prologue

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a woman sat at a crystal ball. she had a premonition in the middle of the night, and after waking up in a cold sweat, she crawled out of bed and found the crystalline sphere in her sewing room. she never felt as though she had any talent in crystal-gazing, but something — call it fate, or a higher power — drew her to the crystal that night. she did not object. she drew shaking hands on either side of the opalescent object, and delved into a vision.

at first, she thought she was seeing something like the end of the world — a deafening crash, billowing smoke, and then nothing, nothing, nothing.

it was hogwarts, but at the same time, it wasn't. it was nothing like anything she had ever seen before. smoke and dust clouded the air. the portraits of once-famous wizards and witches hung haphazardly on the walls, their occupants rushing out of their frames while shrieking in fear as beams of light flew by. hexes and cursed soared through the air, and the witches and wizards hurling them were locked in combat below. they were fighting for their lives.

the scene seems to warp — now, she watches from above. a group of people are dueling, throwing stunning spells and killing curses over their shoulders with minimal effort. she was stunned, almost horrified, to notice that the group in combat contained children, some that looked like they had barely just come of age. yet their skill was unmatched, and they seemed to be giving the cloaked men they dueled a run for their money. and then another man entered the fray, and shouted a spell she did not recognize, and the air exploded around them all.

the scene changed again. now she was watching the moving staircases of hogwarts, and this time, she saw it like she was standing there too. people ran by her, spells missed her by inches. but like a ghost, she was unseen and untouched.

the woman's eyes locked in on a girl and boy at the top of a staircase. two men pursued them. she watched, mesmerized, as they threw curses at each other. the girl seemed to be dueling both men at once, while the boy accompanying her guarded her back, sending the occasional spell at any passerby that dared to look at them for too long.

the girl was beginning to force the men back down the moving steps. she threw jinxes faster than they could keep up, and they were scrambling to block her spells.

at one point, it seemed that she had almost beat them, but then the two men began to throw spells at the boy behind her. it caught the girl off-guard, and in a second she lost the ground she had won back. the woman, watching, could barely force herself to continue seeing the scene — she knew what came next. the green jets of light, powerful and deadly magic, were flying by, and one of the men sent the spell flying straight towards the boy. the girl let out a scream, perhaps of terror or fury or both, the woman would never know — because the girl took a graceful leap and took the spell straight to the chest. the scene changed for the woman again before the girl even hit the ground.

it was dark, nothingness. the only thing she could see was the thinnest of veils, drawing ever near, closer as time crept on —

"camilla? come back to bed!"

the scene vanished quicker than it had came; a voice from the outside world called her back to earth. the woman pulled herself from the opalescent crystal, composed herself, and quickly stowed the crystal ball where she knew nobody would find it.

"coming, darling!"

BLACK MAGIC ➳ FRED WEASLEYWhere stories live. Discover now