Arlene coughed for what seemed like the millions time, she and Sage where in the room of Hogwarts Weekly, trying and failing to clean it.
Sage sneezed, she was standing on a levitating chair, attempting to dust the ceiling.
"I can smell the stew from here," Arlene, who wiping several objects that were inside a box, said "just calling for me, Arlene, Arlene, come eat me, there's turkey and drinks too, Arlene."
Sage hopped off the chair and onto a table "Maybe you should go to the great hall and have some lunch."
Arlene shook her head "I'm just kidding, I'm not hungry."
"Then go get me something from the great hall." Sage replied, jumping off the table and sitting on a random chair.
"Sage-"
"Go, you deserve it, we've been on this fool's errand all morning."
Arlene smiled "Seems like you're trying to get rid of me." She teased.
"Please," Sage rolled her eyes "you're like the gum that gets stuck in your shoe."
She dusted her skirt and chuckled "And I was about to tell you about the Divination class, Harry Potter's grim aside, I partnered up with Granger."
Not leaving any time for Sage to answer, Arlene exited the room.
"But Hermione was with me in Arithmancy." Sage mumbled, unheard by Arlene.
As Arlene made her way to the great hall, she kept looking at her reflection in the glass, her hair was messed up, her tie was untied, her skirt was covered in dust and her shirt was rolled up to her elbow.
Unfortunately, Arlene was so wrapped up in fixing her hair that she wasn't looking where she was going and ran into someone.
Fortunately? That someone was Hermione.
"Okay, you know what?" Arlene said as she stood up "Once is chance, twice is coincidence, and thrice means business."
Hermione chuckled halfheartedly, that was when Arlene noticed how upset she was.
"What's wrong?" She questioned.
She bit her lip "Nothing." She said, causing Arlene to roll her eyes.
"Hermione, my mum is a lawyer, I see professional liars every other day, and you're going to have to try harder than that to fool me."
She sighed "Ron is being a jerk." She confessed.
Arlene frowned and dragged Hermione to one of the windows seats.
"I thought Ron was supposed to be the sweet one." Arlene said, forgetting all about the great hall.
"He is, he's just, I don't know how to explain it, but do you know when wizards are all like 'It's magic, it doesn't have to make sense'?" Hermione said, turning to Arlene.
She nodded "One of the reasons my mum didn't want me taking Divination, she said it's illogical, then proceeded to give me a lecture."
Hermione raised an eyebrow "Then why did you take it?"
Arlene shrugged "Why do I do anything? Spite, because I can and omens are true even though useless."
"Useless?"
"Well, yeah, there's an entire history of how prophecies never truly mean what they imply, like The Oracle Of Delphi in Greek Mythology, it gives you riddles that may mean something and the heroes die trying to prevent them only to find out that wasn't what they meant at all. The grim may have just been a dog, but what is that dog going to do, what's going to happen? Is it a dog or death? Is someone going to die? Does it even mean a real dog or a painting of some sort? You can't know."
Hermione stared at her dumbfounded "I've never thought about that way."
She shrugged "My mum is obsessed with wizard philosophy, has tons of books about it."
"Your mother sounds amazing." Hermione smiled, forgetting about the spat between her and Ron.
Arlene's smile disappeared, she looked down at her feet, feeling extremely guilty about how she left things "Yeah, she's the best."
They sat in silence after that, but not the uncomfortable kind that makes you want to make a bad pun just to end it, no, it was the comfortable kind.
But from the corner of her eye, Arlene noticed somethings golden, when she bumped into Hermione, it fell out of her shirt, Arlene had dismissed it as a random necklace but now that she's had a good look at it, she realized what it was.
"Hermione, is that a time turner?"
"I am the stupidest being to walk this Earth." Arlene declared as she entered the Hogwarts Weekly room.
It had suddenly become spotless in the time Arlene was gone.
'How did I not think of a cleaning charm until now!?' Sage had said.
"Not denying that but why?" Sage, who was sitting cross legged in the middle of the room with several newspapers around her, her hair was held up by her yellow tie, shoes and robes discarded.
Arlene opened her mouth to tell her what happened, then she closed her mouth, what was she going to tell her? Obviously Hermione doesn't want people to know she's in the possession of a time turner.
"I bumped into Hermione and once we finished chatting, I completely forgot about lunch and instead came back here." Arlene lied, putting on her poker face as she dropped down next to Sage.
"Not stupider than me," Sage mumbled "An entire hour breathing dust and not once did I think of a cleaning charm."
Arlene chuckled and looked around "You organized the place pretty well."
"I didn't organize it." Sage replied, handing her another Polaroid of the room.
The blonde in the previous photo was sitting in at the table in the middle of the room, talking to a raven haired boy who had his back to the camera, obviously they weren't aware they were being photographed.
Sage sighed "That's it for today, I have Herbology in like, five minutes."
"Yeah, I have Care for Magical Creatures."
And they parted once again for the second time.
Instead of going to class right away, Arlene took a detour to the Slytherin dorm to freshen herself up.
She brushed her hair and styled it into the usual ponytail, changes her skirt, washed her face, properly tied her tie, put on some perfume before grabbing her bag and robes as she exited her dorm and made her way to the common room.
Not to her surprise, Theo, who had the same habit of being late to class as Arlene, was there.
"Oh so this is the class you have with me?" Arlene said in a fake angry tone, seeing his book.
Theo rolled his eyes "We warned you Divination was stupid."
"It wasn't stupid!" Arlene argued.
Theo stood up and threw his arm around her shoulder "Ari, unless you're a seer or a centaur, you can't see the future, thus, Divination is stupid."
"Let's just go."
Theo fake gasped "Arlene Paloma Black Burk the third-"
"That's not my middle name," She interjected "and I'm not the third."
Theo ignored her "-refusing a dramatic entrance? What has the world come to!"
Arlene shoved his arm off her "I would love a dramatic entrance, I just want to get rid of this thing." She said, holding up to the book wrapped completely in bubble wrap with sellotape forming a plus sign over it.
Theo winced "Yeah," He lifted the cage that his father managed to trap the book in "if I didn't hate books before, I definitely do now."
Arlene chuckled and started to drag him to class.
Funny enough, they turned out to be early, although classes were supposed to start ten minutes ago.
"Of course," She heard Draco Malfoy say "when Harry Potter is late, we are simply early."
Arlene rolled her eyes "Shut up, blondie." She said, just as the trio appeared.
"C'mon, now, get a move on!" Hagrid said once he saw them "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
Arlene stared at Hermione, mentally begging her to turn around, it wasn't fair that they barely knew each other for two days before they had a fall out.
"Everyone gather 'round the fence here!" he called. "That's it- make sure yeh can see- now, firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books-"
"How?" Draco asked, voicing everybody's thoughts.
"Eh?"
"How do we open our books?" He repeated as he got out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters which was bound shut with rope.
Theo dropped the cage infront of his with a loud THUD and his book, which seemed more savage than the others, slammed it self at the walls as it growled.
Arlene got out her copy, others had belted the book shut, some bound it by charmed rope like Draco and others clamped the covers together with binder clips.
"Hasn'- hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books?" Hagrid looked so sad, Arlene was tempted to give him a hug.
"It was somehow able to get into my closet," Theo said as everyone else simply shook their head "R.I.P my fabulous designer clothes."
"Yeh've got ter stroke 'em," said Hagrid, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world "Look-"
Hagrid took Hermione's book and ripped the sellotape off it, it tried to bit but Hagrid ran a finger down its spine, causing it to shiver then turn still.
"Oh how silly we've all been," Draco exclaimed "we should have stroked them! Why didn't we think of that?"
"Shut up, blondie." Arlene said with an eye roll, ripping off the bubble wrap and stroking her copy.
"I thought it was funny." Hagrid mumbled uncertainty.
"Would've been funnier if I didn't have to go to St. Mungo's at midnight because it bit me in my sleep." Theo said, raising his shirt to reveal a nasty bite mark.
Arlene elbowed him and gave him a glare, as if to say 'dude!'
"Righ' then," said Hagrid, who seemed to have lost his thread, "so- so yeh've got yer books an' an'- now yeh need the Magical Creatures. Yeah. So I'll go an' get 'em. Hang on..."
"Merlin, this place is going to the dogs," said Malfoy loudly "that oaf teaching classes, my father'll have a fit when I tell him-"
Arlene sighed "Shut up, blondie." She repeated for the third time.
"Stop calling me that you moronic-" Draco started, only to get cut off.
"Shut up, blondie." Harry, who seemed to have caught up on the nickname, said with a smile.
"Careful Potter, there's a dementor behind you-"
"What do you reckon we'll be learning?" Blaise, who was the first one to arrive and at the front of the class, interrupted Draco.
"I hope it's unicorns." Pansy said dreamily, causing the entire class to turn to her.
Noticing everybody's gaze on her, she cleared her throat "But that oaf would probably manage to mess it up."
Before anybody could say anything, Lavender pointed at the side of the paddock "Ooooooh."
Trotting toward them were a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Arlene had ever seen, they had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be giant eagles, with cruel, steel-colored beaks and large, brilliantly orange eyes.
The talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking. Each of the beasts had a thick leather collar around its neck, which was attached to a long chain, and the ends of all of these were held in the vast hands of Hagrid, who came jogging into the paddock behind the creatures.
"Look at Blaise." Arlene whispered to Theo, pointing with her chin to their friend who looked like he could break into a happy dance at any second.
Theo snorted "Please, look at Pansy." He motioned with his head to the girl a few feet away from them, who looked like she was on cloud nine, staring at the creatures with wide eyes as if afraid she'll miss a detail.
"Magizoology nerds." They both said in unison.
"Gee up 'er" Hagrid roared, struggling to hold all the chains that kept the creatures in their place.
"Hippogriffs," he said "beau'iful, aren' they?"
"So," said Hagrid, rubbing his hands together and beaming around, "if yeh wan' ter come a bit nearer-"
Theo raised an eyebrow "Hippogriffs are labelled XXX."
Arlene grinned "I look on the wild side, I laugh at the face of danger." She said, quoting the muggle movie "Ha ha ha."
And with that, she approached the fence.
"Now, firs' thing yeh gotta know abou' hippogriffs is, they're proud," said Hagrid "easily offended, hippogriffs are, don't never insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do."
Had Malfoy listened, it would have prevented the shitstorm that was about to happen.
■■■
[Spoiler Alert]
So, I finally watched Infinity War.
Guys, it didn't feel so good.
THANOS YOU F***ING MORON, IF YOU'RE AFRAID OF OVERPOPULATION, WHY DON'T YOU JUST USE THE STONES TO DOUBLE THE RESORCES!?
I know they're all gonna rise like the majestic Marvel characters that refuse to be killed off that they are, but the idea of the others having to deal with their death is heartbreaking.
Well, that's it for now, thank you for reading M&H, I love you guys:)