Chapter Seventeen:
Divination

After that summer had passed, the days began to blend together and go by in a grey blur. I attempted to force Tom to try out for the Slytherin Quidditch team, but he flatly refused, informing me that he was not going to make a fool of himself in front of the entire student body, and that he did not need anything else to occupy his time. I protested at that, for he surely would not be all that bad, but nothing would persuade him. He told me, with a malicious grin, that he would only agree to try out if I did, but for Ravenclaw. I gulped and knew that I was beaten.

My sixth year was hardly significant in any way. Nothing changed, save the curriculum, and that was no challenge to me. Of course, I had received a bit of extra help: Tom and I had studied more complicated spells and potions during our month-long stay at the castle, mastering nearly all of two thick books before the term began. That way, we would have more time to relax, as well as time to meet in the far corners of the library and talk, as friends do. He told me more of his stays at the orphanage before he was aware of his wizarding abilities, how wistfully he longed to know the face of his mother, and he described his hatred for his muggle father. In turn, I talked of my past at the Augurey Academy of Spellcraft. Tom found the name amusing, but was curious as to why a school with that name was located in America.

"What is America like?" he once asked.

"It is nothing much different than Britain or Scotland, but here, it is much more... refined," I explained with a giggle. In truth, I remembered little about the country of my birth save that I did not much like it, and had secretly been overjoyed to leave it forever.

-

Divination was a subject that I surprisingly excelled at. Tom had found it to be a waste, but I had always enjoyed it. Until, that is, I began to see omens.

It was the morning we began reading tea leaves. I stared, glassy-eyed, into the teacup that trembled in my hands. I had never seen such an arrangement of dregs before, and never one so distinct. It was frightening at the same time that it fascinated me. Unsipped tea oozed from the piles of green, giving it the effect that it glowed. The divination teacher at the time clutched at her heart, emitting short gasps as she backed away in fear. Staring at me from the bottom of my cup was a skull encircled by a serpent that protruded from its mouth.

I flipped frantically through the nearest guide to tea-leaf-readings, searching for that symbol, or one even remotely similar to it. But it was in vain. I had Seen something that was not supposed to exist.

That symbol, that dark mark of evil, haunted me. I Saw it each time I was asked to read my own dregs, and my suspicions began to arise. But that mark was not all that I ever Saw.

I gazed into a foggy, crystal orb, stroking its spherical surface. Unblinking, I waited for a shape to form in its depths. And suddenly, something began to appear.

I Saw but mere wisps of figures at first, but they soon grew more defined so that the scenes that played before my eyes were unmistakable. And I was suddenly engulfed in them.

Flames licked greedily at the thatched roofs of feeble, muggle homes, the soundless cries of the dying piercing through the night. Frightened children wept tears of loneliness in the abandoned streets and alleyways. A lone, hooded figure stood amidst the rubble, laughing, a wand clutched in its scaly grasp-

I gasped as the scene shifted.

A gate creaked open to admit a cloaked stranger to the front walk of a cottage. The being crept silently to the door and blasted it open with a flick from its wand. A man attempted to block his entry as he shouted into the adjoining room. "Lily!"

A flash of green light.

The man lay dead, and the same cruel laughter radiated from the dark figure-

The images continued.

A smally, skinny boy was being forced into a cupboard...

The same boy thrusting an enormous fang into the very heart of a familiar-looking black book...

The boy bound to a tombstone as a shape emerged from the swirling confines of a cauldron-

I wept as I watched the boy's life progress in flashes, sometimes shattered by images of myself and Tom. Images that I was not yet ready to see, ones that I believed impossible. I pried my eyes from them, blinded by my own tears, and in my haste to escape, I upended the table at which I sat, sending the mystic orb rolling at my heels.

I cared not to where I ran, nor did I care if I was seen. Vain attempts to stop me merely glanced by and reached not to my ears. The corridors before me blurred. I continued on until my legs screamed in protest and agony, and I collapsed in a heap when I could run no more. Only then did I realize where I was.

"Danielle? What're yeh..."

"Hagrid!" I cried tearfully, breathless. "Please, may I... may I... come inside?"

The giant gaped at me worriedly, seeming to forget himself. Then he shook his head to regain his thoughts. "Yeah... yeah..."

I struggled to stand. Hagrid grasped my shoulders to support my weight, steering me through the doorway.

His home was but a small one-room hut built of wood, brick, and stone. In one corner sat an over-sized bed, in another, a tall wooden table and four chairs, all with elongated legs. I stared in spite of myself, though I attempted to shut my open mouth, so in shock was I. "Y-you live here?" I stuttered as he led me to one of the chairs and firmly sat me into it.

He shrugged. "Isn' much..."

"Hagrid! You should be—could you not live inside of the castle!"

He bustled about to pour boiling liquid from a plain red tea kettle into two large china cups. "Tea?"

I recoiled and shuddered, terrified of what I might find in the dregs. "N-no thank you." Hagrid regarded me curiously, but left the second mug where it had been filled. He patted my shoulder awkwardly ere he pulled out the chair beside me.

"Now," he began gruffly, "Ye've got ter tell me... why're yeh...?" He threw his hands helplessly.

I described to him what had happened. As I spoke, his expression changed from a pained look to one of fear. "I have got the Sight, Hagrid. A-and I think... I have Seen something I was not supposed to..."