Very early in the morning.


Virgil was one cup of coffee awake, which was to say he was at least two cups from being fully functional for the day ahead. But he was certainly alert enough to be sorting out records and running errands for Rothschild[1]. It was one of his earlier shifts - he took the odd hours when he could, to give him time off for early weekends and sweet nothings.

"Grimlish," the blond called the other wizard's name as he opened a door into the Entrance Chamber with its handless doors and blue torches. "This way, I'll be taking you through to the Hall."

Even though the Ministry was peppered by familiar faces from Hogwarts, he saw some more than others. Certainly Abby or Fauna were more likely to see him flitting about in his black robes on Two, whereas he avoided Four with its odious vampire and grumpy werewolf hunter.

"You're here to look at a Vision or Prophecy?" Virgil asked, glancing at Eli as they made their way down a long passageway. He knew Grimlish but they hadn't been part of the same set at school.

1.	Keeper of the Hall of Prophecies

 Elijah Grimlish was wide awake. He had spent a long night at a cubicle on Level Four sorting through the vampire registry. Keeping the registry up to date was a never ending process. Several registered vampires had changed covens, a few infants had joined covens, and three individuals had turned in paperwork on new employment. It was boring, the clerical side of his job, but the Ravenclaw in him thrived on it.

The accomplishment Eli felt for a night well spent evaporated in the time it took to reach Level Nine. The rickety lift was devoid of people at such an early hour and the two interdepartmental memos floating around took their leave on Magical Transport, leaving Elijah alone for the slow descent. The solitude was welcome, as it gave Elijah a chance to organize his thoughts.

Elijah was both a diviner and a seer, unlike his Aunt Rhiannon who was merely a diviner. She had taught him to read tea leaves and tarot cards, but he had always felt more drawn to the stars. He cared not for individualistic fortune-telling, only for answers to questions as big as the universe. When he gazed into the universe he was most connected to himself, and visions were more prone to manifest.

For weeks now his cards had been conflicting, his leaves had been muddled, and the stars were just stars. His magic was on the fritz, so much so that he had been avoiding fieldwork for safety. He really loved fieldwork.

He had asked his aunt to give him a reading, but her speciality was romance so she was very little help. His only other choice was to handle things like a Ravenclaw, armed with knowledge. He needed to listen to some of his unfulfilled prophesies and visions to see if he had missed the reason for his newfound ineptitude. The Grimlish he needed was not his aunt, but his mother, Marietta.

Marietta Grimlish was a Senior Unspeakable, which basically meant she was weird even for a Grimlish. Elijah might have believed that his dad was a vampire until he was 16, but his mother still believed it. She could have gotten him into the Hall without any wait, but if her imagined vampire consort couldn't abide daylight, neither could she. She had told him that if he came after his shift, rather than before, he would be on his own.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a familiar voice. Virgil Carstairs hadn't been one of Eli's mates in school, but being as stubbornly weird as Elijah was, that was no surprise. He hadn't exactly been a 'cool kid' while at Hogwarts. Still, he hoped the Slytherin alum wasn't as awful as some of his housemates had been because this could take a while.

"Both?" He replied to Virgil's query, voice a mixture between questioning and stating. He hurried along to catch up with the Unspeakable, quite frightened of the doors without knobs. Elijah had absolutely no desire to stray from the path here- he had heard stories. Very bad stories.

"Perhaps we could start with the prophesies, I might find what I need there before we have to bother with the visions,"

He finished speaking and folded his arms behind his back awkwardly waiting for Virgil to reply. Hopefully he wouldn't think Elijah was being too much of a hassle and leave him there to wander the labyrinth alone until he died, or at least until his mum came to save him.

He knew a little about Grimlish, both of them having taken Divination together and rather excelled at it. Virgil was inclined to be less catty with those old classmates who believed in the genuine nature of divining ways - it was easy enough to look past Eli's eccentricities. One could hardly complain about an eccentric nature whilst working in Mysteries.

          "Both?" replied the other wizard as they approached the end of the corridor, where an immense door of black crystal started to creak open. "Perhaps we could start with the prophesies..."

The door was a new addition, allowing for visitors to enter without having to go through the Time Room and disturb those Unspeakables messing about with a force arguably more impenetrable than the third eye.

"Have you had many, then? I thought they were a bit of a rarity." Virgil mused, bringing them right through into the large hall. "I've only received visions. Still waiting on my first prophecy, if it ever comes." Ahead of them were the many shelves that extended endlessly into the dark - orbs glowing close or distant, like ghostly stars.

He led Eli to a big heavy desk in the open space preceding the shelves. Rothschild had stepped away but the big logbook was open, surrounded by scrolls and quills and the odd object of scrying. Virgil plucked a feather from its holder and dipped it in ink before leaning over with a glance at his watch.

"Here you go," he scribbled the exact time before handing the quill over to his charge. "Full name, purpose. On our way out we'll log what exactly you examined."

Virgil wasted no time in leading the pair to their destination. Elijah was grateful, because getting lost in the labyrinth would definitely put a dampener on his plans for the day, but he was also a bit disheartened. It wasn't every day he got to visit the Department of Mysteries, would it have killed Virgil to take the scenic route? He was sure he'd gone through a room with time-turners and such on his last visit - he felt cheated.

Still, Virgil's words distracted him. Knowing his fellow seer hadn't had a prophecy ever made Eli feel marginally better at his measly two. If prophesies were as rare as Virgil seemed to think, maybe there wasn't anything wrong with Eli at all and this was a wasted trip. Eli didn't really believe that though, something was messing with his Sight and Mysteries was the best place for answers.

He took the quill from Virgil before responding. "Just a couple. They were both pretty horrible, honestly." Remembering the lingering migraines, nosebleeds and disorientation he had felt made Elijah shiver, almost marring his sloppy signature. "One has already come to pass. It was real confusing at the time, but now I look back it seems obvious,"

He placed the quill back into in holder having finished his entry:

Elijah Fitzroy Grimlish - review of unfulfilled manifestations of the Sight as performed by me. For personal research purposes.

Then he took a little turn to get a better view of the hall proper. It was an overwhelming experience, but instead of the fear he felt out in the depths, this peek into infinity was comforting. Here all the knowledge of the future was kept, it was the greatest library in the world. Elijah loved knowledge, so he loved this odd place, but without Virgil he would have been completely lost.

"How do you find anything in this Chamber of Clairvoyance?" He asked, voice tinged with awe. Even though it was his second visit to the room, it still fascinated him deeply.

It didn't surprise him that the other wizard's prophecies were horrible. None of Virgil's visions had been particularly cheerful - if he never had another similar to that of  Alec Carter being mauled to death by a Direwolf, it would be too soon. His kingdom for a vision of righteousness or joy!

"Everything is clearer in retrospect," he agreed with Eli. "Though I like to think we live a little outside of linear time because of our gift."

Training on Mysteries had given him less rigid ideas about the laws that governed magic; time can move in many directions, space is capable of being bent, gravity transcends logic. Virgil checked the entry, mostly out of curiousity, before turning back to the hall. He could see a glow in the distance, that telltale sign of the floating sea creatures who bobbed about the high ceilings.

            "How do you find anything in this Chamber of Clairvoyance?"

"There's method to the madness." Virgil smiled a little at Eli, any excuse to quote the bard. "Easy enough once you've figured out how it sorts itself."

There was no point explaining more - he wasn't allowed. The simple truth was that the Hall manifested prophecies based on place and time, and within that category the orbs were sorted by Seer names. Everything by encrypted alphabet, which had been hellish to memorise last year.

"You're this way," he gestured as they moved off to the right end of the hall, where a school of cuttlefish were drifting overhead. "What kind of personal research are you doing? I've been scrying in evenings for another department but no luck so far. I'm more likely to get visions at night," the Unspeakable added.

"Everything is clearer in retrospect, though I like to think we live a little outside of linear time because of our gift."

Elijah nodded sagely in agreement with the Unspeakable. One only needed to look to the stars to know how inconsequential time truly was. Some light that touched the Earth was dead on arrival, though the light was still unaware. Time and space, the very laws of the universe held no power over a Seer with full mastery of their gift.

It was that insight, rather than hindsight, that Elijah needed now. He couldn't abide continuing to bumble through life with one eye closed like any other mundane wix. He wasn't asking for much, just what he had already been given.

"There's method to the madness. Easy enough once you've figured out how it sorts itself."

Virgil's reply was as vague as Elijah had expected. He had asked his mum endless questions about the place when he had been there before. She had told him she didn't know, which might have been true but Eli believed it was more because Unspeakables didn't speak about things. It was in their name.

It disappointed the young adult, who was very interested in how things worked. It didn't matter that the sorting and shelving techniques were complex and unknowable to him, he still wanted to know them. He was tempted to press for more information, but he didn't want to make Virgil shut down. Having a conversation with someone his age who shared his abilities was a gift and Elijah had no desire to jeopardize that.

Instead, he contented himself with looking at their surroundings as they passed. Though all the shelves looked the same, each was unique. Some of the informative placards were old and faded while others were pristine and there was no obvious reason why some of the orbs seemed brighter but Elijah swore that they did. He was pulled from his examinations by Virgil asking him about his research.

"What kind of personal research are you doing? I've been scrying in evenings for another department but no luck so far. I'm more likely to get visions at night,"

Elijah wasn't sure he really wanted to share his issues with Virgil. The two weren't close after all, but Virgil had offered up a personal bit of information on himself, so Elijah felt more comfortable doing the same.

"I think the vampires are stealing my Sight," he said, completely serious. He didn't think they were doing it on purpose, he was pretty sure they couldn't take away his ability, but there was a correlation. He knew Virgil would probably think he was crazy - Elijah was the boy who cried vamp. He tried to explain,

"When my Sight first manifested back in Trelawney's class sixth year it was like the floodgates opened. I had that prophecy, then a vision, and another prophecy all within the first three months. Things slowed down after that - I've had a few visions since then but they've been pretty spread out,"

"But I haven't had a single vision since I started working for the Vampire Liaison Office, and in the last six months that I've been doing more unsupervised work, even my attempts at divination have gone awry." He took a pause to glance at Virgil and to take a breath before finishing his monologue. Once he started speaking it was hard to stop.

"I think that my mind is so busy protecting itself from vampire mind games that there's no energy left for unfogging the future. As I don't know any other seers who have dealt with the living dead regularly I have no real way of knowing,"

Life on Mysteries felt disconnected from the rest of the world sometimes - under the cover of secrecy, moving through darkness, he was a version of himself at odds with the one who sometimes strutted the stage at Stardust. He glided past shelves with a kind of professional serenity, and listened to Eli without betraying his thoughts.

Vampires stealing one's Sight was... daft. But the other wizard pushed on, explaining, and Virgil got the sense that he was maybe describing a sane hypothesis through his own ridiculous lens.

"You're sure it's vampires? You've not undergone other lifestyle changes?" he slowed his pace as they drew close to their destination, more cuttlefish gathering overhead in hews of orange and purple. "I can well believe Vaillancourt to play[1] mind games but if he's blocking your Sight it's probably unintentional."

Despite negative experience with certain vampires, he acknowledged that they were trouble only when one sought trouble amongst them. The pair stopped before a shelf only partly occupied by orbs and he gave Eli a thoughtful look.

"I have... a theory." Virgil could feel one forming in the back of his mind already, and that familiar stir of nervousness in the pit of his stomach. "But let's investigate yours first. And I'll pitch you mine when we're done here?"

1.	Dec 8th 2011 - Close Encounter of Another Kind

Elijah nodded in response to his Unspeakable companion as they came to a halt. Virgil's skepticism was expected, but the fact that he didn't laugh in Elijah's face gave the Ravenclaw alum hope. He fully agreed that any interference from the vamps was completely unintentional, but he still believed it was their fault.

His training had taught him that vampires had a stronger affinity for Legilimancy than most wix and Elijah had never studied Occlumency. If his mind was being assaulted by vampiric probes constantly, how could he have any energy left to manifest a vision?

Still, Virgil's questioning set Elijah's mind whirring down a different path: had something major changed in his life that could affect his Vision? His twin sister, Evelyn, was traveling the world - leaving Elijah alone for the first time in their lives. That sometimes caused Elijah to lose sleep, but he thought he was dealing with it quite well. He had gotten a new wand because his old one (a hand-me-down from his Grandfather) had died, but his problems had started long before that.

Elijah couldn't be sure that some other stressor in his life was to blame, and additional hypotheses were always welcome. "I don't believe anything's really changed since all this started happening," he said, "I would be more than grateful for any help you may have," Truly, trained in the ways of weirding by the Unspeakables, Virgil's insight was sure to be invaluable.

The vampire liaison leaned forward to get a clearer view of the orbs resting peacefully on their shelves. "There's only the one prophecy I'm looking for - my first one. Shoulda been around the beginning of 2010. Early January[1]. There was something about a red sea or a red tide or something, I just can't recall," his eyes scanned the shelves looking for the double initials of E.F.G.: Elijah Fitzroy Grimlish to Evelyn Faye Grimlish.

1.	Opening Your Inner Eye

He did want to help. Virgil was magically gifted in two respects and when things went wrong with either of them, he felt utterly destabilised. So he could understand why Eli was investigating his own gift.

"You could try Occlumency," he suggested as he walked ahead of the other Seer to where he knew they would find the right Prophecy. "I know someone who tried to read a vampire's mind, really fucking paid for it. Yavin is always saying more of us should know Occlumency."

Better to conveniently leave out that Virgil himself had been the one who tried to read a vampire. He didn't mind Eli but he didn't know or trust him well enough to bring up his Legilimency. From the way Eli spoke, it might mark Virgil out as simply another person out to interfere with his mindscape or Sight.

"Here we are..." Virgil stopped, eyes shifting up to an orb just a little above eye level. He stepped back - even Unspeakables couldn't touch the orbs without special spells used for sorting them. "Do you want to see it here or in a viewing room?"

"You could try Occlumency. I know someone who tried to read a vampire's mind, really fucking paid for it. Yavin is always saying more of us should know Occlumency."

Elijah didn't press, but he would have cleaned out his vault at Gringotts to know the unlucky wix that had tried invading a vampire's headspace. The living dead had minds alien from those of average humans. Something in the curse altered the circuitry of their brains, and wixkind hadn't uncovered all the secrets. The fog vampires faced after turning was a prime example of their otherness - prowling around in that unknown area was not a smart decision.

Occlumency lessons might indeed help. He had never bothered with it before, thinking that he wanted the vampires to read his intentions. If they knew he was there to help, they would be less likely to use him as a snack. Plus, Occlumency was a rather rare branch of magic. It wasn't like there were notices for tutors in the Daily Prophet, where would he even go to learn? Perhaps he could seek out the Yavin that Virgil had mentioned, probably Morganthau - head of the department, but he didn't want some stranger rooting through his memories.

His gaze followed Virgil's to the faintly glowing orb. Now that the Unspeakable had pointed it out, Elijah couldn't pull his eyes away. How he had missed it, when it was so clearly drawing him in, was a mystery.

"Here's fine," he said in response to Virgil's query. There hadn't been anyone else wandering the aisles that Eli had seen, and it wasn't like his prophecy was some terrible or embarrassing secret. Besides, Eli wasn't sure he could stand to wait.

An unsteady hand reached out, one finger lightly touching the glass containment orb. A pearlescent figure streamed from the sphere, Elijah circa 2010. He looked remarkably the same, though the echo lacked the adult's facial hair and about six inches from the hair on his head. From the ghostly mouth came a guttural voice, quite at odds to Elijah's own tenor:


Having finished, the specter began to dissipate, fading away into mist. Elijah stood there scratching his chin.

Well… that had been absolutely no help. He took his hand from his face and rubbed the back of his neck instead. "Um… did any of that make any sense to you?"

He watched with a natural curiosity. Virgil had seen other Seers come to observe their prophecies but everyone came for different reasons - their reactions were often different too. Eli seemed disappointed in his.

           "Um… did any of that make any sense to you?"

It was like answering a Sphinx riddle without the threat of death. He was still watching the space in which that ghostly version of Grimlish had croaked its Prophecy.

"Let me think..." Virgil tilted his head to the side, a hand on his hip. "Tail of youth's folly... so, something that has been set up long ago, in the subject's youth. And two turns eastwards is looking back, I suppose?"

Deciphering Prophecies was so much harder than visions, which one could at least remember. He couldn't imagine the frustration of knowing you delivered a Prophecy without recollection.

Virgil shook his head and shrugged, meeting Eli in the eye. "My interpretation is that looking back to the past will set the Prophecy into motion. The red sea is a bit of a mystery, is it Biblical you think? Or generally meaning blood?"

Elijah had grown up thinking several incorrect things were fact. It had taken some hard lessons to teach him the truth about life. Vampires couldn't compel you, they didn't sleep in coffins, and they could come into your home any time they pleased - invitation or no invitation. In the same vein, Seeing was not as easy as divining.

From a young age, Eli had believed that when his abilities finally manifested he would just know things. Like when he read someone's cards - the intuition would tell him what he needed to know. He was wrong. There was no tug on his psyche, no nagging buzz in the back of his mind. He had no clue what even the smallest piece could mean.

Virgil's interpretation was helpful - the last time he had heard the prophecy spoken he had been with his mum, who had no third eye to speak of. He nodded thoughtfully as he turned his full attention to the Unspeakable. Virgil had thought of things Elijah's mind never would have.

"Biblical?" He asked, raising his left eyebrow in confusion. "Like from the bible? I don't know anything about that," Was he going to have to add religious studies to his growing list of things he desperately needed to learn?

"At least now I remember why I gave up on trying to work this one out," he continued with a sigh, "that last part, about the pain…" his voice trailed off.

"I've always made it my motto in life to avoid pain wherever possible," the disappointment in his voice was obvious. Maybe this was just going to be one of those things in life that went unanswered. Elijah would never know his birth parents, he would never understand basilisk mating habits, and he would never figure out what his very first prophecy meant.

            "Like from the bible?"

He gave Elijah a queer look. "Yes, as in, you know, parting of the red sea." Virgil wasn't religious - the Carstairs children weren't raised in a particular religion - but he knew all the stories, being the child of a storyteller. Perhaps Grimlish had other beliefs.

The two of them rarely paired up for Divination at Hogwarts; they were both good at it, so it probably made sense back then to be paired with less interested classmates. Virgil realised now just how little he knew about Eli. The other wizard was certainly as odd as he seemed to be from a distance.

"Avoid pain?" he repeated with an incredulous laugh. And then, drawling: "You can't be serious, there's no avoiding pain. Some of the best things lie on the other side of pain."

Masochism was hardly his cup of tea, yet even brittle-hearted Virgil didn't shy away from the things that might hurt him. "If I wanted to avoid pain I would have stopped scrying after getting mauled by a Direwolf[1] in my last vision," he added with a grimace.

That had really hurt.

1.	Jan 6th - A Little Blurry, Or Maybe it's My Eyes

Like Virgil, Eli had storytellers in his family. His grandfather even wrote books about his adventures. He could tell you stories from centaur fireside chats or recount, in Mermish, the Tales of the Plimpy. Marietta, however, had been against any sort of Christianity in her children's lives. Believing that her imaginary vampire lover's soul was damned by the Christian faith, she banned the bible and all Christianity-related items from their home.

He might have heard stories in his youth from friends or classmates. Some classes even had bases in biblical topics, but Elijah tended to tune them out. Until he figured out the meaning of his second prophecy, he believed his own soul was damned for being half-vampire. It was what had convinced Elijah to become a vegetarian - anything to try and tip his scales into the 'good' column. When he finally realized that he was just a simple living person, he had no interest in rectifying his ignorance.

"Yes, as in, you know, parting of the red sea."

Elijah wasn't sure why that would be such an interesting story. A couple of wix with a good reducto each could easily part a sea. Unless there was a sea serpent at the bottom, but even then a sea serpent isn't much challenge without water. Still, Elijah nodded his head sagely as if he knew everything - there was no point in making himself look more incompetent than he already had.

"If I wanted to avoid pain I would have stopped scrying after getting mauled by a Direwolf in my last vision,"

He was very curious what sort of best things lay on the other side of that vision but it would be very rude to ask.

Elijah's mouth dropped open in astonishment. Virgil's visions were dark. When Eli had Seen his sister being stalked in the Forbidden Forest, the vision had ended before the disaster. It had been terrifying, but Elijah didn't think it could compare to Virgil's. And that had been the worst of his visions so far - if they were going to get as dark as Virgil's he wasn't sure he wanted to keep trying to unblock his Sight.

"A Direwolf?" He asked, shocked to his core, "Are all your visions that bleak? Do you ever see anything good?" He dreamed of Seeing himself at his sister's wedding or being called onstage at a Three Owl Standard concert - not being eaten alive.

            "Are all your visions that bleak? Do you ever see anything good?"

Virgil crossed his arms, affecting a thoughtful expression. Of course he sometimes wished his Visions were happier ones - but they didn't fester inside him for very long.

"I wouldn't call them bleak," he replied after a pause. "I consider them warnings. And I can't complain, I was scrying for a level two thing when I got the Direwolf. Go looking for trouble, you get trouble..." Virgil shrugged.

To say nothing of the fact that his vision about Abby Reid[1] had led him to befriending her when she was rescued. His friendship with Abby had felt so utterly fated, so right.

"Do you ever feel like you're having a conversation with the future? And the past?" Virgil heard himself ask. He was curious, it wasn't often he got to talk to someone his age who was also struggling to define the nature of their Sight.

1.	28th July 2011 - Of Every Waking Hour