Chapter One Hundred and Eight: A Conflicted Feeling
"Had a good night's sleep, then?" Harry asked the next morning at breakfast.
"You could say that," Daphne said neutrally.
"Those few hours we did sleep were good," Ginny confirmed.
"Please don't talk about these things," Ron begged. "I don't want to hear the stuff my sister gets up to…"
"As if I'd want to share the details with you," Ginny scoffed. "You can just assume we played wizard chess for most of the night, if it makes you feel better."
"Actually, that does–"
"We weren't, of course, we were having s–"
"YES OKAY THANKS SHUT UP!" Ron shouted.
Daphne, Ginny, and Harry doubled over laughing, and even Hermione was struggling to not crack up.
"I should give you detention for that," Ron said sourly.
"You can try, but then I will give you all sorts of details you don't want to hear," Ginny said with a shrug.
"Anyway, Harry, thought of anything for Slughorn yet?" Ron asked quickly.
"I'm planning on going for it after Potions," Harry said. "Hopefully, us saving him from that poisoned mead yesterday — in a manner of speaking — will hopefully have put him in a good enough mood to give it up. If that doesn't work, I'll have to use the Felix Felicis, I think, because I don't really see how else I could convince him, and Dumbledore was pretty keen on getting it." He frowned. "I've been putting it off long enough by now and I don't want Dumbledore to think I haven't been trying…"
Potions wasn't due until the afternoon, and Daphne had the morning hours free, while Harry and the others were in Herbology. Instead, she decided that she wanted to talk to Pythia again, because they had actually managed to change the future, and Daphne wanted to know how that had happened. She sat on her bed with the curtains drawn.
"Hello," she thought, once she'd opened the book.
"Hello," Pythia's 'voice' said.
"We used one of my predictions to change the future," Daphne said. "How did we do that? This is the first time we've managed it."
"That's because this prediction was different from your usual ones. Similar, yet different in a key way. Your earliest predictions were all about events you could not possibly have influenced. You couldn't have stopped the mountain troll from appearing. You couldn't have stopped Harry and Ron from flying the car. You couldn't have prevented Hagrid from breeding the skrewts and having you work with them. They were mere statements of fact and contained no real desire or means to alter them.
"Your most recent prediction, however, did have those things. The events predicted were both sequential and targeted: Ron would take a love potion, and then he would be poisoned. Because you had those pieces of information to work with, and because you recognized the statement as being a prediction, it gave you the means to change it," Pythia said.
"So…why did it change? Why would I suddenly predict things in a way that allows me to influence things? And if I can do that, why couldn't it also work for the visions I received from the crystal ball?" Daphne asked.
"Every type of Divination has its uses, specialties, and weaknesses. 'Early' types, the ones that people tend to discover within themselves by accident, are highly mutable and open to interpretation. Because they are often made in the spur of the moment, and with little preparation or assistance from magical tools — like a crystal ball — they are often accurate only up to a point, and can be changed in ways that other types of Divination cannot.
"The reason you made a different kind of prediction now than before, is because you have been practicing your skills. All magic is driven in large part by intent. Indeed, the focus in emptiness is one such example of intent being used within Divination. You desire, very strongly, to avert your visions, and through the practice and experimentation you have done, your gift has developed to a point where it will, at least in 'quip-based' Divination, present you with a method of altering those futures. The weakness of this type of Divination, of course, is that it cannot be done at will. Something must prompt it, first.
"However, you seem to overlook how skilled you have become. When Ron asked you if he would survive, you were able to predict what would have happened, had your prediction come to pass, without using a 'shaped' kind of Divination. It was purely arithmantic in nature, and done entirely on intent. It lies very close to your inherent, quip-based Divination, in that it was prompted, but it was steered by you.
"Incidentally, that ability will bring you a step closer to the movement shadow you seek, and is also a sign that you are beginning to become able to shift your focus in emptiness."
"So…I'll be able to see other things in crystal balls than just Harry dying?" Daphne asked.
"Yes, once you gain a bit more control. It might also be worth practicing the formless Divination you used in predicting Ron's survival, as it is particularly suited for giving the answers to specific questions. Much like Felix Felicis or the Fortis Fortunatis Charm, it can hint at the right course of action in a given situation — though of course, it is far less powerful than the potion or the charm. It uses the same principles, however, and will give the most likely answer to a situation given a set of starting conditions. In your case, the starting conditions were that your previous prediction would come true, and the question was 'will Ron survive'."
"And that will work for any question and starting conditions?"
"Eventually, yes, but the question needs to be very specific. You also shouldn't expect it to work right away. You can do it, as you have proven, but the skill, like any other, needs to be developed."
"Okay…so if I want to be able to change my sarcastic predictions, I need to want to be able to, and if I train this formless Divination, I can have something like the effect of Felix Felicis at will?" Daphne asked in summary.
"Yes to the first, not quite to the second. You must realize that in formless Divination, you supply the starting conditions. If those don't match reality, your prediction will be wrong. It is purely arithmantic, except that you don't do the calculations consciously. Felix Felicis will give you the correct starting conditions as part of its effects, and then guide you along the path that lines up with your intentions. Formless Divination is far narrower than that and can mislead you if you don't ask the proper questions of it. Be cautious and sensible when using it."
Daphne sighed and closed the book. Talking to Pythia for extended periods of time was always tiring, though it wasn't nearly as taxing anymore as it had once been, and this had been a very productive conversation.
She hadn't realized she'd been getting this close to shifting her focus in emptiness. She supposed it had something to do with the current state of her relationship with Harry and Ginny, which felt stronger than ever. And if formless Divination was a first step into being able to use the movement shadow, she'd certainly begin to put a lot more time and effort into practicing it.
And perhaps…perhaps she even had a good question to start with, namely, 'What will Malfoy try next?'
What should the starting conditions be, though? Last time it had just been 'the previous prediction comes true', and it wasn't like she'd set that consciously; she'd simply assumed that would be the case.
Well, her assumptions now were that Malfoy was behind both assassination attempts so far, so perhaps that would be enough. The result, then, would be something that, if Malfoy were indeed the culprit, would be most likely to happen.
Okay…what had she done back at the Burrow, again? She'd just stared at Ron and tried to feel anything at all. Well, staring at Malfoy was out of the question, so she'd just have to picture him in her mind's eye, nauseating as that was.
She decided to give it a try right away and closed her eyes. She tried to call up Malfoy's smug face, and found that it wasn't hard at all. At the same time, she tried to reach out with her senses, like she'd done before, thinking very hard about what he'd be trying next.
Her initial feeling was that she was wasting her time, but then she felt something else, something elusive, like something in her peripheral vision that disappeared the moment she focused her eyes on it.
She took a deep breath, calling on her Occlumency practice to try and push her frustration away, and now something seemed to be coming through…she felt like it would be something with claws and teeth. Try as she might, she couldn't get the feeling to become any less vague, but she was fairly certain that whatever Malfoy would use would involve claws and teeth.
The second question, then, was an obvious one, and one that Daphne felt was quite pointless to ask, yet she tried it anyway: Will Dumbledore survive the attempt?
No.
It was such a sharp, shocking answer that her eyes flew open immediately. No? Dumbledore wouldn't survive? Then…Would Malfoy be successful?
No.
Again, the feeling was instant, and yet it conflicted greatly with what she'd felt before. Dumbledore wouldn't survive Malfoy's attempt to kill him, yet Malfoy also wouldn't succeed? How could that be true? Well, technically, if he used some kind of beast to kill Dumbledore… Could that be it, then? Did the beast kill Dumbledore?
No.
Daphne groaned in frustration. The feeling was crystal clear, again, but it just didn't make any sense! Maybe Pythia had been right, and her assumptions were simply wrong, which led her to the wrong conclusions.
Would it be worth telling Harry or Dumbledore himself about this? It didn't make much sense to, but to be on the safe side she probably should, at least, no matter how unlikely it was that anything Malfoy did would result in Dumbledore's death. Not when Voldemort himself hadn't been successful the year before.
Still feeling conflicted, Daphne made her way to Potions. She wanted to tell Harry about what she'd learned immediately, but Slughorn seemed to be very keen to get started on the potion he wanted them to brew that day, and she decided it would have to wait until later.
Her mind kept wandering back to the eerie feeling that her prediction, no matter how unlikely, would turn out to be true, and her potion suffered for it; she shrouded their table in a cloud of colorful smoke at least three times during the lesson, much to the surprise of her friends and Slughorn.
"This is most unlike you, Miss Greengrass," he said. "You seem distracted today."
"Er, I was still worried about…about last night, Professor. You know, about what might've happened to you…" she said, thinking as quickly as she could while slightly light-head on the fumes from her cauldron.
"That is very touching, Miss Greengrass, but I assure you it's unnecessary. My other bottles were all quite innocent — when consumed in moderation, that is." Laughing loudly at his own joke, he waddled off.
Daphne sighed deeply and set out to restore what was left of her potion.
"What happened?" Harry whispered.
"I'll tell you after class…" she whispered back.
To her own surprise, she actually managed to salvage most of the potion, and when she handed in the vial of it at the end of the lesson, she felt she'd scored at least an 'Acceptable' on it.
Seeing that Harry was going to attempt to talk to Slughorn, she left the classroom with Hermione and Ron to wait for him.
Interestingly, when she spotted Malfoy walking past, he looked very pale and stressed out, and didn't even sneer at her for the many smokescreens she'd created in class.
"He's not looking too well, is he?" Hermione asked.
"Good. Slimy git," Ron said unconcernedly.
"Well…" Daphne said hesitantly.
"Did your performance today have to do with Malfoy?" Hermione asked.
"Let's…let's wait for Harry, and I'll tell you in a moment," Daphne said.
She saw Hermione and Ron exchange a worried glance, but before they could say anything, Slughorn and Harry exited the classroom.
"I'm sorry, m'boy, but I can't. I can't take back…no, Harry, I'm sorry," Slughorn said, before quickly striding off.
"That could've gone better," Harry said with a sigh. "I guess Felix will need to be the answer, then…Anyway, Daphne, what was that all about? You're amazing at Potions these days," he said.
Daphne hesitated for a moment, and then waved her wand and muttered, "Muffliato!"
Hermione looked a bit annoyed, but also worried.
"I spoke to Pythia earlier, about that prediction about Ron," Daphne began. "It turns out I also used a different, 'formless' kind of Divination at that moment, that can answer specific questions if you give it the proper starting situation."
"That sounds–" Hermione began.
"Like Arithmancy, I know," Daphne interrupted. "That's what it is. But the point is, I tried it. I tried using it to discover what Malfoy will try next, and it felt like it would be something with claws and teeth…so I imagine it'll be some kind of creature. But that's not the part that worries me. See, I also checked if Dumbledore would survive…and my feeling said he wouldn't."
Harry, Hermione, and Ron all gasped.
"You're wrong," Ron said instantly. "Dumbledore, killed by Malfoy? No way."
Daphne nodded. "That's what I thought, too, but the weird thing is, my feeling also said that Malfoy wouldn't be successful, nor would the unknown beast. I hope I'm wrong, and that my starting assumptions were just wrong, but…I don't think I am, somehow…"
She looked at Hermione. "You take Arithmancy. How does any of that work?" she asked.
Hermione frowned. "Well, arithmantic calculations do rely heavily on their initial state. In fact, you often perform several calculations in advance just to set the initial state for your actual calculations. In the context of Divination, though…I don't understand that mechanism at all. In this case…well, it could be a lot of things. Your starting assumptions might all be wrong, your questions might be wrong or based on wrong assumptions themselves, the answers might simply be wrong…or it's all true, and we simply don't understand how, yet. Honestly, without the proper set of variables, it's just guesswork, unless you're a Seer like you are. I have no idea at all about the veracity of any of this."
"I think there's nothing for it, then," Harry said, looking grim. "We need to go and tell Dumbledore."
Time pressure and needing to make things up out of whole cloth are not an ideal combination, it turns out, but I'll be damned if I fail this challenge after keeping it up for so long.