Part Sixteen: The Prophecy

"Albus! Albus, come out from under that bed right now! And would you stop that whining?! Albus, come out here right...NOW...or I'm going to get--" Hermione's tight grip on the nurse witch's arm stopped her clawing for him under the bed as quickly as it had started. "You're going to what? How dare you yell at my son after he"
"Your SON? You think that Albus is your SON? Lady, I work with a lot of crazy people, but that's got to be the wackiest thing I've ever heard. Maybe you ought to consider checking yourself in next to your precious"
"HEY!!" Mrs. Weasley's booming yell, having been perfected over years of yelling at her brood of roudy children, settled the din in the broom closet to a single sound-- a chant of sorts emanating from beneath the sterile white sheets of Albus's bed. "Three, the number of ancient powers, life over death in divisible hours. Only three can defeat the one whose powers brought the three undone." The tiny boy repeated, rocking himself almost violently back and forth as he spoke. The voice entoning the chant was unlike that of any eight-year-old that Hermione had ever seen. Dark, gutteral, and frightening, the voice coming from the mouth of her son seemed to embody each and every one of her fears that also stemmed from him. But it was not the tone with which he spoke that frightened her the very most, for that position belonged to what it was that Albus was saying in those devilish tones-- what she had feared all along, even if she could not find the words to express it.
"The prophecy!" gasped Ginny, Fred, and Mrs. Weasley all at once, causing Hermione's head to snap back in their direction and Lily's lip to quiver as she began to cry out of her frustration and fear.
"P-prophecy? Fred, I thought we were here about St. Mungo's"
"Well..." Fred drew in a slow, deliberate breath. "Rodger really is trying to close it, you know. And we really do need your help with that and all, but we thought that maybe, while you were here, you might want to take a look at the prophecy that"
"Oh, Fred! Not the prophecy that we were"
"Ahem!" The rude nurse witch, now reasonably subdued, cleared her throat to remind to room of her presence. "I think there's something that you should see."