There is no plot here . . .
This whole bloody story, and no bleedin' plot!
How've I gotten so far?
Yeah, I dunno either.
52 – Divination
Sirius
'Guess who's still taking Muggle Studies!' Sirius said brightly, nearly accidentally-on-purpose shoving Kayla's face into her porridge bowl the next morning.
'Mmmf,' she responded, now trying to pick bits of breakfast out of her hair, which hadn't escaped the porridge attack. 'You? Really?'
'Uh huh,' Sirius said. 'You proud of me?'
'Immensely. Now don't push the back of my head like that.'
'Why?'
'Because this will happen.' With that, Kayla grabbed a big spoonful of porridge and flicked it in his face.
Sirius blinked.
He blinked again.
He blinked four times, because it took him that long to comprehend what happened.
'Did you just -'
'I did,' Kayla responded smugly.
'You -'
'Yep.'
'But -'
'I know.'
There was a pause.
'Reeeemus!' Sirius bawled. 'Your lady friend's flicking porridge at me!'
'Suck it up, buttercup,' Remus responded, not even looking up from his copy of The Daily Prophet.
'Well,' Sirius said, his tone one of the utmost offence. 'Aren't you charming.'
Remus gave him a single thumbs-up over the top of the paper, and Kayla grinned impishly up at him.
'Match made in heaven, I swear,' Sirius muttered.
'What was that?' Kayla asked.
'Nothin'.'
'I'm certain you said something.'
'Nope.'
'I'm pretty sure if I turned you into a Sasquatch, you'd have something to tell me.'
'Mmm, nah.'
'Oh?' Kayla quirked a single eyebrow, and Sirius immediately cringed.
'No . . . ?'
Hmm . . .'
'Please don't hex me,' Sirius said, watching her warily.
'You're gonna need to do more than that.'
'Please,' he begged, making a dramatic show of waving his hands around. As a second eyebrow travelled up her forehead, he plopped down on the bench next to her, and wrapped his arms tightly around her in a grip that was almost suffocating, shaking her violently back and forth. 'Please!'
'Merlin, Black!' she exclaimed, looking at him with wide eyes whilst also trying to wriggle out of his vice grip. 'Fine, you can live!'
Sirius immediately let go of her. 'Thank you,' he said cordially.
She rolled her eyes.
Lily
'Oh, what fun,' Lily muttered sarcastically as she scanned over the timetable Professor McGonagall had just given her. She looked at Marley with a tortured expression. 'First lesson of the year, double Divination.'
Marley winced. 'Have fun, Lils.'
'Ugh. Think of me in Arithmancy, won't you?'
'Better to think of you than those bloody numbers.'
'I swear if Professor Deadry predicts someone's death again, I'll throw my tea leaves.'
'Make it at her face,' Marley said with a small smirk. 'What did she say last time? That you'd die before you're twenty two?'
'Which is complete and utter rubbish,' Lily added. 'I won't be married yet by then, and I'll be damned if I die before my wedding.'
'Hear, hear.'
'Hmph.' Lily folded up the piece of parchment and put it in her bag, before getting up off the bench. 'Don't be late to class,' she said, looking down at Marley. 'It's only the first day back.'
'Yes, Mum.'
Rolling her eyes, Lily walked out of the hall and started the long journey up to the North Tower.
She walked with her arms crossed and muttered to herself, pausing momentarily to direct a persistent Sir Cadogan away on a "quest" when he had followed her all the way along the fourth floor.
What she didn't expect however, was that when she reached the foot of the tower, was to see a group of unfamiliar students mixed in with the faces she knew.
'What's going on?' she asked Aislin, a friendly Ravenclaw she occasionally conversed with in this class.
The blonde shrugged a little. 'I think that since this class is so small, they've merged the third and fourth years together.'
'Fair enough,' Lily commented, raising her eyebrows a little.
When the ladder descended, the group clambered up into the stuffy tower and sat at the tables positioned around the room. Lily hesitated a little – she never really had a set seat in this room, and she normally contemplated where to sit before every lesson – before a face she knew waved her over.
'Alice!' she said, sitting down at the table. Alice Prewett, a blonde third year she was quite close to, beamed at her.
'Hey, Lily!'
'I didn't know you were taking Divination.'
She shrugged a little. 'I preferred this over the other subjects.'
'Trust me,' Lily said, 'you'll change your mind before the day is out.'
Alice laughed. 'That bad?'
She nodded. 'Mmm hmm.'
'Oh well.' She laced their arms. 'We'll suffer through it together.'
'Well aren't I glad I have you,' Lily laughed. 'Maybe this'll become tolerable.'
As the lesson progressed, Lily found quite a lot of entertainment in watching Alice's eyebrows travel up her head when listening to Professor Deadry's lecture. At one point, she turned her head to Lily and mouthed, 'Is she serious?' Lily grinned and nodded in response.
Finally, when they were given instructions for that lesson (reading tea leaves again to "get them back into the flow of things"), Alice flipped through her textbook with a look of incredulity.
'She's mad,' she said. 'I honestly thought predicting the future would be more . . . intelligent looking than this. The Inner Eye? Merlin . . .'
'Off her rocker, alright,' Lily sniggered. 'This entire subject's plain barmy.'
The two of them poured their cups of tea, drank the liquid, and drained the cups to separate the dregs from the leaves. Alice finally turned hers the right way up, and stared at the messy clump of black stuff in the bottom.
'Hey,' Lily said, staring scrutinisingly at her own. 'I think mine's got a leprechaun. Or is it You-Know-Who in a top hat?'
Alice burst into laughter, attracting funny looks from the rest of the class, and a disapproving glare from Professor Deadry. When she finally calmed down, she spoke. 'Well, I'm pretty sure my Inner Eye's clouded. All I can see is tea leaves.'
'Then I believe there's tea in your near future,' Lily said in a mysterious voice. Alice started shaking with giggles again. 'Maybe you'll have a cuppa at dinner.'
'Oh, indeed,' Alice said. 'I generally do, you see.'
'Well,' Lily said, now looking back at her own cup. 'I'm almost certain that the Dark Lord doesn't run around in a top hat. So my future's a load of baloney, for all it's worth.'
'This subject's a load of baloney,' Alice said, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. 'Don't worry 'bout it, Lily.'
'Wasn't planning on it.'
The two of them started giggling again. Alice began nudging her cup around the table due to a lack of anything else to do, and Lily joined her, the two of them eventually charming the drinking equipment to skid around the wooden surface of its own accord.
'Whose head should I send this flying into?' Alice wondered, grinning mischievously.
Lily blinked at her. 'You sound like Marley when you say that.'
'McKinnon?'
'Yeah.'
Alice shrugged, then said, 'Rob Greene. I'm going to try and take him out.'
'Come off it. That's a bit mean,' Lily replied, but she couldn't stop her lips quirking up into a little smile.
'Aww, hey, he's a good target!'
Since the two of them were so involved in their discussion, neither of them were watching their cups. So, naturally, it scared the living daylights out of them both when the pieces of ceramic shot off the desk and collided with poor Rob anyway, considering he was sitting just in front of their table.
'Bah!' Alice cried at the sound of smashing china. Heads swivelled from all directions to look at them, and both of the girls blushed red to the roots of their hair. Lily gave what was supposed to be an innocent smile, but was unsuccessful, as it turned out looking like on of Marley's innocent smiles – meaning that she looked a hundred percent guilty.
Still, it was better than actually doing Divination.
James
'Hey!' James cried suddenly, looking across the common room early one Friday night. 'I think – maybe – come with me.'
He grabbed Sirius by the wrist and dragged him across to his newly appointed destination: right in front of Evans.
She, Marley and Kayla were all standing together in a corner, talking about something or other. All of them looked up at the boys' arrival.
Without even giving her a cheeky greeting like he normally would, James simply grabbed Evans roughly by the shoulders and shifted her (triggering a loud, squeaky noise of discomfort while doing so) so she was almost pressed right up against his person.
'Measure us,' James said, looking at Sirius. After a thought, he slipped off his trainers and said to Evans, 'Shoes. Off. Now.'
She frowned at his rudeness, but was evidently just as curious to see what the results of this were. She kicked off her shoes and visibly shrunk a few centimetres.
'Alright,' Sirius said, now eyeing the two of them scrutinisingly. 'Stand back-to-back.'
They both complied, and he put a hand on each of their heads, comparing. Then a wide, toothy grin split his face. 'Haha! You've made it, Prongsie! After three long years, you've done it!'
James hollered and whooped. 'Yes! By how much?'
'An inch, I'd say.'
'Hang on,' Evans cut in, still frowning. 'You're taller than me?'
'By an inch!' James cried. 'I've got the height advantage!'
'That's not fair,' she said indignantly.
'Yes it is,' James said. 'Because now I can do things like this -'
He pulled out the clip that was holding her hair up, then proceeded to dangle it a long way above her head, aided by his long, lanky arms. Evans made a noise of frustration as her hair tumbled out and over her shoulders, and she lunged for the pin. 'Give that back!' she cried insistently.
'No,' James replied, smirking (down!) at her. 'Jump for it.'
She crossed her arms and glared at him. 'You may be taller than me now, Potter, but that means I can still do stuff like this.'
And thus she kneed him in the crotch.
Three guesses what James' response to that one was.
Off to the side, the girls and Sirius were all howling with laughter, while James let out a large range of colourful expletives.
'Oh, that was pure gold, Evans,' Sirius choked out, nearly red in the face. Evans just stuck her nose in the air and stepped back to the security of her friends.
Just as everything was about to calm down, Marley let out a screech as Sirius yanked her over to his side. 'Now measure us,' he instructed James.
James didn't even need to use hands to see there was a notable difference. And once he had measured up what that difference was, he was grinning from ear to ear.
'You'll love this, Padfoot. Two inches. Two inches.'
'What?' Marley screeched.
'Oh yeah!' Sirius pumped his fist in the air. 'Gotcha, brat!' He trapped Marley in a suffocating hug and rubbed his fist against her hair, causing it to stick up in all directions.
'Ugh, eff off, Black,' Marley said indignantly, squirming.
'But guess what?' Peter and Remus joined them, after apparently watching the previous unfolding of events.
James looked at Peter. 'Yeah?'
'I'm taller than Remus!'
James felt his eyebrows travel up his head, and sized them up, seeing about a centimetre's difference. 'So you are,' he said, sounding impressed. 'Good job, Pete!'
Peter puffed up proudly, and Remus rolled his eyes, apparently disgruntled by this.
'Well, Shortie hasn't changed,' Sirius noted. 'She's still short.'
Kayla huffed. 'Well, I'm sorry,' she said exasperatedly. 'I can't help it, y'know.'
He grinned. 'I bet you could. In fact, I remember Flitwick mentioning Stretching Charms the other day – I could look them up -'
'No,' Kayla said, with extreme emphasis. 'I wouldn't trust you to butter my toast, let alone make me taller.'
Sirius sighed dramatically. 'You're lack of faith is wounding,' he told her.
'Yeah, Padfoot, and so's your face,' James said, cutting in.
Sirius' head swivelled to look at him. 'Excuse you?'
'Run,' Remus muttered, starting to grin. 'Run, James.'
And James ran. Curse his gob.
