Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [5]

⚡️ Chapter 78 ⚡️

The sun had risen fully now. Dumbledore's office was bathed in it. The glass case in which the sword of Godric Gryffindor resided gleamed white and opaque, the fragments of the instruments Harry had thrown to the floor glistened like raindrops, and behind them, the baby Fawkes made soft chirruping noises in his nest of ashes. Vega was stunned at what Dumbledore was revealing and it dawned on her that his name had been on the prophecy.

"The prophecy's smashed," Harry told him blankly. "Vega and I were pulling Neville up those benches in the – the room where the archway was, and we ripped his robes and it fell..."

"The thing that smashed was merely the record of the prophecy kept by the Department of Mysteries," Dumbledore replied. "But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly,"

"That's you," Vega whispered.

"Yes, Vega, I did," Dumbledore answered softly. "On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head Inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all.

"The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave,"

Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past Vega and Harry to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes's perch. He bent down, slid back a catch, and took from inside it the shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges. Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple.

From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment.

Then, with a sigh, Dumbledore raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sibyll Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones.

"THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES...
BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM,
BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES...
AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL,
BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT...
AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER
FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES...
THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD
WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES..."

The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished. The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore nor Vega or Harry or any of the portraits made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring at the Pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. "It.... did that mean... what did that mean?"

"It meant," Dumbledore said. "That the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times,"

"It means – me?" Harry asked in a shaky voice.

Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses.