[Friday, September 9th, 2016]
"Oveyus!" Draco called when he finally spotted the Divinations Professor in one of the staff lounges off the main hall. There were a few professors about, engaging in idle chatter. Oveyus, however, was sitting by a window reading the paper, which he now looked up from to see Malfoy rushing toward him.
"Oh hey, Malfoy. Please, call me Edore, I insist. Do you-"
"Sorry, Edore, listen." Draco slid over a nearby chair, straddled it to face him. A few strands of his hair flipped forward, and his sleeves were rolled up, elbows making contact with the table. He realised he might look slightly unhinged but he needed to make sense of this cosmic alignment.
"Woah, you alright?" Oveyus folded the paper and sat up straight with a look of concern.
"Yes- actually, no. I need to ask you something. You remember my coffee grounds, right?"
"From yesterday? Sure."
"What did they mean? The constellation, what does it mean?"
The man gave him a confused expression.
"Um… well, I don't quite understand the question," he said almost apologetically.
"WHAT DO–" Oveyus startled in his seat, not prepared to be shouted at. Draco cleared his throat and scanned the room quickly before apologising. "Sorry, I'm a bit wired on caffeine still," he threw the reason at him since it was better than revealing his state of unrest.
"Clearly," Oveyus said, eyes widened. Draco huffed and continued at a more respectable volume.
"What do you mean you don't know? Surely there must be some kind of manual or reference guide to reading coffee grounds."
"Um, not really." The man tried to settle back into comfort. "Like I said in class, it's different from reading tea leaves. It's much more subjective, way more personal, being that the grounds can paint a more detailed picture than bits of leaves can. What did you see again?"
"A constellation."
Oveyus raised a brow, "I gathered that much. Which one?"
"Phoenix."
"Okay… maybe something to do with the Order?"
Draco dismissed that entirely. It had been years since the order disbanded, leaving the battle against darkness to the DMLE. He hadn't wanted to admit that his coffee grounds connected in some way to Granger's assignment, but it was starting to be the only thing that made sense. Still, he barely understood why there was a connection at all.
"What if… what if what I saw came up… after the reading?" Draco tried to be vague. He didn't want to sit and talk about what it had to do with Granger, especially not with a colleague he barely knew.
"That can happen, like when you have a dream and then the scene plays out in real life after you wake up." Oveyus shrugged as if he weren't sure. Draco considered that he might not really be an expert in the field and perhaps he just winged it. Draco scowled at the man.
"Does that mean that it told my future?"
"Draco. Can I call you Draco?" he didn't wait for an answer and continued. "A lot of Divination is feeling the energy. You have to go on your instincts. The danger of the divine arts is when you overthink things. Clearly the Phoenix jumped out at you in some way and now you're freaking out. My advice? Don't freak out. Go with the flow or it will consume you."
Draco could barely take the man seriously now. Especially not if his advice was to go with the flow. A dead expression came over Draco's face as he reasoned that Oveyus was useless.
"Thanks," he said coldly and got up to leave.
"Glad I could help!" Oveyus called behind him with a satisfied grin on his face.