Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.

Chapter Nineteen

Peace, Love and Dementors

Harry was well enough the next Monday to start back in his classes. Unfortunately, he hadn't been well enough after the dementor attacks to get his extra Potions work done, and he was afraid that George would read more into his lack of preparation than he'd want. He was glad he could ease into the day with Divination. He may even be able to get in a little snooze.

The strong perfumed air made Harry a bit dazed as he slid into one of the last remaining seats, unfortunately in the front row of Professor Trelawney's classroom. He looked around to see Ron and Hermione seated right behind him. George was nowhere in sight; maybe she was teaching first year's now! Just as Trelawney launched into a redundant lecture about advanced tasseomancy, George bound into the room and dropped into the seat opposite Harry." "Hi!" she said breathlessly, "what did I miss?"

"Absolutely nothing," Harry honestly responded with a smile, "as usual." George laughed under her breath, glad that they were friends, though still as bewildered about her quick turnabout of feelings.

"Exchange your cup with the person opposite you at the table," Trelawney droned. "What do you see?" With the exception of the time he actually saw the outline of 'The Grim', a dog that prophesized the coming of his godfather, Sirius Black, Harry didn't believe that tea leaves foretold anything but the coming of scones and crumpets. As if to challenge what he was just thinking, he was surprised to see a perfectly round circle evident at the bottom of George's cup- a sign with great significance.

"Harry, reading tea leaves is not one of my strengths. What does it mean if you see a perfectly round circle?" George asked conspiratorily. Harry thought she must be looking over his shoulder, and was even more surprised to see that she was gazing intently into his own cup.

"What? A circle?" Harry tried to confirm. "Yes, and it's perfectly round. Must mean something!"

One of Harry's worst classroom nightmares started as Professor Trelawney moved directly to their table. "What's this? A perfect circle? How odd... I mean, lucky for you Harry," she said looking into the cup George had been holding.

"Hmmmm, and let's see Georgia's," she directed, grabbing the cup Harry was holding. Harry held tight, not wanting their twin cups to be exposed to the rest of the class, who would surely know the meaning of the leaves. Harry and Trelawney spent a full minute wrestling for the cup, Harry holding the handle and Trelawney grasping the underside of the bowl. The entire class was in stitches watching them silently battle.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione hissed behind him. The question was enough of a distraction to cause Harry to ease up on his grip. Trelawney wrestled the cup out of his hands and squealed.

"Oh, Mr. Potter, I can see the reason for your hesitancy. I knew you were hiding something," she said, implying that she'd been prescient all along of Harry's sign.

The professor was so unused to seeing happy signs of anything, much less for Harry Potter, she decided to have fun with it at Harry's expense. "Class, when we have two cups, of two young people, who are equally matched in magical powers and reputation, who are seated in two chairs directly opposite each other, showing the exact same sign, that is, of two exactly, perfectly round circles... class, what does this mean?" The class was now howling, both in recognition of the reason for Harry's reluctance to share his cup and in appreciation for Trelawney's amusing show.

Hermione, who normally would have had her hand shot into the space above her head before the professor had finished the questions, kept her hands and eyes down. Professor Trelawney thought, "this must be my lucky day- Potter AND Granger." She resented the fact that Hermione showed such obvious disdain for her class. Making her explain the significance of the shared circle sign would put her in her place. Ignoring the plethora of hands waving in the air hoping to be selected to answer, Trelawney said "Miss Granger? The meaning?"

Hermione looked at Harry apologetically, and slowly and softly said, "a perfectly round circle signifies true love."

Trelawney urged her on, "and then?"

"Two individuals with matching perfect circle signs would indicate a strong love attachment exists for them, or will form in the near future," Hermione reluctantly continued.

"So, Miss Granger, what you're saying is that Harry and George are in 'true love', isn't that correct?" Trelawney taunted.

"No, Professor Trelawney, that's not quite correct. The leaves would indicate, as I said, that those individuals- that is, Harry and George- are either in or due for true love. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will be true love with each other," Hermione answered testily. The strange and daffy professor was slightly taken aback, but resolved to keep the affiliation and control of the class- for once.

"Well, you're quite right, Miss Granger. That is technically the correct answer for a basic understanding of tasseomancy. A more advanced understanding of the art of tea leaf reading would have a different interpretation. Class, your homework for the next class is to define what that is," Trelawney curtly stated. The better to stop while I'm ahead, she figured. The class groaned loudly.

George couldn't hide her smile. It was obvious that Hermione had been right. George had been impressed from the start with her brains and analysis. Perhaps this Trelawney woman just didn't like being bested by a student. She'd seen it, and been the victim of it, many times before. No, she thought, Hermione was right. She and Harry were due for true love, just not with each other. For her part, she couldn't think of anyone more perfect than that Draco Malfoy...

In contrast, Harry couldn't have smiled if you paid him a million Galleons to. He'd been wrong about Ginny, wrong about George... there was no way he'd ever find true love, not with his judgement. What would my true love be like, anyway, Harry asked himself. He started daydreaming and staring out the window. "Whaaaa?" Harry's sheet white face and scared expression prompted everyone to follow Harry's stare and look out the window. The unmistakable presence of the flower child dementor alarmed all of the students.

With a delayed reaction of almost 3 minutes, Professor Trelawney noticed that she'd lost the class once again. Turning to the window, she immediately ran over to it, grasped the ledge and flung her body out farther than common sense would dictate. The classroom gasped, not knowing if she was planning to jump or to close the outside shutter. At nine floors up, either was a risky endeavor.

"You who! You who!" the professor began calling to the dementor, waving her arms in such a way as to make her situation all the more precarious.

"WHAT is she doing?" Hermione said loudly to no one in particular. "And you all thought I was mental!"

Trelawney was back to her bid for the attention of the errant dementor. "Oi! Oi! Buttercup! Over here!", as if the dementor could scarce miss her. Her gesticulations had the opposite of her desired effect when, with a quick move that could only be likened to someone doing the watusi, Buttercup, the flower child dementor flew off beyond the sight of the students and their professor.

"Buttercup? That dementor has a name?" Harry could not believe what had just transpired. Professor Trelawney, on staff at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was on a first-name basis with the dementor who'd tried to kill him just two days earlier.

"You know her too, Harry?" Professor Trelawney asked cluelessly.

"She attacked me over the weekend, Professor."

"Ah, but Harry, when isn't someone trying to kill you, my dear?" she retorted blankly. "By the way, class dismissed," she added in her most matter-of-fact way.

Harry ignored her dire outlook on his lifespan and pulled her aside after class. He had to ask her what she knew about Buttercup. Maybe it would shed light on why she was trying to kill him. "Professor, if I could have a word?"

"Of course, Harry," she said while starting to clear away cups and saucers, "did you want to ask me about Buttercup?" Harry was taken aback- could she actually be psychic?

"Well- yes."

"Harry, sit down and let me tell you the whole story. This involves your family, so you'll want to know. Buttercup was a flower child in an earlier, more peaceful time. She was a gentle witch who went to this school at the same time as your parents. She knew them well, in fact. Buttercup was madly in love with a wizard from Ravenclaw, Samanski Tudor. Very bright, and well-suited to her. They went to an outdoor concert where the Weird Fathers were playing. (You know, they were the fajzas of the Weird Sisters.) Apparently, someone there- it's never been proven whom, Harry- gave him a poisoned mushroom. Back in those days, you see, mushrooms were used as a magical, shall we say, 'mood enhancer'? Samanski died before the band broke into their big number, 'Silly, Silly Stardust Shindig'."

"So, Professor Trelawney, what does this have to do with me?"

"Well, I was just getting to that, my dear. Buttercup believed that your father gave Samanski the mushroom." The look on Harry's face was of shock and disbelief. Trelawney continued, "She had seen Samanski last with your father at the refreshment stand. No one could ever prove where it came from though. Your father's name was cleared, but Buttercup couldn't get over her suspicions. She went on a wild rampage: trashing Dumbledore's office, breaking everything in the Potions lab and, and... breaking all of the cups in this sanctum. Things then got worse. Buttercup went to the Dark Side. She became the 'right-hand man' to You-Know-Who. Killed hundreds of innocents. And it was all a reaction to the death of her beloved."

Harry was astounded by the information. Her stalking of Harry now made more sense. His only problem now was how to get her to stop.