CHAPTER 10

Lily had finished her exams and had begun preparing for the start of her classes, though she doubted that she would need the use of her time turner to catch up with her classes. After all, she had a lot of time freed up, it was only her divination and ancient runes classes that overlapped and even then it was only once a week as opposed to the possible seven classes that would have overlapped prior to her completing some of her OWLs early. It seemed strange to her that she had such an affinity for learning magic, especially after her late introduction to the wizarding world. It seemed unnatural, very unnatural. But at the same time it felt like the most normal thing in the world, to hold a wand and speak an incantation, producing the same results even without the extravagant wand waving.

It was a comfort, knowing there would be some form of normalcy in her life, beyond what she had experienced over the handful of months she had spent in an undersized body. She had a friend, a mother figure, and a new goal beyond simply surviving. She had to convince Harry that Sirius was innocent, that she was innocent too. She also had to figure out how divination actually worked since the books she'd read weren't all too specific.

Her excitement however was dampened by the odd dreams she'd been having, of a fire, and men in black walking into it, and a snake growing out of the flame. She didn't understand the dream, nor why she was having it, but it kept her up at night and she was slowly becoming exhausted. Her only saviour was that she could use the time turner to go back and grab a few extra hours of sleep, though she felt it was a rather poor use of the instrument.

Lily reluctantly dragged herself out of bed, silently disheartened by the sound of her dormmates bustling around on the other side of the emerald curtains. With a sigh, she pushed the curtain back and grabbed her wand from underneath her pillow, grasping it loosely as she flicked it absently, neatening her appearance to what she hoped was an acceptable standard. She didn't pay much mind to the others as she grabbed her cleaned uniform and pulled it on, taking care to grab the notebook Dumbledore had given her. It held far too many secrets inside now.

"Lily?" Daphne spoke, tapping her on the shoulder. "You look like you're in another world."

Lily turned, suddenly snapped from her thoughts, or rather lack of thought. "I might as well be." She smiled half heartedly.

"You have your tie inside out." Daphne smiled, taking off Lily's tie and tying it herself. "Are you sure you're okay? I hear you coming in and out of the common room pretty early."

"I guess not sleeping comes with the whole school thing." Lily laughed half heartedly, picking up her bag.

"You're a huge puzzle, you know that right?" Daphne pouted, looking Lily up and down. "You come out of nowhere looking 10 years old and suddenly you're a fifth year? And you just soak up knowledge like a sponge? There's also the matter of your relationship with Potter and especially Professor Snape. I get the feeling that I'll be working you out for a while." She smirked a little and sauntered out of the dormitory.

With a fatigued sigh, Lily followed, desperately trying to remember which of her classes she actually had to attend that day, and when would be the best time for her to sneak into the common room for a nap. A nap was definitely high on her list of priorities.

Unfortunately a nap was not in her future as she had Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Divination all before lunch, and she couldn't get away in time to have a nap between them. Arithmancy was her first challenge, as she found herself muddling up the numbers and symbols on the page in front of her, which was not the best start to her lessons. Things only got worse in Ancient Runes, where she almost smashed her face into the desk, were it not for Daphne's hand on her shoulder keeping her upright. Mostly. And if she weren't already exhausted from the two classes, she had to endure a hop back in time to make it to Divination, which of course had to be in one of the highest towers in the school.

Feigning a trip to the bathroom, it wasn't hard for her to close her eyes and hold her breath as time spun back around her, though it took far more effort than it should have to open them again. With what little will power she had remaining, Lily dragged herself to the divination tower, rather glad that she had been let out of ancient runes early so her slowness wouldn't make her late. By the time she reached the bottom of the ladder to the Divination classroom, she was spent, barely registering the faces of the few classmates she would be taking the class with.

As she pulled herself up into the classroom, she was hit with a wave of incense that only made her more lethargic than she had been previously, something she hadn't thought possible. The only thing she remembered from the hour in the musky, dark room was even more runes, and the same glimpses of fire she'd been dreaming about. She briefly noticed people vacating the space when she found herself in a field, staring at a blazing fire, screams echoing around her as men without faces fed the flame, birthing the same coiling snake that had been tormenting her. Only this time, she heard someone speaking to her.

"What do you see?" The voice urged, drawing Lily's focus further.

"A fire." She responded, suddenly noticing small details in the flame. "There are faces in it, forming the flames. People are screaming, but they're not scared, they're happy? Some of them are happy, some of them aren't. There are people walking into the fire, but they're not scared, they're calm. They're going in on purpose."

"Do you notice anything else about the fire?" The voice urged. Lily's eyes narrowed on the snake, trying to drink in every detail she could find.

"There's a snake growing from it. A snake of ash and smoke." She felt her eyelids growing heavier the longer she tried to look. "There's something wrong with it, something missing. Something I'm missing."

With a sharp snap, Lily found herself stood in front of Professor Trelawney, the woman holding her upright with a bright intrigue hidden behind her thick glasses.

"Sorry Professor." Lily shook her head slightly, walking over to her bag, her mind on her notebook. "I think I fell asleep in your class."

"Not sleep, my dear." Professor Trelawney smiled. "You saw something, your inner eye showed you a glimpse of the future."

"That can't be right, I've been having that dream every night this week." Lily shook her head, rubbing a her forehead with her free hand. "Always the same dream."

"The sight comes differently to us all." She spoke airily, a content smile on her face. "Some rely on tools to glimpse the future, others are taken elsewhere, with no recollection of their words, and others see riddles, strange paintings that don't seem real, or logical." She shuffled over and took Lily's hand, patting it. "That is the one difficulty with a discipline like divination, it is always as hard to unravel your glimpses as it is to prevent them."

Lily raised an eyebrow at the woman, pulling her hand from her tight grasp. "I don't think I'm a seer. I just need to sleep." She sped from the room with a newfound energy, making her way as fast as she could to the common room. She needed sleep desperately before she attempted to do any form of studying in the library.

"It's just a dream." Lily chanted as she made her way through the castle. "Only a dream." Though she still wrote it down, every detail she could remember, as if it were the most real thing she had ever experienced.