An Unexpected Visit to the Curious Chimaera [Closed]

[Cassandra Lockwood]

Cassandra Lockwood had set out from Hogwarts late in the afternoon and into Diagon Alley for some shopping. After going through all of the items in her Divination classroom, she had decided to replace some of the really worn or broken objects: a few crystal orbs, a few tea cups for tasseography, those kinds of things. Her lessons were over for the day, so she was free to spend as much time as she needed.

It ended up not taking long to find the items she desired, but due to the heavy restrictions on travel to and from Hogwarts, she had to head back to the castle in a very round-about way. This required her to head down the end of Knockturn Alley, a place she had truthfully never visited before. She was not afraid but did feel rather inapposite in this sinister place. As she was reaching the cross streets, a sudden gust of cold September wind threatened to nearly knock her over. She clutched at her small decorative hat to keep it on her head and the wind kept blowing, roaring deafeningly against her ears. It caused scraps of trash to whip by and her legs to be nearly sand blasted with dirt. Looking urgently around for shelter, she spotted what appeared to be a bar or cafe on the corner and made her way quickly to the door. She had to fight to wrench it open against the force of the wind, dashing quickly inside once it was open far enough and jerking the edges of her simple black robes against her to keep them from being caught up as it slammed shut behind her.

She exhaled in relief to be safely inside, the sound of the wind drowned out now that the door was closed. She glanced once over her shoulder to the darkening alley behind her before assessing the cozy interior of this establishment. It was clearly a bar, but Cassie could smell coffee as well. There were only a few patrons, although she was sure that would change soon since the dinner hour was approaching. Being a woman of class, she had been taught that it wasn’t appropriate for women to sit at bars (alcoholics and prostitutes sat at bars - everyone else sat at tables) but there was a formidable looking group of goblins taking up the tables in the corner so she decided “to hell with formality” and took an empty seat at a stool at the counter, setting her small bag down on the counter as she did so. A young man stood behind the counter, and she assumed him to be the barkeep or perhaps the proprietor himself. She would get a coffee or tea while she waited for the wind to die down and then would be back on her way to Hogwarts.

[Malachi Lee]

Business was always slower during the later part of the afternoon. Not that Mal minded the lull period one bit, for it was a welcome break before the long night ahead of him. Still, the Curious Chimaera was a little livelier than usual, thanks to the group of goblins who came in for a spot of snakeweed tea two hours ago and hadn’t left yet. Slightly shady characters, the lot of them, but they knew better than to cause any trouble for Mal. There was simply no point making an enemy out of an information broker.

As he was attending to other chores behind the bar counter, he heard the door open – or more specifically, the roar of the wind outside. The sound was loud enough to drown out the gentle tinkling of the small bell above the café’s entrance that would otherwise have alerted him to the arrival of a new customer. Quickly he wrapped up whatever he was doing, just as someone strode over to the counter.

“Welcome to the Curious Chimaera!” he greeted the customer before him with a bright smile. He didn’t recognise the lady before him, which could mean a few things. The simplest and most likely explanation was that she rarely – or never – visited Diagon Alley. “Would you like some hot coffee or tea to warm yourself up?” he offered. Given the blustery wind outside, there was no need for him to use his natural Legilimency to guess what she might have fancied. Most likely she had had came into the Chimaera to seek refuge from the weather. Simultaneously, a menu magically slid itself within reach of the lady. Should she chose to peruse it, she would find within its pages a wide variety of beverages, including herbal and floral teas, as well as a fine selection of sandwiches, breads, pastries and cakes to satisfy both sweet and savoury cravings.

“I can’t say I’ve seen you before. What brings you around these parts, if you don’t mind me asking?” Mal began, hoping to strike up a conversation with the lady and learn more about her. After all, it was in his interest as both an information broker and the proprietor of the Curious Chimaera to get to know his customers better.

[Cassandra Lockwood]

As soon as the young man turned his attention upon her, Cassandra could tell that he was different… special. Although descending from a line of Seers, Cassandra found that most of her ability manifested in the form of feelings and hunches rather than actually seeing images. She felt that this person before her possessed abilities beyond those of typical magic. It wasn’t uncommon for magic-folk to have extra talents, but it certainly wasn’t something you encountered every day.

She smiled back at his warm welcome, immediately feeling more relaxed. “Yes, please,” she said in response to his inquiry of her drink preference. “Black tea; one sugar.” She moved her elbow to make room on the clean countertop as the menu politely sidled forward. Glancing down, she was surprised to see how many items were listed - and not just the usual pub fare of breaded and fried meats with chips. She looked up again when he asked about the reason for her visit and smiled playfully. “Well, you’ve caught me,” she said with a little guilty-as-charged shrug, for she would have continued right on by the Curious Chimaera if it hadn’t been for the unexpected turn of the weather. “I was passing through but that horrible wind practically pushed me right in.” Laughing a little she continued, “I’m actually new to the area and doing a little shopping. I just arrived at Hogwarts last week. I’ll be teaching Divination this school year… Cassandra Lockwood; it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She almost reached out to invite him to shake her hand but held back thinking he might not want to touch hands while preparing a drink - even if the drink was for her.

[Malachi Lee]

Even before looking at the menu, the lady already knew what she wanted: black tea with a cube of sugar. Confident and decisive, and comfortable with a simple and classic choice. “Coming right up,” Mal acknowledged with a nod and got to work. Reaching for one of the tea tins that lined the shelf behind him, he opened it and added a generous scoop of tea leaves into an elegant white porcelain teapot. Next, he poured in hot water – not boiling, but just a touch cooler – and allowed the tea to steep for a couple of minutes. Good things take time, and a proper cup of tea was no exception.

While waiting, Mal asked the lady about what had brought her to this part of London, and she admitted that the wind had practically pushed her into his café, and that she was new to the area. He nodded as he took all of her words in; as an information broker he knew better than to take anything he was told at face value, though she did seem genuinely sincere and had no reason to be deceptive. She then introduced herself as Cassandra, and revealed to his surprise that she was the new Divination professor at Hogwarts.

“The pleasure is mine,” he replied, instinctively extending his hand to offer her a handshake… but froze for a second. Belatedly it struck him that perhaps he had inadvertently sensed Cassandra’s thoughts and acted upon them as though they were his own. “Malachi Lee,” he quickly added, hoping to smooth out the awkward moment. “But please, just call me Mal.”

The aroma of black tea signalled to Mal that the tea was ready. Pouring it out into a white porcelain cup, he disabled the spell placed on the teapot that would strain away the tea leaves, before serving it as per Cassandra’s order and with a cookie on the side. “Please, enjoy your tea,” he said as he set the cup before Cassandra. “By the way, I’ve left the tea leaves in the cup, just in case you’d like to take a reading. That’s a request I occasionally get from some of my customers with a knack for Tessomancy.”

“I am, unfortunately, hopeless at it. And pretty much anything to do with Divination, in fact,” Mal confessed sheepishly. “I failed my Divination class quite spectacularly back when I was a student at Hogwarts.”

[Cassandra Lockwood]

Aware of the slightly awkward ‘do we shake hands; do we not shake hands’ moment, Cassandra found herself once again taking mental note that she should have followed through with her instincts rather than letting rational thought get in the way. It was a tough line to follow sometimes.

“Pleased to meet you, Mal,” she said instead with a smile and nod after he introduced himself, being sure to use his preferred name. He seemed to be taking special note of her, and she wondered if he was the business owner. An owner would have more of an interest in getting to know his customers than a general employee. Of course, she had no idea he moonlighted as an information broker. Letting the idle thought go, she settled into her seat as he began preparing her tea.

It actually came as a surprise to her when Mal said he had left the tea leaves in should she wish to do a self-reading. No one had ever offered to prepare it that way for her before, but then again, she’d never introduced herself as a professor of Divination before. “Thank you. That was very considerate of you,” she said and listened while he explained that he had failed Divination when he had taken it as a student at Hogwarts. It made her sad because she could tell he was quite bright, and she believed that while true Seers (the ones who were able to accurately prophesize significant societal events) did need to be born, intuition and the ability to see how the future will unfold were traits that could be cultivated by anyone. She was a new teacher, and for the first time she found herself wondering if she would have to fail any of her students. She certainly hoped not, but it begged the question of how she would handle students who felt they had no talent for the subject. Having to fail anyone would feel like a personal failure on her part, not theirs.

While she waited for the tea to cool a little more, she took another look at the menu and ordered a turkey sandwich, although many of the items looked delicious. “The food looks so good, I think I’ll eat here and not have to worry about missing dinner in the Great Hall,” she explained. “It takes so long to get to and from the school with all the added security.”

Still partially distracted by her disappointment that this seemingly fine young man had had an unpleasant experience with Divination, she started to drink her tea but then stopped as she had a thought. “Tell you what. If you have a moment, there’s something I’d like to show you.” It wasn’t busy in the hybrid establishment, but she didn’t want to assume there weren’t other matters he needed to be attending to. Taking up her small bag, she reached her whole hand into it, a dead giveaway that it was charmed to hold much larger contents than it appeared capable of holding. She pulled out a saucer and teacup similar to the one already before her, except this cup contained various symbols arranged in a checked fashion all across the inside of it. Noticing the sets of teacups in the Divination classroom were unmarked (for a more traditional reading), she had decided to pick up a few types of teacups that were designed specifically for Tessomancy. “This is just one example of the different types of cup markings that can help aid in a Tessomancy reading,” she explained as she pushed the cup forward so he could take a closer look at the symbols if he wanted.



“Traditional Tessomancy can be quite complicated,” she continued. “You might remember from your Divination class that it requires memorizing areas of the cup which indicate past, present, and future, as well as being able to interpret the symbols created by the tea dregs. While those are important things for a serious Diviner to know, the level of technicality can be off-putting to those learning. That’s why I picked up a few of these cups today. The symbols are already drawn out, and so all the reader has to do is determine where the majority of the dregs are landing and then interpret the symbols from there.” Using her wand, she poured the contents of the cup Mal had given her into the Tessomancy cup. “I’m hoping to expose my students to more modern Divination practices that might pique genuine interest.” Putting her wand away, she picked up the cup and sampled the tea. Although it was quite sweet from the added sugar (Cassandra did have a sweet tooth), she could tell the black tea was quality. It tasted bright and flavorful.

“Delicious,” she complimented as she looked back up at Mal.

[Malachi Lee]

Cassandra was noticeably downcast as Mal mentioned his abysmal Divination grade, a telltale sign of her empathetic nature. She’d make a good professor, of that he was certain.

Abruptly the barista sensed a change in the mood in the café as the goblins’ discussion dropped from soft chatter to hushed whispers. He looked across the café in time to see one of them casting an anti-eavesdropping charm around their table. Another goblin waved at him, before pointing to the now-empty teapot and then holding up one finger. Looks like they’ll be here for quite a while more, Mal thought as he reached for the tin of tea leaves and summoned another teapot. At the same time, he saw Cassandra taking another glance at the menu, and was pleasantly surprised when she decided to place an order for a turkey sandwich.

“Right, it’ll be ready in just a moment,” Mal acknowledged. While he waited for the tea to steep, he proceeded to prepare Cassandra’s order. Taking out his wand, he magically toasted the two slices of bread and crisped a few slices of bacon. Usually his staff, who were generally less proficient in food-related charms as compared to him, would use an oven. For Mal, however, it was much faster this way, and he had fine-tuned the spell so that the taste and texture wouldn’t be compromised. “The tight security is an inconvenience that we’ll just have to bear with,” Mal said as he worked quickly. “Still, I’d say the peace of mind is worth the trouble.” He kept his comments brief and avoided mentioning the Second Wizarding War; that was probably too heavy a topic for this time of the day.

With the bread nicely toasted and the bacon crisped, all that was left was to assemble the sandwich. With a quick practiced motion he buttered one slice of bread, and spread a generous helping of port and cranberry sauce on the other. Onto one of the slices of bread he added the turkey, Swiss cheese and bacon, before finishing off with some sliced tomatoes and lettuce leaves, and the other slice of bread. All that was left now was to cut the assembled sandwich into two, which Mal did with a deft stroke of a knife.

Mal plated up the sandwich and presented it to Cassandra. “Please, enjoy,” Right then, the tea for the goblins was ready as well. Rather than serving it to them in person, he opted to give the goblins the privacy they wanted, and instead magically floated the teapot to their table.

With the goblins’ order fulfilled, he was able to turn his full attention to Cassandra again, who asked if he had a moment to spare. “Sure,” he nodded, and watched as the Divination professor produced a saucer and a teacup from her bag. Immediately he noticed the numerous symbols on the inside of the cup, though he wasn’t sure what they meant.

While studying the symbols within the cup, he listened intently to Cassandra’s explanation, and nodded slowly as fragmented and hazy memories of his Divination lessons slowly came back to him. He remembered how difficult it was to memorise all the different areas of the cup and what they represented, which in turn impeded his ability to understand the subject. There was also the matter of his poorer control over his natural Legilimency back then. He was never able to empty his mind properly, given the cacophony of thoughts from his classmates that would have drowned out any insights into the future that he might have otherwise been able to detect. Closing his mind off didn’t work either, because that would also prevent him from sensing anything in the first place.

“If only my Divination professor had thought to use a cup like this one,” Mal said as he marvelled at how useful the cup was. “Back then, many of us were already worried that we would do poorly in class because we weren’t blessed with the gift to see into the future. The sheer amount of memorisation that we had to do just made it worse.” He shook his head and sighed. Alas, he was not meant to be a Seer, but his talents lay elsewhere anyway. Gesturing to the cup, which Cassandra had just filled with tea, he continued, “Special tools like this cup will go a long way towards making Divination a lot more approachable and interesting for the average student. Your students are really lucky to have you as their professor.”

He smiled as Cassandra complimented him on the tea. “Thank you. Not to brag, but we take immense pride in serving up food and drinks that are certain to delight the senses. After all, good food is one of life’s greatest yet simplest pleasures.”

Suddenly, Mal recalled something that he had seen in the newspapers not too long ago. There was something that he would like to discuss with Cassandra, but now was not the right time to do so; he would need to nudge the conversation in the right direction first. “If you don’t mind… would you be willing to teach me Tessomancy?” he asked. “I’d like to make up for my poor grades in Divination all those years ago.”

[Cassandra Lockwood]

“Yes, I completely agree,” she put in quickly when Mal mentioned the inconvenience of added security being worth the fact that at least they were safe. It was such an exhausting and heavy topic, though, that she didn’t elaborate any further. The smells of cooking soon filled the air and she found herself eagerly awaiting the meal, only taking casual notice of the goblins behind her. They seemed somewhat shady, but Cassandra didn’t get the sense they were a danger to her.

She smiled as the well-crafted sandwich was set before her. [color=#blueviolet]“Thank you so much. It smells heavenly,”[/color] she complimented as she unfurled the accompanying napkin and placed it on her lap. Watching him prepare the food had made her realize how hungry she was. After she had shown him the cup and filled it with the tea, she couldn’t help the grin that broke out across her face as he seemed in wholehearted agreement with her teaching approach. It was nice to have the validation. “That’s certainly what I hope will happen,” she said in response to his observation that the cup would help make the subject of Divination more accessible to the students. “There is a time and place for memorization and hard facts, but I don’t think Divination needs to be one of them. Creative visionaries need to be cultivated as well - at least that is my opinion.”

She tucked into her sandwich after complimenting the tea. She had expected the sandwich would be served cold and so found herself enjoying the warmth and extra flavor of the crispy bread and bacon. When Mal came back over to her, she wiped her hands on the napkin and dabbed carefully at her lipsticked mouth with it, pausing mid-dab in surprise at his revelation of wanting to learn Tessomancy. “Well Mal, of course I’d be delighted to,” she began as she set the napkin down. She laughed lightly. “You’ll forgive me, but I must admit you’ve taken me completely by surprise. I was going to offer you a demonstration once I’d finished my tea, but I figured you’d only agree to watch out of politeness.” His explanation that he wanted to make up for his failing grade back in his Hogwarts days didn’t ring true to her, but she kept quiet. It wasn’t her business, and she didn’t want to scare him off by asking unnecessary questions. Instead, she picked up the cup and said, “I guess I should finish this.” It had started to go cold - a consequence of the thin porcelain cup. She was about to reach for her wand, but Mal beat her to it, casting a silent water-heating spell that instantly heated the tea back up. She tipped the cup toward him in thanks and then proceeded to carefully drink the rest of the hot fluid until only the tea dregs and a little tea was left. “I’ll show you a few things now and then you can let me know what you had in mind for lessons… and please don’t worry about payment.” She added this realizing that the word ‘lesson’ might carry with it connotations of a business transaction. “I’m happy to share my skills with anyone willing to learn.”

“Okay, let’s begin. First, you swirl your cup a little to distribute the dregs so they don’t all end up at the bottom,” she explained, demonstrating the movement. “There’s no rule to it; whatever feels right.” When finished, she set the cup down between them and pushed it a few inches toward Mal. “Now, take a look and identify which symbols seem to have the most tea collected on them. You can use your want to move the tea out of your way if you can't see the symbol. And I usually pick three to five symbols, although you can pick as little or as many as makes sense to you.”

[Malachi Lee]

As Cassandra talked about how divination was not about memorisation and hard facts, and how creative visionaries needed to be cultivated, Mal nodded wholeheartedly. Maybe because he was a Ravenclaw himself, but he never believed in rote memorisation, and instead felt that learning was more effective if one was able to ‘join the dots’, so to speak, and see the connections and relationships between concepts.

Seeing Cassandra enjoying the sandwich filled Mal’s heart with joy. It was alway comforting to know that a customer was satisfied with the food and drinks served at the Curious Chimaera. In this crazy world full of worries and troubles, a delicious snack and a drink was sometimes all it took for one to ground themself, and Mal liked to think of his establishment as a safe haven for the world weary to rest up for a short while.

When Mal asked Cassandra if she would be willing to teach him Tessomancy, she seem a little surprised, but gladly acceded to his request. But of course, the first thing she would need to do would be to finish the last of the tea, which was already turning cold. Noticing that the professor was about to reach for her wand, Mal guessed that she was going to magically heat up her tea, and swiftly helped her out.

Soon, the tea was finished, and the lesson began in earnest. Following Cassandra’s directions, Mal picked up the cup and inspected it. There were several patches of tea leaves clinging on to the sides and the bottom, obscuring some of the symbols from him. At the same time he could see other symbols clearly, most prominently the four-leaf clover at the bottom of the cup. That was probably a symbol of good fortune, and it did not seem like a good thing for it to have no tea leaves on it.

But there was no use in obsessing over that. Aiming his wand at the largest patch of dregs, he magically lifted them off the side of the cup to reveal the first of the three symbols that they would use for the reading. “A snake,” he announced as he returned the dregs to their original position, covering up the snake again. “That doesn’t seem like a good start, does it?”

There were still two more symbols to go, and more chances that fate would be kinder to them. This time, the symbol that was revealed was a butterfly, and while he had some ideas about what it could mean, they were wild guesses at best. “Let me guess… does the butterfly represent change, rebirth, or success after a long struggle?” He shook his head and chuckled at how silly his guesses must have sounded to Cassandra. “Am I even on the right track?”

Finally, he searched the cup for the third-largest concentration of dregs, and found his eyes drawn to an almost crescent-shaped patch. A small ring-like shape was peeking out from behind the dregs. Once more, he magically lifted up the dregs, and found himself looking at a pair of scissors. “Scissors, butterfly, and snake,” he said, listing down the three symbols that they would use to divine the future. With the symbols thus identified, he put down the cup and looked to Cassandra for further guidance.

[Cassandra Lockwood]

Cassandra folded her hands on the table in front of her and watched quietly as Mal picked the symbols. The first one was the snake. There’s that snake again, she thought to herself, although her outward expression remained neutral. She’d been getting a lot of snakes in her readings lately. When he asked if that wasn’t considered a good start, she just smiled a little and waved her hand to indicate to move on to the next one. He was right, though, of course. The snake was generally an ominous sign, and Cassandra knew it kept occurring because she was distracted and at times even worried about the person who had sent her a threatening message on her first day at Hogwarts. However, she found it was easiest when just getting started to get all your symbols together first and then start interpreting them.

The butterfly was next. Cassandra nodded and smiled at Mal’s guess. “That’s very good,” she confirmed with a nod. “Go on.”

With the final symbol - scissors - revealed, it was time to move on to the interpretation. She prefaced the reading with a bit of an explanation of her own. “I think that one thing the act of prophesying has taught Diviners over the ages is that prophecies are never what they seem. There tends to be so much room for interpretation that it’s enough to cause one to question what, if anything, fate really is.” Cassandra could now feel the eyes of the goblins on her back as she spoke quietly to Mal. She pushed on, though, unafraid. She wasn’t telling Mal anything she wouldn’t tell a classroom full of students even if it did look like they were doing some conspiring of their own over at the counter. She had half a mind to call the creatures over, for she believed everyone could benefit from learning divining methods, and they could learn a lot more from actual participation than eavesdropping. However, she was like so many other witches and wizards in that she was wary of goblins and their reputation, so she said nothing.

“I say this because traditional divining tends to deal with positives and negatives. So you have a pile of symbols over here that are ‘good’,” she gestured to an imaginary pile on the counter in front of her, “and you have a pile of symbols over here that are ‘bad’.” She moved her hands over to the other side of the counter to indicate another group, completely separate from the first one. “But what we find in our everyday existence is that things can be both good and bad, and sometimes what seems bad can end up being good, and the other way around. Take the snake, for example.” She gestured to the small symbol in the cup. “Snakes can be seen as cunning and sneaky. However, they are also a symbol of power and transformation - probably one amongst many reasons why Voldemort chose this as his symbol. If you were to look up the meaning of the snake symbol, you would also find some cultures view them as symbols of fertility and renewal - because of the fact that snakes shed their skin.”

“Butterfly,” she continued, “is a little harder to see the negative side of - for me anyway. You did a good job of outlining Butterfly’s traditional symbolism, and let me assure you that you are definitely on the right track. Butterfly symbolizes positive transformation after a dark period, beauty following on the tails of ugly, creative expression, that sort of thing… but she can also symbolize vanity and attention to appearance over all else.” Even though they were out of her sight since she had her back turned to them, Cassandra could feel the goblins losing interest in her conversation with the barkeep as the topic moved to butterflies. The feeling of having eyes on her back was lessening, anyway.

[color=#blueviolet]“Now, what about scissors?”[/color] she asked, inviting Mal to lend his opinion. “What sort of ideas and imagery are conjured up for you when you think of what scissors symbolize? Since this reading is for me, I will then show you how I typically conduct a reading for someone I’ve never met before. Oh, and feel free to add any other thoughts you might have had about the two previous symbols as I’ve talked.”

[Malachi Lee]

With all three symbols revealed, Cassandra first explaining that there was much room for interpretation when it came to prophecies, and how symbols could have both a positive and negative meaning associated with them. Her elaboration on what snakes represented was of particular interest to Mal, although he wasn’t sure if he was reading too much into it.

He was a little surprised when Cassandra assured him that his wild guess about what the butterfly might have symbolised wasn’t as wild as he had thought. And when she asked him about the pair of scissors, nothing useful came to mind… except for a superstition that his parents told him about once. “I’m not sure if this is a universal belief, but in Korean culture, it’s a taboo to gift someone a pair of scissors or a knife or anything sharp because it symbolises the severing of the relationship. I reckon a pair of scissors would symbolise the cutting off of another person, be it a friend, a benefactor, or a bad influence?” But there was something else that he had heard about that might be related. “There's also this idea of a Red Thread of Fate that ties together two people who are destined to marry each other,” he continued. “The thread may get tangled or stretched, but some people say that it will never ever break. Others argue that it takes a special pair of scissors that belongs to a powerful deity to defy fate and cut the thread.”

“As for the snake… I’m not sure if this means anything, but according to the Korean Zodiac I was born in the Year of the Snake,” Mal revealed with a little shrug. “Based on my limited knowledge, people born in the Year of the Snake are charming and intuitive, but secretive, cunning, jealous and possessive. Doesn't sound all that positive if you ask me.” That was unfortunately the extent of his knowledge of his Korean Zodiac sign, since his parents were first generation immigrants who were raised in the United States and thus were already somewhat detached from their own culture to begin with. “I’m not sure how true that is, because I assure you I am not the jealous or possessive sort,” he added with a laugh.

[Cassandra Lockwood]

She sat back and listened as Mal gave his insights on scissors as a symbol. She was impressed with his ability to draw on his cultural influences. She nodded in agreement with his statements. “That is very interesting. I hadn’t heard about the Red Thread of Fate. But, yes, the severing of a relationship - whether good or bad - is the first thing I think of as well when it comes to scissors.”

She laughed when Mal expressed that being born under the sign of the snake did not carry many positive traits, and she shrugged it off. “It’s what we make of it, I suppose,” she said, choosing not to argue with him about his self-assessment. Her naturally maternal nature made her quick to see the bright side of things and want others to see it too, but she recognized that not everyone valued holding a cheery attitude the way she did. The last thing she wanted was to come across as naive or annoying. “If the Korean zodiac is anything like that of Western culture, the sign we identify as is only one of many signs we are born under when we come into this world. This explains why most people don’t fully identify with their zodiac sign. It’s only one small piece of the whole picture.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “now that we’ve brainstormed a bit about the symbols, we are ready to move on to the reading itself. Your having chosen three symbols sets us up beautifully for a past/present/future reading.” She waved her wand and reproduced an image of a snake, a butterfly, and a pair of scissors in smokey white vapors that floated a few inches above the countertop. “Since you identified the snake first, we’ll assign that as the Past with the butterfly as the present and scissors as the future. So, if I were doing this reading for someone else, I would be thinking that this is a person who has dealt with a betrayal in the past - or perhaps a silent threat. Seers and folks experienced with Divination use their intuition to help them pinpoint the meanings, so I wouldn’t do a rundown of every meaning I can think of; just the stuff that seems meaningful at the time. It’s also helpful to use the other symbols as clues to guide the story. Since we have a butterfly indicating the present, I might say that this person has been positively transformed and is ready to go out and shine in the world.”

She flicked her wand again and the symbol of the scissors rose a few inches higher than the others. “Now we are left with the future, which is of course what everyone is most interested in. Scissors gives us the ominous clue that someone is going to get cut out of the relationship, but we aren’t sure if this is going to be a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing. It might even be that the person we’re doing the reading for is going to be the one cut out of a relationship. The one thing we can count on, though, is that all of these symbols are related and tell a story in context of each other, so my best guess in this situation would be that our sitter, which is me I guess-” a little laugh, “has grown and transformed enough to be able to cut ties with whatever it was from the past that represents the snake.” She dropped her wand hand in finale, causing the effervescent symbols to disappear in a swirl as she looked across the counter at Mal. “What do you think?” she asked, inviting him to give his own take on the story.

[Malachi Lee]

Perhaps because scissors were a man-made object with a singular purpose and thus was less open to interpretation, Mal’s guess – which was based on his limited knowledge of Korean culture – had been right. And when Cassandra mentioned how one’s zodiac sign was but a small piece of the puzzle, he nodded in agreement. He could only presume that the Korean zodiac, with its numerous intricacies and interactions with other concepts such as the Five Elements system, would be similar to its western counterpart. (Not that he knew much about all those other systems that were linked to the Korean zodiac; there was even some crackpot ‘theory’ about how blood types could affect one's personality!) At the end of the day, however, Mal still identified more with his western zodiac sign, and that was something he was a lot more familiar and comfortable with.

As he listened to Cassandra’s interpretation of the three symbols in terms of how they related to events in the past, present and future, he could see a coherent story coming together in his head. It was a familiar process: as a child he had done something similar when he tried to piece together the life stories of people he met based on his observations and whatever his natural Legilimency was able to sense.

As Cassandra asked him for his opinion on the interpretation, he mentally looked through the branching scenarios he had in his mind, pruning off the less plausible parts until he had something that seemed to make the most sense. What he had was generally speaking similar to what Cassandra had described as well. “It sounds right to me. A malefactor from the past, a transformation – most likely the sitter’s transformation”—because the scissors wouldn’t make any sense if it was the malefactor who had changed—“and the severing of a relationship, which I’m guessing is the relationship between the sitter and their malefactor.”

But there might be a different interpretation for the pair of scissors. Specifically, the relation that was to be severed in the future could be a good or a bad one. “Alternatively, could the scissors represent the severing of a positive relationship?” he suggested. “In this scenario, I would assume that the malefactor was angered by the sitter’s transformation, and thus has returned once more to antagonise the sitter by severing a relationship that is important to them. But that’s just a thought off the top of my head. Without any knowledge of the sitter, I wouldn’t know if that is a possible interpretation.”

[Cassandra Lockwood]

As Mal asked about the possibility of the severance being with a positive relationship, Cassandra found herself looking down at the counter, her head tilted at an angle with eyebrows slightly raised in realization. It was true that the hardest person for a Seer to do a reading on was him- or herself. Remaining objective in regards to oneself was a tricky skill, so Cassandra was glad that Mal had made an alternate suggestion for what the symbols could mean. She couldn’t help her thoughts going immediately to her estranged son. Surely this couldn’t be the relationship that was meant to be severed? Or perhaps it was just that she wanted so badly for it not to be true that she wouldn’t allow herself to consider the possibility? She hadn’t heard from her son since early summer, though. The relationship was already practically severed.

She looked back over at Mal as she forced her thoughts back to the present. She offered him a little smile and a nod. “Yes, that is certainly another possible scenario.” She paused for a moment and then added, “and one that might make more sense now that I’m considering the reading from that angle. Truthfully, these symbols have been coming up for me a lot lately. That and birds.” She gave a little laugh. “But I’d always taken scissors to mean the severance of an unwanted relationship. Anyway,-” she inhaled and sat up a little straighter, “I hope that gives you an idea of how tasseography is done. Like anything, practice is the key to getting the hang of it.”

Noticing that it was getting later, and the wind storm had passed a while ago, Cassandra began gathering up her things. She used her wand to Scourgify her teacup and then waved it back into her tiny handbag. “Thank you again for the nice meal and the company, Mal. I’d better get back to the castle. Would you like me to come back another time for another reading? I can do a reading for you if you’d like.”

[Malachi Lee]

What Mal had intended as an innocent comment about how the scissors could represent the severing of either a negative or positive relationship seemed to have hit a nail on the head. The slight change in Cassandra’s expression and posture was all it took for the bartender to detect that something was amiss. There was something else too… a sense of longing, and based on the topic of their conversation Mal presumed that it was someone dear to the professor, like a family member or a close friend. He had seen more than his fair share of people trying to come to terms with something bad. To Cassandra’s credit, she had maintained her composure throughout and betrayed but the barest hint of her distress, despite how much it must have hurt. After all, people tended to hide the deepest wounds they had.

He nodded as she moved on to wrap up the lesson, and couldn’t resist smiling when she – like any encouraging teacher would – reminded him on the importance of practice. “Yes, Professor,” he replied both sincerely and jokingly at the same time. Technically he had been her student – albeit a very overaged one – for this impromptu lesson that she had just conducted at the bar counter.

Outside, the wind had stopped howling as the weather cleared up, as though the world was ready to welcome Cassandra back after her brief sojourn in the Curious Chimaera. Not every customer who stepped into his establishment would return again, but the professor seemed satisfied enough and even offered to come back again to do a reading for him. “That would be great!” he replied, his smile broadening. “And thank you so much for the lesson in Tessomancy. The pleasure was all mine.”