Written for evandar's prompt at fic promptly:Harry Potter, Regulus Black/Barty Crouch Jr., Divination class
Barty stared across the table at his work partner, Regulus was staring intently at the bottom of Barty's teacup. He was trying to interpret the leaves to predict Barty's future. Barty didn't believe that it was an accurate way of reading the future, but with Madame Argie standing behind him he was not about to say anything about the practice.
"Okay, I think I have this right. You have a large decision to make soon. I'm sure this here means that you will gain great honour. So whichever path you choose will lead you to great things." Regulus told him, still squinting into the dregs of tea at the bottom of the cup.
Madame Argie seemed pleased with his interpretation and walked off to check on some other pairs in the classroom. Barty looked at Regulus who just shrugged at him, "It's mostly smudges to me, make it up if you have to, just make it sound believable."
Barty smirked, that made more sense, he hadn't expected that Regulus would have seen in anything in his tea leaves, it was such an imprecise art. He looked down into Regulus' cup hoping to see some sort of shape in the sludge that was the dregs of tea to give him a starting point.
He checked his watch quickly and smiled at the time, he thrust his watch under Regulus' nose letting him see that they were only minutes away from the end of class. He looked at the teacup again and then to his textbook, giving Regulus a rough interpretation about success in future endeavours.
As the bell rang Barty stuffed his and Regulus' books into their bags, trusting the other teen to write down their homework assignment. They were the first of the combined Slytherin Ravenclaw class to leave the room. As soon as they were far enough away from the class that Madam Argie wouldn't hear them Barty began to complain.
"Why did we take divination? I mean really tea leaves, if I have to drink another cup of tea and interpret the dregs I may as well jump out the window." Barty whined.
"You were the one who wanted to take it, you practically begged me to take it with you." Regulus teased his Ravenclaw friend.
"I thought it would be an easy class, and we would be able to talk to each other, unlike a lot of the other classes." Barty complained, "The only thing we get to talk about is vague interpretations of things."
Barty wasn't about to admit to his best friend that the reason he had really wanted them to take the class together was that he knew that the tables were small, and that they would be working practically on top of each other at times. Well that and palmistry, the art had always fascinated him, that you could read the future from someone's hands, it was the only part of divination that he enjoyed.
"It'll get better." Regulus told him, "Going by the homework we will be moving onto reading palms next week, you like that part."
"We should practice our interpretations so we have something to tell Madame Argie when she asks." Barty enthused, grabbing for Regulus' hand as he did so. He wasn't about to tell Regulus, but this was the main reason he liked palmistry, he could hold onto Regulus' hand as much as he wanted, run his fingers down the lines of his palm and watch him shiver at the touch. Maybe one day he would pluck up the courage to ask him out on a date and he wouldn't need the excuse of divination class to hold his hand.
