Word Count: 2,362.
Warnings: None.
The classroom at the top of the castle was a strange one. I had never been in a classroom like it. In fact, it didn't look like a classroom at all, more like a cross between a person's attic and an old-fashioned tea shop.
At least twenty small, circular tables were crammed inside it, all surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little pouffes. Everything was lit with a dim, crimson light; the curtains at the window were all closed, draped with dark red scarves.
It was stiflingly warm, and the fire which was burning under the crowded mantelpiece was giving off a heavy, sickly sort of perfume as it heated a large copper kettle.
When I entered the room, some of the students took the advantage of the loud room to voice their thoughts. Most of them were about me.
"Did you hear about her father?"
"Maybe they'll team up and kill a couple students."
"Or maybe they might just send her back to Azkaban with her. It would make the school safer."
"So, new guy?" Pansy spoke, my attention moving from the whisperings of the room.
We made our way across the crowded space, the conversation blending into the chatter of the rest of the classroom as we continued talking.
"What about him?" I asked, pushing past a Gryffindor who was stood in the middle of the room. Neville Longbottom, I believe his name was.
"Well, he seems to know Theo awfully well," she began, "and as Theo's favourite and only cousin, you know Theo very well."
"Thank you for clearing up the obvious Pans." I answered. She scoffed, grabbing the sleeve of my robe and turning me to face her.
"So, do you know who he is?" she asked, our movement ceasing.
Shaking my head, I answered, "No, I have no idea who he is." Pansy looked at me sceptically.
"Hey Lyra." a voice rose through the chatter. Theo was sitting in one of the armchairs, a small wooden table placed in front of him, "Partners?" he asked.
The moment he finished asking his question, Blaise strolled into the room, clasping his arms around Pansy and dragging her across the other side of the room. She didn't protest.
"Black?" Theo asked again, "come on."
Smiling softly, I sat in the plush seat opposite him. The seat wasn't as comfortable as I first perceived. Although the red material of the chair looked to be soft, it seemed that it was simply a façade.
"So, how have you been?" Theo asked, his previous inviting tone becoming worried as his eyes locked on mine.
"Fine, how about you and your new best friend?" I replied, noticing that the new student wasn't in the classroom. Theo sighed.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. I noticed the venom that had been in my voice and immediately sat straighter.
"No, don't be sorry, it was obviously important." I replied, my tone completely changed. He shook his head softly.
"You have to stop doing that." he stated. Sighing, I sank back into my seat, resting the back of my head against the scratching red material.
"Doing what?" I asked, closing my eyes.
"Forgiving people so easily. I completely ignored you after the train yesterday. When you needed me." he explained.
"You had a good reason." I replied, looking sideways at him, "besides, I'm fine." Theo didn't look convinced.
"Not everyone has a good reason Lyra." he muttered.
I opened my mouth to speak but was interrupted by a voice suddenly sounding from the shadow, a soft, misty sort of voice.
"Welcome." It said. "How nice to see you in the physical world at last." My immediate impression of the owner was of a large, glittering insect.
Professor Trelawney moved into the forelight and I saw that she was very thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to several times their natural size, and she was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl.
"Sit, my children, sit," she said, and the remainder of the room left standing climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto pouffes.
"Welcome to Divination," said Professor Trelawney, who had seated herself in a winged armchair in front of the fire. "My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seem me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye."
Nobody said anything in answer to this announcement. I simply looked to Theo, finding his eyebrows raised and gaze already trained on mine.
"This woman is batshit crazy," he mouthed. I nodded in reply, facing back to the beady-eyed professor.
"So, you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there's very little I will be able to teach you. Books can only take you so far in this field..." she trailed off, scanning her eyes around the circular classroom until they landed on me, her eyes locking on mine.
"Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearing's are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future." She paused, her gaze becoming firmer. "It is a Gift granted to few."
"You, boy," she spoke loudly, her gaze falling from mine as it locked on a boy sat on a small pouffe. Neville Longbottom.
"Is your grandmother well?" she asked.
"I think so," said Neville tremulously.
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you dear," said Professor Trelawney, the firelight glinting on her long emerald earrings. Neville gulped, and Professor Trelawney continued placidly.
"We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be dedicated to reading the tea leaves. Next term, we shall progress to palmistry. By the way, my dear," she shot suddenly at a dark-skinned Gryffindor. One of the twins. "Beware a red-haired man."
She gave a started look at Ron, one of Harry's friends. They were positioned at the table behind her. She edged her chair away from him slightly, hugging the table.
"In the Summer term," Professor Trelawney went on, "we shall progress to the crystal ball – if we have finished with fire-omens, that is. Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of the flu. I myself will lose my voice. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever."
A very tense silence followed the pronouncement, but the beady-eyed professor seemed unaware of it. Theo looked at me, an amused expression etched on his face. A lot of people shared this look, it seemed. She was batshit crazy.
"I wonder dear," she said to a curly haired blonde with red robes. She shrank back in her seat, "if you could pass me the large silver teapot?"
The blonde girl looked relieved, stood up, took an enormous teapot from the shelf and put it down on the table in front of Trelawney.
"Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading – it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October." The Gryffindor trembled.
"Now, I want you to divide into pairs. Collect a teacup from the shelf, come to me and I will fill it. Then sit down and drink; drink until only the dregs remain, swill these around the cup three times with the left hand, then turn the cup upside-down on its saucer; wait for the last of the tea to drain away, then give your cup to your partner to read. You will interpret the patterns using pages five and six of Unfogging the Future. I shall move among you, helping and instructing. Oh and dear –" she caught Neville by the arm as his made to stand up, "after you've broken your first cup would you be so kind as to select one of the blue pattered ones? I'm rather attached to the pink."
Sure enough, Neville had no sooner reached the shelf of teacups when there was a tinkle of breaking china. Professor Trelawney swept over to him holing a dustpan and brush and said, "One of the blue ones, then, dear, if you wouldn't mind... thank you..."
My eyes moved to Pansy across the room who looked just as terrified as the blonde Gryffindor. It was clear that she believed what the professor was saying. Predicting that Neville would drop his teacup before he did.
It was simple psychology actually, a muggle thing. She told him that he would break the cup, putting the doubt and the thoughts into his head, and by doing that, he believed that there was nothing he could do but break the teacup. There was no magic involved with that prediction.
Theo rose from his chair, grabbing a teacup, a blue one, and filling it with scalding hot tea. The steam rose from the piping liquid in the cup as he placed it, and the saucer onto the table.
"So, your future, or mine?" he asked.
"I think I'll stick to the stars deciding my fate. Astronomy is more my speed than this fortune telling bullshit." I muttered, pushing the cup in his direction.
"Alright grouchy." He replied, leaning forward in his seat. He brought his head to eye-level with the cup, his pupils watching the steam rise from it.
I looked at him, confused, "are you trying to communicate with it?" I asked, "it is an inanimate object, you know? You can't talk to it."
Sighing, Theo tilted his head towards me, looking up at me from his position. "I'm unlocking my Inner Eye." He explained and I nodded, holding in a laugh.
"Oh, ok then. Don't let me stop you." Gesturing outwards, I leaned back, watching his eyes return to the blue pattern on the porcelain cup. It didn't stay silent for long.
"So what's the new guys name?" I asked after only moments.
"Mattheo, why?" he asked, moving his head back up to me, his eyes leaving the object in front of him.
"It's just weird. I know everyone you know, and I don't know him." I explained, opening the book in front of me and scanning through the page she had told us to look on.
"He's the son of a friend of my dad's." I nodded, my eyes moving to the next page, "my dad asked if I would make sure he settled in ok."
"Right, makes sense." I muttered.
"Are you mad?" he asked and I quickly shook my head, returning my gaze to him.
"Oh, it's fine." He sighed again.
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?" I giggled softly.
"You're forgiving me too easily, be mad at me, you should. I didn't tell you about it, I abandoned you on the train after you found out your dad escaped Azkaban. I've been a jerk, and even I know that." Theo urged.
"You want me to be mad at you?" I asked.
"Yes. Stop forgetting about it and bottling it up." He leaned his elbows on his knees, looking up at me with an innocent expression.
"Ok. I'm pissed. I know everything about you." I started, "I know all of your frie3nds, your family. I know everything you do. There isn't a day we don't talk, and somehow, I didn't know that you were doing this. I didn't even your dad had friends." I continued, throwing my hands in the air. "And yes, the train fucking sucked. I found out that my dad, a mass murderer, escaped Azkaban, and everyone had hidden it from me, including Moony. I needed someone to tell me it was going to be fine and you were too busy with this Mattheo guy!" I finished, my voice rising slightly.
He nodded, "I'm sorry."
"It's ok."
"There you go again." He sat back, resting his hands on the arms of his chair, "stop forgiving me so easily. Stop forgiving Moony so easily."
"I don't forgive Moony..." I trailed off when he cut in.
"Yes, you do. He had never told you anything about your parents but their names, and you just let that go. You don't ask again."
"That's because I know that its painful for him to remember." I argued.
"But are you not in pain?" he asked, "not knowing." I didn't answer him.
"The Grim, my dear, the Grim!" a cry sounded, the voice gaining my attention.
It was Professor Trelawney. She held a teacup in her hands, her face pale and eyes bulging out of her head.
"Who's cup is she..." I started, scanning my eyes over the area. I spotted Potter looking incredulously at her, nothing in his hands. "Never mind."
"The giant spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen – the worst omen – of death!" the beady-eyed professor continued.
"Looks like its just going to be another year of Harry almost dying." Theo muttered, his former tone gone and instead replaced with one that sounded of boredom. I nodded; my eyes trained worryingly on Potter as his friends softly spoke to him.
I cared about Potter; I did. Slytherin and Gryffindor house rivalry aside, Harry and I were friends. His parents were friends of my dad and Moony's. James Potter and Lily Evans. He definitely had a habit for danger, and it seemed that this year was going to be no different. I was only hopeful that he wasn't going to drag me into this year. Almost getting burnt alive by Professor Quirrell and being caught under an avalanche of rocks under the girl's bathroom was enough for me.
"Here we go again." I replied, looking back into my book of Divination. One reading caught my eye. Harry's reading.
'The Grim. The Grim is an omen of death, which is reputed to bring about the demise of the person who encounters it. The Grim takes the shape of a large, black, menacing spectral dog. A well-known omen, the Grim has earned infamy through the wizarding world and is considered to be one of the worst, if not the worst omens around.'
"A large, black dog." I muttered, rereading the paragraph a few times. A large, black dog.