Defensive Divination

Sibyll Trelawney had been been a Seer since before she entered Hogwarts, and she had always known when great ill would fall upon people. During her time at school, she had always tried to warn those that she felt was in danger, whether or not they appreciated her assistance. For often she found that they did not, and wished to put as much distance between her and her visions as possible.

That fact didn't bother her frequently, for she knew that those who had great knowledge to share with the general population often had to suffer for having that knowledge. And oh, how she had suffered. All through her life she had been kept apart from others. First it had been by her mum, who had insisted time and again that a talent such as hers had to be nutured within the privacy of her own mind, not to be intruded by other minds, that could disrupt its workings. Then, when she got to school and could share her visions, they treated her as a spectre of death, and someone to be avoided. She remembered how she had foreseen the downfall of that arrogant Ravenclaw prefect, and it had happened.

Still, none had believed her.

Well, save one, which is how she had received the job at Hogwarts. When Albus Dumbledore had risen to Headmaster to replace Dippet after his passing, he had called and remembered the job she had done in making certain that all were aware of the cause of the death of a student. Sometimes when she thought of that vision, she shuddered; it had played out in dreams with snakes and darkness and dripping poisons that looked a little too much like blood. Sometimes she still woke up screaming.

Times like tonight.

The dream had pulled her out of her consciousness with a vengeance, and she was edgy. That dream had been coming almost constantly for the past two years, since the young Potter boy who, had the talent of Divination in him if he did not perish before he truly had the opportunity to use it to its fullest extent, had suggested that she had foretold the rise of the Dark Lord.

Oh no. No, it simply was not possible. She did not even remember the vision that he claimed; it must be a figment of his imagination and after all, the papers did say that he was delusional, after all. Poor, poor boy. Had she known that he suffered so, perhaps she would have been different with him. Then again, perhaps not. She could not afford to treat him any differently than he was already treated.

After all, he was the Boy Who Lived, was he not?

Certainly, this dream of darkness and fear that she kept having meant nothing? Still, one never knew in what form the art that was Divination would come. She would make herself some tea and in reading the leaves, she would certainly discover the truth of the matter. Yes. Yes, that would do. That would calm the nervous anxiety that beat at the edge of her nerves.

With resolve, then, she rose from her bed and made her way to the kitchen. Staring at the pot brought the jangling feeling of something being wrong back to her. She looked around nervously, and jumped nearly a metre when the whistling of the pot alerted her to the fact that the water was ready. However, her nerves were swiftly calmed when she had the cup in her mind, and was reciting the technique in the back of her mind.

This technique, she knew it so well that she could have done it blindfolded and half-dead -- the thought sent a shiver through her, as though someone had tread upon the grave that she did not yet rest within -- but she found that concentrating on it helped the workings that would tell themselves in the leaves left in the bottom of that cup.

So that she did, as she had done hundreds of thousands of times before. For herself, for people who came to her for readings that she never knew how they turned out, and most certainly for those students who had no idea, most of them, of what they were doing, and took the class only because they thought it an easy grade, and she easy to slip past.

Yet, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil showed immense promise. Yes, immense promise. And despite their occasional failings, Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter did as well. Their ability to face that which was the darkness of the human spirit never ceased to amaze her, although sometimes their ideas of readings brought her a chuckle.

Yes, it was always a good thing to find humour in one's work, although the Art was nothing to laugh about.

When finally the brew was done, she carried the cup precariously to the table where she did all of her tea readings. Aside from those, there was a stack of tarot cards, decks of them that she would use if this method failed. For the longer she was awake, the more Sibyll was convinced that the dream meant Death and Destruction was coming, and despite the fact that she had not foretold the rise of the Dark Lord herself -- oh, no, she could never tell something like that with her own ability, for she knew how small her own ability was -- there were other Signs that He was rising again.

And would destroy them all.

She set the cup down and moved across the room to shut the window. There was a vicious wind blowing inside, and not for the first time, Sybill wished that she had stayed safe within her own tower at school. Although, for the first time in ages, the thought of her tower brought not to mind its peace and safety, but the destruction, the people falling and dying that was on the card of one of the first decks that she had trained upon.

It suited the feel of the entire situation, she thought as she closed the window with a firm slam. Still, she didn't want to be here, isolated as she was in northern France, in the old family home, but safe. Then she turned, and standing in the door was a large black dog; at the very sight of the thing, she backed against the wall and tried to muffle a scream. She knew that dog, had seen it so many times for so many other people that she could recognise him even at a distance.

It was the Grim. She was seeing the Grim for herself. Death was not far, then. Death was stalking her now. It was only a matter of time.

It tilted its head back as she watched in horror, and let loose a bloodcurdling howl that rose gooseflesh on her arms. Then as swiftly as it had appeared, the dog disappeared, and she sagged against the wall in relief that it was gone, even if its message still rang clear in her mind.

With effort, she made her way back to the table and sank into a chair before her legs gave out. After a moment where she tried to get her heart back under control, she reached for the cup of tea and let her mind fall back into the comfortable ritual of twirling the tea after every sip while concentrating on the answer she sought until there was nothing left but the dregs of tea. Then she swirled it again, turned the cup upside down on the saucer that rested below the cup while she had let it cool.

She lifted it, and had just begun to try to make out the shapes apparent in the tea leaves, when there was the sudden displacement of air, and where there had only been her in her rooms, there was now two men in there with her. In the dark, they were obscured, but the light from outside the window caught one man's hair, showing it to be shining with a fine white sheen. She had seen that man before, hadn't she?

"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, Sibyll," the smooth voice of Severus Snape shocked her out of her attempts of identifying the other man that was with him, "but my colleague and I have heard some things that we must have verified."

"What things would those be, Severus?" she asked, pulling her robes tighter about herself. What right did they have? Apparating in past the wards that she had so carefully put up earlier that day, and her in her sleep robes, no less. Just for some information, as they put it.

Wait? How had they gotten past her wards? And what was Severus Snape of all people doing here?

"Sibyll, please," he said, trying to affect a smile, but it was oily, greasy, false, and wrong. All of her previous instincts about the man were flying high and terrible, and her eyes narrowed. "It is just that I heard that you had one of your visions, and I would very much like to hear it."

"A vision? I have had plenty of visions of you, Severus, and you have never come to me before now."

"Please. This one is important. It is about the rise of the Dark Lord, Sibyll. Did you tell anyone of this lie? Because you know, we must not let the words of people who would claim you as a false prophet out onto the world."

"I have had no such vision."

"That is not what I heard," he told her, and all attempts he made at a putrid sort of charm were gone. "I heard that you told your third years that the Dark Lord had risen, that it was only a matter of time before he came back to haunt us all."

"I would never create such hysteria."

There was the sound a derisive snort from his companion and she rose, tilting her head high. "Severus--"

That was the last word that Sibyll Trelawney ever uttered, for then Snape whipped his wand out, and snapped it at her, calling out a quiet "Avada Kedavra". The last thing she saw was the green light that erupted from the wand, and she fell backwards into the chair she had been sitting in before the two men had interrupted.

Lucius Malfoy smiled, "Well done, Severus. I am sorry for this precaution, but as you have betrayed us before, we must be certain of your loyalty. And if you can kill one of your own acquaintances so simply, so efficiently, then there should be no doubt of your intentions. Although I'm certain our Lord shall wish to keep an eye on you for a time longer."

A faint smile that was more true than the one he had tried to charm Trelawney with appeared on his face, "In truth, Lucius, we all have been wishing to do that for years. Even many of the faculty on the side of the Light would have longed dearly for the freedom to throw an Avada Kedavra curse upon her, just to silence her. Now they will not have to worry about it any longer."

"That is... intriguing news to receive," Lucius said, "and I think we could use something like that to our advantage." Then he reached for the cup of tea leaves that she had started to read before they had arrived and peered at them. "Oh, look at this, Snape. Isn't it interesting that in the end she predicted her own death in the tea leaves and never got a chance to see it for herself with her own eyes," he made a tsking noise under his breath. "What a pity, don't you think?"

"Did she?" he said in a bored tone. "I wasn't aware you wasted your time on children's games such as that, Lucius."

There was a tightening in the other man's expression, before it relaxed again. "I don't, but even the most Muggleborn fool could recognise a Grim in the tea leaves, Severus."

"Indeed," he nodded, and the two men Apparated out of the apartment, leaving only a dead woman, and her unread tea leaves behind.

In a bedroom thousands of miles away from the scene of one among many murders that was starting the next reign of Voldemort, in an attempt to swiftly reaffirm his position of power, a teenage boy slept restlessly. Then suddenly, the dream that was causing so much trouble in his sleep ended, and he jolted upright in the bed, burying his face in his hands.

He had thought ill of Trelawney, but then, what student hadn't? Well, besides Lavender and Parvati, who worshipped her, that is.

Sitting through one class with the perfume hovering around everything had been enough to send one into the depths of stupidity, and listening to her drone on about the fine art of diviniation had been enough to drive a person absolutely nutters. Still, those weren't reasons to wish for her dead by a Death Eater's hand.

Even if that Death Eater happened to be working for Albus Dumbledore.

His mind spun; it was bad enough that he had been having constant nightmares of the Final Task almost ever since it happened, and the haunting words rang through his dream. He thought if he heard the words "Kill the spare" again, whether it was in a dream or outside of one, he was going to be violently ill. Then there was seeing Cedric's echo, begging him to take him back.

His parents...

Harry shook his head hard; those things could be thought about later, but right now, this was important. He had to remember the dream so that he could let Dumbledore know about them. When he had seen Dumbledore after Sirius's trial had ended and his godfather had been cleared, the Headmaster had placed his hands on his shoulders, and on a sigh asked him to try and remember those dreams, that from what they knew already, if he had any more of them, they would be important.

He had nodded, and agreed. It wasn't something he wanted to do, but if it would stop Voldemort from killing any more people like he had killed Cedric, his parents, and all the others that he had murdered, then he'd do anything he could to help.

Just then, there was a soft noise that caught his ear, and Harry finally realised that he wasn't inside the dream any longer, but back at the house of the woman who had watched after him for as long as he could remember, only now he was finding out more things about her than ever he know. Like, for instance, that she was nowhere near as old as she appeared, and wore the glamour of being aged for his protection. Now that she knew, however, she had cast it off, and he found that she looked no older than say, McGonagall.

And she was a great deal easier to get along with.

When he looked up, however, it wasn't Bella Figg he saw standing there, but Remus. Remus who had been one of his father's best friends, who had been the best Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that he had ever had, as well as... Harry shied away from the thought about what he had accidentally walked in on once; it was almost an understatement to say that Remus and Sirius were close.

Otherwise, he didn't want to think about it. Much.

"Harry, are you all right?"

He gestured for Remus to enter the room, and the older man walked in and sat down on the bed next to him Harry rubbed his face with his hands and sighed softly, "Remus, I think we need to get in contact with Dumbledore."

Remus's eyebrows arched, and the look of concern that he had been wearing earlier deepened, "The dreams are starting again?"

"It's starting. Remus, it's starting again."

"What did you see, Harry?"

"I saw..." he swallowed, then started again. "I saw Trelawney. She was pacing around, nervous, and then she sat down. Malfoy and Snape Apparated in and asked her some questions about visions, and then Snape killed her."

"He killed her."

"Avada Kedavra."

Remus closed his eyes. "Great Godric..."

"Malfoy said something about needing to be certain of his loyalty now that Snape's been working for Dumbledore all those years, and they chose Trelawney. Why? She was annoying, yes, but she didn't know anything. Not really. Those visions that she always talked about, they were the sort of thing--"

"Not really predictions at all, and half the time she was wrong."

"How did you know?"

"I was a student of hers once, as well, and while she did not quite torture me as she has been doing to you, as I recall, I do remember what it was like to watch her pick her target," he said, and for the briefest of moment, there was the light of mischief in his eyes. At that sight, Harry remembered that day when he had called him into his office for a shared cup of tea. Tea bags. Never had he been so glad to have tea with tea bags than he had been that day.

Remus continued then on a more sombre note, "Still, you're right, she didn't deserve to die for that. Hold on," he said, then rose from the bed.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked nervously.

Remus turned and offered a smile. "Just to get quill and parchment. So you can get that dream off to Dumbledore as soon as possible, and get it out of your mind."

Get it out of his head. The very idea was laughable. It was about as easy as getting the image of Cedric's body out of his head.

Harry shook his head and plucked at the blankets covering him while waiting for Remus to get back. When he did, Hedwig was perched on one shoulder, and he carried a self-inking Quill and a couple of pieces of parchment in his hands. He passed them to Harry, and he spent several long moments composing a note to Dumbledore about what he saw, in great detail. Finally, when he was done, he tucked the note to Hedwig, and murmured a few soft words to her and watched as she flew out of the already open window.

He remembered opening it before he had gone to bed; the previous evening had been even warmer than usual, and he hadn't been comfortable enough to sleep. Now he only wished he hadn't been able to.

Remus cleared his throat, and Harry looked at him.

"Would it help if I told you about the last student I remember hearing her antagonise as she antagonised you."

He shrugged slightly, but didn't tell him no. Privately, he did want to hear it, and it seemed that Remus recognised this. He slipped off his reading glasses and sat down again. After a moment of silence, he began, "I think it might surprise you who she picked as her target."

"You? My dad?"

"Sirius."

"Sirius?" The very idea was preposterous.

"Yes. We all found it amusing; even Sirius himself did, when he wasn't caught under her baleful glare. However, when he was in her classroom, he cringed and tried to hide under the table. Even Hope was no help, because she was in Ancient Runes at the time, and I think he would have hidden behind her if he could have."

"Hope?"

"Yes, you remember, don't you? The dark haired witch that came to fetch you from your aunt and uncle's?"

"Oh, right," Harry nodded. "He'd hide behind her?"

"He would have hidden behind me or your dad if either of us would have let him get away with it."

"So... why was Trelawney after Sirius?"

"Well, it's just the oddest thing," Remus mused, "but sometimes she saw the Grim in his future."

Harry snorted.

"She did, and it was driving him mad. Not that he wasn't already mad, of course..." Remus trailed off, and Harry saw a distant look cross his face, as well as various other expressions. Annoyance seemed to top the list, and Harry just watched for a moment until Remus blinked and seemed to come back to himself. "Oh, I'm sorry..."

"When's Sirius coming back?"

"Within the week, he says. He has a few things to clear up in Dublin for the Order, and then he'll be back."

Harry sighed, "I miss him."

"So do I. Really could have used him here tonight, hmm?"

Harry nodded, and sighed, trying to at least make an attempt to shake away the dream. It was out of his hands, and he had done all he could do to make Dumbledore aware of what was going on. What else could he do? Still, he remembered that vision that Trelawney had had in his presence during third year, and in the dream, Snape had been asking her about a vision that she denied having.

What if that was the vision they killed her over? Would that make him responsible for her death? But if that was the case, then how would they even know about it, unless that connection between he and Voldemort went both ways, and he could witness what was going on with Harry as easily as he could witness what was going on with him? And...

Harry rubbed at his forehead with his knuckles, trying to make his mind stop racing around in circles. It wasn't working.

"Do you want to try and get some more sleep? We're supposed to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow."

"I remember. And..." he paused, torn. "Yeah, I think I'll try to get some more sleep. Thank you, Remus."

"I'm glad I could help," he said, then made his way out of the room. Harry heard the soft murmur of "Nox", and the lights that he had barely realised were even on extinguished himself. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and pulled the covers back over his head.

Somehow, being surrounded by all the magic... it was a comforting thing, even as it was one he wasn't used to. Still, all the magic and all the wards in the world hadn't kept Trelawney from her death, and it hadn't prevented the dream from reaching him. On that thought, Harry closed his eyes tighter, and as he started drifting away, he had only one hope for the rest of the night.

Please... no more dreams tonight.