At first glance, the classroom was empty, which was good for Lily as she really didn't need anybody to see her failing a class as simple as divination. It was embarrassing. Everything else she could do but divination seemed to have some kind of personal vendetta against her, so much so that she had resorted to taking valuable time out of her weekend to hopefully get a grasp on the basics in order to get more than a T in her OWLs at the end of the year because so far, the coursework was all she had going for her, and that only accounted for 15% of her grade.
She didn't know what it was but ever since she'd picked it in third year, Lily had been terrible at divination. It didn’t matter how many people told her to ‘open up her soul to the divine spirit’, she just couldn't do it. That fact alone drove her insane. For as long as she had known, Lily had been a good student. It was one of the things she prided herself on most alongside her sense of humour and ‘irresistible charisma’ as Marlene so modestly put it. Evidently, this made her further despise the way the subject was so adamant on bringing her overall grade average down.
For fuck’s sake, if Sirius Black could do it, so could she. End of.
Lily looked around for a moment, eventually spotting the crystal balls at the back of the room and making her way over to the rack. They came in a lot more colours than she had originally thought, the sheer number of crystals the rack contained shocked her. Why an amethyst or obsidian ball would be different to any other she did not know, so she settled on one of the classic ones, as to avoid disaster.
She lifted the ball from the rack, tucking the stand under her arm and wondering why a sphere of glass counted as a crystal ball when they could just make the clear ones out of clear quartz instead. But, she supposed, she wasn't there to judge the Divination department’s choices, she was there to learn and she was there to learn quickly because she wanted to be done by dinner, so she quickly forgot about it.
Careful not to drop it, Lily balanced it in one hand and walked to the table she always sat at alongside Pandora and Regulus (who were both infinitely better than her in divination, which meant she assumed they had some sort of natural gift for it) in their divination lessons.
Lily placed the ball down on the table and pulled out a chair. She stared at the object for a while before mumbling to herself to get on with it and pressing both hands firmly to the glass.
“Come on, Evans, you can do this,” She whispered to herself, urging her mind to ‘open and allow the truth to flood through’ as she’d been taught to. Mary had once told her to imagine a physical door in her mind opening up but that hadn’t helped much either, so she didn’t bother anymore.
Lily focused and waited, visualising the energy flooding from her heart, through her arms, and into the crystal ball.
Nothing happened.
She closed her eyes and asked for answers, waiting for a few more minutes. Still nothing.
It wasn’t that Lily had been expecting to suddenly become a master seer, but she had been hoping for at least something to show for her extra efforts. With a small frustrated groan, she took her hands off the glass, shook them a little, and placed them back against it, squeezing her eyes shut and reminding herself of Regulus and Pandora’s advice. They had tried to help her so many times that Lily had their entire guide memorised.
‘Don’t move your hands too much, keep them still so you channel the energy in directly instead of letting it fray,’ Pandora would tell her, whatever ‘energy fraying’ was supposed to mean, to which Regulus would add something along the lines of ‘Don’t scrunch up your eyes, your subconscious won’t respond well to stress and you’ll tire yourself out.’ Lily would sigh and try again, which is where both of her friends would say ‘You’re doing fine, Lil.’ And she would listen to them both, trying as best as she possibly could to follow through with her friends’ advice, knowing each time that it wouldn’t work.
She appreciated them for trying, she truly did, but each lesson, regardless of which medium they were using, she would never be able to get anything out of it. Marlene had suggested to her on several occasions that dropping the subject would be a viable option but Lily refused. She was going to learn divination, and she was going to do it that year.
She tried the same thing eight more times, varying the method with each attempt, trying every piece of advice she had been given over the past two years. It was all hopeless.
Ready to give up, she stood from her seat and paced around the room. “Out of all the subjects I could be shit at, it just had to be the one that doesn’t require any logic or precision, didn’t it? I sw-”
Lily heard a sound by the door and cut herself off, whipping around to see a girl by the door. She was familiar, with her tanned skin and ashy brown curls, pulled up into a ponytail with small purple hair gems clipped throughout it, matching the colour of her outfit. From what Lily could remember, they were in the same year, and she wasn’t very good at any subjects other than Divination. She was a Ravenclaw and Lily couldn’t remember ever having a proper conversation with her, but she did remember seeing her occasionally in the corridor and smiling. Butterfly girl is what she’d nicknamed her after one occasion, on which she’d seen her speaking to a little blue butterfly in the courtyard.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I had no idea anybody was in here, I’ll just go!” Butterfly girl rambled, her voice quiet and fearful. She grasped the door, turning to leave but Lily called out after her before she got the chance to.
“Wait!” She took a step forward and reached out a hand, letting it rest on the girl’s shoulder. Butterfly girl jumped and whirled around, looking slightly startled. Lily tried her best to appear kind. “You can stay. You won’t bother me, I’m just trying to navigate my way around a crystal ball without throwing it at the wall,” She laughed to herself, watching the girl’s face twist into an expression of curiosity and what she could only guess was pity.
“Okay…I’ll stay,” She replied, still sounding somewhat nervous. “Crystal ball scrying is typically quite simple, are you sure you’re doing it right?”
With a bitter laugh, Lily shrugged. “Probably not if I haven’t been able to do it for two whole years, no.” She only realised after that she had come across as rather harsh and ran a hand over her face in exasperation. “Sorry, no, that was mean. It isn’t your fault,” She reached out a hand for the girl to shake. “I’m Lily Evans by the way.”
“I know.” Lily blinked at her in shock. “I- er, you’re quite popular,” She pulled the folder she was holding into her chest shyly. “I’m Sybill. Sybill Trelawney.”
Satisfied, Lily nodded. It was a very pretty name, much better than Butterfly Girl. They stood in awkward silence for a while before Lily perked up, an idea forming in her mind.
“Oh! You’re like…a Divination prodigy, right?” Sybill nodded. “You could help me learn. I doubt it would work because my friend Reg is pretty good at it and he wasn’t able to help but it’s worth a shot, no?”
Sybill seemed hesitant and Lily got the impression people didn’t speak to her all too often. She put on her best pleading face and tried again.
“It couldn’t possibly make me any worse, and it’ll help you practise for if you ever want to teach divination. Come on, Syb, I can do with the help,” She bit the inside of her cheek, watching Sybill turn over her options in her mind. “Of course, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I’d really appreciate it.”
After a few more minutes, Sybill sighed and shook her head, placing her folder on the nearest table before looking up at Lily, trying and failing to hide a smile that made Lily’s heart scream.
“Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt…”
Lily cheered and tugged her over to the table. “Great, thanks!”
The two of them sat opposite each other at Lily’s table and Sybill cleared her throat, blowing some hair out of her face and twiddling her thumbs.
“So,” She began, peering at Lily over the crystal ball between them. “What’s the issue?”
Not even knowing where to begin, Lily leaned back in her chair and groaned; she sat there for a few minutes before settling on an answer, unsure how to say ‘everything’ without simply saying ‘everything’.
“I dunno. I can do the energy visualisation thing but then nothing else happens, it just sort of…sits there, I’ve tried all the ‘open your mind’, ‘relax your soul’ stuff but none of it works, I just end up sitting there like an idiot. I don’t get the instinctual urge to open my eyes, and when I do, there’s nothing there.”
Slowly, Sybill nodded, taking in the information carefully. She eventually looked back up at Lily and gestured for her to hold the crystal ball again. Slightly sceptical, Lily obliged.
“What do you feel?” Sybill asked, before quickly adding, “Not energetically, physically. What do you, physically, feel under your hands.”
“Glass. Cold glass.” She provided.
“Okay…” Sybill frowned. “Usually upon touch, the crystal would heat up, due to your energy feeding through to it, but that’s okay, it doesn’t have to do that immediately. It can take some time.”
She pulled her hands back and shoved them in her pockets. This was hopeless. “I don't know, I might stick to potions and charms, I don't think divination is for me,”
“Don't be silly,” Sybill rolled her eyes and stepped closer, holding her hands out towards Lily and then hesitating, her voice dropping lower, her nervous demeanour returning at the thought of possibly annoying Lily. “Look, you'll be amazing at it, I can sense it. Can I…”
Lily nodded. Sybill gestured towards the glass again, watching as Lily gulped and rested her hands back against the glass. After a moment’s hesitation, Sybill moved her own hands forwards, resting her palms on the back of Lily’s freckled hands with a sweet tenderness, before applying more pressure to properly connect them to the crystal ball, leaving no room for Lily’s hand to fall away. It didn’t automatically heat up but Lily hadn’t been expecting it to suddenly work anyway, she had almost completely given up.
Instead of focusing on the useless ball, she paid attention to Sybill’s warm, soft hands on her own. It wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t help it. Her touch was just so sweet, Lily didn’t know what to feel besides fondness. Feeling all of her blood rush to her cheeks, Lily tried desperately to bite down the smile at the contact, choosing to glance up at Sybill’s concentrated expression, which only made her want to smile more.
“Okay,” She whispered, hands pressing Lily’s palms onto the glass a little more. “Now just close your eyes and focus on the feeling of the crystal ball under your hands. Don’t ask anything yet, just feel the glass. Don’t let your mind wander to anything else. This is the most important bit, it’s what connects your magic to the magic in the ball, creating a sort of gateway between them.”
Lily was suddenly willing to try anything Sybill asked of her and so she closed her eyes and grasped the glass a little tighter. And Lily tried, she really did. She tried to focus her mind on the glass under her palms but all she could think about was the warmth of Sybill’s hands on hers and the smell of vanilla incense clinging to the girl’s clothes. It was intoxicating and distracting and she could barely think straight.
Truly attempting to concentrate, Lily cleared her throat and shook her head minutely, stubbornly putting all of her thought into the task at hand. She was going to succeed at divination and she was going to do it now, with Sybill patiently guiding her through each step.
“Good, now keep focusing on that, and after a while, you should start to feel the glass heat up. It’ll be different to how it usually feels when body heat transfers, just-”
“Oh!” Lily couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face when all of a sudden the glass was burning away at her hands, not enough to do any damage, but enough that she could feel it. Sybill pressed their hands against it even more and ran her through the next few steps.
“That’s amazing, Lily, don’t lose focus. Keep concentrating on the glass, you’re doing great. While you’re thinking about that, start to shift your mind to your curiosity. Not too fast!” She reminded her. “Just slowly ease into it, you’re going to get your answer, I can tell.” She could hear the smile in Sybill’s voice and that alone urged her to continue.
Now, Lily didn’t exactly know what ‘shift your mind to your curiosity’ meant, but she repeated a few words about seeing the future in her mind in the hopes that it would work. To her immense surprise, it did, as not even a full minute later, her mind was swarmed in purple fog and she got the overwhelming urge to open her eyes. Upon doing so, she noticed that the ball was no longer clear, and was now full of sweeping mist and dust, forming shapes and colours she had never seen before. She heard herself laugh and felt Sybill squeeze her hands in encouragement. Lily narrowed her eyes and tried to focus on what the ball was showing her. To her disappointment, she just couldn’t seem to do it. After a while the colours faded and Lily sighed, feeling Sybill take her hands away and letting her own palms slip from the glass onto the table, missing the warmth Sybill’s touch provided them with.
Her disappointment was only momentary, as she started to laugh in shock, staring down at her own hands as if she had just used them to conjure fire.
“I did it!” She cried, not bothered about volume. “Sybill, did you feel that? I did it, I actually did it!”
“You did,” When Lily looked up at her, she was smiling proudly, and that made Lily laugh again, barely thinking as she stepped around the table to grab her hands and hold them close to her heart.
“Thank you,” Sybill’s eyes widened and she stammered a few times, trying to formulate a response to Lily’s gratitude. Before she got a chance to, Lily had dropped her hands, grabbed her bag, and ran over to the door. “I’ve got to tell Panda!” She froze and turned around, still grinning wildly. “I forgot, I was going to ask you something!”
Sybill nodded, standing awkwardly where she was. She didn’t appear to know what to do with Lily’s energy outburst.
“I’ve seen you in the corridors a lot but we've never really spoken before so I was too scared to say anything but…did you know you’re really pretty?”
Face flushing like mad, Sybill let her jaw drop open. The way she was staring at Lily told her that no, she had in fact never been told that before. Lily thought it a pity, she really was very pretty. And very sweet too.
“Yeah, you’re like…adorable and stuff.” Lily hitched her bag further up her shoulder. “So I was wondering if you’d want to go to Hogsmeade with me next Saturday? As a date,” She clarified. “My friends keep telling me I should shoot my shot because I’m always ‘ogling’ you or whatever but I didn’t want to freak you out.”
Sybill stared silently for a few more seconds and Lily began to wonder if she was straight or had a partner already. Just as she was about to apologise and leave, Sybill responded.
“You aren’t picking fun, are you?”
The worry in her voice broke Lily’s heart. She took a step back into the classroom and softened her expression. “No. No, of course not. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t mean it, Sybill, I’m not like that.” She paused. “I really would like to go on a date with you, if you’re up for it, I swear on my sister’s life.” Petunia wouldn’t mind, she thought.
“Okay,” She smiled, be it a little nervously. “Yes, Lily Evans, I would love to go on a date with you.”
Lily’s joy returned, accompanied by a huge smile. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and shoved a hand into her pocket to stop her from flailing it around.
“Great! I’ll meet you by the gates at three, yeah?”
Sybill nodded and Lily whirled around, leaving the classroom with a grin on her face. “It’s a date!” She called over her shoulder.