Chapter 149: Chapter 149: Clearing the Fog
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5 September 1993, Hogwarts
As he expected, exactly five minutes before the start of the class, the trapdoor opened and a silver ladder materialized out of nowhere in the middle of the crowd. It was such an impractical way to enter the classroom since only one person could enter at a time.
The Potter scion waited until he was last because he couldn't bother fighting for a spot. He climbed up and had his first look at the divination classroom.
It looked more like a classroom than the Defense classroom after the modification that Lupin did, in the sense that there were tables and chairs, but that was the extent of it. Honestly, it reminded him of a very dusty and antiquated teashop of some sort but had a certain timeless quality to it. Shimmering crystal balls, of varying sizes, occupied shelves along the walls, their surfaces reflecting the candlelight in a captivating dance of colours. Tattered, velvet curtains hung at the windows, creating an illusion of secrecy and seclusion. The room's shelves were lined with peculiar objects, from dreamcatchers to ancient-looking scrolls, all creating an ambience of mystery.
The central table was a massive, circular wooden contraption, covered in intricate, celestial patterns that seemed to move and shift, forming new constellations as you gazed upon them. Atop the table, there was a mishmash of tea cups, saucers, and plates, as well as a myriad of teapots, each one unique in design and style, hence the teashop description.
The chairs around the table were equally eclectic, with some resembling Victorian-era armchairs, others with ornate carvings, and a few appearing to have been plucked from entirely different centuries. They were as mismatched as the rest of the room, and adding the faint lighting from the myriad of candles floating in the air, the room just illuminated enough to see each other, but enough to be considered really lit.
All in all, it looked like an attic filled with divination artefacts scattered around. It even had this weird smell that made Harry dizzy just by breathing inside the classroom. He didn't know if it was some kind of incense or weird perfume, but he didn't like it.
When he sat down in one of the few remaining chairs, he noticed that the Professor was also nowhere to be found. With his Arcane Hearing, Harry saw that Trelawney was sitting in an obscured part of the room with a notice-me-not charm. Did she want to make a surprise appearance like Snape did in their first potion class?
The answer came a second later when a dishevelled woman appeared from 'the shadows', making Lavender and Parvati Patil yelp in fear, "Welcome all. My name is Professor Trelawney. Most of you would not have seen me around the castle since I tend to prefer my solitude, but I will be your Divination teacher in the foreseeable future. For some of you, this class might be one of the most difficult ones yet, and for others, passing might be as easy as breathing. You cannot learn the art of divination by studying books, but through experience and insight, which is why our classes will be more casual than your normal lessons."
She let out a loud pause and for the first time, Harry took a good look at her. She was very thin, with very thick glasses that he could tell were enchanted in some way, and wearing rings and bracelets that were thicker than her fingers.
The divination professor sat down in the largest chair and smiled slightly, "So before we even start learning how to divine the future, who can tell me what divination even is?"
Lavender raised her hand and answered, "It's seeing the future, right?"
"That's not technically wrong, but not really the full answer," the professor explained, "It's a very common misconception that divination is just seeing the future. Sure, a few skilled practitioners can actually make predictions and prophecies of the future, but the entire field of divination is far more than that. There are many definitions out there, but personally, I believe that divination is the art of gathering information on the past, present or future using various magical means. We can see the past because of the fact that magic remembers. Everything that happens in the present shapes magic in a way that it is possible to see it again after the fact. The more magical the event is, the more obvious it is to see. However, the more time passes, the harder it is to get a clear image of the truth. We call this aspect post-cognition."
She waved her wand, and an illusion took shape and surrounded them. It showed images of wars, of large spells, entrancing everyone. She smirked slightly and continued, "We can also see the present. It might sound meaningless, but that also means that we can observe locations far away without making ourselves known. It's actually one of the easiest types of divination to learn, which we also call scrying. Scrying is an aspect of clairvoyance, which can be summarized as perceiving or "seeing" events, information, or objects in the present beyond the scope of ordinary human senses. There are multiple methods of doing that, a few of which we will explore this year."
The illusion morphed into a familiar room, specifically the transfiguration classroom, where Professor McGonagall was teaching fifth years the vanishing charm. Seconds later, the professor stopped speaking, looked towards Trelawney and sighed in what seemed like exasperation before waving her wand, destroying the illusion altogether.
Harry noticed that Trelawney was smiling smugly. She must have some kind of rivalry with the transfiguration mistress, "As you noticed, this method is not foolproof, and people can sense and protect such breaches of privacy. It is still a very useful skill nonetheless, especially when it comes to finding lost objects. Also, the information that you gather doesn't have to be with sight or hearing. There are spells to divine the nature of artifacts which are very useful in detecting dark objects. These diviners are in very heavy demand in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
"Which brings us to seeing the future. This is, perhaps, the aspect of divination that is the most debated and the most subjective. The future is always in motion and all we can do is see a possibility. Theoretically, truly seeing the future would be like seeing every iteration of every choice that anyone in the world would have made. A fragment of this knowledge is enough to destroy the minds of the seer. Countless seers have succumbed to madness by trying to see, to understand more than their minds could possibly process. Thankfully, people with that kind of talent haven't been seen in thousands of years, even if an exception or two tended to pop up every couple hundred years. They still don't hold a candle to the seers of old, but I did hear a rumour about a witch in South America that could tell you the most likely outcome of a decision, but I haven't bothered to confirm it."
Parvati raised her arms, "So, if we don't have the sight, we won't be able to see the future."
"My dear, the idea that there is a wizard that doesn't have the 'sight' is ludicrous. What you call the 'sight' is essentially a wizard's ability to feel the currents of magic and use them to make predictions. We use this connection to subconsciously channel in many ways, like tea leaves or crystal balls to see the most likely outcome. People can have very varying talents in sensing magic or be attuned to a very specific method of channelling our predictions, but every wizard and witch should be capable of this skill. However, if you mean true seers, then it's an ability that you have to be born with. It comes with very vivid visions of events, but they aren't absolute. In contrast, there are Prophets, like myself, which is an entirely different thing. We sometimes enter trances and let the world speak through us. Our words are absolute even if we don't remember them. They will happen because there isn't a path in the future where they won't happen. The world itself will enforce them and you would need to fight the entire will of magic to stop it from happening, something that I don't see anyone capable of doing anytime soon, and I can't even imagine the consequences should that happen."
Parvati looked thoughtful at the answer. The professor then stiffened, "Oh, that introduction took a little longer than usual. The only thing I have to talk to you about before we can get started is how you're going to be graded. Every term, we will learn at least one method of precognition, one method of postcognition, and one method of clairvoyance. We will have assignments and exams at the end of every term, where you can choose whatever method, you prefer to find out the information asked. This is the exact protocol that your OWL examinations will have, and this would serve you well for the rest of your education. With that out of the way, let's get started in our first lesson which is about sensing magic."
All in all, the rest of the lesson was pretty much Trelawney coaching them to sense magic. She had brought up two boxes in front of them. One of which was very heavily cursed. The idea was to grow people's sixth sense in a way that every student could actively use.
The incense was making them a little dizzy, which would prevent people from overthinking, and it was working. It was a very novel method of teaching magical sensing. Harry was already an accomplished sensor since he sort of cheated with his Arcane Hearing. His experience with magic made him map every spell and every enchantment he felt to its song, giving him the ability to feel magic without his Arcane Hearing.
But Trelawney's method, even if it was unorthodox, was working. It was fascinating how quickly mediocre students grasped the idea. Of course, the professor switched the boxes with more subtle curses and different enchantments. They still haven't gotten to the final level, but it was still enough.
So far, the class was informative, very well-paced and interesting enough for students to keep paying attention, even if the incense dulled their cognitive abilities. Trelawney was competent and that was enough for Harry, actually, it was beyond what he hoped for.
This class would potentially be the one where he actually learned the most since he couldn't teach himself how to interpret visions with a book. Trelawney seemed experienced enough to give him advice, and that was one of the main reasons he picked this elective. He needed someone to talk to about his dreams, one that would help him understand, or at least remember. All he remembered was Hogsmeade burning, and it definitely felt like a warning. But he needed more details, he needed more information before making any plans.
He still didn't know if he could trust Trelawney, but the fact that the option was still there was already comforting. Harry didn't want Dumbledore or some stranger to know about his prophetic visions. That would have been a very bad idea.
However, although the lesson was interesting, Harry was still bored out of his mind since he already mastered that particular skill. To pass the time, he decided to finally take the time to see who even attended this class.
It was mostly made up of Gryffindors, Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas for the boys, who started hanging out after the falling out between Weasley and Neville, and Lavender Brown, and Parvati Patil for the girls. There was also Fay Dunbar and Michael Corner from Ravenclaw – who ended up forced to take the class since he dropped out of Arithmancy. Hannah Abbott and Zachariah Smith were the only Hufflepuffs, and Harry and Lily Moon were the only Slytherins.
It wasn't really the turnout of people who are good academically. Most of the wizarding world tended to divination for granted a bit. They had a point, from a parent's perspective, arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes, hell even Muggle Studies, offered career prospects. No one really cared about an OWL or NEWT in Divination, which is a very subjective magical field to test at, hence why it's considered to be an easy O in their OWLS. It could be useful as a subset, like a little anecdote if someone has some real talent in it, so Harry expects that with the first difficulty, students were going to start dropping the elective. Alas, he needed as much expertise in the subject to deal with his annoying prophetic dreams.
Harry's mind started to wander slightly, and the image of the fire was coming close. He could feel the heat, he could practically hear the screams. Hogsmeade was burning, but there was someone responsible. Who was it? It made him feel terrible, it made him feel scared and worried. But why? He could almost see his face, in the corner of his eye….
And just like that he stiffened when the bell rang.
Damn it, this was the closest he ever came to remembering that dream. Not knowing was driving him insane. He was so close. He could feel it. He almost wanted to curse something out of annoyance, alas, he needed to go to his next class. Perhaps he would have more luck in his next class.
He looked at his schedule and saw that he had Ancient Runes, the elective that was probably the most chosen since it was the most useful and parents practically forced their children to take it. Apparently, there was a group project every term to create a new rune cluster. That sounded interesting.
He was still grumpy about missing out on the rest of the details of his dream, though.
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