The Seers' Truth: A Broken Beginning

Chapter 10

Fear Foretold

Because there was no Care of Magical Creatures, due to Hagrid's absence, the next morning started with a study period in the library with Madame Pince. Harry would have rather slept in, but Hermione was excited about starting the day in the library. Only Samara and Ginny were missing. They had their appointment with McGonagall to discuss scheduling of classes and whether Samara belonged in Gryffindor.

Eloise Midgin came in and headed straight for a corner table away from everyone. She looked like she was crying, her acne more red and angry than usual.

Hermione looked sympathetically at her and then went over to talk to her, but Eloise just waved her away without looking up from the desk where she had buried her face in her hands.

"Madam Hooch wants her to take remedial flying," Colin explained. He stood biting his lip for a few minutes and then he pulled up a chair by Eloise. "Hey," he whispered, putting his hand on her back. "Maybe you could fly with me a little. That might change Madam Hooch's mind. Would you still be afraid if you rode on my broom with me?"

Eloise sniffled and shrugged.

Hermione headed back to her friends.

"I have Charms to finish," said Ron as he dropped his books on the table.

The other students started opening books, including Hermione, who opened DADA. "I wish we had time to look up how the floo network could be compromised," she said.

"Oh right," Ron said sarcastically. "That should be in Standard Book of Spells, grade five, shouldn't it?"

Hermione gave him an exasperated look. "Well, if the floo network was tampered with once, just keeping fireplaces unlit is not going to fix the problem."

Joe came in yawning. "When we had our first period free, I thought it meant that we could sleep in, but Lou wouldn't let me."

"I know the feeling," said Harry.

"So, did I miss anything at breakfast? Any new curses from the Slytherins?"

"No," said Harry, "but Professor Dumbledore made an announcement. Some of the floos have been--" Harry paused to make little quotation marks in the air, "'misconnected.' No one's allowed to light fires unless they have to and a teacher or, in the case of the common room, the Prefect has to be present. No fire may be left unattended."

"Perfect," said Ron. "Put us all together in one room, then when the Death Eaters come in, we all die. They don't even have to search for us. One quick Killing Curse and, poof, we're all dead."

"Avada Kedavra has to be directed at one individual--I believe," said Edward. "One at a time, not mass murder."

"Oh, that makes me feel so much better," said Ron.

"We don't know it was Death Eaters," said Lou. "Maybe--"

"No, Lou," said Edward, "we heard McGonagall last night. She said it was Death Eaters."

"You were spying on a teacher!" said Lou.

"We just happened to be in the right place at the right time," replied Edward. "She was using the common room fire."

"Or the wrong place," muttered Harry.

Ron glanced at both Edward's grin and Lou's astonished face. Then he looked at his Charms book and his face sobered. "Did someone finish this?" he asked. "I'm never going to have time to do all this--"

Edward pulled a roll of parchment from his bag and tossed to Ron. "Be creative," he said. "Not word for word--"

"No. No. No," said Hermione, snatching the parchment from Ron and handing it back to Edward. "How will Ron learn anything if he copies your work? How could you Ron?"

"It's quite easy," said Ron. "You pick up a quill--open the parchment--"

"However did you get to be friends with her?" asked Edward in a stage whisper that was clearly loud enough for Hermione to hear. "She's a nightmare."

"Saved her from a Rock Troll in first year," said Ron.

"Where were you that you saved her from a Rock Troll?" asked Edward incredulously.

"Girl's bathroom," replied Harry.

"What!"

"The three of us have spent quite a lot of time in girl's bathrooms," said Harry with a wink at Ron, who snorted through his nose.

"Actually, there were four of us," Ron added. "But that was later."

"I wasn't there by choice," snapped Ginny.

"How do you know I was talking about you?" said Ron sweetly. "I was talking about Myrtle. If I count you, there were five of us--or maybe six--"

Harry broke into laughter, quickly smothered the sound with his hand, and pulled a book in front of his face.

"Can we please get some work done?" Hermione groaned.

"Don't worry," Ron confided to Edward. "You warm up to her. She isn't as bad as she sounds, and she's mighty handy to have around--rather like a walking dictionary--or Hogwarts: A History."

Hermione clearly looked like she was debating whether to burst into tears or punch Ron. Ginny chose tears.

"Ah--come on, Gin," said Ron gently rubbing her back. "I didn't mean it. Don't cry."

===

"Hermione," said Harry, "I brought the prediction to work on. Want to help me?"

"Humph! Predictions," she said.

"Really, I think there is some validity to this one. Look," Harry pushed the parchment across the table to her.

She looked at it for a few moments and then glared at Ron, who was studying Edward's Charms homework again.

"I'm just checking my answers," said Ron. "Look, I have this part done." He held up his parchment for her perusal. "I'm reformed. Comes with being your friend, I guess."

She turned hesitantly back to her DADA book. "I really should read the assignment again. I only read it twice."

"Come on, Hermione," Harry begged. "I need your help."

Edward looked up at them with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

Harry picked up his books and Hermione's, except for DADA, which she still held, and moved them to the next table. "So we don't disturb you," he explained to those still at the table.

"Alright," Hermione said, closing DADA and glancing at Ron. She could no longer tell if he was doing his own Charms work or not. Picking up the prediction and moving to join Harry, she said loudly, "Let's look at it line by line." Harry nodded. Then Hermione's voice dropped to a whisper. "How did last night's adventure go?"

"It didn't go at all," answered Harry in the same soft voice. "Edward wanted to come--"

"Oh no."

"And then McGonagall was at the common room fireplace talking to Sirius."

"What did Sirius say?"

"Well we didn't hear much--" Harry related the tale as it happened, including what they heard about the floo problems and finally using Somnus to put Edward to sleep.

"We'll have to think of a way to keep him occupied tonight."

Hermione nodded. "Well, let's look at this prophecy then," she said as Harry spread the parchment out in front of her.

<=>

At the height of the Dark Lord's Power

A Babe will lay him low.

Yet he will arise through his flower

Essences of friend, father and foe.

<=>

"Well," said Hermione, "that's pretty easy to understand. No guessing whom this is about. When did you say this was written?"

"Trelawney was 12, according to Dumbledore."

"Oh. Ancient history," Hermione quipped.

"What do you think the 'flower' part means?"

"Maybe it was something in the potion that Voldemort made to bring him back. You didn't see what might have been put in the cauldron earlier, maybe it was some kind of flower, or maybe it refers to Tom Riddle's mother. I think she had a flower name. Ginny knows."

"Ginny?" Harry hesitated. "I'd rather not ask her."

"Ok," said Hermione. "Let's look at the next stanza."

<=>

For within have snake and phoenix warred

But Phoenix must surely rule

For this bird rises again and again

And Eating Death is the fuel.

<=>

"I thought maybe it meant in the second year," said Harry. "In the Chamber of Secrets a phoenix warred with a basilisk. It's not technically a snake, but it is called the King of Serpents."

"But what about Eating Death is the fuel? Fuel for what?" Hermione shivered. "This is creepy," she said.

"Next stanza?" suggested Harry.

<=>

Will he Riddle the past with pain

Or Riddle the future with glory?

Six lives or deaths hang in time by three

Brave children who'll mend the story.

<=>

"This seems like a crossroads," said Hermione. "In Arithmancy, it's when we get multiple results. It means that the prediction can go different ways here, according to how the people act. That's good because it means that it's not predestined. It's flexible at this point, which makes me agree with you that this might be a real prediction. It doesn't sound like Trelawney. She'd just have them all die."

"But Hermione," said Harry, "this already happened."

"It did?"

"Six lives. It's Buckbeak and Sirius Black. We three, you, Ron and me, saved them two years ago."

"Ron was hurt; it was really only the two of us."

"Well, then maybe the prediction means me, you and Buckbeak. But I think it means Ron even though he wasn't with us at that moment, he was with us--it was his rat. The only other three is that you turned the time turner three times, and it was our third year."

"Yes," said Hermione, "but that's only two lives saved."

"I know," said Harry. "It's three if you count Wormtail, but I couldn't get 6 either."

Hermione looked at the prediction for a while and then dragged out her huge Arithmancy book. "Let me try to solve this with arithmancy," she said. "Let's see if we get the same numbers."

Hermione worked for a long time. Harry continued to stare at the prediction and tried to make sense out of it. "Hey Hermione," he said after a while.

"Just a minute, almost done."

He waited until she looked up. "How are the numbers?"

"You first," said Hermione. "What did you think of?"

"I just thought about the verse with the phoenix fighting the snake. Maybe it meant last year. Voldemort couldn't use his wand to destroy me because it holds a phoenix feather core, just like mine; both from Fawkes."

"You have the same wand cores!"

Madam Pince hushed them.

"That's how I felt," said Harry. "But I guess it paid off. He couldn't hurt me because his wand and mine wouldn't duel. So what about your numbers? How did arithmancy read the prediction?"

"The wand cores could definitely be something," said Hermione softly. She shook her head and continued, "Anyway, arithmancy comes up with a different number all together. It says 1, 3, 2, 1, which makes seven instead of six."

"So, what does that mean?" asked Harry.

"Well, I believe these happened at separate times. The one may be Ginny in our second year. The 3 could be Buckbeak, Wormtail and Sirius, and the other two and one could be in the future. I can't think of anyone else who was saved. Maybe they're in the future and either because we saved Sirius someone else is going to die, or because we saved him, someone else will be saved. I'm just not sure."

"That still doesn't explain the different numbers Hermione. You haven't made a mistake, have you?"

She just looked at him.

"And why are the numbers separated in your arithmancy?" asked Harry.

"I don't think this is right, considering that Trelawney made this prediction, but the number two in my calculation may be lives saved and the second number one, deaths," said Hermione.

"You mean Trelawney only counted the ones that lived?"

"Yeah, I know, doesn't sound like Trelawney. Let's move on."

"I read this next part over and over. It looks like they knew Cedric Diggory would die and they didn't even help him or excuse him from the Triwizard Tournament."

<=>

Yet there will come to Hogwart's school

A year from Hufflepuff's loss

A housemate to thwart the rule of him

Unnamed and ne'er count the cost.

<=>

"Well," said Hermione, "you can't really blame them for not getting upset over 'Hufflepuff's loss' when Hufflepuff loses in Quidditch most of the time. Maybe they were waiting for a particularly bad season. It sounds like someone from Hufflepuff will avenge him. That's strange. You don't know who that could be--someone he was really attached to--"

"No," said Harry, "as far as I know, there's just Cho Chang and she's in Ravenclaw. Cedric was an only child. I really don't know who his friends were."

Hermione shook her head. "Well, it certainly seems like a Hufflepuff will come into his own here." They continued looking at the prediction. "Obviously, it is this year, so we'd better be on the lookout for this Hufflepuff."

<=>

Fate put Gryffindor bravery in one heart

And Ravenclaw brains in one head

And Slytherin cunning, ambition and guile

Yet Hufflepuff's love is his dread.

<=>

"So do you think this is one person or four people?" asked Harry.

Hermione started to shake her head. "No, it has to be one. Look at the next line. The Hat wouldn't be confused if they were four people. It would just put them into the four different houses: one for Gryffindor, one for Slytherin, one for Ravenclaw and one for Hufflepuff," she paused. "Do you think the Hufflepuff listed in this stanza is the same one listed in the preceding stanza?"

Harry shook his head. "I guess it could be, but it looks like a completely different person if you ask me. Like you said, look at how it talks about the Hat's confusion here."

<=>

The hat's confusion will mark you as true

Though tears may make you swoon

Your choices are hard. Your choices are few.

'Ware of losing your childhood soon.

<=>

"The Hat isn't confused about the first person. The Hat knows that one is a Hufflepuff. The second person, though, doesn't seem to be sorted into any of the four houses."

"You know, Harry," said Hermione, "if the Sorting Hat was working properly, we would know who this person is..."

"You're right. Do you think that was the purpose of whoever tampered with the Hat? To hide the identity of this person?"

"Undoubtedly."

Hermione and Harry looked at each other. After a while, Harry looked away. "What I don't understand is why this person is so important?"

"Harry, as I understand arithmancy, certain people and events and things in history have what is called 'pivotal significance.' It's like that Muggle Christmas story where one man wishes he'd never been born and the whole town changed because he didn't save his brother, so his brother wasn't alive to save a whole regiment in the war, and he wasn't there to warn someone making a potion and a little child died. It goes on and on. This prophecy isn't telling everything. It is telling pivotal moments. One of those moments was when the Sorting Hat was placed on this person's head, but that was tampered with because the Sorting Hat isn't working. The first pivotal moment was when you brought Voldemort low. Then there was the event when Voldemort got his body back. Any of the key ingredients could have been blocked: the flower, whatever that means, or the friend, father or foe. We know that the time we saved Sirius and Buckbeak was a pivotal moment." Hermione paused for a moment in thought.

"Harry," said Hermione, "considering Parvati's prediction with the Sorting happening on the train, do you think that the Hogwarts Express was attacked to find this child?"

Harry nodded. "You may have something there," said Harry, "but no one was kidnapped, so they must not have found him."

Hermione gave a frustrated sigh and blew some of her hair away from her face. "This one stanza has me stumped though. How is eating death fuel for the phoenix?"

"Because it keeps dying?" suggested Harry.

"Well, if it's a wand Harry, it's not a living thing and therefore can't die."

Harry bit his lip. He wondered if the stanza meant a real phoenix or if it was symbolic in some way. "Maybe Voldemort's preoccupation with eternal life? He keeps rising from the ashes, too, unfortunately."

"Maybe." Hermione shook her head slightly. "We only have a few minutes of class left. Let's look at the last two stanzas before we run out of time."

<=>

Eat Death and be Dead. Eat life and live on.

Don't sacrifice children or truth.

Bring rue to your heart or rue to your hand

Or savor Old Love for a youth.

<=>

"Well, the first two lines certainly define the good side from the evil side, don't they? Of course, it could be colored by the Seer too."

"Come on, Hermione. It's pretty obvious that the Death Eaters are evil."

"And how many times has Dumbledore said he will not put the children at Hogwarts in danger," added Hermione.

"Why has that never quite worked out that way in my case?" groused Harry.

"But he never consciously 'sacrificed' anyone," Hermione pointed out.

"I guess that's true," Harry conceded.

Hermione continued, "To 'Bring rue' could mean to 'Bring sorrow.' But there's another meaning for rue: it's an herb. I read about one of its uses in something we read yesterday: if you feed it to a weasel, the weasel can kill a basilisk." Hermione snorted, "Pity we didn't know that second year, huh?"

Harry gave Hermione a sharp look and turned back pointedly to the prophecy. "I think it is just laying out the choices: Death Eater - death and sorrow if you don't use the rue to kill the Basilisk."

"But the question is," said Hermione, "who is making these choices: You, the Hufflepuff or the mystery child?"

Harry nodded as he read the last stanza.

<=>

The moment of truth will come in a flash

The night sky will glow with gloom

A friend's flight--A friend's mad dash

May halt the moment of doom

<<++>>

"Now that sounds like Trelawney," said Hermione.

"No, it doesn't," said Harry. "She never talks about halting doom. Just the doom."

Just then, Madam Pince told them to clean up their books and get ready to go to their next class, Herbology.

The morning seemed to drag on forever to Harry. He couldn't wait to get to lunchtime. He wanted to looks at the prophecy again and see if he could drag any more meaning out of it.

"I think the problem with the Sorting Hat and this prophecy are related," said Hermione as they finally sat down for lunch. "If we can solve one, we will be able to solve them both."

"So instead of looking over the prophecy again, which will probably gain us nothing, let's see what we can find out about the Sorting Hat and how it was made," said Harry.

"What I don't understand," interrupted Samara, "is how the Hat could be tampered with if it was a closed spell."

"What do you mean?" asked Neville.

"Perhaps you do magic differently, but from everything I've read in the old books, a spell has to be completed to work. It's like a complete circuit in electricity. If you leave a part out, it breaks the circuit and the spell doesn't work--at all--not half-way working like the Sorting Hat. I could understand someone tampering with the Sorting Hat and then it just lying there, silent, like an old hat, but it talked to us. That means at least part of the circuit is closed. But, if the spell is closed, how could it be tampered with?"

"Electricity?" said Ron

"It's a Muggle thing," said Colin automatically as he sat down.

"Samara's talking about the Laws of Exclusivity and Continuity of Magic," said Hermione, "and that's true. The founders must have found some way to suspend one or both of the laws to each give their gifts to the Hat. This was made a thousand years ago; it was old magic, and your book was written in about the same time period, nearly a thousand years ago."

"Hermione, I never learned this," said Harry startled. "Was this something you read?"

"Hmmm. No, I think it was History of Magic II. Binn's class, second year - I think. I have all the Laws of Magic, along with who discovered them, written on a parchment somewhere."

"Oh, well," said Harry to Ron, "I guess we must have slept through that one."

"So, what you are saying," repeated Beatrice, "is that there must be a circle; everything must be completed. But that isn't always true. Lots of times people get transfiguration half done."

"Yes, but someone else has a terrible time trying to pick up where they left off, even to fix their mistakes, because the magic has their signature. That's the law of Exclusivity." Beatrice looked puzzled.

"Let's say I took this fork and tried to transform it into a lizard," Hermione started to transform the fork. It got a little greener in color and the tines pulled apart to form the front legs. Then she stopped and handed it to Beatrice. "Try to finish it," she said. Beatrice sat there holding the half-changed fork and looking at it.

After a few moments, she shook her head in defeat and said, "I couldn't find all the edges. It's like a half-done tapestry that you have just thrown at me. I don't know what I'm starting with and there are half-finished edges everywhere. I think there are an infinite number of them."

"There are," said Hermione. "That's why, even though you are good at transfiguration, you can't finish it. The person who starts the spell has to finish it, but if the founders did the spell together, then they had to be together for the whole thing. No one could have sneaked anything by the other founders. They all had to be present when each one cast his or her spell, and surely one of the four would have realized the spell was left open ended, specifically made for someone else to add something later--like a Fifth Founder."

"Or an Heir?" suggested Harry, casting a sudden chill over the group.

After a few minutes of tense silence, Hermione moved, picking up the half-changed fork and returning it to its original shape. She reached out and took Beatrice's hand and put it with hers on the fork. "If we changed this together--" she said, and the fork began to change. At the last moment, Hermione pulled out of the spell, and Beatrice had no trouble finishing it.

"But," said Beatrice, "if I had a specific person in mind, I might be able to leave the spell open." She started to change the squirming lizard into a quill. Its tail became a feather, but halfway through, she paused. "I need to know someone's wand core, to leave this open to you. What's yours Harry?"

"Phoenix feather, holly."

"No. Can't do that one. Does anyone have Dragon Heart strings?"

"I do," said Neville.

She smiled, finished what she wanted to finish, and passed the half-transfigured quill to Neville.

"I'm not very good--" began Neville, but as he took the lizard/quill, he stopped speaking, frowned and took out his wand. "There are only three strands to pick up, like a braid," he said. "This is easy." Within ten seconds, he had finished the transfiguration into a quill.

"If what you say is right," said Edward, "then the Sorting Hat was not just tampered with lately. It was left open to be tampered with from the beginning."

"That's correct," said Hermione. "And only a certain person could finish the spell."

"So," said Lou, "we need to find out which of the founders is most likely to want to leave his spell open ended."

"Well, that's not a hard question," said Ginny. "Salad Bar Slytherin."

After a few half-hearted chuckles, they agreed that it had to be Slytherin who left the Hat prepared for his heir. He was, undoubtedly, hoping his heir could accomplish what he could not: the elimination of Muggleborn wizards at Hogwarts.

"So tonight, I'll take a little trip to the Restricted Section and see what I can find out in the eighteen or so books on Salazar Slytherin that are there," said Harry.

"I want to come with you," said Edward.

Harry shrugged. "I only have one invisibility cloak."

The group settled down to finishing their lunch.

===

The students started to gather up their work. It was time for Charms. "Were my notes neat enough?" Hermione asked Harry. "There was just so much to get down on paper. I was writing so fast."

"I believe it," said Harry. Next time he missed a class, he thought, he'd borrow Ron's notes--he'd probably fail, but at least there wouldn't be so many notes.

After Charms, Harry looked at his schedule. He thought they had Defense, since they had Defense yesterday after Charms, but it was switched with Potions. The schedule change was undoubtedly because Double Defense was today and only a single Potions class. The double classes were always at the end of the day or the end of the mornings. As he walked to Potions, Harry wished he was going to Defense. Not that he wanted to go to Snape's class; he just hated the wait, wondering what Snape had planned. Not only that, Potions with Ethan meant that he would need his attention on his potion, no matter how much he wanted to try to figure out what Snape had planned.

When Harry walked into the room he noticed that a list of ingredients covered most of the board at the front of the room:

Polyjuice Potion

Lacewing flies

Leeches

Fluxweed

Knotgrass

Powdered horn of bicorn

Shredded skin of a boomslang

There were no cauldrons on the desks. As if in response to the observation, Mrs. Figg began speaking, "We will let them soak with the disinfect solutions while we discuss where to find the various ingredients." The students were still hovering around the door. "Come in. Come in," she said, waving her arm at the open classroom. "You may sit where you like today."

With a sigh of relief, Harry sat with Ron and Hermione. Joe, on the other side of Ron, was talking happily with Lou and Colin. Colin grinned at Eloise as she came in and took the seat beside him. Edward was chatting with Ginny, who sat on the other side of Neville. Harry watched Ginny blush and smile at Edward through most of the class. He had trouble concentrating on the potion. No matter, he thought, he had made this potion before--well, truth be told, Hermione made most of the potion before.

"Where's Beatrice?" asked Harry suddenly.

"Working with McGonagall," said Hermione.

"Why--" began Ron, but Mrs. Figg frowned at them, and, not wanting to lose any more points for Gryffindor, Ron applied himself to finishing preparing the potion ingredients.

"We still have over one half hour," said Mrs. Figg. "That should be plenty of time for you to empty the cleaning solutions and fill your cauldron with Mrs. Skower's Sparking Rinse."

Unfortunately, it was not. The rinse was a glittering powder that was sprinkled on the cauldron before water was added. Neville sneezed and blew his powder all over his table and the next. When he tried to catch the powder, he knocked over his cauldron and its contents spilled everywhere. Goyle, angered beyond belief by Neville's clumsiness, stomped toward the door. It indeed was time for their next class: Snape's DADA.

"Where are you going, Mr. Goyle?" asked Mrs. Figg calmly.

"My next class."

"You didn't clean up your area."

"I didn't make the mess," said Goyle coldly. He turned again toward the door.

"If you walk out that door," said Mrs. Figg, "Ten points will be deducted from Slytherin."

Goyle hesitated and then walked back scowling to the table by Neville, but he didn't clean anything.

Harry, distracted by the commotion, spilled some of their powder too, though not as much as Neville.

"Watch what you are doing, Gryff," snapped Ethan impatiently.

<<<===>>>