Chapter One : Toothpaste and Divination

Hello there! I hope you'll enjoy reading this story as much as I like to write it :)

Fair disclaimers: I will update when I can. English is not my first language. The romance will consist of multiple slow-burns (and rare ships!). The points of view will vary. I included some passages from the Prisoner of Azkaban, but only because they are very short and I couldn't have written them better. This story is rated M so I can feel safe talking about crude subjects. Aaaand that's it? Constructive criticism, reviews and especially theories are always welcome!

The world went from a fuzzy black to a fuzzy white as Harry James Potter opened his eyes. He had the furious impression he had been hit by a bludger in the near past. Well, he might have been. He couldn't remember for the life of him what he was doing just a moment prior.

His day had started like any 1st of September since he had begun attending Hogwarts: chaotically. For once, though, they had all boarded the express. That much he was certain of. He distinctly recalled Mr Weasley trying to warn him about Sirius Black on the platform. And Ron hissing about Hermione's new cat. Yes… And how they couldn't find a single empty compartment. Save for the one with Professor Lupin, the new defence professor, sleeping in it. And then… And then…

Harry let out a groan of frustration. He must have left the train then, though he wasn't too sure how. He let his painful eyes sweep over the white background of the room. It looked like he was in the hospital wing. Since he couldn't feel the reassuring weight of his glasses on his face, his guess was heavily influenced by the smell of pepper-up potions and clean sheets lingering in the air.

He waited, then, for madam Pomfrey to arrive and start berating him. About what he was not to sure, that's simply what she usually did.

But instead of her brisk gait, the telltale sign of feet pounding the paving stones broke the silence. "Ron! He's awake Ron!" Startled, Harry turned his face far too quick on the right. His pained expression must have shown since Hermione stopped running towards him at once, eyeing him carefully instead.

"Harry, mate! You scared us half to death." Harry had no such luck with Ron. His friend went barrelling toward him so fast he tripped on his own foot and landed quite dramatically on the bed.

"Get off you beanpole!" Harry immediately cried, shaking half with laughter and half with discomfort. Ron did as asked, fumbling greatly for a chair in all his gangly grace. When their eyes met, all Harry could see was a concerned look on his freckled face.

Harry's heart dropped. His lips were feeling funny, and he had a pulsing headache at the back of his skull. What was going on? Where they in trouble?

"Mister Potter, how are you feeling?" Harry watched as his transfiguration professor strode into the room, dignified from the hem of her emerald dress to the tip of her black pointy hat. He was curious as to why she would ask him this question and not Madam Pomfrey. And of course, terrified by what it meant.

Seeing he wasn't responding, Ron nudged him with his elbow. "Oh! Well, I'm fine. Thank you, professor. I don't even know why I'm in the hospital wing to be quite frank," he added after a beat of silence.

McGonagall pinched her thin lips in a white line, but it was Hermione who answered him. With a question, how typical. "Harry, don't you remember anything?"

"Errr… No?"

Ron's face paled considerably. "Oh, Merlin! Harry, do you even know who we are? What year are we in?"

"Is this a prank?" The young wizard asked, feeling lost. "Of course I remember who you are, you're my best friends! Now, please, can someone tell me what is going on?"

"You didn't say the date" mumbled Ron.

"Honestly, Ronald, shut up," said Hermione from behind his chair.

Harry snorted and McGonagall glared at both of his friends before taking a long breath. "Mister Potter, I am afraid you are the only one capable of answers right now. Miss Granger and Mister Weasley found you passed out in one of the Express corridors this afternoon. You had a split lip and mild concussion. They told me you simply went for the loo and had not returned the first time the train had to stop, which is why they were worried and decided to go look for you. Do you have any idea of what might have happened to you?"

Harry's brows furrowed on their own accord. "Uh, no but… The first time the train had to stop? What do you mean?"

McGonagall blinked. "Yes, well, a professor had to intervene. A student had a bit of a fright. We suspect she saw a dementor by the window. Although other witnesses claim there had been a strange individual aboard the train clothed in black torn robes. A distasteful joke, really."

Harry felt too intimated by her stern tone to ask what was a dementor. Instead, he tilted his head to the side, trying his best to remember, well, anything... "I'm sorry, nothing comes to mind Professor."

McGonagall regarded him gravely. Before she departed, she made sure to tell Harry that, should he remember anything, he was to immediately report to her or the headmaster.

"Blimey, I have never seen McGonagall like that. She seemed so worried."

"Well… It was quite worrying mind you! You were limp in the middle of the corridor and your face was bleeding. At first, we assumed the worst," Hermione whispered, her tan complexion rather pale compared to yesterday. "Ron thought Malfoy had gotten you while you had your back turned."

His ginger friend let out a rough chuckle. "Yeah, 'wanted to hex his bits off. Professor Lupin stopped me before I could though. Sorry mate." He seemed genuinely upset, to Harry's amusement.

"Hey, no need to feel so down. I don't think it was him anyway." Hermione's eyes lit up but Harry gently shook his head. "I wasn't lying. I can't remember anything. Well, anything past the moment we sat in our compartment..."

The three friends exchanged tired looks. "What a day, huh?" said Harry to diffuse the tension in his friends' shoulder. Hermione nodded, her wild bushy hair framing her face, lost in thoughts.

Harry was going to break the silence again when Ron suddenly leapt to his feet. "Arrrgh with this rubbish you missed the feast this year too!" Hermione let out a tiny laugh and Harry joined heartily.

But then he felt as though someone was slicing his upper lip. "Ouch, this hurts like a bi-" Hermione smacked his arm, preventing him from finishing his sentence. She conjured a mirror before he had to ask, and Ron gave him his glasses without a word. He was pleased to see the round spectacles weren't cracked, but he suspected Hermione would have repaired them before he could check for himself anyway.

Harry smiled stupidly, thankful for both of them. And yet again, the pain made him wince.

"Yeah, you probably shouldn't smile," Ron said with a smirk. "Have a look then."

Obeying, Harry peered at himself in the mirror and gasped when he realized how sickly he looked. The blue tint of the paste applied on his lips was definitely not doing miracles to his complexion.

"It looks like toothpaste," Ron blurted with a snort.

"'doesn't taste like it," Harry mumbled. He could see the red of his blood under the blue paste. There was a thick line that cut the left of his upper lip in two perfect halves. He carefully touched the area. It was throbbing with pain, but strangely cold. He assumed it was the paste effects.

"Don't touch it! It's not entirely healed."

"Well, she said it might scar anyway," Ron muttered.

"Why would it scar?" Harry frowned. "I mean, isn't it just a cut?"

"Well, you can ask her tomorrow if you want. She simply told us it might scar," said Hermione with a pondering look.

"Yeah, it was a pretty deep gash you know," added Ron with the same concerned look as earlier.

Harry rolled his eyes. What was a little more scar to the boy who already had the most famous lightning bolt slicing his forehead?

The next morning, the three friends sat down at the Gryffindor's table under many curious looks.

"Hello, Neville!" Chirped Hermione next to Harry. The young Longbottom gave her a quick smile and a nod but his eyes never really left Harry's mouth, frowning. The latter was finding that quite disturbing until he remembered his injury.

"Hey, Harry what's that?" asked Seamus as if on cue, pointing rudely at his new scar with a sausage dangling from his fork.

Harry had discovered it this morning while attempting to tame his hair in the bathroom. The blue paste had completely disappeared but left in its wake a shiny, white reminder of yesterday. The mark was far more noticeable than Harry would have first guessed, almost stretching past the bottom of his nose.

"Well, that's my face, Seamus. Why? Is it upsetting this early in the morning?" Ron nearly choked on his toast as Seamus turned beet red with shame.

Hermione just shook her head. "Well, they're bound to ask questions, Harry. We came in quite late and no one has seen you in the dorms yesterday."

"Yes, I know." he sighed but then proceeded to explain to all eager ears why exactly he had missed the feast yesterday.

It really didn't seem to surprise anyone he had managed to get hurt the first day of school.

"Oh, by the way, you went to see Madam Pomfrey this morning, didn't you?"

Harry nodded, "She didn't really have an explanation for the scar. She told me it was more like a hunch since the wound was bleeding so much but... She thinks it was caused by magical means."

"A curse? A spell? A-"

"Well technically my teeth are as magical as the rest of my body, so it could simply be that. When I fell, I mean." Hermione looked doubtful, but she let the shabby explanation slide.

She was asking Neville whether or not he had successfully opened his Care of Creature class book when the bench dipped to Harry's right. "Hello, ickle Harrykins!"

"Or should we say Mighty Mouthy Harry?"

Immediately, Harry felt his mood soar.

Two beaming smiles framed by the same wild red hair were directed at him. "Fred, George, how are you doing?"

"Oh great, we're doing great… We weren't the ones snogging a razor at least."

Harry frowned, despite Fred's joking tone. "What-"

"Newest rumour Malfoy spewed this fine morning. He truly has a poor imagination, right Gred?"

"Indeed Forge, indeed. As poor as his audience… I wouldn't worry too much about the git, Harrykins."

"Yeah, we'll see how happy Malfoy looks after our first Quidditch match," said Fred, a mischievous grin slowly forming on both of the twins faces. "Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first game of the season, remember?"

"Yes, I can't wait." he smiled, thinking of how much he had wished for a broom to fly on this summer.

"THAT'S THE SPIRIT POTTER!" shouted a voice two benches away that Harry recognized as Oliver Wood. The twins sniggered and assured a bewildered Harry that their captain's ears were hypersensitive to the word quidditch, and that he was not a mind reader. The three of them chatted a bit more, and Harry had a delightful breakfast.

It was rather soured when Ron and Hermione argued about the witch's new timetable. But then they encountered the feisty painting of Sir Cadogan on their way to divination. And after they had climbed their way to the class, Harry could finally sit again… Although it was on a quite soft pouffe and not a wooden chair.

Upon seeing their professor, he couldn't help but drew a comparison between Trelawney and a giant sort of bug. Her spectacles gave her huge eyes. But before he could tell so to Ron and Hermione, Neville had broken his first cup of porcelain and the lesson had started, quite dramatically.

"Right." Harry opened his book, still baffled the professor seemed to dislike Hermione. He thought the privilege was reserved to Snape.

When he lifted his eyes from the particularly nasty page about baboons, he saw Ron eyeing his tea. "Err I think you're supposed to drink until there's only tea leaves left, mate."

"It didn't burn your tongue?" Harry frowned and shook his head. Ron gave his cup a resigned look and swallowed a bit more of the scalding liquid. "Urgh… So? What can you see in mine?"

"Well, according to the book, this load of soggy brown stuff is… Uh, well, a crooked sort of cross. That means you're going to have 'trials and suffering' — sorry about that — but there's a thing that could be the sun. Hang on… that means 'great happiness'… so you're going to suffer but be very happy…"

"You need your Inner Eye tested, if you ask me," mumbled Ron, and they both had to stifle their laughs as Professor Trelawney gazed in their direction.

"Right, my turn," Ron sighed.

"Ahaha, let me see that, my dear," Professor Trelawney suddenly interjected, sweeping over and snatching Harry's cup from him.

Harry didn't even have time to protest as everyone went quiet to watch. Professor Trelawney stared into the teacup, rotating it counterclockwise. "Oh, dear… My dear… I can see many hardships. And the enemy. Oh, there is an enemy."

Somewhere in the back of the class, Hermione scoffed. "Well of course there is an enemy. Harry's not exactly friendly with You-Know-Who."

Ron let out a startled laugh, as did most of the class. Harry craned his neck to see what expression his friend wore after delivering such a line. The vapours of the classroom were doing strange things to the witch he thought, unless her deepest nature was resurfacing. She did get sorted into Gryffindor...

"A grim, there's a grim… A black shadow of death looming... So close... Oh, dear… Poor boy… But what-" Suddenly a crashing sound had his head whip right were Professor Trelawney stood. She had let the cup fall, it seemed. It might have had something to do with her shaking hands. Or her rolling eyes…

"P-Professor, are you alright?" dared ask Lavender Brown.

Evidently, Professor Trelawney was not alright. The woman was paler than a ghost and she began to utter words so quietly the whole class had to strain their ears to catch them.

"What is it, Dean?"

"I dunno... She's muttering about the- the fail of death, I think... Mad as a hatter this one," he added when he was sure Trelawney was too shocked to pay attention to them.

"Didn't she say she saw a grim earlier?" asked Neville with a tiny, worried voice.

Half of the class gasped when Dean nodded in confirmation.

Harry grunted. "This day started too good to be true."

Next to him, Ron let out a sigh. "Well, even though I wouldn't trust this woman a great deal, a grim is never a good sign, Harry."

"Why is that? And what is a grim?" asked Lavender Brown.

"The Grim is an omen of death, which is reputed to bring about the demise of the person who encounters it. It takes the shape of a large, black, menacing, spectral dog." Harry's stomach lurched. That dog on the cover of Death Omens in Flourish and Blotts — the dog in the shadows of Magnolia Crescent... "A well-known omen, the Grim has earned infamy throughout the wizarding world and is considered to be one of the worst, if not the worst, omens around."

"Thanks, Hermione," said Ron, blinking. "Well as she said, it's a bad omen. A sign you'll die. My uncle Bilius saw one and I kid you not-"

Parvati let out a blood-curling shriek, stepping back from where professor Trelawney stood.

Once more, Harry turned to face their divination professor. This time, he had no urge to compare her to any kind of bug. Her hair was billowing around her face, like a giant corolla. Her expression was strained and her eyes stark white. But most of all, she was glowing brighter than any Christmas tree Harry had ever seen, and she was pointing in his direction.

"I saw him walking down the path his father never could. He crossed the threshold. And the 19th one has already been kissed, soon he will join him. The lost souls grow tired. Their malediction is on him. He wears the sign. He wears the sign! HE WEARS THE SIGN!"

Rooted to the ground, Harry's feet would not budge. He was barely aware of Ron's presence by his side, his eyes fixed on their professor. He had the strange impression a swirl of energies had replaced the smothering vapours of the room. It was getting difficult to breathe evenly. And his vision was also starting to get more white than details… Which is probably why his only reaction when professor Trelawney fainted was to faint as well.