4. Predictions and Televisions

James and co entered the Great Hall the next morning in high spirits. The foursome sat down at the Gryffindor table and piled food onto their plates as they waited for Professor McGonagall to make her way up the table to them so they may receive their schedules.

"I wonder what the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is like," Peter thought aloud in between forkfuls of eggs.

"Well, based on the reaction of every girl in the school, he's quite attractive." Remus pointed out. James looked up from his food and watched the girls of Hogwarts.

A Ravenclaw with dark hair and her blond friend, both in Sixth Year, were whispering excitedly to one another, shooting glances at the teacher as they did so. A group of Hufflepuff girls wished him a good morning as they made their way to the Hufflepuff table and blushed when he smiled and responded to their greeting.

James saw Max and Annebeth sitting not too far away from him.

"Annebeth!" James called to her.

"Hi James," She smiled at him.

"What am I, chopped liver?" Max asked.

James waved off Max and turned to Annebeth. "Settle something for me, would ya? Is Professor Welch hot?"

Annebeth thought a second, looked over to the teacher's table and then returned her gaze to James. "I'd hit that,"

James was taken aback by the response. Sirius spewed Pumpkin Juice laughing and Max looked outraged.

"What?" Annebeth asked.

James shook his head. "Nothing, just surprised is all." He turned to Max. "Looks like you have some competition."

Max threw a biscuit at him.

"And I already hate him." Max said to no one in particular.

Annebeth hit him playfully. "Don't be such a killjoy, I'm only playing."

Max rolled his eyes.

"The again-" Annebeth started the sentence but thought it best not to finish it at Max's reaction.

McGonagall finally reached the Marauders.

"'Morning Professor," James greeted her.

"Good morning Mr. Potter." She nodded to him, took a blank schedule and tapped it with her wand. "Her you are,"

James grabbed it and thanked her. She gave Sirius, Remus, and Peter theirs as well and then continued to move down the table.

"What've we got today?" Sirius asked as he had been too occupied with his food to bother reading through it.

James scanned the paper. "We start a couple of new subjects today. First we've got Divination, then Transfiguration. After lunch we've got Muggle Studies."

"Cool, we get to start some new classes," Remus said happily.

Sirius looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "Cool? Cool?" He asked in disbelief.

Remus shrugged.

They finished their breakfast and began the journey to the North Tower. Fabian and Gideon warned them that it took a good amount of time to get to the Divination room and it was a good thing they did so as it took the Marauders almost half an hour to make it to the top.

"Where's the classroom?" Sirius asked looking around as if expecting the twins to jump out and start laughing at them.

Peter, who was out of breath and panting, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall, answered. "It's like an attic; a ladder comes down when class starts."

Sirius started walking around the platform they were stuck on, looking at the paintings on the walls. Peter remained sitting and continued to catch his breath and Remus began leafing through Unfogging the Future, their textbook. James read over his shoulder, too lazy to pull out his own book.

The rest of their Divination class made their way to the platform and space was beginning to run out by the time it was nine o'clock and the ladder fell from the ceiling.

James was among the first up the ladder, making his way into a hot stuffy classroom with shelves filled with crystal balls and tea sets. A fireplace had a blazing fire that cast an orangish glow on the pink and red furniture which was otherwise left in darkness as thick maroon curtains covered the windows. The smell of different perfumes was overwhelming.

James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter grabbed a pair of the small circular tables, James and Sirius sitting at one while Remus and Peter took the other. The rest of the class filled in and then they all sat, waiting until-

From a perfumed fog that James hadn't noticed before appeared a woman. She was relatively tall with dark skin and curly, beaded, graying hair. Her eyes were a warm brown, the same shade as her skin, which had only slight wrinkles around the eyes and forehead. She wore small, half-moon glasses with gold rims, bejeweled at the corners. Her clothes matched the room, creating an effect that made her every move almost shimmer.

"It's good to meet you all in person," She greeted her class with a slight smile as she scanned their faces. "I am Cassandra Pythia and I will be your Divination teacher." She stepped out of the fog and began to pace across the room, looking at students as she made her way through the circular tables and back to her place in front of the fireplace. She pulled out her wand and waved it, causing the tea sets James had noticed earlier to fly to the tables, giving each student a cup, the teapot pouring tea into each one that found its place.

"Today, we will begin reading tealeaves. Drink up," She gave them another once over and then sat down in a large, puffy looking chair, crossing her legs and clasping her hands together as she continued to scan the room.

The class sipped its tea. James shot a look at Sirius who made a slight shrug in response.

They finished their tea and swilled the remaining dregs around.

"Excellent, now switch cups and use pages five and six to make predictions for your partner." Professor Pythia stood up and began to make her way through the room again, keeping on her face the whole time, a smile suggesting that she knew more than she was letting on.

James looked into Sirius's cup, seeing exactly what he had expected, a glop of brown tea dregs. He opened his book and scanned the pages of pictures and meanings.

"Do you wanna start?" Sirius asked him, looking up from James's cup with a look of confusion James was sure he shared.

"Sure." He looked closer at the bottom of the tea cup and then looked back towards the picture.

"Sorta looks like a scale… you're gonna have legal troubles. Then a flower, you're popular. And a dish… trouble at home." James finished his shoddy predictions and Sirius laughed.

"Talk about an understatement." Sirius responded with a smile. He pushed his bangs out of his face. "Right, let's see… So, I'll call that a snake, which means you have an enemy." He looked up at James. "No shit," Sirius added and then looked back into the cup. And a bug, or a dot, or a-"

Professor Pythia appeared behind Sirius and looked into the cup. "A bee: romantic troubles." She looked up from the cup and stared James in the eye, a look of amusement and dismay at the same time. Then she moved on.

"Okay," Sirius said, drawing out the word and giving James a look that clearly said this-class-is-complete-hippogriff-dung.

She continued checking on the class until about five minutes before its end when she said, "You may put your things away now. Until next time."

Professor Pythia then stood up and returned to the perfume fog that kept the back of the room out of the students' view. James and his friends made his way down the ladder, knowing that they had to hurry if they wanted to make it to Transfiguration on time.


James sat down at a desk and began to examine the stuff that lay on top of it. Sirius, who was sitting to his left, was doing the same. On the desk sat a book the length and width about that of his textbook, only it was a lot thinner and filled with white squares covered in blue, parallel lines. It had a curly metal binding that Sirius was already pulling out of the holes that it sat in and the cover was a different color on each desk in the row: red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and orange. Next to it was a thin cylindrical item. It was clear which allowed James to see yet another cylinder within it, this one filled with black stuff. One side of the item was pointy with a hole, the other was a button. James pressed it and, out of the other end, came a metal point.

"What is this stuff?" Sirius asked as he clicked his pen over and over again, marveling at the way the metal tip appeared and then retreated back into the device.

"That," Their teacher said, appearing in front of the class. "Is a pen. It is used for writing."

James looked his Muggle Studies teacher over. She looked to be in her mid-forties, with short, straight, brown hair that was graying. Her hair went a little below her earlobe but not much and it looked sort of like a bowl. She had a small nose and her face was spotted with freckles and the occasional wrinkle. She wore, not robes, but a blouse, khaki pants, and plain, brown flats.

"I am Professor Wilson, and this is Muggle Studies. This class will be different from any of your other classes at Hogwarts. Here we won't study any magic. Instead we will learn about Muggle life. Over the next couple of years you will learn about the everyday life of Muggles today, their technology, their jobs, current issues in their world, and anything else having to do with Muggle life. You will also learn as if you were Muggle children, studying things like Math, Science, History, and English. It is a very interesting subject, and I look forward to teaching you." She clapped her hands together.

"Our first lesson will be about electricity. We will be discussing this topic all year but we will need a basic understanding of it before we can go any further." She walked up to the chalkboard, picked up a piece of chalk and began writing on the board. "Please open your notebooks and take notes in them using your pens. All homework for this class will be done in Muggle fashion so you're going to have to get used to it."

The class spent the rest of the period taking notes as they listened to Professor Wilson describe to them electricity and how it worked. She told the of different things that ran on electricity and, at the class's conclusion, assigned them homework.

"For homework, you're to read the first chapter on electricity and its uses and take notes. I also want you to practice saying the vocabulary words as they are new to you. Class dismissed."

James packed up his books and left the classroom with his friends.

"Electricity is really cool!" Sirius said excitedly. "I wish we could have selevisions and all that other stuff here."

"I'ts television," Remus corrected him. "And we can't, Hogwarts's magic interferes with electricity. Phones and other Muggle technology doesn't work here, it gets shorted out."

"Well, maybe I can bring stuff to my house, even if it wouldn't work, it would annoy the hell out of my parents." Sirius responded with a smirk. "You should've seen my Mum's face when she saw my book list. I think she almost had a heart attack."

A/N: Here's the chapter; the next one we'll meet the DADA teacher. Hope you liked it. Thank you for reading and please leave a review.

Until next time :)