Chapter 39: Divination
“Expecto Patronum,” Dumbledore muttered.
Nothing happened.
He scowled. From what he’d gathered from Hailey’s description the evening before, she’d produced the world’s strongest patronus by concentrating on the fact that she was a girl. He’d never heard of a patronus working from that kind of reason before, but what did he know? She’d obviously done it!
Unfortunately, even the Elder Wand- which could turn even the smallest happy memory into a bright patronus- wasn’t getting anything out of him when he concentrated on the fact that he was a man. He’d tried concentrating on the ‘fact’ that he was a girl but, rather predictably, got no results.
The funny thing about her description had been that not a single thing she’d mentioned could have been categorized as a ‘memory’. Sure, they were things that made her happy, but they weren’t memories- and as far as he knew at least, the patronus only worked on memories.
He frowned, and concentrated with all his might on his male-ness once more.
“Expecto Patronum.”
Again, nothing.
A sudden ping through the Castle wards made him look up- Snape was ascending his staircase.
He waited patiently.
The knock eventually came. “Enter,” he called.
Snape stepped in.
“Ahh, just the man,” Dumbledore commented, a sudden idea striking him.
Snape raised an eyebrow.
He shook his head. “Sorry.” He paused for a second to recall the reason Snape was coming into his office- he knew what it was, it was a preplanned visit. “Ahh, did you find Silversong?”
Snape smiled wryly. “It would seem Draco Malfoy prefers to go by the name of Silversong,” he informed Dumbledore.
He blinked. “He… does? But we met Silver, didn’t we?”
Snape nodded. “She is able to transform herself, much like Hailey- though I understand that unlike Hailey’s, hers is at will.”
“Ahh,” Dumbledore muttered, scowling. “Though… Hailey said her transformation is now at-will, too- she’s been reassigned to the girls’ dorms, by her request. On that topic, she also said she produced that massive patronus by concentrating on the fact that she’s a girl.” He looked up at Snape.
Snape raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”
“How fast does that genderswap potion work?”
He blinked. “You’re not,” he observed, then he shrugged. “About twelve hours. It’s dangerous to try to reverse for six days after it finishes.”
He tilted his head. “Wasn’t there one that does it in an hour?”
He shrugged. “Yes, but with that one, you can’t turn back for six months. And if you want the one that lets you turn back immediately, expect a month-long transformation process with no clear indicator for when it’s done- and for permanence to set in just three days after transformation.”
He winced. “What about the other two?”
“The other two don’t induce permanence.”
He sighed. “Alright. I think you know what I’m going to ask.”
“I will require three days to brew the potion,” he informed Dumbledore. “It will keep for three more, requiring a fresh batch for the reversal. When will you want it?”
Hailey knew better than most other students in the school that none of the elective subjects had nearly enough students in them to warrant full classes of instructors. The reason was simple- a vast majority of Equestrian students had stayed with just their core classes.
As a result, she was completely unsurprised that she, the Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts, was attending the same Divination class as Bonbon, HSI for Potions, and just about every single other British student that had selected it.
She was especially unsurprised since, during the summer, she’d been made into the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead- which had been Bonbon in her first year, then Twilight in her second. As a result, she’d signed off personally on all the instructor and class assignments, including her own. Hermione’s schedule had been fun to build, since she’d signed up for everything- but thanks to the flexibility of the Student Instructor Program, they’d managed it without requiring her to use time travel to reach all her classes.
Somewhat more surprising was Professor Trelawney. She was the strangest, most stereotypical fortune teller Hailey had ever seen. Even so, the way she opened the class left no doubt in Hailey’s mind that she was a Seer- a concept Bonbon had explained to her nearly two weeks prior, while they had been building the class schedules in Diagon Alley.
Hailey smiled softly to herself as she drank the tea the Professor had poured her, swirled it, and drained it, as instructed. Finally, she handed her cup to Bonbon to read, and accepted Bonbon’s in turn.
“You first,” Bonbon prompted. “What do you see?”
“A load of soggy brown stuff,” Hailey answered promptly.
Bonbon smiled. “Me too,” she observed.
She chuckled softly. “Anyways…” She gazed into Bonbon’s cup, looked down at the required pages of Unfogging the Future, and back into the cup, which she started rotating slowly. “Something tells me this isn’t the best way to introduce tea leaves,” she mused. “Hmm… That looks like…” She scowled, and looked down at the book. “... The Skull,” she concluded. “Danger lies ahead.”
Bonbon snorted softly. “In my line of work?”
Hailey chuckled as well, and peered back into the cup. “Lesse. That looks like…” She rotated it a bit, then looked back and forth between it and the book. “... This thing,” she decided, touching it on the page. “However it’s pronounced. You’ve got a big surprise coming.”
She raised an eyebrow. “After you single-handedly outperformed the entire Corps last year? I rather doubt there’s going to be anything too surprising this year.”
She snorted. “Oh, you never know. Maybe Peter will have been the one to kill thirteen muggles, not Black.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Especially if he’s an unregistered animagus.”
Hailey smiled. “Or maybe Sirius is about to walk through that wall playing a clarinet.”
She tilted her head. “Oh alright, I suppose that would be a little surprising.”
She chuckled, scowled into the mug, consulted the book, and sighed. “There’s more in here, but I can’t make it out. Your turn.”
Bonbon looked down at Hailey’s cup, turned it ninety degrees counterclockwise, and lowered it. “It’s trying to tell us stuff we already know,” she mused. “The Falcon- you have a great enemy. The Club- an attack. The Skull. The Stray, I think- you’ll meet an important animal. Looked like a dog. Then I think there’s another layer I can’t make out.”
“So mostly,” Hailey mused. “I’m me. And-!”
“Let me see,” Professor Trelawney barked suddenly, snatching the cup from Bonbon’s hands. She promptly proceeded to call out the same things Bonbon had just announced in the same order, one at a time, except for the Stray. Instead of that one, she screamed.
Naturally, when she asked them not to ask her what she’d seen, someone- Dean Thomas- promptly did.
“My dear-! You have… The Grim.”
About half the class clapped their hands to their mouths.
“The Grim?” Hailey asked. “Why would I have a death omen? I’m invulnerable.”
Bonbon scowled. “I thought that was the Stray. What do you think, Hailey?”
Hailey peered over Trelawney’s shoulder into her cup. “Mmm…” She consulted the book, and looked back into the cup. “Yeah, that’s not a Grim. That’s Sirius.”
“Seriously?” Bonbon asked, raising an eyebrow, while Professor Trelawney- and the entire rest of the class- turned to stare at Hailey.
She nodded. “Yeah. Grimms are a bit bulkier than that, but Sirius is skinny.”
“So what was he looking for?”
“Harry. Though not in a bad way- he wanted to check up on his god-son while he waited for the Hogwarts year to start so he could come commit the murder he was imprisoned for.”
“So how was it?” Hailey asked, glancing back at True Foresight- the strongest known Equestrian seer, who usually went by ‘Four’- as they descended from Professor Trelawney’s tower. The girl was also the brand new Head Student Instructor for Divination.
“That was a good class,” she answered, nodding. “Professor Trelawney could definitely benefit from our instructor course- but while she is a seer, she’s also a weak seer, hence why she needs such a conducive environment. Taking that course would probably damage her receptivity to the Future for two or three months, so I can’t recommend it during the year.”
“Interesting. How do you think she’s doing?”
“I think she’s using her gift to try and figure out how best to teach the class- I think she knows even less about it than Professor Snape did, but she’s aware of that and doing her best with what she has.” She sighed. “And doing really well with it, too. Inviting us into her carefully cultured environment does pollute it a little, but it makes it so many thousands of times easier for us to learn, too.” She shrugged. “Well, at least the ones that don’t know they’re seers, or that aren’t as powerful as I. I’m strong enough to See in almost any situation- but even the weakest Seer in the world will be able to discern that they can see something when exposed to that environment, even if they won’t be able to tell what unless they stay there for a very long time- like Trelawney said, about ‘clouding the inner eye’.
“Meanwhile, had that class taken place in a regular classroom environment, it’d take a fairly strong Seer to realize they could see at all.” She smiled. “That’s why we’ve already been building environments like that one in all our Divination classrooms, as a matter of fact. Oh, and Bonbon?”
Bonbon looked. “Mm?”
“It is my professional opinion, as Princess Celestia’s Royal Fortune Teller, that you are a seer.”
Bonbon blinked. “I’m a what?”
“You’re a Seer,” she repeated. “And a mighty strong one at that. It took me almost two weeks to detect the aether layer to the Tea Leaves back home, but you did it on your first try.”
“... Oh.”
“How hard is it to tell without that?” Hailey asked.
“Depends,” Four shrugged. “Even non-seers will react to an environment like that- but it’ll be different. If you’re skilled, like I am, you can judge that reaction to determine if someone’s a Seer or not.” She smiled. “Three of the other students, aside from Bonbon, are Seers I wasn’t aware of. Which actually includes Neville, though his clumsiness is going to make it really hard for him to learn it for himself.”
Hailey nodded; Neville had already run ahead, for his next class. “Huh.” She paused. “I’m… curious. How about me?”
She sighed. “There’s three main categories those reactions can put people into. One is Seers. The second- the one you’re in- is the unknowns. If you’re a Seer, it’s weak, but I can’t tell if you are or not.”
“And the last is definitely not?”
She nodded. “And the last category is definitely not a Seer. Take Hermione for example.”
Hermione looked up, raising her eyebrows.
“She had a slightly aversive reaction to the environment- definitely not a Seer… and if she tries anyways, even with the techniques usable by non-Seers, she’s more likely than not to get inaccurate results. That’ll even affect the results of a true Seer using a technique that requires her cooperation, such as tea leaves.”
Hermione put one finger to her chin. “So when Lavender saw the Grimm in my cup…?”
She nodded. “She was right, it was there, but it shouldn’t have been.”
“Is there any way to change that?”
“Uh… Not that I’m aware of.”
Hermione nodded gently. “I have a new project.”
All four of them laughed.
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Ooh, so Divination actually has its' merits. Also-is Hailey an "Unknown" Psychic? She was spot-on about you-know-what
11081542
About you-know-what...? Are you referring to Sirius, or what she saw in Bonbon's cup?
11081546
Snuffles
A Security Officer that can Sense even milliseconds ahead, is one with milliseconds extra to react. And with bullet speeds of a tgousand foot per second, that millisecond is the difference between a OSK and surviving.
Uhoh. Hermione has a lot of Muggle knowledge to use. Like telescopes allow you to look back in time, but the double slit experiment allows you to make the photons fall where you want.
Nice touch with the world-building for why Trelawney acts the way she does. :)
I'm also looking forward to seeing if Dumbledore is up to what I think he's up to.
11081555
Oh, that depends entirely on what you think he's up to, I'd say.
11081548
Ahh. She talked to him- that's what she and Bonbon are implying.
11081555
If you mean that he is trying to turn himself into a woman to test if he can get the same results with the patronus charm as Hailey, then yes, he definitly is.
11081567
Ohhh, got it
11081551
I have to ask, but what is an OSK?
11081571
Though I do wonder what Snape thought he was thinking.
"Yer a seer, Bonbon."
11081571
*grin* That'll be good for some reactions from others. Hell, that's my number-one reason for loving gender-bending fiction. Exploring characters (personalities, worldviews, etc.) through their relationship with the concept of gender. It's just such a paradoxically trivial yet central thing.
(Trivial in that playing around with it has minimal effect on my ability to intuit how a character thinks, central in that doing so has massive impacts on a character's worldview.)
11081574
In this case,
One Shot Kill.
Not to be confused with,
On Screen Keyboard.
Why I have a feeling this sub-plot might either going to the direction I may have nightmare from it or end up hilarious in an unbelievable way?
Weak? I thought she was the one who gave out True Prophecy?
Lyra: Is that why Bonny seem to know whenever I was about to do my science experiment? I thought she is good at reading me since we are so close~
something tells me I'm going to dread hearing those words in this story at some point.
11081831
Yes. One only needs to be a Seer to give out true Prophecy, and it doesn't matter how strong or weak they are. The stronger one is, the easier it is to control when they give out said prophecies, or to perceive them themselves...
As for that subplot, as the one that knows which direction it goes and exactly how quickly it goes there, I'm curious which one is the nightmare fuel direction?