingrid out of the great hall after the exam.
"Of course you thought it was easy, it's your best subject!" Ingrid dropped onto a sofa after shooing away some first years. The two of them continued talking about the exams, while I took a seat on the floor. Fred, George, and Lee had gone to get some celebratory sweets from the kitchens, and Angelina was off enjoying the nice weather with Alicia – the two had decided to fly about the Quidditch pitch.
I fished around in my bag for some scrap parchment and a quill to doodle with, when my hand brushed an unfamiliar square of paper. Furrowing my brow, I pulled a letter out of bag and tried to figure out how it had gotten in there.
Suddenly, I realized it had been sent along with the letter from Dumbledore and the one from my sister. I broke the wax seal and read its contents in growing shock.
"Maisie, Ingrid, I'll be right back –" I jumped up and left the common room, the letter clutched tightly in my hand. My thoughts were racing, trying to put together a reasonable explanation for everything I'd just realized, and for everything I hadn't thought about until now.
I approached the third floor, and stepped up to the gargoyle statue that guarded Dumbledore's office. I bit my lip hesitantly, "Peppermint Toad?"
To my relief, the statue leapt aside and allowed me to climb the stairs into the Headmaster's office. I knocked on the door.
"Enter,"
I pushed open the door and was greeted by Dumbledore, working at his desk. He glanced up at me and smiled.
"Ah, Miss Miller, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
My frown deepened. Where do you begin with something like this? I approached his desk and took a seat across from him, smoothing my skirt and clutching the letter in my hands like it was a life line.
"I'm probably over-reacting about this, but things just stopped making sense the more I researched,"
Dumbledore looked much more interested once I'd mentioned research. "Research? Into what?"
I laughed somewhat nervously, "Where do I even begin?"
"I find the beginning to be a perfectly reasonable place to start," said Dumbledore with a smile.
My laughter sounded a bit forced, although, what would you expect? I'm sitting in front of one of the most powerful wizards in all of Great Britain, trying to tell him about something that'll probably end up being a dead-end or a waste of time.
I paused, trying to find the best way to phrase everything, "I have these… dreams."
Oh, I definitely had Dumbledore's attention now. "What kinds of dreams?"
"There's not really a way to describe them. Sometimes, it's like I'm just watching a scene play out. Other times, I interact with the people, and they're people I've never met in my life. I never thought twice about them, until Trelawney mentioned something to me."
"And you immediately believed whatever Professor Trelawney had said?"
"Of course not! I don't put much faith into Divination, but it was weird that she even knew about the dreams in the first place, I mean, the only person at Hogwarts that knows is George."
"George Weasley?" asked Dumbledore.
I nodded before continuing, "I didn't even bat an eyelash when she'd said that my dreams weren't meaningless. Until I had another one,"
"Another dream, you mean?"
I rubbed my forehead, "Yes. This one was more vivid than some of the other ones I've had before. I was in this dark house, and it was decorated so strangely. There were house elf heads on the walls, and Slytherin memorabilia everywhere. It was just creepy, and I walked into the kitchen and there were all these people that I'd never met, greeting me like we were old friends! There was one woman with bright pink hair, Tonks," Dumbledore stroked his beard at that and nodded, "I have no idea how I knew her name, I just started talking to her like it was nothing. And Sirius Black comes in and gives me a great big hug! Then Professor Lupin walks in, and calls him some weird nickname – Padfoot…" I frowned.
Dumbledore stood up and began walking around, with a thoughtful look on his face.
"And of course I was in tears when I woke up."
Dumbledore stopped pacing and turned to me with his eyebrows raised, "Tears?"
"Every time."
I held up the piece of paper I was still clutching, "and then there's this. I woke up confused beyond belief. Hugging Sirius Black is the last thing I'd ever be doing, right? He's a convicted murderer! So I thought, why not humor Professor Trelawney? I went to the library to read through his trial, but Madam Pince couldn't find a copy of it on file. She told me to write to the Ministry for one, so I did."
I unfolded the letter and read a portion of it out loud, "We are sorry to inform you that the Ministry does not have record of a trial for Sirius Black. Thank you for your inquiry, The Department of Records."
I set it down in my lap, "Professor Dumbledore, does this mean that Black never got a trial?"
His face was troubled.
"There is a possibility, but I'm afraid that there was enough evidence against him that –"
"Like Peter Pettigrew?"
Dumbledore nodded, "Peter Pettigrew's murder, along with the deaths of thirteen muggles,"
"But what if he was framed?" I asked.
"How do you mean?"
"This is a relatively crazy theory, but what if Pettigrew, not Black, blew up the street of muggles."
"Are you suggesting that he killed himself in the process?" asked Dumbledore.
"No," I said, searching my memories for something I seemed to have missed, "no, something else happened…" I looked up into the brilliant blue eyes of Dumbledore, "He's an animagus," I suddenly remembered, "I dreamt about it. A rat,"
"Miss Miller, do you remember when your dreams first began?"
I shook my head, "Not exactly. Maybe around three or four? The earliest one I can remember is of this great, black lake in a dark cavern."
Dumbledore studied me intently.
"Do your parents know of these dreams?"
"When I was younger they did. They think I outgrew them. Why?"
Dumbledore stroked his beard and regarded me for a moment, before turning to the shelf behind him; scanning for something rather important, his hand closed around the spine of a book that was so dusty I could barely tell its color. It was crammed into one of the higher shelves, but with one mighty heave, it came free. He carried back to his desk, dusting it off as he went, revealing a navy cover.
Despite the fact that the book was old and dirty, the inside of it was pristine. It was obvious that Dumbledore rarely opened the book. Perhaps never, although it was unlikely that he owned a book that he'd never read before. He flipped through the book, nodding as he went, then looked back up at me, folding his hands.
"Miss Miller, I have reason to believe that you are a Viewer."
What the hell is a 'Viewer? "A Viewer?"
"Viewing is a part of a rarer branch of Divination, known as Major Divination. A branch that also houses Seers, and Evaluators."
"Are you saying that I have the Sight?" I asked in disbelief
"A form of it, yes," he said with a small smile and a twinkle in his eye.
"But how have I not known? I feel like foresight is a pretty conspicuous thing…"
He frowned in thought, "I'm not entirely sure. Magic is often a fickle friend. It can have a mind of its own and lead us to fate we may not have chosen in the first place."
"Oh," that was vague, "So then how did I become a Viewer in the first place?"
"It is a nearly eradicated gift, only appearing every third generation or so within a family – if it even appears in the first place – with the first dreams occurring around age three."
"Three of my grandparents are muggles, so that only leaves my Grandfather. Robert Crawford." I said after a moment.
"Crawford… I'm certain I have heard that name before," said Dumbledore. He opened the book up to one of the first few pages and looked back up at me, "Do you happen to be related to a woman named Nancy Pickett? Or perhaps I should say Nancy Crawford,"
I nodded, "She was my Great-Grandmother."
Dumbledore smiled, "It seems that your Great-Grandmother was also a Viewer."
"Really?" I leaned forward in my seat to see what exactly he was referring to. He shut the book and handed it to me. I caught a glimpse of the faded gold lettering that spelled out, Advanced Divination: The Unlearnable Art by Trent Trevington.
"You may keep it," said Dumbledore, "it may come in handy,"
I smiled and accepted the book, and wiped the palms of my hands on my skirt because they were unnecessarily clammy. I dove straight into my next flurry of questions.
"So what do I do exactly?" I asked.
"Viewers can see into the past, present, and future through their dreams. Viewers and Seers cannot control what they see, or what they prophesize about. Knowledge of the future – albeit, conscious knowledge of the future – is what makes Viewing so dangerous in particular. Seers cannot remember their prophecies, and in rather extreme cases, that they have made a prophecy at all. Seers cannot see full scenes play out, nor can they see into the past.
He fixed me with a serious stare, "Listen to me, Ivy; should the knowledge that you have this ability fall into the wrong hands, it could be truly disastrous. Tell only those that you trust with your life."
I put my face in my hands for a moment, trying to collect… something. "What do you mean by disastrous?"
Dumbledore sighed. "I am telling you this only because I feel you should know it. I fear that Lord Voldemort seeks to return, and should that happen, and should he find out that you are a Viewer, he will stop at nothing to use you in order to gain information of the future."
I realized now what he meant. My heart plummeted to my toes and I felt my breath shorten.
"Wh-" I floundered for something to say, my words escaping me. "Wait," I said suddenly, "the Chamber of Secrets is real then?"
Dumbledore nodded. Memories of dreams I'd had when I was a little girl rushed to the surface of my mind, "Then who - it was Ginny Weasley?"
Dumbledore nodded sadly again, "Only last year, Miss Weasley was taken into the Chamber by Lord Voldemort,"
My hands came to cover my face as my dreams suddenly became reality. Dumbledore sat in silence, letting me just soak in everything.
I couldn't help but start crying. I felt like an idiot, crying in front of Dumbledore, but the horrors I'd experienced as nightmares were real. My nightmares were real.
He wordlessly conjured up a handkerchief and handed it to me. I gave him a watery smile and accepted it, finally finding my voice again.
"S-so," I sniffed, "what else do I need to know?"
"You mentioned tears?"
I laughed, but it came out as more of a sob. "Yes, whenever I have one of these dreams, I wake up crying. Why? Is that important?"
Dumbledore nodded, "Very. Viewer tears are a highly magical – and highly valuable – substance used in the production of Pensieves. The last known Viewer died about twenty years ago. One of the reasons Pensieves are so hard to come across is that only a few can be made per century. I own one of the last remaining ones in Magical Britain."
"You own a Pensieve?"
"I do. In fact," he pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time, nodding, "if it's permissible, I'd like to see some of the dreams you've had,"
My eyebrows rose involuntarily. I had not been expecting that, "Of course," I said, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. "What would you like to see?"
"Perhaps your dream about Pettigrew and Black? And anything else you might find important,"
I bit my lip and tried to think of anything that might be important to show to Dumbledore, trying to stay away from dreams I'd realized were obviously from the future.
"How do you extract them?" I asked him a moment later.
He conjured a vial and held it out to me, "Put your wand to your temple, and concentrate on a specific memory, remembering all of the details that you can. Once you've done that, pull your wand away."
I pressed the tip of my wand to my temple and thought of the first memory I wanted to show him, the confrontation between Pettigrew and Black. I remembered the slightly crazy look in Pettigrew's eyes, the despair and hopelessness in Sirius's. I remembered the street they were on, the shops that lined the street, the cat that skittered across the road, the dog that chased after it, and the people that were walking along and minding their own business. I focused on Pettigrew's transformation, how he cut off his own finger, the spell he used to blast the street and make his getaway. Everything. It had to be as precise as I could manage.
Slowly, I retracted my wand, bringing with it a thread of silver. Dumbledore smiled as I lowered the memory into the vial. I brought my wand back to my temple a second time.
This dream seemed to have taken place much later, and somewhere on the Hogwarts grounds. I had no idea exactly when, but was much shorter in length that the previous one, and only showed a bound, and older looking Pettigrew transforming back into a rat and scurrying away into the Forbidden Forest.
I placed the second memory into the vial, and put my wand back into my pocket.
"I think that's it for now," I said. Dumbledore nodded and opened up the dark cabinet I'd seen the first time I had been in his office. He poured the memories into the stone basin.
"That's a Pensieve?" I asked, eyeing the bowl curiously, "I've only ever heard of them,"
Dumbledore nodded, his eyes twinkling behind his half-moon glasses. I took a seat at the armchair in front of his desk while he bent low over the Pensieve, until his nose dipped into the silvery substance. Further and further, he leaned into the Pensieve until he fell into it, completely disappearing from view.
I sat in the armchair quietly, keeping my eyes on the spot where he had disappeared. After a minute, I let my eyes wander around his office. Trying to keep my thoughts on a lighter subject than those of this afternoon. Or the apparent coming return of You-Know-Who. I shuddered and patted my cheeks lightly to stay focused on other things…
So I've got the Sight. That's just irony there. Honestly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Dumbledore had reappeared from the Pensieve.
He looked understandably upset, and he pulled his pocket watch out a second time.
"I believe that is all the time I have. I must attend to some business on the grounds, but if you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to visit me before the school year is complete." He lifted the book off the desk and handed it to me with a smile.
"Thank you, Professor." I said to him, waving to Fawkes – who I hadn't noticed throughout my brooding. He chirped in response.
I backed through the door, and made my way to Gryffindor Tower with the book clutched tightly to my chest.
A/N: Okay, so it's been a while, but this chapter did NOT want to be written. It's taken so long to finish the dang thing, I apologize for the lateness.
Also, I've gone back and fixed/changed a few things with the earlier chapters (1-3). They're small changes, so it won't affect the story line at all, but it clarifies some minor details. Definitely. Maybe I should classify it as a re-wording? Is that a thing? Oh well.
Chapter 10 is well on its way, as well as re-worded/fixed up versions of chapters 4 and 5.
Also, thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments and reviews this month! It means so much to me, and thank you all for reading!
REVIEW!
Until next time!
