His Saving Grace

Chapter 6 - Divination Revelations & Riddles

Halfway through divination, Professor Trewlaney decided to completely scrap everything she had just said and assign us to our partners for the year. Much to my dismay and misfortune, Trewlaney thought it was a terrific idea to have me work with a sixth-year Hufflepuff for the entire year. The Hufflepuff was smart, that was obvious because a sixth-year taking a class with seventh-years meant something, but something about her seemed off. Then again, the Hufflepuffs are mainly harmless so I would not have any problems with her. Plus, I always thought there was something off about most people.

Trewlaney assigned us Tessomancy work for the remainder of the course, which was one of my favorite activities. My partner was eyeing my tea cup and my face in an extremely wary manner, which brought fear to my eyes as well, but I was way better at acting calm than the younger Hufflepuff. Trewlaney saw the unease in my partner's eyes and grabbed my tea cup from her grasp, only to find she had not seen anything horrid but she just did not understand what anything meant. I guess I stood corrected, the sixth-year was not as smart as I thought.

My mind was running thinking she had seen The Grim, but the girl just could not tell what she was seeing. All of my fear and anxiety in those few minutes were installed in my mind for no reason. I let out a breath I did not know I was holding and Trewlaney stated that she had seen a Cross and The Sun in my cup. At least it was definitely better than The Grim. The Sun meant "great happiness", but the Cross was associated with trials and suffering and I did not want to deal with any pain that did not have to do with seeing the painful look on Riddle's face when I surpass him in all of our classes. Most of the classmates present were concerned for me, but quickly let it go because most thought Divination was rubish.

After the class was over, I felt someone grab my arm and turn me around. I was once again facing Riddle, whom I was looking for not long ago. He looked at me as if he were searching for an answer in my eyes to whatever questions he was asking himself.

I was growing tired of waiting for him to say something so I yanked my arm away from him and addressed him with the only question I had for him, "Riddle, what was that stunt you pulled in DADA? You were strangely nice to Snape... and to me as well... Plus, you would never call me by my first name. To me, it seems you are acting extremely suspicious."

He keeps staring at me with his questioning gaze and says, "What can I say Alastair? I am a Riddle your prying nerd Ravenclaw self won't be able to solve."

To which I scoffed and rolled my eyes. Seriously, a riddle pun? It was worse than hearing a Hufflepuff trying to guess the Ravenclaw common room riddle password. I turned away from him and dragged myself to the next class.