Ariana looked at it devoutly—her god.
Its tail twitched restlessly, making the way it lightly wrapped around her feel ticklish.
Make a wish to me—those words were like the first light of spring, slowly waking all things back to life.
Ariana had forgotten the last time anyone had made her feel warm.
Her lips parted and closed again, but the sounds she made were still hard to understand.
The black cat was not in the least bit impatient. It lay down, resting its fluffy head on its front paws as though they were cushions.
Its gaze was warm… and so was its tail.
That restless tail twitched again, and one by one, little black bundles rolled free.
The first turned into a campfire, and warm flames rose up.
The second turned into a strange silver basin, with silver strands drifting through it.
"Ah…"
The timid witch widened her eyes.
"Just a few simple spells."
The black cat tilted its head slightly.
"Ah…"
The timid witch froze. The brightness in her eyes dimmed. She did not dare look at the fire, nor did she dare look at the black cat.
"Come a little closer, Miss Ariana. In the eyes of a god, magic is not something to fear, no matter who casts it."
The black cat's tail drew the startled Ariana a little tighter into its embrace.
"Make a wish to me, fortunate Miss Ariana."
Warmth lingered in the black cat's voice.
"Ah… ah… ah…"
Ariana's eyes darted about as she tensed up.
"Brother Albus…"
The black cat froze, as though something had struck it in the chest.
It, too, fell silent for a moment.
So those weren't meaningless sounds after all?
Albus… Albus… How deeply she must have feared forgetting him for his name to become a reflex.
"Brother Albus… Brother Aberforth…"
Hope shimmered in the timid witch's blue eyes.
The black cat listened quietly, listening to the girl's heart.
Then, as though remembering something, the girl hurriedly fumbled a wilted rose out of her pocket.
"Master of dreams and mist, bridge between life and death, symbol of eternal good fortune… I offer you this flower… If you have a flower, you have good fortune…"
Ariana recited the words with devotion.
"I want to see Brother Albus and Brother Aberforth…"
She looked anxiously at the wilted flower in her hand, her gaze flickering, panic tightly suppressed on her pale face.
Would a god despise her flower?
The black cat sat up and let the timid witch offer it forward.
Then the rose rose into the air. In Ariana's frightened eyes, it drifted beside the campfire, and the wine-red petals scattered one by one until they formed a strange ring.
"I have heard your prayer. I have accepted your offering, Ariana…"
said the black cat, with stars glittering above its head.
"I will grant your wish."
Several mist-clusters drifted over of their own accord. The black cat knew clearly that one of them belonged to Headmaster Dumbledore's dream. As for why it also had a dream-cluster from Aberforth—well, that was thanks to that old Hufflepuff senior.
After Gods and Dreams was published, Sean had received many threads from unknown sources.
Sinking into someone else's dream was a strange thing. As Ariana carefully watched the wizard in the dream, the black cat toyed with its threads.
It saw Ariana's thread suddenly swell, almost becoming one of the thickest.
Those mist-threads were the key to how long the black cat could remain in the Borderland.
After a long period of watching and understanding them, the black cat had divided them into four types.
A faint thread: enough to add about ten seconds of stay.
A normal thread: enough to add about one minute.
A slightly thick thread: enough to add about three minutes.
A thick thread: enough to add about ten minutes.
The black cat had several thick threads already—Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Grandpa Marcus, Justin, Harry, Lady Roland, and others.
There were more than a dozen slightly thick ones, and over a hundred normal and faint ones.
Some of the threads didn't even have owners the black cat recognized. They had probably come from Gods and Dreams and the stories about good fortune.
And now the black cat had gained another slightly thick thread, from the timid witch in front of it.
It looked at the smiling girl. She seemed to be having a sweet dream.
The mist had already begun to churn, and the black cat should have been leaving by now—but Ariana's thread let it rest a little longer.
It picked up the Pensieve that had come from the tail-bundle, poured in some memories of Headmaster Dumbledore, and then, along with them, drew out the few faint impressions it had of Aberforth as well.
Only after doing that did it finally settle down on the ground.
Then the earth began to tremble.
The black cat watched as a tiny wooden cottage rose up from the ground.
Strangely, though, the cottage only formed halfway. Aside from its four wooden walls, the inside was practically empty.
Still, no matter what, at least one heart now had a place to shelter from the wind and rain.
The black cat's mouth curved into a slight smile.
It gazed into the deep night sky, and its figure gradually began to blur.
"Ariana… they're looking for you…"
it said.
"If one day night becomes the overture, and the mist blurs the boundary, then when dawn arrives, the bridge will open for you."
The witch sat up from the dream, looking lost.
She stared at her god as the prophecy fell into her ears.
"You will truly meet them. Not in dreams."
The black cat brushed close to her cheek, then vanished from the marsh.
Ariana looked around in alarm, searching frantically, until at last she saw the little cottage—and the small silver basin inside it.
Her cheek was still warm.
Something in her gaze had finally found a home.
She recognized it.
A Pensieve.
It held memories.
Some say that if anything could travel faster than light, a person could cross space and return to the past.
And human thought is faster than light. That means whenever someone falls into memory, they have already crossed time and returned to the past.
In other words, every time one person remembers another, they meet again.
By that logic, perhaps they had already reunited many times.
…
Hogsmeade weekend was drawing closer.
The wizards were getting more and more excited.
The Great Hall was noisy from morning to night, while in one corner, the black-haired young wizard was taking stock of what he had gained.
Since returning from the Borderland, he had gained quite a lot.
The first thing was the Slightly Opened Inner Eye. In the Borderland, he could glimpse parts of the future, and it seemed to be somewhat under his control…
So… was he a Seer now?
He was a little impatient to test it.
For example… Voldemort's location.
The second thing was how long he could now remain in the Borderland: eight hours and twenty minutes.
By the time dawn approached, he might even be able to bring a wandering soul back with him.
Headmaster Dumbledore had been waiting for that day.
The third was his Divination talent.
Come to think of it, he had actually forgotten to check that.
It had been a long time since he had felt this kind of tension. His breathing slowed, and he focused fully on the panel.
[Wizard Sean, Divination Magic Talent: Red (Legendary Talent) (no enhancement required). Note: the average wizard is Green.]
[Evaluation: You are the one certainty born from countless unknown magics. To you, future and past hold no secrets. Your gaze is suspended above an age by nature itself.]
This was… a Legendary talent?
Sean's breathing caught.
But at the same time, he was puzzled.
His Divination had been stuck for months before it finally unlocked.
Nothing about that had felt Legendary.
Unless…
For some reason, Sean thought of the night sky over the Borderland. The heavenly bodies continued their courses, and all he had needed to do was glance at them for fate to lift part of its hazy veil.
"Maybe… I really do have talent?"
And what kind of magic would a Legendary talent bring?
"Your Inner Eye… has opened—"
The doors of the Great Hall suddenly flew open. It was Professor Trelawney, gliding toward them as if on wheels.
She wore a green dress covered in glittering metallic spangles, making her look even more like some enormous shining dragonfly.
She hurried toward Sean in excitement, muttering under her breath.
"I've waited for you… may I learn Divination from you?"
There seemed to be tears in Professor Trelawney's eyes.
Sean couldn't make sense of it.
"Hey!"
Hermione was instantly offended. She stared hard at Trelawney.
"Sean already said Divination is an imprecise kind of magic. He's not going to just—wait, what did you say?"
Only then did Professor Trelawney turn her eyes to Hermione, those huge watery eyes seeming to say, Who are you?
"I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger—"
Hermione bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
Trelawney looked at Hermione once, then turned straight back to Sean.
"Professor, I'm afraid I can't teach…"
Sean answered carefully.
He genuinely couldn't feel his Divination at all.
In theory, it was now his strongest talent, yet he could only use it in the Borderland—and even then, it might not reveal the future outside it.
What, exactly, was he supposed to teach Trelawney?
"Oh, oh, it hasn't fully awakened yet… but when night comes, you'll understand, child watched by the stars…"
Professor Trelawney drifted away, still muttering.
"I can't believe it—a professor asking you to teach her—"
Hermione kept talking under her breath. Then she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Sean.
"Sean, do you actually know Divination?"
Sean thought for a moment, then nodded… and then shook his head.
"Oh my God! I knew it!"
Hermione cried out the moment she saw him nod.
Then he shook his head, and she looked confused all over again.
"What does that mean?"
Hermione demanded, puffing up slightly.
"Divination is an imprecise kind of magic."
Sean said.
"Oh."
Hermione answered dryly, then glanced instinctively toward a witch sitting with her head lowered, shoulders shaking.
"So… do you know what happened to Lavender?"
Sean turned toward the Gryffindor table.
"Her rabbit died."
"You really do know?!"
Hermione was stunned. She hurried across to the Gryffindor table.
"What happened, Lavender?"
Hermione asked anxiously. Harry and Ron had somehow both already crowded over too.
"She got a letter from home this morning,"
Parvati whispered from the seat beside Lavender.
"Her rabbit Binky was killed by a fox."
"I'm so sorry, Lavender."
Hermione covered her mouth.
"I should have known!"
Lavender cried in misery.
"Do you know what day it is?"
"Er—"
"October sixteenth! 'The thing you fear most will happen on Friday, October sixteenth!' Remember? She was right, she was right!"
By now, other students had begun gathering around Lavender.
Seamus was shaking his head gravely.
Hermione hesitated, then said:
"You—you were always afraid Binky would be killed by a fox?"
"Well… not necessarily by a fox,"
Lavender said, raising tearful eyes to Hermione.
"But obviously I was afraid my rabbit might die, wasn't I?"
"Oh."
Hermione said. Then she paused again. And then—
"Was Binky an old rabbit?"
"No—not old!"
Lavender sobbed.
"He—he was only a baby!"
Parvati pulled Lavender closer against her shoulder.
"Then why were you afraid of him dying?"
Hermione asked. Parvati shot her a furious look.
"Let's look at this rationally,"
Hermione said, turning to the crowd.
"I mean, Binky didn't die today, did he? Lavender only heard about it today—"
Lavender wailed loudly—
"And she couldn't have been actively fearing this all day, because she was obviously shocked when she heard the news—"
"Leave Hermione alone, Lavender,"
Ron said loudly.
"She doesn't care about anyone else's pets."
"Then I'll just say it—this is nothing but psychological suggestion! If anything happened to you today, the suggestion would get blown out of proportion. That way, anything Trelawney says can be made to sound correct!"
Hermione glared at Ron.
"If you want to find a real Seer…"
Hermione trailed off, said nothing more, and strode back toward Sean.
Sean was the one who had been right…
Hermione thought.
Trelawney's prediction had been vague and muddled, but Sean had named it outright.
As she thought about it, all kinds of old questions suddenly started to make sense.
No wonder Sean always seemed to know danger ahead of time…
But hadn't he said Divination was imprecise?
Before Hermione even reached the Ravenclaw table again, Sean had already disappeared.
In the corridor—
As Sean passed, the people in the portraits whispered and pointed at him as they usually did.
He passed twice through doors hidden behind sliding panels and hanging curtains.
By doing so, he quickly reached the entrance to the Headmaster's office.
The stone gargoyle was there as always.
"Password?"
"Hmm… lemon…"
The stone creature jumped aside, and Sean stepped into the office without surprise.
He was thinking, measuring his words.
How was he supposed to tell Headmaster Dumbledore?
He couldn't help recalling Rita's words:
"She's always murmuring about her brothers. But where are they, sir? Unworthy men—men who let her suffer like that in life, and won't let her rest even in death?"
Sean frowned.
~~~