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!
16/12/2028
Good day, my dear sweet and lovely and so on reader!
It’s time, once again, for us to put on our omnioculars and take a nice long look into the future!
In my last article we spoke about… something or other. Was it really that long ago that I’ve already forgotten? Oh right, melting the snowperson thing. Poor snow-bloke never saw it coming. We melted it and that told us to expect an extra wintery winter this winter. Guess it has been rather cold and snowy so, as always, my prediction was correct!
Right, let’s get on with it then, shall we?
The Ball is coming up in just a couple days so we should ask the heavens just what to expect at the lovely formal event. What awaits us this year? Will it be a fun and joyous soirée or another disaster that changes everyone’s lives?
To find out, I’ve decided to get my reading from a ball of my own. A crystal ball, to be exact! Think we’ve seen it all before. The old crone at the carnival hunched over a crystal ball and staring into it but how does it work, really?
I’m glad you asked! Scrying! What’s scrying, you ask? You ask loads of questions, you know that? Anyway, I’d answer that you need to pay more attention in Divs class but scrying works by doing just like the old crone. Staring into it. Zoning out. Opening your mind’s eye and losing yourself into the crystal ball until you’re presented with an image or something like that.
My venue for tonight’s reading is under the light of a not quite full moon. I’m sitting on the grounds, in the snow, and freezing my bloody fingers off just for you, dear reader! More specifically, I’m sitting atop the little hill overlooking the groundskeeper’s huts and the forest. I have a very special guest joining me for the reading tonight but they’re not much of a talker. Their name is Willow and guessing it’s more of a nickname but they communicate exclusively through interpretive dance so it’ll have to do.
I sit with the crystal ball between me and Willow and leave a long quiet moment of reflection. It’s that sort of ultra-quiet that only happens during these wintery months when everything’s covered in snow. The moonlight dances in the crystal ball and I give my silent companion a small nod before diving deep into it. Figuratively, of course. Diving into a crystal ball literally would hurt quite a lot, I’m guessing.
Anyway, I stare down into it for a long moment and my eyes unfocus and I feel myself drifting away from the world. You ever astral project? Me neither, but guessing it’s something like that. I feel myself being dragged deeper and deeper into the crystal ball’s surface until the world around me is little more than a sliver of light at the edge of my vision. For a long moment there’s nothing, just pale darkness surrounding me.
But then… I see something!
Lots of somethings, actually, and they’re sort of bouncing. There’s an energy here that I can feel deep down in my bones. A spark! Electricity! But it’s not going anywhere, it just is. It’s warm and happy and joyous.
It’s a party!
The world around me snaps back into place and I feel a bit drained and thirsty. I have a sip of tea and wonder at what I just saw before looking at Willow. Could be my imagination but the tree’s dancing stopped and it seems to have arched and is bending it’s branches towards me like it’s dying to know what I saw as well.
I’m guessing loads of you out there are saying “it’s the Winter Ball, of course it’s a bloody party” but let me do the old sit backwards on the chair and talk real with you thing for a minute. Not every Ball is the happy-go-lucky party we expect it to be. Most of you already know but many of you fresh first years don’t and someone should tell you so may as well be me.
Someone died at last year’s Yule Ball. Matvey Golovin, the Headmaster of Durmstrang Institute, was murdered by poison in our own the Great Hall. Before you panic, the murderer has been arrested and is no longer a threat to anyone but it was a tragedy that we can still feel in the castle today.
However, Golovin was not one for moping and wouldn’t want others to either. He’d rather have us celebrate his life and enjoy our time, rather than mourn his unfortunate death. At the end of the year, after Durmstrang won the tournament, I expressed my condolences and the man’s own ghost told me “we are all smiling together. It’s no time to be sorry, but to be grateful.”
And that’s what we should do.
We celebrate! We honour the man how he’d want to be honoured, with a party! We’ll celebrate and be grateful and we’ll have loads of fun doing it and if I don’t hear at least an acapella version of that bloody Bon Jovi song I might just fight someone!
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.
