CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRST DIVINATION CLASS

Rose woke up the next morning first of her dorm, for probably the first time. She got dressed quickly and grabbed her bag from inside her trunk, and went down to the common room, where Al and Scorpius were sitting. "You're up early," Al remarked. "We thought we'd have to wait for at least another half hour."

Scorpius smiled. "Nah, she's just so excited for classes, aren't you?"

"Actually, yes," she said, rolling her eyes. "Do we still get our schedules at breakfast? They're all different now."

"I think we have to go somewhere," Al said. "The library?"

"You go to your Head's office," Fred said from the other side of the room. "So Rudomin's, on the ground floor."

"Oh, thanks," Al said. "Well, let's go. I'm starving."

"What about Hugo? Do you think I should wait for him? I don't want him to not have anyone to sit with," Rose said.

"Pretty sure he's already best friends with Tyler Jordan and Colin Creevey, he'll be fine," Scorpius told her. They left through the portrait hole and got their schedules. Rose looked at hers and almost laughed a little when she saw her extra class was written in with tiny scrawled handwriting.

ROSE WEASLEY THIRD YEAR SCHEDULE

MONDAY, WEDNESDAY: 10:00—Defence Against the Dark Arts, 11:00—Divination and Study of Ancient Runes, 1:00—Charms, 2:00—History of Magic, 3:00—Transfiguration, 4:00—Muggle Studies

TUESDAY: 10:00—Double Potions, 1:00—Arithmancy, 2:00—Herbology, 3:00—Charms, 4:00—History of Magic

THURSDAY: 10:00—Arithmancy, 11:00—Herbology, 1:00—Potions, 2:00—Divination and Study of Ancient Runes, 3:00—Double Transfiguration

FRIDAY: 10:00—Herbology, 11:00—Potions, 1:00—Muggle Studies, 2:00—Arithmancy, 3:00—Defence Against the Dark Arts, 11:00—Astronomy

GRYFFINDOR QUIDDITCH TRYOUTS SEPTEMBER 5 7:30-9:00 p.m.

"Miss Weasley?" Rudomin said as they started to leave the office. Scorpius and Al left to wait outside and Rose walked back to the professor's desk.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Professor McGonagall wanted me to tell you that to handle your schedule… deviation you should go to the first class, then use the Time Turner and go to the other class by a different route. Be careful not to cross your own path; you may be expecting it but I suspect your friends will… not."

Rose nodded. "Right. Thank you, Professor," she said, and left the office quickly.

"What was that?" Scorpius asked. Rose shrugged.

"Nothing. Let's get breakfast."

"Please," Al added with feeling, and they headed for the Great Hall.

After breakfast that morning, Hugo stopped Rose on her way to Defence. "Where's Charms?" he sighed. "Er, it's on the third floor, down the west hallway—there's a trick stair on the first staircase, number 17."

"Thanks!" he called as he ran off, and Al sighed.

"Glad Lily's in a different house," he said. "I could never handle… that. All the time."

"You were the same way, Al," James said from the table. He hopped off the bench and walked over to them. "But Lily's probably stalking Lucy instead, lucky for us. I've got Divination now, though, see you later. Do you know when Lucy's calling the first meeting yet?"

"I don't know, she hasn't talked to me. I can find out today," Rose called after him as he ran down the other hallway and climbed the staircase out of their vision. "Goodbye," she muttered.

"When do we have Divination?" Al asked.

"After Defence. Let's go," she said, and they set off. When they arrived at the classroom, everyone already there was talking and arguing, and Rose looked at Al and Scorpius in alarm. They shrugged, and Rose saw Devon nearby and waved him over.

"Hey, guys," he said.

"Hi, Devon. Do you know what they're talking about?" she asked.

He nodded quickly. "Yeah, the rumor is there's a Muggle teacher this year. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but that's what they're saying."

"A Muggle teacher? Really?" Scorpius asked. "But they can't see Hogwarts, Devon."

He shrugged. "It's just gossip."

"Could everyone take their seats, please?" Rudomin called from the back of the class. Rose and Scorpius hurried to the front of the room and sat down quickly. The rest of the students eventually quieted down and sat down. "Thank you. Now, I'm sure most of you have a lot of questions about the changes to the school policies, and I've been instructed to answer them in class. Does anyone have any specific—?" About half of the room's hands shot up, including Rose's. He nodded slowly and looked around. "Er—Miss Rae?"

"Is it true that the new Muggle Studies professor is a Muggle?" she asked with a distinct tone of disgust.

Rudomin looked surprised. "That's…not what I meant by questions, Miss Rae, and I'm not going to answer that. Does anyone have any questions about the security matters?"

Rose reached her hand up as far as it could go and he finally saw her, and nodded. "Miss Weasley?"

"How does the Auror guard work? And who's stationed here?"

"Well, there are always two guards on duty, in three shifts. They stay in Hogsmeade when they aren't working, and the assignments are a month long, before they bring in different Aurors. Does that answer your question?"

"Well, which Aurors are there?"

"I think the names of the ones on duty are Bones and Savage," Rudomin said. "I'm not sure about the other shifts."

Min tapped Rose on the shoulder from behind her and said, "Savage was in the second War. Not sure about Bones, though."

Rudomin answered another question, this time from a Slytherin girl in the back. "How long are they going to be here?"

"We're not sure yet," he admitted. "Does anyone else have questions?" Nearly a dozen hands shot up and Rudomin sighed. Nothing of consequence was actually taught that day, and Rose was a little bitter by the end of the day, as there was much he wasn't even allowed to tell them.

"It's for our own good, so they say, so why won't they tell us who authorized it? Or how long they'll be here? And what about the searches on the Hogsmeade trips?" Rose asked as they climbed up to the tower to the Divination classroom.

"I don't know," Al sighed. "How do you think I feel? My dad's head of the Auror department. You'd think he'd have told me about this."

"Maybe he wasn't allowed," Scorpius said. "It seems like they're keeping it pretty quiet."

"You don't need to keep things quiet from the people you're protecting!" Rose insisted.

"Talk to Lucy about it," Al grumbled. "I'm sure she's just as angry as you are. Me, I'd rather just go to class." He trudged ahead of them, looking annoyed, and Rose turned to Scorpius. He shook his head.

"Don't let him get to you, he's secretly angry too," he said, and Rose sighed.

"Whatever," she mumbled. They opened the door to what they were expecting to be the Divination room. Instead, they found a small chamber full of about twenty students of all Houses milling about with a large ladder in the middle of the room, leading to a closed trap door in the ceiling. "What on Earth…?"

"I can't believe you convinced me to take this class," Min muttered to Al. "Oi!" she shouted, and the room fell silent. "Has anyone seen the bloody professor?"

The general response was a confused 'No', and the room proceeded to argue amongst themselves about what to do until about ten minutes later, when the trap door finally opened. A woman with extremely large glasses that magnified her eyes greatly, dressed in somewhat eclectic attire that seemed rather outdated, peered down at their class curiously. "Welcome to Divination!" she proclaimed dramatically, and moved away from the entrance before gesturing for the students to begin climbing the ladder. Rose rolled her eyes and climbed up after Min and Al, looking back at Scorpius skeptically. When they entered the room, there were several circular tables covered in long tablecloths. Rose and Scorpius joined Al and Min at their table and the professor addressed the room. "I am Professor Sybill Trelawney, descendant of the famed Seer Cassandra Trelawney herself. I am here to show you how to use any latent gifts you may possess to uncloud the the treacherous path of your future. Some of you may simply not possess the Eye, and for those that do not I am sorry to say that I cannot teach you a natural gift. However, you may be able to progress slightly through the energies of those around you."

"Remind me why we signed up for this," Rose muttered to Scorpius. Trelawney turned around and stared directly at her. Rose refused to be intimidated by this woman and stared back at her evenly.

"Dear, was there something you wanted to tell me?"

Rose tried to stop herself from rolling her eyes and said, "No, Professor."

"I sense a good deal of skepticism coming from you, my dear," she said. "What is your name?"

"Rose Weasley, Professor."

Trelawney's eyes widened. "Of course. I knew your parents… neither of them had much of a gift. Especially not your mother. I'll try to teach you the best I can, dear." Rose turned to Scorpius in disbelief and Trelawney returned to the center of the classroom. "Now," she said, "would you all pick up the teacups on your table and drink; afterwards we will read the tea leaves." Rose sighed and started drinking the tea.

"She's definitely… interesting," Scorpius chuckled.

"This was a complete waste of time," Rose moaned. When they finished their tea, Trelawney told them to switch cups with someone. Rose gave hers to Al and started looking in the textbook. "Al, er, yours looks like a square, so I'm gonna go with gate. So that either means a new opportunity or imprisonment." She sighed. "The same symbol means both? That's so flawed, no matter what happens you could say it was the tea leaves, they're complete opposites!"

"I sense a dark force coming from this table!" Trelawney suddenly said, turning quickly to face their table. She walked directly up to Al and grabbed the cup from him. "Whose cup is this, dear?"

"Rose's," Al said nervously. "Er, I was thinking it was an animal or something…"

"It's the Grim!" she shrieked, and set the cup back down on the table. She turned to Rose and said, "I'm so sorry, my dear… the Grim is a symbol of great misfortune, even… death."

The rest of the class passed in a tense silence throughout the entire classroom. As soon as the class was over, Rose got up and walked as quickly as she could back to the ladder. "Rose, wait!" Scorpius called, and Rose stopped by the door outside impatiently. "I'm sure she's just full of it," he told her as he climbed down the ladder.

"I know, I just… I've got to get to class," she said.

"What? It's lunchtime," Scorpius said, and Rose shook her head.

"Er, I'll meet you there, I just… I'm going to the bathroom." She ran out before he could say anything else and ducked into the nearest bathroom she could find. Once inside the stall, she took out the Time Turner and turned it once. The room seemed to move in reverse and Rose felt a little dizzy. When she left the stall, there were two people in the bathroom that definitely hadn't been before, and when she walked out she had to hide behind a statue when she saw herself, Min, Al and Scorpius walking up to the Divination room. "Wow…" she whispered to herself. Knowing that she had just seen pretty much the weirdest thing she'd ever seen in her life, she ran towards the South corridor and into the Ancient Runes classroom.

She saw Ana and Declan in the corner and sat down in a seat next to them. "Hi, Rose," Declan said cheerfully, then looked puzzled. "Hey, didn't I just see you with Al and Scorpius?"

"Er, yeah, just a mixup. We thought we had Charms," she explained, and realized the Time Turner was still visible. When the teacher entered the room, she discreetly tucked it back into her shirt and could finally breathe. She spent most of the first Runes class thinking about Divination; she knew it was probably nonsense, but she couldn't help but worry a little about being given an omen of death. After class ended, Rose rushed out and made it back into the bathroom, walked out again after a few minutes and saw Scorpius, Al and Min waiting.

"You okay?" Al asked anxiously.

Rose nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "It's nothing. Let's go to lunch."