author: Lucinda
rated t for teen
disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to any characters, locations or setting from the Harry Potter novels.
distribution: with other Pottery Shards.
notes: not necessarily connected to any other Pottery Shard. Just playing with some possibilities for Sybil Trelawney.
... …
The neighbors thought that Cleo and Jason Trelawney had two boys off in the world, and their one daughter, the surprise of their not-quite youth. The neighbors would have been a good deal more surprised by the late appearance of the Trelawney's daughter if they had known that as magical, Cleo and Jason had dropped a few decades from their ages. Rather than the close to forty that the neighbors thought Cleo had been when they had their daughter, the truth was that Cleo was not only a witch, but close to seventy when she gave birth to her daughter.
The neighbors knew something closer to the truth about the older boys. Gerry lived in Wales and worked on a wildlife reserve, though they'd never tell the muggle neighbors that their eldest boy worked on a dragon reserve, tending the Welsh Green dragons. Homer had moved to Dover with his wife, who was a primary school teacher, and he was an aspiring poet. Jason did confess to a strong fascination with Greek history, mythology, and to having named their second son after the Greek poet.
Their daughter Sybil was a curious girl, a bit odd and prone to asking questions. At nine, she had found herself receiving a pair of glasses to help her pale eyes focus correctly, and keep her from bumping into small rocks, and misjudging doorways and curbsides. Sybil tended to blushed and tried to hide behind her hair. Being a clumsy girl of gangly legs and bony elbows, Sybil hid behind her hair frequently, especially when the neighborhood girls would talk about their hopes and dreams.
Vickie down the street didn't like Sybil, and called her a weird little freak. She said that her glasses made her eyes look like bug-eyes, or maybe some sort of frog. And that with a mess of hair like that, Sybil would never, ever get a boyfriend.
Most of the time, Sybil just mumbled things, and looked hurt, and tried to hide behind her hair. Sybil would retreat to her books, or the strange, thick tomes from her family library written by people like B. Bagshot and Elphias Hufflepuff.
But sometimes, Sybil didn't react like that at all. She would take off the glasses, and move with a slow grace that she never, ever displayed at any other time, glasses or no. This other Sybil would twist her hair and pin it up in a wispy bun on her head, and seemed to watch the girls with a superior, almost pitying smile.
It was this strange other Sybil that went to go speak with the creepy man in the yellow house, the one who was always watching the children with a strange and scary look on his face. The one who'd done something that left little Dianna Jackson hysterical. Sybil had a different sort of scary look on her face. Archie Throckmorten had seen her when she came back out of the house, and whispered that she'd spilled something red on the hem of her dress.
When they'd seen normal Sybil the next day, she hadn't known how she'd managed to black her eye. She hadn't seemed to know anything about speaking to Mr. Dunstan at all, and in fact had paled and insisted that he scared her, and she would never, ever want to be inside his house.
None of the adults would ever explain why the police had gone to the yellow house later in the week. They wouldn't even answer if Mrs. Haggerd had ever sorted out what was causing the funny smell that she'd mentioned coming from the yellow house. The only thing that the adults would tell them was that 'Mr. Dunstan had gone away'.
Perhaps the thing that baffled the children the most was the fact that the Trelawney parents didn't seem to realize that there were two Sybils. There was the normal Sybil, a shy, clumsy girl who needed her glasses and always toted around her books. Then there was the other Sybil, who only rarely showed herself. The one who'd seen a big, loutish teenager trying to scare the Bennet girls into giving him their lunch money. The other Sybil had promptly kicked him in the head 'to get his attention', kicked him in the guts to make him listen, and proceeded to give the most blistering lecture on why a proper young man didn't need to torment little girls for their pocket money. Everyone agreed that they'd probably never see Sidney Dursley around their part of town again, not that anyone felt it would be a loss.
The children of the neighborhood didn't talk about the second Sybil very much. She was a scary, and strange in a completely different way than the normal, bookish Sybil.
…..
It was a brilliantly sunny, if windy afternoon when Jason Trelawney brought his almost eleven year old daughter into Ollivander's shop in search of her first wand. Her Hogwarts acceptance letter had arrived earlier in the week, and he and Cleo had been so very pleased. While the Trelawneys were a pure-blood family of modest means, they had a long and respectable tradition as Seers – and they would be quick to tell anyone who suggested otherwise that they were quite a respectable family, thank you. Not wealthy, or particularly known for having vast power or dangerous skills like the Bones, Blacks, or even the Potters, but quite respectable. After all, go back a few centuries, and the Bones family had been Britain's premier family for necromancy and magic involving spirits, though of course the family claimed to have stopped when the Ministry declared necromancy as a forbidden art in 1873. The Blacks were known for being powerful, as well as heavily involved with dark magics of all sorts, though the family claimed to keep things within the bounds of legality – and their power, reputation, and money ensured that any questions or doubts were only murmured very quietly. The Potters were just flat out powerful, magically speaking, and fairly wealthy as well.
Jason didn't want to admit that while he suspected Sybil had at least a hint of the family Sight, she hadn't shown herself to be a very strong witch. He'd been afraid that they'd have to send her to a smaller, less demanding school than Hogwarts.
Sybil had swallowed and stayed close as they stepped into the shop. "Papa? Do you feel it? The air… it's… different."
"Here for a wand, young miss?" Ollivander with his pale eyes and wispy flyaway hair stepped out of the back, smiling at them. "Ahh, Jason Trelawney. Eleven inch hazel with unicorn hair, if I recall correctly."
"Yes," her Papa nodded, his hand tapping at his pocket where he'd placed his wand. "This is my daughter Sybil. We're here for her first wand."
Sybil took a step away from her papa, looking at Ollivander, suddenly wondering if that was his family name, or his first name, like the restaurant that Mama met her friends at being named Antonio's. She could hear Yvonne in her mind, assuring her that this man, though a bit off normal, wouldn't hurt them.
"Your mother has a very different wand, vinewood with a dragon heartstring. I wonder if you favor one of your parents for your wand, or if we need something completely different for you…" Ollivander mused.
The first wand, vinewood with dragon heartstings like her mother, gave no more reaction than waving around a pencil. The second, hazel and unicorn like her father, felt cold and Sybil couldn't see that it did anything, but Ollivander tugged it from her hands with a frown. She started to wonder that Yvonne might be complicating things when the tenth still wasn't right. By the thirtieth wand, her father was fidgeting and frowning, though Ollivander had started to hum.
"Jason Trelawney, stop fidgeting before you break the chair. I happen to recall that we didn't find your wand until the seventeenth try. Since you seem incapable of waiting quietly in your no longer young age, go pick up some fresh potions ingredients for your daughter. Perhaps I will have found her match by the time you return," Ollivander spoke sternly to her Papa.
Her Papa fled with a mumble about herbs and needing a word with Mr. Jiggs.
"Sir? Is this… are you sure that this isn't taking too long?" Sybil whispered. "Is there something wrong?"
"Miss Trelawney, I have been matching wands to wizards and witches for a very long time. While you are a bit trickier to match than your father was, this does not mean that there is anything wrong with you or your magic," Ollivander gave a thin smile. "You would be willing to take a while to find the right shoes, or the right coat, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," Sybil nodded.
The fiftieth wand was made from oak, and he'd mentioned it having a griffon feather. It produced a sad looking spark, and Ollivander plucked it from her hand, frowning as he looked at her from behind his silver-framed glasses. "Miss Trelawney… While I have no doubt that I can and will find a wand for you, is there anything unusual about your magic, any unusual abilities that you may have noticed? This would help me look in the right place, rather than needing to go through every wand in the store until we find the right one. Not that I wouldn't keep looking until we find it, mind you, but this shop has almost thirty thousand wands, and I think the both of us would rather find your wand a bit sooner than that."
"The Trelawney family is known for producing Seers, and having some degree of the Sight. That's part of why mother insisted on naming me the way she did – my initials are S for Sybil, a Y, and then T for Trelawney. It sounds like sight – mother thought it was a clever play on language. But…" Sybil paused, wondering if it would be a good idea to tell him about Yvonne. She'd never dream of telling anyone in any position of authority among the muggles, but this was someone magical. Though even among magical…
Yvonne took the question out of her hands and slid into dominance. Their posture changed as Yvonne looked at Ollivander, and gave a polite curtsey. "Hello, I'm Yvonne. Sybil frets and has trouble making up her mind sometimes."
Ollivander blinked a moment before murmuring, "Does it get crowded with both of you in there?"
"Sometimes. Does my being here make it harder to find us a wand?" Yvonne looked at him, and then took off Sybil's glasses, permitting the world to focus properly. "I don't know how she sees through these things."
"Mmmmm, it does change the way the magic flows inside you. A twin-mind, and from a family with the sight…" Ollivander turned back to his shelves, "I have a few ideas."
The next wand was better, a deep red wood that felt warm, though it only gave a soft humming sound.
"No, not quite. Try this one." Ollivander handed her another pale wand.
A chirping noise and a fall of dead flower petals that vanished before hitting the floor.
"No, not quite, though you did have a reaction to the oak, and the feather in the other wand showed promise…" Ollivander plucked another box from a shelf, handing her a slightly twisting wand. "Try this one."
Yvonne held the wand, and it sent a flurry of tiny golden sparkles when she waved it. Stepping back, she let Sybil blink at the world, putting the glasses back on before waving the wand and releasing a shower of pale blue sparks. "I don't think any of the others had that much of a reaction, sir."
"This would be the wand for you," Ollivander smiled. "Oak with the hair of a kelpie and a unicorn hair. We needed to find the right wood for both of you, and the unicorn is compatible with you, Miss Sybil, while the kelpie hair is compatible with Miss Yvonne. I do look forward to seeing what the pair of you do in the world."
"You've encountered others like me… like us?" Sybil breathed.
"Yes, and very few of them are ever willing to talk about the way their minds work. Since you seem to be in a bit of communication with Yvonne, remember to consult her about your classes, and any major life decisions," Ollivander advised.
Sybil didn't think she'd ever tell anybody about Yvonne.
….
Hogwarts was wonderful. The surrounding country side was breathtaking, Sybil thinking it was beautiful if intimidating, and Yvonne thinking that it would be the perfect inspiration for poetry – unfortunately, writing poetry wasn't a talent that either of them possessed. The castle was amazing, and Sybil waited nervously among the sixty other first years waiting to be sorted… somehow.
Turned out they were sorted by a singing hat.
The hat in question had decided that they were both well suited for Ravenclaw, though for slightly different reasons. It had also reassured them that the magics of its creation wouldn't let it discuss anything that it learned from her sorting unless it was a matter of her own life or death.
Sybil adored charms class from the very beginning, though Yvonne had a fondness for potions and astronomy. They were both fascinated by transfiguration, though neither of them seemed to be well suited for that particular magical discipline. After the first history class with the ghost of Professor Binns, Sybil decided that they would read the book out of class, and use the actual class time to meditate and permit her and Yvonne to have a bit of a chat without people thinking she was talking to herself. She wasn't, not quite; she was talking to her other self.
They made a few friends, and had some rivals, though nobody as close enough to make things fabulous or awful enough to make her days horrible. She had a group of people that she studied with, and she could talk to Gwendolyn Prewitt or Victoria Townsend about fashion and cosmetics, and the various small spells that could be used for maintaining clothing and hair. She also found herself listening quite often as Violet Yaxley, Bert Norton, Stacy – never Anastasia – Bellefluer, an older boy that only answered to Timmons, and Mellie and Penny Corbins - a smirking set of identical twins that only Yvonne could tell apart – argued about music.
By the Yule Break, Sybil had joined the school choir, Yvonne had them in the chess club, and they were still uncertain just how they'd been talked into joining the language club, but they'd decided to blame Victoria for it. Between the pair of them, Sybil and Yvonne had found seven hidden doors, three hidden rooms, a secret stair that somehow took them from the sixth floor of the Ravenclaw tower down to the second level of the dungeons, and four out of the way study nooks in the library.
Nobody knew about Yvonne. That was just how Sybil wanted it to remain. Even in the magical world, it wasn't normal to hear voices. It was especially not normal to have another voice in your head with you. If anyone ever found out… she'd heard awful things about what happened to mad wizards and witches. Sybil considered herself as sane as the next witch, and part of that sanity was the desire to avoid an awful fate of being imprisoned, and potioned, maybe used as a plaything while potioned, her mind poked and prodded and reshaped until someone else was pleased with the result.
For their third year, Sybil insisted that as a Trelawney, divination was a must. How could she turn her back on generations of the Sight in their family? Yvonne had sighed, suspecting that most of the class would be more concerned with a possible easy grade than the mysteries of the sight. They'd argued for a while, and in the end reached a compromise – they would take divination for Sybil, and arithmancy for Yvonne. And if they found anybody mocking the class for an easy grade, they would make them suffer.
Sybil despised arithmancy. The numbers made her head spin, and she quickly gave up any interest in paying attention during that class. Which Yvonne was fine with, it let her take full control of their body for a while. They didn't think anyone noticed. For magical people, for all that the class was mostly the intellectual Ravenclaws and advantage seeking Slytherins, they could be quite inobservant.
Yvonne was surprised that they both enjoyed divination class. Interpreting tea leaves, reading palms and cards… Granted, much of it was a matter of technique and referring to lists of symbolism, and that most of the time it took applying those symbolic references to what you knew about a person's life. But it was fascinating! And it seemed that many of the little impulses and feelings that they - mostly Sybil – would get were a rather weak form of the Sight. For that class, they took turns, but both paid close attention.
Yvonne was the one in charge one afternoon, as they stared into crystal balls. The ball had some cracks deep inside, and they seemed to catch the light and flare…
"Serpents twist and Badgers dig. The serpent is swift, and claims the shining prize."
Sybil took control of their body, blinking and thinking frantically to Yvonne – 'what in Merlin and Morganna's name was that about?'
"Trelawney, what did you just say?" Demanded Madam Theroux.
"I… I don't think I said anything…" Sybil blinked. On the one hand, it was true enough – she hadn't said those words, Yvonne had. And how had Yvonne made her voice drop so deep? "What did I say?"
She was still trying to figure it out as they left class. It wasn't until she retreated into one of the girl's bathrooms that she had a chance to ask Yvonne. "What was that? Why were you talking about serpents and badgers?"
"I don't remember it, but apparently you do," Yvonne paused and Sybil could feel her other self remembering the experience.
"Yvonne…" Sybil
"I think that was a prophecy."
Sybil blinked, her knees feeling weak. She remembered reading that those who spoke prophecies almost never remembered what they'd said. But with a twinned mind… if she didn't remember, Yvonne would, and if Yvonne didn't remember, then she would. "You think that we made a prophecy. What could we make a prophecy about?"
There was the feeling of a shrug, and Yvonne offered, "You do remember that prophecy is often symbolic, and hard to identify until after it's been completed. And there's the whole self-fulfilling aspects."
"We aren't a serpent or a badger," countered Sybil.
"Then I suggest that we wait and see what happens," Yvonne replied.
As it turned out, that weekend was a Quidditch game, Slytherin versus Hufflepuff. Sybil hadn't wanted to go, but her housemates dragged her out to the match. As she blinked at the various pennants supporting the teams, she whispered, "Serpents and badgers…"
The Slytherin Chasers seemed to favor spiraling and twisting around the other players in ways that left the Hufflepuffs and many observers confused and unsure just who had the quaffle. The Hufflepuff seeker kept feinting and plowed the first Slytherin Seeker into the ground, resulting in the reserve needing to swap into the game. About an hour into the game, as Sybil was starting to feel distinctly queasy trying to sort out the Slytherin chasers and just where the quaffle was, the Slytherin reserve seeker caught the snitch.
Yvonne tapped for her attention, whispering 'serpents twist – haven't the Slytherin chasers been doing an awful lot of that this game? And the serpent caught the prize… the snitch.'
Sybil blinked, considering Yvonne's suggestion. The idea that they had made a true prophecy… and it had been about a quidditch game? She sighed, feeling as if that had been a waste of the Sight.
Except that it meant that she… they had the Sight.
Life was definitely looking up.
….
It was their fourth year before anyone discovered firm proof about there being anything memorably odd about the Trelawney girl. Antares Penross, a seventh year Slytherin, muggle-hating all around arse, had decided that young Sybil was starting to look pretty, had no powerful friends, no family wealth, and was only maintaining an Acceptable average in defense. Traits that he thought added up to being a perfect plaything. He decided to inform her of her new status in one of the corridors one evening, as she was making her way back from Astronomy.
Sybil was terrified.
Yvonne was furious.
Pushing Sybil out of the forefront of their mind was easy – Sybil had no desire to see what would happen next. As Penross leaned towards her, one arm to either side and with his hands pressed against the wall, Yvonne struck. A knee forcefully between his legs and one fist just beneath his ribcage. As he stumbled back, gasping for air and curling inwards, she smiled at him.
"I don't think so, snake-boy." Yvonne's wand was spitting golden sparks as she brought it up. "Now, let me see if I can make it undeniably clear to you that such behavior is unacceptable…"
Walking away later, Yvonne concluded that they'd probably be able to identify the body when it was found. Yes, she'd melted his eyeballs, and force-fed him his genitals. Yes, she'd reversed all of his joints and tightened his ligaments and tendons until he resembled a crushed pretzel. Then she'd set him on fire. By the end of it, her efforts had been quite fatal.
"What did you do, Yvonne?" Sybil's frightened whisper reminded Yvonne that she wasn't the only one here.
"I fixed him," Yvonne smiled.
"He'll be very angry… he has friends." Sybil paused, and shuddered. "Maybe not friends, but people that will help him. He'll hurt us even worse the next time he finds us."
"He didn't hurt us this time," Yvonne paused. "He scared us, but we weren't injured."
"And who knows what he'll do to us when he gets the chance?" Sybil whimpered.
"I told you, Sybil dear, I fixed him. Just like that nasty man down the street. He won't get anybody again," Yvonne promised.
Sybil suspected that Yvonne would do much better in Defense than she did. She was just afraid to ask.
Yvonne didn't say anything until they'd retreated to their dorm room for the night. After casting spells to keep their bed curtains closed and to prevent any sound from escaping, she asked, the first question. "So, what do you want to do when we're done with Hogwarts?"
Sybil considered the question. "I'd thought about becoming the next Divinations Professor."
"Divination is a lot of fun, but…" Yvonne paused and continued, "But would you want to grade all those papers? Be stuck for the next fifty, sixty… a hundred years in a place surrounded by hundred of teenagers?"
Sybil considered the idea, imagining herself as the Divination Professor. Imagined classes… "Gahhhh! No, no, a hundred times no!"
Their discussion continued for several hours.
end Pottery Shard: Two Sybils.