Lily sighed. Why she ever decided to take Divination was a topic beyond her reasoning.
The teacher, a vapid blonde hag-not a real hag: Lily used the term as an offensive word, out of habit from her childhood when she didn't know such creatures existed-was called Sierra de Moritz and she was, to put it crudely, a delusional fraud. Lily, with her logical mind and almost unhealthy amount of common sense, as Sirius had put it once, had no patience for Professor de Moritz' ramblings about how 'the stars would align and bring great fortune to us all'. But Lily, being Lily, wanted her perfect twelve NEWTs and not even the ridiculous Divination professor would get in her way.
"Psst." Lily turned her head from her empty teacup to see who had whispered at her. She found herself eye to eye with Alice Prewett, one of her best friends. "This is absolute crap," Alice whispered, indicating her empty teacup. "Mine says that I'm going to find porridge in my bed before getting attacked by a rabid cat."
Lily sniggered into her teacup. "You'd better watch out at breakfast," she mouthed. "The scary porridge might invade."
"Miss Evans, what have you deciphered?" The mystical soprano voice of Lily's least favorite teacher floated into her ears.
Lily turned a bright tomato red. "Er," she said hopelessly, peering into the dregs of her beverage. "Um, that I'm going to die, in, um, five years. Death by guillotine. Yeah." Lily had to admit that this wasn't her best prediction, even with the 'slugs are going to murder my best friend' one she'd coined in a very eventful lesson in her fifth year.
Professor de Moritz shook her head. "Keep trying, Miss Evans," she said in her annoyingly-tuneful voice before continuing on to Frank Longbottom, who was seated behind them.
"Aw, come on, Evans, even I can do better than that!" Lily looked up to see James Potter's grinning face in front of her desk. She'd been unlucky enough to get a seat behind him and Sirius: even though she was friends with the latter, she barely tolerated the former.
She rolled her eyes. "I'll have you know I got an E on my OWLs," she said scathingly.
James snickered. "Wow. I got an E too. Guess that means you still have to beat me in every single subject, Evans." He laughed and Lily gritted her teeth, remembering the threatening promise she'd made to Potter one day in her sixth year.
"Don't worry, Lily, he's still an A in Charms," Remus said from her left, grinning at her. Lily glowed at this: she was two grade levels above Potter! Cause for celebration indeed, she thought to herself smugly as Potter glared at the sandy-haired Prefect.
How she'd ever managed to become close friends with two of the Marauders, and on good terms with another, was beyond Lily. Still, she thought proudly, James has yet to go out on a date with me. Even before she'd stopped being friends with Severus, and become closer to Remus, and as a result, Sirius, she'd vowed to never go out with the arrogant toe-rag.
At that moment, Professor de Moritz cleared her throat- even her hacking her throat off sounded light and airy, thought Lily with a shudder-and beamed at the class. "Seventh years, before we pack up, I have a surprise for you."
Lily slumped back into her seat, as did most of her friends. She reckoned it was probably a pop quiz or something, or at least a piece of horribly boring homework about interpreting tea leaves. She wished they weren't revising the, in Lily's opinion, utterly useless topic: hadn't they had enough of it in third year?
"As we know, we have been focusing on examining tea dregs to give you an insight to your futures," de Moritz said. Lily turned her derisive snort into a cough before anyone noticed. "But this summer, on my vacation, I observed the most fascinating phenomenon: that of the Muggle fortune cookies."
Lily had to control herself before she burst out laughing. Glancing around the classroom, she could've sworn the rest of her Muggleborn housemates were doing the same. Everyone knew fortune cookies were absolute shams.
"Now, now, don't laugh!" the Professor reprimanded. "Studies have shown that the random selection method, which you have studied last year, is dramatically accurate in the form of these little paper fortunes embedded in the cookies. Why is a more advanced topic, maybe one that you'd study if you continued taking a Divination-inclined course in a Wizarding University. But for now, I have here-" she reached underneath her table and brought out a medium-sized white box, "-a fortune cookie for all of you. Whether they come true or not is, of course, open to your interpretation." She smiled, a little nauseatingly in Lily's opinion, and with a swish of her wand, a light golden biscuit was now on the desks of each student in the classroom.
The purebloods were poking at them curiously, obviously at a loss for what to do. Seeing two prime examples, Potter and Sirius, she stood up and walked over to their table. "You're supposed to eat it," she said, refraining from adding a 'duh' to the end.
"What is this thing, though?" Sirius asked, picking it up and sniffing it.
"Muggle cookie thing. There's a paper fortune inside," Lily said.
"Are you sure this won't explode in my face or make me travel back in time or something?" James asked, looking at the cookie a little too suspiciously. It's a baked good, for goodness' sake, Lily thought exasperatedly.
"No, Potter, not everyone spikes butterbeer with hair color-changing potions, you know," Lily said, glaring at him. She still hadn't forgiven him for turning her red locks blue at the party commemorating Gryffindor's Quidditch final win in fourth year.
"I said I was sorry!" James shook his head in mock annoyance before grabbing his cookie and shoving it into his mouth whole.
"There's paper in there, you know," Lily said calmly.
James immediately spat the chewed up cookie out, to Lily's disgust and Sirius' amusement. "What's paper? It's like this Muggle joke bomb, right?"
Lily rolled her eyes. "It's the Muggle alternative to parchment," she muttered, pointing her wand at the unfortunate saliva-coated biscuit and intoning, "Accio fortune!"
A small strip of folded up parchment zoomed into her hand, though she dropped it immediately upon realizing that it was wet. "Ugh, Potter's saliva is on my hand!" she grumbled, wiping the spit off her hand on her robes while ignoring the two boys, who were roaring with laughter at her disgruntled expression. She then proceeded to levitate the paper into James Potter's hands. "I hope that's the last I'll be seeing of it," Lily said. Then she realized something.
"That's parchment. Not paper," she noted.
"So?" Sirius asked.
"Yes, Miss Evans, these are Wizarding fortune cookies, not Muggle ones," Professor de Moritz said. Lily jumped. She hadn't realized that the teacher was standing right behind her.
She raised an eyebrow. "What's the difference?"
The professor smiled, a peaceful expression on her face. "The fortunes in these always come true, I believe."
What a fraud! Lily thought as she sat down. A piece of parchment can't change or predict our destinies… right?
She bit into hers tentatively, just a little bit, so that the bit of parchment was exposed. Then she tugged it out and brushed the crumbs for it.
Honestly, Lily's curiosity was piqued. She hadn't had one of these since, well, since she'd got her Hogwarts letter. From then on, Tuney had stopped talking to her, and fortune cookies had kind of been their thing. Lily had stopped eating fortune cookies after that, mainly because it overwhelmed her with nostalgia every time she saw one. This time, though, she decided to live in the present. (Not to mention that perhaps Wizarding fortune cookies were different, she thought, thinking about what the Professor had said about a minute ago).
After finishing the rest of her cookie, she opened the folded parchment a little nervously. Despite her practical nature and her disparaging comments about de Moritz' sanity, she was hoping it wasn't anything bad.
"He who wants you is seen with hate, accept your love and seal your fate."
Okay, that's it, Lily thought. Divination is the biggest bloody scam I've ever seen.
At that moment, Sirius turned around and grinned at her. "So, Evans, what's yours say?"
Lily frowned. "What does yours?" she asked curiously.
"'Black of name but pure at heart, rejoice in love from a fresh new start'," Sirius said proudly, rocking back and forth in his chair.
Lily shook her head. "Divination, I tell you..." she muttered, groaning. Then she realized that Sirius was looking at her expectantly. "Oh, fine," she huffed. She recited the fortune blandly, and waited for a reaction. She almost couldn't believe it when he started smirking evilly.
"What, Black?" she snapped, losing what was left of her patience.
He ignored her, and turned to Potter. "Oi, Prongs, let's see what you've got, then," he said, his voice containing an unusual amount of excitement, even for Sirius, the most hyper Marauder of the four.
James turned around, one hand in his already-messy black mess of a hairstyle. "Er... 'For long you've loved the one who hates, but to grasp her heart not long you'll wait'...why?"
If possible, Sirius' obnoxious grin grew wider. "Listen to Evans': 'He who wants you is seen with hate, accept your love and seal your fate'."
At this, James' hazel eyes grew wide and he started beaming so wide Lily thought his face was about to crack. He turned to Lily, who glared at him. "So, Evans, now that our destinies are sealed... wanna go out with me?"
Lily stared at him for a few seconds, a gesture that the two Marauders returned. Then, without warning, she stood up. "Not if it's the last thing I'll do," she hissed, stalking out of the classroom just as the lesson ended.
She was not falling in love with James Potter.