AN: This was written for the QFL for the Seeker's prompt for the Falmouth Falcons.
Prompt: Crow
Wordcount: 1,038
Content Warnings: None
Morag sat on her favorite rug on the floor of her bedroom, her tarot deck spread all in front of her. Her sisters had learned the art of divination in the cards, and so would she. After all, there was hardly a MacDougal witch who didn't have the gift of the Second Sight.
Books could only teach her so much. As a Ravenclaw, she'd naturally sought out all of the ones in the Hogwarts school library and in their ancestral home. But she needed to practice with her deck if she ever wanted a chance of understanding the warnings and prophecies one could find in the cards.
There wasn't much to read on it, anyway. Most practitioners of the oft-dismissed art of Divination scoffed in turn at the idea of tarot card readings. It was the muggle way of doing things, a superstition and nothing more.
Even Professor Trelawney didn't practice with the tarot.
Morag remembered bringing her deck to her after her first few months at Hogwarts. She'd followed on the trail of Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, hoping to absorb some of their Gryffiindor courage and daring from being in their very presence.
She'd lingered so long, waiting for the Gryffindor girls to finish their private meeting with Professor Trelawney. She'd almost lost her courage entirely, but then the door opened and the two girls left, putting Morag face to face with the only person who might be able to teach her the secrets of her deck.
"I'm afraid that's not quite my speciality, dear," Professor Trelawney said. "My Inner Eye cannot see the future off of some silly cards, I'm afraid—"
Morag had wanted to protest, to insist that it wasn't so different from using tea leaves or the crystal ball, and those were also used by spiritual muggles attempting witchcraft. But then a caw had interrupted her, before she could speak.
She looked outside to see a raven perched on a nearby tree that was somehow tall enough to be right near the Divination Tower.
Morag knew an omen when she saw one, and so she'd stepped back, thanked the professor for her time, and then left.
It was no matter—-a year had passed, and Morag was determined to teach herself. Even if Katrina and Isobel wouldn't help her, she didn't need their help.
Her hand hovered over the tarot cards, the painted symbols taunting her. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the energy of the room, her inner eye, the little voice inside her head that was slightly wiser than instinct.
Then she opened her eyes, freezing in her seat. It was the caw of a crow once more.
Morag looked to her window. She'd let the shutters open to let out the stuffy heat of the manor, and to let the energy of the crimson sunset guide her hand. After all, that was an omen in and of itself.
But perched in her windowsill was a familiar omen once again.
A crow peered at her with beady black eyes, and tilted its head. It was looking at the tarot cards, Morag realized with a start.
"What?" The question came off more forceful and demanding than she would have preferred. "Do you have any advice, then?"
The crow said nothing, of course—even Morag knew that talking animals were beyond the current limits of magic. Familiars were only fairytales.
And yet, she felt a bond of sorts with this bird, a connection. Perhaps it was only the coincidence. Then again, weren't omens coincidence in and of themselves?
Morag stood, and the crow flew out the window. She understood the message. The crow wanted her to follow it.
She looked back to the tarot cards. In her hurry to stand, three had flipped over. The Hanged Man, Death, and the Devil.
"How lovely," Morag muttered before jumping out the window. She landed without injury, of course. There were some parts of being a witch that kept her able to perform random acts of magic like that, to keep herself safe.
She heard the cawing overhead—the setting sun had turned the trees to black skeletal silhouettes, and she could barely see the ground in front of her.
Still, she continued forward, running faster than she could ever remember just to keep up with the crow's casual, lazy flight as he glided and circled overhead.
When she came up over the hill, to the meadow that was filled with wildflowers in the summer, she didn't understand. She'd always known that was there, had spent so much time here as a child. She didn't know what the crow wanted.
"Why did you bring me here, friend?"
The crow landed gracefully on the ground a few paces away from her. He waddled in the tall grasses before cawing again, this time with what Morag could only describe as a triumphant sound. She cautiously approached, only for the crow to shoot into the air from the ground.
In his arc, he dropped an item that gleamed in the dying light before it fell into Morag's clumsy hands. She nearly fell to the ground, surprised that she'd actually managed to catch it.
She then frowned, turning the object in her hands. It had some sort of hourglass apparatus within two circles that moved like spheres, and was attached to a slender golden chin.
Morag blinked—she could have sworn it was a red evening, a warning of summer storms around her.
But when she looked to what was around her, she was standing in the field of flowers in the middle of the day. But the flowers weren't as she remembered them. They were strange, and they radiated an aura of magic.
When Morag glanced down the hill, MacDougal Manor was gone.
She looked back at the device in her hands. Now in the bright light, she could see the inscriptions in the rings.
It was a Time-Turner, she realized in horror. And not the official sort that Isobel worked with at the Department of Mysteries. An unauthorized replica with the power to change everything.
Within five minutes, the world shifted, and Morag stood in the crimson evening again. She dropped the Time-Turner—it was better left out of mortal hands. Still, she felt a sense of dread and unease as she walked away from where the crow had led.