Divination: Lesson One | First Years

Magus was in a bad mood.

Sophia frowned at the raven. Her own mood was rather light, so her familiar's malcontent was all his own. She wondered just what was going on in or around the castle that put him in such a state.

"Just no biting off any fingers, today," she admonished him sternly. Shaking her head in bemusement, Sophia continued making her classroom ready for her new first years.

Aldan had decided to try and get to the Divination classroom before anyone and he grinned when he entered, noticing he had done just that. He slid his bookbag onto one of the chairs and waved at Sophia, his brother's girl.

"'Lo professor," he said in a cheeky tone as he moved his bag to the floor and sat down, waiting for class to begin now.

Sophia gave Aldan a stern gaze. "Mind yerself, lad," she cautioned, "or I'll set the grumpy ol' feather duster on ya." She nodded towards the raven, who ruffled his feathers in offense. A smile pulled at the corners of her lips, though, a spark of mischief shone in her eyes.

"How's yer first day of school treating you, laddie?" Sophia asked. "Haven't been getting into any trouble, have we?"

Kirsten clasped her books tightly and entered the Divination classroom barely holding back a grin. She hoped she'd be as good at this class as her mother had been; a lot was riding on family tradition!

She nodded a hello to the Proffessor and said, "How are you?" while her eyes swept around the classroom, noticing that Aldan was the only other student. She smiled shyly at him and decided to sit near him - but not too close.

"I always mind myself," he said innocently. Although he did look warily at the bird for a second before he smiled sheepishly. "I made it to class on time?" he offered up, not really wanting to tell her he'd tried to find the Slytherin common rooms on his way to Divination this morning. He hadn't found it, but he'd eventually if he could help it.

"Hey!" he greeted Kirsten, another Ravenclaw, and he looked at the door, wondering who else would be in this class. Divination wasn't really his strong point, but he figured he might as well learn a thing or two about it.

"Hello," Kirsten replied cheerily. The boy looked a tad familiar ... "Aldan, right? If memory serves correctly we briefly shared a compartment on the train!" With that older, creepy guy with the scary red eyes ... Kirsten added silently, internally shuddering at the memory.

While she waited for the rest of the class to arrive, Kirsten busied herself with quietly setting out the materials for the lesson. She had her mother's well-read and well-loved copies of The Dream Oracle by Inigo Imago and Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky tucked safely under her arm, and she now placed them with gentle consideration on the table, smiling at the familiar covers.

"Alright," Sophia finally declared, with a mild frown towards the door. Honestly, why sign up if you weren't going to show up??

"Now, let's get started, shall we?

"Divination is one of the most imprecise, and frankly, unreliable arts you can study," Sophia began, looking at each of them in turn. "Can either of you guess why it is I would say that?"

Kirsten shyly raised her hand, "Would it be, Proffessor Wyse," she began, "that Divination simply involves a lot of guess work and interpretation of what you see, which means it can't be an exact science?"

Isabel ran up the last of the steps, waving goodbye to the painting person who had showed her the way to the Divination classroom. As she entered the room, she saw that there were two other students in the class, both Ravenclaws, but they had already begun class.
"Hello, Professor. So sorry I'm late, the stairs are murder, and I'm not exactly the most athletic being, as you can see," explained Isabel feebly, and she nervously took a seat next to the boy.

"Because so many people who say they're real, are frauds?" Aldan guessed honestly. He gave a welcoming grin to the Ravenclaw girl he'd seen in the common room last night. Sometimes memorizing faces could be a good thing.

"Or," he said thoughtfully, "Because you can change the future since it's not set in stone?"

Isabel smiled at the boy whose name she did not know, but she knew he was a Ravenclaw. He was saying something to the professor.
"Because you can change the future since it's not set in stone?" he said. Isabel smiled, they were obviously talking about the impreciseness of Divination.
"That's why some people don't believe others when they say they're a Seer, because if they predict something, and then someone makes a decision or does something, and it changes the outcome of the future, that thing might never happen, and they would be called a liar," put in Isabel, surprised at her own daring, and grinned sheepishly at the boy next to her and the professor.

"It's quite alright, this time, Miss Vector," Sophia told the girl, "but next time, I shall be taking points, so be sure you familiarize yourself with the castle.

"All correct," the woman said. "The future isnae set in stone. In fact, one can say it is fickle. The decisions that you make today, that I make today, affects what might happen tomorrow. Because of that, Divination isnae so much a map as it is a guide. Not everythin' that it is foreseen comes to pass. In fact, often times, it is people themselves who bring such things to fulfillment. Muggles have referred to this tendency as 'self-fulfilling prophecies'.

"Now, the first thing that comes to a lot of minds when a person thinks about Divination is the ability to predict the future," Sophia continued. "While this is certainly part of the art, Divination is also about opening oneself to the world around you, learning to pay attention, to listen, to perceive that which so often goes unnoticed.

"Throughout the course of this class, I will teach you about some of the different branches of Divination. Can any of you tell me what some of those might be?"

"Dream telling?" guessed Aldan with a shrug. He found it a bit odd he was the only bloke in here but he let it be. It happened sometimes anyways. The first year stifled a yawn as he wondered if anyone else would be joining them besides the two girls in his house.

He leaned back in his chair a little, wondering what Sophia would be talking about throughout the year.

Kirsten's hand shot up excitedly as the Proffessor posed her question. Now was her chance to do her mother proud!

Firstly, Aldan answered, and then with a nod from Proffessor Wyse, Kirsten could begin spilling out her answer; "There are so many branches of Divination, but I believe that there are only around 12 completely known methods ... as Aldan said there's Dream interpretation, but there's also Astrology wherein the planets and stars are observed, and Cartomancy which is reading playing and tarot cards,"

Kirsten stoppped for breath as she racked her brain for the several other branches she'd yet to cover. She was sure she'd come across them during her Summer reading ... "There's also Crystal gazing of course, Palm reading - commonly known as Palmistry - and Tessomancy, which involves reading tea leaves."

Frustrated she couldn't remember more, she said, "And that's all I can think of," and offered a sheepish smile up at Proffessor Wyse.

"Well done," Sophia told the two students who had answered. "Those are all means of Divination.

"Now, Divination is two-fold. There is what is commonly known as precognizance, and then there is simply the opening of oneself to the world," she lectured. "Who can name me some precognitive gifts?"