DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter. It belongs to JK Rowling.

title: In The Cards
by: The Rose in Death's Garden
written for: The HPFC 335 Pairings Bonaza Challenge; the HPFC Randomly Generated tumblr Post Chllenge
pairing: Sybill Trelawney/Argus Filch
prompt: there aren't enough people at my school who hate horses


"I hate horses," Argus Filch grumbled to himself for no reason as he cleaned up mud from the Hogwarts entrance area.

His cat did not say anything because she was a cat and cats can't talk. Filch was reasonably sure that Mrs. Norris would agree with him. Mr. Norris had been trampled by a horse after all, which was why Filch only had one cat now instead of a pair of cats.

So the caretaker really wasn't expecting anyone to answer him and was rather startled when a voice behind him said: "Yes, horses are bad omens."

Filch turned toward the speaker with a threat of detention on his lips but then he saw that the person who had spoken to him was not a student after all but one of the Hogwarts professors. He hadn't recognized her voice because she was the weird one who spent most of her time locked in a tower.

"Yeah," Filch said, nodding. "Yeah. You're right, Cindy. There's not enough people in this school who hate horses."

"It's Sybill," she corrected him.

"Sybill," Filch repeated.

"Anyway, as I was saying horses are bad omens. Terrible!"

"What about mud? That any kind of omen?"

"The worst!"

It was the start of a beautiful friendship.