Blimey, what is that? Is that...is that an update? Heck, it must be an update! What else could it be? Lolz... Man, did I take a long break. Sorry folks, work sucks. Such is life. Anyhoo, here's the next installment. Hope it's to you folks' liking. Thanks for droppin' by! Hope you leave a review before you go. Cheerio! (this is me trying to sound British)
Aaaaand... after months of Draco being frozen...
Divination Central
"Finite incantatem!"
Draco's limbs slacked as he was freed from the spell and he glared at Sierra menacingly, "You—"
Sierra yelped, stepping back and pointing her wand at him again threateningly, "Try it."
"Calm down, lad. You're all right," a guy with spiky blond hair said to Draco who turned his sharp look at him. The guy edged back, "Whoa, hey, easy on the aggression," he put up his hands in defeat, "Pureblood right here."
Draco's eyebrows furrowed as he gave the guy with an Irish accent a once over as if not believing him.
He nodded in assurance. "Yeah, enjoy it fella, we'll be the only ones," he informed him. He turned to her, "You were right, love. He is—what was that term you used?" he prompted, "A feisty one?"
"British prick?" Sierra supplied with a slight sneer before she at eased, putting her wand away.
"We haven't seen you around here for quite a while," the guy said of Sierra. "Disappearing then coming back with shit this heavy. I tell you the place hasn't stopped buzzing all day. I heard old Julius has his hands full up at the Library."
"Yeah, saw him," she replied walking over to a computer console on a nearby desk. "You guys send help up there yet? There was like a dozen creepy characters floating around and I do mean—"
Draco looked around the strange place, his eyebrows still drawn together irately. The room had an eerie feel about it, emphasized by the spotlights lined on the ceiling aimed at the rows and rows of crystal balls on separate podiums arrayed all around the center of the room casting even more eerie shadows on the floor, rows and rows that upon more careful inspection would reveal that there were actually just two rows and then reflecting mirrors all around them making them look numerous. This however didn't stop a mixture of plain clothed and robed witches to bustle about, coming in and out and through the several mirrors, looking into far off crystal balls or consulting display terminals along the nearby wall.
"What place is this?"
The guy blinked and glanced over at the baffled-slash-livid-looking Draco. "Oh, right, sorry," he approached him with a friendly smile, putting his hand out to shake. "Billy Chutenagen. Folks call me Chute."
Draco narrowed his eyes at Chute's hand but didn't move take it. "Shoot?" he repeated incredulously.
"Aye. Close enough," Chute nodded, withdrawing his hand, then gestured around. "This here's our Disaster Prevention Department—Divination Central, if you catch my drift. We'd like to think of ourselves as the wizard equivalent of the muggle's C.I.A.," he paused for effect, grinning.
Draco didn't react. He was busy peering at the several glass pensieve models on a shelf, his nose wrinkled as he kept a safe distance from anything and sidestepped widely to avoid a passing Auror who was otherwise preoccupied to notice anyway.
Chute frowned. "Get it? Central Intelligence Agency?" he prompted expectantly.
"He doesn't know what the C.I.A. is, Agent Lamebrain," Sierra reminded him, looking over her shoulder. "Mr. Malfoy is a pureblood fresh pluck from London."
"Malfoy…" Chute repeated slowly. "I think I've heard of 'im," he said vaguely.
Draco couldn't help an irritated hiss as he rolled his eyes. Just like he wasn't accustomed to being ignored, he wasn't accustomed to being unknown either. Back in England, the sheer mention of his name brought immediate reactions from witches and wizards alike. His presence alone could incite fear and admiration. His mere glance commanded respect.
"Anyhoo, this is where it's all done aight," Chute continued to explain. "Fortune telling, tea leaves, tarot—sometimes we put out this booth on Christmas and read palms. Muggles love it," he relayed with another grin.
"What am I doing here?"
Sierra and Chute both jumped startled at Draco's outburst before she shot Chute a meaningful look.
"We're supposed to wait for Thames," Chute said pointedly in a low whisper.
Sierra gave him another look. "Would you like to tell him that?" she gestured to the ever-impatient Draco.
"You tell him," Chute said, huffing in disbelief. "You shouldn't've brought him here in the first place."
"He needs to know," she insisted.
"Know what?" Draco prompted warily.
"Uh…" Sierra blinked, uncertain of how to begin.
"Did you say life or death?" Draco recalled. "That's what you said right? My life or death."
At that Sierra winced and Chute groaned loudly, "Oh Sierra, you did not."
"Oh leave me alone!" Sierra snorted haughtily, turning away to consult another terminal screen. "I know what I read and I know what I know, ok? These are warning signs."
Chute chuckled sarcastically. "See, now she thinks your life is in danger," he told Draco. "Because of this cockamamie passage she read from some New Age book written by Merlin fanatics—as if the guy was a big deal—and just because you happen to have arrived, which could, by the way, just be the biggest bleedin' coincidence—," he stopped short, sighing. "Look, Sierra," he called, "you know Thames isn't going to buy this."
"This Thames, he's…?" Draco wanted to know.
"Oh, Thames sort of heads up this Department," he replied. "He's the authority of Divination in America," Chute informed him. "He's also the best Divination mentor. Sierra's real lucky to be apprenticing under him. He's really finicky about his apprentices."
"I'll say," Sierra huffed as-a-matter-of-factly, not turning around.
"He's also going to give you a lot of words about jumping to conclusions again when he gets here," Chute said loudly. "You shouldn't have told Mr. Malfoy here about your theory yet until Thames says so."
She stuck out her tongue in a grotesque expression at Chute to say she didn't care and ignored them.
"You'd want a little pointer about our girl here," Chute shrugged apologetically, wrinkling his nose, "she's kinda…" he made a motion around his ear to gesture that Sierra was a little gone in the head.
"Yeah…so I've heard," Draco confirmed with a nonchalant nod.
"This is why Thames always breathes down her neck," Chute continued. "When she gets all in this flurry, she doesn't bother to check her facts, doesn't stop to confirm sources, and you can't convince her otherwise either. If she's got a hunch about it, she won't let it go."
Great. Draco rolled his eyes. He sighed then looked around the room drearily. This was just what he needed right now. Crazy kooks. Ambiguous predictions. A threat to his life. And here he thought his engagement to Veronica was bad luck enough.
Chute was leaned against one of the podiums with a crystal ball, watching Draco with a curious quirk in his eyebrow. "You read?" he spoke up, gesturing to the crystal balls.
Draco recalled that nutter Madame Trelawney from Hogwarts with a sour taste in his mouth and he huffed haughtily. "Divination bores me," he drawled.
"On the contrary," Chute remarked, "fortune telling is a very intriguing aspect of the craft. Here I'll read for you. Perhaps we might be able to pick up on some of that omen crap she's all blatherin' about," he said with a roll of his eyes.
"Thanks but no," Draco declined, still not completely buying into this Divination Central concept.
"Oh come on, just for the fun of it," Chute coaxed. "Some of us have stopped reading our own fortunes anyway," he told him as he stared into the crystal ball. "Got kind of boring to know what's going to happen next. But there was that time when we snuck a peek at the wager tables. Dox—he's another assistant here—he won two hundred dollars off a horse named Big Ben…" he trailed off as the smoke in the ball started to clear, "Here we go," he squinted into the ball. "Hm…" he creased his forehead after a moment.
Draco watched Chute, only slightly interested.
"Thames'll be here in a sec," Sierra finally looked up then made a face, groaning, when she saw what they were doing. "Oh come on, Chute. You can't read for shit," she reminded him then teased, "Step aside before you hurt yourself."
Chute didn't respond. He stared at the crystal ball, his face forming into an appalled expression crossed with disbelief and amusement. "Whoa…" he mumbled, his eyes widening.
"Whoa?" Sierra repeated curiously. "What is it?" she tried to peer around Draco.
"Whoa…" he said again. "Looks like the two of you two are—whoa…" he blinked into the crystal ball as if he were seeing things.
"What?"
"Looks like you two are going to get it off," he announced with a highly amused tone of voice.
"What!" Draco gawked, hearing wrong.
"That's ridiculous!" Sierra pushed Chute aside to see the crystal ball herself. She gasped, her eyes practically popping out of her head at what she saw. It was a vision of her and Malfoy together and her jaw dropped as she made an increasingly grotesque expression short of spewing. Ugh! Gross!
Draco noticed the severity of her reaction and sidled over to have a look for himself. He peered into the crystal ball and winced in horror, "God—" he almost choked, wrinkling his nose in more than distaste.
Then Sierra noticed Chute's hand underneath the table. He'd been manipulating the vision. She shot him a dirtier than dirt look. "Chute, you asshole," she smacked him in the back of the head.
"Ow—hey!" he complained, between guffaws. "I was just messing. You need to work on your sense of humor."
"Oh ha ha, very funny," she sneered at him then accidentally met Draco's gaze and shuddered with disgust.
Draco returned her blecchh with offense. "What? If you think I'd want to go snogging with a mudblood like you, you're out of your mind."
Chute snickered at the sides.
"Dammit Chute," Sierra said irritably, giving him a menacing look. "Why don't you quit translating your sick twisted fantasies to them fortunes and be useful for a change?"
"Hey, I'm just here to read," Chute raised his hands in resignation, still grinning amused.
Still a curl of disgust on her lips, Sierra took the crystal ball in her hands and shook it vigorously to clear the mocked up vision.
"Look W.B., you're paranoid," Chute pointed out. "There's nothing wrong with the pureblood. There's nothing to panic about."
"Unless of course I'm missing something," a deeply resonating voice remarked.
Author's ramblings...
Et voila! There! I'm going to update soon. No, really I am. Lolz again. Until then, merci for reading! Ciao! (and this is me trying to sound French-Italian)
