London, 1868

Cassandra Trewlawney lay on her deathbed. The celebrated Seer had been ill for months, a wasting disease that slowly had consumed her body and mind. Now it was time. Her only daughter sat beside her, as she had all through that long night, holding fast to Cassandra's frail and withered hands. Tremors wracked her body as she sobbed, quietly as to not disturb her mother's rest. Knowing that these could be her mother's final minutes had kept her awake, even when the doctors had abandoned their work and returned home. "We've done all we can do," they had said. "We'll leave you to say goodbye." Helen was not ready to say goodbye. She was a witch, why could she not fix this?

Cassandra stirred slightly, slowly blinking her eyes open. The colour of them had washed out, the once brilliant blue was now the palest gray. Everything about her was a pallid gray now, so close to death. Helen felt the movement and leaned in close to her mother, breathing in her scent. The scent of rain and roses... and sickness.

"My child," Cassandra whispered. "Don't be so sad. Death will come to us all." Helen knew the logic behind her mother's words, but she didn't want to believe them. She didn't want her to die.

"How could I not be sad!" Helen choked out at her mother, full of sadness and anger. Her mother was so willing to give up. So willing to leave her, her only daughter, behind. "I'm not ready to say goodbye. I still need you!"

Cassandra smiled weakly at her daughter. Helen was all she had in this life, her greatest love. "I saw how I would die many years ago." The Seer's voice rang with the burden of her Gift. "I saw my self dying in my own home, holding the hand of one whom I love dearly." She smiled at her daughter. Helen smiled back, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Fetch me a drink of water, would you child?" Helen nodded and stood, but not before she had given her mother's hand a final squeeze. Helen brushed of her skirts and turned to walk out of the room. She had not taken more than a few strides when she heard a rattling gasp behind her. "Beware!"

Helen turned,. Her mother sat upright in her bed, her body rigid. Her eyes were distant, unseeing, and her hoarse voice rasped from her throat as if she were multitudes speaking simultaneously. A vision.

"Beware," she rasped again. "In triumph, darkness shall rise again... servant as the master, death losing hold... Darkness falls at the hands of the Dark Lady... And the one who burns as the phoenix shall come... Beside her stands the son of lightning, and she shall have a power that evil knows not... her choice alone to save or destroy... the One Who Burns, Burns As The Phoenix, shall come." The Seer suddenly toppled forward in a fit of coughing.

"Mother!" cried Helen, racing to her side. Cassandra's breath came in shallow gasp, and her face slowly turned a shade of blue as she choked.

"My child!" she cried. She coughed once more, and suddenly slumped back on to her pillows. Her last breath rattled past her lips. She lay there, still and cold, as her daughter cried, great heaving sobs. Helen's tears tracked lines across her mother's face and fell into her hair, glistening in the pale light.

Later, Helen would take her memory of her mother's last prophecy to the Ministry of Magic, to be stored with in the Hall of Prophecy. Later, the prophecy will have been thought to be destroyed with all the others during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. Little did anyone know that the prophecy had, in fact, been recovered from Helen's memory years earlier by Albus Dumbledore, realizing it's significance to the fate of the entire Wizarding World, and hidden safely away in the castle of Hogwarts.

Years later, Headmistress McGonagall stood in her office at Hogwarts. She stared out at the Black Lake, watching as the Giant Squid slid across the dark surface. The One Who Burns As The Phoenix shall come... McGonagall watched as the red-gold leaves of the Whomping Willow fell, one by one,drifting slowly to the ground. In the distance, she could just make out the dim specks of lanterns as the first years crossed the Lake in the boats, seeing the castle for the very first time. The Phoenix is here.