Disclaimer: Song lyrics belong to Fairport Convention (the song being Fotheringay), Harry Potter et al. belong to JKR, everything else is mine ;)
Summary: Once upon a time Sibyll Trelawney made a decision that changed the balance of the future...but would she make the same decision again?
AN: One-shot side story to Serpentine/Corvine, although it can stand alone
The Dark Side of the Light
It was a little known fact that Sibyll Trelawney was afraid of the darkness; not the dark, oh no, nothing as simple, as mundane, as that, but true darkness, the kind that people had a tendency to capitalise to emphasise just how dark it was - Darkness. It was the darkness that, in this day and age, was simplified, codified all nice and neat-as-you-please, as 'evil'. But those with the Sight - however dim or wild - knew it was much more than that. Darkness was necessary in order for there to be Light, necessary for a healthy balance. Just as a world overrun by Darkness would crumble from within and turn on itself, so too would a world blinded by Light, unable to see the rot eating away at it.
She knew it was a running joke amongst the students who studied Divinations - most of them anyway - and indeed, she nurtured that joke, taking what comfort she could from her students disbelief and using it to obscure her Sight, her knowledge. That was the true burden of a Seer, although, as a Wild Seer, she was much better off than those such as her great-great-grandmother, Cassandra Trelawney. She had no conscious control of her True Sight, no recollection of any True-Sayings that she had, supposedly, uttered. Although those facts meant she was widely believed a fraud - a facade she found suited her taste for the eccentric, and actively encouraged - she would never, given the option, have chosen to take control of the gift. There was no control over the gift.
The truth was, the 'gift' of the Sight was actually a curse. The more powerful the Seer, the further into the future they Saw; and the more often they Saw. But the future wasn't as fixed as many would have you believe, and the human mind wasn't able to cope with such constantly conflicting information, information that didn't have anything to do with the moment in time in which it existed. Powerful Seers were doomed to an early, and insane, grave. Wild Seers, on the other hand, merely needed a companion, someone - or something - else to record their spontaneous prophecies, for they came randomly and without warning, and aside from knowing roughly how much time had been lost, the time of the actual Seeing, the actual Saying, was a merciful blank.
Sibyll knew that she was not far from the power of a Seer, for there were times when she could indeed See the future in tea-leaves or the crystal ball; a vague Seeing, to be sure, nothing more, really, than the outline of the most likely future, but those times were there. More frequent were the dreams, though not so frequent that she was driven to dream-catchers and the like. It was her dreams, of late, that had reminded her of her fear of the Darkness.
Some 19 years ago she had begun having dreams, dreams that she couldn't understand except to know that they were two different versions of the possible future. A Dark Lord had risen - everyone knew that - and he was threatening to plunge the world into Darkness. But her dreams...her dreams suggested that something might happen to prevent that, or at least delay it. Young, still naive to the fact that humans could only live, only flourish, in the shades of grey cast in the balance of Darkness and Light, she had been terrified by the brutal truths plain to see in the threat of the Darkness. Her terror, as the dreams continued, had become almost ingrained, and when she had recognised the turning point, the point at which she could force the future down the path towards the Light or let it continue on into the Dark, she had run to Albus Dumbledore and begged him to take her on as Divinations Professor.
Twelve years after that night, after the True Saying that she knew the Headmaster believed only he knew in full - and that she also knew he believed false - and she was, once again, dreaming. But twelve years had done much to strip her of her youthful naivety, and this time the dreams were much more cryptic, more ambiguous.
Sighing softly, and seeming much more human with her frizzy hair pulled back and trick-lens glasses removed, Sibyll climbed into her bed, and settled back for whichever dream - if any - would claim her restless sleep this night...
How often she has gazed
From castle windows old
And watched the daylight passing
Within her captive wall
With no one to heed her call
Their view changed only with the seasons. It hadn't been like that at first; there'd been the damaged parts of the castle and its grounds to look at, damage sustained during the last battle. They had gloated over the damage at first, deriving a vindictive satisfaction that, though he had ultimately lost, he had made a mark. Then the repairs had begun and, all too soon, the damage had been repaired, a last, final blow to what little pride they had left.
That had been...how long ago now? They couldn't remember, stuck, as they were, in a room where only the seasons changed. Food came, food went, sometimes they ate, sometimes they didn't. It made no difference. Sometimes they sang, snatches of tunes half-remembered from their earlier years, their earlier lives, anything in order to remember that they could still speak, anything to break the monotony. They spoke to one another, sometimes aloud, but more often without words, wary of monitoring charms. Not that it mattered really...not now.
They were, although the war was over now, prisoners. Moreover, prisoners without any guards other than the walls of the tower that held them captive. There were no doors, just the single, circular wall, and the single, circular room that held all the necessary furniture; a bed, a toilet, a bath and shower, and a chair. The windows were their only contact with the outside world - if you could call it that. They had tried shouting to the infrequently glimpsed students attending the school within the castle, had tried jumping up and down in the windows, but even when someone was looking directly at them, they were unseen...unheard.
They had wondered, briefly, if their family or friends were looking for them, wondering what had happened to them, but he had killed his only family, and he had seen the deaths of the only 'friends' who had thought to look for him the last time he'd disappeared. She had no friends or family who were far enough from Dumbledore's influence to think to question him about her.
The evening hour is fading
Within the dwindling sun
And in a lonely moment
Those embers will be gone
And the last of all the young birds flown
The sun was setting as they watched, its crimson rays falling like blood across the forest that stretched into the distance. Though primarily a pine forest, there were other trees in there, deciduous and magical alike, and their golden leaves - those that still had leaves left - showed clearly that it was Autumn. Soon would come the crisp morning frosts that students and teachers alike would curse, then, hard on the heels of the frosts, the first snows would fall, deceptively light. The real snow would come shortly before the end of the year, great drifts that would pile up against the walls of the castle and within the forest, deep and thick enough that it would be possible to think the endless banks of white were actually clouds.
The students wouldn't see it like that of course, none of them were as high off the ground as they were, and if they were, it would most likely be on broomsticks that were quite capable of taking them up above real clouds.
It would be on those days, and more so on those nights, with no birds and no other life to remind them that they were not the last souls in the world, that they would be loneliest.
Her days of precious freedom
Forfeited long before
To live such fruitless years
Behind a guarded door
But those days will last no more
The tower, this isolated imprisonment, had seemed the best choice at the time. They had been cornered, unable to join the side they supported, and between the devil and the deep blue sea, they had chosen to take the devil's offer.
They had hoped, at first, that they would be able to do something - anything - to covertly aid their friends and hinder their captors, their foes...but Dumbledore's omniscience seemed suddenly unlimited, and instead of the human - or human-like - guard they had expected, they had been given over into the care of the castle itself.
Years had passed - how many now? - and they had ranted and railed, and tried futilely to escape using means both magical, though their wandless magic was minimal, and mundane. Hogwarts had foiled them every time.
Enough though, was enough, and, though she thought slower than most humans ever would, Hogwarts did think. The castle wasn't human-like, but she had been given a sentience of sorts by the constant exposure to a mix of magic and human emotion. Hogwarts understood that her prisoner was deeply sorrowful and longed for something - freedom not being a concept that she could, as a building, comprehend. She also understood that everyone else in her domain did not feel these things; at least, not as much as her prisoner did, and not as constantly.
Hogwarts could do very little, but for this person she could bend her will against that of her Headmaster's. She would give her prisoner the exit that was desired...
Tomorrow at this hour
She will be far away
Much farther than these islands
For the lonely Fotheringay
Sibyll awoke with a start just before the ginger-haired girl hit the ground, her own panic quickly overriding the sensation of utter peace, utter freedom, the girl had been feeling. How many years had she been imprisoned for death to hold such an attraction, and by whom had she been imprisoned in the first place?
Both were questions Sibyll didn't think she wanted answers to...and yet, at the back of her mind, acknowledged subconsciously, she knew the answer to the second question. It was well that she had lost her naivety concerning the Light and the Dark; whilst the dark threw the truth in your face, often when you were least prepared to deal with it, the Light had a way of blinding you to the ugly reality beneath your very nose.
Truth be told, it was the clearest dream yet, for the other version of the dream was, as yet, no more than blurry flashes of scenes, emotional impressions and an ever-present sense of Darkness. It seemed Voldemort would rise again; the question was, would she make the same decision as before, or would she choose differently this time around?
Yes, Sibyll Trelawney had once been afraid of the Darkness, but now she found herself growing wary of the Light...
AN: A sane Trelawney (relatively)...well, if Luna can get away with it, I reckon Trelawney's been getting away with it for years. There may be another of these at some point, giving the other side of the dream, but as Trelawney notes, at the minute the other half is very vague (and I lack a song for it ;p).