Chapter 14 New Studies

The next morning, my friends and I were entering the Great Hall when Draco spotted us and started to swoon.

"Ignore him." Hermione said, pushing Harry along. "Just ignore him, it's not worth it…"

"Hey, Potter!" Pansy Parkinson, a rather pig looking girl called out.

I shook Ron's rather weak grip off my shoulder and took a step towards her.

"The dementors are coming right? Well they gotta come after Black, and you better ask your boyfriend who he thinks Black will be coming after first." I smiled wickedly at the girl.

Pansy Parkinson took a step back and looked at Draco. Draco was a little pale from looking at me and he shook his head.

"What's the matter, cousin? Scared now that the whole school is here? We're no longer on the train and you can't play big, bad Slytherin?" I felt anger that I hadn't allow myself to feel all summer.

My hair turned red and a gust of air made my hair float in such a way that made the Slytherin's back off.

"What's she talking about?"

"Did she call Malfoy cousin?"

"What is happening?"

The questions echoed through the Great Hall.

"Go on Draco." I didn't like how I was feeling, but it felt good at the same time.

"Cassie." Hermione's voice was behind me.

"Don't." Harry's hand was on me and it felt cool against my skin.

The burning in my chest stopped for a moment but it was smoking.

"Come on." Harry pulled me away and to the Gryffindor table.

"Cassie?" George stood up from his seat.

"Don't." I shook my head and sat down.

I hit my head against the table harder than I intended to and I felt someone pat my back in comfort.

"New third-year course schedules." George settled next to me and patted my hair. "What's up with Cassie?"

"Malfoy." Ron answered.

"That little git. He wasn't so cocky last night when the dementors were down at our end of the train. Came running into our compartment, didn't he, Fred?" George started to play with my hair.

It helped calm me down a bit, but I was struggling with containing my anger.

"Nearly wet himself." Fred said above me.

"I wasn't too happy myself." George added. "They're horrible things, those dementors…"

"Sort of freeze your insides, don't they?" Fred added.

"You didn't pass out, though, did you?" Harry asked.

"Or lose your head." My voice was muffled.

"Forget it, Harry." George rubbed my head in hopes of comforting me. "Dad had to go out to Azkaban one time, remember Fred? And he said it was the worst place he'd ever been, he came back all weak and shaking… They suck the happiness out of a place, dementors. Most of the prisoners go mad there."

"Anyway, we'll see how happy Malfoy looks after our first Quidditch match." Fred said. "Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first game of the season." Fred said.

I finally sat up, but I left my hair red. I wasn't feeling up to changing it. Harry was looking more cheerful when I sat up and George put his arm around my shoulders.

I didn't want to be touched at that moment but I didn't want to hurt George's feelings so I left it there.

"Ooh, good, we're starting some new subjects today." Hermione said happily, looking over her schedule.

"Hermione," Ron was frowning over her shoulder as Harry slipped me some bacon to eat. "They've messed up your schedule. Look - they've got you down for about ten subjects a day. There isn't enough time."

"I'll manage. I've fixed it all with Professor McGonagall." Hermione had a pleased look on her face.

"But look," Ron started to laugh, "see this morning? Nine o'clock Divination. And underneath, nine o'clock, Muggle Studies. And" - I looked up to see Ron's brown eyes were wide - "look - underneath that, Arithmancy, nine o'clock. I mean, I know you're good, Hermione, but no one's that good. How're you supposed to be in three classes at once?" Ron did not want to drop the subject.

"It's just turning time and all. Nothing Hermione can't handle." I said offhandedly.

Hermione paused and gave me a look and it clicked in my mind what I just said.

"That's not possible though." Harry piped up.

"Yeah, you're right." I shrugged and ate a piece of toast.

"Don't be silly," Hermione gave a laugh. "Of course I won't be in three classes at once, and there isn't anyway to mess with time."

"Well, then -" Ron started.

"Pass the marmalade." Hermione pointed at the jar.

"But -"

"Oh, Ron, what's it to you if my schedule's a bit full?" Hermione snapped. "I told you, I've fixed it all with Professor McGonagall."

I opened my mouth to interject but Hagrid came in just then.

"All righ'?" He asked when he saw us. "Yer in my firs' ever lesson! Right after lunch! Bin up since five gettin' everythin' ready… Hope it's okay… Me, a teacher… hones'ly…"

"I'm excited!" I said after him as he walked up to the teacher's table.

"Wonder what he's been getting ready?" Ron asked, a note of anxiety in his voice.

"Something with feathers." I had a smile on my face.

"How do you know that?" George asked.

"I just do." I answered honestly.

"But -" George spoke.

"We better go, look, Divination's at the top of North Tower, it'll take us ten minutes to get there…" Ron spoke up first, looking at the time.

"We'll see you at lunch." I stood up and gave George a quick kiss on the lips.

"There's - got - to - be - a - shortcut." Ron panted as we climbed our seventh staircase.

"I'm sure - there is." I was panting too.

"I think it's this way." Hermione was looking down an empty passage to the right of us.

"Can't be," Ron shook his head. "That's south, look, you can see a bit of the lake out of the window…"

"I don't know my directions. I just know how to get somewhere if I've gone the way once." I shook my head.

I looked over to see Harry staring at a painting. A fat, dapple-gray pony was gazing on the grass. He had a small smile on his face and I enjoyed seeing the moment of him. He didn't get to have too many of them to himself.

"Aha!"

I jumped. A knight had come into the picture and I wasn't paying attention. His shout had given me a scare.

"What villains are these, that trespass upon my private lands! Come to scorn at my fall, perchance? Draw, you knaves, you dogs!"

"What." My voice was flat.

The knight tugged a sword out of its scabbard and I was astonished to see him try to swing it at us, but he fell when he did so.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked, taking a step towards the picture.

"Get back, you scurvy braggart! Back, you rogue!" The knight was trying to push himself up from the ground using his sword, but it sank deeper into the grass and it made him fall again.

"Listen," Harry looked back at us.

The knight pulled the sword with all he could muster, but the sword wouldn't budge and he fell back onto the grass and wiped his sweating face through the visor.

"We're looking for the North Tower. You don't know the way, do you?" Harry asked.

"A quest!" The knight leapt back up, his rage forgotten. "Come follow me, dear friends, and we shall find our goal, or else shall perish bravely in the charge!"

"Oh no." I simply said.

The knight gave the sword one more tug, but decided to leave it when it didn't budge again. He tried to get on his pony, but he fell…

"On foot then, good sirs and gentle ladies! On! On!" He jumped up and ran out of sight.

"Oh no." I said again.

We took off running after him, Harry in the lead, Hermione and Ron on either side of him, and even though I knew I was faster, I didn't want anyone falling behind so I stayed in the back. I was following the sounds of his armour but Harry must have been able to see him in the portraits ahead.

"Be stout of heart, the worst is yet to come!" The knight shouted ahead of us.

I started to grumble under my panting breath. He was leading us up a spiraling staircase and I was starting to feel the burn in my thighs and my lungs. I don't know how long we ran up the stairs, but I finally heard voices and stopped to take a breath.

"Farewell!" The knight popped his into a painting of sinister looking monks. "Farewell, my comrades-in-arms! If ever you have need of noble heart and steely sinew, call up Sir Cadogan!"

"Yeah, we'll call you," Rom muttered as he held a hand out for me to join the rest of my friends.

"If we ever need someone mental." I grumbled as Neville joined us.

"Are you okay?" Neville asked.

"Lousy Knight. Lousy castle. Lousy time keeping skills." I said with a playful smile.

We walked the rest of the steps up to a small landing where the rest of the class was assembled. Ron nudged Harry and looked back at me as he pointed to the ceiling. There was a circular tradoor with a brass plaque on it.

" 'Sibyll Trelawney, Divination teacher,' " Harry read. "How're we supposed to get up there?"

The trapdoor opened and a silver ladder descended right at Harry's feet.

"After you," Ron was grinning at the answer to Harry's question.

Harry and Ron went up first, Neville was nice enough to gesture for Hermione and I to go up first. I let Hermione go up, when I got up the ladder Ron was waiting with a hand out to help. I gave him a quiet thank you and looked around.

It was a strange place, but I felt strangely comfortable here. The look was crossed between an attic and a tea shop. Tea cups aligned a shelf that lined up a wall, and twenty tables were crammed all around. Chintz armchairs and poufs were placed at the tables. I loosened my tie as the warmth of the place started to feel stifling, that was my only complaint.

"Where is she?" Ron asked when the entire Divination class was in.

"Welcome. How nice to see you in the physical world at last." A voice said from the shadows.

Professor Trelawney was a very thin woman. Her large glasses magnified her eyes so much that she looked like an insect herself. A gauzy spangled shawl was wrapped around her body, and a ridiculous amount of beads and chains hung around her neck. Rings and bangle bracelets decorated her arms and fingers.

"Sit, my children, sit." She gestured.

The four of us sat around one table. There was an odd number in the class and so one table was going to have four members anyways.

"Welcome to Divination," Professor Trewlaney sated in a winged armchair in front of the fireplace.

She had an airy voice.

"My name is Professor Trewlaney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye."

Something in my heart reacted to this. There was a sense of knowing this was right for me.

"So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field…"

I gave a quick glance at Hermione. She was looking shocked that books were not going to that helpful in this class. Ron, Harry, and I shared a grin.

"Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future," Professor Trewlaney continued. "It is a Gift granted to few. You, boy." She was walking around the class and she picked out Neville.

"Is your grandmother well?"

"I think so." Neville's voice was shaking when he answered.

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, dear." Professor Trewlaney tried to come off all knowing.

I rolled my eyes and started to feel discouraged.

"We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be devoted to reading tea leaves. Next term we shall progress to palmistry. By the way, my dear," she was looking at Parvati Patil, "beware a red-haired man."

Parvati gave a startled look to Ron, who happened to be behind her, so she edged her seat away from him.

"You've still got a year." I sighed, putting my chin in my hand.

Professor Trewlaney paused and looked at me.

"Cassiopeia Zwart, my dear, I have been looking forward to you in my class since you stepped foot in this school."

My heart beat a bit harder. My friends looked at me in surprise.

"I've been looking forward to this class since I got the elective paper to pick my classes." I answered.

Professor Trewlaney gave a strange noise out of her mouth. I realized she was laughing.

"You will be a delight."

"What does she mean?" Harry whispered to me.

"We're going to find out." I answered.

"In the second term," Professor Trewlaney continued walking around the class. "We shall progress to the crystal ball - if we have finished with fire omens, that is. Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever."

A tense silence was all she was met with, but she didn't seem to be aware.

"I wonder, dear," she turned to Lavender Brown who was closest to her, "if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?"

Lavender stood up and took an enormous teapot off a shelf and put down on the table Professor Trewlaney was standing at.

"Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading - it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October."

Lavender trembled as she went back to her seat.

'So far, I think she's a fraud.' I sighed deeply to myself.

"Now, I want you all to divide into pairs. Collect a teacup from the shelf, come to me, and I will fill it. Then sit down and drink, drink until only the dregs remain. Swill these around the cup three times with the left hand, then turn the cup upside down on its saucer, wait for the last of the tea to drain away, then give your cup to your partner to read. You will interpret the patterns using pages five and six of Unfogging the Future. I shall move along you, helping and instructing."

Hermione and I looked at each other and nodded. Ron and Harry also chose to be partners with an unspoken agreement.

"Oh, and dear" - she caught Neville's arm as he stood up - "after you've broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue patterned ones? I'm rather attached to the pink."

Hermione and I stood up. I was sad to see that Neville had broken a pink teacup, but as Professor Trewlaney walked over with a dustpan I pulled out my wand.

"Repairo." The teacup fixed itself right up.

"Thank you, dear." She said airly to me and placed the pink teacup back in its spot.

"He only broke it because she said he was going to." Hermione whispered to me as she grabbed a brown patterned cup.

I nodded in agreement as I grabbed a plain gray teacup. We walked over to Trelawney who poured tea into our cups. I sipped the hot tea as the boys just chugged theirs.

"Right," Ron said.

I finished my tea, did the swirl three times with my left hand, and put it upside down on the saucer.

Hermione was frowning at the pages.

"Just a few more moments and I'll read your leaves 'Mione." I said as I scanned over the leaf symbols.

Hermione just reached for my cup and immediately started to compare what was inside to what was on the pages. I shook my head as I grabbed hers.

I closed my eyes and breathed in. I tried emptying my mind, but something was preventing me from doing a complete job.

'Stupid memory blocker.' I grumbled to myself and looked into Hermione's cup.

Looking at it, I could only see two distinct symbols. An apple and a spider. Looking at the book, I was relieved to see the symbols were in alphabetical order.

'Apple - success and achievement'

'Spider - reward for work'

"So you've got an apple and a spider here. You will succeed in all of your hard work, and you will be rewarded for it as well." I smiled up at Hermione.

She was frowning at her teacup.

"Of course. That sounds right." She nodded.

I looked over at Harry who looked into Hermione's cup in my hand and gave it a nod.

"Looks about right to me, good job." He smiled kindly to me.

"Thank you." I smiled back at him gratefully.

Ron was inspecting Harry's cup and struggling.

"...and there's a thing here, that looks like an animal...yeah if that was its head...it looks like a hippo...no, a sheep…"

Trelawney whirled around at the sounds of Harry and I snorting of laughter.

"Let me see that, my dear." Trelawney swept over and snatched Harry's cup from Ron's hand.

The class went quiet to hear Trelawney read the tea leaves.

"The falcon...my dear, you have a deadly enemy." Trelawney sounded even more airy than usual.

"But everyone knows that," Hermione whispered loudly.

I nodded my agreement while Trelawney stared at us.

"Well, they do." Hermione spoke louder. "Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who."

"Let's not forget, Sirius Black is out so it could be him too." I added.

"I didn't think about him." Hermione turned to me.

Her face was slightly pink but she looked relieved I was speaking with her. Trelawney decided not to respond to us, she looked back down at Harry's cup.

"The club...an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup…"

"Sheesh Harry, you should have picked a happy cup." I winked at him to let him know I was teasing.

"I thought that was a bowler hat." Ron said sheepishly.

"The skull...danger in your path, my dear…"

"Harry does like to live his life very dangerously." I shrugged.

Ron covered his mouth to cover his laughter. Harry rolled his eyes but also had a grin.

Trelawney let out a scream, making me jump and cover my ear. There was a sound of breaking china within the room.

"My dear boy...my poor, dear boy...no...it is kinder not to say...no...don't ask me…"

"What is it, Professor?" Dean was the first to ask.

Everyone had stood up and was trying to look into Harry's cup.

"My dear, you have the Grim." Trelawney said dramatically.

"The what?" Harry said.

"What's the Grim?" I asked.

Everyone we looked at were just as puzzled, but some of the class still had their hands covering their mouths in horror.

"The Grim, my dear, the Grim!" Trelawney cried out. "The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen - the worst omen - of death!"

I blinked.

"I don't think it looks like a Grim." Hermione said flatly.

I started to giggle.

"What is so funny?" Harry snapped.

"Oh come on, you don't think it is?" I smiled at Harry.

He glared at me.

"Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a baby. Then since you've started at Hogwarts you've practically face death every single year! Of course you're going to have the omen of death flying about." I explained.

I don't think I did anything to stop the dramatic effect of Trelawney, but Harry did relax a bit more.

"You'll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future." Trelawney was speaking to Hermione.

"It looks like a Grim if you do this," Seamus was tilting his head from side to side and squinting his eyes, "but it looks more like a donkey from here," he said, leaning to the left away from the cup.

"When you've all finished deciding whether I'm going to die or not!" Harry snapped.

"I think we will leave the lesson here for today. Yes...please pack away your things…"

We all silently gave our teacups back to Trelawney who put a hand on my shoulder.

"You have the Gift, but something is preventing you -"

" - from using it. I know." I nodded my head.

"My dear, I can help you clear your mind!" She waved her hands around.

I know it was supposed to be impressive, but I thought it made her look mental.

"If we can do that, that would be great actually." I agreed.

"Excellent! How does tonight after dinner sound? The sooner the better I believe." She nodded, giving me a smile.

"Until we meet again, fair fortune be yours." I nodded and tried to go after Harry, but he was moving fast.

Shout out to katie owl, Chest Fiend, afkz94 and The TimeKeeper's Screwdriver for leaving a review!

katie owl: I don't know who you're talking about. The name never came through. As for your question, I am an American! That's also why some of the phrases sound like a mixture of British and American. I forget which one's sound more authentic and I haven't traveled outside of the U.S. so I don't know what the British would really say in situations. So American phrases are what I got.

Chest Fiend: I'm actually eager to post more, but I've only got the next ten chapters. And I'm not even halfway through the story to be completely honest with you.

afkz94: Welcome back! I'm glad you were able to catch up! And I'm glad you're loving it so far!

The TimeKeeper's Screwdriver: I'm a Slytherin too! I didn't want her to be prejudice against any of the houses because Slytherin's need love. (And also because she grew up in an orphanage so she knows what it feels like to be judged.) I'm so glad you can find my stories! I update every Saturday!

Shout out to The TimeKeeper's Screwdriver for adding the first and third story your favorite's list! (I don't know if you got the second one, I haven't received a notification for it yet.)

Shout out to The TimeKeeper's Screwdriver for adding the third story to your following list!