Author's Note: To those of you about to read this I offer two warnings today. One that this is a side fic to the story "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and if you haven't read a decent amount of that fic you'll be fairly confused about what's going on. The other warning is that this is NOT CANON to the main fic.
Trelawney refused to speak with any of them when they approached her that night to be their head of house. First she had glided out of the Great Hall (and it was actually a rather graceful motion, as if she was on wheels), and then when they'd finally found her office door after about a half hour of searching, it was locked.
Lily eventually was forced to open it via glitches and kick it down which, if Trelawney was anything like Snape, would probably result in so many points lost Luna Lovegood's Default grand children would still be losing the house cup.
Not that Lily cared about house points; still it would upset a lot of people if Default won the house cup and that was always something to keep in mind.
Still, first things first meant getting a head of house willing to play along (or at least be bullied into playing along).
Unfortunately the room was empty, or well, devoid of people. It was filled with mystical knick-knacks and whozits to rival even Dumbledore's office but where Dumbledore's were just shiny and mysterious these were all occult. There was a crystal ball on a stand, a deck of worn tarot cards, a water basin with a mirror at the bottom, at least a dozen dream catchers, and even a magic eight ball and an Ouija board. Everything that Lily had ever thought of as being linked to telling the future (and many that she hadn't) was crammed into that office.
Trelawney just didn't happen to be in it.
"Goddammit!" Lily said, she'd gone on a guess that Trelawney would be in here but beyond here or the great hall she had no idea where to look. And unlike the Flamel incident Rabbit didn't appear to have any desire to help her find Trelawney, even when she looked pointedly at him.
"Oh well, that's too bad, it looks like professor Trelawney can't be our head of house." Hermione said somewhat blandly, sounding perfectly pleased at the fact that Trelawney couldn't be their head of house, "I guess we better get going before she finds someone broke down her door."
But unfortunately for Hermione she was the only one interested in leaving. Lily wasn't leaving when they'd only just found the place and Luan and Rabbit had immediately dispersed in order to inspect everything in the room with Luna explaining what each item was.
"…And this is the Traflamadorian space craft for the test flight that will one day destroy our universe, but I'm sure you already knew that Lepur." Luna said, somewhat gravely holding the magic eight ball in her hand, revealing the 'maybe' answer to an unknown question. Rabbit nodded, equally gravely.
"Yes."
"Would you two put that down?!" Hermione shouted over at them. It was nice to know some things never changed, Lily couldn't help but think, because in the end Hermione Granger still had arbitrary and rather pointless lines that she refused to cross for no apparent reason.
Luna and Rabbit looked back down at the Traflamadorian space craft, set it down on the table, and moved on to the next relic, "And this is a copy of Odin's eye that was plucked out of his head by evil angry Norse seagulls. The real eye has been lost somewhere in the outer reaches of the galaxy and now there a thousand facsimiles but no true eye." Luna said, motioning to the crystal ball which had become somewhat foggy as they both peered into it.
"Yes."
"…That's a crystal ball." Hermione said, interrupting Luna's impromptu tour, and again both Rabbit and Luna inspected the crystal ball. "And Odin didn't lose his eye to angry Norse seagulls, the myths say he took it out himself!"
"I don't know, I like the seagull explanation." Lily said, not that she'd ever spent much time thinking on Norse gods but it was a lot more interesting than whatever Hermione's explanation was; when in doubt History of Magic was always better when it was a little embellished.
"Whatever, we're clearly not getting a head of house out of this. Why don't we go and find a place to set up a dormitory and figure out a schedule? Maybe we won't even need a head of house by the end of this…" Hermione muttered, looking pensive, and perhaps that was what Hermione wanted out of all of this; no one looking over her shoulder.
Before Lily could contemplate Hermione's motives further, or Hermione could get them to all leave, something caught Lily's eye. By the desk there was a bit of dark fabric out of place. Lily walked over and looked down to find Trelawney hiding under the desk.
"… No wonder they didn't suspect Quirrell." Wizard Lenin said, almost dazed, and thinking that perhaps it was for the best that he never got that teaching position.
"Hello." Lily said, grinning down, and the woman let out a terrified shriek and quickly moved out from under the desk to press herself into a corner.
"Demon, unholy power from beyond the veil, I see what you truly are!"
Lily's grin disappeared like it had never been there in the first place, even with the glasses on she could tell where Trelawney was looking, and strangely enough it wasn't at Rabbit but was instead straight at her.
Of course, who knew what Rabbit's real form was, perhaps his true form was standing right in front of Lily. But then, seer or not, Lily was of the belief that Rabbit was beyond human comprehension and thus Trelawney's comprehension.
"That one's new." Lily commented and at the sound of her voice Trelawney flinched. Of course, she'd always been called freak by the Dursleys but freak and even Death wasn't the same as demon.
"You sure you aren't talking about Rabbit?" Lily said motioning her head towards Rabbit, who strangely looked unamused by Lily's words, for Rabbit anyway.
But Trelawney seemed so petrified by fear that she couldn't even confirm or deny that. Which, well, perhaps she had a right to. Either her or Rabbit could be far more terrifying than most people gave them credit for. Still, it was the first time she'd seen it so plainly written on anyone's face.
Even Flamel had not looked half as terrified as Sybil Trelawney now did.
"I suppose you've heard we're looking for a head of house then, you interested?" Lily asked the woman but the woman didn't seem capable of responding but instead just kept muttering gibberish like it might make Lily go away.
"The grim, the grim in flesh, in human flesh, the jackal with a smile like night the grim, the grim!"
The grim, what the hell did that mean?
"That one actually is somewhat accurate." Wizard Lenin interjected, "In wizarding culture the grim is a black dog that often represents death."
Lily supposed that was somewhat accurate, but Death had never reminded her of a dog, if she had to pick any animal she'd probably pick a dark bird like a raven. Definitely not a dog.
Wizard Lenin felt she had missed his point entirely but aside from a few half hearted grumbles didn't bother to correct her.
Besides, it'd been a long day and seeing Trelawney cowering in fear before her was getting more than a little obnoxious even if it was infinitely better than dealing with Snape or even Squirrel back in his glory days. Lily decided to wrap things up. "I'll take that as a yes."
"That clearly was not a yes, Ellie." Hermione said but her tone didn't match her words, she no longer looked annoyed but instead had a reflection of Trelawney's fear in her own eyes, as if she had no idea who she saw when she looked at Lily.
As if Lily's words on the train were only now just sinking in and she wasn't sure how to take them.
Yes, it was beyond time to wrap things up, this was getting very personal very fast. Next thing Lily knew Luna Lovegood would even put two and two together and then she, Hermione, Flamel, and now Trelawney could form their own little club.
Lily never thought she'd be nostalgic for the days when it was just her, Death, and Wizard Lenin who knew the shape of the world.
Lily tucked the thoughts away where she could think on them later; right now they were more than a little irrelevant and distracting.
"Oh well, if she's really not interested then she can just pretend to do her job and then not actually do it. After all, you were the one who pointed out that we don't really need her." Lily said with a shrug, as far as she could tell the situation had been solved. They'd just tell everyone that Trelawney was their head of house and Trelawney would just say 'doom' a lot.
"Do all heads of houses just pretend to be heads of houses?" Luna asked to which Rabbit nodded rather sagely.
"Snape does." McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout looked like they took their jobs seriously but having not actually been in their house Lily couldn't really tell.
Meanwhile, while she thought they were distracted, Trelawney tried to surreptitiously leave the room.
"And where do you think you're going?" Lily asked, and like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck she froze and then without warning bolted from the room with an uncanny speed for a woman of her age.
"How is it, that the only people who seem to recognize you for the danger that you are, are completely mad?" Wizard Lenin quietly commented, but she didn't know the answer either. Only that some people, with only a glance could tell, while the rest of the world seemed fixated on the idea of Eleanor Potter and the role she must play.
As uncomfortable as this was though perhaps it was for the best. After all, there were so few people who guessed at Lily's real face.
"Ladies and Rabbit, I think we've just found our head of house." Lily said calmly and then added almost as an afterthought, "And I think we need to add Divination into that schedule."
"Yes."
The first day of Divination, in the first class of the day, the seemingly absent minded if prophetic Professor Trelawney predicted that the world was coming to an end.
Her class wasn't particularly surprised, as she'd been prophesizing their individual and rather gruesome deaths for years, and not a single student traced her words back to the second year student Eleanor Potter.
Author's Note: For the 2300th review of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" by NewWings who asked for a fic where, "Trelawney leads Default and everyone is doomed". Not a lot of leading here, or that much into the school year, but you can imagine that the quidditch team is very doomed.
Thanks for reading, reviews are great.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.