October Portents

Hello and good morning my friends, family, foes and everything in between to another year of Portents. Eagle eyed readers out there might’ve noticed it’s not “Weekly” Portents anymore and that’s just because it’s not. I know you lot will miss me but absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. 

For those of you just joining me, welcome and I’m sorry for what you’re about to suffer. Portents is your one and only stop for all things grim and miserable pertaining to the future! Each issue I’ll be using whichever Divination method tickles my fancy that particular day to give you, the Hogwarts public, a reading for what to expect over the next week, month, year, and beyond! 

In addition, I have my finger on the Divinations pulse here at Hogwarts and have contacts with the super secret sect of Seers living right here in the castle so if you’re lucky you may find some interviews, comments, insights, or readings from one of their lot as well. They also keep me well informed on major prophecies or visions so I can warn you of any coming storms. 

So buckle up, dear reader, because the road into the future is rocky, full of potholes, beasties, other nastiness, and is certainly not for the faint of heart.

For my returning readers, you may recall that last year and the year before I started out with a good old fashioned tarot reading. Well, tarot’s been a bit of a bust lately so this year I’ve decided to change it up a bit and switch to scrying.


What’s scrying, you ask?

Fantastic question! The term originates from an old French word descry which means either “to see by looking carefully” or “to discover” and should not be confused with the word decry, which means something very different. It is the literal art of seeing and it works by taking some surface and looking into it, concentrating until an image finds its way into your mind. The form of scrying most folks are familiar with is the good old crystal ball but I’m partial to the scrying mirror or scrying pool, myself.

A scrying mirror isn’t a normal reflective vanity mirror like you’re thinking but rather a black piece of obsidian or slate or whatever flat and opaque dark surface you can find, really. A scrying pool is similar but involves finding a container made of some dark material and filling it with water. We then stare into the still dark surface and open our mind’s eye until we see whatever the universe wishes to show us.

The latter is what I’ll be doing tonight. Right now I’m sitting on the dock and the moon is just starting to peek over the cold mountains beyond. I’ve got a big stone bowl in my lap and I’m sitting all cross-legged, proper meditation style, as I try to clear my head and all that. I’ve filled the bowl with water from the lake and I take several deep breaths to focus. Calm, quiet, and peaceful deep breaths with the sounds of lapping water along the shore and the occasional chirping of birds off in the distance. 


And there it is. I can feel it deep within. I’m ready.

My eyes come open and I slowly look down into the bowl as the last sliver of fading orange sunlight bounces off the lake. Today I’m simply looking for some insight on what we can expect for the year to come and nothing more. A nice broad reading to start us off.

Will it be positive? Will it be negative? Will it be a clear picture of the future or some muddy allegory of things to come? 

As I’m pondering this, it happens. Everything clicks into place and I sink into the bowl of cold black water. Not literally, of course, but the world around me fizzles away into a puff of static and there is nothing else except myself and the pool of inky blackness. For a moment everything comes to a stop. Still, unmoving, silent, empty. Pure blackness all around me,

But then… something slowly takes form in that murky pool. At first it’s merely the vague amorphous shape of a dark and overcast sky but then… something jagged. Crags of rocky mountains? No… somewhat smaller. Something man-made. Buildings… ruined, destroyed, buildings reaching toward the sky bent and destroyed and twisted. Slivers of shattered glass from a million broken windows dot the earth but all is empty and still.. A desolate city or perhaps… a razed castle? 

I expect that to be the end of it and spring back to reality but I do not. I remain locked in this grim image and I spy a small vague blur of something dark in the grey rubble. It slowly comes into focus and I clearly see a single lone figure in all black walking among the ruins, looking for something but finding nothing. I can see the figure’s frustration and anger growing higher and higher as they fail to find what they seek. Then suddenly the sky is turned a deep red, but rather than a pleasant sunset it’s an angry burning red fire while the figure bends back and laughs a silent laugh toward the sky. Not a joyful, pleasant, laughter but instead that exasperated and maddened laugh of someone pushed far beyond their limit being pushed once more.

I finally blink and the pool is once again a flat black pane of still water and I’m back on the docks. Night has fallen now and I take a deep breath as I try to work through what I’ve seen. Does the figure represent us or our enemy? Perhaps, in some strange way, both? Is the destroyed structure a glimpse of things to come or an echo from the past?

At this point I feel I should stop and address the lot of you new readers before you start panicking and tearing the bloody castle apart, screaming that the sky is falling. These things certainly can be literal but are often metaphorical. It’s possible the ruined buildings represent your social group and the searching figure’s your struggle to find meaningful connections with others. Or could be the ruined city is your irritable stomach after a haggis-binge and the figure represents your… well, I’ll just let you work out that one for yourself, yeah?

There’s loads of interpretations for these things, especially when asking something so vague and far reaching. To top it all off, the future can be fickle. Even when we see a perfect vision of the future that we’re absolutely sure will come true, we can still be wrong. After all, there are an infinite number of moving parts between now and the future and things are rarely set in stone. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-whatever and so on. Sorry to those out there who wanted a crystal clear peek into the future but the only Divination method that lets you do that is simply waiting until the future becomes the present. 

Anyway, the best thing to do regardless how literal you take this is just prepare yourself and all that. Practise your defensive spellwork, go make a new friend, limit your haggis intake, etc. Focus on what you can change and the rest is someone else’s problem, innit?

Right, well that’s a lovely way to start the year, yeah? I promise they’re not all this nasty. Not typically, anyhow, just sometimes. So with any luck I’ll see you lot in the future! Until next time, dear readers. 

-Riven Redwhisper

Do you have an alternative interpretation, questions, comments, or want your own questions read on Weekly Portents!? Send me an owl and you could be featured in a future article!! (https://forms.gle/m1uzjiPjft5UpD8e7)