Professor Trelawney did not appear to be pretending. Her sudden transformation left the young witches and wizards thoroughly startled.
"Save us…"
She locked eyes with Ian, her expression riddled with terror and desperation. Her long, bejewelled fingers clutched his robes tightly, the many rings on her hands digging into his shoulders.
"Er, could we perhaps have a civil conversation instead? I'd rather you not crush my collarbone," Ian said, wincing in discomfort at the unexpected grasp.
The scene threw the entire class into a daze. Even students across the room exchanged baffled glances, whispering among themselves about whether their Divination professor had finally gone completely barmy.
"Huh?" Aurora tilted her head slightly, her heterochromatic eyes narrowing with concentration. Those eyes, one silver, one deep blue, seemed to stir, like eddies spinning in a vast, invisible tide, as if they could see past what was in front of her.
She blinked and saw visions.
Golden suns, entwined with lightning like olive branches, circled a flaming crown that inhaled and exhaled stars above a desert horizon. Pale tongues of fire flickered, and within them danced ghostly silhouettes, spear-wielding warriors, hulking wolves, and more besides.
Everything was aflame.
It wasn't just a blaze, it was a volcanic eruption, primal and furious, roaring up from deep within the earth.
The inferno howled skyward, smoke roiling like a beast of shadow and ash. The very sky trembled as if some cosmic catastrophe was unfolding. The air reeked of sulfur and molten stone, and Aurora's eyelids burned, as though merely seeing this vision was enough to drag one bodily into it.
"Hhh---!"
She hissed under her breath, covering her eyes, yet she refused to look away. Even as searing magic scorched the edges of her perception, she kept her gaze locked on Professor Trelawney, knowing, feeling, that a true prophecy had been unleashed.
And it wasn't done yet.
Whispers rose and fell. Echoes of dying voices and crumbling realms.
The first to fall was the one who bore thunder.
The lightning he wielded turned against him, piercing his chest with a crack of betrayal. Then, twelve chains, ancient and jagged, burst from the void, locking him within an amber-tinted space between time and existence, no longer dead, no longer living, but suspended in an unknowable purgatory.
A second collapse followed swiftly.
A sun-crowned figure was swallowed by a sandstorm conjured from the heart of a flaming solar wheel. The wind shrieked like a mourning choir, drowning the burning glory beneath dunes of silence.
Above a frozen peak, a bell tolled, dull and cracked.
The eight-armed dancer twisted through the flames. Her skin, blue as lapis, peeled away like scorched bark. Her third eye opened wide, and blood poured forth, solidifying into black gemstones as it fell into the fire. When her final arm was devoured by the inferno, the sky bled starlight.
The falcon-headed sovereign had his golden visage stripped by a whirlwind. His staff snapped into nine jagged shards, each vanishing into the dunes. Slowly, the sands began to rise, creeping up his limbs, each grain bursting into blinding brilliance like a collapsing star.
Another god undone.
Aurora imagined she could hear the River Nile sobbing in long and mournful tone.
And through it all, her gaze remained fixed on Professor Trelawney. The German girl's eyes shimmered with reflection after reflection, each new image like another thread in the unraveling tapestry of fate.
The despair she witnessed seeped into her own mind, fraying her focus. Her magic turned erratic, pulsing in uneven bursts. Beads of sweat traced paths down her pale brow, soaking into her platinum-blonde hair.
Still, no one noticed her as all eyes were on the professor.
But Aurora didn't stop. She couldn't. Her instincts screamed that this vision was important, vital, to Ian, to Trelawney, and perhaps to the very castle itself.
More fell.
A warrior crowned with laurel was betrayed by her own shield, which turned inward, slitting her throat with surgical precision.
A nine-headed beast breathed fire that melted through the celestial chains once thought unbreakable.
A serpent-entwined staff suddenly reared, striking its master with venomous fury.
A giant bearing a blazing sun-wheel knelt in a pool of blood, a bronze axe lodged between his shoulder blades. The sun dimmed.
It was carnage, a massacre of gods.
And yet, amidst that swirling devastation, Aurora caught a single enduring figure.
"One remains…"
Atop the roaring volcano stood a one-eyed man, spear in hand. Blood slicked his skin, staining every inch of him from helm to heel. The weapon in his grasp was battered, chipped, its tip cracked, and its handle warped.
He had survived. But only just.
And the world around him? It was collapsing.
This man was in dire condition; venom had already coursed through his body, coiling its way to his pupils, warping the colours of his vision as though poisoning even the world he saw.
From the magma at his feet, rune-bound chains surged upward. His once-majestic ice-crystal armour twisted into a prison. Yet the one-eyed man showed no fear as his form began to dissolve, slipping slowly out of reality.
"You'd best find that wraith-like thing," he muttered to the raven perched on his shoulder.
The bird cawed once, then shot off into the chaos, soaring between flickering fissures in time, vanishing into what could only be described as the underworld. When it returned, it was no longer alone. Accompanying it was a hulking passenger, too indolent to flap its wings. Beneath its glorious black feathers, its eyes shimmered, cold, ancient, utterly unbothered by the apocalyptic scene unfolding below.
"Does your word still stand?" The one-eyed man asked.
Beneath him, the web of fate woven with runes was crumbling, unravelling like the end of a long-forgotten prophecy. He looked up at the newcomer, an unexpected visitor from another time, whose arrival in this world had been long, long ago.
The newcomer gave a subtle nod.
"Good," the man whispered hoarsely. "Then let's devour the gods."
With those chilling words, the one-eyed man raised his hand, tore open his chest with brutal calm, and plunged his spear directly into his heart. Just before fading entirely from existence, he let out a final, damning proclamation:
"And bring us back!"
The last of the figures fell.
The battlefield lay littered with shattered weapons and shattered destinies, fragments of splintered armour whispering of the brutal conflict now past. The small raven resting upon the claws of the larger crow vanished next. With a low cry, the great bird lifted its wings and glided above the remnants of what once had been gods.
And then,
Everything stopped.
Abruptly, the vision in Aurora's eyes halted. She sensed there was more, more she could have seen, if not for the sudden interruption. Ian, locked in a silent struggle as though suffocating beneath invisible hands, reacted instinctively, shoving Professor Trelawney away from him.
And just like that, the thread of fate snapped.
"Wha--? Why am I lying on the floor?" Professor Trelawney jerked upright as though roused from a nightmare, her voice fogged with confusion.
"Perhaps you just nodded off from exhaustion," Ian replied casually, brushing off his new shoes as he stepped well away from her. His tone, surprisingly calm, seemed to satisfy her.
"Yes… yes, that must be it. Divination does take a rather serious toll on the mind," she murmured, wobbling to her feet and limping toward the teacher's desk.
She not only accepted Ian's explanation without question but also failed to notice, or at least acknowledge, the limp in her step. The other young wizards exchanged uncertain looks, eyebrows raised at the bizarre spectacle.
"Do you reckon you ought to have Madam Pomfrey check your head?" A Hufflepuff asked delicately, while others wore expressions of polite concern, all quietly questioning the professor's grasp on sanity.
"I only had a little nap, thank you! I haven't banged my extraordinary brain," Professor Trelawney replied matter-of-factly, completely misinterpreting their worry.
"Right then, it's time I formally welcomed you to my Divination class," she announced, her gaze sweeping the room with theatrical flair. Her sigh carried a peculiar mix of melancholy and pride.
"I'm delighted so many of you have come for this introductory lesson, but also rather saddened. For you see, truly gifted seers are exceedingly rare."
Without warning, her voice cracked, and she dabbed at her nose with a wrinkled handkerchief, clearly overcome by some deep, invisible sorrow.
"Blimey… is the subject really that dreadful?" A Ravenclaw student asked, clearly sceptical.
"Oh, it's terribly difficult, my dear," Professor Trelawney said solemnly. "I'm sure you Ravenclaws excel in most fields of magic, but Divination is not like Charms or Transfiguration."
"It demands true talent, something innate. If you lack the Sight, even the most celebrated seer alive wouldn't be able to teach you so much as a tea leaf's meaning."
"This is not boastful exaggeration, it is truth. In this age where magic wanes and prophecy fades, someone like myself, with vision stretching so far into the unseen, is a treasure beyond compare."
She rubbed her calf absent-mindedly, wincing as she touched a nasty bruise. "The modern world," she sighed, "is no place for prophets."
(To Be Continued…)
You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395