Chapter Text
The forest soil was cold and wet under her feet, and the scratches on her legs caused by the wild thorny bushes were starting to sting. Why was she running again? She couldn’t remember, but the deep feeling in her gut wouldn’t let her stop. It was coming, she could feel it.
“Come to me, my child.”
The young witch couldn’t even pinpoint where the whispering voice was coming from, as if each tree was delivering the message. Cursing under her breath, she decided to take a sharp turn to the left, ducking under a branch that nearly managed to cut her face. Her lungs were now burning from the physical effort. How long had she been running? Minutes, hours?
Her heart leaped in her chest when she suddenly caught a faint light in the distance. Could this be it? The end of this endless flight? Her legs agreed to take up the pace and she accelerated with a renewed energy.
“There is no escaping, my child. Your time has come.”
As the voice whispered, the witch saw the light disappearing in the distance, getting suffocated in the shadows. She tried to scream, call for it to wait for her and fight, but no sound came out of her throat. When the last figment of light disappeared, her legs finally gave up under her, and her knees fell to the forest ground. She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks as the cold shadows engulfed her.
A dark silhouette formed itself out of the shadows. Out of the darkness, the witch could only distinguish its bony hands and skull, the rest of its body draped in a dark floating cloak.
“My child, the balance needs to be restored.”
In the split of a second, the silhouette pulled out a blade from its cloak and sliced the witch’s throat.
Olivia woke up, her hands immediately jumping to her throat, her lungs aching for air. When the warm sensation of blood oozing out of her throat didn’t come, her brain started to come back to its senses and her eyes managed to focus on the familiar top of her poster bed in her dormitory. She slowly removed her hands from her neck and pushed herself up to sit up straight, grimacing at the sensation of her pyjamas sticking to her sweaty skin. She barely had time to let the air fill up her lungs again when she was met with two pairs of worried eyes.
Mary Macdonald and Alice Fortescue were both sitting on the edge of her bed, still in their pyjamas. The early morning light coming from the windows was slightly illuminating their faces and Olivia felt a pang of guilt for waking up her friends, again. Alice was the first one to break the silence.
“That same nightmare again?”
Not trusting her voice just yet, Olivia nodded. She eyed their two other roommates that were still soundly asleep in their bed. Frowning, she looked around her bed, remembering having casted a muffiato charm before going to sleep. Alice quickly picked up on her train of thoughts and spoke again.
“Mary saw you moving around in your bed when she went to the restroom.”
Mary softly placed a hand on her leg. “You shouldn’t have to feel like you need to go through this alone, Liv.”
Despite her friend’s reassuring words, Olivia felt gnawed by the guilt of cutting short their nights of sleep. In these dark times, where every day the Daily Prophet announced terrible acts of terrorism against muggles and those opposing You-Know-Who, moments of peace and rest were getting rarer, even for students safely protected inside the castle’s walls.
Placing her hand on top of Mary’s, she tried to put on a reassuring smile on her face. “It’s okay, you shouldn’t worry about me. It’s always that same dream anyways, and look, nothing bad happens when I wake up.”
Alice frowned at her words. “That’s not a good reason, Liv! We only came back less than two weeks ago and you’ve had this nightmare nearly every night. We need to find out what is wrong, and soon!”
Mary eagerly nodded next to her. “You’re going to end up hurting yourself if you can’t sleep properly.”
Olivia knew that her friends were right. When the nightmares had first started happening during the summer, she hadn’t put too many thoughts into them. Maybe it was the horror movie that her muggle cousin had forced her to watch, or maybe it was the alignment of the planets that was preventing her from getting a peaceful night of sleep. But the nightmare had kept on coming, a few times a week at first and now nearly every night.
When she had entered the Hogwarts Express, her friends had immediately picked up on her lack of sleep, that she waved off as “reading late at night”. It took only two nights for Mary and Alice to discover her, tossing around in her bed covered in sweat, resulting in the three of them spending their whole first weekend back at Hogwarts researching in the library.
Their research had been fruitless. No books about dream interpretation, premonitions or even the history of Seers had matched whatever Olivia was dreaming of. Sure, there had been mentions of dark forests, running away from an unidentified enemy, and surrounding whispers with mysterious messages, but nothing clicked. Also, most of the divination books were predicting her imminent death, so they guessed it was probably better this way.
Olivia shrugged and started to get out of bed. “Sorry for waking you up. If this keeps happening, I’ll brew some Dreamless Sleep potion.” She grimaced at this. This potion was not dangerous or particularly hard to brew for a sixth year, but Slughorn had warned them many times about the risks of addiction, illustrated with numerous stories of witches and wizards who could never sleep again without one after taking too many.
The witch stepped out of her bed, the feeling of the rug under her bare feet comforting her enough to push the memories of her dreams in the back of her head. “I’ll go have an early breakfast, you should go back to sleep.” She gave a small reassuring smile to Alice and Mary and headed to their shared bathroom. Once she made sure that her friends were going back to their beds to get another hour of sleep, she looked at her reflection in the small mirror in front of her.
Her face was definitely showing her lack of sleep: her skin was paler than usual despite a summer spent outside reading under the sun, and the dark circles under her eyes grew bigger every day. She quickly brushed her hair and got dressed in her Gryffindor robes before heading down to the Great Hall.
At barely six in the morning, the Great Hall was guaranteed to be mostly empty and quiet, hence why Olivia failed to hide her surprise at the sight of Lily Evans and James Potter having a cosy breakfast together. After years of one-sided pinning on James’ side, Lily had finally agreed to go on a date with him during the summer and they had been living a happy romance ever since. Seeing the redhead having an early study session at breakfast was not unusual, but James? And was he… reading a book? Maybe Olivia was still dreaming after all.
Upon spotting her, Lily waved at Olivia to come over. The two of them had immediately become friends when the younger witch sat at the Gryffindor table after getting sorted, their muggle background and love of studying bounding them despite their year difference.
“What are you doing up this early Liv?” she asked sporting a gentle smile. James put his book down and greeted her as well.
“Couldn’t sleep, what about you two?”
“Well, I was getting a head start on our NEWTs curriculum and James thought that his new book needed another reread, apparently.” Lily playfully rolled her eyes as James stuck his tongue at her.
“Oh, what is it about?”
The wizard turned to Olivia, his eyes glinting with an excitement he only reserved for pranks and quidditch. “I’m glad you asked, dear chaser of mine!” He opened his book at a cornered page and pointed to a timetable of what seemed to be a weekly training plan. “This muggle book is about optimizing athletes’ physical performances! They cover many things like stamina improvement, musculation exercises, reflexes or even how to eat to be at your best on the match day! Let me tell you Liv, we’re going to be the best quidditch team Hogwarts has ever seen this year!”
Olivia sat down in front of the couple and grabbed the book to browse through its pages. “James, you do realise that we already won last year, without any of that right?”
“Yes, but this is my last year Liv! There is no room for luck or amateurism, especially if we want to catch some pro teams’s interest!”
“You’re already an amazing captain and the best chaser in Hogwarts, I’m pretty sure that the Magpies already have you on their radar.” Olivia reassured him. They had won most of their matches last year, winning the Quidditch trophy a few points in front of Slytherin.
“Exactly!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “And with this baby,” – he gently patted the book – “we will crush Slytherin!”
Olivia chuckled at his enthusiasm. “When are the tryouts by the way?”
“This weekend, I have booked the pitch on Sunday afternoon.” He seemed to think for a second before starting to get up from the bench. “Actually, I’ll go post the announcement in our common room now, so that everyone sees it when they go down for breakfast.” He gave a quick peck on Lily’s lips and excitingly headed out, not without shouting a “See you!” at an indecent volume for this time of the day.
Olivia turned to her friend who was watching James walk away with a smile on her face. “I can’t believe you’re enjoying his Quidditch talks now, Lils.”
“Oh shut up!” the other witch blushed. Her smile was replaced by a worried expression as she turned around and took in Olivia’s face. “Seriously, are you okay Liv? You look really tired and it’s unlike you not to sleep.”
The younger witch sighed. Lily had always been a caring and observant friend, but the last thing she wanted to do is add another person to the list of people worrying about her sleeping habits. Opting not to hide the truth, Olivia shuffled in her seat and started explaining.
“For a couple of months now, I’ve been having this nightmare where I’m running away from these living shadows in a dark forest. It’s nothing, really.” Not meeting a friend’s eyes, she grabbed a scone and started nibbling on it.
“It doesn’t sound like nothing to me,” Lily frowned.
“Mary, Alice and I spent the weekend researching the library and couldn’t find anything. If it really meant something, then I’m pretty sure that it would have popped up somewhere.”
They stayed silent for a little while, and Olivia started feeling guilty for bothering yet another friend in the morning. As she was going to switch to a different subject, Lily hummed contemplatively.
“You know that I’m not very good at Divination, but maybe it would be worth a try to ask Pandora. I’m sure she’ll be happy to help.”
Lily’s idea wasn’t bad. Pandora was a very sweet sixth year Ravenclaw with a knack for Divination, her whole family descending from a long bloodline of Seers. She was always willing to help, and Olivia and her were on good terms, without being close enough for the nightmares to cause an excessive amount of worry.
“You’re right, I’ll talk to her when I see her,” she acquiesced. “But for now…” she let a wicked grin spread on her face, “you have to tell me everything about your married life!”
Lily tried to swat her hand playfully. “Hey! Don’t give him any ideas just yet!” When the younger witch raised her eyebrows questioningly, she conceded. “Yes, I think I might be in love!”
The two girls erupted in giggles and they spent the rest of their breakfast discussing Lily’s new love life, any thoughts of nightmares or deadly shadows far in the back of Olivia’s mind.
Olivia spotted Pandora with her group of Ravenclaw friends that same day, on her way to the library during her free period.
“Hey Pandora!” she called after catching up to her. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
The Ravenclaw turned to her friends and told them to go on without her before turning to Olivia. “Sure, what can I do for you?”
At that exact moment, Olivia realized that she might have not thought this through. She definitely did not want to dump her weird dream issues in the middle of a crowded corridor, especially with Mulciber and Avery walking nearby, as she spotted when looking around.
Picking up on her struggle, Pandora offered, “I was headed to Divination class, maybe we can take the East wing staircase to go there? It’s usually quiet.” Olivia nodded gratefully and started following the blonde girl to her class.
Once they reached the small wooden staircase, Pandora announced, “I think we’ll have some privacy now.”
Olivia cleared her throat, trying to put her thoughts into order. “Well, this summer I started having this nightmare and it won’t go away.”
“Do you remember what is happening inside of it?”
“Yes, it’s always the same one. I’m in this dark forest, running away from something and trying to reach a light in the distance. But that thing starts whispering all around, calling me their child and telling me that the balance must be restored. Then it kills me and I wake up.”
To her surprise, Pandora didn’t look worried or horrified like her friends had been. She continued climbing up the stairs in silence for a few seconds before replying. “Indeed, this doesn’t seem to be a usual dream. I have never heard of something similar. Usually, premonitions only show up once to you, and they happen as flashes of events. Also, if this was an actual premonition, you would probably be dead already.”
Despite her words, Pandora didn’t seem fazed, as if accepting a terrible fate was a daily occurrence. Olivia inwardly cursed Lily for telling her to have this discussion. Now, all the horrifying books she had read during her research were resurfacing in her mind and she felt her pulse quicken.
“Maybe we can ask Professor Myriam, she is quite knowledgeable about dream interpretation.”
Olivia didn’t feel convinced by that statement. She had taken Professor Myriam’s classes for the past three years and this was the first class she had decided to ditch once she got her OWLs, despite getting an E after randomly predicting some bad fortune for Mr Filch (he had indeed been a victim of the Marauders that same night, but the chances of that were not slim, especially after having witnessed James and Sirius mysteriously snicker for a week beforehand).
“I know that you’re not taking Divination this year, but I’m sure that she will be happy to help you,” continued Pandora as they reached the ladder that led to the classroom.
Part of Olivia wanted nothing more than to turn back and spend the next hour studying her new Charms book at her library’s favorite spot, but she couldn’t deny the curiosity of finally understanding what was happening to her. She nodded to Pandora and they both started climbing up the ladder to the classroom.
Professor Myriam was already there, walking around the tables with burning incense. Most of the students were already sitting at their table, in groups of two.
“Ah Pandora, there you are,” smiled the grey-haired witch. “Oh and Miss Spencer, I ought to be surprised that you’re here as you’re not part of my class anymore but…” she took a dramatic pause and placed her free hand on her chest before continuing, “I had a feeling that you would seek out help from the weave of Divinatory Art once more. What can I do for you?”
“Hello Professor, I just wanted to ask you some questions about dream interpretations,” said Olivia, as Pandora went to sit down with her friend Emeline Vance.
Myriam’s eyes lit up with interest. “Oh my sweet, are you telling me that you have been blessed by visions of the future?”
“I’m not sure, at least I hope not.” Olivia eyed Bertha Jorkins, the biggest gossip of their year walking in. “It is quite dark you see,” she continued, lowering her voice. “And it keeps happening nearly every night.”
“Well, visions can happen in many different ways, but they are always a gift from the Weave of Fate. I would love to discuss your visions with you, but the class is about to start.”
“I can come back later if you’d like –”
“Of course not! You can stay here and we shall continue our conversation after the class. Please, take that time to open your senses to the Weave.” Myriam gestured to a table in the back of the classroom. “You can join Mister Rosier, he is unfortunately without a partner this year.” Without giving Olivia a chance to protest, she turned around and asked the class to prepare the crystal balls placed on each table.
Olivia groaned internally. She should have known that asking Myriam about her dreams would result in a dull hour of reading some vague shapes in a crystal ball. At least before, she would spend an hour sitting and chatting with Alice, while Mary would try to predict who would be their next boyfriends. The latter was the only one who had kept attending the class after their OWLs, but she hadn’t seemed to arrive yet (Olivia didn’t feel surprised as Mary wasn’t known for her impeccable punctuality).
She walked towards her newly designated partner. She usually tried to avoid Evan Rosier and his group of Slytherin friends. Born from the union of a witch and a muggle, she wasn’t the prime target of their insufferable insults about blood purity, but she definitely did not want to risk getting their attention.
Despite his questionable relationships, there could have been a much worse partner than Evan. Throughout the years, Olivia had been partnered with him on a few projects of History of Magic and they had worked in an amicable atmosphere, bonding over making fun of Professor Binns.
“Rosier,” she greeted as she approached his table.
The Slytherin turned to her and smiled playfully. “Spencer! Came to save me from my loneliness?”
“I thought that the company of the Weave of Fate would have been enough to satisfy your social needs,” she shrugged.
He laughed as Olivia sat down on the cushioned stool next to him. They listened to Professor Myriam explaining the goal of their class in silence, Evan thoughtfully looking out the window and Olivia still dwelling on her aborted study session in the library. Their reverie was soon interrupted by someone reaching the top of the ladder.
“Sorry for being late, Professor,” said Mary as she hurried to her seat, catching the attention of most of the class. It took only a second for Olivia to notice her friend’s messy hair and swollen lips, and considering the growing hushed conversations in the class, she wasn’t the only one.
“She was probably snogging Black again,” she heard Bertha Jorkins whisper a few meters away.
“Interesting,” Evan said beside her, “you Gryffindors always have the juiciest stories.”
Olivia tensed, waiting for a comment about her friend’s muggle lineage. When she realized that Evan was simply waiting for her to confirm Bertha’s supposition, she turned back to him and raised her eyebrows with a mocking surprise. “I didn’t know you were such a gossip Rosier.”
“What can I say, a man has his weaknesses,” he sighed dramatically. “By the way, why are you here? I know that you love getting Os in all the subjects you can, but I never took you for a divination girlie.”
“I wanted to ask Professor Myriam a question, so she tricked me into staying for her class.”
To her relief, Evan dropped the subject and pushed the crystal ball towards her. “Be my guest, then. What beautiful future do you see for me?”
Despite being a top student, Olivia had no interest in taking this class – that she wasn’t even taking! – seriously. Maybe I’ll make this hour go by faster, she thought when looking at Evan’s lazy smile. She squeezed her eyes and stared into the crystal ball. Fog filled the sphere and started morphing into indecipherable shapes. She waited for a few seconds before acting surprised and grabbing Evan’s book, looking for a random shape.
“Interesting…”
“What do you see?” he asked excitingly.
“A rose, I think? I see it growing, which means,” she pointed at the corresponding line in the book, “that there is love growing inside of you.”
A deep blush immediately crept up Evan’s cheeks as he murmured an ‘oh?’. Oh, indeed, thought Olivia. This is going to be good. As far as she knew (Mary being her main source of gossip), Evan wasn’t dating anyone, so after staring at the ball again, she dived back into the book.
“A donkey… ignorance… hum, I think it means that they are unaware of your feelings but –”
“Does he like me back?” It took half a second for Evan to realize his slip up. “Oh, shit!”
Out of all the things she had expected from this day – or even week – it wasn’t Evan Rosier accidentally coming out to her. Pureblood families were known for their backwards ways and homophobia was definitely part of the package.
Evan grabbed his wand from his robes and pointed it at the Gryffindor under the table. “Sorry Spencer but you should have never heard this.”
“Bloody hell Rosier, what are you going to do? Obliviate me in the middle of the class?” Evan seemed to reconsider his initial plan. “Do you think I’m going to go around and tell everyone about who you like and don’t?”
“An Unbreakable Vow then!”
“For a crush? What are you, five?” she scoffed, starting to get annoyed at him. “Trust me, your secret is safe with me.”
“You have no idea what they would do to me if they learnt!”
She pointed a menacing finger at her partner. “Evan Rosier, I swear on Gryffindor’s sword, if you try to obliviate me I’ll -”
“Fine, fine, I won’t,” he sighed putting his wand back in his pocket. “But we do it the Slytherin way.” Seeing the questioning look on her face, he continued, “A secret for a secret.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. Of course, Slytherins wouldn’t trust each other without weaponizing their secrets. “Fine, what do you want to know?”
“What did you want to ask Myriam?”
“What tells you that this is going to be an interesting secret?”
“Well as soon as Jorkins arrived you got quiet, so it must be something.”
“Merlin’s beard Rosier, you really are a gossip.”
Evan shrugged feigning innocence. “So?”
Olivia looked around. All the students were engrossed in their own crystal ball reading and no one seemed to pay attention to them. “Well if you want to know the truth, I keep dreaming of getting my throat sliced in the woods by some weird shadow monster, and I have no idea why.”
Evan’s smile vanished. “Oh, I didn’t think it would be this dark. Maybe I should have asked for something else. Can I pick another secret? Like what happened between you and Wood last year?”
That was definitely a secret she didn’t mind sharing, at least anymore. “Only if you tell me who you’re fancying…”
Evan hesitated for an instant before agreeing. “Fine, but we both say it on the count of three…”
“You’re such a child!”
“One, two, three! It’s Barty -”
“He cheated on me with Emma Vanity -”
They both looked at each other in a stunned silence before erupting into a fit of giggles. “See? I was telling you, Gryffindors always have juicy stuff.”
“Don’t tell me that fancying one of your best friends is not juicy.”
Evan opened his mouth to retort when Professor Myriam reached their table. “I see that the presence of a partner is doing you well Mister Rosier. Please, tell me what the Weave showed you for Miss Spencer.”
As if it was a daily exercise, Evan easily morphed his expression in a serious one and came up with a lie. “I’ve been having trouble interpreting what I’m seeing here, maybe you could take a look Professor?”
Myriam crouched and brought her face close to the crystal ball. “Some people can have a harder time contacting the Weave Mister Rosier, you should not despair and keep up - ” She suddenly stopped and frowned. “No, this can’t be…” She sprang up to her feet and grabbed another ball on a nearby shelf. “Let’s try this one…”
Each second that passed, Myriam’s expression turned more horrified. Evan and Olivia exchanged a questioning glance and turned back to their professor.
“Oh, my sweet child… I can’t see anything,” she finally said softly.
“What does that mean?” urgently asked Olivia, starting to get alarmed.
“The Weave… it is not with you anymore… your visions… they’re something else.”
“But Professor, I thought that the Weave was all around us, controlling the Art of Divination. How can it leave someone?” the witch insisted.
“The Weave is only the messenger of Fate, but very rarely there have been other instances taking its place.” The older woman grabbed one of the many pendants that adorned her neck and showed it to Olivia. “As you can see, the Weave is the only pure way of communicating with Fate, therefore I’m afraid that I cannot be of any help to you my sweet child.”
“Wait,” interrupted Evan. “Do you mean that the other ‘messengers’ are affiliated with Dark Magic?”
Myriam slowly nodded, eyes shining with tears. “I am sorry Miss Spencer.”