“Who?” Fred asked, frowning between them.
“Sybil,” Harry said cheerfully. “Professor Trelawney.”
The outburst was instant. Blaise nearly choked on his wine. Susan swore so loudly Hannah elbowed her in the ribs. George doubled over laughing while Alicia whacked his shoulder, muttering that it wasn’t funny.
“You’re telling me that walking incense stick is, a god's, Time’s Champion?” Pansy demanded, incredulous. “She can’t walk down the stairs without tripping over her shawls.”
“Shawls are excellent magical dampeners,” Luna said serenely. “They blur timelines.”
Neville ran a hand over his face. “No, Luna. No one’s disguising timelines with a scarf.”
Astoria tilted her head at Harry. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Completely,” Harry said, smirking.
That shut the room up again. Even the twins had nothing for once.
Astoria blinked at him. “You’re actually serious.”
Tracey snorted into her drink. “Oh, I love this. The universe picked the woman who smells like sherry and mothballs to be Time’s chosen. Fantastic.”
Hermione groaned. “Harry, she can’t even cast a Shield Charm properly!”
Harry shook his head, a grin tugging at his mouth. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. You lot believe Nicolas can be Merlin, hiding under half a dozen names for centuries, but Sybil’s too far-fetched for you?”
Tracey snorted. “Come on, Harry. She trips over her own feet.”
“Didn't say she isn't a great actress. You think anyone’s going to look at her and say, ‘Ah yes, that’s the one who bends centuries’? She’s hiding in plain sight. Brilliantly, I might add.”
Pansy groaned into her hand. “This is absurd.”
“Absurd, but true,” Harry said easily. “You’ve all seen her spout prophecies, haven’t you? Half the staff brush them off as gibberish, but a few of them, like the one that nearly got me killed, were spot on.”
Hermione crossed her arms. “That doesn’t make her Time’s Champion. That makes her someone with the Sight.”
Harry leaned forward. “Hermione, Nicolas managed to convince the entire world he was just an eccentric Frenchman fiddling with alchemy. Morgana let herself turn into a bedtime villain while she strolled about under another name. You think it’s impossible Sybil’s been playing everyone for fools the same way?”
Ginny laughed under her breath. “So all the shawls and perfume are just… camouflage?”
“Disguise 101,” Harry said. “Make yourself ridiculous enough that no one bothers to look twice. Grindelwald pretended to be dead. Dumbledore played at being a sweets-addled grandfather. Sybil smells like sherry and incense. Same principle.”
Fred and George exchanged a glance. George said, “If she’s really Time’s Champion—”
“—does that mean she already knows the ending?” Fred finished.
“That is not how Time works,” Harry said, shaking his head. “She doesn’t know endings. She sees possibilities. As Hermione will happily explain, Time isn’t a single straight line.”
Hermione huffed, sat forward, and folded her arms. “Fine. I used a Time Turner in third year. You all know that. Thing is, Time isn’t fixed like a storybook. It branches. Every choice makes another branch, and you can’t know all of them. What you can see is a handful of paths, the stronger ones, the ones with more weight.”
Fred leaned back, munching his biscuit. “So you’re saying Sybil spends her days staring at tree branches.”
“Essentially,” Hermione said. “Except if she tries to change one, it affects the others. You can’t jump about endlessly without snapping something.”
George tilted his head. “What happens if it snaps?”
Hermione looked irritated. “No one knows. Probably nothing good.”
Luna gave a happy nod. “Like when you step on a Nargle nest. Everything goes sideways and smells of burnt sugar.”
Susan wrinkled her nose. “That sounds awful.”
“It was,” Luna agreed.
Tracey stretched across her chair. “So Sybil’s been hiding under shawls for decades, sipping sherry, and all the while she’s been the most dangerous piece on the board? That’s bloody hilarious.”
“Everyone thinks she’s a joke. No one ever questions her slipping in and out of sight.”
Pansy pointed at him. “You’re far too cheerful about this.”
Harry grinned. “Better than crying about it. Besides, she’s not against us. If she wanted me gone, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
Astoria glanced around the room, her voice softer. “So Death has Nicolas. Time has Sybil. And Magic has you.”
“Pretty much,” Harry said. “Not exactly a balanced match.”
“Understatement of the century,” Blaise muttered.
Hannah leaned into Susan, brow furrowed. “If Sybil can see different paths, can’t she just tell you which one to take?”
Harry shook his head. “Doesn’t work like that. She can’t see my past or future, nor Nicolas’s. Champions don’t show up. Well, if we’re Champions across every timeline. Even that I’m not sure about. Because Sybil knows too much about me already. That means in at least one line she’s seen enough to pick apart my past and future, compare them, and reach a conclusion. Nicolas? No idea.”
Hermione pressed her lips together. “So she could still be nudging things. Making moves around you without actually seeing your direct path.”
“Exactly,” Harry said, leaning back into his chair. “She can’t look at me like she does the rest of you, but she can watch everything else, put the board together, and work out where I land. Imagine playing chess without seeing a queen, still possible to guess where it moves if you’re clever enough.”
Fred pointed his biscuit at him. “Sounds like you’ve just described Nicolas, too. Creepy immortal bloke shifting pieces while everyone else thinks they’re free.”
“Difference is Nicolas is a player and a piece on the board. Sybil never showed her hand. I only had guesses until recently. She probably knows she can’t take Nicolas head-on, so she fiddled with the board instead. Tried to push things so he and I would collide.”
Tracey gave a low whistle. “That’s… actually clever. Hide behind a stack of shawls, mutter about tea leaves, and let everyone else do the heavy lifting.
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re saying she arranged all of this just to pit you against Flamel?”
Harry nodded. “Wouldn’t be shocked. Nicolas was bound to notice me sooner or later. She probably just hurried things along.”
Fred leaned back in his chair, looking amused. “So the walking sherry bottle’s secretly the sharpest of the lot.”
George grinned. “Makes me feel a lot better about flunking Divination.”
Susan leaned forward, serious again. “If she’s really Time’s Champion, then what’s her endgame?”
Harry gave a small shrug. “That’s the question. Could be she just wants me to clip Nicolas’s wings. Could be bigger. Hard to tell. Time doesn’t exactly leave neat notes lying about.”
Luna raised a finger. “Sometimes it does."
Astoria shifted slightly, looking across the group. “If she wanted you against Nicolas, doesn’t that mean she thinks you can win?”
Harry smirked. “Or she just wants the two of us to smash each other to bits and clear the board.”
“That’s encouraging,” Daphne said flatly, though the twitch at her lips betrayed her.
Neville, arms folded, spoke up next. “Doesn’t matter what she wants. If Nicolas is Death’s piece, and you’re Magic’s, that clash was always going to happen. She’s just making sure it’s sooner rather than later.”
Fleur leaned against his shoulder, nodding. “Better to know now than stumble into it later.”