"Welcome, my children," Professor Trelawney greeted from the front of the Divination classroom where she was sat in a little burgundy armchair. "In this room, you shall explore the noble art of Divination. In this room, you shall discover if you possess the Sight."
Trelawney, ridiculous voice aside, began to stand up but almost knocked the small coffee table over in front of her in the process. Eva sighed and hung her head back.
"Hello," Trelawney stepped around the table this time rather than through it, "I am Professor Trelawney. Together we shall cast ourselves into the future!" She shook her hands in the air excitedly. "This term, we'll focus on Tasseomancy which is the art of reading tea leaves. So please, take the cup of the person sitting opposite you."
Eva glanced to the side at Seamus, who looked both bewildered at Trelawney's manic energy and desperate to leave the room. With a sigh, Eva took his tiny teacup and he took hers. Inside was . . . nothing, which she found rather underwhelming.
"What do you see?" Trelawney asked the class, temporarily placing her hand on Eva's knee and then Seamus' as she glided around the class. "The truth lies buried like a sentence deep within a book, waiting to be read." She stopped in front of Seamus with one hand on his shoulder. "But first, you must broaden your minds." She held his head and shook it, and he gazed up at her confusedly while Eva snorted beside him. "First, you must look beyond!"
Trelawney gestured wildly across the room, and everyone's eyes followed her arm, not that she was pointing to anything in particular. Eva held Seamus' teacup closer to her face and even closed one eye while staring at the contents of the porcelain, but she saw absolutely nothing specific.
"You boy!" Trelawney pointed to a startled-looking Neville and edged closer to him. "Is your grandmother quite well?"
"I, er, I think so," Neville responded hesitantly.
Trelawney shook her head and trembled as she did so. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. Give me the cup."
Dean Thomas, sitting opposite Neville, handed the crazy teacher the cup in his hands. Trelawney took one look and seemed completely and thoroughly disappointed with what she saw.
"Pity," she muttered as she swept past them. "Broaden your minds . . . HO!" Ron jumped in his seat and clutched the teacup in his hand so tightly that it almost broke. "Your aura is pulsing, dear," Trelawney informed him. "Are you in the beyond? I think you are."
Eva had never had to put in so much effort to stifle a laugh in her life. Did her Divination teacher really just ask Ron Weasley if he was in the beyond? What the hell was the beyond?
Ron nodded nervously. "Sure."
"Look at the cup," Trelawney urged him, "tell me what you see."
"Yeah, uh," Ron flipped open his book and began to flick between pages, using his finger to scan through the content, "Harry's got sort of a wonky cross? That's trials and suffering . . ."
"Hm . . ." Trelawney hummed.
"And, er . . . that there could be the sun," Ron pointed into the teacup, "and, uh, that's happiness. So, er . . . you're gonna suffer, but you're gonna be happy about it," he concluded sceptically.
At this point, Harry looked like he was stifling a laugh too. Meanwhile, Eva was barely holding it together and had resorted to laughing silently with Seamus.
"Give me the cup," Trelawney whispered, reaching in to take the cup from Ron.
Just as her fingertips brushed against the side of the cup, she cried out in terror and leapt back, her bug eyes wider than usual. Eva had stopped laughing at this point and was now just slightly concerned, especially considering this was a class in seeing the future and supposedly their teacher had seen something unfavourable about her friend.
"Oh, my dear boy," Trelawney whispered to Harry, "my dear . . . y-you have the Grim."
"The Grin?" Seamus asked from across the room to them. "What's the Grin?"
"Not Grin, you idiot, the Grim," Eva hissed, trying not to laugh at such an inappropriate time.
Trelawney looked well and truly terrified, backing up slowly but surely away from Harry.
"Taking form of a giant spectral dog, it's among the darkest omens in our world," a Gryffindor boy from the back of the class read out from his Divinations book.
"It's an omen . . . of death."
Ron and Harry walked ahead of Eva and Hermione to their next lesson that afternoon, Care of Magical Creatures. Eva couldn't be more excited to have Hagrid as a teacher, practically skipping her way to class with her bag over her shoulder and her shoes scuffing across the ground.
"You don't think that Grim thing's got anything to do with Sirius Black, do you?" Ron theorised worriedly.
Hermione sighed and continued to frolic along with her arm linked with Eva's. "Honestly, Ron. If you ask me, Divination's a very woolly discipline. Now, Ancient Runes, that's a fascinating subject."
"Ancient Runes?" Ron questioned. "Exactly how many classes are you taking this term?"
"A fair few," Hermione replied as she and Eva brushed past the boys and made their way further down the grassy hill.
Ron suddenly stopped. "Hang on, that's not possible," he realised. "Ancient Runes is at the same time as Divination. You'd have to be in two classes at once."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly, Ronald. How could anyone be in two classes at once? 'Broaden your minds'," she mimicked.
"'Use your inner eye to see the future'!" Eva mocked using a crazy Trelawney voice before they both burst out laughing hysterically.
Once they reached Hagrid's hut with the rest of their Care of Magical Creatures class, Eva separated from Hermione to stand with some of the Slytherin girls.
"That's it, come on now." Hagrid motioned for them to gather closer. "Come closer, less talking if you don't mind. I've got a real treat for you today," he announced proudly. "A great lesson, now follow me."
The group was led through the Dark Forest which was looking particularly less frightening and looming in the light of day. The trees no longer casted haunting shadows from the pale moonlight, but instead the green leaves provided the area with a natural hue.
"Remember when we were here in our first year and you screamed like a little girl?" Eva teased Malfoy as she walked beside him, clutching her book to her chest.
He nudged her, almost knocking her over due to her tiny size. "Shut up, Infernum."
They stepped over a very short stone wall into an enclosed area with considerably less trees. "Right you lot, less chattering," Hagrid chided. "Form a group over there," he pointed to a spot between a few trees, "and open your books to page 49."
Eva lifted her large killer book from her chest and examined it confusedly. Last time she'd tried to take a look inside, she almost left that encounter missing a few fingers.
Malfoy lifted up his book and frowned at it. "Exactly how do we do that?" he snapped.
Hagrid turned around briefly with an exasperated sigh. "Well, just stroke the spine, of course, goodness me."
Eva attempted to stroke the spine of her book, to no avail. Beside her, she noticed that Malfoy had somehow already opened his successfully and she simply stared at him.
After a moment, he glanced up at her blankly. "What is it?"
"How did you do that?" she asked, pointing to his book.
Rolling his eyes, he snatched her book from her grip and gently ran two fingers along the spine of the book. Considerably less aggressive than before, the book opened up and didn't even attempt to kill him.
"Oh, you're still wearing the ring from Christmas," Eva noticed, staring pointedly at the silver coloured ring which reflected the sunlight off the shiny surface.
He simply shrugged and shoved her book back into her arms. They gathered around the area, Eva closer to the other Slytherins near a small rock pile at the back. Neville was still having hell with his book and, as much as she wanted to help, she also didn't have a death wish. So instead, Eva climbed up a few rocks and sat up near the top, tugging her skirt down a little so she didn't flash anyone.
A few metres away, Hermione dropped her book onto a large rock and spun to face Harry and Ron. "I think they're funny."
"Oh yeah, terribly funny," Malfoy snarked, placing his book down too, "really witty. God, this place has gone to the dogs. Wait until my father hears that Dumbledore's got this oaf teaching classes."
Crabbe and Goyle both laughed at that while Pansy giggled childishly under her breath. Of all of Malfoy's sometimes funny jokes, Eva didn't find this one funny in the slightest.
Narrowing his eyes, Harry stalked towards Malfoy angrily. "Shut up, Malfoy," he snarled.
At that, the group of Slytherins laughed a taunting laugh and Malfoy shoved his bag down with Crabbe. Eva sat back beside Goyle and watched as Malfoy paced closer to Harry, looking him up and down and biting his lip. Then, he glanced above Harry's head and managed to pull the most frightened expression possible with his bottom lip sticking outwards.
A few incoherent words escaped his lips as he pointed upwards. "D-D-Dementor, Dementor!"
When the Gryffindors turned around in panic, even Eva couldn't help but snort a laugh at how gullible they were being. Sure, Malfoy wasn't in a place to judge, but admittedly that was quite funny. Pansy, Crabbe, Goyle, Pike, and Malfoy proceeded to pull the black hoods of their cloaks over their heads and hold their hands out in front of them, making ghost noises while laughing between each other. Eva rolled her eyes humouredly at that.
Hermione stepped over to Harry and turned him away from the group, sneering at the lot of them which only made them laugh harder. Honestly, Eva probably would've done the same if her sense of humour wasn't so mean at times. It was no wonder she'd been put into Slytherin at this rate.
Just as Neville finally recovered from the attack of his book, Hagrid cleared his throat for everyone to gather around once more. Eva hopped back down carefully from the rock pile with the assistance of Goyle, who couldn't stop staring dazedly at her. She really needed to tell those boys that she was not interested in the slightest.
Hagrid hummed a little tune and swept his arm over the view in front of them. Eva squeezed her way to the front beside Harry so that she could actually see over the many tall people, and she gasped when her eyes finally locked on the creature.
It was a horse-like creature but with gorgeous white and silver feathers, a long grey beak, and larger than life wings. Its hoofs grazed across the ground as it carefully trotted closer to Hagrid.
"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid tossed the creature a dead squirrel, which he was able to catch in his beak easily and swallow whole. "Say hello to Buckbeak."
"Hagrid," Ron said slowly just behind her, "exactly what is that?"
"That, Ron, is a Hippogriff," Hagrid answered as he walked over to the group. "First thing you wanna know about Hippogriffs is that they're very proud creatures, very easily offended. You do not want to insult a Hippogriff," he warned. "It may just be the last thing you ever do. Now," he clapped his hands, "who'd like to come and say hello?"
The entire crowd backed up except Harry and Eva, who were both still staring at Buckbeak in wonder.
"Well done you both, well done." Hagrid smiled warmly at the pair of them.
Eva suddenly snapped out of her trance-like state and went to back up. "You know what? I'm kinda small, like the size of those squirrels, and I'd prefer to remain in one piece, so-"
"Nonsense. Come on, Eva, Harry." Hagrid motioned them closer, and she felt a shove behind her as Ron pushed both her and Harry closer. "Now, you have to let him make the first move," Hagrid instructed as the pair slowly edged forwards. "It's only polite. So, step up, give him a nice bow, then you wait and see if he bows back. If he does, you can go and touch him. If not . . . well, we'll get to that later. Go on, make your bow."
With a heavy sigh, Eva bent her knees and bowed so that she was facing the ground. Harry did the same beside her as they both crouched low in front of the Hippogriff.
Suddenly, Buckbeak began squawking loudly and flapping his large wings. Eva glanced up in alarm, which was only intensified when she saw Hagrid's wary expression as well.
"Back off, you both, back off," Hagrid hissed.
They both edged backwards, and everything was going just fine when Harry stepped on a twig which made a loud crack. Eva elbowed him. "Idiot," she whispered.
"Keep still," Hagrid told them, "keep still."
Glancing up from beneath her eyelashes, Eva saw Buckbeak make a slight noise before bowing his own head in front of them. "Oh, well done, Harry and Eva, well done," Hagrid praised.
He tossed Buckbeak another squirrel which he caught and scoffed down easily. Eva stood up nervously and turned her head to Harry. Their gazes locked for a moment and they both smiled in relief at each other.
"Right, you can go and pat him now." Hagrid tipped his head towards the Hippogriff. "Go on, don't be shy."
Very slowly, as slowly as they could, Eva gripped onto Harry's left arm with her right as they both held their free arms out in front of them towards Buckbeak. Hagrid instructed them quietly, ensuring they didn't startle the poor thing or get trampled by his enormous size. Eventually, Buckbeak lowered his head to their hands, allowing them to both stroke his soft feathers.
"Well done!" Hagrid clapped proudly. "Well done, you two! Well done!" The class clapped behind them at vary levels of enthusiasm. "I think he might let you ride him now."
Before Eva had the chance to protest, Hagrid lifted Harry up as if he weighed nothing and placed him on top of Buckbeak. Eva backed away slowly with her eyes wide.
"I don't know about that," Eva reasoned, "are you sure Buckbeak can carry two people?"
Hagrid shook his head, lifted her up by her waist, and placed her down on top of Buckbeak behind Harry. "You have the weight of a little toddler, Eva. Buckbeak will manage just fine. Now, don't pull out any of his feathers, 'cos he won't thank you for that."
With a simple slap, Buckbeak stood up on his rear legs, causing Eva to grip around Harry tightly while he held onto Buckbeak's neck. The Hippogriff then lowered back down to the ground before galloping off between trees ridiculously fast. Eva was holding onto Harry with her arms around his torso, not willing to slide off the end.
Buckbeak then extended his wings out wide and leapt off the ground, taking flight into the endless blue sky. Harry shouted while Eva screamed lightly as the wind whipped past their heads, blowing her hair into her face.
He soared above the trees, the force of his wide feathered wings propelling them along. They floated over the castle and eventually across the Black Lake, flying so close to the surface of the water that tiny droplets got caught on their faces. Eva slowly loosened her death grip of Harry, followed by Harry doing the same to Buckbeak.
"This is so cool!" Eva squealed as she gazed out at the majestic lake.
Harry sat up fully straight and held his arms out, allowing the wind to almost push him off if it weren't for Eva. He laughed in awe and grinned widely as Buckbeak began to lift away from the surface of the lake once more.
Buckbeak eventually landed to the ground again in the small clearing and galloped around to a halt. "Well done, Harry and Eva, and well done Buckbeak!" Hagrid yelled as he helped Eva off first and then Harry. "Well done. How am I doing for me first day?" he asked them.
Eva laughed as she combed her slightly knotted hair back with her fingers. "Amazing, Hagrid."
"Brilliant, Professor," Harry replied, catching his breath.
Out of the corner of her eye, Eva spotted movement in the crowd. Malfoy shoved apart two Slytherins and began to stomp his way over to Buckbeak arrogantly. Cautiously, Eva edged closer, worried about what he was about to do.
"Yes, you're not dangerous at all, are you?" he taunted. "You great ugly brute." Eva's eyes widened as Buckbeak rose onto his hind legs, ready to strike.
The next moments happened so fast she didn't even realise what was happening.
She leapt at Malfoy, attempting to shove him out of the Hippogriff's path. She was so sure they'd both made it safely when a sudden sharp pain hit her left side like nothing she'd ever felt before.
Eva went tumbling down, rolling through the muddy ground lifelessly until she stopped on her back. Her vision began to blur at the edges, and the voices around her muffled up distortedly. People continued to scream, but Eva felt like she physically couldn't make a sound, barely alive enough to function.
"Uh, it's killed meh, it's killed meh!" Malfoy whined beside her pathetically, rolling from side to side.
"HAGRID, HELP EVA!" Hermione screamed.
Hagrid stepped over to Eva's crumpled form. "C-calm down, it's just a scratch."
"HAGRID, SHE'S BLEEDING! SHE NEEDS TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL-" Hermione stepped over and then gasped, almost falling backwards.
A thick river of crimson liquid trickled from Eva and pooled around her, staining the moss-covered ground a dark red colour. The blood poured out from Eva's left side, where a large horizontal gash was torn into her flesh as if someone had taken a knife to her and sliced her open. Her shirt, which had been white, was completely bloodstained, and her raw pink flesh was exposed completely from simply how wide it was.
When Hagrid realised the extent of Eva's injury, he completely ignored Malfoy and knelt down beside her. In an effort to stop the endless bleeding, he tore off a piece of the sleeve of her robe with a swipe and held it to the gash. Eva whimpered in pain for a moment before going completely silent, her eyes barely open and alive.
"Eva, can you hear me?" he asked as calmly as possible, trying to mask the quiver in his voice as he held pressure to the wound.
It took every possible effort for her to move her head, and only then she was barely able to nod. With a sigh of relief that she was still conscious, Hagrid scooped her off the ground, still holding the piece of torn fabric to her side, and began to carry her to the hospital wing quickly.
"Someone bring Malfoy," Hagrid called behind him, "class dismissed."
As Hagrid carried Eva through the castle up to the hospital wing, Malfoy was being helped by Pansy and Goyle, still complaining about the pain in his right arm. Just as he took a breath ready to continue making a fuss, he glanced down at the stone ground they were walking over and noticed it was stained with a many large droplets of blood—Eva's blood.
Hagrid pushed open the doors to the hospital. Inside, both Pomfrey and Snape were stood in the room, discussing a remedy for another student who'd fallen ill. Both of their gazes switched between Eva, who was now barely conscious, and Malfoy, who was still groaning in pain.
"Oh my goodness!" Pomfrey exclaimed, tugging up the end of her dress to run over and help. "Place Miss. Infernum down there." She pointed to an empty bed near the door.
With perfect timing, Malfoy sat down on a bed on the opposite side of the room and cried out in pain, gripping his broken arm tightly. Meanwhile, Eva was in so much pain that she couldn't make a sound as Hagrid gently placed her down and removed the piece of her robe he'd been holding to her wound.
"Oh, Mr. Malfoy, please stop making such a fuss," Pomfrey scolded as she carefully unbuttoned Eva's shirt and peeled the blood-soaked fabric away from her skin.
Since Malfoy was still complaining regardless, Snape rolled his eyes, pulled out his wand, and stepped over to Eva's bed. "Allow me, Madam Pomfrey. You may tend to Mr. Malfoy."
Pomfrey reluctantly nodded and walked across the room to Malfoy, who was still clutching his arm close to him as if it had fallen off, not simply broken a bone.
Without warning, Snape placed one hand on Eva's stomach to hold her still and lined his wand up to her wound. He traced the length of it with the tip of his wand, muttering the same short incantation under his breath repetitively.
This time, Eva was writhing in pain under Snape's scarily strong grip while Hagrid helped hold her down as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Her screams were so hauntingly loud that even Malfoy's eyes widened in horror from the other side of the room. Her flesh itself knitted itself together again, slowly and painfully. It was like being given stitches without any anaesthetic whatsoever, like needles threading through her already beaten and bruised skin over and over again.
After what felt like hours but must've been mere seconds, the pain finally stopped and Snape stowed his wand away in the pocket of his robe.
Pomfrey reappeared over Eva's bed and wiped away tears she hadn't even realised had formed under her eyes. She helped her sit up against the pillows, Eva still gasping in pain, and handed her a glass of what looked like water but had a muddy brown tinge to it.
"This contains Essence of Dittany," Pomfrey told her, urging her to drink it, "it will help prevent any scarring. Come on, drink up."
Eva took one sip of the stuff and felt the overwhelming urge to spit it out. Fighting the urge down, she gulped down the rest of the glass as quickly as possible, sticking her tongue out in disgust at the end.
"Hm, what happened here then?" Pomfrey asked.
It was only then that Eva finally glanced up to find out who else was in the room. While Pomfrey, Snape, Hagrid, Hermione, and Harry were stood over her bed, with a few other Gryffindor kids from her class a few feet back, Malfoy was laying on his bed facing her on the other side of the room with his arm in a sling, accompanied by Pansy, Goyle, and a few other Slytherins.
Her wound, she noticed, was now almost fully healed. It was no longer open but now scarred over, and even the scarring was less obvious than it should've been theoretically. However, it was still throbbing painfully, and the skin around it was swollen and an angry red colour.
"There was an accident in our Care of Magical Creatures class," Hagrid replied, still holding Eva's trembling hand, "with a Hippogriff Mr. Malfoy managed to upset."
"Eva, you little idiot." Hermione pushed her way to the front and hugged her friend, who weakly hugged her back. "Next time, let Malfoy take the hit. It would be better if he was in this situation than you."
"Well, if all is done here, I will be off," Snape said as he headed back to the door, his black robes sweeping behind him.
"Thank you, Professor," Pomfrey called after him, and then turned back to Eva. She placed her hands on Eva's ribs to examine them and Eva gasped in pain. "As I suspected, you seem to have fractured two of your ribs," she mused as she pulled out her wand at aimed it at Eva's torso. "Brackium Emendo."
Eva felt a quick jolt, as if someone had zapped her with electricity, and once Pomfrey pulled her wand away, she noticed it was much easier to move, though still ridiculously uncomfortable. Pomfrey performed one more charm which caused bandages to appear, wrapped fully around her pretty much bare torso. When Eva realised that all she was wearing on the top half of her body was her lacy bra with some bandages around her middle, her face turned an embarrassed shade of scarlet.
"Will she be okay?" Hermione asked Pomfrey with one hand on Eva's shoulder.
Pomfrey nodded. "Oh yes, certainly, she'll be just fine. Bed rest for the next few days, Miss. Infernum, you lost a lot of blood. You'll spend the night here along with Mr. Malfoy under careful observation due to the fact that your ribs are still rather weak. The bruising you'll see beginning to appear should ease after several weeks, but you should find minimal if any permanent scarring present."
"Eva, what the bloody hell were you thinking, jumping in front of Buckbeak like that?" Ron questioned, sitting on the edge of her bed.
Eva shrugged. "I-" Her throat was so sore that her voice came out as a weak croak, so she coughed a few times before continuing. "I wasn't thinking to be honest."
Pomfrey saw Eva's discomfort at the attention she was receiving and shook her head at the crowd of her classmates gathered around her. "This crowd will do no good for my patient. Off you go, the lot of you, back to wherever you should be at this time of day," she snapped, motioning for everyone to leave.
Reluctantly, the crowd shuffled out of the room, wishing for her to get well soon as they left. Finally, Eva was alone, and she allowed her head to fall back onto her pillow.
Pomfrey handed Eva yet another glass of what looked like discoloured water. "This should ease some of the pain from the bruising. You're in for a long night, Miss. Infernum."
Well, shit.
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: Was this a little dramatic? Yes, but also wholly necessary for Eva and Draco's friendship later. Basically, she didn't have any real reason to save his life, but this sorta brings them closer in the end.
I also don't know much about medicine, forget about magical medicine, and please remember that I AM NOT A DOCTOR!
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, stay safe, and ily lots!