Title: Prescience

Author: Savoir Faire

Summary: A reoccurring daydream disturbs one Gryffindor.

Warning: AU, PWP, implied slash (HPxDM)

Disclaimers: If I owned Harry Potter, people would kiss my feet, not JK Rowling's.

There were times when, while in class, she would pause and frown. A thought would immediately pass her mind: when has this happened before? Suddenly everything seems so quiet—too quiet for her liking, and time would pass slowly, each second stretched from a mere inch to a mile, and the voices around her would abruptly turn into nothing more than a chain of unending murmurs, an incoherent stirring in the back of her mind. Always, she would glance at her classmates one by one, and always, her gaze would land on Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and the more well-known member of the trio he was one-third of.

Ten, nine, eight, seven…

She breathes in.

Six, five, four…

And blinks.

Three, two…

Then exhales.

One…

And as if on cue, for no apparent reason at all, Potter would drop his quill and blink, and everything would be back to normal mode again.

But of course, this never happened. This whole daydream of hers, as she chose to call it, never occurred. It was simply a figment of her imagination; simply something her mind whipped up and played again and again on a daily basis, for two whole weeks. And for the next ten days of classes, she would find herself at the receiving end of a questioning gaze from the green-eyed hero, and she would simply raise her eyebrow and return the gaze, pretending to have been looking elsewhere before her eyes landed on him. He would then shrug and return to his object of concentration beforehand, which happened to be either instinctively copying whatever it was that was written on the board or passing notes (no doubt containing nasty, sarcastic witty remarks regarding the lecturer or an unfortunate classmate) to his fair-haired seatmate.

A month had passed, then a quarter of a year, then a full year flit by. Nothing pertaining to or similar to her daydream occurred, and she had forgotten all about having the same sequence of her mind-movie by the time she reached her sixth year, exactly two years after the same daydream had stopped perturbing her daily life. Then it happened.

She was sitting idly in Transfiguration, skimming through the chapter she knew they would be having a lesson on. She had read through this one before, two weeks before everyone else did. She was most certain today's lesson would be an introductory one, but that still didn't bother her into chatting with her other classmates. Just when she was about to turn the page, her grip on the tome loosened, and it fell to the wooden bench between her and Lavender Brown.

"Sorry," she murmured when the girl paused from her quiet gossiping. Apparently the book had bumped against her leg in its fall.

Lavender simply nodded and lifted the book, putting it on their desk without even turning.

"Thank you—" she suddenly paused and frowned. A thought immediately passed her mind: when has this happened before? Suddenly everything seemed so quiet—too quiet for her liking, and time passed by slowly, each second stretched from a mere inch to a mile, and the voices around her abruptly turned into nothing more than a chain of unending murmurs, an incoherent stirring in the back of her mind. She looked around the room and stared at Harry Potter. He was writing a reply note. She inhaled and unconsciously held the gulp of air in.

"And he's going to drop his quill." She mused out loud, blinking. "He has to."

Lavender asked, again without turning. "Did you say something?"

"Harry Potter. He's going to drop..." She exhaled.

One.

Her mental countdown ended.

The quill fell from his grasp, and he blinked, and then raised an eyebrow while in the process of picking it up. "And to think they claimed this to be charmed with a no-grip-slipping charm." She heard the Seeker murmur and watched as a smirk grew on his seatmate's face. The blonde took the offending object and, with a quick flick of his wrist, threw the quill to the back of the room where the no-stench charmed trash bin was located. Just as the tip of the quill was a mere foot away from the bin, the bin jumped up and caught it.

"Show off." Harry Potter spat, but silent laughter was clear in his eyes.

"Well," his friend drawled, "I'm not the best Chaser Slytherin has ever had for no reason."

"Shove off, Malfoy. True, you may be the best Chaser, but you will never be as brilliant a Seeker as I am."

Draco Malfoy was about to retort, but chose to turn his attention away from his best friend. "What are you staring at, lowlife?"

Before she could even reply, the two of them laughed out loud and garnered a ten point deduction from their house from Professor McGonagall. When the woman turned around, they simply shrugged. They would make up for it later in Potions and in Defence Against the Dark Arts. If not, there's always Quidditch. And everybody knew they never loose.

If Harry Potter, she mused, was sorted in Gryffindor instead of in Slytherin I'd never make friends with him even if he was as humble as Draco Malfoy is an obnoxious prat. I'd rather be eaten up by the Giant Squid! Really! I'm sure he's going to be the death of me, if not the rest of Gryffindor House.

She stole a glance at the Slytherin Princes.

They were as still as anyone should be while in McGonagall's class, but it was clear that they were still laughing, albeit inwardly this time. She could just see it in the tense way they sat, and in their somewhat disturbing—to the observer, of course, but not to them; never to them—gaze at each other. Potter was the one who broke away from the stare first, but not before tucking a strand of blonde hair behind one perfect clamshell-shaped ear.

Looking away and shaking her head, she sighed and began copying notes.

"Darling, it's time to get up, dear."

She groaned. "I didn't get enough sleep, mum."

A comforting smile, "I know dear, but we have to go. And tomorrow, you're bound to go through a lot of more exciting new things than today, you won't feel worn out at all until after your first day is through. Before you know it, you'll be off to dream land. I know this dear, because I was sent to a boarding school too. Not a magical one, of course, but school is school no matter what kind. And I assure you, the excitement will never wear off until… well, in your case, it may never wear off at all! Everyday will be an adventure for you, darling. Of that I'm certain."

"Oh mum… but I still need to sleep."

"How unlikely of you, dear. Weren't you the one who was quite enthusiastic about going to Hogwarts? Well, come on, get up now."

Despite the fact that her mind and body screamed 'sleep!' her mother was right. Although she didn't need to leave for their shopping in a place called Diagon Alley until two hours later, she really did need to get up. She still had to help her mother fix breakfast for herself and her parents. That, and of course, she didn't want to break her self-imposed rule of waking up at least two hours before leaving the house (may it be for something major—a family reunion—or for her scheduled weekly trip to the public library). After all, she wasn't known for being punctual for nothing.

With a sigh, Hermione Granger sat up from her bed and stretched. Her gaze landed on the quill that her father bought her yesterday, and shrugged when she recalled her daydream the previous day, and several days before that. Still staring at it, she suddenly wondered, for no particular reason, why she had been having those dreams of falling quills and two boys sharing a laugh. And most importantly, just exactly what her dream-self meant when she preferred being eaten by the Giant Squid rather than befriending the boy with the scar.

Somewhere in a robe shop, a young blonde boy converses with another boy his age. He laughed when the raven haired boy exclaimed that he looked awkward in a robe. "But I don't think it'll matter when we get to school. Everyone will be in one." The blond assured him. "Anyway, I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Which house do you think you'll be sorted in?"

The eleven year old wanted to ask, 'There are houses in Hogwarts?', but opted instead to murmur "Harry Potter," he paused, and unbeknownst to him, it seemed to the other occupants in the room that he actually waiting for the fact that he was The Harry Potter to sink in. "And I don't know which house I'll be… sorted… in."

Draco Malfoy's eyes widened before he regained his composure, though a ghost of smile was on his face. "I know I'm going to be in Slytherin."

Harry Potter smiled in return, his green eyes brightening. "Then I want to be in Slytherin too. I want to be where you are. I hope we'll be the best of friends, Malfoy—Draco."

The smile on Malfoy's face became more irrepressible, and his pale cheeks flushed prettily. "It's nice to hear that… Harry."

In truth, Harry Potter didn't need to hope. He simply just knew. And he didn't need prescience to know. Some things just happen without the need of being seen in a daydream first. They are the things that are just meant to be.

Fin.

Author's notes: Inspired by my friend, mentor, and fellow writer, Christina, and dedicated to a classmate of mine who believed that 'If you think hard enough, it just might happen'… can't you see they just don't? If they do, it's not because you willed them to (laughs) Alright, if you're just as confused about my writing as I am, don't fret. Instead, by guided by the fact that I just happened to have consumed eight bottles of beer and four shots of tequila… and this was written in (counts fingers) well under half an hour.

This is also dedicated to you, dear readers, if there are any, from the puddle that is my mind. And yes, this is what you may consider the proverbial, um, horse dung that is my writing. God, I'm ashamed; I've actually typed out an actual 'PWP?' (not that I have anything against them or the writers that write them)! Please leave a review; tell me if this needs serious revising. I think it does… okay, I'll shut up just about… now.