Welcome to Weekly Portents, your one and only source for all things prophetic! In Weekly Portents I, the one and only Riven Redwhisper, will be giving a special reading to let you know what to expect at Hogwarts in the coming days, weeks, months, and beyond! But that’s not all, dear reader! The cards tell me you should expect much much more in the future including personal readings to answer questions you’ve submitted, tips and tricks to improve your own Divinations game, and I even have an interview lined up with a real live seer!
What are the Sooths saying? What are the Oracles orating? What are the augers articulating? Check in each week to find out!
Happy Halloween Hogwarts!
Here we are on another Thursday just like every other. Well, ok. It’s a bit more skeleton-y out there than most Thursdays and we’re right up against the Halloween Bash but otherwise it’s just another Thursday.
So follow me, dear reader, as we throw ourselves off the diving board of Divinations and plunge into the murky waters of our future! What secrets are hiding in these depths and what mysteries will be revealed this week?
My regular readers out there will remember that a few weeks ago I was desperately flipping through an old Divs book trying to find something I could use for that week’s article. I kept stumbling into all sorts of ancient and dark methods that required sacrifices, bloodshed, and so on. Because I wasn’t so keen on killing anything I tossed all that in the bin and let the book itself give me a reading.
However, because All Hallows Eve is upon us I decided something extra spooky and gruesome is in order and revisited some of the darker methods that I stumbled upon that fateful night. I decided upon Haruspex! Divination by examining the entrails of your sacrifice of choice. How delightfully morbid!
So here I sit in a dark and forgotten corner of the dungeons, illuminated only by the luminescent slime covering the walls. Ok and maybe my wand too but I sit here in this quiet and empty room with my sacrifice before me and a massive sacrificial kitchen knife resting on the floor beside me.
What is my sacrifice, you ask? What poor animal or human will I be gutting and shedding their entrails about the room to examine?
A pumpkin, of course!
At this point, I’d like to apologise to my editor-in-chief and any other pumpkin sympathisers out there. I’m not very happy about this either but sacrifices must be made. Literally, in this case. It also turns out that painting a big frowny face on the pumpkin and naming it “Seymour” didn’t make this any easier.
At this point, any squeamish readers may wish to stop reading because it’s about to get messy.
First, I wrap my scarf around the pumpkin to give him a makeshift blindfold. Not about to look the poor bloke in the eye while I do this. Next, I slowly take the knife in both hands and do what must be done.
Once the top of the pumpkin has been popped off I begin dumpling and peeling the contents out into a large bowl. Pumpkin guts and seeds to the brim, how horrific!
With the pumpkin emptied, I sit the shell or husk or whatever the outside bit is called aside and begin working on the “entrails.” Don’t worry though Seymour, it might be a bit unpleasant now but you’ll smile again soon, I promise.
I check the book to see how this works and have a shocking discovery. Turns out that, unlike other sacrificial creatures, pumpkins have no internal organs so I just have to make do with what I have.
And what question shall I be asking of our sacrifice? Let’s ask for a piece to this Skeleton War puzzle, shall we? Should we all panic and start blowing up the skeletons as we see them? Is it all a silly prank meant to scare us for Halloween? Are we best off just ignoring the skeletons?
Let’s find out.
I begin digging through the pumpkin guts with a fork and looking. Seeking some sign or other. Very slowly the patterns emerge. There! Two lines curving away from one another! According to the book this indicates a balance of power beginning to tip out of our favor. And this glob of pumpkin stuff with the seeds poking out seems to be something! Picture in the book (an illustration thankfully) makes it seem like it represents a crude hammer or club or something. According to this, it means that force might be required to get the situation under control but too much force can push the balance in the opposite direction so we have to be careful.
Guess what it is trying to say is that we should keep our guard up and don’t be afraid to blow these skeletons apart. Don’t go picking a fight with them but use force if you have to. There may even come a time when we have no other choice.
Besides, it’s not like these skeletons are actually alive or even living impaired or anything. We shouldn’t feel bad about blowing them up because they only have the illusion of life but they’re not actually alive.
Right?
Anyway, I finish up by scraping the paint off of Seymour’s “face” and carving out a classic toothy jack-o-lantern grin. After returning him to his pumpkin siblings to decorate the castle, I bring the bowl of pumpkin insides to the kitchens to be recycled into pie or soup or whatever. Waste not, want not after all.
But be careful, dear reader, because the next time you take a sip of pumpkin juice or a bite of pumpkin pie you could very well be snacking on the… future!!
If you have a question you’d like answered in Weekly Portents please send a self addressed stamped owl ((notecard)) to Riven Redwhisper ((luka5555 resident)). Your identity will remain anonymous unless you specifically request otherwise. Unfortunately we cannot guarantee the results of these readings but rest assured that we’ll do everything in our power to answer as accurately as possible.
