Starting school back up again kept the administration busy. Between sorting out curricula for the new substitute teacher, and chaining up first years in the dungeons (okay, that was just a rumor I'd heard—first years can be imaginative), apparently they were running out of time to read people's mail. Or something else had changed, because the Great Hall was suddenly full of a lot more owls over breakfast. None for me, of course, except the Sunday Prophet—I'd given up reading it when it didn't have Quidditch scores.
Easter—the actual holiday itself, not the break—went off without any attempts to score political points. I would say it was hitchless, because on my end it was, but apparently not Professor Snape's.
On Saturday afternoon, I trekked off on yet another attempt to track down the wireless (Puddlemere versus Tutshill!). As I approached Classroom Eleven, I heard Snape say from farther off than usual, "This may be an minor incident in itself, but your insubordination is proving dangerous."
Snape hardly ever needed to raise his voice with anyone, so I was curious as to which witch or wizard could annoy him that much. The answer, it turned out, was neither; instead, it was Firenze the centaur speaking with the headmaster. "You designed the schedule."
"I designed it before I knew my Care of Magical Creatures teacher was going to run off," said Snape.
"Ah, yes...your wizards' ability to care for your magical fellow is quite unrivaled, is it not?"
"I will tolerate disrespect towards my curriculum, I will not tolerate your behavior if this insubordination grows any further out of hand. Or hoof, as the case may be."
"I have hands. And I will take your shift tonight, provided you learn something from all the moralizing."
I'd stayed there longer than I intended to, not really paying attention to the conversation so much as I was thinking about Firenze. Sure, he was a professor, but he only taught half-time. Which meant that he—and Professor Trelawney—were kind of like me, not really having as much to do as the others. Trelawney rarely ate with us in the Great Hall, but she often came down for holidays. Would Easter be the same?
It would, in fact. Sunday afternoon there was a pretty sizable feast, although not too fancy as the house-elves had to cook for the whole crowd of students. Seriously, there was no reason they couldn't have had the Easter break at Easter. But I didn't mind, since I was able to track down Trelawney afterwards.
"Er, Professor? I had some questions about Divination."
"Ah, Mr. Wood...we live in frightening times. Yet the Inner Eye does not See upon command, I cannot read your future." She looked into my face, as if trying to pick up on an aura or whatever.
"No, no, I don't want any predictions," I rushed to explain. "I just want to learn about the theory of it. Never took a class."
"Really?" she said, lighting up. This was probably more enthusiasm than she got on a normal weekday. "I beg your pardon. Come, come..."
As we climbed the staircases back towards her room, I asked, "When you make a prediction, do you know it'll come true? Or is it only a guess?"
"Ah, "prediction," that is what your Quidditch analysts do. The Inner Eye does not See upon command. With practice and dedication, one might attune oneself to the Signs...but even then, one might misinterpret them."
"So it's not guaranteed to be true?"
"Oh, all knowledge of the future is true. But sometimes we err, or claim to understand, when we do not."
That wasn't incredibly helpful—my memories were my memories, not a load of shapes floating in tea. "Would you say that...knowledge you have, of the future, is somehow travelling back from the past?"
"Travelling? My dear, you have much to learn. Knowledge is not an object that can be grasped or felt, or moved. No, it does not travel."
"All right. Sorry. Do...do you know, is it possible for anything to travel backward in time? Or forward?"
She sniffed. "Moving through time? Other than the normal process of watching the future unfold before you? That would lead to all sorts of impossibilities."
"Watching the future unfold...do you mean it's like a book? That's already been written?"
"If you cannot transcend the literal meanings of words, I'm afraid you'll have no chance of ignoring the mundane," she sighed, stepping into her room. "Happy Easter, Mr. Wood."
"Happy—" I began, but she'd closed the door behind me. Still, maybe she had an Inner Ear to match that Inner Eye. "Easter, Professor Trelawney!"
She flung the door open again and stared at me. "You are a strange man."
"Er. I suppose."
"I do not mean to busy myself with Seeing your future, but I sense a deep unsteadiness in you. Even your past is cloaked in shadows...At once, you are speedy and dextrous, and you have come to work at a school of learning...you seem to have been born under Mercury. In the summer. And yet you are troubled, almost a desperate child of Venus...you seek love, love that you cannot obtain...perhaps you were really born late in May or September?"
I tried not to gasp—the crackpot was onto something. My real birthday was at the end of August, which meant I was born under Mercury, and I certainly wanted to fly quickly (for more than one reason). And yet, as Fergus, I couldn't feel the love of my real family, and the day I really turned twenty-four had been at the end of September. "Yeah," I said. "Late September is it." Sharing Oliver's birthday could be a little suspicious. That way I really fit the part, and hey, maybe the next year she'd send me a birthday card. It'd be better than nothing.
Where by "the next year" I really meant "that year." I'd been teaching for more than half a year already.
You know, they say time flies when you're having fun. That's not right at all. I fly when I'm having fun. When you're doing something that you really rather wouldn't, the time just slips away.