AN: Yes, I'm a slut for Mamma Mia 2, leave me alone, it's the only thing that brings me joy these days.
Also, I have no idea how heavy a pound is, so forgive me.
Lastly, Littlecosma001 thank you so much for your reviews! You've inspired me to write these last two chapters, I really appreciate it!
It was the first Hogsmeade weekend.
My friends had taken it upon themselves to show me all the sights the small village had to offer. I had to admit, it was definitely a picturesque place, it kind of made me wish I'd been able to bring my camera.
We'd visited the joke shop, where Nat had gotten a haul of prank supplies, the quill shop, although I despised quills and was perfectly fine with my Muggle pens, and a clothing shop, where I was tempted to buy something but I knew I'd probably never wear wizard clothes after I left Hogwarts, so I restrained myself
The only shop I'd actually bought anything at was Honeydukes, because Lily had given me a small list of sweets she wanted me to send her and also because I have a bit of a sweet tooth.
Our last stop was at the Three Broomsticks, which I never quite understood what it was, it was sort of a café but also a tavern, and maybe an inn, who knows. But it was great. It had a very lively atmosphere, since it was packed with about half the school, and everyone seemed to know the servers by name.
Butterbeer seemed to be the predominant beverage of choice in the place, but among the elder students, the preference was more on the alcoholic side.
I'd stuck with my Butterbeer order, but my friends ordered different sorts of odd sounding drinks.
"So girls, rumour has it you have a transfer student in your midst." A short blonde woman said as she placed our drinks on the table.
"Yes, Rosie!" Saf exclaimed. "This is Daisy Edwards."
"Hi." I said.
"Pleasure to meet you, Daisy. I'm Rosmerta." The lady said good-naturedly. "Hogwarts doesn't get many transfer students."
I looked down awkwardly. "Yeah well, it was a special situation."
Rosmerta changed the subject. "So what're you planning to do after Hogwarts, Daisy?"
"Um I'm still not quite sure."
There was an awkward pause.
Tessa spoke up. "Well I'll tell you this, Rosie, she is a great singer!"
I could feel myself blush. She only said that because the only class we had together was music.
"Oh but she can't be any better than you, Tess!" Rosmerta exclaimed, not sounding too outraged. Then she said to me, "you know, Tessa has sang here her fair share of times."
Nat let out a loud gasp all of a sudden. "Oh my god! Rainbow! You should sing here too!"
Was she drunk already? She'd only drank half of her weird wizard alcohol. Were wizard alcohols stronger?
The rest of the girls all made loud noises of agreement.
"Well you're welcome to sing here whenever you like, Daisy." Rosmerta said.
Why did she encourage them?
Natalliya grabbed my arm and gave me a little shake. "How about right now? That song we were singing in class yesterday. You said it was the best song ever written."
My heart sped up a little. Surely this was not going to happen, would it?
I sipped my Butterbeer.
"If you want, the stage is set up." What the hell, Rosmerta?! "We had Diana and a few others perform a few hours ago."
I looked around, and indeed, past all the heads of students, at the front there was a small stage with a few microphone stands and other gear. Oh lord.
"Yes!" Nat pretty much screamed at Rosmerta. "Announce a special performance by Daisy Edwards!"
My eyes widened. "What?! Natalliya, no, I can't."
"Oh come on! It'll be fun, just like in class! If you want Tess and I'll sing with you."
I thought about it for a second. Well it had been fun in class. I sighed. "Okay."
"Yay!" Nat shrieked in my ear. "Rosie, make that a special performance by Daisy uh Daisy and the Darlings!"
Saf choked on her drink before howling with laughter.
Rosmerta nodded at Nat and wandered off.
"I can't believe y'all are forcing me to do this." I said defeated.
Natalliya was hopping in her seat with excitement. "Oh we can't perform in these clothes though."
With a wave of her wand, Nat transformed our plain black robes into some flashy blue outfits. Oh god, what is going on?
My brain barely processed Rosmerta announcing our little group through the speakers or however wizard mics worked when Nat exclaimed, "let's go, darlings!" and pulled me and Tessa off our seats and onto the stage.
A microphone was shoved into my hand and I looked out at the expectant audience. It was in that moment that I realised I didn't know the vast majority of the people here and in a couple of months I would probably literally never see them again.
I started out slow.
"I was cheated by you
and I think you know when
so I've made up my mind
it must come to an end.
'Look at me now
will I ever learn
I don't know how
but I suddenly lose control
there's a fire within my soul."
Nat and Tessa joined me.
"Just one look and I can hear a bell ring
one more look and I forget everything."
I might not have been as drunk as my friends, but there's something about being around drunk people that gets you in the mood.
"Mamma mia
does it show again?
My, my
just how much I've missed you."
Soon enough I was belting out the lyrics without a care in the world. I didn't even think about the crowd possibly thinking we were crazy people, I just cared about having fun with my friends.
"And when you go
when you slam the door
I think you know
that you won't be away too long
you know that I'm not that strong."
We were even doing the little embarrassing dance routine we'd come up with during class.
"Mamma mia
now I really know
My, my
I should not have let you go."
As we finished with our triumphant pose, I was tempted to do a mic drop but I didn't want to get on Rosmerta's bad side, so I settled with doing a little bow.
Surprisingly, we got a fair round of applause, which Natalliya's drunk ass welcomed.
Nat then turned to me and Tessa and pretty much tackled us with a hug. "You guys! That was amazing! We have to do that again!"
"No! Edwards, stop, you're going to break it. Goddammit."
I leaned onto the trophy case and exhaled. "I know everything about my demeanor and personality screams lazy ass, but I do actually exercise."
Regulus seemed definitely surprised. "Well, you're surprisingly strong."
I smiled and shrugged. "I can bench press a hundred pounds."
"Bench press?"
"Right, I forgot wizards don't use gyms. Never mind."
For the second week of our detention, Regulus and I had been tasked with cleaning the trophy room. Without magic. The joke was on Filch though, because, guess what, bitch? I can't do magic either way.
The trophy room was pretty huge, and seemed to be pretty useless since it was covered in an immaculate layer of dust.
We had already emptied out one case to clean the trophies, and after I'd moved it, we'd swept behind it, and we were now on the next case of trophies.
"I don't understand why there's so many trophies. Most of them are so old, it's not like anyone knows these people anymore. And like why are there so many individual trophies? Like, take them home, bitch." I ranted to Regulus, not really caring about whether he wanted to hear it or not.
"Maybe they keep them for students to clean."
I laughed. "Yeah, probably. I mean, so many of these sound so stupid. Like, services to the school, what does that even mean?"
I finished wiping another trophy and set it aside.
"You know, you never mentioned how you got detention." Regulus said.
"Neither did you."
He didn't reply. Why are wizards so secretive and shady?
"You know how, I got special permission to stay out past curfew a few days a week?" I gave in.
Regulus nodded.
"Well I might have stayed out past curfew a few days I wasn't allowed to, and Filch might have caught me, and I might have tricked him into thinking it was one of the days I was allowed to stay out. Twice." I avoided Regulus's gaze.
"Wow, he must have been pissed off. If there's one thing Filch hates it's to be made look like a fool."
"I know, but he just makes it so easy." I said with a grin.
To my surprise, Regulus smiled amusedly back at me. "He definitely does."
In that moment Filch's cat, Mrs Norris came in through the door and laid down beside Regulus and I.
"It seems like Filch actually wants to watch us this time, Merlin knows why." Regulus said.
"She's cute." I rubbed the cat's back, she seemed not to mind. "Let's go, let's go little kitty kat
I think it's time to go
Let's go little kitty kat
He don't want no more
Let's go little kitty kat
I'm not getting it, I'm not feeling it."
Regulus gave me an odd look.
"What? It's not my fault y'all ain't cultured in Muggle music."
"Why do you speak like you're from the American South when you're from the English suburbs?"
Good question. "Because it's fun."
"So that's your basis for doing things? Because they're fun?"
I smiled. "Well if can have fun and not harm anyone, why on earth would you choose not to have fun?"
Professor Vablatsky shuffled the deck of tarot cards in her long, boney fingers before sighing and setting them down on her desk.
"I think we're going to have to switch gears with these sessions, Rainbow."
Oh no. She was finally done with my mediocrity at Divination.
"Oh, okay."
"I think that you're not letting yourself use your gift properly. You know you have it, but you don't want to use it. I know you probably think all these tarot cards and crystal balls are silly, which is fine, I understand. You have the ability to use them, but there's something holding you back, you need to let go." Professor Vablatsky said in a cool, soothing voice and I just couldn't deny myself the fact that she was right.
I looked down. "I just, I don't know how."
Professor Vablatsky gave me an empathetic look. "And that's okay. We'll go slow. First off, I want you to ask any and every question you have about Divination."
"Um okay. I've actually been meaning to ask you about dream interpretation. I've been dreaming a lot lately, and at first I thought it was because Mercury is in uh gatorade –"
"Retrograde." Professor V corrected.
"Yeah, that. I've always been sort of interested in astrology and I know weird things happen when Mercury's in uh that thing, but I'm not sure. I was hoping you could help."
"Sure. What did you dream about?" Professor Vablatsky asked.
I recounted my odd dream, leaving out the fact that it was Regulus who had rescued me, of course.
"Well, when people dream about drowning, it usually means that they're feeling overwhelmed or overburdened. Dumbledore told me you have a skating competition coming up in about a month, maybe you're feeling nervous about not doing well. Or maybe since there's been so much change in your life lately, it's a little too much for you, it's understandable you might be under certain str stress. You said it was someone you knew who rescued you, maybe it's someone who's attention you've been after lately."
I blinked a few times. Oh okay. I wasn't – Why the heck would I want Regulus Black's attention? This made zero sense. Ugh Divination is a scam, confirmed. "Okay."
Professor Vablatsky could tell I wasn't completely sold on her interpretations. "Rainbow, you must remember that dreams are an expression of the subconscious, so even if these are some feelings you might not recognise, they are the true interpretations of what you feel."
"Yeah, yes, I know. Now about crystal balls, is what you see in them the actual event you predict, or is it your own interpretation of the event? Also, can you do like little movies in them? Like can you change the angle in which it's showing? And like change the wardrobe?"
It was the second to last day of detentions, and I'd actually found that it hadn't been as horrible as I thought it might be. Regulus's presence was bearable, but I wouldn't say I looked forward to seeing him in detention. It's more like I was excited to try out new topics of conversation for our evenings.
Regulus came into the room a tiny bit late, sporting the same gloomy look as always.
I perked up. "Hey! Remember that Muggle cleaning supplies I told you about? I — "
"I know your secret." Regulus blurted out without preamble.
My smile faded, and my heart almost stopped. How the hell had he found out I was a Muggle? It must've been because of the Potions incident, there was no other explanation.
My fight or flight response had almost immediately activated as my eyes searched for the nearest exits. If I screamed, would anybody hear me from this far? Maybe this was an ambush and Death Eaters were going to jump out from behind the trophy cases any second.
In our past two weeks serving detention together, I had come to think that Regulus and I were on good terms, maybe not friends but acquaintances at least. Surely he wouldn't attack me now. He'd probably just at least hate me forever, which turned my heart into knots. Ugh, snap out of it.
"You're a Seer."
Oh sweet baby Jesus lord in heaven thank you. Never had I heard sweeter words. This was the first time I was genuinely happy to be a fucking psychic.
I exhaled. "How'd you know?"
"Well you seem to have a great deal of private sessions with Vablatsky, and Avery told me you always stay behind with her after class, and you've told me a fair share of things about people that you couldn't possibly know." Regulus explained.
"Wait a minute, but none of that stuff could possibly tell you for sure that I'm a Seer."
"Well I also kind of took a chance, and you've now confirmed my suspicions."
My mouth flew open in shock. "You're such a – I've never even told you any predictions about the future or anything."
"Most Seers are also clairvoyant, and you've shown me that plenty of times."
I sighed, though I don't think Regulus realised, of relief. I rather a thousand times he knew about me being a Seer than me being a Muggle. "Huh. I should've realised you're too smart for all that 'oh someone must've told me' shit."
We stayed silent for a few seconds.
"Can you please, please promise me you won't tell anyone?" I pleaded.
"Why don't you want people to know?"
"I just don't want this to change anyone's perception of me. If it got out, half of the people wouldn't believe it, and the other half would either want predictions all the time or be scared I'll make predictions about them, either way my feelings end up hurt."
Silence fell once again as I looked at my detention partner expectantly. Surely even he was capable of showing a little compassion. Wasn't he?
On the last day of my detention I was on edge.
After our conversation yesterday, Regulus hadn't actually promised me he wouldn't say anything. We'd just sort of stayed working quietly, and then we went our separate ways.
As far as I knew he hadn't told anyone in the time span between yesterday and today's detention. I'd been so stressed after yesterday's detention that I'd barely landed any jumps during my practice later that night, and double footed a few.
Regulus got to the trophy room a little after me, and without a word started cleaning beside me.
Okay, so were we just going to pretend like yesterday never happened?
After a few minutes of silence I was bursting to yell at him to say something, when he finally did.
"You know, you should really be more careful."
"What?"
"If you don't want anyone to find out. I'm not the only smart person in school."
"Does that mean you won't tell anyone?"
"What do you think?"
How dare he be snarky now? "Can you please not be so cryptic for once?"
"I won't tell anyone."
I exhaled softly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
It was probably a good idea to not get on his bad side now. But I couldn't help it. "Can we talk about how the great genius Regulus Black just admitted he's not the only smart person in school?"
Regulus rolled his eyes.
