Author's Note:

Week 7 Constellation: Corvus
Word limit: 500
Result: 1st Place

Arcane Omen

Hermione put little stock in tasseomancy. She read the symbols in her morning tea not as a predictor of what her day might hold, but instead as a smug reminder of coincidence. Cups that read struggle preceded easy days as often as difficult ones. Cups of good fortune could leave her crying and reaching for a bottle at the day's end.

Cups that read illness and death were de rigueur. As a St. Mungo's Healer, there was little doubt of those.

As a ritual, it reminded her that there were some things magic couldn't foresee. Unknowable events could still remain in her control and under her influence. Their outcomes depended on her alone: a combination of skill, knowledge, and pattern recognition, applied judiciously after a half a lifetime of experience.

But one spring morning, a raven appeared, black and bold in the dregs. The ill omen foretold bad news and death. It sent a shiver crawling down her spine.

The leaves did not change how she performed her job, but when Scorpius Malfoy was admitted to her ward, she remembered it.

The boy lay motionless. A butterfly pulse trembled at his pale wrist, and shallow breath barely lifted his chest. His father, distraught, sat bedside, elbows on knees, head sunk against interlaced hands.

Draco looked up when she entered, his terror washing away into something like gratitude. He drew a cloth-wrapped item from thin air.

"I found him with this."

Hermione unfolded a green apple, a child-sized bite torn from its flesh.

"I tried a bezoar," he continued. "I didn't know… I didn't know where else to go."

She placed a hand on his shoulder. He shuddered at her touch, and Hermione felt an empathetic wave. She and Ron had separated, but Astoria had died during labor. By all accounts, Draco had done the best he could as a single father. But this—waiting, helpless, as his son drifted closer to the veil between worlds—was more than could be borne alone.

He covered her hand with his, curled his fingers around hers, and squeezed. A silent show of gratitude in the face of marrow-deep fear.

"He's stable," she said. "The Junior Healers will notify us if anything changes."

Normally, she would suggest he go home, try to rest. But the bright, fever-shine that glazed his grey eyes and his drawn, haunted expression, made clear the futility of that suggestion. Instead, she chose a different path.

"I need to analyze this if I'm to brew an antidote. Come with me to the lab. It might help you…"

Forget? Impossible.

Cope? Perhaps.

It was then that Hermione remembered a third, arcane reading for a raven sitting amongst the leaves. It was a harbinger of transition; of endings that led to new beginnings, the change hurried by hardship and made memorable by strife.

The feeling of surety Hermione had been missing all day suddenly returned.

She was going to save Scorpius. If she persisted, maybe she could heal the broken man before her, too.