Hello, dear readers, and welcome! Just so you know, Harry is slightly OOC for the purposes of this story.
Team: Puddlemere United
Position: Chaser One
Position Prompt: Use the title of a story written by your Chaser Two for inspiration (An Unexpected Turn of Events)
Optional Prompts: (setting) Forbidden Forest, (object) broomstick, (object) candle
Word Count: 2395
Beta'ed by: JBrocks917, desertredwolf, and xxCallMeAmyxx. Thank you all!
Harry sat in the Gryffindor common room, making sure that no one could see him as he scribbled furiously on a piece of parchment. Finally, he held up the paper to read it by the light of the fire.
Dear Snuffles,
How are you? Hogwarts is fine, except for Trelawney. She predicts my imminent doom at least twice every day, and I'm getting sick of her overly hot tower room and overly sweet perfume.
Everything seems a bit more stressful now that Ron's not talking to me, but there's nothing really new that I didn't tell you last letter. Except for Divination. That seems even more tiring and boring and everything than the others. I mean, how many times can you handle looking into tea cups and trying to see pictures without smashing the thing?
Anyways, I hope you're doing better than me, wherever you are.
Harry
He walked to the Owlery under the protection of the Invisibility Cloak, giving the letter to Hedwig and watching her fly off, then collapsing into his bed as soon as he arrived back in his dormitory.
The next day, Harry was sitting down at breakfast and pouring himself a glass of pumpkin juice when the mail arrived. To his surprise, Hedwig landed in front of him with a letter tied to her leg. She nipped at his pumpkin juice as he untied it.
"You wrote to Snuffles?" Hermione hissed, leaning forward. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It was late," he whispered back. "You were in your dormitory!"
He unraveled the letter and read it under the table. What he saw surprised him. The letter read:
;)
He flipped it over, squinted at it for any tiny hidden details, ran his fingers along it in case Sirius wrote something in Braille — in which case Harry thought it was a dumb idea, since he didn't know how to read Braille — tried casting spells on it, and even asked Hermione to borrow her Revealer, but that stubborn little winky face remained in its place.
;)
He showed the letter to Hermione. As soon as she read it, she handed it back, shaking her head and saying, "Why do I already have a bad feeling about this?"
Meanwhile, Sirius was saying goodbye to Buckbeak in his cave. "I'll only be gone for a bit," he told him. "Just long enough to cause some mischief." He grinned devilishly.
And then he was gone.
Sybill Trelawney sat in her tower, draped with overlapping shawls and peering into her crystal ball through large spectacles. "I see…" She muttered to herself. "I see… It cannot be… a… a… Grim!" For as plain as can be, a large, black dog seemed to be grinning at her through her crystal ball. Unable to look at the device any longer, she glanced upward, gasping with heavy breaths. Then she nearly fainted.
What she had seen in her crystal ball wasn't a prediction at all! It was a reflection! A Grim — the Grim — was standing right in front of her, in her tower!
She gasped and jumped to her feet. "Begone!" she cried, waving her tarot cards at the creature. When that didn't work, she started throwing her tea cups at it. "Begone!" she said again, but in her panic her aim was off, so most ended up hitting the wall, and those that managed to get near the Grim were easily dodged and instead smashed on the floor. Finally, in desperation, she picked up her planetary system diorama and hurled it at the creature with all her remaining strength, but it just bounced harmlessly off of its thick fur.
"Devil's… creature…" she mumbled before sinking to the floor. The creature walked over to her and prodded her with its toe. She was unconscious.
"Devil's creature," repeated Sirius, who had just transformed back into a man. "I'll take it as a compliment. I am devilishly handsome, after all." He tipped an imaginary hat at her and climbed back out of her tower, disappearing into a tapestry not long after.
Harry's next Divination class, he was pleased to learn that they would not be trying to discern patterns out of tea leaves today.
"Professor, what happened to your teacups?" asked Parvati Patil, noticing that the cupboard usually holding them was empty.
"I… I had to use them all to ward off evil spirits," she said, looking uncomfortable and shifting her weight from one foot to another.
Whatever Sirius did to Trelawney is definitely working, thought Harry, grinning inwardly.
However, about two weeks later, Professor Trelawney had seemed to calm herself from whatever had been bothering her, and worst of all, she had bought a new set of china teacups.
"Our last lesson on tea reading was interrupted by devilish creatures," she whispered in her haunting way, swirling around the room and sticking her large-eyed face wherever she saw someone was dozing off, which was everywhere except Lavender and Parvati's table. "We must defy them by doing even better in our studies than we were before!"
She shot a dirty look at Ron, who was snoring in the back of the room, and then at Seamus, who was using his wand to burn a smiley face into the table. Anger quickly turned to panic when the whole desk was set aflame.
"All right," she said after the commotion was dealt with, straightening her shawls. "Maybe… maybe tarot cards would be better for today."
Dear Snuffles,
I don't know what you did to Trelawney, but it worked! She was so scared during our lessons, we did nothing but look out the window while she just sat and looked into her crystal ball. She said we were supposed to look for the alignments of the stars, but it was daytime. I don't think I need to explain any further.
But after a while, she started becoming braver again. She tried to make us do tea leaves again, but Seamus set fire to a table and she took it as a bad omen and made us do tarot cards instead. After that, we did planets, which is almost as boring as tea leaves, if you can believe it. I mean, how am I supposed to tell if Saturn and Jupiter are aligned, and what in the name of Merlin's pants does it mean? Our lessons are boring again, so can you please do whatever you did before?
Harry
Sirius grinned widely as he thought of what to do and wrote a reply to Harry, then setting off towards the castle for the second time that month.
As soon as the mail came in the next morning, Harry searched the ceiling for any sign of Hedwig, and was delighted to see a spot of white among the brown and grey.
When she landed in front of him, he quickly ripped open the scroll tied to her leg.
The message was just as short as the one before it, but this time it read:
:D
Harry grinned and stuffed the parchment into his pocket. He was sure Sirius would not let him down.
Sybill Trelawney was gazing out the window at the stars and trying to see the constellations when all of a sudden, the top of a head appeared. She gasped and jumped backwards. Gradually, the rest of the beast began to come into view: it was the Grim… on a broomstick.
She fainted.
A moment later, a man was sitting on the broomstick right where the Grim had been.
"Well, that was easy," he said, grinning to himself. "She didn't last nearly as long as last time. I do have that effect on ladies." He thought for a moment. "Actually, I'd say she was getting tired of me, but that's impossible. People can't get enough of me!"
And he flew off.
The next time Harry saw Trelawney, her tower was decorated with lit candles that added to the already unbearably stifling heat of the room, crosses, and many, many tarot cards. He didn't even have a place to put down his book.
"Um, Professor? What are these for? Especially the tarot cards?" Lavender Brown asked, voicing the question that was on everyone's mind.
"I have been plagued by evil spirits," Trelawney said in her oh-so-mystical voice. "These are used to ward off evil." And without another word, she went back to gazing into her crystal ball.
Everyone looked around at each other, confused. What was going on with Trelawney? What were they supposed to do? And most importantly, what was with all the tarot cards?
Finally, after a week of boring Divination classes with literally nothing to do, Professor Trelawney made an announcement.
"Dear students," she whispered as they all crowded around her, "the planets have told me that the evil spirits will haunt us no more. Venus and Mercury have aligned! We may now continue our lessons in peace!"
"Venus and Mercury have aligned?" Harry muttered. "I'm pretty sure all that means is 'mischief is beautiful.'" He heard Ron snicker and shot him a hopeful glance, but was swiftly disappointed when the redhead quickly composed himself, not even glancing at Harry.
And it certainly didn't help when the professor decided it was time to revert back to tea leaves.
Dear Snuffles,
Trelawney just keeps bouncing back. She almost reminds me of a cockroach. Now matter how hard you try to squish them, they just never die! Plus, those glasses she wears make her look like a bug.
Anyways, can you please, please, please do whatever you did again? Please? For your favorite godson?
Harry
At breakfast, Harry eagerly awaited his letter from Sirius. When he had told Hermione what he was doing, she had disapproved, saying, "I know it's Trelawney, but you just can't do that to a teacher!" He thought it was probably better to keep the only friend he had, but one, Divination was… Divination-y — no further explanation needed — two, it was hilarious, and three, it was Trelawney. Hermione had said so herself.
When Hedwig landed in front of him, he untied the letter from her leg, unfurled it, and read it under the table:
:P
Divination, thought Harry as he stood up and walked away, ready for his classes. Such a treat.
Sirius was reading Harry's letter for the fifth time and brainstorming what else to do.
"I've already done everything, Buckbeak," he said to the hippogriff, who was in a corner munching on bones. "Harry was right, that woman is remarkably like a cockroach."
Buckbeak didn't answer him, instead squeezing out of the cave and flying off.
"Hey!" Sirius yelled after him, going out too. "Thanks for your input! That was sarcastic, by the way!"
Buckbeak ignored him, heading towards the Forbidden Forest.
"The Forbidden Forest…" Sirius muttered, then brightened up. "You're brilliant, Buckbeak!" He headed back into the cave. "That wasn't sarcastic, by the way!" he called, poking his head back out.
Sybill Trelawney was gazing out the window again, letting the steam air out of her tower — a result of many boiled cups of water after making more tea for predictions — when she saw it.
The moonlight seemed to shift onto the entrance of the Forbidden Forest as a dark shape loomed out of it, looking straight at her. It was — you guessed it — the Grim.
Professor Trelawney was tiring of all these visits from the Grim. Even she — probably the most superstitious person for miles around — wasn't that afraid of it anymore. More agitated.
She used her wand to levitate herself outside right in front of the creature, her fury making it so she was nothing more than a blur of orange shawls flapping in the wind and bug eyes steeled with rage. She took off her orange-pink slipper and whacked the Grim repeatedly over the head with it. She thought she heard someone snickering in the background, but she couldn't be sure. All her attention was focused on this one, annoying creature.
"You" — whack — "annoying" — whack — "little" — whack — "creature" — whack — "stop" — whack — "pestering" — whack — "me!" Extra hard whack.
The Grim bounded back into the woods when she raised her slipper again, and the moonlight shifted back, as if the moon itself was afraid of casting its light upon her.
Trelawney levitated back into her tower, trying to discern more images from her tea, but ending up smashing most of her cups.
Back in the Forbidden Forest, an ego-wounded Sirius Black was rubbing his head and wincing, while his best friend, Remus Lupin, gave him a stern talking-to.
"I told you it wouldn't work a third time! Trelawney's not as dumb as you think, however cockroach-like she may be. I tried to convince you, but classic Sirius, you didn't listen to me! And moving the moonlight?! I mean, where'd you even get the idea—"
"But you did it, didn't you?" said Sirius, grinning through his headache and ego-ache. "You always were good with Moony Matters — hey! My head hurts, you know!"
"And that's why I hit you there."
"When did you get so boring? I think the Moony I knew was abducted by aliens, because my Moony used to love these things." He looked at Remus and grinned. "Begone!"
Remus rolled his eyes. "When did you get so egotistical? Oh, wait, you were always like that."
"You have to admit, my pranks are always good!"
"Yeah," Remus grinned, "but seeing you get whacked over the head repeatedly with Trelawney's slipper was even better."
Dear Snuffles,
I don't think it worked this time. Trelawney's more annoyed than scared, and she's been giving us loads of homework! The only good thing out of this is she smashed all her teacups again and she doesn't have the money to buy more.
Anyways, can you do it one more time? Just one? One single, puny time? Please?
Harry
Sirius' reply was simple:
:(
