Five years later, I was sat in exactly the same the same seat in the Great Hall, surrounded by the usual start of term chatter that preceded the end of the start of term feast. I was seated next to the very students that I had sat with on my very first day, and whom over the years, had become some of my best friends.
‘So come on Flint, tell us what you got in your OWLs,’ the still brown haired Tristan said as he dolloped a third helping of ice cream onto his plate .
‘Tris,’ I sighed in exasperation. ‘I told you when you asked in the summer!’
‘Yeah, well I forgot,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘And I thought other people should know too. It’s nice to share,’ he added with a grin.
I gave him a withering look before reeling off my results to the rest of my friends.
‘Two ‘O’s, three ‘E’s and four ‘A’s’
‘Ooh, well done, Clariss!’ my roommate, Olivia Smith, said earnestly. ‘I only got one O, so you beat me.’
‘Yeah, well Lily beat me,’ I said, gesturing to my best friend, who was sitting happily next to her sandy haired boyfriend, Conor Rothwell.
‘But Frank beat me,’ Lily said, waving her hand modestly.
‘I think Frank beat everyone,’ Tristan said to general laughter. ‘Go on, Frankie, deliver the blow!’
‘Eight O’s, the rest were E’s,’ Frank said, raising an appreciative hand above his head. Frank Longbottom, who was one of the smartest student’s in our year, had achieved twelve OWLs.
‘Smart arse,’ a tall Scottish boy called Murray Lochrin, grumbled jokingly.
‘So what subjects is everyone doing this year?’ I asked.
For me, choosing subjects to carry on to my sixth year was not an easy task. I had done well in my favourite subject of Divination, gaining a top grade in the subject and was gladly carrying it on, but that was where the easy decisions stopped. My other Outstanding grade was achieved in Ancient Runes, but I did not enjoy that as much as ones I gained lower grades in, and an argument with my parents ensued. Eventually, grumbling a lot, I agreed to carry the subject on, accepting grudgingly the argument that my parent persisted with; the fact that I could use Ancient Runes in careers if I chose to go abroad, like my oldest sister, Amentia, had recently done. The other subjects I had chosen to continue with were Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration.
I was instantly bombarded with a stream of subjects as everyone reeled off their choices. It was hard to distinguish who was doing what, but I established that I would have the company of at least one of my friends in every lesson, except Divination.
‘I’m only doing four,’ pale, blonde Ceres Ruffordd said after the general clamour had subsided. ‘I don’t think I could cope with anymore. From what Gethan said, this year’s gonna be hard. I don’t know how you’re doing six, Frank.’ Gethan was Ceres’s older brother. He was the same age as my eldest sister, Amentia, who had left in the summer.
‘I think he’s meddling with time,’ Murray said jokingly.
Beside me, Lily gave a snort of amusement, and I turned to exchange a look at her. We both knew the story of her Aunt Hermione who had indeed meddled with time to get to all her lessons one year. However, we didn’t have time to explain the reason for our giggles, as the Headmistress, Professor Sprout, chose that moment to get up and draw the feast to a close.
‘Well now,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘I think that we should say thank you to the kitchens for that truly delicious feast.’
Following her lead, the hall broke into a round of applause.
‘And now I would like to give out some start of term notices. I would like to stress to our new students and to remind some of our older ones that the Forbidden Forest remains strictly forbidden. To everyone.’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boys exchange smirks, and my mind was drawn to an incident the previous year during a Care of Magical Creatures lesson that involved escaped Bowtruckles who needed to be recaptured from a particularly terrifying part of the forest. As we had all ended up with detention, I did not really like to dwell on this event.
‘Also, anyone who would like to play for their House Quidditch teams should submit their names to their House Quidditch Captain by the end of the next week so that tryouts can begin.’ I glanced down the table at Murray, who had written to me over the summer to boast about being made Quidditch Captain. Sure enough, a look of superior triumph was plastered on his face and he thrust his chest out to make the shiny badge on his chest stand out more prominently.
‘Lastly,’ Professor Sprout continued, ‘I am delighted to announce that we have a new Divination teacher, Professor Anastasia Sye.’
I was slightly taken aback as she indicated towards a slender looking witch with a long mane of silvery hair and a kind and mystical face, sitting to her right. I would have guessed that she was tall, but there was no way to confirm that when she was sat down. There was a scattered applause for the new Professor, who smiled genially at the students before her.
‘I didn’t know Professor Patil was leaving!’ I hissed at my friends in the cover of the noise welcoming Professor Sye.
‘Neither did I,’ Lily replied. ‘But to be honest, I don’t care that much.’
I poked my tongue out at her; Lily’s disdain for the subject was famous among the Gryffindors, bred from her father’s rants about how useless it was, and the fraud of a teacher he’d had to endure. Though to be honest, I think I might feel the same if my teacher was like the one he’d had.
‘Apparently she left to get married,’ the only other Gryffindor who had chosen to do Divination with me for the last three years, Amelia Creevey, told us.
Satisfied with this point, I turned back to the Headmistress, trying to stifle a large yawn rather unsuccessfully. All the delicious food had made me feel rather lethargic and clumsy, and I was impatient to get to bed. Distantly, I heard the scrape of benches being pulled back, and I knew we had been dismissed. Shaking my head to clear the strange ringing in my ears, undoubtedly brought on by the fuzzy feeling of lethargy, I stood up and turned to my friends.
However, they weren’t there... nobody I recognised was.
This wasn’t the Hogwarts I knew; there were large banners hanging over the tables, the kind that were only used at the end of year feast. I was certain they had not been there before. Neither, I knew, were the large candelabras floating over the tables in place of the usual solitary sticks of wax that floated overhead.
I was standing next to a girl wearing a long and old fashioned lacy dress robe, her long hair plaited in an elaborate braid down her back. Infact, all the girls were wearing those odd styled robes, and the boys were sporting very strange collars beneath their black robes...
I looked to the High Table to see none of the teachers I recognised, but my eyes were drawn to a figure who was standing haughtily beside the table, his dark eyes cast downwards. As I stared, I saw his head flick up, and he looked straight at me, causing my heart to beat wildly, as if some caged bird was struggling for freedom. I felt myself redden and averted my eyes...
‘Clariss?’ I heard my name echoing inside my head, as if someone was calling me from a distance.
‘Clariss?’ they repeated it, and blinked a few times, before feeling a strange hand on my arm.
I gave a start and jerked myself as I tried to focus my eyes on Lily with some difficulty. She and Tristan were peering at me in concern. Tristan had hold of my elbow, as if he was scared I was going to fall.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked cautiously.
‘I’m – I’m fine,’ I stammered. What just happened? Did I just See something?
‘Are you sure?’ Lily asked. ‘You’ve gone very pale, Clariss.’
‘I just stood up a bit fast, that’s all,’ I assured them, my heart still beating very fast, as fast as it had when I looked into the eyes of the new Professor. I looked quickly back to the table where I had seen him only moments ago, but he was not there. ‘Honestly, I’m fine!’ I added as neither looked very convinced.
‘If you say so,’ Tristan reluctantly let go of my elbow, but I noticed that he still kept one eye on me as he moved away.
‘Hey, little sister,’ a voice behind me made jump out of my skin. ‘You’re blocking the way.’
Lily and I turned to find Albus, her older brother, grinning down at us. ‘Did I make you jump, Clariss?’
‘Just a bit,’ I said, wondering just how many times I was going to be startled out of my skin tonight.
There was a cough from behind him, and I glanced over his shoulder to see a gaggle of his friends standing there. It was with a pleasant lurch of the stomach that I saw the rather dashing Hero Van Millen.
‘Sorry, Al,’ Lily grinned, and they moved off together, gossiping about something that Lily’s mum had told her about one of their cousins, leaving me to follow them and freely dwell on what had happened back in the Great Hall. I had evidently had some sort of vision, I thought, but it was unlike anything I had experienced before. Yes, I was good at Divination, but for the most part I believed that the subject was mainly based on interpreting signs that prevented themselves to me when I concentrated, but I had never had what my old Professor called ‘an episode of the Sight.’
I was still dwelling on what had happened when I climbed between the warm sheets of my bed.
‘So,’ Lily said as she climbed into her bed. ‘What exactly happened back in the Great Hall? You looked like you’d seen a ghost!’
I paused before confiding in Lily, did I really want to share the fact that I might be going mad? I knew her disdain and sceptical views on things like this. But she was my best friend, we told each other everything. I remembered how she confided in me about her feelings for Conor last year, and I prided myself on being the one that brought them together. So, taking a deep breath, I began to explain.
‘I think I had some sort of vision,’ I said unsteadily.
‘What, an ‘episode of the Sight’?’ she said dramatically, impersonating Professor Patil.
I ignored her teasing, for me, this was a serious matter.
‘No, well I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It was definitely real, Lily. One second I was sitting there with you and Ceres and Tristan and everyone, listening to Professor Sprout, and then I stood up, and I was like, in a different place. Well, no, the same place, I mean I was definitely in Hogwarts, but it was a different Hogwarts, y’know? A different time. All the uniforms were different, the boys had these weird collars under their robes, and the girls had all these lace gowns on. It was definitely not now, if you get me.’
‘I’m not sure I do...’ she said uncertainly. ‘You think you went back in time?’
‘Well not exactly back in time,’ I told her, confusing myself further. ‘I think I had a flashback.’
‘That’s a bit odd, isn't it?’ Lily said. ‘Aren’t visions supposed to show the future?’
‘Usually I think they do, but they can probably show the past as well,’ I replied. ‘Well, whatever it was, it was definitely weird, and I’m not sure I liked it.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again, then,’ Lily said.
‘Yeah, let’s hope,’ I agreed, setting my head on the pillow. ‘I think I need some sleep now. Night, Lils.’
‘Night.’
I turned over and wriggled more comfortably into my pillow. My mind was still turning over my strange glimpse into the past. Slowly, I began to slip into an uneasy sleep, in which girls in lace dresses and floating candelabras dogged my dreams.
Shine a Light by Sapphire at Dawn
Chapter Notes: Thank you to my wonderful beta, Gina (gene24) for helping with this chapter.
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you very much for reading and please leave a review to tell me what you think!