Chapter 1

Our story begins at the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the early months of 1926...

Two young witches walk down a long corridor trying, but failing to keep to themselves and to keep their voices down, paying little attention to the strange looks that their heated whispering is garnering.

"Minnie, you need to calm down, it's just a headache. I promise I'm fine."

The other girl's green eyes flash and grits her teeth, "Sybil, first of all you know that I hate that nickname and secondly, a pain that lasts more than a month is not just a headache and you need to go see Madam Pomfrey!"

The shorter and frizzier haired girl sighed in exasperation "Fine Minnie, I'll go see her after dinner, will that satisfy you?"

Minerva rolls her eyes "Yes Sybil, that's all I was asking you to do in the first place but now that you've made a decision, we need to hurry or we will be late for our last class before dinner and if that happens I'll be late to my Head meeting after dinner." Having reached a satisfactory conclusion, both girls started back down the hallway with a hurried gait trying to make it to class on time.

Minerva was making her way to breakfast the next morning, nose stuck in a book about transfiguration when she collided with a stocky student dressed in green and silver causing her to drop the precious tome. "Watch where you're going, you oaf! If my book was damaged you'll be paying for it!"

"I was walking out before you were walking in so I can assure you, I am at fault for nothing. The boy spat out as he brushed imaginary dirt off of his already spotless robe. Minerva cleared her throat and waited until the boy looked up to speak. "Malfoy, you can either apologize for being rude to the Head Girl, or I can take enough points to make your house mates particularly unhappy with you."

He looked at her and paled slightly, "Do forgive my... clumsiness McGonagall, I'll endeavour to ensure it never happens again."

She rolled her eyes and sighed, "See that it doesn't Malfoy, just hurry up and get out of my way before I change my mind about the points." He nodded curtly and stalked off towards a destination that she neither knew nor cared about. Minerva picked up her own pace as she made her way to the Great Hall . She walked in to the usual noise and rowdiness that meals brought (generally due to the third and fourth years who thought a bit too highly of themselves most of the time) and went to sit down when she glanced over to the spot at the Ravenclaw table where Sybil would always sit only to find it curiously empty. She looked around the hall and didn't see her friend anywhere near her table or any of the others. After her simole meal of toast with blackberry jam and tea, she got up and went to talk to the Ravenclaw Prefect to see if she knew anything about where her friend might be. As she walked up she saw that Crissa was showing some of the older girls some pictures.

"Hi Crissa, what's that you've got there?"

"Oh hello Minerva! These are just pictures of my sister Della who got married last year to some ministry bloke named Lake. She just had a baby a couple of weeks ago and they named it Pandora, isn't she cute?

The more serious, green eyed girl raised her eyebrow and said drily, "She's adorable Crissa but I've got something rather important to ask you. I'm a bit worried about Sybil, have you seen her this morning?"

Crissa looked at Minerva with wide eyes, "Oh no, as a matter of fact, I don't think I've seen her since last night after dinner."

"Alright, thanks anyway Cris."

Minerva hurriedly left the Great Hall with a concerned expression on her face. She walked up to the Ravenclaw common room only to find it empty, the same with the dormitory, the library, the gardens and the divination classroom. Her concern and fear rises with each place she finds empty and she pauses in one of the halls to think about where to go next when her eyes light up, "The room of requirement!" With that thought she turns and races up a flight of stairs in the direction of where she is almost positive that her friend is. Arriving at the spot behind which she knew the room existed she stopped. How was she going to manage to get in? How was she going to find Sybill? Minerva paced back and forth, muttering spells and incantations all the while but nothing seemed to work. Frustrated she hit the wall with her fists, nearly crying in defeat when the side of her hand caught on a sharp bit of stone. She hissed in pain, sounding much like a wounded cat and was attempting to see to the small wound when a rumbling sound came from the wall in front of her. With wide eyes she watched a door appear and without a second thought, she ran through the door, dodges piles of dust laden junk and stops dead in the middle of a small clearing next to a particularly hideous statue wondering to herself how is she ever going to find Sybil in all of this mess.

She had just started winding her way through the closely packed piles when she hears a small noise, she stops hoping to hear it again so she can find the source. She hears it again, clearer this time, a soft sobbing coming from somewhere to her left; she turns and makes her way to that side of the room and when she comes around the corner of a particularly large and dingy looking cabinet she sees her friend huddled on the floor quietly sobbing. Getting on her knees, she put her hand on Sybil's shoulder.

"Sybil, what's wrong? Why are you in here of all places?" In between sobs, Sybil manages to choke some coherent words past the tears.

"Minnie, theres just too much in my head and it hurts so much. The pain and all of the images just won't stop."

"What images Syb, what's going on? Talk to me poppet, tell me what's wrong." "There's just so many colors and people, theres violence that I can't make any sense of and oh god, there's so much darkness; what do I do with this Minnie?"

Minerva reaches to embrace her friend but as she does, Sybil bolts upright and races from the room, knocking her friend over and leaving a bewildered Minerva sitting on the dusty ground. She quickly shakes off her confusion and runs after her friend. She manages to follow Sybil as she makes her way to the forbidden forest. Minerva loses her shortly after they enter the forest leaving her to try and find her friend before something even worse happens to her.

Sybil ran through the forest, branches and undergrowth slapping and stinging her face, arms, and legs but the pain in her head was so great that she didn't feel any of it. She didn't know where she as going, only that she needed to run as far and as fast as she could, something in her was pushing her deeper into the forest than she had ever been before. As she ran, the pain started to get so bad that her vision started getting blurry and her feet started catching on small branches and roots. Even as she tried to watch her path, she tripped over a large tree root, the impact of her fall jarring her head, shattering her over large glasses and making her black out. When she came to, she noticed that she wasn't alone. She couldn't tell what or who it was, only that it was dark and very large. After a few mins of silence, the shape spoke, startling Sybil, making her scrabble backwards in an attempt to get away from whoever it was that was speaking to her. She went backwards until she ran into a tree, the light bump making her realize that though it still hurt, the pain in her head

wasn't nearly crippling as it had been before. The voice sounded impossibly deep and it had a strange lilt to it that Sybil had never heard before.

"Don't be afraid child, I mean you no harm. I know you are still in pain but I can help you."

Terrified of the idea of being alone with an unknown in the middle of the Forbidden Forest she barely managed to squeak out questions of her own. "What do you mean, help me? Who are you?" A low snort and what sounded curiously like a swishing tail sounded before the voice.

"Who I am hardly matters, what you need to concern yourself with is what lies in front you, the different choices and paths that you now face."

Gasping in shock and quite forgetting the uncertain state of her surroundings, Sybill raised her voice, making her tender head throb. "Choices? Paths? You aren't making sense."

The rich voice spoke after several heartbears that felt far too long for her liking. "My sire, Firell spoke of this moment, it is how I knew to be here. You were always meant to be here at this time for this reason. You are the carrier of a great prophecy that will change the fate of the world as it is known. But with this comes a price, a price that you might not be willing to pay. This prophecy, this vision, will break you; it will change who you are and how the world sees you, this will change the course of your life. You will act as a seer but you will have no more true visions except for one in the future and you will be ridiculed by many for the rest of your life, you will lose much of what could have been."

Swallowing hard she begged, "Isn't there a way to stop this? Can I pass it on or give it away?" At the grim silence that met her plea, she feared she knew the answer already.

"You cannot. It will come through you or it will not come. You do have two choices, two paths laid out before you; You can choose to stay and allow me to help you bring this to fruition or you can go and simply wait for this to pass. So either you use what is coming or you simply lose it and the ability to do anything about it. Either way, the world will be different when all is said and done."

Sybill sighed deeply and paused in thought, after several long moments she lifted her head once again. "Will the future that this vision will help bring about be worth it? Will it change the world for the better?"

"There is equal possibility for it to tip the scales to either the light or the dark, it depends solely on who the vision concerns and how they react to the events of the future. As for worth? That is up to you to decide, the power to potentially decide the fate of your world and those in it is in your hands. What is that worth to you?"

Sybil sat back and thought over everything that had just been said. "I'll do it, I don't believe that I would be able to live with myself if I let this slip away. What do we do now?"

"I will release my hold on your pain, I have been holding it in check for this conversation, to give you a few moments to breathe and so that you could make a decision. When I let it go the pain will be unlike anything you have ever felt and then it will grow past that. It is there that you must fight to stay awake, you must be aware for the vision to fully come through. You will have to remove and store the memory as soon as you can afterwards as the longer it stays in your head, the more damage it will do. Are you ready child?"

"No, but I don't think that anyone ever really could be with something like this"

The pain was released and it hit Sybil with a force she hadn't been prepared for. With each second that passed, the pain grew worse, mounting to heights she never thought she'd feel much less be able to endure; each moment brought more pressure,making her head feel like it was going to explode. The pain increased until there was nothing else but the pain she felt that she was being consumed and destroyed by. All off a sudden, a rush of images came flooding in; flowing too fast for her to catch most of but strangely what stood out was the image of two women, one older and dark in eyes, hair and heart and the other younger and fairer in all respects but for all of their differences, they seemed drawn to each other like a moth to a bright flame. The images and the pain abruptly stopped, leaving Sybil feeling unexpectedly empty. She shuddered and looked up towards the dark shape, "It's over I think." Sybil then collapsed, falling over onto her side just as Minerva reached the clearing.

Minerva finally located her friend, only to find that she had fallen to the ground in a dead faint. She looks around, surprised to see a large, dark centaur standing to the side of the clearing. She whips out her wand and points it at him "Who are you and what have you done with my friend!"

The centaur holds his hands up, "I give you my word that I have not harmed her nor do I intend to harm either of you now. As for who I am, my name is Firenze.

"Minerva lowered her wand and said with a hard glint in her bright green eyes, "Then kindly explain why my best friend is on the ground and unconscious?"

"My being here with her was preordained long ago child and I have done nothing to her, I have merely helped her through a traumatic but necessary event. She has had a true vision, a vision of a future that may come to pass if the strands of fate are woven in the right way. This was, is, her destiny."

"Vision? Destiny? You're hardly making any sense Firenze, why is she unconscious?"

"It was not I that caused her to be in this state, the intensity of the pain that the vision caused and the vision itself caused her to lose consciousness once it had run its course."

"What was the vision of? Will Sybil be alright when she comes to?"

"I cannot say what exactly it contained only that it is of great importance. I will also say that she went to this willingly but when she wakes, she will not be the same and the changes will be drastic; she will need someone to help her through what is to come. There is something that you can do to begin to help her now."

Nodding with resolve, Minerva looked up at the imposing centaur. "What do you mean, help her how?"

"You must remove the memory of her time here and of the vision from her and store it so that you can see it for yourself as this is not something that she will be able to deal with herself. Someone else must hold the knowledge for her."

"Alright but I don't have anything to store it in." Firenze reached into a pouch he had slung across his well muscled torso and retrieved a small glass vial and hands it to Minerva. She took the vial and her wand and got on the ground next to her friend. She gently pressed her wand to Sybil's temple "Memoriae Remotio" as the last bit of the word left her mouth, the tip of her wand began to glow. She drew it back to see the luminous strands of the memories attached to the end of her wand. She pulled back until the strands carefully snapped which meant that she had all of the memories from her friend that were needed. She uncorked the vial with her teeth and used her wand to lower the softly glowing strands into to it. Minerva put away her wand and grabbed the cork and sealed the vial. "Well, I have it now what do I do with it?"

"This is not something to be trifled with, share it only with those you trust implicitly for it must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Be careful child, much now depends on you." With that ominous statement, Firenze turned and galloped deeper into the forest, leaving Minerva alone with her unconscious friend.

After Minerva made it back to school and safely deposited Sybil in Madam Pomfreys care, she went to the only person that she knew she could trust with something of this magnitude. A little while later she arrived at a dark wooden door. She raised her hand to knock but paused "Is this really the right thing to do?" She wondered silently, she shook her head, squared her shoulders and knocked. "Come in" said a warm, male voice. At that Minerva pushed her way into the office of Professor Albus Dumbledore, "Why Miss McGonagall, what brings you to my office on a day like today?" She gave a low sigh, "You see professor, something has happened and I didn't know who else to turn to about it." Dumbledore sat up with a look of concern on his face, "Well have a seat my dear, please tell me what's going on that has you this concerned." Minerva sat in the low backed chair in front of his desk and stared at her shoes for several seconds before beginning. Dumbledore sat and listened to her recount everything that happened, inserting questions or sympathetic noises when appropriate, the look of worry deepening on his face with each new bit of the story. When she finally finished he was quiet for a while before speaking. "I believe that you did the right thing in coming to me, that being said, if this is as important as I currently believe it is then I will need to take those memories and hide them after I've seen them for myself. If I am at all correct and I usually am, this is too large to be for only one person so what will most likely happen is that it will be split into three parts. One will be for the guardian, and the others will be for the other two people that this concerns, I think that doing this will keep not only the individual people, but the potential outcome of the prophecy safer than if it were all left together." Minerva stared at the professor with a little shock on her face.

"That all sounds well and good sir but what role will I play in this? Surely this isn't the whole of it?"

Dumbledore sighed, "No, I don't think that your part in this is done but what remains for you I couldn't say, only time will give you that answer."

She nodded and made to leave, "Thank you Professor, I've a bit more hope now than when I first found Sybil in the forest." With that she exits his office leaving a considerably more burdened Dumbledore behind.