Illusory § Order of the Phoenix

XI. MAKE THEM SEE

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As luck would have it, the first class on Antares' schedule was a double block of Potions. After conferring with Professor McGonagall, or technically now, Minerva, he had been excused from certain classes on Harry's schedule. Dumbledore had listened to his earlier request and removed him from any History of Magic or Divination classes. He felt his reason for missing the latter of the two subjects was rather obvious. Antares had nothing against Sybil Trelawney personally, but he, and most of the Augurs, felt that she was wasting her time at Hogwarts. Her talent was true, something Antares learned during his fourth year when she gave a prediction to Adrian Pucey.

I fear you'll never see a happy summer again. Beware the swooping talons, my dear.

No one in the class had a clue what she was talking about. It all came crashing down later in the spring when Pucey forgot the birthday of Evelyn Summers, his then-girlfriend. After that, Antares, Cassius Warrington and a handful of Slytherins thought the 'summer' part was self-explanatory. Then later, Pucey returned to the common room with a bright red handprint blazing on his face. A small cut resided below his cheek, presumably where Summers' ring had caught him. It didn't occur to Pucey that Trelawney was right until Cassius pointed out that he looked like he got clawed in the face. It also didn't help that Summers was a Ravenclaw.

Antares chuckled at the thought. It was the last time he questioned one of Sybil's predictions.

Even though he didn't particularly enjoy her class, he did have to thank her. Antares wouldn't have been half as prepared for his ascendancy without Trelawney's bizarre personality and her spontaneous mood changes. Sybil's cryptic teachings taught him the importance of interpreting signs and symbols, of delving into the depths of abstract meaning.

Antares was fourteen when he first started having visions. It couldn't have been more than a month after the "Unhappy Summer" when it happened. If he had to guess, it must have been sometime in mid-March— he couldn't really remember. The whole month was exhaustingly disorienting.

It was a tumultuous period for both him and his mother. At the time, Antares didn't understand what was happening to him. All he did know was that it would happen whenever he least expected it. The first onslaught was powerful enough to land him in the hospital wing for a day. He thought he had inhaled some powder from an Exploding Ginger Eyelash during Herbology. Antares didn't think anything of it. Professor Sprout said that he would experience mild headaches at most. He didn't expect to hallucinate, to be assaulted by flashes of things that weren't there and of people he didn't know. Not knowing what to do, he wrote home.

The next thing he knew, Professor Snape had excused him from a week of classes. When Antares asked why, his Head of House flashed him a letter written and signed by Taoiseach Marissa Ann of Clann Kelly. It wasn't much by way of explanation, and it only confused him further. His mother just used the title of their House to pull rank on his professor. It was a title so ancient and formal that it faded around the same time his great-great grandparents moved to Australia.