“Why can’t I do it?” he demanded aloud, screwing up his face. His long, dark hair was damp with sweat, and his flushed face matched his deep plum-coloured robes. “Arthur, I know it hasn’t worked yet, but will you please let me try one more time?”
A small, wide-eyed boy of about six or so, soft blond curls framing his face, nodded emphatically.
“Thanks,” sighed the teenager. “I’m sorry for wasting your time like this.”
“That’s okay, Merlin!” exclaimed Arthur, bouncing up and down in his seat. “Show me more magic!”
“Maybe later,” Merlin assured him patiently. “Today, I’m trying to work on a new type of magic, remember?”
Arthur squinted. “I forget. Tell me again.”
Unlike almost any other teenager in the world, Merlin did not sigh or roll his eyes. He simply explained, “Legilimency is the ability to enter the minds of others. Occlumency is the ability to block Legilimency. I already discovered those, but I’ve still not mastered Telemency.”
“What’s that?” asked Arthur.
Merlin’s expression turned distant and closed. “Sometimes, I have trouble explaining what I understand and what I’ve seen. I wish people could just… see for themselves. I want to give them my visions. You can look at memories in a Pensieve, but it doesn’t work for visions or for time traveling, because they’re ‘logical impossibilities.’”
“You said you time travel a lot!” protested Arthur.
“You have a very good memory,” said Merlin, with a smile. “But that’s what’s so great about magic. Things that are logically impossible are usually magically possible. And if that’s the case, I should be able to invent Telemency”moving thoughts from one mind to another. That’s what I’ve been trying to do with you.”
Arthur frowned. “But you’re good at explaining things to me.”
“You listen,” Merlin told him, his smile turning somewhat sad and his dark eyes growing even darker. “You’re an excellent listener. Some people don’t believe what I tell them. They get upset that I’m giving them directions when I’m just a… well, a Muggle-born country boy from a poor family who has to plow grain and feed the pigs and clean out the chicken coops just like the rest of them.”
His voice became bitter and brittle on the last sentence, breaking with emotion toward the end. He punched his hand. “But that’s not important right now. Let’s try again.”
“Ready!” chirped Arthur.
Merlin looked straight into the boy’s eyes, focusing intensely and unblinkingly. His eyes flashed and seemed to bore into Arthur’s. “I’m entering your mind,” he said calmly. “I can see inside it. I can see that you’re very hungry, and you’re feeling guilty because you put your finger up your nose and wiped it on my robes earlier when you thought I wasn’t looking. I already knew about that, though.”
Arthur grinned up at him apologetically.
“Now,” intoned Merlin, “I’m about to try and plant one of my visions in your mind. Tell me if you see anything.” His piercing eyes narrowed until they were nearly closed, and he tensed every muscle in his body. His slight frame trembled visibly from the sheer massive effort of such deep focus and concentration.
The room buzzed with silence for a moment. And then, the magic was broken and Merlin collapsed back into a chair. “It didn’t work!” he gasped. “I broke the connection. Just like every other time.”
“Why don’t they teach you how to do it at Hogwarts?” Arthur asked curiously. “Why don’t you ask Professor Gryffindor or Professor Ravenclaw? I thought you said they were really good?”
Merlin shook his head. “I’m the first person to really try Telemency, just like how I invented Occlumency and Apparition. Nobody can help me out.”
“Except for me, right?” Arthur asked gently.
“Except for you, Arthur,” Merlin agreed grudgingly. He wiped his sweaty palms on his robes. “Do you want to try again?”
And as Merlin closed his eyes, a thousand years later, Jordan Potter’s flew open. Like so many nights now, he was as sweaty as Merlin had been in the dream, and his bedclothes were tangled around his legs.
He glanced at his watch. 11:09 P.M. In the bed next to him, Ted was sleeping peacefully despite the fact that his bare feet were protruding from the end of his bed, Tyrone was snoring loudly, and the other two Gryffindor boys were just as contentedly and soundly asleep, apparently not troubled Tyrone’s snoring.
Jordan felt almost like a member of another species, looking around at all of these other boys who were not haunted by bizarrely vivid dreams, horrible headaches, and strange flashes of images. There had to be some reasonable explanation for all of the strange things that had been happening to him lately. But he hadn’t read anything that corresponded to his symptoms. Well, whenever he vaguely mentioned anything of the sort, his father just said it was ‘puberty’ and left it at that, but Jordan was certain that if what he’d been going through was normal, then he would have read at least something about it.
Who could he talk to? Who was extensively knowledgeable about the magical world and always gave good advice? More importantly, who was trustworthy enough to listen to him and not repeat a word?
He thought for a moment, and his mind rested on a very satisfactory answer: Professor Lupin. Who else was quite as talented at keeping secrets”after all, he’d kept from an entire school the one that he turned into a wolf every full moon.
His mind made up, Jordan pulled a dressing gown on over his pajamas and stumbled into the bathroom to pop in his contact lenses. It took irritatingly long, but he didn’t even own glasses anymore. The second he’d been allowed to wear contacts the summer between his third and fourth year, he’d had quite an enjoyable time smashing and destroying his old glasses.
His vision acceptably clear thanks to his contacts, he grabbed his wand and twirled it dexterously between his fingers. “Accio, Invisibility Cloak,” he whispered. He mused on the fact that a few years before, he would have rather cut his own head open and rubbed it with a lemon than break such a major rule as a curfew. He would have liked to see his first year self’s disapproving expression.
He snatched up the Invisibility Cloak as it came zooming toward him and pulled it around his body, allowing himself to disappear into nothingness. Jordan had always had the gift of being stealthy and quick-footed, and he tiptoed rapidly through the halls until he reached Professor Lupin’s private quarters.
He knocked on the door twice, hoping that Lupin was still awake. If he was sleeping, he would surely not want to talk. But his fears were unfueled”almost immediately, the door swung open.
“Hello,” said Lupin pleasantly. “Who’s under the Invisibility Cloak?” He really did not miss a thing, Jordan thought admiringly.
The boy pulled off his cloak, choosing not to speak until he entered the professor’s quarters, in case Gauge the caretaker overheard him and swooped down on him like an eagle snatching a fish out of water.
Lupin seemed to realize this, because he kept his voice low. “Ah, I know you would never come here in the dead of the night unless you had an important reason. Please come in.”
Jordan nodded, folding up his cloak and stuffing it into his pocket, then followed the teacher into his room. The second Lupin closed the door, Jordan blurted, “Something extremely strange is happening to me, and I wanted to talk to you about it, so long as you promise not to tell anyone”especially my family.”
“It’s probably just puberty,” Lupin said gently. “Most likely, anything strange that happens to you lately will be because of puberty.”
Jordan sighed. All fathers were alike. He often wondered if there was a class they had to take that instructed them in all of the most common fatherly clichés. “I’ve been having some very odd dreams since the year began,” he began.
“Ah, yes, I understand. What sort of dreams?” the professor asked.
“Very vivid ones,” Jordan said, trying to find the right words to describe them. “I usually never remember my dreams… but this year, I’ve had quite a few odd dreams. I had one about myself as an adult, and one about the Hogwarts founders and Merlin, and just tonight I had another dream about Merlin and… I think King Arthur. I had a few more as well, but I didn’t recognize anyone in them.” He looked up at Lupin to see how he was reacting and was rather encouraged by the fact that he didn’t look totally alienated.
“But,” he said, hesitating slightly, “That’s not what really worries me. For the last few weeks, I’ve had these… moments where I go stiff and a… well, it’s almost a slideshow…these images sort of flash through my mind. It’s definitely strange. One of them had the answers to a test, and one was… someone I know dying… and there were more as well.”
Professor Lupin’s brows contracted into a frown, and he studied Jordan’s face closely. At last, he said, “Ted told me that you told him he was unwell and that you knew something bad was going to happen just before he passed out. Is that true?”
Jordan nodded, confused as to the purpose of this question. “Yes, it is. Actually, that’s a bit unusual when I think about it. Things like that are always happening to me now”just popping into my head out of nowhere. I know that at least I used to be a logical person, but it seems like I’ve lost my mind lately.”
Lupin shook his head in amazement, his eyes disbelieving. He stared at the boy as if he’d never seen him before, rather than having known him since the day he was born.
“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked. Suddenly, he realized something”he’d been acting strangely lately, and so had Ted. Ted had been diagnosed with diabetes… but what if Jordan himself had something even worse?
Lupin folded his hands. “What exactly can you tell me about Merlin in your dreams?” he asked.
This was a strange question indeed. What could the point of it possibly be?
“Well, he was quite young,” Jordan began slowly. “I know he must have been young once, but I never really imagined him as anything but an old man before. But he was about my age in my dreams… and he said he was Muggle-born and he lived on a farm. I never thought of Merlin actually doing manual labour. That does explain why Merlin supported the Muggles’ rights, though, and it certainly explains why so many wizards of the time refused to pay attention to his prophecies.” He paused.
“He’d already discovered Apparition and Occlumency, and he wanted to invent Telemency, but he couldn’t manage it… and that’s interesting, because I read an article about the impossibility of Telemency last year, when I was teaching myself Legilimency, and it’s something I’m really interested in.”
“Do you remember if anyone described what exactly made Merlin so unique?” asked Lupin.
Jordan blinked. What was the purpose of these questions? He closed his eyes to try and remember what Ravenclaw and Slytherin had said about Merlin. But he didn’t even have to think about it-- he heard their voices echoing in his head.
“He’s not just the most brilliant logical mind of our time. He’s also the most talented Seer the world’s ever known,” said Ravenclaw in her cool, clipped voice.
“Time is no match for him. He experiences the past, predicts the present, and remembers the future,” added the slippery, Shakespearean tones of Salazar Slytherin.
Lupin’s jaw dropped, and it was then that Jordan realized he hadn’t just heard these voices. He had uttered them.
“Jordan,” said Lupin, his calm voice contrasting bizarrely with his deeply unsettled expression, “I have to say, you are the last person that I could ever imagine in your situation. But I have absolutely no doubt that you’re a Seer.”
It was as though a twenty-ton weight had been suddenly dropped on Jordan’s head. He struggled for words, but none of them really seemed to work. At last, he found his voice. “A Seer?” he hissed. “That’s nothing but nonsense. Everyone knows there are no real Seers, just frauds who want money and attention.”
“You should take this seriously,” said Lupin. “What about Merlin’s visions? They’re legendary. You can’t call him a fraud.”
Jordan laughed bitterly. “I’m not Merlin.”
“Nobody is,” agreed Lupin. “But Seeing is an extraordinarily rare gift. It’s impossible to ignore it.”
The boy slouched over in his chair. “I’m sixteen, Professor. I’m certain that if I was a Seer, I’d have known it before now.”
“Actually, no,” Lupin told him. Jordan’s face must have betrayed acute surprise, because the professor smiled kindly. “You know a great deal about magic, but I’m surprised you never figured this out on your own. There’s a reason why wizards come of age at seventeen. They reach their true magical potential on their seventeenth birthdays; surely you’ve heard the stories? Vampires don’t become truly violent until they’re seventeen, and those with the power to do wandless magic can’t control it until they’re of age.
“Likewise, a Seer doesn’t receive his powers until his seventeenth birthday”although they do begin to manifest themselves in the months before. They just aren’t readily usable or controllable until age seventeen. Your birthday’s in two months. It’s no surprise that your abilities are starting to come in... well, it is a surprise to me, actually. Very much a surprise.”
Jordan had a sudden mental image of himself wearing a gauzy scarf around his head and gazing into a crystal ball moaning, “Woo! Woo!” in airy and mystical tones, wiggling his fingers. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t a vision.
Normally, he would have laughed at the idea were he not so preoccupied. There was no way he could be a Seer. But Lupin generally knew what he was talking about, and he seemed very certain about this. Jordan had never read anything about Seers; he’d avoided reading about that whole wooly, inexact branch of magic altogether. Maybe he should have borrowed Haley’s Divination textbook just once.
“Now, here’s what’s especially important. There are different kinds of Seers. The majority of them generally just have a few sporadic visions or make prophecies while in trances. Most, like Professor Trelawney, have no control over their abilities and simply have one or two visions in their lifetimes. Less common”even considering how few Seers of any description that there have been in history”are people who have dreams that are a completely accurate representation of an event, past, present, or future.
“And then, there is the third group, and smallest of all. They’re men and women who innately know and understand things about the world around them without having ever learned them. They”” he took a sip of tea”“are, historically, simply called ‘The Wise Ones.’”
His eyes were alight with excitement. “Only four times has Hogwarts had anyone who fell under anything close to this third category. The first was, of course, Merlin. Then much later, there was a female Seer who ended up marrying King Henry VIII… and it ended very badly for her. And then, there was a man named Oliver Cromwell who… well, it didn’t end very well for him, either, though Cromwell himself might disagree with that. But that’s not important.’”
“Who was the fourth?” asked Jordan cautiously.
The professor looked him straight in the eye. “I’m beginning to think it might be you.”
For once in his life, Jordan James Potter was completely and utterly speechless. He was not a Seer. He’d never heard such an idiotic, ridiculous thing in his whole life, and he’d heard Haley. He could not be… and yet, thinking back to all that had happened to him, everything fit eerily, uncannily perfectly. His dreams, his trances, his random jolts of inspiration… all logical signs pointed to the word ‘Seer.’
And yet, how could that ever be called logical, of all things? Wasn’t it impossible to be a true Seer, based on all he had learned? Could his poor, confused mind completely spun off the tracks and fooled the rest of him into thinking that being a Seer was possible, not only possible but likely? He knew better. Sixteen years of experience and dedicated disbelief in all things Divination couldn’t be overcome by a few weird dreams and a guesstimate by Professor Lupin.
A small mirror hung on the wall behind Professor Lupin’s desk, and Jordan could see his pale and confused face reflected back in it. He remembered the previous year, when he’d studied himself in the mirror and realized how much he had changed. Now the same face stared back at him”same untidy mop of black hair, same finely-carved features, same freckles across the nose, same faint slash of a scar running through his eyebrow and down to his cheekbone.
But his eyes were different. There was something unfamiliar about them. They were hardened, certain, calm… and the reflection of his eyes gave away what the rest of him was trying to deny. Something had been happening to Jordan lately, and there had to be some sort of explanation for it. No matter how strange it sounded… maybe it was possible that he could be… oh it sounded so stupid. He didn’t even dare think the word ‘Seer’. But what if Professor Lupin was right? What if he really did have great and terrible powers deep inside him, of which only tiny glances had shown themselves?
There was something strange about his eyes. Those eyes were the eyes of a different person, not a sulky adolescent but something much greater. But… what if he was wrong? He’d just look completely stupid. Still… if he had this gift, it would be a pity to waste it. He had to at least think about it.
At last, Jordan spoke, his voice weak and faint, but surprisingly tranquil. “I… I’ll consider it. What you said.”
Rowena Ravenclaw’s voice once again surfaced in his mind: “There is a difference between cleverness and wisdom. I know many things, but he understands everything.
Jordan had always been very clever. His massive I.Q., comprehension of information, and memory for facts had put him head and shoulders above the rest of the school in terms of intelligence. But maybe he was beginning to grow wise as well.
There was something frightening about the uncertainty. It was like an elephant standing before Professor Lupin’s small mirror”parts of it were reflected in the glass as it turned, here an eye, here an ear, here a patch of thick grey torso, here a brushlike tail, but none of these parts on its own was an elephant. And just seeing one of those parts on its own didn’t guarantee that it belonged to an elephant. It could be something else entirely, something much smaller and less fantastic. Running around yelling ‘elephant’ would be stupid until he knew for certain that he’d seen the entire elephant.
Lupin’s hands were shaking. “Well,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, “You will need to take Divination classes to help you learn more about your talent and how to use it.”
Divination? It was one thing to accept the reality of what it meant to be a true Seer. But to take Divination classes from that old fraud Trelawney, who had no grasp of how to even use the little skill that she had? Even worse, to take it with Haley, to have to explain himself? It would be a nightmare. And if he wasn’t a Seer at all”which, he reminded himself, he most likely wasn’t”the class would be even more of a waste.
“I… I have a full schedule. There’s no room for another class,” stammered Jordan.
“It’s of utmost importance for you to take Divination,” Lupin told him seriously. “If you are a Seer, you’ll need some sort of guidance. How else will you know how to interpret your dreams and visions, or how to exercise any control over your abilities? It’s dangerous to have a talent without knowing how to use it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “The Board of Governors will understand,” he added thoughtfully. “I’m sure you’ll be allowed to use a Time Turner for such a necessary class. You’re very responsible, so there should be no trouble.”
Amazing. Two logical impossibilities granted to Jordan at once. Psychic powers and a time machine. He’d never be able to return to his old pattern of life after this.
He looked up at his teacher. “Professor, I know you’re excited about all of this. But I need to know for myself whether I’m a Seer before I start spreading the word around. I need… logical proof, as idiotic as that sounds for this sort of situation. Can you please not tell anyone outside the Board of Governors”especially Professor Trelawney?” He paused. “And particularly especially my family?”
“I can understand why you would want to do that,” replied Lupin quietly.
Jordan got to his feet. The clock on the wall read 11:47 P.M. He could hardly believe that it had only been half an hour since he’d made the decision to visit Lupin”so much had changed since then, in such a short amount time. Every fibre in his body was tingling, and his skin prickled with gooseflesh. He rubbed his arms together.
“Thanks, Professor,” he said. “For… um… everything.”
When he went back to bed that night, he was untroubled by strange dreams. But this was only because he did not sleep at all.
“You’re starting Divination tomorrow?” exclaimed Cecilia a week later as she and Jordan worked on their genealogy project.
“Yes,” Jordan said, not even looking up from his book. “Oh, make a note on your chart, the pureblood Crouch line died out with Bartemius Crouch, Jr.”
Cecilia threw quill at him, though she purposely missed. “Wasn’t it you who said you thought Divination was totally useless? It’s just stupid to sign up for it. You could be doing homework for your other classes during that time.”
Jordan sighed. “Professor Lupin signed me up,” he said. “Believe me, it wasn’t my own choice. He thought I should get at least some knowledge of all of the different branches of magic… and besides, Divination itself isn’t necessarily rubbish, just the teacher.”
“What?” Cecilia blinked. “Listen, my mum loves that Divination nonsense, and she’s always talking about it. She runs the Quibbler and everything… let’s just say that she definitely believes in some strange things. If my mum believes in something, it’s a sure sign that it doesn’t exist.”
“Does your mum believe in love?” Jordan challenged. “What about courage? Honour? She was blinked in the last battle against Voldemort, wasn’t she? She has to believe in friendship and bravery and justice if she sacrificed herself like that. You can’t just generalize.”
“Those are just abstract concepts!” snapped Cecilia. “There’s no quantitative way to measure those!”
Jordan raised his eyebrows. “We’re getting nowhere here. All I said is that Divination does exist. If you say it doesn’t, then you’re saying that Merlin was a fraud as well, and he was the greatest Seer who ever lived. He had psychic dreams, visions, every sort of magical wisdom, absolutely everything. I doubt…anyone… at this school has any sort of sixth sense, but it can never hurt to learn as much about magic as possible.”
“Maybe Merlin was a fraud,” said Cecilia. “After all, nobody living has ever met him. All we have are writings about him, and they’re secondary source at best. In my opinion, he was just a good guesser and historians embellished the facts.” She squinted. “And since when are you the expert on Divination? What’s this about all the different branches?”
Jordan scribbled down a few notes on his parchment, remaining cool-headed. “Maybe I’m just not as narrow-minded as you are,” he told her. “I find it useful to have a broad range of knowledge of our world and not just the things that you think are important.” He was almost choking to death on the lies he was uttering, but if he was going to take Divination, he might as well do it boldly.
Cecilia shook her head, her lips pursed. “I don’t get you at all. You’re acting so weird. What happened to logic? Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine,” he responded flatly. “And as for logic, logic is the most important thing, of course. Very useful. But it’s like seeing in black and white. Sometimes, it’s useful to see in colour, as well.”
Cecilia stood and crossed to the other side of the room, then turned around and faced him from the corner, her arms folded. “What on earth is wrong with you today? You’re not making any sense at all! It’s almost like”” she trailed off and squinted at him suspiciously. “Are you in love?”
“No!” exclaimed Jordan. Trust a thirteen-year-old to jump to that conclusion. “I’m just trying to see from a different perspective! Is that so hard to understand?”
“From you, yes!”
Jordan stood up now as well. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“I mean that you’ve never cared about anyone’s perspective but your own, because you’re always right!”
Her forceful words struck Jordan as though she’d punched him in the mouth. He was sure that she wasn’t trying to insult him, that she actually admired this in him, and that was what made it all the worse.
Was this really true? He was staunchly independent and self-motivated, and he was a talented leader who always took the liberty of giving directions, but did he really never listen? And was this how everyone saw him? Cecilia hadn’t even known him long”what about those who had known him his whole life?
He didn’t know how much he was going to change in the next few months, but if it really was true that he would soon be able to ‘experience the past, predict the present, and remember the future’ as Slytherin had put it, then he was certainly going to surprise and frighten some people. Including, he was afraid, himself.
One of him first victims was his own sister, as a matter of fact. The next day after lunch, Jordan stood at the base of the flimsy ladder that he would climb to reach the Divination classroom. He felt unusually nervous and hesitant as he stood there, hastily tucking his time-turner inside the neck of his robes.
The truth was, he was worried about what everyone else would think about him, worried about all of the heads that would turn to face him the instant he stepped into the classroom. He knew he shouldn’t be, that he should rise above it all, that he was the only one who really had good reason to be there, but he wasn’t Merlin. He was just a self-conscious teenager who was terrified of facing his fellow sixth years. He wished he could be as fearless as Emma, though maybe without the scary temper.
He took a deep breath and mounted the bottom rung of the ladder. At least, he thought, time traveling every day would be easy enough for him to get used to. He was surprisingly comfortable with it; much like with Apparition, he’d read so much about it, he felt almost as if he’d done it before.
Jordan pushed open the trapdoor, planning to stride into the classroom with a confident and unconcerned air about him, his head held high. Instead, the hem of his robes caught on the corner of the trap door and he stumbled into the classroom with a depressingly girlish shriek.
Ever head in the room snapped around to stare at him. “OH MY GOSH!” shrieked Haley, dropping the crystal ball she was holding and letting it shatter on the ground.
“Reparo,” Jordan said calmly, with a nonchalant flick of his wand.
“What are you doing here?” Haley demanded, her voice about as shrill as the average dog whistle.
Her brother smiled, aware of the fact that the entire class was watching him. He was determined to make as much of a show of this as possible”Haley was not the only Potter with a flair for the dramatic. “Presumably, I’m here to learn,” he told her casually, and sat down in an armchair in a manner that he liked to think was debonair and just came off as looking like he had a cramp in his hip. “I don’t know about you.”
Haley gasped and spluttered incoherently.
“Professor Lupin suggested that I sign up,” Jordan said, his voice smooth. “I have quite a comprehensive knowledge of magic if I do say so myself, but I know next to nothing about Divination.”
He was irresistibly reminded of his first several years at Hogwarts, when he’d made up for his total lack of faith in himself with false ego. Now he was covering up for his total lack of sanity. It was amazing how useful it could be to fake arrogance; it annoyed people so much that they didn’t bother to stop and think that it might not be genuine.
Most likely, Haley had much more to say, but she never got the chance. Professor Trelawney held up her gnarled, jewel-bedecked hands. “Enough! Enough of the ruckus! It disturbs the Inner Eye!”
Jordan suspected that his Inner Eyes were rolling in Inner Irritation. Weren’t sight and hearing two entirely different senses? Surely it was the same with the sixth sense as well.
“And welcome to our realm, Mr…?”
“Potter,” Jordan confirmed. “I’m Jordan Potter.” Some Seer she was, not even knowing his name. In any case, his messy black hair and green eyes were a dead giveaway.
Trelawney’s hugely magnified eyes grew even wider at the sound of his surname. “Ahhh,” she breathed. “To have a set of twins in one class is an auspicious sign, indeed. Surely you’re aware of the powerful psychic connection between twins? And with your sister’s talent…”
‘Powerful psychic connection’ indeed. The only psychic connection between the Potter twins was their uncanny ability to push one another’s buttons and annoy one another with unusual efficiency. And if Haley had ‘talent’ in Divination, it was her enthusiasm for the subject that made her an expert when it came to knowing what to guess, not psychic power.
“Today,” Trelawney announced in a voice so breathy and throaty that she may well have taken a paintbrush and coated her vocal cords with industrial quantities of mucus, “we will be studying the art of palmistry!”
This statement was greeted with ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s and a certain boy slumping several inches lower in his seat.
“In the world of palmistry, one must remember to examine one’s partner as a whole”both with one’s outer and inner eyes. And only then can the palm be read and interpreted. The textbooks on your desks describe the meaning of the shapes and lines of the human hand.”
She suddenly swooped toward a Hufflepuff boy named Roran O’ Reilly and snatched his hand. Roran looked somewhat terrified at the prospect of having his future predicted for the whole of the class, but if he spoke any words of protest, they were covered up by Trelawney’s evaluation.
“Stand up, please. Yes, tall and sturdy, strong and square features… talented at working with his hands and repairing things, I see.”
“Well, actually, I--”
“And let me see your hand. Ah yes, these are strong hands. I can see you’re very grounded,” Trelawney continued, seeming not to have heard Roran, despite the fact that he was extremely near her. “Very down to earth…”
“Um, my dad says””
“Dislikes the frivolity of mindless chatter and silly games and competitions…”
“No, er, I’m Hufflepuff Keeper, and””
“And you will marry at the age of twenty-six, father two daughters, live to a ripe old age, and be eaten by Nundus while on a family holiday,” Trelawney finished triumphantly.
Roran squinted at his hand, looking very concerned and more than a little worried, which was understandable.
Jordan was feeling extremely fortunate that he was not the one who Trelawney had singled out when FWOOSH! With a flurry of flying jewelry, scarves, and shawls, she swooped toward the twins in a cloud of perfume.
“The hands of twins,” she announced, “will occasionally bear a mark unique to them among the billions of denizens of the earth. I’ve never before had the privilege of having both twins in a pair in my class, so this is a very special occurrence!” She beamed in a vague sort of way as she moved closer toward Haley, who got to her feet in a needlessly glamorous manner, her head held as high as her small stature would allow.
“Small and dainty, delicate features, a sensitive soul…”
Jordan nearly choked stifling a laugh. Haley may have been small and ‘dainty,’ whatever that meant, but the girl was as tough as nails. She was not ‘sensitive,’ not by a long shot”except for when it came to people raising one eyebrow. But Haley did not protest as Trelawney took her hand and prepared to read it.
“Hmmm… oval-shaped palms”these are creative hands. But your fingers are small and short”you have determination. And””
Suddenly, the Divination Professor gasped and clutched her heart. It was so sudden, in fact, that a Hufflepuff girl named Isadora Dalton fell out of her chair. “I… I’ve never seen anything like it!” sobbed Trelawney, tracing the lines of the girl’s hand with her finger. “You have a very short head line, and around it, your… your life and heart lines flow into one another almost seamlessly.” She shook her head slowly with disbelief. “In all my years, I’ve never… I don’t know what this means!”
Tears were flowing own her face, and she hugged the wide-eyed Haley like an inordinately proud parent. “You will marry your fifth love, have three sons and two daughters, and be successful on the stage!” she choked out.
She babbled on for several minutes about Haley’s hand and how unusual it was, and just as he was beginning to tune her out, Trelawney zipped right over to Jordan and breathed, “The chances of such an extraordinary hand from the other twin are quite rare, but one mustn’t risk one’s chances of finding a set of unusual twin hands, must one?” She studied the boy intently. “Slight of build, lean muscles, fine features, the soul of a dark romantic…”
“No, I’m not at all romantic, I--”
He couldn’t finish his statement, because Trelawney had snatched his hand and was wearing the type of overjoyed expression that Emma usually did right after a Slytherin Quidditch player was injured grievously.
“Square palms, that means you’re logical and practical, but what’s this, the long and slender fingers of an artist and dreamer. Your palms are… oh!” She let out an odd, choked-up sort of shriek and staggered toward a pouffe, collapsing onto it. “Your hand,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry, I washed it before I came in,” Jordan said dryly. He would normally never even think disrespectful thoughts about a teacher, but frankly speaking, he did not consider Trelawney worthy of his respect.
“Your heart line is very short, but your head line and your life line… they… I’ve never seen such a hand! Look at how they curve to meet one another so perfectly…”
Jordan studied his own palm, glancing at the oval formed by its lines. He’d never known that was unusual before”he didn’t make a habit of examining other people’s hands.
Trelawney stared deep into his eyes, cocking her head to the side like a dog eagerly awaiting a treat. “There is greatness in you, mark my words. I can see it haunting your face. But you…” she trailed off, gazing off into space. “You must have been a powerful magician in a past life.”
Jordan stood up. This was just too much. He couldn’t take any more of this nonsense. “In my ‘past life’?” he repeated. “There is no such thing as reincarnation! If there was, then how could there possibly be ghosts? If hypothetically there is ‘greatness’ in me, it would be my own, not a dead wizard’s. The closest thing to reincarnation in our world are magical heirs, but even that’s not particularly similar.”
“Magical air?” he heard a girl whisper two tables apart from his. It was surprising how little some people knew.
“No, magical heirs,” he explained, somewhat enjoying ‘teaching’ the class. His voice was almost patient. “When a wizard or witch’s abilities are passed down to a descendent born a number of years after the original witch or wizard’s death. For example, Lord Voldemort was the heir of Slytherin, and he held powers otherwise unique to Slytherin. His mother and grandparents were not heirs of Slytherin. Only he was. Understood?”
There were a few nods, but mostly slack-jawed confusion. Jordan suddenly realized how he must look to the rest of the class. He was the ‘new kid’ who had breezed in to class on his first day, corrected the teacher, constantly showed off his intelligence, and thought he knew enough to not even do the work or pay attention.
Granted, this was all true, but it was not a reputation with which he wanted to be saddled. He sat down hastily and folded his unusually-lined hands, watching silently as Trelawney babbled about Isadora Dalton’s future set of nine children.
He glanced down his robe collar at the small gold hourglass nestled snugly against his collarbone. These classes were definitely not worth time travel.