Trelawney drew a great, dramatic sigh. "Oh, I need very little sleep these days. Age takes its toll. But don't let me detain you. Your fellow sojourners await…"
She patted James lightly on the shoulder as he passed her, her wrist bangles jingling merrily. Suddenly, James stopped in his tracks, nearly dropping his bag. He peered aside and saw the professor's hand clamped onto his shoulder, gripping it so tightly that her purple fingernails virtually disappeared into his sweatshirt. He glanced up at Trelawney, but she wasn't looking at him. She stared straight ahead, her eyes wide and unfocused, as if she had suddenly been turned into a statue.
"Professor?" James asked, furrowing his brow worriedly. "Are you all right?" In the distance, James could still hear the voices of his family and friends, echoing in the high vaults of the rotunda.
"I see a world on fire," Trelawney said conversationally. She didn't seem to be talking to James or even to herself. Her words hung in the air almost like they had lives of their own, like solid things just outside the limits of human vision. James shivered, and yet her hand held him like a vice, as immobile as stone.
"Worlds upon worlds, stretching away into forever," she said, her voice becoming dreamy, singsong. "All linked back to one place, the crux, the fulcrum, the axle upon which every reality turns. It is wobbling, leaning, falling… it is shattered, and with it go all things and all times."
"Er, Professor…?" James breathed, trying to pry Trelawney's hand from his shoulder. Truthfully, he barely felt the pain of her grip. Her words were like poison smoke. He was afraid to breathe, for fear that her voice would get into him and infect him, and grow into something unspeakable.
"There is only one," she mused, her voice changing, deepening. "One who stands on the nexus of destinies, one whose hand can preserve the balance or knock it into oblivion. The power is not in his hands, but in the hand of whom he shepherds. There is only one outcome. The fates have aligned. Night will fall, and from it, there will be no dawn, no dawn, save the dawn of forever fire, the demon light of worlds burning, consuming, the light in which there is no life. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight." She repeated the word rhythmically, eerily, like a scratched record.
James shivered violently. Finally, the professor's hand came loose from his shoulder, wrenched free as she fell forward, toppling full length like a tree. James scrambled to catch her, and she fell partially upon him. She was so light, so festooned with bangles, jewelry, and coloured shawls, that it was like being fallen on by a thrift store mannequin.
"Professor?" James gasped, struggling to roll her over. She was as stiff and cold as a plank of wood. He shook her. "Professor Trelawney?" She stared up at the dark ceiling, her eyes boggling blindly behind her spectacles, which had been knocked askew on her face. James was terrified. He filled his lungs to call for help, but at that moment, the professor convulsed before him. She inhaled desperately, filling her narrow chest and flailing her arms, struggling to sit up. James grasped one of her cold hands and tugged her shoulder with his other hand, pulling her upright.
"Goodness me," Trelawney wheezed, her voice an octave higher than normal. "What has become of me, fainting dead away right here on the corridor floor. My apologies, Mr. Potter, I do hope I didn't alarm you…"
James helped the professor to her feet, and peered at her face suspiciously, his heart still pounding in his chest. She seemed not to remember what had happened or any of her strange words, but James felt almost certain that she knew something had happened. She glanced at him, fanning herself, and then looked away.
"I'll be just fine, James, my boy," she said faintly. "Please, go on, go on…" She seemed either unwilling or unable to look directly at him.
"Professor," James said slowly, "are you sure you're… I mean, what did all of that mean?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, young man," she admonished, as if he had suggested something slightly dirty. "Off with you now. Your family awaits."
"I could walk you to your rooms, Professor," James offered, stepping forward and reaching for Trelawney's elbow.
"No!" she nearly shrieked, snatching her elbow away from him. She struggled to moderate her tone. "No. Of course not. Just go. Please."
James peered up at her face, his eyes wide, worried. "It was about someone who's going on this trip, wasn't it?"
Trelawney sighed hugely, shakily turning to lean against the wall and fanning herself with the end of a mauve scarf. "There are those who laugh at me," she said, as if to herself. "They don't believe in the cosmic harmonics. They doubt that I am one of its rare vessels." She tittered a little madly, apparently forgetting that James was even there. He began to back away, half afraid to leave the professor alone, but knowing his fellow travelers were waiting for him. Trelawney didn't look up at him, but continued to mutter nervously to herself, her face lost in the shadows of the corridor. Finally, shaking his head, James turned and began to run, following the distant voices from the rotunda.
"It was you, James," Trelawney's voice said blankly, stopping him in his tracks. "It will surprise no one that I have had very few true revelations in my life. Rarely do I remember them, nor is this time any exception, but for one thing: I saw you. You are the one. You are the instrument, but not the tool. You will shepherd the one who will bring down the darkness. Even now… even now…" Her voice had gone flat, resigned and dead.
James turned slowly to look back over his shoulder. Trelawney stood right where he'd left her, leaning against the wall, indistinct in the shadows.
"You're confused. My dad was the Chosen One. Not me. It was his job to save the world."
She shook her head slowly, and then laughed again. It was a thin hopeless sound. "Your father was indeed the chosen one. His task is finished. Now, the universe demands payment, and that payment will come by your hand. It is done. You cannot escape your destiny, any more than your father could his."
"I don't believe that," James heard himself say. "Nothing is unchangeable. Whatever this payment is, I'll fight it."
"I know you will," she said slowly, so sadly that it nearly broke James' heart. "I know you will. But you will fail, dear boy. You will fail…" She exhaled on the last word, turning it into a long diminishing note, fading into the darkness. James shivered violently.
"James?" a voice called. It was his dad, Harry Potter. "Is that you? We need to move along, son."
James glanced along the corridor and saw shadows approaching, growing longer in the torchlight.
"I'm coming, Dad," he called. "I just… I ran into somebody. We were saying goodbye… She's still—"
He turned around again, pointing, but Trelawney was gone. In the predawn darkness of the corridor, there was no sign of her whatsoever.
2. THE GWYNDEMERE
James couldn't remember the last time he had been awake at such an early hour. The sun was barely a rose-grey suggestion on the horizon, leaving the rest of the sky scattered with faint stars and high clouds, frosted with moonlight. Mist rose from the school grounds and the grass was so wet that James could feel it through his trainers.