They got a few odd stares in Transfiguration, but no problems surfaced until after class. They lingered, in spite of McGonagall's glare, so as not to cause much confusion in the halls. "What've you got next?" Remus asked.
Ron pulled his schedule out of his bag. "Divination," he answered gloomily. "Back with Trelawney, old fraud."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I told you to drop it and take something useful, didn't I? But of course you didn't listen to me . . . ."
Remus grinned at the look of long-suffering on her face— he felt the exact same way all too often— and shook his head. "I don't think any of us are actually taking Divination," he muttered it. "Not after Sirius failed it two years in a row."
Hermione arched an eyebrow at Sirius, who was deep in a conversation with Harry and James, and didn't appear to be paying attention. Or at least not until she caught his eye and grinned sheepishly at her.
"I've got Arithmancy instead," Hermione announced.
"Three of us are taking that," Remus answered, looking over at Sirius and James. "I guess we're going with you, then."
"Actually," Sirius announced, "I think I'll go with Harry and Ron."
"I thought you said you never wanted to see a crystal ball ever again," James commented dryly. "Didn't you break one once?"
Sirius glared. "Don't remind me. But anyway, I really do not want to sit through Arithmancy this morning, and rather than 'attract attention' I think I'll just make fun of Divination. The more we split up the less likely they are to notice us, anyway."
Remus rolled his eyes. "Very well, Sirius, be a maniac. Not that you need any encouragement."
The grin got wide enough it would've scared someone that didn't know him.
"What about Peter?" Remus added absently, glancing over at the only Marauder who hadn't joined in in the conversation.
"I . . . apparently don't have a class," Peter answered.
"Lucky you," muttered Sirius, glancing over at Remus and Hermione knowing neither would let him skip a lesson. Not with the amount of trouble they were already in.
"Well, no, actually," Hermione answered. "Not if you're taking Muggle Studies. Are you?"
Peter didn't look happy about nodding.
"It's on the second floor, in case it's changed," Hermione announced briskly. "Now, all seven of us are going to be late!"
"You're sure its Trelawney and not Firenze?" Harry asked Ron anxiously as they headed to the North Tower— he didn't want his own death predicted yet again. "They're both teaching this class, right?" He glanced in the direction of a staircase that lead to the first floor, where Firenze's classroom was.
Ron pointed to the schedule. "'Fraid so. 'Divination, North Tower.' Firenze's room is at the end of the week." He groaned. "Hermione was right, you know. We should have dropped this class." He turned to Sirius. "Have you ever seen anything in a crystal ball?"
"If I had, would I have failed it twice?" Sirius asked, shrugging.
"Well, if it had been Trelawney teaching twenty years ago and you'd seen something cheerful," Ron muttered darkly under his breath.
The three of them managed to get to the North Tower just as they were about to be late, but everybody was too busy talking to each other to notice. Ron and Harry sat down in their usual corner, trying not to let the heady fumes in the room get to their heads. "She expects you to be able to think in all this," Sirius asked absently, glancing around the room.
Professor Trelawney, as usual, made as mystical an entrance as possible. "Good morning. I am pleased to see that I was not mistaken in the vision that you would all return safely. But, alas, there is someone here who should not be."
Everyone but Ron, Harry, and Sirius looked around, but eventually they all had spotted Sirius. "What's the bet she spotted you?" Ron muttered to him under his breath.
"Ooh, Harry," Lavender Brown called out, "who's you're friend?"
Sirius glanced at Lavender and opened his mouth to answer. Harry interrupted with a hiss only the three of them could hear. "Don't say Black!"
Sirius blinked. "Why not?"
"I promised Hermione I wouldn't explain it," Harry muttered. "Because it hasn't happened for you yet. But you can't say you're name's Sirius Black!"
"Then what the hell am I supposed to say?" Sirius asked mildly. He seemed to accept the fact the Harry was going to keep his promise to Hermione.
"I dunno. Make up another last name or something," Harry answered. "Least you look a bit different as an adult. . . ."
"Sirius Carpenter," Sirius told Lavender quickly, as she was beginning to look a little annoyed at his lack of an answer. "I'm visiting for a few weeks."
This seemed to satisfy Lavender. "And those other three . . . ?"
"Yeah, James and Remus and Peter, too," Sirius answered with a shrug. "Why?"
"I guess I just wondered," Lavender answered, smiling.
"Well, now that an explanation had been reached," Trelawney announced, "may we all turn back to the lesson. Today, I want to review the crystal ball, as we didn't gaze all of last year. Perhaps one of you will see something useful."
"Oh, the irony," Sirius mumbled, glancing at it distastefully.
"You broke one once?" Ron asked. Harry automatically found himself recalling how many times Hermione had advised him to try and get some tact.
"Oh, yeah . . . Peter took it too our third year. Never try to reenact a Quidditch match with a crystal ball, especially seeing as I can't aim and Peter can't catch. . . ."
"You tried to reenact a Quidditch match with Peter Pettigrew?" Ron asked, laughing. Obviously, he was remembering Scabbers at his laziest.
"Do you see something amusing in the future, Mr. Weasley?" Trelawney asked him suddenly.
"Yeah— a rat playing Quidditch," Ron said sarcastically.
Trelawney didn't look particularly amused. She swept over to their table and gazed into the orb. "I see something not quite so amusing," she answered. "A dark shape. . . ."
". . . with four legs, a tail, and burning yellow eyes, heading towards me?" Harry guessed, arching a skeptical eyebrow at the Divination teacher. Sirius looked halfway affronted, seeing as Harry not only described a Grim, but him in the right form.
"You may laugh at your doom if you wish, my dear boy," Trelawney told Harry sniffily, wandering off.
Sirius looked curiously from Trelawney, who had joined Lavender and Parvati Patil, to Harry. "She does that a lot," Harry explained. "But obviously I haven't died yet, have I?"
The conversation quickly turned back to things crystal balls should not be used for.
Author's Note: Much thanks to CountessMel for catching all those little pitfalls one gets so tempted to fall into when writing time travel fics. Next chapter, however, I AM going to get Snape involved, as he does play a part in the planned plotline, but I wanted things halfway grounded in something resembling reality first. . . . Champaign Supernova in the Sky, am I to assume that great minds think alike? Both Lupin's do play a part in this plotline. . . . Cheers! — Loki Mischief-Maker