Credits: All the references to Harry Potter, the world
of Hogwarts and the magical community are J.K. Rowling's. All the rest
are mine.
Author's note: I love you all! Er- or not. But thanks to those who have reviewed my previous stories (::ahem::) I want you to know I really appreciate your comments. Reviews are my life! I live for reviews! So please review!
Chapter 8
Harry, Nirry, and Ron climbed the stairs up to Divination,
talking and complaining loudly. Harry and Nirry were commenting on their
Quidditch practice the night before.
"I couldn't see anything at all!" exclaimed Nirry,
clutching the banister in mid sentence. "It was so foggy... Hey! Who just
stepped on my robes?"
They reached the top of the floor and began mingling with
the crowd of Gryffindor students below Professor Trelawney's trapdoor.
Nirry gave an exhausted sigh. Ron's face was red, and the rest of the
students were sweaty as well.
"I reckon maybe the stairs got higher, they weren't
like that last time," said Ron, breathing more normally now. Nirry
suddenly brightened.
"Oh, right! I remember Hermione telling me about
the stairs at Hogwarts moving around on a monthly basis." Groans
followed this statement, and she looked around, annoyed. "What?" she
asked defensively.
"You mean we're going to have to walk even more this
year?" Harry asked. Nirry gave an exasperated sigh.
"No, of course not! They'll probably come
down this week or something like that."
The trapdoor overhead opened, the silver ladder came down,
and their argument was cut short by Professor Trelawney's voice greeting them
in.
The four settled themselves at their usual table near the
windows, and tried to stifle their urges to yawn or sleep. Nirry looked
faint, the same as she looked every time she came in. The heavy, perfumed
air seemed to her even more oppressive than usual, though it might have been
because of her experience the night before. There had been a torrent of
loose rain from the sky, which rained down on the team with no mercy.
"The Orb has informed me that today, my dears, our
lesson concerns the bones of the Oracle! Gather round and take, each one
of you, one of these bones which have been so generously donated to me this
year. Place a burning rod of this flowery essence, and place it inside
the hollow. Wait five minutes, take the leftovers out of the bone, then
interpret the cracks with help from your book, page 56- 57. Now, me
dears, let us not hurry!" The teacher stood as always, with her
billions of gold bracelets and jangles, with her gauzy silk shawl around her
shoulders and fly sized spectacles on her face. After rolling their eyes
at her speech, they came round and each took one of the bones, which, Ron happened
to mutter, looked exactly like the bones of mice.
Soon they settled down to wait for their bones to be
cracked, watching Trelawney help Neville, who was having some trouble with his
rod. It would not stay on the table, but after three burnt tries, she
finally managed to keep it on the table by placing another under it.
"You know what I miss the most?" said Nirry
wistfully, trying to catch a breath from the opened window before Trelawney
spotted it and ordered it to be shut, "movies. Movies and the
computer."
Ron looked mystified, but Harry nodded. "But,
think, you'll probably get some time to go to a movie during the summer, I bet
Dumbledore'll let you." Harry said carefully, trying to sound
lighthearted as if not to sound like he'd like to take her to the movie. His eyelids shut down over his eyes,
only to jerk back up. Ron suddenly looked around, and hastily, Nirry shut
the window.
"Yes, my dears, they're almost done, let me help
you," Professor Trelawney glided toward them and took Harry's oracle bone
in her hand before Harry could utter a word of protest. Now he sunk down
in his chair, waiting for the death prediction that was to follow. And,
sure enough...
"My dear Mr. Potter! This is bad, oh, so very
bad. You have, I am sorry to say, once again got the signals of death
here. You see, the lines intersecting here mean... oh!" she gave a
cry of astonishment. Nirry and Ron looked sympathetically at Harry, who was now
getting the avid stares of Lavender and Parvati. Dean and Seamus were
suppressing sniggers, and Neville was carefully not looking at his bone. Nirry
looked back at Trelawney, her mouth pursed in a single line. There was a
faint ringing tone in her head.
Trelawney gave a great shudder. "Yes, very bad
indeed, worse than even last year, I'm afraid." Harry made a face at
her. Nirry's annoyance and anger were mounting in her head along with the
smoke. In fact, the smoke seemed to be in her eyes. She cleared her
head, and Harry came back into focus. He looked distinctly disgruntled
and vexed.
"She always has to do this to me, doesn't she, she
does, of course, she does. To me." He gave his bone a disdainful
look and flicked it menacingly toward Ron, who began to laugh. Nirry felt
even heavier. The pounding in her head started again. Dimly she wondered
if she was going ot sleep. Then everything blacked out.
Harry looked at Nirry in surprise, where she lay passed
out on the desk. True alarm sounded in his voice, for he was sure this
was not a joke. Her face was pallid and did not show any sign of life.
"Ron," he hissed, at the same time waving
maniacally at the teacher, who came gliding toward them, until she saw Nirry's
body draped gracefully across the desk. The size of Ron's eyes grew.
"My child, what happened here!" she
exclaimed, swooping down on her. She rolled Nirry's face so it faced
upward. "Speak, child, speak, we-"
Nirry's body grew rigid as a board. Her mouth opened,
and Harry stared in horror at her face, silently grasping her hand. He
felt her whole body shudder, then heard the low rasp of a voice that came from
her mouth.
"The Dark Lord has risen again, as we knew he
would. Someone will die! The nemesis of Lord Voldemort will
die! He is making plans now, oh great Lord of Darkness. He will destroy
you all! All of you... all..."
A shriek issued from one of the girls in the classroom, and
the grating voice that came from her mouth smoothed out, into one, long scream
of terror.
"How dare you? How dare you! Aaaaahhhhh!"
her body began to shake uncontrollably, amid openmouthed stares of terror from
her classmates. Harry looked, stricken, at Trelawney, and saw she was
looking at Nirry's face transfixedly. The screaming went on until at last
Harry thought he'd have to run from the room, cowering and covering his ears
against the scream Harry had mistaken at first as a banshee.
Nirry's body stopped shaking abruptly. She opened her
eyes and saw the faces of her companions. Bewildered, she looked round at
them.
"What happened?"
Wordlessly, they all looked back at her.
* * *
"Higher, Fred, higher!" the shout of Russ's
voice. "You've got to, come on, yes! Now, dive back down quickly, no
hands!"
Harry looked down at where Russ swooped, fifty feet below
him. Hoping he wouldn't see, Harry urged his Firebolt even higher, till
he could almost hear his ears pop from the exertion.
He had to think about what had happened in Divination.
Nirry had been led, protesting, to the hospital room, and the class had been
unusually quiet, even after Trelawney had dismissed them a half hour
early. Even the Great Hall he'd been quiet, at supper, and people could
be seen whispering at the tables. Dumbledore looked serious, and
Trelawney was nowhere to be seen. Neither, in fact, had Miz Reediata.
The fact that a student had obviously been possessed- or
worse- by what seemed like Death Eaters had spread through the castle like
wildfire. The common room had been so full of whispered statements and
furtive looks all around them finally made Harry leave, disgusted, leaving Ron
to tell Hermione about it. Nirry was still in the hospital wing.
Phhhtt!!! Something small, gold and winged zoomed
past his ear, and he turned his head to see what it was.
"Potter! What are you doing, looking for birds? Come
back down and start working!" The voice of the overwhelmed captain
reached his ears. Harry tried to clear his mind of thoughts and spiraled
down quickly, trying to catch the Snitch. He reached Russ and muttered an
apology, grunting with the effort of leaning over three feet below his
broomstick. Russ nodded approval.
"Good job, Harry. We've got to work hard this
week, our first game is coming up on Saturday!" and zoomed
off. Harry snapped his head up.
"This Saturday?" Harry shook his head once
more, berating himself. He must have been really out of it, probably
because of Nirry's untimely trance. Of course the game was this Saturday!
He sped off in search of the others.