The Serpent and the Eagle

Prologue - The Prophecy

[She Moved Through The Fair]

[Traditional Irish]

My young love said to me
My mother won't mind.

And my father won't slight you
For your lack of kind.

She stepped away from me,
And this she did say:

"It will not be long love,
'til our wedding day."

She stepped away from me
And she moved through the fair.

And fondly I watched her
Move here and move there.
And she made her way homeward
With one star awake,
As the swan in the evening
Moves over the lake.

I dreamed it last night
That my young love came in.

So sweetly she came
her feet made no din.

She stepped close beside me
And this she did say:

"It will not be long, love,
'Til our wedding day."

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Time Period: Unknown

Soft footfalls echoed off the vaulted stone ceiling. They were light, delicate and rushed, as though the runner was racing along on tiptoe.

The only ones who followed her flight through the castle were sentient portraits that whispered and hissed to each other. If the walls bore witness, they gave no sign. All was silent and still, until even her heartbeat sounded abnormally loud in the cavernous hallways.

A tinkling crash was swiftly followed by a heavy thud and a whispered obscenity heralded the arrival of one of Hogwarts' best and brightest.

A muttered spell immediately set the bookcase and vase pieces aright, mending the smithereens in a nanosecond.

The girl rounded the corner, panting alarmingly.

'Did anyone see you?' a low voice inquired.

'No,' she replied.

'Well, they certainly heard you.' He smiled, blue eyes sparkling with mischief

She blushed straight to the roots of her grey hair.

'That was an accident.' She muttered, and promptly changed the subject. 'Do you have the stuff?'

'Of course I do,' he replied, his voice high-pitched all of a sudden. 'Just...be careful when you take them, alright?'

She clutched at the parcel with trembling hands.

'I can see further than I have ever done before with these, Al,' she murmured. 'You're such a sweetheart!'

The older girl stooped to kiss his cheek, and instead found she was kissing his lips. He had turned away, reddening as he had done so, only to come into full impact with her lips.

It was an innocent mistake, but it was one that both would remember for centuries.

'Albus!' she gasped, stepping backwards, partly ashamed with herself for kissing a thirteen-year-old, but mostly angry that she had not seen this coming.

'I-I-I'm s-s-s-sorry, C-C-C-Cassandra!' he gibbered, scuttling away from her. After all, she was a seventh year Ravenclaw.

'Sorry isn't good enough!' she hissed. 'I have half a mind to deduct a hundred points from Gryffindor for lewd behaviour to another student, and the other half to inform Professor Dippet! He is still your Head of House?'

'Y-y-yes...Miss Trelawney!' Albus stammered. 'Please, don't...I'll be in s-s-so much trouble!'

Cassandra paused, enjoying his discomfort. After all, he had just done something that could result in her expulsion. Not to mention he had supplied her with Class A Non-Tradeable magical herbs, but that would implicate him more so than her.

'If you tell anyone about this, Dumbledore,' she growled in a deeply threatening voice, 'I swear I will make your life a living Azkaban. Merlin's beard! If this gets out...' she trailed off and glared at the cowering boy. 'That kiss never happened. Understood?'

He nodded vigorously, nearly knocking his glasses from his face.

Only a third year, and he was already beating every school examination record on file. He should have been a Ravenclaw, but the Sorting Hat had taken a full twenty minutes to decide on where he should go. She remembered it vividly from that year's sorting, and had been amazed when the hat reluctantly cried out, 'GRYFFINDOR!'

She folded her arms huffily and said, 'Well, get back to your dormitory, Dumbledore. But one word of this leaks to anyone...and I swear that I will personally hunt you down and use you for Bludger practice. Understand?'

His auburn head nodded vigorously, and he raced off through the corridors.

She sighed and looked away with a slight smile. Considering his age, and the experience level that went with it, he had been a very good kisser.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Albus Dumbledore stormed into his dormitory, half crying and half snarling with rage. She had treated him like a child...and all he had done was try to help her!

He wrestled and punched his pillow until it tore apart in a blizzard of soft white feathers. He caught his reflection in the mirror, and almost laughed at the sight. White feathers stuck at alternate angles from his curling hair.

Try as he might, Albus Dumbledore could never stay angry for long.

He brushed the feathers from his red-gold curls and sighed heavily.

Why had been so stupid? Going on a mad, errant sabbatical to Hogsmeade was one thing, but buying illegal magical herbs and plants in the process? If she told...then he would be expelled for sure.

Albus amused himself by floating his half-moon spectacles above his head, using a charm of his own devising. Despite the attempted distraction, he still could not shut her from his mind. Albus rolled over and almost swore with rage.

It was all very well and good to have a crush, but to have one on her - the most attractive, most talented and most sought-after girl in all of Hogwarts?

How could she make him feel dizzy with happiness and anticipation, and yet weighed down with frustration and even anger?

And how could she deny that kiss?

True, she was unusual in form and feature. Her nose was pert and delicate. She sometimes scrunched it up in distaste or in laughter. Her eyebrows were severe and thick, her only possible flaw. Their angle was harsh, and gave her an appearance of anger even when she smiled. Her jaw was square and chiselled, with a pleasantly shaped face. Her eyes were huge; giant amethyst orbs floating amongst skin as fine and transparent as lilies, albeit lilies that creased around her mouth and eyes, all framed by a cloud of storm-grey hair.

Rumour had it that her hair colour had been leeched by trafficking with spirits, and by disturbing visions. True, there had been even more rumours that she was sometimes levitated out of Gryffindor Tower at night, screaming and babbling about something she had seen, her eyes blazing red in anger or terror, or else gleaming blue with happiness or grief.

He loved her, despite all the rumours of madness and evil attached to her. He saw, or thought he saw, the intrinsic goodness of her spirit every time he looked at her.

He loved how quirky she was, and how much power she seemed to command. He loved her elegantly sweeping hair, and the way she moved...almost like a cat, or like a gazelle...so fluid and so graceful!

'Reparo,' he muttered, idly waving his wand at the torn pillow. Its parts and pieces collided and mended in the twinkling of an eye.

Albus smiled. If there was one thing he excelled at, it was Charms.

He swished his wand, following up swiftly with a flick aimed at the pillow with the words, 'Wingardium Leviosa!'

The pillow floated into the air, and he caught it as it drifted past him like a heaven-bound cloud.

The teenager lay back on the pillow and thought about various things until he finally drifted off to sleep. Things like Cassandra Trelawney, and how to get a little smidgen of revenge on her.

'One day she'll see how useless Divination really is,' he murmured as he drifted into a peaceful slumber. 'If I was headmaster at Hogwarts...I'd ban the ruddy subject! It's not like we need it even...prophecies never come true anyway...'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not very far away, a school prefect and legend combined into one was busily preparing a potion.

Cassandra Trelawney mixed all of the herbs together into a massive cauldron. As she added the final ingredient, some potentially fatal laudanum, the mixture took on a shade as purple as her eyes. It began to luminesce as she peered into its murky depths.

The light fell on her features, illuminating her face with an arcane glow that made her look very much like the stereotypical Muggle idea of a witch.

She rather liked this room. It was perfectly suited to her needs...she chuckled softly to herself. What a bad pun! This was, after all, the Room of Requirement. It changed to suit your exact needs!

She had learned about it from young Dumbledore not too long ago.

The school had begun a mentoring programme for younger students, and she had been assigned to Dumbledore from his first day in Hogwarts.

The whole idea of the programme was to integrate the new students in a highly professional way, while at the same time encouraging unity between the houses. The plan had been scrapped, however, after roughly six months of operation and declared, on the whole, an interesting but highly flawed experiment. A Gryffindor had been assigned to a Slytherin first year, and a massive uproar ensued when the same Slytherin was found imprisoned in Greenhouse Number Eight two days later, fighting off Devil's Snare and nearly fainting with exhaustion.

Needless to say, the idea was truly a failure.

Cassandra could have told them that without the aid of her "special brew". It was a little something she had dreamed up a few years ago while researching her own unique talent.

Certain magical herbs, fungi and plants could heighten the Seer's own power, and even make it possible for the ungifted to see past the Veil of Obscurity. Cassandra had researched these to the point where it had become a daily and nightly ritual for her to abandon all other pursuits and to bury herself in books and meditations.

So far, she had predicted deaths, the rise and fall of the British Empire and even what was coming up on tests in Hogwarts. The latter had given her a highly lucrative illegal business in the Hogwarts grounds, but Cassandra was still discontent with her advancements.

She wanted to See further than any had ever attempted.

She had been born with the mark of a Seer, a tiny birthmark on the inner left arm that faded minutes after birth. The quicker it faded, the more talented the Seer and the more accurate the prophecies.

In Cassandra's case, the midwife remarked that there had been a mark on the child's arm only seconds before she had handed her to the new mother. When pressed further, the midwife had claimed it seemed to be purple, and looked like a star shape. Her parents were excessively proud, and bragged about their child's gift to all and sundry.

Cassandra, however, despised this. She had kept quiet about her knowledge for as long as she could, but then she predicted her parent's deaths at the hand of a Dark Wizard at the tender age of twelve. They didn't believe her, and yet...it had come true this very year...almost seven months ago.

'Stop it!' Cassandra squeaked, and turned away from the potion.

The heady fumes must have been going to her head a little...her nose had nearly been touching the curved surface of the liquid.

She ladled some of the mixture into a goblet and retreated to some hundred various cushions that lay scattered haphazardly in the corner.

She sniffed once more at the mix, and almost choked. It smelled acrid, and it was still bright purple and smoking.

Hesitantly, she took a sip and found the taste to be surprisingly pleasant. It reminded her a little of sweet lemon juice, although that could be attributed to the lemonbalm she had added in its preparatory stages.

Everything about this was experimental, she knew this, and yet she foolishly drank the remainder of her poisonous concoction in three rapid swallows.

The world around her melted and merged with others, almost like two, three, four or even five film negatives placed together and viewed at once.

Colours flashed bright in her eyes, leaving scalded impressions even when she closed them. She saw the rise and fall of nations and rulers; she saw terrible battles, glorious victories and humiliating defeats. Armies of Dementors slithered past, reaching out scabbed hands to her. She cowered away from them, screaming.

Werewolves stalked by in packs, circling her and howling manically. A crowd of vampires rose to join their ranks, as well as strange wizards and witches in masks, all of them cackling with laughter.

One stood slightly aside, trembling and pale. As she watched, his hand separated from its arm and fell to the ground with a sickening squelch. It flooded towards a cloud of dust, and joined with it. The dust cloud took on the shape of a human, but did not solidify just yet. The pale man gazed, his mouth open in a silent scream, at the stump where his arm used to be.

But amidst the chaos her mind had descended into, she saw two groups of heroes standing apart from the others.

The first group was one of four, three men and one woman.

The woman was exceptionally pretty, making the somewhat shallow Cassandra jealous. Her hair was dark red, her eyes a startling contrast of vivid jade green, and her smile was like the burst of a dawn sunrise in its brilliance and beauty. She was coloured for Slytherin and Gryffindor both.

The man beside her had dark eyes and hair. His arm was slung around her shoulders, and he looked exquisitely happy. He had the lean look of a Seeker. Cassandra almost thought she could see antlers...almost like a stag's...coming from his head, but later dismissed it as her imagination.

Two men stood next to the couple. One was thin and gangly looking, his eyes haunted. His skin had a moonlit kind of glow, and he morphed into a werewolf right before her eyes. Snarling and slavering, the werewolf launched itself at her.

Cassandra recoiled in terror, but soon realised that the Seeker had become a stag in earnest. He was battling the werewolf into submission, but somehow it got past him.

It stalked towards her, its near-human intelligence glittering in its yellow eyes with malice she had never before encountered in any creature. Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the fatal clutch of jaws about her throat, when she realised it wasn't coming.

The final man had become a giant dog, and between the shaggy dog and the proud stag they cowed the werewolf. They turned and smiled at her.

Cassandra saw the mark of death hanging over three of them like a grim shadow. The lady and the stag and the dog were being stalked by some phantasmal terror, but it came to them under a disguise of a smiling, friendly face. It was the pale man from before!

The werewolf, curiously, seemed set to have a long life.

It whimpered under the pressure from its captors' hooves and paws, looking at her pitifully.

'Release him!' Cassandra commanded the other beasts. They all vanished, leaving the werewolf in their stead. Its eyes were no longer murderous, but hurt and confused. It whimpered, lonesome now that its friends had vanished.

She stepped forward, either bravely or foolishly (she could never remember why afterwards) and stroked the werewolf's matted fur.

The werewolf howled mournfully and stalked off.

Meanwhile, Cassandra realised that three more were awaiting her attention.

A young girl, younger than Cassandra herself, with bushy brown hair and a look of superiority on her pretty face faced her now. She clutched books in her arms, and stared at Cassandra as though she were an interesting magizoological specimen.

Beside her stood a tall, gangling youth with vivid red hair. His freckles stood out like coal amongst snow, and he gave her a shy smile.

'Can you see me?' she whispered, reaching out her hands to these apparitions. 'Can you hear me?'

They nodded, and hushed her as their companion stepped forward.

He wore a suit of chain mail and armour, and about his shoulders was clasped a cloak of red velvet lined with ermine. At his hip was a sword, and on his head a helmet. He removed this, and held it between his torso and his arm.

Cassandra could not help but notice the lightning scar on his forehead, nor could she help realising the similarities between this warrior youth and the couple from before. He had her eyes, and his features. He, too, had the look of a Seeker.

Suddenly, the pale man without a hand came forward and cut the boy. Blood flowed easily from the wound, and flowed sickeningly through the air towards the dust cloud. This time, it solidified and took its place in the vanguard of its army.

He turned towards her, his eyes blazing red, almost like her own could when she was angry, but his were full of such pure, unadulterated evil that it sickened her to have this sight in her mind.

Up against him rose a tall, slender figure with a sweeping silvery beard and hair to match. His blue eyes were familiar amongst his crinkled face, and although his nose was crooked she recognised him.

'ALBUS!' She bellowed.

The older version of Dumbledore battled against the legion of death, led by their snake-like captain. He heard his name, and turned to her.

Just as he did so, a wandless spell erupted from the evil one's wand and struck Albus through the heart.

He fell, reaching out a gnarled hand to her as he did so.

'...love you,' he mouthed.

Cassandra fell to her knees, reaching for him, weeping and sobbing.

The evil one stood above Albus' lifeless form, and his lips parted in a cruel laugh.

'Rest, little one,' it said, turning to face Cassandra, 'And know for the rest of your life that no matter how much you try to protect him, in the end I will triumph over Albus Dumbledore. Lord Voldemort shall rule this world, and none shall oppose him!'

She screamed in horror, and passed out cold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They found her the next morning in the corridors, her pupils dilating crazily and still pouring forth a stream of meaningless babbling. All about her were reams of parchment, with hastily scribbled prophecies on each of them.

Many spoke of the "Boy Who Lived", and "Demise Eaters", others were transcripts of upcoming tests, including OWLS and NEWTS, some spoke of the future of Albus Dumbledore and a glittering career as an Auror and then as a teacher and Headmaster at Hogwarts, but more spoke of dark times coming soon and the future of Cassandra Trelawney, which involved spending much time in St. Mungo's while her mind healed from the grievous blow of hallucinogenic herbs.

Many of these were dismissed as the ramblings of a weakened mind, but not all. They were all kept on file in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic for future study and perusal, including the OWLS and NEWTS, which were to be used for the coming decades.

The one that stood out most in the staff's mind, however, ran thus:

The serpent clutched between the eagle's claws,

While the badger dies and the lion roars.

Long and fabled is the enmity,
Between the red, and the green.

Allies once were red and blue,
Until the rapport of blue and green grew.

Red now depends on yellow,
While bitterness towards the blue grows.

The serpent clutched between the eagle's claws,

While the badger dies and the lion roars.

The red champion forward comes,
In the wind, strong and handsome.

An end to darkness is what he seeks,
But within his heart misgivings speak.

Azure is now allied to jade,
It seems the foundations of defeat are laid.

The serpent clutched between the eagle's claws,

While the badger dies and the lion roars.

It is the ruby hero's destiny,
For the love of sapphire to cause him misery.

The jewel of blue lies in the green's clasp,
But he is unaware that he is caught in her grasp.

Captive to his tormentor's charms,
He longs and falters within her arms.

The serpent clutched between the eagle's claws,

While the badger dies and the lion roars.

The badger falters, the badger fails,
the lion-hearted hero stumbles and pales.

The eagle makes the serpent her slave,
And eventually leads all to a premature grave.

And unless her sway is broken from over him,
The future of Hogwarts looks decidedly grim.

The serpent clutched between the eagle's claws,

While the badger dies and the lion roars.

In the years to come, the prophecy was recognised for its lyrical quality and made into a song. It became an instant hit amongst Hogwarts alumni, who recognised the imagery of red, yellow, blue and green, not to mention the serpent, lion, eagle and badger. The Gryffindors praised its honest portrayal of the animosity between Slytherin and Gryffindor, whereas Slytherins moaned about being depicted as slaves to Ravenclaw. Ravenclaws were disturbed by the prophetic element, whereas Hufflepuffs merely enjoyed the strong beat and catchy melody.

In the time of Harry Potter, however, the Weird Sisters recorded it as a charity record in aid of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. It had become almost like a drinking song, or more accurately, one for singing while drunk, almost like The Fields of Athenry, or even the Wizard's Staff Has A Knob On The End.

And yet, its prophetic element had almost been forgotten.

All except by one man, who yet remembered his passion for the sibyl who had predicted it.