It took longer than Gabriel would've liked to wrest himself from Professor Trelawney's grip. Even after he finally escaped, he could still hear her voice echoing behind him - shrill and ecstatic, proclaiming something about "omens of great tragedy" to the trembling class.
A few moments later, he was descending past the trapdoor and the silver stairs, storming out of the Divination classroom under a chorus of whispers and hurried murmurs. Hermione followed right on his heels, her robes swishing with each quick step.
"Gabriel, wait!" she called, panting from the effort of keeping up with his much longer stride.
He stopped at the turn of the corridor, offering her a crooked, weary smile despite the troubled look clouding his face. He waited for her to catch her breath before she spoke again, worry glinting in her brown eyes.
"What was that back there?" she demanded quietly.
Gabriel sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "A trance, I guess," he said hoarsely, clearing his throat. "Feels like it, anyway."
"So you're a Seer," Hermione said - though her tone hovered somewhere between a deduction and a question.
"Always was. My mum's one too," he replied, already walking again, eyes searching the hall for a water source.
"If you already knew that, then why did you run away?" she pressed. "And what did you see?"
He didn't answer immediately. They turned a corner, the sound of their steps echoing against the cold stone, until he finally spotted what he'd been looking for - an enchanted fountain built into the wall, shaped like the roaring head of a dragon with a small brass lever gleaming at the side.
Rather than rummaging through his bag for a bottle, Gabriel simply bent down and pulled the lever. Cool water gushed from the dragon's jaws straight into his own, and he drank greedily.
"Gabriel!" Hermione squeaked, scandalized. "That's- that's not sanitary!"
He waved a dismissive hand mid-drink.
When he finally straightened, droplets clinging to his chin, he let out a long sigh. His skin still felt sticky with sweat, his collar damp against his neck, though the chill air of the castle was already helping. He ran a hand through his hair and cracked his neck with a grimace. He decided against recasting the Bluebell Flames at this point.
"I don't know, honestly," Gabriel said after a pause, rubbing his temple. "It's just - look, being a Seer isn't the same thing as being a prophet. A Seer's just someone who's… more in tune with the Mystery of Fate. And that can show up in a lot of different ways."
He looked thoughtful, eyes wandering briefly before returning to hers.
"My mum can look into a crystal and tell you the odds of a football team winning a match - and by how many goals. She's almost never wrong, either. As for me? I'd just get gut feelings sometimes. Like… meeting someone and instantly knowing what kind of person they are, or feeling something heavy before big events - like Halloween."
Hermione's eyes widened. "So back then-!"
"Yeah." He nodded. "I'd felt off since morning, but by the feast it was almost unbearable. I got worried." He shrugged lightly. "Still, it's useful. I get a warning when something's about to go wrong, a glimpse at what's ahead. I can live with that. But what happened today?" He shook his head. "Never had a trance before. And I never wanted to."
"Why not?" Hermione asked, brow furrowing.
"Have you ever heard a story about a Prophet who had a happy life?" Gabriel asked dryly. "People who live too close to the future go mad, Hermione. One way or another."
Her eyes widened, a touch horrified.
"Not that I have to worry about it," he added quickly, though his tone was faintly uneasy.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't think I saw the future," he said slowly. "When I get those gut feelings, most of the time it's like… the world whispering a guess. 'You know, this might happen.' There's always some uncertainty - fluidity. But what I saw in there-" he gestured vaguely toward the Divination Tower, "-it wasn't like that. It felt solid. Fixed. Like it already happened. Or was happening right then."
Hermione bit her lip. "And what did you see? You told Professor Trelawney you didn't know."
Gabriel gave her a puzzled half-smile, as if the memory were already fading. "I just know there were dogs. A bunch of dogs."
Hermione blinked, incredulous. "Dogs? Really? So what, you saw a ken-"
A sharp vibration cut her off. She jumped, fumbling into her robe pocket and pulling out a small clockwork timepiece, its little brass hands spinning and ticking with soft mechanical chirps. Her eyes widened when she saw the time.
"Oh no," she whispered.
"Hermione?" Gabriel asked, brow raised.
She glanced around, clearly scrambling for an excuse. "I- I need to go to the bathroom," she blurted, far too quickly.
Gabriel gave her a flat look that said he didn't believe a word of it.
Hermione sighed, defeated. "Fine. I need to go do something. I already told you that I'll explain it later, all right?"
He nodded, lips twitching with amusement. "Sure. I already knew girls poop, by the way."
Her face went scarlet. "You're ridiculous!" she huffed, smacking his chest with a loud thump before spinning around and marching down the corridor.
Gabriel watched her go, laughing softly under his breath.
-~=~-
When Gabriel saw Hermione again, she was already seated in Professor McGonagall's classroom - despite the fact that he had come straight there after their talk.
He gave her a strange look as he slid into his seat, but she pretended not to notice, burying her face in her notes just as McGonagall swept to the front of the room. Soon enough, they were both too busy scribbling down every word of her brisk lecture on Inanimate-to-Animate Transfigurations - and how they differed from Animate-to-Animate, a topic the Professor illustrated with the rather memorable example of her own Animagus transformation.
By the time class was over, their hands were cramped, their parchments filled to the brim with cross-references and diagrams. They compared notes briefly in the corridor - Hermione's were neater, naturally - before parting ways. She headed straight toward the Great Hall; while he decided that a shower and change of clothes came first.
It didn't take long. Soon, he was descending the marble staircase, hair still damp, a clean uniform clinging pleasantly to his skin, and blue flames clinging to him once more as he slid onto the Ravenclaw table and began to devour his lunch.
Across the Great Hall, whispers rose and fell like the rustling of parchment. He could feel eyes on him - students pointing, murmuring, some subtle, some not even trying. Even his own housemates were at it. And the first-years? They looked like they were staring at a bloody myth.
Ever since Dumbledore's announcement of the apprenticeship the previous night, Gabriel Moretti had become the castle's newest obsession. Rumors spread faster than a Weasley firework - somehow, people had dredged up the story of the Troll Incident from the first year, though the accounts varied wildly. Depending on who you asked, he'd either wrestled it with his bare hands, defeated it with ancient magic, or tamed the thing into submission. Sometimes all three in succession.
Others whispered about the Halloween of last year, when he and Dumbledore had slipped out of the Great Hall together - an event few even remembered properly until now, thanks to a light Memory Charm from the Headmaster. The gaps in memory only seemed to make the mystery sweeter.
And then there was Luna.
In what Gabriel still couldn't decide was either an act of genuine belief or mischievous chaos, she had told the first-years that he was an angel. Her evidence? The faint blue halo of fire that still burned gently above his head even now.
It had gone about as well as one might expect.
Just a bit earlier this morning, a wide-eyed Muggleborn girl of particularly devout background had spotted him entering the Ravenclaw common room, gasped, and immediately fell to her knees in prayer.
Gabriel would've felt awkward - should've felt awkward - but honestly, it was too funny. So instead of explaining, he'd just smiled, reached up, touched the edge of his halo, and lowered his finger to her brow, leaving behind a faint, glowing dot of blue flame.
"Go in peace, my child," he'd said solemnly with closed eyes and a grandiose smile.
The girl had burst into tears.
He'd barely made it out of the common room before Luna started humming what sounded suspiciously like church organ music.
He chuckled at the memory, before turning his attention back to Michael Corner - who was watching him with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.
Michael had been one of the first people Gabriel met on the Hogwarts Express two years ago - back when a panicked Neville had moved an overly earnest and freshly embarrassed Hermione who had in turn conscripted him into helping search for a missing toad. They'd opened compartment after compartment, finding Michael sitting alone in one of them, feet propped up, reading a Quidditch magazine like the world could end and he'd still finish the article first.
Looking at him now, Gabriel couldn't say the boy had changed much. He'd shot up a few inches, his once-short black curls now brushed the back of his neck, and his features had sharpened in that halfway-grown, almost-handsome way boys their age did - but the laziness in his voice and that half-smirk of perpetual amusement were just the same.
He'd also grown one hell of an Adam's apple. Gabriel tried not to be jealous.
Realizing he was zoning out again, Gabriel blinked and gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry, sorry - what were you saying again?"
"I said," Michael drawled, his tone slow and teasing as always, "that you shouldn't worry too much about what happened today in Divination. People are just overreacting because you and Potter were the ones involved."
"Mikey, he saw the future," Sue Li interjected from across the table, leaning forward with wide eyes. "How could anything be an overreaction to that?"
Gabriel opened his mouth to correct her - but stopped when Michael snorted.
"I've got an uncle who's a Seer," Michael said, tilting his head with a wry smile. "Every Sunday, since he was four years old, at some point of the day he'll just stop whatever he's doing, go blank-eyed, and make a prophecy."
Padma raised an eyebrow. "And how come he's not famous, then?"
"Because every time he makes a prophecy," Michael said, barely keeping a straight face, "the only thing he sees is the weather forecast - for a random place in the world."
There was a pause - then Gabriel barked out a laugh, joined by snorts and giggles around the table.
"Not exactly grand, is it?" Michael went on with a grin. "My point being - just because someone sees the future doesn't mean it's something important. Not to say it's useless, mind. My uncle makes a tidy sum selling his predictions to Muggle weather stations."
Gabriel leaned back, smirking. "And that already makes him a more useful prophet than ninety percent of his peers."
Michael raised his goblet in a mock salute. "Can't argue with that, mate."