Was That the Future You Saw?

A stern-faced, upright blonde man stepped beneath the halo of a dim streetlamp. His expression was as severe as ever, but his shifting gaze was unusually complicated.

"Long time no see, Drayne."

Wade turned around and looked at him, speaking gently.

"Twenty years..." Drayne asked, "Was that the future you saw?"

"Hmm?"

He found the wording rather strange.

"I remember you had a talent for prophecy." Drayne asked, "Can you, like Mr. Grindelwald, foresee scenes from the future?"

No, that was a conclusion I reached based on the Muggles' current development.

Wade had been about to say that, but his words suddenly caught.

He was indeed skilled at divination, but...

There were precedents. Both Grindelwald and Voldemort had once been driven onward by prophecies, and neither had ended well.

A partial prophecy was like an edited confession. It was not false, but it could still mislead those who believed it.

That was why Wade did not rely on the power of divination.

Yet at the same time, he recalled the first time he had discussed Horcruxes with Dumbledore.

The Headmaster had not pressed him about why he knew so much because he believed Wade could "see" the future, just like Grindelwald. And at the time, to protect his own secret, Wade had tacitly accepted that assumption.

Thinking about it carefully, he did not actually need to make excuses for himself... In a sense, he really could "see" it.

"Something like that."

Wade answered vaguely, skipping over the subject. "Did you come to see me for something?"

Drayne did not beat around the bush and went straight to the point. "You received an invitation to the Alchemy Competition, didn't you?"

"I did." Wade sighed. "They want me to be a judge... I still haven't decided whether to go."

If he had