September first arrived with a strange mood.
Audrey had all kinds of summers. Days spent under the sun, days spent exploring, hiding, discovering. Not once, however, she spent an awfully long summer with her dad attached to her, dutifully following every step she made and watching her with the eyes of a hawk. Audrey had her grandparents and her nannies and even elves taking care of her, but not even before her dad had assumed the role of a guardian.
It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. She wasn't used to not being allowed to go where she wanted and to do as she pleased. Neither was she used to having someone making sure she was happy.
He brought her lemon cakes every morning, and took her to quidditch games, explaining every little moment with the patience of a saint. In lazy afternoons, they visited houses and apartments and mansions, but it was a charming little cottage that got her eye. Devon certainly wasn't the loveliest of the places she had ever met, but it had a quirky charm about it hard to miss; hidden under the shadow of Stoatshead Hill, Ivy Cottage was an image straight out of her fairytale books. Half-hidden by century old oaks and willows, the stone walls had been covered by ivy and purple wisteria, dramatically half covering the windows. From her room of choice, the village of Ottery St. Catchpole stretched slowly into the countryside, a painting that could have belonged to a book or a museum.
Lovely. Calm and quiet like nothing else.
"I think I like this one", she murmured, fingers tapping against the window. Her dad bought it the next morning, and said they could move in as soon as she was back from Hogwarts.
Hogwarts another topic of its own. Nobody asked her if she was going to go back, but no one else made any effort to look for other schools. The decision hang heavily over the dinner table and in the mornings when she went down to say good morning to her grandparents. Finally, when the last week of August came around, she cut short bangs by herself, shortened all of her skirts and packed her stuff asking if someone could take her to Kingcross on September first.
"I'll go", she said, "as long as dad promises to stay on England. And he will try and stop drinking".
Every alcoholic beverage in the house had been thrown away the next morning. No one questioned her, and no one tried to negotiate either.
In the gloomy, cold morning of September 1st, she boarded the train slightly late with a hug from Evelyn, a proud smile from granddad, and the heavy hand of her dad on her shoulder. "Write for me", he asked, "please?".
"I'll try", she managed, before setting of to find her friends in a cabin.
Audrey felt like there was nothing in the world she couldn't accomplish. Oh, to feel invincible.
What a shame the feeling wouldn't last forever.
"You are here!", Daphne said cheerfully when Audrey opened the door. Her friends had hang into her decision all the summer, not knowing if they would have Audrey around or not by the next term just as much as her family didn't either. "Ooooh, I'm so happy you are here. What would I do with Sophie?".
"You would do just fine", Audrey reply was bubbly. She put Cat down, and sat down happily besides Sophie. "I said I just needed a little time. Time's over, world domination plan is back on track."
Sophie cackled. "Great, the gang is complete. Have seen loverboy yet?".
Audrey's face closed almost instantly. She didn't have to ask about who Sophie was talking about. Over the course of summer, Harry Potter had tried talk to her endlessly, to the point it was driving her mad. Worst part of it? Audrey couldn't even hate him, because while she was being whiny about he annoying the hell out of her, she wasn't paying attention to her nightmares or the way paranoia was developing inside her brain.
Worrying about tactless boys was much easier than remembering she could've died.
"Nope, and I hope I doesn't see him any time soon", she shrugged. "You know who I saw, whoever? Cedric Diggory".
"Cute neighbor boy?", Daphne gushed. By the end of the summer, Audrey had invited Sophie and Daphne over to meet her potentially new home; what they found was something much more interesting. The Diggorys lived not that far, and their son was as easy to the eyes as a sixteen-year-old boy could be; lovely enough that his 'good morning' made Audrey melt. "We should put him on our list".
"I'm calling dibs!", Audrey raised her hand. "I mean, he's my neighbor".
"You haven't moved in yet!", Daphne shot back. "Anyway – I think we unfortanely have some bigger issues now than boys".
Audrey blinked. Daphne was a great many things, but what Audrey always loved the most about her was the way she hardly took life seriously. Daphne Greengrass was born on a world of frivolities, and as such, all of her decisions were based in details that most people would consider futile. She worried herself with things like marriages agreements and expensive porcelain, born and breed to be a perfect highborn pureblood lady, able to chitchat and talk endlessly about stuff most girls her age would seen as uninteresting at best and useless at worst.
But it was refreshing. It was good to have someone that you could spend your days in a haze of chiffon and velvet, whose live depended on how well they could dance, play the piano and run a household. In the perfect world of Daphne Greengrass, there was no war or dead relatives – her family went almost unscathed – and there was no such things as monsters, drunk dads or scary days locked inside your own room. Daphne existed purely by the pleasure of existing, and sometimes that was all Audrey wanted the most, because Daphne worried, indeed, sometimes a little too much – but always about something so easily solved.
Therefore, to have Daphne saying there was bigger issues at hand was something of a perilous statement.
"What?", Sophie chimed in. Her eyes were glinting like a knife unsheathed, dark and vividly dangerous as always. "Don't play coy".
"I'm not!", Daphne shook her head. "Listen – dad works at the Ministry, right? Things there are getting heated because of Sirius Black. Nobody has a single clue of how he escaped Azkaban, and they have even less idea about how they're going to capture him. It's a mess, honestly, and Fudge is going up the walls because well – after the whole fiasco with Hogwarts last year, people were less and less confident in his ability to keep the job".
Audrey snorted. "Yeah, heard about that. My grandpa had a whole convo with Fudge – shouting match and all, in the middle of his office, after I was attacked. Officially took the Blanchard support from the Ministry, and that means a lot less of generous donations".
"Yes", Daphne agreed. "Fudge was already on thin ice trying to not lose support of the families that still approved of his job. Then Black is out of jail and things just escalated quickly – now he is taking some serious measures, lest of all another heir or something gets attacked now".
Sophie got it faster than Audrey. "Do you mean he's sending security to Hogwarts?".
"Yes. You know why? Because apparently, Sirius Black could be after Harry Potter".
Audrey groaned loudly and lost all her composure. Of course, of all things a mass murderer could seeking after an unprecedented jail escape, they would pick the danger magnet that went to the same school as her, the same danger magnet that spent all summer trying to get on good terms with her again. What would he do now? Use her as bait to Sirius Black?
"Of course he wants Harry Potter", Audrey scoffed. "What else would he want, uh?".
"Audrey, You-Know-Who disappeared because of Potter", Daphne acquiesced. "And Black lost everything. His master, his job, his safety, his own life – twelve years on Azkaban? I'm surprised he even survived. Mom said most wizards would've lost their magic in half that time. Black's dangerous, and of course he's after the only thing that stood between him and eternal glory or whatever You-Know-Who promised his followers".
"Well, if he wants Potter that bad, go ahead", Sophie dismissed. "It's not our problem. What kind of security are we getting?".
"Not sure", Daphne shrugged. "They were still having conversations about what strategy to follow when dad told me. But must be something truly powerful – I imagine a squad of the best aurors or the likes of it. And Audrey… you better stay away from Potter, uh?".
"Oh well, isn't like I'm not trying", she defended herself. "But he's not getting out of my hair, is he?"
"Then try harder. I know mean girl is not your kind of thing but well, if that's what takes to keep you away from a mass murderer, go for it. Just say a couple of nasty stuff and send him on his merry way", Sophie said simply, a twinkle in her eye like seeing Audrey trying to be mean to anyone would be the most fun she ever had.
Audrey averted her eyes to the windows, where the rain had only gotten worse as far as they traveled. She wasn't defenseless, certainly, and no one in the certain state of mind would use meek as an adjective to describe her, either. Audrey knew how to fight back and how to take care of herself – but she always made a point of not starting anything either. Being overly nice was a great way of making her way into anything she wanted, and what if people often labeled her as a ditzy blonde girl? That wasn't none of her business.
"Right. Just be nasty to Potter and he will leave me alone, for the sake of my safety", she murmured. "Wait. Is even safe for us to leave for Hogsmeade? If we got security inside the castle, what about outside it?"
Daphne shrugged again; her dark blue eyes still fixed on Audrey. "I'm not sure. Mom was skeptical about signing it up, but I managed to convince her. Made me promise I would stay with you two, however".
"Sirius Black isn't going to turn up at bloody Hogsmeade", Sophie snorted. "No way. If he got out of Azkaban, he's smart enough to not get caught in Zonko's or something".
"Never a dull year in Hogwarts, uh?", Audrey hugged her knees, feeling colder and colder as the train took them far into north. "I think I shouldn't have come back".
"Don't be daft, Audrey", Sophie cut her off. "That's the magical world. We are humans with cool powers, things aren't going to be smooth. Stop being a wimp. And you should get into those bloody vests, this little dress of yours isn't going to keep you alive very much in this weather".
Audrey played mindless with a loose string in said dress. She had picked it up this morning because it always made her feel pretty and that was all the confidence boost she needed, but well – back to the dully black and green vests as always. Sighing, she picked up her things, patted Cat's head and made her way out of the compartment. "Right, be back in a sec".
"Want me to go with you?", Daphne offered, as Cat readily jumped into her lap.
"Nah, you already changed. I'll just hop to the bathroom and back, don't worry".
Sophie raised an eyebrow. Audrey knew exactly what was going through her friend's head: last year they had all changed in the compartment together, and they had spent days enough sharing a same dorm that all three of them had seen each other naked a couple of times. But Audrey felt uncomfortable enough to get to a bathroom because well – a lot of things happened in the summer.
Including the fact she had boobs now, and no idea of how to deal with them. Things weren't working as they should, and Audrey never felt so disconnected from her own skin, lest of all with her friends that hadn't grown that much in the spawn of a couple of months.
To the bathroom she ran.
The corridors were darker than she remembered from last year, certainly thanks to the raging unstoppable rain; every compartment she passed down had windows of a solid, shimmering grey, impossible to see where exactly they were passing through. Slowly, people retreated back to their friends as the lanterns flickered into life, something Audrey had never seen during the day in the Express, their ghastly light making her shiver. She made her business as quick as she could, hands working swiftly to close buttons faster, legs working in large passes to make her way back to her friends.
She made half the way by the time the train slowed down, and her heart failed a beat. Alright, her notion of time was as screwed as it could be with the dyscalculia, but even she knew they couldn't have made to Hogwarts, not yet. There was at least a couple of hours of traveling in full speed before they made to their destination, and she hadn't even seen the trolley lady yet.
The rain sounded louder and louder, and the sounds of people opening the doors got mixed into it. Suddenly, the train stopped all out of nowhere, a jolt that made Audrey lose balance. Her breath got caught in her throat, and the lamps all died in a flickering motion that plunged everyone in a darkness that felt strangely dense.
Audrey did the only thing she was good at – she ran.
She knew that if she was a little bit smarter, she could've counted down the doors until her friends. But numbers all danced around her mind, equally confusing and sounding all the same. The dark was the worst part whoever, as it forced her to stumble into unknow obstacles no matter how hard she squinted her eyes and no wand at her pockets to cast spells that could've helped her out. Someone screamed by her left ear, and Audrey almost dropped her stuff, half trying to walk and half trying to not get trampled.
In the middle of the chaos, a compartment door opened rather hastily, and someone shouted a couple of nasty words. Audrey obviously wasn't the only startled, because as soon as the sound made her jump out of her skin, something grabbed her arm in a rather clumsy gesture that made her scream like a frightened cat, the sound ripping out of her throat in a manner that could've made someone easily deafened, accompanying the speed up of her heart.
Out of reflex, she tried to move out of the way, but the person – or whatever it was – held her arm with a strength of steel. Her feet made a strange dance, a couple of steps behind, and she dropped the clothes dreadfully folded into her arms; the next minute, her new-freely hand found a cold handle and Audrey's brain short-circuited, fingers doing the involuntary movement of opening the unknown compartment as the only direction she could find to ran away.
This was obviously a bad decision. The moment the door opened, she wasn't used to the new center of mass and lost her balance. In a flourish of legs and screams, Audrey fell over painfully against someone's else legs, and the person holding into her arm – not ready for everything happening so quickly – fell over with her, a mess of limbs and Hogwarts' vests, her knees hitting the ground sharply enough to bruise.
"Oof", she let it out, losing her breath, because whoever fell against her was certainly heavy.
"I'm sorry!", a boy squeaked. Audrey recognized the tilt of his words instantly, because there was only one British boy clumsy enough to make her look like a fool this badly. "What's going on? I'm sorry".
"Let me go, Neville!", she screeched back, trying to scramble back to her feet. Someone grabbed her by the collar like a kitten, pulling her away from the Gryffindor boy, but her knees protested. Something was burning, and Audrey knew she had probably ruined a par of good new tights, and probably scratched herself quite a lot. "Why did you grab me like that?!"
"Audrey?", he asked. "Ouch, sorry, I didn't knew it was you!".
"Hullo, Neville", another boy said. "Welcome aboard, Audrey".
"Harry? Is that you? What's happening?", Neville asked. Shit, Audrey almost let it out slip. Of course of all compartments she had to stumble right into Potter, in the middle of an unprecedented blackout. Magical lamps weren't even supposed to be able to have blackouts, for Merlin's sake, there was no electricity running anywhere!
"No idea", Potter said, and tried to hoister Audrey up. In the summer, she had gotten only a glimpse of Harry Potter in Diagonal Alley. He still had that mess of hair and some bad adjusted glasses, but he had grown quite a bit, lost some baby fat and became more of a funnily weird teenage than a cute underfed little boy. He clearly had got stronger, as he somehow managed to get her back into her feet. As soon as she was standing, however, Audrey slapped his hands away.
"Don't touch me".
"Always glad to help", he replied. "Sit down, you two".
A cat hissed, and Audrey carefully sat down. The hair brushing her shoulders made her think this was probably Hermione, which was good – Potter was insufferable, Weasley was his partner-in-crime, but Hermione was quite alright.
Petrified buddies, or whatever.
"I'm going to go and ask the driver what's going on", the other girl tried to leave, but Audrey held her back the moment Hermione made next to the door.
"Don't bother trying to go out there, it's madness".
But the door opened again, with a couple of strange sounds and squeals of pain. Audrey groaned as someone's stepped into her feet quite bad, and her tights made a sound that denounced they were probably even more destroyed now. Well, a letter for Evelyn by the morning, asking for a couple more of them.
"Ginny?", Hermione asked. Audrey blinked – Ginny Weasley? The strange youngest Weasley that was always looking at her in a creepy sort of manner?
Chaos erupted. Ginny tripled into her legs, and almost sat down on Harry, Neville stumbled into the cat – whoever's cat was that poor animal – again, and Audrey was ready to start fully-crying the moment a hoarse voice cut down their bickering.
"Quiet".
Audrey frowned. This wasn't a boy's voice, no – this belonged to a full grown man. What was an adult doing in Hogwarts Express? Adults never traveled with the kids. If they needed to go to Hogwarts, apparating was faster, cheaper and easier than spending all day locked up with a bunch of excited kids and their friends.
The man appeared holding a handful of flames. His face was tired, with lots of fresh cuts and older scars, perhaps handsome once but now only aged in more years than it clearly should've. He had very few wrinkles, perhaps in his middle thirties, but everything else – from his eyes to his hair to the way he held himself – spoke of a much older, much more experienced man.
"Stay where you are", he said, slowly getting to his feet. Audrey gulped, a bad feeling running down her spine – the same instinct that said she should've had run last year, when the basilisk came for her. But there was no place to run, and the only adult around was more of a shadow than a living person.
The door opened a third time – because omens always came in thirds. Audrey's heart stopped, and her mind went blank, just to catch up to the situation a second later. "Security", she murmured, suddenly understanding exactly what was happening.
Because in the doorway was a tall, cloaked figure that went all the way up to the ceiling, face hidden by a dirty, dark hood. The hand coming out of the cloak was made of very long fingers, pale and grayish, and Audrey was probably going insane because all she could think was 'what good hands for the piano'.
Her heart froze. She couldn't hear a single thing – not the rain raging against glass, not the sharp breath of the creature, not Hermione's squeaks or the way Ginny was shrinking into the seat. Her gaze fixed into the creature – a dementor, the very thing that was supposed to protect them – and the way it was fixed into Potter's face.
Everything was silent.
Until her mind exploded in sounds.
Audrey closed her eyes, put her hands into her ears, but the sounds were still there. Vivid images burned into her eyelids, cutting through darkness and light – and she was seven years old all over again, a strange man fighting with her dad, a door being closed, and she's locked locked locked – don't leave me here, don't leave me here – but the screams don't stop. They're fighting, they were supposed to love each other, but this is what love does – it burns and destroys and –
But as soon as it came, the scene melted, like wax meeting flames. Now she's thirteen, in a dark corridor trying to help a friend, and there's a giant snake waiting for her in the corner – waiting, waiting, waiting. If she looks up, she will be dead, she can feel it where her spirit meets the bones, just one look at yellowish eyes and it's over, all of her dreams and hopes and fears and –
"Harry! Harry! Are you all right?", someone was screaming. Audrey blinked, and the snake faded away. Instead of a dark corridor, she's in a half-lit compartment, the soft hum of the train back at its track, the rain padding against the windows. She took a deep breath and wasn't cold, just humid, with the taste of rain and dusty on it.
Potter was on the ground. It takes a couple of seconds to realize he's there, eyes closed and his friends by his side. Oh, right, she slapped him; a boy that was now dying or something. Just great.
"Are you okay?", Weasley asked, helping the brunette back to his seat. Audrey's eyes were fixated on him; whatever had got him, got him bad. She knew of dementors, of course she knew – as every child in the magic world, dementors were their terror movies' material. But they were kids, they weren't supposed to have that much bad memories, not enough to make you faint. Whatever Potter had gone through, was deep, and worrisome enough to knock him down – and everyone knew Harry Potter wasn't one to go easily.
The men on the compartment – that Audrey would quick catch on, was Professor Lupin, supposedly the person that scared the dementor away, got Audrey's attention as he moved near her with a piece of chocolate. She accepted it with a distant smile and a little 'thank you', and watched as made his way to speak to the driver.
"Are you sure you're okay, Harry?", Hermione asked, sitting down besides Audrey again. She had a ghastly look in her face as all of them, but not even close the way Potter or Ginny Weasley were shaking.
Audrey flickered her eyes back to the chocolate. It was the plain type that Sophie's brother usually would get them from Hogsmeade, but exploded quite nice into her mouth all the same. For a second, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, chocolate in her mouth and nothing but blackness behind her eyelids, as it should. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't have come back.
Audrey didn't slept well that night. After finding Sophie and Daphne again at the train – she managed to slip off when the Professor came back – she not only had to tell everything that happened, but also to explain how she found herself in Harry Potter's compartment (and how it wasn't quite her fault, but Neville Longbottom's). Daphne had tears all over her face, Sophie had a harsh look on her eyes that spoke nothing but trouble, and despite all the explaining, they didn't spoke much at all; Audrey noticed lots of the Hogwarts Express' passengers had the same somber mood over them, clearly affected by the dementors round.
Slytherin table for dinner wasn't much better. Some people were more quiet and subdued, others were twice as nasty than usual – this, including Malfoy, who somehow had got word of Potter fainting out and insisted in cracking jokes about it, insistently asking Audrey if she had any input on the scene. She avoided the topic like the plague – as much as she wasn't Potter's biggest fan, badmouthing him to Malfoy of all people left her with a strange sort of feeling.
By the morning, Audrey slugged her way back to the Great Hall. Malfoy was still feed up with Potter's misfortune, but Audrey's mood was terribly after a dementor encounter, a ruined perfect pair of thighs, and a hardly slept night. She was a second away from jinxing anyone into oblivion just for the sake of silence. Unfortanely, her new schedule wasn't going to help her mood at all, because she had Divination first time in the morning, which also meant a long time climbing stairs and a whole period without any of her closest friends.
"I'll see you girls at lunch", she murmured to Sophie and Daphne when Malfoy's laughs were so obnoxious she couldn't take anymore. Taking a toast and an apple with her, she slowly marched down through the courtyard and all the way up to the divination classroom. She was the first one to arrive, and the lonely time finally gave her time to think and eat in peace. Audrey supposed she had to write to her family as soon as she had time, telling them about dementors and how she probably was going to come home sooner than expected because hey – first time those things came inside the castle, she was out. Why couldn't Hogwarts have a single peaceful, nice year?
Audrey buffed and munched onto her apple. People started to arrive in pairs and trios, and she instantly regretted ever picking up this class when none of her friends did as well, specially by the point Potter & co made their way to the classroom. When the trapdoor suddenly opened and a very thin, very silvery ladder descended, Audrey made sure to only climb onto it by the point all the boys on the class were already up there, because she wasn't going to let any teenage boy have a peek under her skirt.
"Welcome", say Professor Trelawney, moving into the firelight and looking like an overgrown, very messy, very glittering insect; she had more rings on her fingers than Audrey's dad, a gauzy shawl and no sense of fashion at all, with deep, strange-looking eyes on top of it, just to give Audrey a little more of a chill. She seemed as harmless as an old, crazy lady could be, but this being Hogwarts, Audrey wasn't taking any chances. She took the farthest seat she could manage, Neville Longbottom quickly taking her side as if he couldn't stand to be that near such a strange human being either.
Their strategy worked poorly. "You, boy", Trelawney called, and Audrey had to hold off Neville lest he toppled off, "Is your grandmother well?".
Neville paled. Audrey raised an eyebrow.
"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 among you, helping and instructing. Oh, and dear", Trelawney took a pause, taking Neville by the arm as he and Audrey made their way to the shelves, "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."
Audrey frowned. Neville clumsy manners weren't a well kept secret; every teacher, sooner or later, got caught up on something the Gryffindor boy did. Albeit he had his heart on the right place, his mind was always in the clouds, and you could always count on him doing something potentially dangerous as an innocent mistake.
She picked up a pink cup just to spit out the Professor (and because she rather liked pink stuff), and made a beeline back to her seat. Neville sat down in front of her, a flush on his cheeks and a blue cup between his fingers. Audrey tried to give him an encouraging smile, before blowing up the steam of her tea. "Don't worry, we are going to be great".
"Yeah", Neville murmured, and drank his tea quickly enough to go scarlet red by the temperature, probably burning his mouth in the process. Audrey giggled and Neville seemed even more embarrassed. "What do you see in mine?", he said passing over his cup and waiting for her to finish the tea, and pass over hers.
"Let me see", she turned the teacup around. "I think I see a… A bull? And a cart? Ok, I'm shit at this. Can you find the right page for me, pretty please? I don't do numbers".
Neville quickly opened his book at pages five and six and looked for the meaning of a bull. "Slander by some enemy and fluctuations of fortune? Oh, great".
Audrey stifled a laugh. "If you know about it beforehand, you can do something about it. Ok, look at mine. What do you see?"
Neville fixed his eyes onto the teacup, brows frowned in concentration. He was ready to say something, but before he could, Trelawney came around to their tables. "My dear?", she called to Audrey, "what do you have?"
"Neville has a bull on his teacup, professor", she said softly. "Which means he will be slandered by an enemy. I think I saw a cart too, what I think means he will be financially impacted by the lies spread".
Trelawney gave her a shake smile, just a curve of his lips that made Audrey more uncomfortable than anything. "What's your name, dear?"
"Blanchard, professor. Audrey Blanchard".
"When I look at you, all I see is a horse made of bones and the shadow of another girl looming over your shoulder. You aren't a good omen, my dear", Trelawney stood there, looking at her with big, bespectacled eyes and her terribly looking shawl. Audrey opened her mouth, ready to ask whatever that crazy woman meant – but for once, she was saved by Potter, who laughed very loud and very ungracefully.
To her credit, Professor Trelawney moved swiftly between the many tables and chairs and puffs, certainly for having her beloved magic art laughed at. "Let me see that, my dear", she snapped at Weasley, snatching the teacup on his hands. In front of Audrey, Neville put her teacup down, just as everyone else went deadly silent.
"The falcon… My dear, you have a deadly enemy".
"But everyone knows that", Hermione cut the bullshit and this time, Audrey had to use all of her willpower to not laugh. Always count on Hermione. "Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who".
Trelawney was clearly beyond offended, even pissed off if someone as scatterbrained as her could be that. Audrey practically watched the resolution behind her eyes, simply decided about doing better of being a seer – if that was something you could control.
"The Grim, my dear, the Grim", she cried finally, after a very theatrical scene and a dramatic pause, where she waited until someone bite it off. "The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen – the worst omen – of death!".
Audrey snorted. Eyes were heavy on Potter, but a couple fixed onto her. Of course Potter had a death omen. What else he could have? An easter bunny? The whole apocalyptical signal?
"I don't think it looks like a Grim", Hermione said flatly, moving around.
Audrey almost burst out laughing. Why were people taking this seriously? Truly considering a boy would die because of tea leaves and a crazy lady? Oh God.
Seers existed. They did, of course they did – people have been documenting prophecies for centuries. But you couldn't learn how to be a seer, just as you couldn't learn how to be a metamorphmagus. Either you were born with genes, or you were not, and tea leaves and crystal balls couldn't change that. Those things were supposed to be instruments in the right hands, not something you could learn in a warm, stiffly classroom in an empty tower and replicate.
"When you've all finished deciding whether I'm going to die or not!", Harry said irritably. With his hair sticking in all directions, glasses slightly crooked to the side and the worst tie knot Audrey ever saw (he never got it right, she noticed), he looked more like a startled cat than anything else.
"Don't be dramatic, of course you are not going to die", Audrey scoffed.
"Would be nice of you telling that to the Grim or whatever it's his name".
"Scared of a puppy, Potter?", she taunted. "Even if there's a Grim in your teacup, future isn't supposed to be set on stone. Just take the left turn instead of the right one or something. Right, Professor?".
"Indeed, the future is a delicate matter. However, the Divination art shouldn't be taken lightly, Miss Blanchard, specially for one with such a dark mark like you. I think we will leave the lesson here for today", the Professor said with an airy voice. "Pack away your things, please".
Audrey left as quickly as her legs could carry her.
A/N: I KNOW I DISAPPEARED BUT. listen. life happens. sometimes i need to take care of my adult stuff so i can write my mental health (AKA fanfiction) stuff. i'm sorry but i promise i'm doing the best i can. also here goes a long long chapter as compensation for you know, me disappearing & clowning everybody. sorry.