Harry Potter: The art of divination

It was a perfect November day, the sun shone on the great lake painting a beautiful picture of elegance and mysticism.

The students were more excited and rowdy than ever, after all, it was the day of Quidditch matches.

I for one wasn't really excited, seeing as I didn't grow up around sports other than actual fights to the death and not those things called 'duels'.

Quidditch was just not something I understood very well, of course I know the rules and regulations but that was just to make conversation.

Being a Professor during the Quidditch season was rather annoying. Students would come up and ask who I'm rooting for.

The heads of the different houses would ask who I think would win. What made the whole ordeal ten times more annoying and painful was I am the only divination master in the whole Castle.

That brought the unpleasant perk of being asked who will win each game over and over again.

Why would I waste my time on divining that? These students are relentless too, it's like they are bloodhounds chasing a piece of meat.

I've been offered half of the earnings of bets, like I'm some poor fellow.

To sum it all up nicely, being a divination professor during the Quidditch season was hell.

Luckily I can find solace in my classroom, it was a day when I had no classes, and seeing as I had no other pressing matters I offered my services to help give students extra help before the midterms.

The first student who signed up for my extra lesson was unsurprisingly Lovegood. I have each student marked out for an hour of extra help.

Xenophilius should be walking through the door any minute.

My classroom door swung open followed by Xenophilius Lovegood walking in with a skip in his step.

"Professor! What a great day for seeing the future!" He laughed loudly while setting his bag down and pulling out his deck of Tarot cards

Calmly I stood up while asking, "Xenophilius, what do you need help with? If I remember correctly you're doing exceptionally well in my class."

He laughed as if embarrassed, "Professor, I need help with my life card," he said in a helpless manner

I quirked my brow, "you're already done with the others let me see,"

As I flipped through the deck I couldn't help but smile, this Xenophilius Lovegood might actually be a genius when it comes to divination.

How long has it been since someone with real talent in the Lovegood family cropped up? Too long way too long, most families don't even know the Lovegoods used to be a family made up of divination masters.

It was like a curse, generation after generation of Lovegood would have mediocre talent.

I looked at the excited child in front of me, he might be able to reverse the house of Lovegood's reputation and bring it back to the glory days.

And this time the house can be my ally, those damn Lovegoods never liked me. I was treated as if I were a curse.

"Um, teacher?" Xenophilius's voice tore me from my musing

"Good very good, this process will take much longer than an hour. But we can start right now. I will first teach you the importance of what you are about to undergo. First, let me remedy some fears you might have. A common fear is that since the life card is called a life card many think it is tied to your life force and if it gets destroyed you suffer some type of backlash. This is false,"

Seeing he was paying attention I continued, "It is called a life card or bonded card because it's the card that functions as the anchor of your deck. A successful master of Tarot cards is hardly ever wrong. But, they also need to be in tune with their cards. The life card will be a reflection of your life, it will change as you grow, and sometimes show glimpses of your own future,"

"Your other cards feed off this magical ability, making them able to grow and connect with you at a deeper level without the need to pour your magic into them twenty-four-seven," I instructed seriously

"Now many people have actually found other ingenious uses for this special card, when you are successful in making your own I will naturally teach you them," I finished with a nod

"For right now I want you to put your blank life card on the top of your deck, then hold the deck in between your hands. Focus on your magic and the deck. Feel your magic combing through every card. After thirty minutes of that switch to shuffling your deck and repeating the first exercise this time see if you can pinpoint where the life card is in the deck," I instructed

Seeing him nod and right away start focusing on his goal I walked back to my desk and started to prepare for my next student.

***

"Hellow Professor," A soft female voice broke through my thoughts on book selections

Looking up to see who it was I checked the time, "Ah, Narcissa come in. Lovegood you can go now remember to practice whenever you can,"

Seeing Lovegood leave I turned to Narcissa, "What can I help you with?"

She looked over at my bookshelves, "Well I was wondering if you could help with my book divination,"

"Of course, would you like to focus on something specific you are struggling with or just broad helpful lessons?" I asked

She smiled at the second option, "I'm not struggling too much in my studies I just came to learn if there are any steps I should be taking to be better,"

"Narcissa what subject are you hoping to go into once you graduate? I know it's years away so if you don't have anything just say so," I said changing the subject

She nodded her head, "I want to go into healing, I've been studying on my own for a while now,"

"I see, then I would suggest when you are practicing your book divinations you use healer books. This way you will learn both at once and, you are actually caring about the subject. It might seem hard to believe but, many times when people get stuck learning all paths of magic it's because they are not mentally excited about the subject," I told her while fishing out some healing books from my shelf

"I usually practice with my school books or healing books though now that you say it aloud I do find I get better results when I use my healing books," she nodded while writing what I said down

I smiled causing her to look away ".." My smile didn't use to be this bad!

*caugh* "As I was saying, another useful thing you should consider is when you are looking for an answer if your question is too specific and you are struggling to find any success. Broaden the question, this way you can find similar answers to what you're looking for and then narrow down your search from there,"

"But isn't that basically researching? It doesn't seem like divination," she said sounding puzzled

"This is only the beginning, when you get better you don't need to do this. Most masters can use any book and find the answer to any question,"

She nodded in understanding.

Soon she left and my next student arrived. I didn't realize how tiring this would be I'm starting to regret it now.

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A/N; Patre on: patreon.com/Boogie324

I cannot think of another name besides "book divination" It's SO BAD 😭