Divination

The classroom that Trelawney brought Danil to looked even stranger than the previous one. Although this time, this strangeness was expected, it was a pleasant change even.

Instead of a stuffy and claustrophobic massandra, filled with more furniture than it could ever logically fit, this room felt more open, though it wasn't much larger. The wide windows and high ceiling allowed Danil to see more and not walk around doubled over.

There were many cupboards – practically littered against the walls – filled with various items: crystal balls, tarot cards, candles, coffee and tea bags, small sandbags that lay next to long sticks and amulets. There was even a separate shelf for runestones. One cabinet was completely filled with a variety of dishes and seemed to go into the wall for a couple of meters to keep everything inside.

On the walls, in places where it would be difficult to close them with cabinets, there were maps of the starry sky and a couple of posters that showed the paths of chi that went through the body of a person and several magical animals.

Danil noticed that the more he looked around, the more the locations of various objects took on meaning, destroying the first impression of a large but sloppy office. Each item stood here exactly where it would be most convenient to reach it.

"So, what are you really going to teach me?" Danil asked, looking at the insane number of books that lay in a pile in one of the corners of the room.

"Right now? Nothing. We still have more important things to do than that." Trelawny took out her wand from somewhere and began twirling it between her fingers like a toy. "First we need to find out which magic loves you the most!" She announced and threw up her hands to the sides, as if she had now revealed to Danil a secret of universal scale.

"Pardon?"

The woman immediately deflated, seeing his confusion.

"Come on! Haven't you ever read that magic is partly intelligent?" She asked hopefully.

"Oh, that... I've seen several theories, but I didn't attach much importance to them." Danil scratched his head in embarrassment. "I thought it would be better to come to my own conclusions and beliefs about what exactly magic is. To kkep my world will be a little wider, you know?"

Sighing again, the woman waved her wand towards the table and a dozen identical boxes appeared on it. There was a feeling that they jumped out from inside the table, and before that they were just sitting and waiting for their moment to shine.

Seeing her pupil's questioning gaze on her, Trelawny began to explain.

"It's pretty simple: each of these boxes contains something related to a certain type of divination. Whether it's a tarot card, a cat bone, a crystal ball or something else, each of these items is old and contains very strong magic." The woman stopped and waited for a nod from Danil to check if he was listening.

"But the boxes they are in are even more special. By themselves, they are not very useful, their enchantments only allow them to be used as magnets. But with a couple of changes, we get..." Trelawny stretched out her hand to the table and seven boxes immediately disappeared back inside the table, leaving seven more on the surface.

"You created a predisposition detector for different types of magic?" Danil asked in surprise, but the woman just shook her head.

"Ha! For creating a talent detector, I would have been given Orden of Merlin, First Class! These are just fourteen boxes that respond to magic used around them." One more wave of the wand and all the boxes were back on the table. "If I tried this method with all kinds and subspecies of magic, there would be hundreds of thousands of such boxes."

Danil thought it made sense. Otherwise, someone would have already created a magical talent detector and children would be trained according to their talents from birth. And that already sounded like something sinful.

"And now direct your magic towards the table, those boxes that remain will be useless to you. But those that disappear will be your friends for the rest of your life."

For a moment, he did not understand why exactly those who would disappear would be able to help him, but he quickly realized his mistake. "Right. Magnets."

If his magic was predisposed to some sort of divination, then those boxes would repel like magnets with the same polarity.

Stretching his hand forward, Danil let his magic surge from under his skin and into the world. For a second, nothing happened, but then three black boxes disappeared at once, making him blink in surprise.

"Hmm, not the worst result, much better than nothing. Most students at Hogwarts don't have even a modicum of talent in Divination, having you at three from the start is a good result." Trelawney nodded and waved her wand again, leaving only those three boxes on the table.

"From the start? Are you saying that I can develop talents in my magic from scratch?" He asked with interest.

Trelawny looked at him like he was an idiot. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. How do you think early wix developed future talents for their bloodlines? Our internal magic changes after using one branch or another for a long time, making it possible to transfer talents to the next generation."

Touching each box with her wand, Trelawney pushed Danil closer and let him decide where to start.

"Are you ready to see your future?" The woman asked, almost jumping on the spot with excitement. It seemed that she wanted to know about his talents even more than he did.

Danil nodded in response, opening the first box and looking inside. Inside there was a skull of some bird, lying on the crossed bones, stared at him with empty eyes.

"Bone divination! It's been a while since we've had Spatalamancy practitioners. It's not one of my strengths, I'm afraid." Trelawney commented.

Remembering all the bones, both human and animal, that he pulled out of the catacombs, Danil could breathe a sigh of relief. At least here he will have no problems finding suitable materials.

In the second box was a golden tarot card - the Fool was spinning and spinning on the image of the card, showing his tongue to Danil, as soon as he noticed that they were looking at him.

"Can't say I'm surprised." Daniel confessed. "My grandfather told me that my mother had a talent with tarot cards."

"Many wix have connections with tarot cards." Trelawney said. "This is the most popular type of divination, after all."

Opening the third box, both student and teacher leaned back to avoid being hit by a column of fire that erupted from within. At the bottom of the box lay a small fire made of seven fiery red pieces of wood that never stopped burning.

"Pyromancy and possibly Tuphramancy. Not bad at all boy, you're already showing great promise. You've been particularly lucky with the combination of Pyromancy and Bone Divination, if you learn how to combine the two branches, your predictions will become clearer."

"Blasted insane wizards..." Danil muttered as he patted his chest to extinguish the flame that jumped onto his clothes.

After closing all the boxes and putting them away for the next time, Trelawney looked thoughtfully at the monster boy.

"So where would you rather start?" She asked, giving him a choice.

For Danil, it was not a difficult choice at all. Between bones, fire and cards, it was easy to take something familiar and start seriously studying it. At least it was much easier than trying to study cracked bones.

"Tarot cards are what I have the most experience with. Let's go with that."

Nodding in agreement, Trelawney turned to the other end of the room, where a mountain of books lay, and walked towards it.

"Then that's where we'll start." The woman picked up some book from the floor and threw it on the table, allowing Danil to read the title [Secrets of Arcana and visions of the future].

"Keep this book to yourself and read it when you have free time. Now sit down, it's time to talk about the nature of tarot card predictions."

Two hours later, Danil left the office with a superficial understanding of the meaning of each tarot card and how exactly their appearance should be interpreted. He will have to buy a deck of cards himself, or make them from scratch so that his unique magic imprints on the cards.

Danil obviously chose to do everything himself, and at the same time use this chance to check out the crafting table with Luna. Maybe she wants to make her own deck.

Watching her student's retreating back, Trelawney frowned, placing a finger to her chin. "I feel like I forgot to tell him something... Oh, well."

If she forgot, it didn't matter that much. In any case, they will meet next Wednesday at the same time.