I do not own Harry Potter nor World of Darkness
Divination tower, Hogwarts, 18th September 1994 (Monday)
Sally walked toward her Divination class with Alain, a fourteen year old bard with a blonde mohawk that slowly phased in color towards red.
"So… you studied Divination with the College?"
"I guess. We classify Magic a bit differently from you, but considering Sahajiya are the undisputed masters of the Time Sphere, I guess Divination would technically fall under our area of expertise."
Sally raised an eyebrow. That was a very roundabout way to say 'maybe'. But, it also raised a very interesting question.
"How do you classify Magic then?"
"We have a wheel: you start from Prime, which is the immateriality and understanding of the universe. You conceive the universe through Mind, which is the potential of consciousness, which we focus into Spirit, the comprehension of… well, anything magical. You give it form to get Matter, Life and Forces. Matter and Life should be self-explanatory and Forces… Well, you are Hermetics, so you should be pretty familiar with that one."
"I'm… what?"
"Hermetic. You know… wand-weavers?"
Sally raised an eyebrow. "You… don't use wands?"
Alain laughed. "Fuck no! That's Hermetic shit, we have our own tools."
She pulled out… Sally wasn't entirely sure what the girl had pulled out of her pockets, but it looked like a pear-shaped glass phial with a metal staw of sorts poking through the bottom.
"Anyway… magic given form needs to be perceived through the next two spheres: Time and Correspondence, the 'when' and 'where'. If you perceive things, you can then apply Entropy, which is the principle of chance, fate and mortality to decay and return back to Prime."
Sally nodded, half listening and half looking at the weird tool the girl was still holding.
"That's a… rather esoteric way to look at magic."
The Sahajiya snorted. "Wait until you learn about Consensus reality and Paradox. By the way, you should take a step left."
Sally blinked. "Sorry, what?"
As soon as she finished her sentence, she slammed into Draco Malfoy.
"Watch where you're walking, Perks! - he almost shouted, before turning towards the blonde. - So, you are the new student? From a 'college', right? Name's Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." he said, extending his hand toward her.
Alain snorted, shaking the boy's hand. "Nice to meet you, double-o seven. Got your license to kill yet?"
Malfoy's face contorted in confusion. "What?"
"You should watch more movies. The fact you don't know who 007 is should be a crime."
Draco looked at Crabbe and Goyle, trying to figure out what in Merlin's name was this girl talking about.
"Regardless, I gotta go. Professor Trelawney will introduce us to Divination and I don't want to miss the part where she'll trip and spill tea over my cousin. Talk to you later."
Without waiting for a reply, the girl walked around a stunned Malfoy and climbed into Professor Trelawney's class.
"Greetings, students. And welcome to our new guests. I foresaw your coming quite a while ago, but I am afraid to admit I must have missed something. I was under the impression some of you were to join the third year in Defense Against the Dark Arts at this moment." she said, looking at Alain with a puzzled look.
"It's not a problem. I was debating which way to go and was planning to join them after Divination." said Alain, trying to hide her nervousness. She had gone to Defense with the third year, but decided to rewind and go to Divination as well. She wasn't sure whether Professor was warning her about abusing Time, but she decided that in the future she'd go to Divination before setting up a time loop.
"I see. They do have two hours of DADA, after all. - pointed out Trelawney. - Regardless, I have spoken with Miss Uninnseann and while she assures me you have enough experience in Divination for an O.W.L., I would like to see it for myself, if you don't mind."
A few whispers spread among the students, looking at the newcomers with a mix of curiosity, admiration and envy.
"Sure, Professor. Mind if I use my own Foci for this?" she asked.
"There she goes, hogging all the attention again…" muttered an older boy with long purple hair, earning a sharp glare from the blonde.
"Do you want to go first, Blaire?"
The man chuckled, winking at the girl.
"Oh, no thanks, cousin dearest. I'm just pointing out I didn't need magic to foresee this."
Alain rolled her eyes, casually flipping the bird to her cousin while moving her attention back to the professor and pulling a deck of cards out of her pocket.
"Tarot reading from the start? It's part of the curriculum, but I thought you'd rather start with something easier. Don't you have a crystal ball?"
Alain shook her head. "Sorry Professor, we don't use them. I could start with some tea leaves reading if…"
A steaming teacup appeared in front of her.
"I knew you would ask for it. You can start by reading your own future."
Alain started to sweat. She had never done tea reading without adding a few drops of psychedelics in the mix. And it wasn't like… She felt something heavy in one of her pockets, and fished it out, taking a small sigh of relief at the familiar weight of a glass container belonging to her cousin. She popped the cork, carefully using her dropper to measure the dosage.
"I carry my own sugar." she explained at the very confused look of the Hogwarts students and the knowing smirk of her fellow Sahajiya. After stirring the tea a bit, she started to drink it, letting the drug course through her system, her vision slightly hazed as she stared at the cup. The leaves started to move under her eyes, forming shapes and figures, telling her a story. What happens if I ace this exam? The leaves danced, shaping themselves into a young figure, surrounded by older kids. What if I make a mistake? The shapes changed again, showing those same figures pointing a finger at her.
"It seems like older students have their eyes on me. From the looks I'd say… sixth years? If I pass this exam would I move to their class?"
Trelawney raised an eyebrow. "That would indeed be the case, but why are you framing it as a question?"
"I am merely observing one possible future, Professor."
Alain felt something stirring in her stomach. Was… Backlash already? But why? She had followed the instructions like in the books! Her Magic should have been entirely coincidental!
"Miss Stuart, please take this seriously. There is but one, single future. While it is true that arrangements have been made for you to join the sixth year should you pass this exam, and thus your answer is considered valid, I invite you to take this class more seriously."
Alain wanted to shout. A single future? What the fuck!? And that alone was enough to deem her prediction as vulgar?! Their Consensus was stricter on Time magic than the Sleeper's!
"Sorry, Professor. Does your class do haze reading?" she asked.
"We contain the haze within crystal balls. Prolonged exposure to the haze can have adverse effects on the mind."
Alain nodded, trying to hide her frustration. Altering the mind's perception was the whole fucking point!
"Would you mind if she were to give a demonstration for academic purposes? I'm sure a single exposure can't cause any harm to the students… and Alain's pretty good at it." pointed out Blair from the back.
Trelawney frowned for a second. She was well aware of the effects of crystal ball haze, having been exposed herself when she accidentally cracked a few of them back in the day when she was sixteen. She had been hospitalized for three months… but then again… she had been exposed to doses hundreds of times higher than normal… And seeing proper old-school haze reading was a rare opportunity for her students…
"I suppose. I will need to ventilate the room afterwards, but it should be acceptable. Miss Perks, would it be ok for Miss Stuart to read your future?"
Sally smiled, looking at Alain.
"No problem, Professor."
Alain smiled. So long as she pretended that the future she saw was the only future, regardless of how much the mere idea of a single future disgusted her, she should be fine. Pulling out her bong, she prepared it with the precision of a seasoned professional. She grabbed a candle, not wanting to risk checking whether something as mundane as creating flame from her lighter, which had run out of gas years ago, went against the local Consensus. Once everything was ready, she inhaled, filling her lungs with smoke, before turning towards a confused, yet eager, Sally and exhaling the smoke in her face.
The smoked danced, her head spinning as she tumbled her way through visions of the future. Possibilities, infinite possibilities spread out in a chain of karmic links. Cause and effects, bundles together by reason and shattered by Fate. She followed the chain in her trance, following the toughest links, guiding herself towards the future that, while certainly not unique, was at least the most probable.
She saw Sally working in a dark office in a ministerial building, waving wands at a large collection of crystal spheres, neatly stacked in shelves that reached the ceiling and extended beyond it. Sally turned her head, her mouth sealed shut with black stitches. That should suffice. She blinked, and the vision disappeared.
"I saw you working in a building I do not recognize. It was official, something important… government, maybe? You were working with strange orbs and… your mouth was sealed shut, you couldn't speak."
Professor Trelawney beamed with happiness.
"Excellent job, Miss Stuart. And Miss Perks… I shall congratulate you on your future as an Unspeakable." she started clapping her hands, immediately followed by the rest of the class.
Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, Alain fished something from her pocket, uncapping the small syringe. She didn't have a lot of time, but the effects of the Bong were still in her system. It was very much a gamble, but she knew that with a bit of luck, which was certainly on her side thanks to her expertise in Entropy from all the gambling she did with the others… she knew she would hit the vein. And besides… without risks, there was no reward.
Under the cover of the table, she jammed the syringe into the inside of her arm, squeezing just a tiny bit and really hoping that her magic allowed her to hit the vein. Spilling ketamine in her muscles was not an experience she wanted to repeat, even with an experienced Life user like Ciara at their beckon call.
She felt her word slow down, her vision hyperfusing on her tarot deck. She barely heard professor Trelawney asking her to do a reading on her.
Her magic awakened thanks to her altered state, Alain started to shuffle the deck, spreading the cards in a line.
She flipped the first set of cards.
The Devil. The Star, reversed. The Lovers.
She looked at a blushing Professor Trelawney. If she was reading this correctly, the Professor was feeling some sort of guilt for being unfaithful, but longed for a relationship. As if… as if she was sleeping with someone she wasn't supposed to.
"Professor, I was certainly not expecting something this… personal."
"No matter, this sort of thing can happen sometimes. Please, continue."
She flipped the next set.
"We usually shuffle between sets." pointed out the Professor, causing a bout of nausea in the Sahajiya. Fucking hell, how strict was the local Consensus on Time!?
The Fool. Judgement, reversed. The Hanged Man.
She stared at the cards for a second, before looking at the Professor.
"I think… - she started, pointing at the Lovers card. - …you might want to talk to whoever this is and clear things up before things get ugly."
Trelawney looked surprised at Alain, before shaking her head.
"I am afraid it's already too late. - She pointed at the Hanged man. - It's bound to happen, after all."
Alain prepared herself for another Backlash, but to her surprise… nothing happened. Unexpected. And if she had learned anything with the College, it was that unexpected usually meant problems.
"I am very happy to announce that you have an excellent grasp on the forms of Divination we study for the O.W.L.s. We have to work on translating your haze reading into the crystal ball, but I reckon with your experience and talent, it shouldn't take too long. Congratulations, Miss Stuart."
Alain nodded, still dazed by the drugs in her system, taking in the applause of the other students. She tried her best to follow Professor Trelawney's lectures, puzzling the intricacies of crystal ball reading, but she was baked for a good half of the lecture and couldn't follow her explanation too well. Not that it mattered, her cousin was going to let her borrow his notes anyway. Besides, it was probably only a matter of getting used to a new Focus, nothing she hadn't already done in the past. Once the lecture was over, she bid her goodbye to the class, leaving the rest of her fellow College members to take their own test and headed down towards the Potions classroom, knowing she had lost one hour for the Divination class, but figured it wouldn't matter. After all, she had already jumped backwards and successfully closed a loop without Backlash, meaning the local Consensus didn't have a problem with closed time loops as much as 'incorrect' forms of divinations.
She checked to make sure there was no one else in the dungeon corridor and started to sprint, following a well-practiced choreography, reaching in her pocket for a blunt… and suddenly stopping as nothing appeared in her hand. Weird. Her future and past selves had never missed a delivery. She should have received her blunt as soon as she had started dancing, why…
Her eyes opened in a sudden realization. That feeling when Professor Trelawney had 'corrected' her last prediction… She took a deep breath, following the movements of the first Rote she had ever learned, humming the tune she memorized almost half a decade ago, her eyes closed as she hoped she was wrong. As the dance finished as she opened her eyes, she saw… nothing. She should have been able to see the magic living within the castle, but there was nothing. Only the dead, cold stones, without any trace of visible magic.
"Fucking hell. - she muttered under her breath. - I got a Quietus from fucking up a tarot reading?"
Fae Studies class, Hogwarts, 23th September 1994 (Friday)
While Professor Trelawney was ecstatic about the results of the Bardic College, particularly the Sahajiya group, Headmaster Dumbledore had found numerous evidence of that particular group of students dealing with numerous illicit substances. He had then given Uninnseann a very stern talking to regarding the lack of discipline of her students and their use of drugs during lessons, completely unaware that the teachers themselves were the ones providing drugs to the students and had already turned a small corner of their assigned room, hidden behind a space-time fold courtesy of Duncan's expertise in Correspondence, into an improvised, yet highly efficient, magically-powered meth lab.
While the College had offered many public apologies on behalf of their students, Harry had the distinct impression that the Sahajiya had taken Dumbledore's disapproval as a challenge to keep the entirety of their illegal dealings hidden from Hogwarts staff.
Professor Snape had been extremely impressed at the Verbena's ability to brew nearly perfect potions, even going so far as to share with Professor Ciara a few tricks and alternative ingredients that granted each other's potions greater efficiency, faster brewing or simply to reduce the quantity of rare materials used. On the other hand, he loathed the Sahajiya, the 'Gryffindors on drugs' as he started to call them, and went so far as to ban them from the room once they had started to experiments on his supply, no doubt to figure out how to use them for creating hallucinogens.
The only Sahajiya that still had access to the Potion class, at least for the time being, was Alain who, for some reason, had not used magic since that first day in Divination class, prompting Malfoy to wonder if she was a squib.
Harry hadn't had any contact with them yet, but four had opted to join up the new Fae Studies course: Blair, an enthusiastic purple-haired man; Alain, who turned out to be Blair's fourteen year old cousin; Garvey, a green-haired eleven year old boy; and Galen, a somewhat taciturn sixteen year old boy who wore a scottish bonnet to try to hide his already balding head and, if Harry understood the difference in uniforms between the two houses, was the only Verbena in the group.
"Good morning, class. - started off Professor Pince - And a good morning to our new exchange students. Now, before we start the lecture… Have you ever had interactions with Changelings?"
"Plenty! - shouted Blair, getting the attention of everyone in the class and a warning glare from his cousin. - Got an old buddy of mine that has some of the good stuff. He's a Satyr, which is kind of weird since Satyr usually don't have a great affinity with plants… Oh, and there's Lehannan! She's a Sidhe with the biggest pair of.."
"NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THAT!" shouted Alain, jumping on her feet before her cousin could finish the sentence.
"But she asked for our experiences with Changelings."
"She didn't mean sexual experiences, you idiot!"
The exaggerated sound of Professor Pince clearing her throat interrupted the argument.
"I see that you have interacted with Changelings before. Disregarding Mr. Stuart's sexual conquests, I take it you have all met them before? Miss Stuart?"
Alain nodded.
"There's a Freehold not too far from our town. I haven't visited it, but I've heard that a Sidhe from House Gwydion is the one ruling over it. We had some dealings with some of his knights in the past and my idiot cousin there buys his weed from them."
"The best Kush in all of Scotland." declared Blair, causing Professor Pince to raise an eyebrow.
"Thank you, miss. Normally I would award you house points, but given your situations my thanks will have to suffice. Now… today's topic are Redcaps. Outside of Gringott's bank tellers, did anyone here have an encounter with them?"
She glared at a smirking Blair slowly and deliberately raising his hand, before quickly clarifying. "An encounter that isn't of sexual nature, Mr. Stuart."
Right next to Harry, Galen leaned closer.
"Sorry about Blair. I'd say it gets better, but that's only because you get used to him."
Harry nodded, slightly dumbfounded as the Verbena raised his hand and started to recount his first encounter with a Redcap biker gang crashing a wedding ceremony a couple of years prior.
Notes
Meet some of the Bards! (in case you're wondering, the Bardic College is a canon WoD instution that contains Sahajiha, Verbena, Changelings and Fiannas in their rank. They are pretty cool) They are having some difficulty adjusting to the specific variant Consensus in the Wizarding World, with its seemingly arbitrary quirks and rules
Quietus, for those who don't know, is one of the possible effects of aquiring too much Paradox: if that happends, your Magic just... does not work. It's usually temporary.
Yeah, the Sahajiha fucks. Were you expect anything else from the "sex, drugs and rock'n roll" tradition? I want to keep that aspect a bit limited, because I think overusing it gets extremely cringe extremely fast and in this case I prefer to overcompensate on the "no sex" side compared to the "cannibalistic orgies" one.
Answering Review/PM
I am fully aware that the most recent chapters (from some 41 and 42, others 41-43 and me personally 42 and 43) sometimes don't load at all. I have no clue why that happens, but from what I see, whatever issue is causing it, it tends to go away if you give it a couple of minutes before reloadin the page. I wish I had better suggestions, but i genuinely have no idea what is happening and why. Let's just cross fingers and hope it goes away by itself or is fixed by whoever is in charge of the site