Confronting Sybil

By: SotMoon*

Disclaimer:  I do not own Harry Potter. There? Does that make you feel better!?

Authors Note: Hi! I'm so sorry that I had to kill off Raven and Stephen, but they couldn't stay, could they? Wasn't Raven's dad just MEAN in the last chappie?

*~*~*

            When Lily, and the Marauders got onto the train on Monday morning they got onto the train, and sat silently. Lily looked at Sirius and saw him sitting by the window, looking out. His eyes were a cold blue, and he had dark splotches under his eyes. He obviously hadn't slept, and he looked like a wreck. Lily then cast her eyes to the other people in the car. Remus was sitting on the floor, playing with a muggle card deck; Peter was sitting in a corner chewing silently on a Honey Dukes chocolate bar. She then cast her eyes apon her fiancé and saw that he was too, looking over at Sirius, his brown eyes surveying Sirius, his eyebrows pinched together as if in deep concentration.

            "Anything off of the Trolley, dears?" A voice said, interrupting everyone's deep thought. The group looked over and saw the Candy lady. A middle-aged woman with dark brown hair, and light green eyes. She smiled sweetly, and they kindly declined buying anything. She nodded, and pushed the trolley down the corridor back to where she kept her food.

            When the group got to Hogwarts, they quietly got into the Horseless Carriage that was waiting for them, and sat stonily. No one had yet had even remotely got over the death of their best friend; Sirius and Lily most. Raven was Lily's only friend, and it wounded her beyond anything that she died like that. She hoped that Raven's spirit would rest in peace.

            Inside of Hogwarts was the same it always was, the light smell of baking food, and the cold draft coming up from the dungeons. They all walked into the Great Hall and saw that everyone was just now sitting down for Lunch. Everything quieted as they walked in, they ignored it and walked to their table and sat down and began to eat lunch. A few people whispered, and looked at the group with big eyes. Sirius just grabbed a napkin, a goblet of Pumpkin Juice, and gathered a few chicken legs into the napkin and left the Great Hall in a hurry. James shook his head as he watched his friend leave the hall. He stood up, and Remus stopped him by putting an arm in front of James' chest.

            "Let him go," Remus said, as he too, watched Sirius walk out of the doors, and up the stairs. "He needs time to himself, he needs his space." Remus tugged James by his Robes, and James flopped down onto the Bench with a thud.

            Lily couldn't eat. She knew what she was going to do after Sybil got done eating. She looked over at the Ravenclaw table and saw Sybil getting up. Lily quickly stood, and followed Sybil outside. Sybil walked to the Lake, and turned around. Her beady brown eyes boring into Lily's.

            "I knew you were going to talk to me," Sybil said in a soft mysterious voice. She pushed her giant glasses back up onto her nose, and looked at Lily.

            Lily took the time to look at Sybil before she said anything. Sybil had hardly changed since their second year. Yes, she had grown and had filled out, but her facial features still stayed the same. She still wore the same big green glasses she had had back then, and her eyes were still gaunt. She still dressed like a huge dragonfly, and tried to act as mysterious as possible. Lily walked closer to Sybil. Green eyes clashing with brown.

            "You knew," Lily began. Sybil arched her left eyebrow and nodded. She sat down on a large stone, and pointed to the other. "No, I will not sit down. Why didn't you warn her again?"

            "People think I'm crazy," Sybil began, shaking her blue shawl and looking up at the sky. "I know things. People call me Sybil the Seer as a joke, but I can…I can…

            I didn't warn you friend, because she didn't believe me when I told her, many many years ago. She felt as if she didn't need to know. I knew she would die giving birth to her child, and the child would die too, the child that would die would be a little boy. On February the eleventh was the date on the calendar in my premonition. The premonition showed that Raven was in a hospital bed, blood pooling in the bed about her, Madam Pomfery trying all she could to stop the bleeding, and to get the child out to no avail.

             On the night of February eleventh, I saw what happened in the halls, I saw Raven's water break, and I saw you and the Marauder's leave for the Hospital Wing. I put on my invisibility cloak, and followed you into the Hospital wing. I saw everything."

*~Flashback~*

            Raven gave one last heave; she screamed loudly and fell back onto the soft pillows behind her. She looked up weakly, to see Madam Pomfery looking down at the small child. Raven feebly lifted her arms into the air and whispered: "Let me see my baby," but Madam Pomfery shook her head silently.

            "No love, he's gone. You need to go to rest," Madam Pomfery left the small closed space to clean off the small still infant. A small tear leaked from Raven's eye as she looked at the curtain.

            Sybil took off her Invisibility cloak and stepped into the light. Raven looked up at her, her big blue eyes glazed over. Sybil walked closely to the bed, and took one of Raven's pale now cooling hands. She took a rag in the other, and dabbed it at Raven's brow.

            "I told you what would happen," Sybil said, Raven coughed, her face completely drained of color, her lips colorless.

            "Tell…Sirius, I love him," She croaked out. "Tell…Lily I'll watch out for her." Raven breathed a few more breaths, and closed her eyes. Her breath began coming slower, until it stopped. Sybil shook her head sadly. She looked up suddenly as she heard Madam Pomfery coming back, she threw on her Invisibility cloak, and stepped back.

            Madam Pomfery opened the curtains a bit, and said—"Love, I brought you a potion to help you sleep. You'll be weak from the loss of blood but—" She didn't finish her sentence, she dropped the potion onto the floor, the glass shattering about her feet. "Oh, love." she said sadly as she shook her head. She walked out of the small cubicle and walked outside for a second.

            Sirius ran into the room, his blue eyes began to fill with tears as he saw Raven's still form. "Oh god, not you…not the baby…" He whispered as he ran up to the bed. Sybil watched as he stroked Raven's face, and then he screamed; more animal like than human.

            Sybil's eyes shone weirdly in the light as she left the Hospital Wing, she saw Lily and the other Marauders' in the hall as she swept by. Lily was on the floor sobbing as James hugged her.

            "I told them," Sybil whispered again as she walked through the corridors alone.

*~End Flashback~*

            Lily's eyes shone with tears at the end of the story. "She…She said she'd watch out for me? She's now my guardian angel."

            Sybil nodded silently, as she drew her shawl about her closely, her glasses reflecting the light of the sun that was now setting. She looked up into the sky and sniffed. "It's going to rain...." She said as she looked back down at Lily. She began to walk up to the castle, but turned around—with a weird look on her face. "Oh yeah, don't worry about Raven's dad. He's about to die, anyways."

*~*~*

            Lily walked silently back up to the Gryffindor Common Room thinking about what Sybil had said to her. Was it all a Lie? Did she make it up? 'I don't think she'd do such a thing as to lie about that,' Lily said to herself as she said the password to the fat lady.

            Lily squinted, her eyes adjusting to the new setting of the lights. The candles burned a lot brighter in the Gryffindor Common Room for some reason. Lily looked about the room, looking for Sirius. She found him on the large couch that had the Gryffindor blanket on it, a blanket that had a Lion that really roared. She walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. Sirius jumped a bit, and looked up from the fire that he was staring at.

            "Hi Lils." He said quietly, looking up at Lily his eyes were not as glazed as they were, but were still showing the haunted look that they had held since Raven's death.

            "Come with me, Sirius. I have to tell you something." Sirius looked at Lily, and nodded. Sirius stood up, and looked down at Lily. Lily shook her head as she led Sirius out of the Gryffindor Common Room. His eyes showed all the emotions that were inside of him. His eyes were like a storm. She led him into a small abandoned Classroom, and made him sit down in a chair. She sat on a desk, and told him what Sybil said. At the end, a sad smile came onto his face.

            "She thought of me, in the end…" Sirius said standing up and pacing the floor.

            "She's in a better place, Sirius." Lily said watching Sirius pace the floor, Sirius stopped suddenly, and turned around and looked at Lily, his eyes cold.

            "Well, call me selfish but I'd rather her be down here, and my child, too." Sirius sat back down into the chair with a loud thud. Lily sighed, and looked down at her hands. Pale as death, she thought to herself, and put her hands into her robes.

            "She's in a better place where she can be your guardian angel, free from pain, and she'll always be beautiful. Don't worry about her."  Sirius sighed, and nodded. He knew he couldn't have her back, he knew that she wouldn't ever be coming back, and the thought hurt him terribly. His heart ached to see her smiling face one more time, or hell even to see her mad enough to knock his lights out.

            "I guess you're right, as always Lils." Sirius said as he got off the desk again, and walked out of the door. Lily sat alone for a few more minutes, and then too left the room. When she left the room, she saw at the beginning of the stairs, Sirius talking to Sybil. She smiled sadly at Sirius, and walked up the stairs.

*~*~*

            "Why didn't you warn me?" Sirius asked the petite witch quietly. Sybil pulled her shawl closer to her shoulders, and looked up at Sirius as she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose.

            "I…don't know," She said as she looked down at the stone floor. "I was hoping that my premonition was wrong, and I just prayed I was wrong. I didn't know it would really happen!"

            Sirius looked at Sybil with disgust and then pointed his finger at her: "You will never ever get another premonition right, and I swear by my life that you will not." He put his hand down, and went up the stairs. Sybil clutched her hand to her chest, her mouth hanging open for a moment. She breathed in deeply, and she went back down the stairs.

*~*~*

            "Raven," Lily whispered as she got into her bed, her eyes shining in the moonlight. "If you can hear me, I wanted to say that I miss you…and…that I'm so sorry about how things ended for you, you should have died an old woman in her bed, and so should have Stephen….

            Sirius is a wreck without you," Lily said with a small smile, she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, and looked down at the blanket on the bed; she saw that there was a string sticking out of it, and she began to pick at it with her nails. "It's so sad, he won't sleep, he hardly eats. I don't know if he's going to be all right or not. Please… give Sirius a sign that everything is alright…Please…I am begging of you, he needs a sign."

            Lily smiled sadly, and did the sign with her hands that Raven and her did when something great happened, or when they wanted to cheer up. She smiled again, and lay down for bed.

*~*~*

            Sirius sat down silently at his desk, staring at the wall behind it. Old scarlet colors that had been painted many times over, and needed a new coat. He stretched a bit, and looked around the room. The dorm was pretty clean, because the boys hadn't been in the room since…Friday the day of Raven's death. This brought a pang of sadness to Sirius' heart as he looked about the tidy room. Raven always had his side of the room clean; she would never let him keep it messy. "I won't be living with a pig." She had told him one day, as she threw his shirt at him.

            The other guys had left him alone to his thoughts; they had been outside in the Common Room. Sirius liked being a lone for a while, so he could sort out his thoughts. He rifled through some papers, and looked at a small envelope. He looked at it with wonder, and turned it over seeing his name written out in Raven's neat writing, his heart sped up. A letter for him, from Raven? He ripped open the letter quickly and saw that the date was set at the tenth of February, the day before her due date.

                                    Dear Sirius,

            I thought I'd leave this letter here on your desk so you would eventually find it. If you are reading this letter, I am probably dead, because if I wasn't I would have stolen the letter back and burnt it. Well, I sort-of had a feeling that I wasn't going to make it through the childbirth. I had talked to Sybil the day-before today, and we talked about in second year how she told me I would never have a child, and that if I did, I'd die with it.

            Please, Sirius. Be strong for me, don't give up on life. Don't be like your sister, sure. She lost her husband in a plane crash, but that doesn't mean she has to stop living. You must go on. You mustn't give up on life because of me. You have a whole life to live. You can't do this to James; he'd be even more heartbroken if you died.

            I will love you forever, Remember that Sirius.

            Love,

            Raven

            Sirius looked at the letter quietly, and smiled the first true smile since the week before Raven's death. He put the letter inside of his drawer, and went to bed, dreaming of Raven's smiling face, when James came into the room two hours later, he saw Sirius asleep in bed, with a smile on his face. James eyes twinkled a bit as he closed his best-friends curtain to his four-poster bed.

            "Good night, Sy." James whispered as he turned out the light.

*~*~*

AN2: Here is another Chapter—I hope it was better than the other. I thought maybe Sirius put a curse onto Sybil, making her have very little true premonitions, thus making her the loon that she is in Harry's time. Does that make any sense?

I hope this chapter is bigger than the others. Hope you liked it!

Don't Forget to Review! ~Wink Wink~