Zero
12 July 1986
I ran down the street of the nearby neighborhood with my friends. We were running down the street in front of one of their houses, where my dad was watching me carefully.
It was a small town, and we lived just outside of it in a small cottage. Dad wanted me to be able to have friends nearby, but also wanted to keep our distance because of the werewolf thing.
When my father was 4, a werewolf by the name of Fenrir Greyback snuck in through his window and bit him, causing my dad to be a werewolf for the rest of his life. He had friends to help him with everything but they were long gone. Now, it was just me and my dad.
I reached out a hand and was about to yell "Tag!" but when my hand made contact, my surroundings changed.
I could still feel the cement beneath my feet and the wind running through my hair, but what I saw was a completely different scenery. It was like it had all come to me in a flash.
I was in a living room, not one I had ever seen before, with parents that weren't my own. The woman had long dark hair and looked angry as she spoke with the man. He was pacing back and forth across the length of the room.
"Briella Corbyn!" screamed the motherly figure, "Get down here right now!"
The sound scared me a bit, it sounded so real, as if I wasn't just imagining things. I heard footsteps coming from behind me, and when I turned I saw one of the girls I was just playing with running down the stairs. I could feel my breathing start to get heavy, and when Briella came running down, she suddenly just passed through me as if I weren't even here.
Briella's mom was about to open her mouth to scold her, and I was back on the street, I was just on.
I came back to reality in a shock, my breathing was heavy and I felt as if I couldn't catch my breath. I looked around and saw my dad, my new friends, and the other neighborhood parents surrounding me. Everyone else looked worried, but my dad looked different, almost as if he knew exactly what just happened, but at the same time not.
"I need to get her home, make sure everything is alright." My dad spoke to the crowd of people around me. He tried to sound like he knew what was going on, but I knew different, he was just as confused as I was.
As he reached for my hand, my breathing became shallow, he picked my little 7 year old body up and carried me in his arms far enough away to apparate to our cottage without drawing suspicion from the muggle parents.
Once we were inside, my dad walked me to my room and set me down on my bed.
"I'll be right back, sweetheart" My dad's voice felt warm and tender through the panic I was feeling. My breathing started to settle.
I heard my dad walk down the hall of our little cottage towards the kitchen. I got up and peeked out of my room so I could hear him as he picked up the phone to make a call.
"Vivienne" he sounded stern, he doesn't usually get like that, "we need to talk about Aurelia... something happened"
I couldn't hear my mother on the other side of the line, but my father quickly hung up the phone and began walking back across the living room towards me.
I could hear my voice shake as tears started to fall down my face. "Dad... what's wrong with me?"
He looked at me with a certain sadness, I hadn’t seen before. Because of what happened to him as a child, my dad has always tried to make me feel special and like I was the most important person in the world. He never wanted me to feel like I didn't belong.
"Nothing is wrong with you," he crouched down to be at my height, "you are a very special little girl. I don't know what happened, but we are going to figure it out together, okay?" I nodded back to him.
I was about to say something, but suddenly heard a sound from the fireplace, my mum was here.
My mum's voice came out from the Floo in the living room. "She has the gift"
"The what?" My dad’s head turned towards her, and his eyebrows arched up. I just stood there, shocked. The gift? What gift? I kept thinking over and over again.
"My grandmother had it, I have it, and now Aurelia has it." I went back to my room and pressed my back against the door. As I shut it, I tried to catch my breath again. I didn't understand what they were talking about.
"What? She's like you? So… she's a seer, you can just say that she's a seer." They continued as I listened through my door.
My mum sounded frustrated, "Aurelia is a special type of seer, it runs in my family. She is not just an ordinary seer, this is even rarer."
"Are you sure?"
"You don't believe me, Remus?"
"No, I don't," he huffed, "how could you possibly know when I only said one sentence to you over the phone?"
"It manifested in me around this age." She was getting more frustrated as she spoke, “She’s been having moments of accidental magic, right?”
He just huffed, "You should go in there and talk to her, then."
"Yeah, I know, it's just... it's just a lot for a seven year old girl." I could hear my mom begin to pace up and down the hallway outside my room, "I didn't want to tell her until she was older. I was hoping she wouldn't have it."
"So, you want to… lie to her, cause I don't lie to my daughter"
"I know... I know... you always tell her everything."
"She is scared in there, a lot more than either of us, her knowing will help her. She deserves to know the truth."
There was a long moment of silence before the door opened. I tried to look like I wasn't listening to every word they said, but I was unsuccessful when I opened my mouth and "What do you mean gift?" fell out of it.
The look on my mum's face said it all, I was about to have everything in my life change. "We..." She looked over at my dad, "I... need to tell you something" She sighed and sat down on my bed with me. I scooted away, my mom isn't even around, but now she wants to talk to me. "You are a blessing. This gift you have is rare and valuable, and something to cherish your whole life."
"Mum..." My voice came out shaky, "You're scaring me. What's going on?"
"Our family comes from a long line of rare seers. Do you remember what a seer is?"
"Yes... dad told me about them... they can predict the future... through prophecies."
"Exactly, we can do things like that, except we don't see the prophecies, we can see directly into the future." She grabbed my hand, looked directly into my eyes, and said "I’m also this special type of seer. I was hoping you wouldn't have to worry about this. It usually skips a generation.”
"I don't get it, so I can, like, see into people's future... is that what happened today? Is that what I saw?"
“You had a vision? I thought you might have, but I couldn't be sure.”
“How is this possible?” I could feel my breath start to get uneven again as my heart sped up.
"Well, it is very difficult to master, but basically, when you touch the person you wish to see the future of, you can conjure up their future, by minutes, hours, or even by years, depending on how far you wish to look. Most of the time, we cannot control it enough to specify." She continued on, "But... I have to warn you, the future is not something to take lightly, you might see something you don't like, you may see bad things, you need to be careful, Aurelia."
We sat in silence for a long time, my tiny mind unable to comprehend all the information she just told me. I had just learned that I was a witch recently, and now I possess this ability, as well. This was something different. Something far more complex and frightening.
"Mum"
"Yes, sweetheart," she pressed a hand to my face.
"I'm scared"
"I know, sweetheart"