An Opus Alchymicum Vol 4: The Dæmon's Crucible

Skeletons In The Closet

Minerva McGonagall looked around at her class and frowned sternly at the stony, distracted faces assembled before her. She moved from one to the other, clocking the same disturbed, pale expression on every Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Third-Year visage staring blankly ahead. Scrunching her eyes, she cleared her throat and addressed them all as one.

"What has gotten into you all?" Professor McGonagall demanded. "I know that this is the first lesson on a Monday morning, but still ... that is the first time my Animagus Transformation has not been met with a round of applause in years. Does anyone want to tell me what this is all about?"

"Sorry, Miss," Parvati began. "But it's just ... we ... we ..."

"We had a private Divination class yesterday, Miss," Lavender took over. "And Professor Trelawney said ... she said ..."

Then Lavender flicked a fraught, desperate look at Harry ... and promptly exploded into a bout of tears, which triggered Parvati to quickly follow suit. Fay Dunbar, who was sat with them, patted their shoulders consolingly and offered them tissues, which she had shamelessly pulled from her down the top of her robes. Where had she been keeping that, Harry wondered blithely.

Professor McGonagall smirked, though it may have been hiding a sort of pitying grimace. "Ah, I think I see what has happened here. So, tell me ... which one of you will be dying this year?"

Every head snapped to McGonagall in stunned shock. Lavender and Parvati paused in their distressed weeping.

"Apparently, I will be, Professor," Harry piped up, tiredly. In truth, he was sick of answering that question from students, but having his former guardian ask it was somehow more troublesome to him. "I wasn't there, but rumour spreads fast around here ... and plenty of Slytherins have come up to me since to remind me all about it ... and to offer to help me fulfil the prophecy if I needed them to!"

Neville scoffed a derisory laugh into his hand at that. Harry just grinned at him.

"It is good to see that someone recognises the ludicrousness of all this, Mr Longbottom," said Professor McGonagall, inclining her head warmly at Neville. "Is no-one else sensible to enough to see the preposterousness of such a prediction?"

"I was dubious, Professor," Sally-Anne Perks piped up suddenly. She smiled shyly at Harry as he caught her eye. "I mean, Divination seems very woolly to me. True Seers are very rare, aren't they? And if you haven't got the gift it seems a little pointless to study omens and symbols. They have just been made up by human culture and mythology and have no real meaning beyond that."

"A truly logical assumption," Professor McGonagall nodded, approvingly. Harry felt a warm rush of thanks towards Sally-Anne just then, and grinned at her to try and communicate it.

"But what about the prediction about Harry?" Lavender fired over. "She saw his death!"

"Oh, come on, Lav!" Sally-Anne volleyed back, vehemently. "Be reasonable ... if you wanted to shock a class, you'd say someone was going to die, wouldn't you? And who would you pick to make it the most believable? Perhaps the one student who we all know has a mortal enemy after him in the world?"

Lavender went to argue, then saw the logic of Sally-Anne's statement, and pursed her lips to think about it. But not everyone was so easily swayed.

"But what about all the instances of people seeing Death Omens?" Neville asked.

"Not you too, Nev?" Harry cried. "I thought more of you than to believe superstitious nonsense like that!"

"Well, I do," Neville replied firmly, colouring a little. "Do you think they are all just coincidences?"