"What you fear most will happen on Friday, October 16th!"
"This is a dire omen — you must be ready. Stay vigilant."
"This is very grave indeed. I trust you understand what it means…"
"One misfortune will follow another — be careful!"
Professor Trelawney drifted from student to student, weaving her web of dreadful prophecies. With every solemn whisper, she turned wide-eyed students pale and shaky, leaving them staring at her with open-mouthed dread of the terrible future she claimed to see. Some clutched each other's sleeves, as if disaster might strike at any moment.
But Trelawney wasn't satisfied yet. Her eyes darted about, hunting for her next victim — until they settled on Harry and Ron. She floated to their table, squatted down, and leaned in close, peering theatrically into Harry's teacup. Sean could see it clearly: she was about to conjure up another vague disaster, just like the rest — until she froze.
Her thin shoulders twitched. Her pupils widened. The glittering beads on her shawl stilled as if the air itself had stopped moving. Slowly, her head tilted back, eyes staring through the ceiling as if something far beyond this little tower room had seized her mind.
"A black dog… a full moon's werewolf… an enemy… a sworn enemy — his hands are stained with your parents' blood — betrayal… death…"Her voice had gone flat, distant, like a wind whistling through a hollow tunnel. "You will meet death — with your own hands…"
With a sharp intake of breath, Trelawney snapped back to herself. The teacup slipped from her trembling fingers, hitting the floor with a sharp crack. Tea and soggy leaves spread across the wooden planks. From where Sean sat, the spilled tea and leaves looked eerily like a black dog's head — or the snout of a werewolf — and when the tea ran further, the shape almost seemed to morph into a tiny crouched rat.
Sean's eyes narrowed slightly. He knew the real story behind all this. The black dog. The werewolf. The rat. To him, it was obvious what Trelawney had seen — Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew. This was no cheap scare tactic. This time, she'd truly prophesied something real — and she hadn't even known she was doing it.
Sean's gaze flicked to Trelawney. She stood there blinking, looking around in confusion, clearly unaware of what had just come out of her own mouth.
Sean leaned back in his chair, intrigued. So the fraud really did have the gift — she just had no control over when it decided to appear.
When Sean was at Beauxbatons, he had read in a book that in the modern wizarding world, many spells had advanced far beyond what they were in ancient times. With the progress of magical knowledge, a lot of magic had become simpler and more efficient, and many potion formulas didn't even exist in ancient days. In short, the modern wizarding world was moving forward.
For example, the Petrificus Totalus is hardly considered advanced magic anymore. But in ancient times, casting this spell could require a wizard to perform complicated gestures and incantations for several minutes before it worked. And it wasn't just the Petrificus Totalus — many other spells were the same.
However, some things had also vanished over the long flow of time — entire branches of alchemy and old practices of precognitive magic had faded away.
These days, wizards who can truly predict the future mostly rely on natural talent. Those with strong gifts can see things more clearly; those with weaker talent, like Sybill Trelawney, often end up like carnival tricksters, fooling people for fame and coin.
The clairvoyant ability in the Bulstrode family clearly belonged to this rare category too. But unlike the Trelawney line, the Bulstrode family's Seer's vision stayed hidden for generations — when it did appear, it was powerful, and the trait usually showed through the bloodline as pale grey eyes.
This kind of inheritance came with obvious strengths and weaknesses. The strength was that if the power awakened, the person could grow into an extraordinary wizard. The weakness was that the ability might skip several generations — or dozens — making the bloodline vulnerable. If the line ended, so would the power forever.
The Divination lesson ended.
Sean and Blaise left the North Tower together.
In their very first class, Sean had already shown that his natural Seer's vision also gave him some gift for prophecy. With proper training, he might well master true foretelling.
Still, compared to learning formal precognition magic, Sean cared more about unlocking his Seer's vision fully — if he could do that, he wouldn't need prophecy spells at all; the vision alone could replace them.
The Time-Turner he'd received was mainly for managing his elective subjects. In fact, the times for the required classes didn't conflict at all — the only clashes came from electives.
At lunch in the Great Hall, Sean could easily see that the other students who'd just come from Divination were still unsettled by Trelawney's dramatic predictions.
Meanwhile, Malfoy was still dragging Goyle and Crabbe along behind him to mock Harry Potter about fainting when the Dementors came.
Anyone with eyes could tell that after hearing the same joke so many times, Harry barely reacted anymore. Each time Malfoy tried it, only Malfoy laughed — with Goyle and Crabbe pretending to laugh behind him. Malfoy didn't care at all, though; if anything, he seemed even more determined to keep pestering Harry forever.
The first class that afternoon was Care of Magical Creatures.
Sean stared speechlessly at the Monster Book of Monsters in his hand — the book that would snap at anyone who got too close.
Hagrid's passion for teaching Care of Magical Creatures was genuinely admirable, but he really had no gift for being a teacher. He never seemed to understand that magical creatures which posed no danger to him — a half-giant — were absolutely dangerous to ordinary young wizards.
The same was true for this book. Hagrid thought it was amusing that the book would bite at people and that it didn't hurt much if it caught your hand — but for these students, one bite could easily send them straight to the hospital wing.
Standing outside Hagrid's hut, Sean waited for class to start, bored.
While Malfoy and Harry bickered behind him, Hagrid arrived, leading a dozen hippogriffs. When Sean saw the herd of magical creatures, his first thought was about what skills he might gain if he dueled one of them.
But after a moment, he figured these hippogriffs probably didn't have any unique abilities worth copying. He'd get more out of a duel with Hagrid himself — maybe he could even unlock some of that half-giant strength hidden in him.