Harry Potter and the Dream of Fate

It was the weekend. Harry, Ron and Hermione were happily stuffing their faces at dinner, and Persephone wasn’t there. She was off serving her detention with Snape. As fascinating as the new student was, Harry was glad to have time alone with his friends. He had a few questions on his mind that needed answering, and the perfect person to ask was sitting in front of him, doing more homework.

“Hermione,” Harry began, “what’s a sorceress?”

Hermione seemed a bit taken aback by this question, she eyed him suspiciously, “Why?”.

“I’m curious,” Harry shrugged. Truly, he was curious, but there was more. In the past six days, Persephone had shown signs of seriously powerful magic. She had done very well in her classes, Transfiguration and charms especially. And the surprising part of it was, never once did she use her wand. Harry kept on remembering the night he woke up and had a chat with her and found out that she had most probably been touched by dark magic, and for some reason the brief conversation he had had with Ollivander at the wand shop wouldn’t leave him.

“Powerful, powerful witch,” Ollivander said to her softly, “do be careful what you do, and remember that glory is only revealed on the right side,” he winked at her and continued, sounding a bit melodramatic, “I believe you are the first sorceress I have ever seen, you will do well,”

Harry had thought that Ollivander had completely flipped his lid that day, not making any sense at all, but now with Persephone winging all her magic classes he had second thoughts. First off, what was a sorceress?

“I’m not sure I should tell you, Harry. That came kind of out of the blue,” Hermione said casually, again absorbed in her work.

“I’m just trying to gain more knowledge, Hermione, you tell Ron and I to do that all the time. Really, if you don’t tell me, your basically contradicting yourself.” Harry retorted.

“Alright then,” she said putting her quill down and looking at him straight in the eye, Harry knew she was going to go into detail. “A sorceress is an extremely powerful witch. So powerful, in fact, that most consider the word witch below her. Now by powerful, I mean, sorceresses can do magic that don’t need spells, magic so advanced that some of the most powerful wizards couldn’t even try to attempt. But I don’t know why you need to know this, when you-know-who came to power, he wiped out most sorcerers and sorceresses so that they wouldn’t interfere with is plans, and they were on their way to becoming extinct anyway. There have been soo many killings because of sorcerer-haters that it was hard to find one even 50 years ago, I don’t even think it’s possible to find one now!”

“But it’s possible, right? I mean nothing’s impossible,” Harry began.

“Yeah, I’m sure there’s at least one, but good like in finding one,” she said picking up her quill.

“How would you know that someone’s a sorceress?” Harry asked. He could tell Hermione looked a bit annoyed.

“Um,” she said sorting through her brain, “most sorceress have mythological names,” she said listing them on her fingers, “they can do wandless magic, have an original form of enchantment symbolic to them, and they usually have more than one form,”

“What?” Harry asked, original forms of enchantments? More than one form? What does that mean?

“Mythological names,” Hermione began, but was briskly cut off by Harry.

“Yeah, I mean enchantments, and forms?” he said impatiently.

“Enchantments,” she said giving him a harsh stare, “you know, something special they can do to enchant some one. For example, one famous sorceress could enchant people by dancing,”

“You mean like Veela’s,” Harry said.

“Yes, exactly like Veela’s, except dancing isn’t the only way, I’m sure you could sing or whistle, or play an instrument, anyway, about forms,” Harry nodded reverently, “You know how Sirius can turn himself to a dog?” Harry nodded again, “Well, it’s sort of like that, except they’re more unknown and hard to find. Some take forms in the soul of people, that’s another reason why their so powerful, some can even take over someone’s dreams,”

“Dreams,” Harry breathed. His fairytale dream popped into his head. He hadn’t had one ever since the first, he was hoping it wasn’t the last.

“However,” Hermione interrupted his daydreaming, “most sorceresses don’t realize their second form exists. Sometimes they don’t even know they have that type of power until their very, very old and someone has to point it out to them. So you see, it’s very rare we see a sorceress, you shouldn’t even waste your time thinking about them,” she said snapping her fingers in front of Harry’s face.

“Yes, well you had to take some time to think about them since you know so much,” Harry said to her, “it must have been fate I guess, imagine all the time it would take me to go find all this out in a library?” He snickered and returned to his supper.

“Excuse me,” Ron said, “if you two aren’t to busy talking about mindless matters, do you think I could cut in to this conversation? Well, Harry, are you going to play Quidditch?”

“Yes, of course, Ron,” Harry said, “why?”

“Well, there are lots of open spots now, right? Maybe I could fill in for Wood as keeper?”

“Oh,” Harry said, “sure Ron, you have to go to tryouts though,”

“Right,” Ron said, with a grin on his face.

* * * * * * * * * *

Persephone scrubbed away, the dungeon floors were so gross. “Excuse me, Professor?” she said to Snape, “how is this supposed to help me?”

“Next time you try to be smart, remember this and maybe you won’t,” he said casually as he flipped a page in some potion book.

“Right,” she said to herself. Ugh, why do I have to do this anyway? She thought, I’m some magic being aren’t I? Shouldn’t I be able to this magically? With that she took the nasty muggle toothbrush and directed it as a wand, “Clenarious!” she said without Snape hearing and the whole dungeon’s floor became sparkling clean. Whoa, she thought admiring her handiwork, this magic stuff is more easy than I thought! She had no idea how she knew that spell, but it wasn’t a surprise to her. For some reason, useful spells have been popping up in her mind frequently, some she would have never have normally thought of. She just thought she was smart.

“Professor,” she said walking towards his desk, “I’m finished,”

“Then get out!” Snape screamed at her magically shutting his door in her face.

“No problem,” she said to the door and turned around and saw the massive castle before her. “Ugh, I wish I was in the common room,” she said closing her eyes, her knees acing from all the kneeling. When she opened her eyes, however, she was in the center of the Gryffindor common room, muggle toothbrush and all. “Ha,” she said to herself, marveled at her own power, “wow, that’s pretty dandy,”

“How did you do that?” said Harry, who just happened to be sitting in one of the couches behind her.

“Oh, hi, um, I don't know,” she said shrugging, “can’t you do that?”

“No, no one can do that, there’s a spell on this school that keeps people from Apparating.”

“Apparating.? Is that what you call it?” she said taking a seat herself, “Well, I guess people can do it now.”

“Persephone, can you tell me about your childhood?” Harry asked her carefully, as not to be too forward.

“No, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said to him and got up. “You should get to bed, see you tomorrow, Harry,”

“Don’t you remember a green light? Or your parents, or maybe anything at all,”

“I remember telling you I don’t want to talk about it,” she said with a small attitude.

“Maybe laughter, a high pitched voice, a”

“I don’t want to discuss this, Harry!” she yelled at him briskly, “I just don’t want to, alright? So drop it!”

“It’s important,” Harry said still trying, “really important,”

“How is my stupid childhood important, nothing happened!” she meant to say this intimidating, but it came out in a small voice she hardly recognized.

“Please, anything at all, just general stuff, where you were born, that’s all,”

“Ugh!” she sighed and sat back down, tossing the toothbrush in the fire watching it spark and melt, “fine, here we go,”

“I was born in New England, Massachusetts especially. For some reason my parents didn’t want me and I wound up in an orphanage in New York. I was there till I was three, then I left. I hated it there. I ran away on my own, they never knew I was gone until it was too late. I traveled around looking for my family, but of course there was none. I remember thinking that I was going to find my parents, but I was three, I was stupid,

“I wandered around and learned important things. Never let anyone know what you’re feeling unless it’s hate. Be trained like a dog, if someone comes to close, you pounce. I lived off what I had, and I was doing pretty good. There was one guy, he owned a shop, he gave me his garage and stuff to eat, he was really nice. His name was Fletcher, I called him Money Fletcher, since there was no way I could pronounce his first name. But he disappeared after a while. They all do.” She took a deep breathe, and Harry could see in her eyes that she was reminiscing. After a couple of seconds she continued.

“After a while, a long while, I found out I could do things other kids couldn’t. Like when I was about 10, I wanted so bad to play in the school playground with all the other kids. So I jumped the fence and joined them on the sea saw. This lady, I’m guessing the teacher, she was all like ‘You, you there, leave immediately, no intruders allowed!’ Oh, man. I got so mad, I swore revenge on that lady. Two days later, she somehow didn’t see the sea saw, tripped over it, and broke her leg.” She smiled a bit, “You know what scared me the most, though? I didn’t even feel bad. Money told me once, ‘you’re okay as long as you feel bad’. But I didn’t Harry, I was mad, I got revenge, and I felt pretty damn okay.” She sighed a bit, rubbed her palms together, and looked at him deep in the eye.

“I don’t know why I’m here, Harry,” she said to him, a certain emptiness in her eyes, “I really shouldn’t be here, I mean, all of you wizards and stuff, you can do magic with your wands and spells. Me, I just don’t get that stuff. All's I do is wish. And sometimes it doesn’t even work. I’m horrible. I do things when I’m mad, like really mad, things worst than what I’ve done here with that idiot, Malfoy. Like,” she shook her head, “no, I won’t go into that. But I just don’t belong here. I belong back in New York, living off the land they got, and using my ‘powers’ or whatever to get me a free meal. But this, this just isn’t me. At the rate I’m going, I’m gonna be outta here in like, 2 days.”

Harry looked at her, for some reason she didn’t look all punk-like anymore. The harsh attitude was gone and replaced with doubt. This tough wrangler was just another one of the first-years, just a little older, and scared.

“You’re going to learn,” was all Harry could manage. “You’re going to learn everything and be okay.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Harry didn’t hear the music anymore. He didn’t have anymore dreams. All he did was go to sleep hoping and wake up disappointed, trying to relish the fact that some dreams don’t return in years, if at all. Now he was sitting in divination, three weeks after his talk with Persephone in the common room. And for some reason, that pity he felt for her then was a bit gone. She decided to bring back the bad girl regardless of the pretty pink lip gloss she wore. It wasn’t on purpose, Harry didn’t think, all the stuff happened to happen when she was outraged. And lately, that seemed to be often. Usually in potions class, when the dense Slytherins still didn’t get the picture that she could turn them into a lab rat in two seconds flat without even turning around. At the moment, she was sleeping during Professor Trelawney’s long and melodramatic speech on the importance of the rings of Saturn. Harry was drifting as well, the squishy chairs were quite comfortable, and the scent of tea leaves were running through his head. Slowly he closed his eyes and slouched down into his chair, conveniently behind Ron, who blocked him from view perfectly.

He was drifting, and to his greatest delight he saw his broomstick before him, the sight he had been hoping for for ages now, he extended his hand to grab it when......BAM! Harry jumped about a foot out of his chair.

He didn’t seem to be the only one, either. Ron was perplexed, Persephone was wide-eyed staring about, and Professor Trelawney had craned her neck out of the window to see what it was. Five or six golden chariots were approaching the school, with small fireworks emitting from each one. One of the fireworks had hit the side of the castle, right below the tower. Professor Trelawney just sighed and said, “I knew an interruption would occur, and since I already know that no one is going to pay attention now with the arrival of the other academy's, I might as well let you all pass.”

Everyone gave a cheer of excitement and the little opening of the door was so crammed, it took about 5 minutes for Harry to get through. Harry wasn’t so exited about the arrival of the Academy’s, he was more glad that he was out of divination.

By the time they reached the Great Hall, Madame Maxime and Hagrid were both holding hands, blushing profoundly, and her students were seating themselves at the Ravenclaw Table. Harry could see Ron scanning the hall for Fleur, and sure enough, she was there. She looked a bit more mature now, and she waved at them both before sitting down. But someone else caught Harry’s eye. She was very slim, with wispy brown hair that went down past her shoulders. She had a delicate pale face, and a slightly pointy nose. Her eyes were a light hazel, and you could see yourself in them. Harry froze in that moment, she glowed. Someone else he knew glowed too, someone he would have seen today if it wasn’t for their arrival. He had to know her name.

She sat herself down next to Fleur, and he rushed towards them, Ron at his heels. However, crossing the deluge of people wasn’t as easy as he thought. By the time they got over to the table, both Fleur and the girl were deep in conversation. Harry tapped Fleur on the shoulder. She swished around and smiled greatly when she saw him. “Oh, ‘ello, ‘arry,” she said brightly. Then, as Harry suspected, she tapped the girl on her shoulder and she glanced around as well. “Cecile, zis is ‘arry Potter,” she said pointing to Harry, “ee is the one zat saved my sister in ze Triwizard Tournament last year,”

“Oh, very nice to meet you,” she said holding out her hand. Harry took it and was surprised that she didn’t have a heavy French accent. Actually, she spoke English quite well with a British accent attached to it.

“Yes, nice to meet you to,” Harry replied.

“She iz here for ze talent contest,” Fleur explained, “Cecile ‘as the voice of ze angel!”

Cecile blushed and looked down at her knees. “I’m not that great,” she said softly.

“Harry!” Persephone called through the crowd. Harry groaned a bit let go of Cecile’s hand.

“I’ll see you later,” he said to her and she nodded. Then he returned to his table.

* * * * * * * * *

The tables were chatting and Dumbledore raised his hand to make his announcement. Silence overcame the Great Hall immediately.

“As you have all noticed our friends have returned,” he said calmly, eyes twinkling. “Now it is time for me to explain this contest we will be having in full. It is of talents, you see. No magic can be used, of course, for everyone in this school has already acquired that. Once person of each house is to be selected to perform for his or her house, and four people of every school will be competing. The school that wins, is granted an extra week of holiday to go as they please, the house that wins is granted 400 house points, and the student that wins is awarded this trophy.” He unveiled a massive gold trophy that stood about 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Everyone ooh’d and ahh’d at its presence. “Along with 1,000 galleons,” at this everyone started whispering, but Dumbledore’s hand rose once more and once more the Hall fell into silence.

“Whomever is chosen in each house is up to the house to decide. Prefects are to organize an audition within each house. Results will have to be turned in by Halloween, which rests 3 weeks from now. I do hope all of you will have no problems. And since our friends have already chosen their candidates, let us try and make them feel as welcome as possible.” He smiled at everyone and then clapped his hands three times to signal the end of the assembly. Since they were already in their last class, and only 20 minutes remained, students were allowed the rest of the day off. Everyone cheered and chatting among this talent contest was already set loose. Harry walked reluctantly outside under a tree beside the lake with Ron, Hermione and Persephone. He really wanted to see Cecile again.

“Earth to Harry, come in Harry,” Persephone snapped her fingers in front of his face. He shooed her away.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said to her, “I’m here,” and so they continued their conversation on end of year tests, with Harry dazing off somewhere far away from here. Somewhere in a meadow where someone was singing. And he wanted to run there, run so fast the air would boom, just so that he could go there and scream out her name, Cecile.