Disclaimer: The characterses is all mine, preciousss! Yesss, I gots them for a birthday present. They belongs to me, did you hear that, ME! Rowling and Tolkien wouldn't give them to me. But it was my birthday and I wants them so much so I kills them! And takes the copyrightses!
A/N: Anyway. Welcome to the sixth chapter. Hopefully this story is still amusing you, because I've got plenty of ideas to go. If you still like it, tell me and I'll write more. If you don't like it, tell me and I'll write much, much more. Ha ha ha ha...
Meanwhile, Back at the Hall...
They sat and watched Legolas and Hermione leave in silence. After a few seconds, Harry spoke, looking rather shell-shocked.
"Well," he said, "that ruins the rest of the year. We'll never get either of them to shut up now." Ron and Gimli nodded in sympathetic agreement, but Aragorn's attention, as always, was somewhere else entirely.
Poking Harry, he asked, "Who is that exceedingly good-looking young woman over there?" He pointed to one end of the teacher's table. Harry followed his finger and stared intently for a moment before shrugging helplessly.
"Sorry, can't help you. I don't see any good-looking women over there. And believe me, I would have noticed if there were any," Harry replied apologetically. He, in turn, poked Ron. "Hey Ron, see any hot chicks over there?"
Ron also scrutinized the indicated area for a while, then gave up with a shake of his head. "Nope. Sorry, Aragorn." He went back to the toast he'd stolen from Hermione and Legolas's plates looking rather disappointed. But Aragorn, apparently, was not to be deterred in his pursuit of an eligible date. He continued without seeming in the least discouraged by the others' reactions.
"Gimli," he murmured, nudging him. "Gimli?" Gimli seemed to have gone to sleep on his plate, so Aragorn kindly woke him with an elbow to the ribs. Unfortunately, while this did the trick, Aragorn had forgotten to compensate for dwarf height and thus gave Gimli a nasty knock on the back of the head, driving his face deeper into the butter. The dwarf awoke, spluttering with indignation and dairy product.
The two boys choked with laughter, which they suppressed too late. Gimli's defense mode was in full swing. "I DID THAT ON PURPOSE!" he yelled furiously amid the chuckles from Fred and George across from him. He jumped on the table and stomped in impotent rage. "BUTTER IS VERY GOOD FOR YOUR COMPLEXION!"
"Just like jam is for your hair," Harry murmured to Ron. Unfortunately, due to the acoustics of the Great Hall, this remark was heard by every student at Hogwarts in the ringing silence following Gimli's little scene. Ron gave Harry a sympathetic look and ducked under the table to be out of the way when the lightning struck. Harry gulped. It was only a matter of seconds before—
Draco Malfoy turned around slowly, majestically, eyes scanning the Hall for the origin of the insult. Many girls waved shyly as his eyes traveled over them, but Harry was much too scared to notice this revolting development. Instead, he was merely hoping fervently to survive the day so he could kill Legolas for starting the whole jam thing.
"Who," Malfoy demanded in a steely voice, "said that?" His gaze gravitated to the Gryffindor table. For some reason, he appeared to think the Gryffindors more likely to insult a Slytherin than anyone else. "POTTER!" Half the Hall jumped, including Harry. The top of Ron's head could be seen for a second before he went back to cowering and whimpering under the table.
Harry decided it was time for the overused defiant so-what-if-your-daddy's-rich-and-evil-I-can-still-beat-the-pants-off-you act. He bravely stood up on his chair and faced Malfoy like a fifteen-year-old, if not a man. "You're right, Malfoy," he sneered, matching him admirably in contempt. "I said that. Want to know why? Because I HATE YOUR GUTS!" He heard a light smattering of applause from the other Gryffindors, but he didn't turn around to acknowledge it. Locking eyes with Malfoy, he stared him down fiercely.
Alas, it wasn't quite a fair fight. While Harry had the advantage of being a better person, Malfoy had Crabbe and Goyle. At a glance from him, they stood up on either side of him and cracked their knuckles. This made Harry rather nervous as it reminded him strongly of a documentary he had seen on the Discovery Channel over the summer. The show had been called "A Theoretical Reconstruction of Neanderthal Dominance Rituals."
"We'll take care of you later, Potter," Malfoy spat, glaring battleaxes at him. "You and that midget friend of yours."
"DWARF!" screamed Gimli in frustration. This was just not his day. He already had an appointment with Crabbe and Goyle after breakfast, and worse, Malfoy had just implied that he was somewhat shorter than average. This was a slight that Gimli simply could not stomach and he would no doubt have tried to teach Malfoy a lesson if Aragorn, showing a rare moment of sense, had not held him back.
"No, Gimli," he panted, restraining the enraged dwarf with a strength born of desperation. "Do you want to live through breakfast? Wait...don't answer that." Amazingly, Aragorn seemed to have actually done something useful. By the time he let go of Gimli, Malfoy had calmed down enough to realize that killing Harry and Gimli during breakfast was probably not a good idea.
He gave his victims-to-be a cold, cruel smile. "See you later, Potter." Turning back to his breakfast, Malfoy proceeded to completely ignore everyone in the Hall, who were staring from him to Harry and back again. Gradually, the chatter in the Great Hall built back up to its normal level. After all, Malfoy's death threats against Harry were nothing new, having been relatively common since first year.
With the main conflict resolved for the present, Aragorn reverted with characteristic doggedness to the previous topic of conversation. "I can't believe you don't see the woman," he pursued. "For goodness sake, she's right over there. The dark-haired one with the glasses." Adoringly, he stared at the end of the table where his apparently invisible lady love sat.
Harry rolled his eyes, wondering how anyone could be that obsessed. After all, he certainly didn't spend all his time thinking about Cho, Cho, or Cho. However, to satisfy Aragorn, he dutifully took another look, which left him as confused as ever regarding who the heck Aragorn was talking about.
"The only person with glasses over there is Trelawney, Aragorn. I don't know who—oh, no! Wait just a minute, now." Horrified by the implications of his revelation, Harry repeated the fateful sentence slowly. "The only person with glasses over there is...Trelawney. You can't mean..." He trailed off weakly, clutching Ron's arm in terror.
"No," Ron breathed, also staring at Trelawney as the truth dawned on him. "Blimey, Aragorn, she's—she's—she's—" He abruptly collapsed in his chair, burying his face despairingly in his hands. "Oh, it was terrible! Terrible! She was crystal gazing for me just last week—" he sobbed into his palms uncontrollably and took a moment to recover, "—and she said...she said I would MARRY A BRUNETTE GRYFFINDOR GENIUS!" he howled in anguish, once more beginning to slide under the table. Harry caught the grief-stricken Ron and pulled him back up onto his chair, shushing him sympathetically, but it was too late.
"Oh, Ron," Parvati simpered from the other end of the table, twirling her perfect, long brown locks in flirtatious modesty. "I didn't realize you felt that way about me. Not that I would consider myself exactly a whaddayacallit, genius, but I'm certainly flattered by the compliment. Why, maybe I could even tutor you sometime." She coquettishly mulled it over, her empty head tilted fetchingly to one side. "Say, tonight at ten in the common room? Alooooone?"
Making a warding-off cross with his fingers, Ron backed away from Parvati hastily. Unfortunately, as some guy named Benjamin Franklin once observed, haste makes waste. Meaning, in this case, that Ron forgot to get up before backing away and thus fell over his chair, ending up on the floor in an admirable display of typical Ron Weasley clumsiness.
The Hall was really getting its money's worth of entertainment from the Gryffindor folks this morning. Most of the students burst into appreciative applause and snickers, while the Slytherin table, the loudest of the lot, left out the appreciative applause. "I'm sure you meant to do that, Weasley," Malfoy drawled sarcastically.
Fred and George held Gimli down while he muttered darkly about "young wise-acre, make fun of a Dwarf, will you? let's see what you'll say when you meet my ax! maybe THEN you'll learn some manners." He lovingly fingered the haft of his ax out of habit until he remembered it was up in the dormitory and subsided in embarrassment.
"Hey everyone!" Malfoy announced, standing up on his chair. "Ronald Quentin Weasley would like you all to know that he's certainly sprawled on the ground deliberately because lying on the floor is veeerrry good for your posture." He gave Ron a nasty grin before sitting down again.
"Oh, shut up," Ron muttered, his face going beet red. Without another word to anyone, he picked himself up and dashed from the Hall, no doubt in order to avoid Parvati's unwelcome advances. Everyone blinked after him for a few seconds before going back to their breakfasts, hiding huge grins.
Parvati, however, was still staring over at their end of the table. Harry wondered if he was really that good-looking until he remembered that Ron hadn't given her an answer to her tutoring offer. Tactfully, he leaned across Aragorn and told her, "I really, really, really don't think Ron is interested in your offer right now. Maybe some other time." [Like when Snape starts giving out candy in class.]
Unbelievably, the chaotic events taking place around him hadn't shaken Aragorn's fixation with Trelawney. "She kinda reminds me of Arwen, you know," he observed dreamily, tilted head resting on his hands. "Something about the dark hair...and the way she sorta glides around...and that mysterious look...and those misty eyes that make her look like she's always about to cry." He heaved a deep sigh of nostalgia, then abruptly changed moods as he seemed to think of something for the first time. Turning to Harry, he asked, "What does she teach?"
The question caught Harry off guard, since most people of his acquaintance lived in fear of Trelawney's class and refused to speak its reviled name, merely referring to it as You-Know-What. "Um...uh," he stammered brilliantly. "Sorry, it's just so hard to say it. She teaches..." Swallowing hard, Harry finally worked up the courage to say it. Beckoning Aragorn to lean in close, he bent over secretively after checking to make sure nobody was listening.
"Divination," he whispered hoarsely, fearful of the consequences that would undoubtedly follow if anyone heard. Luckily, his whisper was quiet enough that even Aragorn apparently had trouble hearing him.
"I can't hear you," Aragorn said impatiently. "Speak louder." He leaned toward Harry again expectantly.
His mouth dry with apprehension, Harry whispered the dreaded name once again. "Divination." At this point, Harry realized that he had done something with possibly disastrous repercussions. In his haste to get this terrible conversation over with, he had neglected to warn Aragorn not to speak too loud, a mistake that would haunt him at night to the end of his days.
"Oh, DIVINATION!" Aragorn cried in understanding. "Why didn't you just say so? You'd think there was something wrong with saying the word DIVINATION! See?" he added, turning toward Harry, who was just following Ron's earlier example and diving under the table. "Nothing happened. DIVINATION DIVINATION DIVINATION!"
Even Aragorn could not ignore the total pandemonium that followed this display of reckless bravery. All four enormous tables were overturned as students ran screaming in every direction, mindless with terror. Amid the chaos and wreckage sat Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, serenely surveying the Hall with mysterious smiles that were the product of two years of rigorous study under Professor Trelawney at lunchtime.
Strangely enough, Aragorn didn't seem to mind the panic and confusion going on around him. Rather, he seemed to be taking advantage of it to work his way up to the teachers' table almost unnoticed. However, Harry didn't have time to wonder what Aragorn might be up to, as a group of hysterical fourth-years turned over the Gryffindor table at that very moment.
With his cover gone, Harry sprinted for his life across the length of the Great Hall. He was almost to the door—
"STOP!" bellowed a voice that Harry recognized as Dumbledore in his scary, don't-mess-with-me mood. Harry had only seen him like this once before—back in October, when some students had raided his lemon drop supply. "Will everyone please get back in here? I have an important announcement."
Sheepishly, the recently escaped students made their straggling way back into the Hall, where Dumbledore waited, once more smiling beatifically. "Now," he remarked mildly, "for my announcement. Remember what I said earlier about Defense Against the Dark Arts classes being canceled?" Hesitant nods from various students. "Never mind."
Groans filled the room as everybody began to make another mad dash for the doors. This time nobody stopped them, and the Hall quickly emptied of students and teachers alike. Save for a few people, namely Aragorn, who was staring at Trelawney worshipfully, and Trelawney, Parvati, and Lavender, who were still sitting calmly, seemingly in meditation.
Aragorn coughed lightly. This achieved the desired effect, as Trelawney blinked up at him in surprise. "Who disturbs my meditation?" she trilled angrily, seeming to see him for the first time. Her large dragonfly eyes examined him suspiciously, but suspicion quickly changed to curiosity. "Ooooh...who disturbs my meditation?" she repeated with a totally different emphasis and tone of voice, batting her long eyelashes.
This was more like it! "Good morning, fair lady," Aragorn replied, kneeling to kiss her ring-encrusted hand. Women always loved old-timey chivalry coming from him. "You may not have noticed me from my humble position across the room, but I assure you that all through breakfast I had eyes for nothing but you and my toast. My young friends inform me that you are known by the lovely name of Professor Trelawney."
Trelawney blushed, lowering her eyes slightly in affected coyness. "Oh, please call me Sibyll," she purred warmly, clinging to his hand a bit more than was strictly necessary to get up. After a few seconds of silence, Aragorn realized he was probably supposed to say something at this junction. What was it? Ah, yes!
"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman," he remarked gallantly, opting to keep her hand between his a little longer. Smiling with pleasure at the first compliment she'd ever gotten in her life, Trelawney looked up at him adoringly, eyes going even mistier than usual.
She seemed to remember suddenly that a compliment was required in return to keep the exchange going smoothly. "Oh, as far as not noticing you, believe me, although I was distracted by my connection with the other world," her hand waved vaguely to indicate the nebulous regions of the spirit world she received her "predictions" from, "I felt your aura immediately as soon as the others had left and the spiritual clutter was removed. Am I right in believing, dear sir, that you are a patron of the arts of prediction and, perhaps, have the Sight yourself?"
Aragorn blinked. "I'm an Elf-friend," he offered, slightly at a loss for words.
"Ah. Close enough," replied Trelawney wisely, doing her best to look like she knew everything there was to know about Elf-friends. "And what, pray tell, may be your name?" Expectantly, she waited to hear what she was absolutely sure would be the most melodious syllables she had ever heard.
If she wanted a long string of syllables, melodious or otherwise, she certainly was not disappointed. Clearing his throat in preparation, Aragorn rattled off the list with the ease of long practice. "Good lady, I am Aragorn son of Arathorn of the house of Valandil Isildur's son, also known as Longshanks, Strider, Elessar, the Dúnadan, the Elfstone, and Isildur's Heir. But, of course, you may call me Aragorn," he added to show that this wealth of titles had not gone to his head, such as he had.
"Aragorn," she murmured, rolling the name around on her tongue contemplatively. "Aragorn...It seems to me that I have heard your name before...ah, yes! One evening as I sat conversing with my otherworldly acquaintances—"
Parvati, who had heretofore remained watchfully silent, suddenly jumped up as if she was sitting on a red-hot poker (she wasn't, more's the pity). "Oooooooooooooooooh, Professor Trelawney, ooooooooooooooooooooh, I've just remembered! Last month when you were crystal gazing—" she was becoming almost hysterical and had to pause for breath, "—you said the spirits told you that you would meet a tall, dark stranger and—"
"Shut up, you silly girl," said Trelawney irritably. "Can't you see I'm about to get my first date in ten years? Now," she continued sweetly, turning back to Aragorn, "as I was saying before I was so RUDELY INTERRUPTED—" Lavender and Parvati shrank back, squeaking slightly in alarm.
"—it was revealed to me in a vision that soon one by the name of Aragorn would appear and solve all my problems by sweeping me off my feet and we would both live happily ever after." Her enormous eyes somehow grew even bigger as she gazed earnestly up into Aragorn's face.
He smiled suavely at his latest in a long line of conquests. "Sounds good. How about tonight at seven?" While some chivalrous souls might frown on this forward approach, Aragorn had learned from hard experience that it was best to set the date before the lady in question met Legolas. Although, in this case, she hardly seemed likely to forget him...
"Oh, that sounds wonderful," Trelawney breathed, starting to lean against him. "I'll meet you in the entrance hall, and then we can go to Smaug's Bar and Grill, and then we can go to the Three Broomsticks, and then..." Aragorn just smiled and nodded, having learned long ago from an annoying but wise wizard that just smiling and nodding was the key to life.
"Tonight, then," he remarked quite unnecessarily as he bowed to her before taking his leave. Whistling softly, he strode over to the door and quitted the room, leaving the three cerebrally challenged females staring after him in varying emotional states. Aragorn walked down the hallway—
And was collared by an unknown assailant who pushed him back against the hard stone wall. Breathing quickly with surprise, Aragorn looked into the wild-eyed, menacing face of...Professor Severus Snape.
A/N: Yep, another long chapter. I couldn't help myself, I was just getting way too much mileage out of Aragorn's obsession with Trelawney (Go figure. But she does kinda remind you of Arwen, doesn't she?). This is going really well, I have material now for four or five more chapters. And honestly, I make half of this stuff up as I go along, so I'll probably end up adding another chapter or two in there somewhere. As far as the first chapter goes, my first reviewer was kind enough to point out that Sauron is only an eye. Thanks. I'm too lazy to go back and change it, but nitpickers can read "Saruman" for "Sauron" if they want. **PROJECT ALERT** I'm compiling a list of common abbreviations and terms used on fanfiction.net that new users might not know for a Scout project, so please include some in your reviews! *coughREVIEWREVIEWcough* Seriously, folks, four reviews on a five-chapter story doesn't look good, so feel free to write a long, rambling, very complimentary review telling me that you think my story is absolutely hilarious. You could all learn a lesson from kippinator, who not only reviewed this story glowingly, but went and reviewed almost all of my other ones as well. So with all that said, go write your reviews or forever hold your peace...until the next chapter. Speaking of...*ahem* Coming Hopefully Fairly Soon Since My Friend Will Kill Me If It Doesn't: Chapter Seven.