Author's Note: Thank you to .Paige, Wikked, and GraceMonroe for reviewing! I feel very conflicted, because it sounds like the last chapter made a lot of you unhappy, but it also sounds like you maybe liked the unhappiness? Unclear.
I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Professor O'Keefe
Mairead stood in her new quarters, turning slowly on the spot.
"If you is needing anything else, Professor O'Keefe, just be ringing this bell," said the house elf who had brought Mairead up here and merrily shown her around. "One of us will be up here, lickity-split!" He pointed at a bell that was sitting by itself on a spindly-looking table.
"Oh, okay," she said, nodding. "Thanks."
"You is having a good night, now Professor O'Keefe!" The house elf waved happily before disappearing with a loud snap!
"'Kay," Mairead whispered to the empty room. She rubbed a knuckle over her bottom lip, pulling it first to one side and then the other as she stared blankly at the spot where the house elf had disappeared. Slowly, she dragged her feet over to an armchair and let her knees give out. She sank into the cushy seat with a heavy exhale.
Her mind felt like hot jelly. She stared at the fireplace, where a cheerful fire was burning and crackling, and tried to process all that had happened in the past two hours.
Professor Umbridge had argued vociferously against her appointment. Unfortunately for her, the basis of her argument was that as a Squib, Mairead was not a Hogwarts graduate. Dumbledore had calmly held out a hand, into which Mairead's transcripts and a copy of her diploma appeared with a small puff of yellow smoke.
"The results of her N.E.W.T.s are also stamped, signed, and on file with the Wizarding Examinations Authority, which I am sure I need not remind you is a branch of the Ministry of Magic," Dumbledore had added pleasantly.
Umbridge had snatched the paperwork out of Dumbledore's hands and gone over it with her nose barely an inch from the parchment, as though she expected to find discrepancies in the very pulp of the parchment. She'd had a very unpleasant look on her face when she eventually lowered the papers. "We shall see about this, Dumbledore!" she had declared shrilly before marching off.
Mairead had watched her retreat, mouth hanging open with consternation.
"Well!" Dumbledore had said with a smile. "I think that went very well!"
At which point Mairead, in her second disquieting moment of agreement with Umbridge, had turned to Dumbledore and taken her turn arguing vociferously against her appointment.
"But I'm not a Seer!" she had cried, wringing her hands.
"Well, neither is Sybill, but that didn't slow her down," Dumbledore had said cheerfully.
Mairead had gaped at him. "I didn't even -" she had looked around hastily and lowered her voice. The crowds had mostly dispersed but there were still one or two stragglers hanging around. " - sit for my O.W.L. in Divination," she had concluded in a whisper. "I'm not qualified!"
"Do you know, one of the many delightful things about being headmaster is that the task of hiring faculty is delegated to me," he had said in a conversational tone, as though they were discussing birdwatching. "This means that the power to decide who is and is not qualified for a teaching post is vested in me. And it is my determination that you are every bit as qualified to teach the subject of Divination as Sybill Trelawney was when she took up the post."
"Yeah, but when Trelawney took up the post, there wasn't some mad toad breathing down your neck, scrutinizing everything you do!" Mairead had hissed. "Umbridge is only going to have to sit in on one class with me in charge before she notices I'm a crap teacher who doesn't know the first thing about divination and I get the sack, too!"
"Nonsense," Dumbledore had said briskly. "Molly told me you were an immense help to Ron and Harry with their Divination homework over the holidays. You know more than you are giving yourself credit for."
Mairead had squeaked wordlessly at him for several moments before finding her voice again. "Yes, but - that's stuff I learned in books!" She had begun then to tick items off on her fingers. "I don't have any professional experience, I only studied the subject for two years before I dropped the class, I only graduated myself like, two seconds ago -!"
"My dear, I thought we agreed that you were going to roll with this?" Dumbledore had reminded her.
"Roll with the fact that I'm completely unqualified for this job?!" Mairead had yelped. "Doesn't that bother you? Knowing that you've got someone sitting in a teaching position they're completely ill-suited for?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, it does," he had said then, catching Mairead off-guard. "It bothers me immensely to know that someone utterly unqualified and ill-suited to the crucial job of shaping young minds has a position here at Hogwarts, which is why I consider it of paramount importance that we not allow her to get her hooks into Hogwarts anymore than she already has. The position needs to be filled, Mairead, and in my opinion you are far more qualified to teach at Hogwarts than is Umbridge or anyone she would select to fill this post. So the only question that remains is whether or not you accept the position."
In the end, Dumbledore had worn Mairead down to the point of accepting a part-time teaching schedule. She had conceded to teaching Third and Fourth Years, but asserted that she did not feel comfortable teaching upper levels, as she herself had not taken those classes. Dumbledore had countered with an offer to split the job cleanly in half. She would teach Fifth Year Divination once a week, and Dumbledore would hire someone else to teach the other half, as well as the Sixth and Seventh Years.
"This will actually work out rather nicely, I think," Dumbledore had mused once they were done haggling. "I had initially had someone else in mind, but he had communicated to me that his primary area of expertise was in Astrology, which is heavily the focus of the upper years. I think this arrangement will make him quite happy."
Dumbledore had excused himself shortly afterwards to go talk to the other candidate who, it turned out, was a Centaur living in the Forbidden Forest. Mairead couldn't help but hold out a secret hope that Firenze, the Centaur in question, would demand a full teaching schedule. With any luck, Mairead might be let entirely off the hook.
With a resigned sigh, Mairead pushed herself to her feet. Her luck had not been overly impressive of late, and so she wearily trudged off for the library. Her first classes would be the next day. She figured she had probably better do her best to learn a little something about the subject before then.
Mairead stayed up all night reading up on divination. This served a triple purpose. Not only did it give her a few feeble straws to clutch onto going into her brand new class schedule, but it also allowed her to avoid sleep and the nightmares that were sure to follow, as well as keep her mind off her breakup.
She had not been fooling herself that she could learn everything she needed to know in one night. She had not, however, been prepared for the fact that, while one night's studying was certainly not enough to make her an expert in divination, it was more than enough to illustrate for her just how little she actually knew about the subject she would be expected to teach in a few short hours. She read from one textbook until she worked herself into a nice, little panic about one area of divination, then switched to another. In this manner, she passed the night. When she awoke from a light doze and saw that it was time to start getting ready, she did the only thing that made any sense to her.
She dashed to her bathroom and threw up.
Deciding to forgo breakfast in favor of hiding in her quarters as long as she could, Mairead lay face down on the cool stone floor and groaned unintelligibly to herself until it was time to go to class.
When Mairead got to the North Tower for her first class, she saw that there were already two students waiting for her.
"Oh, hi," she said, stopping short at the sight of them.
I guess I should've gotten here earlier, she mused. Especially with Ravenclaws.
Both students stared openly at Mairead. One of them, a pretty girl with stunning skin the color of cocoa, eventually remembered herself and offered Mairead a blink-and-miss-it smile. They moved away to make room for Mairead, who stepped over and craned her neck back to look up at the trapdoor, which was closed and out of reach. Mairead bit her lip.
"Erm," she mumbled. "I don't suppose either of you knows how to, erm... how to get the... you know..."
"The stepladder?" asked the student who had smiled.
"Yeah."
"No."
"... Cool."
Mairead shot an awkward half-glance at the students before making a thoroughly undignified - and thoroughly unsuccessful - jump for the trapdoor, swiping her hand as high as she could get it. "Right," she muttered, pushing her hair out of her face. She was considering making another attempt at jumping when a sound behind her alerted her to the fact that the rest of her students were arriving.
Don't suppose I could ask them to stand on each other's backs...
The assembled class was now looking at her expectantly. Mairead did her best to save face.
"Right," she said, clapping her hands together in a falsely hearty way. "Welcome. Er - now that you're all here, we can... yeah. Go inside. So I'll just..." she eyed the trapdoor once again, then pulled out her wand and held it in one hand while crossing her fingers with the other. "Aberto."
To her intense relief, the trapdoor swung open. To her less intense relief, the silvery stepladder unfurled all at once and smacked her in the face right in front of her students.
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't. Cry, she counseled herself as she heard the children's stifled snorts and snickers.
"Right," she said with what she hoped was a confident smile. "After you..."
She waited until the last of the students was at the top of the stepladder before ascending herself. As soon as she got into the crowded, circular classroom, and she was hit by both the stuffiness of the room and the overpowering, cloying smell of perfume, Mairead feared she would be sick again. Taking slow, deep breaths through her mouth, Mairead waved her wand and lit the lamps, all of which were covered in red and orange cloths, lending a muted lighting to the room that only served to make it feel more stifling.
Mairead pushed up the sleeves to her robes and turned her back to the class so that they wouldn't see her wipe off the sweat that was already forming on her face. She tried to recall a single reason she had agreed to this insane idea of Dumbledore's. When she could not, she counted to three and turned back around.
"Right," she said again. "Welcome. To, er - to Divination! Although, I suppose... anyway. Erm... I dunno if you've heard, but erm, Professor Trelawney was... er... unfortunately... well, she was kind of..."
"Sacked?" supplied a boy with a floppy blonde head of hair. "We know."
"Ah. Okay," said Mairead. "Well, then, since you're all up-to-date, let's just... get right into it, then, shall we?"
A girl with shiny chestnut hair raised her hand. "Please," she said, looking around uncertainly at her classmates. "Erm... who are you?"
"Who, me?" Mairead asked dumbly, then said, "Oh, I'm Mairead. Er - Mairead O'Keefe. I'm going to be teaching you lot. As well as some others. Not everybody, mind. Er - but, but you lot, for sure."
The class full of Ravenclaws looked at her dubiously. Mairead supposed it was because they had never had such a buffoon for a teacher.
"Okay," said Mairead, "so I thought maybe we could start by going around and you could give me all your names, and then we could go over any, like, questions, you had? Yeah."
Mairead pointed at the student on the far left of the room and began working her way across the room. Unfortunately, by the time she got to the fourth student she had already forgotten the name of the first student.
How the hell did Remus remember everybody's names on his first day? she thought, then, Do not think about Remus right now.
She stopped the class and told them she wanted to write their names down. She headed for Professor Trelawney's desk and shuffled around searching for parchment and a quill, but found the desk completely empty. She thought she might write the students' names on the blackboard instead, but found there was no chalk, either. Suppressing a sigh, she told the class to carry on with introductions.
"Cool," she said when they had finished. "Cool. So, now that that's out of the way... do... you have any questions?"
No one raised their hand. The girl who had offered her a thin smile before - whose name Mairead now knew was Diana - gave her another, far more pained, smile, but did not say anything.
"No questions. Okay, great!" Mairead said in a tone of forced joviality. "Well, then, let's just... jump right in then, shall we? Great. Erm... so... have you gone over... erm..." She reached into the pocket of her robes and withdrew the folded piece of parchment paper upon which she had scribbled some notes the previous night. "Oh! I thought the I Ching might be a good place to begin. Have you already covered that?"
"Professor O'Keefe?"
Mairead snorted with laughter. "Oh," she said, blinking in surprise once it occurred to her that this was her title now. "Erm, yes? Erm... Amy?"
"Amelia," the girl with the chestnut hair corrected her, putting her hand down. "We were getting ready to begin our unit on crystal gazing," she said, clearly taking pity on Mairead. "I think this was going to be our last class on fire omens."
Mairead furrowed her brow. "Fire omens?" she repeated, feeling puzzled. "Do you mean pyromancy?"
Damien, a boy with short-cropped black hair, spoke up then. "Yes, but to be honest, I still have a lot of questions about it." He looked around at his classmates as though hoping for backup. Several students nodded.
"Okay," said Mairead, "What are your questions?"
And why didn't you ask them when I was practically begging you to?
"Well, for one thing, Professor Trelawney was always telling us to clear our minds, but I don't fully understand how we're meant to practice when obviously the greatest source of fire would be in the common room fireplace, which is full of distractions," said Damien.
The blonde boy, Brody, now raised his hand. "Yes, and I'm confused about what we do in the case that there aren't any death omens on the horizon for us. Do fire omens predict good things, too, or only bad?"
"And the flames change so quickly," Diana jumped in. "The charts in the book to help decode the images don't really help, because you can't exactly look back and forth between the fire and the chart, because the symbol you see in the flames will already be gone."
"It was easier with tea leaves," Damien added sadly.
Mairead stared at the students, feeling unsure where to begin. "Okay, s-so, you've already covered tasseography, then," she said.
A dozen blank stares met this statement.
"Tasseography," she repeated. "Reading tea leaves."
Brody made a face. "Professor Trelawney never called it that," he said with a funny smile on his face. "Are you sure of what you're saying, miss?"
Mairead felt her face grow warm. She'd thought that was that name for reading tea leaves, but maybe she was wrong.
"Anyway," she tried to redirect. "Erm, c-can you please tell me what areas of divination your class has already covered?"
"Tea leaves and fire omens," said a girl whose name Mairead had forgotten by now.
"Tea - you mean - th-" Mairead stammered.
Why on God's green earth would Trelawney start them on two of the most challenging forms of divination? She wondered if she was missing something.
"Erm -" She started to speak, but talking had broken out among the students and she didn't know how to get their attention now she had lost it. She tried clearing her throat, but that was not effective. Not knowing what to do, she raised her hand. Talking broke off abruptly when her class noticed her absurdly bizarre behavior. "Sorry," she said meekly.
Did you just apologize to your students for interrupting the conversation they were having in the middle of class?
"Er, anyway," she tried again. "Erm, so... pyromancy is a pretty advanced form of divination. It seems difficult to read the symbols because it is difficult to read the symbols. I think it might make more sense if we kind of went back a little and -"
"But Professor Trelawney said we were almost done covering it," broke in a girl with blonde ringlets who was either named Susie or Sookie. Or possibly Trudy. "We're supposed to move on to crystal gazing this week."
"Yeah, it's just, the th- the thing is," Mairead said, but trailed off at the advanced look of disappointment on Susie/Sookie/Trudy's face.
"We've all been really looking forward to crystal gazing," the girl added.
Oliver, a boy who hadn't spoken up yet so far, but who had been watching Mairead with a look of pity mingled with disdain, finally deigned to raise his hand. "I think," he said with the air of someone of reigning authority and supremacy, "that it would probably be best for you to follow Professor Trelawney's lesson plan. No offense, but you are clearly in a bit over your head. I think you'll find it easier just to follow along as though you were a substitute teacher. The year is two-thirds of the way over, after all."
Mairead blinked rapidly at Oliver, then looked out at the other students to gauge their reaction to what he had said. They all seemed to be in agreement.
"Oh, okay," she said softly. "Erm, th-thanks, Oliver."
Oliver smiled thinly at her.
The rest of the class - and indeed, the rest of the day - went similarly dismally for Mairead. She stumbled her way through three more classes, each full of students who seemed baffled at the choice of replacement for Trelawney, and by the time the final bell rang, Mairead was more confused than she had been at the start of the day. She wanted to go back to her quarters immediately, but as soon as the last of her students disappeared down the stepladder it became apparent to Mairead that she was not going to make it back to her room before she broke into tears, and so she simply hurried over to the trapdoor, slammed it closed, and sat on top of it so that no one could take her by surprise and enter the classroom while she was blubbering.
No wonder I dropped this subject, she thought morosely. I suck at it.
In fact, the more Mairead thought about it, the clearer it became to her that she was bad at every subject. She was a talentless, fraudulent hack. The only reason she had gotten through school was because of how many people had taken pity on her - her professors, Dumbledore, her friends who had helped her in subjects that clearly were far beyond the scope of her pathetic intellect... and Remus.
Thinking of Remus unleashed a storm of crying. He had been on her mind all day, as he was every day, but she had not allowed herself to look directly at the thoughts, lest she lose control. She was still furious at him, but it was as though the fury were doing battle with the hurt to see which would be the predominate emotion ruling her. And no matter what the result, she would suffer.
She had hoped that leaving Grimmauld Place would grant her some space from her misery. But being back at Hogwarts had only served to remind her of Remus's kindness, the compassion and care he had shown her when she had so desperately needed a friend. Had he been manipulating her then, too? Had his kindness, and the attention he had given her, just been part of the act? Just how much of their relationship had been a complete lie? Had everything they had gone through together - all of Mairead's memories, of them talking, laughing, even dancing - had it all been a part of some long con of Remus's to get her under his control? She hated that his betrayal had cast doubt on everything that had come before it.
Mairead's nose sprang a leak then, and she reached into the pocket of her robes automatically. Her fingers closed around a handkerchief and she knew without even having to look at it that it was his. She hated that she even had to doubt the moments of comfort he had provided her.
Mairead curled up on her side and buried her face in the soft, white fabric, hating herself, hating him, and hating her circumstances. Most of all, though, she hated how badly she wished he were here.
The week did not improve for Mairead. Every class was torture for her. Even though she had a part-time teaching schedule, by the end of each day Mairead had a splitting headache from the hot, airless classroom that smelled of too much incense and perfume. Every evening was spent hiding in her quarters, taking her meals alone and frantically studying for the next day, even though she had no idea what to prepare for, since she had no idea what Professor Trelawney had already covered with which students, and in what order. By Thursday, Mairead was so miserable and sleep deprived that she actually began to wonder whether she had died and gone to hell and not noticed until now. By Friday, Mairead began to hope she had died and gone to hell, just so that this would not be real.
The singular thing that had gone in her favor was that Professor Umbridge had not yet come to any of her classes. Mairead had heard from the Hogwarts professors who were in the Order that, in her capacity as Hogwarts High Inquisitor, Umbridge had taken to showing up uninvited to every teacher's classes and critiquing their work. This was undoubtedly how Trelawney had gotten sacked, and, Mairead was sure, it was undoubtedly how she, herself, was going to get the sack before too much longer.
This was what was on her mind Friday evening as she hurried from the library back to her quarters, clutching a tall stack of books on divination to supplement the ones that were already cluttering all surfaces of her office. She planned to spend every moment of the weekend studying up on the areas of divination the students had told her they were set to begin working on. She was so distracted by her thoughts of failure and ruin that she did not notice there were three people waiting outside her office door until she was nearly upon them.
"Well, well, well, look who finally showed up," came a cold drawl that stopped her in her tracks.
Draco Malfoy was barring the entrance to her door, flanked by Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. Crabbe and Goyle leered menacingly at her, and she hovered on the spot, unsure whether to run.
"A lot of people have been looking for you," said Malfoy, the flinty grey eyes he had inherited from his father glinting. "Did you know that?"
Mairead did not trust herself to speak, and so remained silent, eyeing the three boys warily.
"I can think of a lot of people who would be very interested to know your whereabouts, O'Keefe," Malfoy went on, a cruel smile playing around his lips. He turned his head to one side. "Can't you, Crabbe?"
Crabbe's smile grew. "Oh, yeah," he said, his voice the same low grunt Mairead remembered coming from his father.
Malfoy took a step towards Mairead, followed closely by his cronies. "I wonder what reward would be in store for the person who handed over Mairead O'Keefe," he pondered softly.
"Handed her over to whom, Malfoy?"
Mairead turned her head, mouth falling open in grateful recognition of the sound of Hermione's voice. Malfoy turned as well, and his face contorted maliciously at the sight of Hermione, Harry, Ron, and Ginny, all striding towards Mairead and coming to a stop beside her.
"I should've known you'd be in league with this blood traitor," Malfoy spat derisively. "Filth does clutch at filth, doesn't it?"
"You're going to be clutching at your bollocks if you take one more step towards her, Malfoy," threatened Ron, pulling out his wand. "What'll be left of them, anyway."
Mairead put out a hand and laid it on Ron's wand arm, trying to bring calm to the situation just as Malfoy spat, "Your bollocks are the only balls you can ever manage to get your hands around, King Weasley!"
"Say that again," Ron growled, taking a step forward.
"Stop!"
With force and confidence she did not really feel, Mairead inserted herself between the two teenage boys. "That's enough." Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt impressed by how commanding her voice sounded. "Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, I think you'd better leave."
His lips curling back in a contemptuous expression that reminded Mairead of his mother, Malfoy slunk off, followed by Crabbe and Goyle. Mairead watched them until they disappeared around a corner, then turned back to the group of Gryffindors.
"Thanks," she said sincerely.
"Are you okay?" Harry asked, his emerald green eyes sharp with concern.
"Yeah, I'm grand," said Mairead in an attempt at a breezy tone of voice. "H-how are you lot?"
"We wanted to see how you were settling in," Ginny said. "We wanted to come see you earlier, but we thought it might look suspicious."
"I think it still does look suspicious," Hermione said, casting an anxious look down the corridor.
"I agree," said Mairead. "Isn't there some rule that we're not allowed to talk outside of class? You'd probably better not come inside, just in case."
"Are you going back to London this weekend?" Harry asked eagerly, then lowered his voice to barely a whisper. "Are you going to see... you know... Padfoot?"
Mairead nodded. "Yeah, I am. If you wanted to send a note or anything, I could bring it with me."
"Yeah?" Harry's face lit up. "I might do that. Thanks!"
"We'd better be going," said Hermione, looking nervous. "It was lovely to see you, Mairead!"
"Yeah, we'll come by another time," added Ginny. "Have fun in London. Say hi to Sirius and Remus for us, will you?"
The casualness with which Ginny mentioned Remus went through Mairead like a cold knife, but she forced a smile to her face and said, "Yeah, for sure."
"Don't worry about Malfoy," Harry added. "He's just a git."
Mairead's smile faltered. "Thanks," she said softly.
Balancing her armload of books awkwardly on the palm of one hand, Mairead opened her office door and made it halfway to her desk before the pile of books tumbled to the floor. Some of the books landed awkwardly, their pages splayed out and bent, but Mairead could not be bothered with that right now. The dangerous glint in Malfoy's eyes that threatened violence had turned her heart to ice, and she dashed for her quarters.
She yanked open her closet door and dropped to her knees. She tugged her duffel bag out from underneath her boots and a Muggle coat that had fallen off its hanger. Mairead held the duffel open with one hand and fished around inside with the other until her fingers alighted on something hard, cold, and solid.
She pulled out the handgun and regarded it. It looked strange and out of place, here in this ancient castle full of magic, but she knew it would still fire. She reached back into the bag and found the box of bullets Coach Owen had given her. With shaking fingers, she loaded the cylinder, fumbling and dropping bullets often.
Then, returning to her office, Mairead stashed the gun in the bottom left-hand drawer of her desk.
She retrieved the books from the floor and carried them over to the desk. She spent the rest of the evening studying, stopping every so often to throw herself suddenly to the side, snatch the gun from inside the drawer, and aim it at the door. She practiced long into the night, until she could grab and aim the gun with her eyes closed.
Harry did, in fact, come by on Saturday morning to drop off a note for Sirius, which Mairead promised to deliver to him that evening. As the day went on, Mairead did her best to take her mind off the fact that in just a few short hours she would be seeing Remus for the first time since leaving him. She wondered what it would be like, but then, the more she wondered what it would be like, the more her stomach tied itself into knots, and so she focused her mind and energy to the best of her ability on cramming as much knowledge of divination in all its various forms into her head as she could.
She still had her nose in a textbook when she arrived at the Hog's Head, a few minutes before five thirty. Professor Sprout was waiting for her, Dumbledore having decided that Mairead should not travel to and from headquarters by herself. Together the two witches traveled to Grimmauld Place.
Mairead's heart was thumping wildly in her chest as she watched Sprout do the locks back up on the front door. She felt overwrought at the knowledge that she was going to be face-to-face with Remus again in just a few minutes. What would she do? What would he do? She was half afraid she would throw herself at his feet and beg him to take her back. The other half of her was afraid she would fly into a rage at the sight of his stupid, earnest face and start slapping him. And that was to say nothing of how Remus, himself, would respond to seeing her again. What if he tried to reconcile again? Would she be able to resist? Or worse: what if he responded to the dissolution of their relationship by redoubling his efforts to get her kicked out of the Order?
Professor Sprout started for the stairs, and Mairead followed, her mind in a jumble. Her footsteps stuttered when she walked into the kitchen and saw Remus already seated at the table, Tonks on one side and Sirius on the other. He looked up when she entered and met her eye. For less than the length of a heartbeat, Mairead saw emotions flashing in his dark grey eyes. But then, like a door slamming in her face, they were all hidden behind an impenetrable, neutral mask. He smiled emptily at her and went back to his conversation with Tonks.
Wow, five seconds in and you're already on the verge of tears, the cruel voice in her head mocked her. That's got to be some kind of record. Oh, who are we kidding? No, it isn't.
Mairead silently dropped Harry's letter onto the table in front of Sirius, then slid into a chair between Bill and Hestia, harnessing every ounce of her strength towards not crying. She ran her fingers along the grain of the table as all around her, everyone chattered and caught up on the week. Hestia and Bill had both offered her smiles when she had sat down, but then quickly went back to their conversations, leaving her to her own thoughts. Against her will, Snape's words hissed in her memory.
"So alone, so pathetic... there really isn't a single soul in the world who truly wants you."
Mairead stole a covert glance over at Remus. He was reading Harry's note over Sirius's shoulder, a fond smile on his face. When they finished reading, he, Sirius, and Tonks began an animated conversation about Harry. Remus was smiling easily, looking perfectly happy as he and Sirius both laughed at something Tonks had said. Watching the two wizards, so captivated by Tonks and her charms, made Mairead so lonely for them that she wanted to curl up in a ball and wail. She wished she could be anywhere but here. At the same time, the thought of going back to Hogwarts, to her lonely quarters and her stifling classroom with her disappointed students, made her want to burst out of her skin and explode.
She hated how pathetic and morose she must look. She pulled the textbook she had brought with her out of her lap and put it on the table, of half a mind to busy herself with reading so that anyone looking at her would not notice how wretched she was. But then she worried that someone would see the textbook and start asking her questions about divination - or worse, see her reading by herself, feel sympathy for her, and pity talk to her.
She was still frozen in indecision when Dumbledore showed up and called the meeting to Order. Mairead heaved a sigh of relief as the chit-chat quieted around her, certain she would start to feel better as soon as the meeting got underway.
She was sorely mistaken. As various people around the table updated the group on what they had been doing, projects they had been working on, and progress they had made, it hit home to Mairead.
Remus was right. She did not belong here.
She had nothing to offer, nothing to contribute. And when had she ever? She could not go on spy missions, like Remus and Tonks did. She did not work for the Ministry, like Arthur or Doge. She could not even take a shift on guard duty at the Department of Mysteries like every other person in the Order did except her. All she did was take up space. All she did was cause extra work for people like Remus, who had to take time out of their busy schedules to help her keep up. What was it Snape had said at the first meeting? How many resources were they willing to put in just to help her limp through?
Mairead wanted to get up from the table, cover her face, and flee the room. She wanted to flee the country. She never wanted to see any of these people ever again.
Remus was right. Remus was right.
She felt utterly trapped. All week, she had felt as though she were holding her breath, waiting to get away from Hogwarts and come back to London. Now she was here, however, she did not know whether she could stand to wait as long as it would take for the meeting to end to be able to leave. And when the meeting did end, where could she go but back to Hogwarts?
She hated Hogwarts. She always had. She never wanted to return to its stone walls and its expansive grounds and its impossible students she could never, ever please no matter how hard she tried or what she did or what role she filled. She hated it at Hogwarts, but she no longer belonged here. She had nowhere to go. No one who wanted her. She should really just run away. It would be better for everyone.
"...Mairead... Hogwarts..."
Mairead looked up at the sound of her own name. It seemed as though conversation had turned - as she knew it inevitably would - to her fickle nature, and how she had decided she was done bleeding Remus dry and had decided to impose on Dumbledore's goodwill instead, and elbow her way into Hogwarts and steal a job right out from under the nose of a far more deserving candidate.
She heard a familiar bark of laughter. "Divination?" Sirius said, scoffing. "You're teaching Divination?"
Mairead squirmed in her seat and began gnawing on the edge of a fingernail, refusing to meet anyone's eye.
"You're a Seer?" Doge asked, the picture of skepticism.
Mairead shook her head. "No, sir," she whispered, barely moving her lips.
"No teaching experience, either," Snape added. A quick glance at him told Mairead he was thoroughly enjoying her humiliation.
"Will you all just leave off?"
Mairead's eyes widened in surprise when she heard Tonks speak up.
"Give her a break for once, will you?" Tonks went on. "Mairead has succeeded at everything she's put her mind to. Every task that's been set to her by the Order, she's accomplished. Just - get off her back, for Merlin's sake. She's gonna kick arse at teaching."
Mairead looked up from where she had been blushing miserably down at the table. She stared in disbelief at Tonks, who was glaring fiercely across the table where Doge and Snape were both sitting.
"Thank you, Tonks," Dumbledore said. "I could not agree more. Moving on..."
Tonks looked over and met Mairead's shocked gaze then. As Mairead watched, the corners of Tonks's mouth turned up. Mairead was too overcome to smile back, until Tonks's smile grew into a grin and she added a cheeky wink, at which point Mairead found herself blinking back tears.
Of their own accord, Mairead's eyes then slid over to look at Remus. He was watching her. Mairead instantly felt flustered. Her heart was thumping in her throat. Remus's eyes were guarded and he did not smile, but he held her gaze nonetheless, searching her expression with his quick, intelligent eyes. After he finished his screening, Remus lowered his eyes, then turned his attention back to Dumbledore.
He did not look at her again that evening.
When the meeting ended, Molly Weasley made her customary invitation for anyone to stay for dinner who wished to. Mairead looked over at Professor Sprout and saw her rising to her feet and pulling her cloak on. Taking her cue from the witch she was travelling with, Mairead stood as well.
"Mairead."
Sirius was calling to her from across the table. He pushed his chair back and strode around the table to meet her. "Talk for a minute?" he asked.
Mairead's mouth opened uncertainly. "I'm supposed to travel back to Hogwarts with Professor Sprout," she said, looking over at the older witch. Sirius followed her gaze and addressed the Herbology teacher.
"I was hoping I could steal Mairead for a minute before you left," he said.
"Of course!" said Sprout jovially. "I'll wait for you in the entrance hall, Mairead."
"Erm, okay. If it's not too much trouble," Mairead squeaked timidly.
"It's not too much trouble," Sirius answered for Sprout, grabbing hold of Mairead's arm and steering her out of the kitchen.
Sirius led her up the stairs and into the library, closing the door behind them. Mairead wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed, bracing herself for whatever was to come.
Sirius regarded her in heavy silence before letting out a long sigh. "I just wanted to say... I'm sorry," he said, a solemn look in his blue eyes. "Look - I don't agree with what Remus did... but I understand why he did it. And that puts me in the middle of this thing."
Mairead blinked rapidly at Sirius. It was so rare to hear him apologize, and even rarer to hear him do so in a tone of genuine remorse.
Sirius ran a hand through his dark hair. "I don't want to lose your friendship over this, Mairead," he continued. "I know you've said that in the past I have a tendency to side with Remus over you... and I know that's true. And... while I really do think you ought to give him another chance, I want you to know that I understand why you're so upset and hurt about what he did. And I understand why you're upset with me, too. I'd be royally pissed if I'd been in your shoes. I probably would've hexed Remus into next week if he tried on me what he tried on you. And I know you probably feel all alone, like you have no one to turn to. Like everyone's been in on this big secret that we'd all agreed to keep from you."
Mairead's breath hitched. That was exactly how she felt.
"I know I shouldn'tve lied to you," said Sirius. "But... well..."
"You were in the middle," Mairead said softly.
Sirius looked at her hopefully. "Yeah," he agreed. He shrugged in a would-be careless manner. "Anyway, do whatever you want with the information," he said in an off-hand way. "I'm just sorry, so I figured I'd better say it."
It was clear to Mairead that Sirius was trying to save face, and that he was putting a great deal of effort into appearing as though he would not be hurt if she rejected him. She knew that he was trying so very hard to project an air of not caring, and somehow, this knowledge made her heart squeeze with affection for him.
"I forgive you," she whispered.
Sirius's eyes lit up. "Yeah?" he said, still trying to look as though he didn't much care one way or the other. Mairead felt her lips tug upward, just a little bit.
"Yeah."
Sirius's mouth twitched into the ghost of a grin. "Thanks, Gryffindor." Abruptly, he pulled Mairead in for a rough, one-armed hug, which made her stumble when he released her. "All right, let's get you back to Hogwarts," he said gruffly, starting for the door. "You can deliver this letter to my godson while you're there."
Mairead let out a sad, pathetic little laugh and accepted the letter Sirius handed over. She had promised herself she would not inquire, even if the situation presented itself, and yet she could feel the question bubbling out of her even before her mouth opened. "Is he...?"
"Quite frankly? No," said Sirius. "He's a wreck. Doesn't show it at all, obviously. That's how you know it's really bad."
Mairead rubbed the back of one hand across her eyes. She wasn't sure what kind of answer she had wanted, but it wasn't this. She needed to hold it together, so she gave her head a little shake and said, "I'd better get going."
Sirius looked at her sadly. "Aww, kid," he said. "You're so in love with him. It's written all over you. Why don't you just forgive him so we can all move past this?"
Mairead chose not to respond to this. "I'll see you next weekend, Sirius."
He sighed. "Yeah. See you, Gryffindor."
Mairead spent the rest of the weekend studying divination, but by Monday morning it was clear that the very last of her luck had run out. She had been delighted at first when the Fifth Year Gryffindor class began ascending into the room, and had beamed happily at Harry and Ron while they took their seats in the cushiony chairs. But just as she took a deep breath to begin speaking, another head poked up from the trapdoor.
The entire classroom watched as Professor Umbridge climbed into the room. Mairead could feel the eyes of the students on her, watching to see how she would react, but she felt rooted to the floor by old fear and dread. It was as though no time had passed. Umbridge still wore the same fuzzy cardigans, she still had the ridiculous little bow in her short, curly hair. She still smiled the insipid, poisonous little smile.
"Good morning, Miss O'Keefe," Umbridge said in her girly, breathy voice. Though Mairead was still getting used to her new title, the fact that Umbridge had already downgraded her stuck out to her like a Kneazle among cats. "You received my note, did you not, that I would be observing your class this morning?"
Mairead's heart gave a panicked little stutter. She had received no such note. She knew Umbridge well enough to be positive that this had been entirely intentional on the vile woman's part. If Mairead admitted that she had not received the note, Umbridge would find a way to mark it against her. So she forced a tight smile onto her face and nodded once. "Welcome," she tried to say, but it came out sounding like a dry cough.
She watched while Umbridge dragged one of the puffy chairs to the head of the class and perched in it. Mairead turned back to the class, shoving her hands into her pockets to hide how badly they were shaking.
"Well, erm, happy Monday, everyone," she said. Behind her, she could hear Umbridge rummaging around in her handbag. "M-my understanding is that you've been working on Tarot. Is that correct?"
She watched several people, Harry and Ron included, nod their heads.
"Great," she said, and indeed, she felt a wash of relief. Tarot, at least, was one of her stronger subjects. Perhaps she wouldn't make a complete idiot out of herself in front of Umbridge after all. "Please forgive me, but can one of you tell me where you left off with Professor Trelawney?"
"Hem, hem."
Mairead closed her eyes briefly before turning around. "Yes?" she said respectfully.
Umbridge gave her a wide smile. "Sybill Trelawney is no longer a member of this faculty," she said insipidly. "You do not need to address her as 'Professor.'"
Mairead could feel sweat beginning to bead at her hairline. "Oh, okay," she breathed. She looked back around at the class and saw a girl with curly brown hair raise her hand. "Yes?" she called, pointing to the girl.
"Professor Trelawney was teaching us the Celtic Cross spread," she said, glaring daggers at Umbridge as she did.
"Oh, okay," Mairead said. "Cool. So then you've gone over the simpler one- to three-card spreads?" This drew blank stares from the class. Mairead tried again. "Like... like for example, the three-card Past, Present, Future spread?"
Nothing.
"What about, Option A, Option B, and how to decide between the two?"
Crickets.
Mairead pulled both lips into her mouth and bit down. "'Kay," she murmured to herself. "Erm, I - I think we should go back and review a few of the simpler spreads before getting too far into the Celtic Cross. It's really a complicated spread and I think it'll be easier to understand if you first have a basis for -"
"But we've already begun the Celtic Cross!" the girl beside the brown-haired girl spoke up. This girl was very pretty, with shiny, straight, black hair and flawless brown skin. "We'll lose the progress we've already made."
Mairead scratched nervously at her raw and picked-at fingertips. "W-we can come back to the Celtic Cross," she attempted to negotiate. "I just think -"
"We're already practicing with it," the girl with the black hair said. Mairead did not especially appreciate the lofty tone to her voice. "We already know what we're doing."
Mairead heard a quill scratching behind her and decided not to force the issue. "Okay, well, if you're all comfortable with the Celtic Cross, I guess we'll move forward from there," she said, although looking at the barely-concealed panic in the expression of a round-faced boy at another table, Mairead strongly suspected they were not all as comfortable with the complicated spread as the two girls let on. "S-so you all know about the Celtic Cross, so... so maybe what would make sense would be for everyone to pull out their decks, ask a question, and do a sample spread."
As she was speaking, she heard Umbridge rise from her chair and make her way over towards Mairead, clipboard in hand.
"This is your second week here, isn't it, Miss O'Keefe?" Umbridge asked, smiling with false sweetness.
"Yes," said Mairead, watching apprehensively as Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard.
"And where were you teaching before this?" Umbridge followed up.
Mairead blinked. "Erm," she said. Umbridge looked up, smiling like a cat with a feebly struggling canary in its mouth. "I - I wasn't teaching before this. I was working in a library."
"I see," said Umbridge, still smiling. "And what previous teaching experience do you have?"
Mairead licked her dry lips. "Erm... I t- I helped with a workshop in my Seventh Year," she said meekly. "It was on Information Literacy. I taught it to all the First Years."
Umbridge raised her eyebrows. "You took it upon yourself to teach the First Year class?" she asked, smiling fading. "You did not feel that the professors here were doing an adequate job of preparing their students for academic success and thought you could do better?"
"No," said Mairead quickly. "I taught it with one of the professors. It was his idea. He asked for my help teaching it."
"Which teacher?"
Mairead scratched her jawline uncomfortably. "Professor Lupin," she mumbled.
Umbridge looked up at her sharply. "The half-breed?" she asked, derision clear in her tone.
"Don't call him that!"
Mairead winced. She had shouted the words before she could stop herself.
Umbridge's smile was back, and to Mairead's eye, her teeth looked like daggers. "So you are telling me that your only teaching experience was under the supervision of an extremely dangerous, unregistered werewolf?" she said, then concluded with a nasty little chuckle, "I hardly think that counts."
Anger had wrapped its arms around Mairead, and the furious flames licking at her heels lent her courage. She raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry," she said in a deliberately mild tone. "It's just that I don't have anything to compare my teaching experience with. How much prior teaching experience do you have?"
The smile disappeared off Umbridge's face, replaced by a look of unmasked malice. "Would you kindly make a prediction for me?"
Mairead raised her eyebrows. "Er... what do you mean?"
Umbridge smiled widely. "I mean in your capacity as a Seer, please predict something for me."
Mairead felt unease creeping back into her spine. "I'm not a Seer," she said.
Umbridge pulled a theatrical look of surprise. "You mean to tell me that you are not a Seer?" she asked in feigned shock.
"No, I'm not."
Umbridge folded her clipboard under one arm and said, "How do you expect to teach this class about divination if you are not capable of practicing it?"
"Anyone can practice divination," Mairead said, not liking the defensive note making its way into her voice. "You don't have to be a Seer."
The corners of Umbridge's mouth turned up in a slick, satisfied smile. "No," she said softly. "You just have to be the simpering protégée of a violent, predatory beast."
Mairead did not consider herself to be an aggressive person. In fact, she abhorred violence. Just the thought made her feel queasy and sick. But she had never in her life wanted to hurt someone as badly as she now wanted to hurt Umbridge. It was probably a good thing, then, that Umbridge moved on before Mairead's outraged brain could formulate a response.
"You said you were working in a library prior to accepting this position. Which library was that?"
"The Diagon Alley Library."
Plus one you really, really wouldn't approve of.
"And what were you doing there?"
"I was a library assistant."
Professor Umbridge lifted up one of the pieces of parchment on her clipboard, read something, then said, "You were fired from your position at the Diagon Alley Library, were you not?"
Mairead took a steadying breath. She saw it now. Umbridge already had all this information. She had just been toying with her all this time like the sadistic monster she was. "Yes, I was," she said carefully.
Umbridge tilted her head to the side like a snake considering a field mouse. "And why were you dismissed?"
Mairead allowed her eyes to stray over to where the students were watching their interaction, rapt with attention. "I'm not sure I'm allowed to discuss it," she said.
"What can you mean?"
"Well," said Mairead, "pursuant to Educational Decree Number Twenty-Six, I believe I am only allowed to discuss classroom content in front of my students."
Umbridge's expression soured. "You are not discussing this with your students, you are discussing it with me," she snapped. "Now, why were you sacked from the library?"
Mairead took a deep breath, shrugged, and said, "I was fired from the library after my father escaped from Azkaban and went to rejoin The Dark Lord and his gathering Death Eaters. My supervisor said he couldn't take the risk that I was also in league with You-Know-Who."
There were several audible gasps from the students.
"Dumbledore put you up to this, didn't he?" Umbridge demanded, her face starting to flush. "Filling your empty head with lies and instructing you to parrot them to vulnerable young children!"
"Erm, I'm pretty sure you were the one who insisted I talk in front of the vulnerable young children," replied Mairead.
Umbridge looked as though she had smelled something vile, but she also, for the first time since she had entered the room, looked caught flat-footed. Mairead saw her opening to get out of this conversation and took it.
"Let's get back to the lesson," she said in an attempt at a brisk tone. "Where were we? Oh! Why don't you split up into pairs? One person asks the question, and the other person reads the cards. Yeah?"
She saw Harry give her an encouraging smile and Ron give her a subtle thumbs up. She managed to smile back.
The nice moment was cut short a moment later, however, when Mairead noticed everyone looking at her expectantly. "Is... something the matter?" she asked.
After an exceedingly awkward pause, a Black boy raised his hand and explained, "We don't have our own decks. We always used the classroom ones."
"Oh!" Mairead exclaimed. "Of course." She started towards her desk, then, remembering it was empty, turned back around. "Erm... does anybody remember where they were kept?"
The same boy pointed to a cabinet along one side of the room. Mairead gave him a grateful smile and strode over to the cabinet, only to pull the doors open and find it completely empty.
"That's... not ideal," she mumbled, staring at the shelves. She could still see the rectangles in the dust where the stacks of decks had been kept. She stole a furtive look over at Umbridge. The witch was watching her, a smug, satisfied look on her toad-like face.
Did the room just get even hotter? Mairead wondered. She was starting to feel faint.
Swallowing with effort, Mairead closed the cabinet doors and turned back to the class. "Change of plans," she said with what she hoped was a confident smile. "We're going to do one spread as a whole class. We'll use my deck." She pulled out her wand. "Accio, tarot deck!"
The tarot deck had a long way to travel: her quarters were on the second floor of the East Wing and the classroom was all the way in the North Tower. In the tense silence, Mairead tried to wipe her palms on her robes without anyone seeing. Behind her, she heard Umbridge clear her throat again.
"I do beg your pardon for interrupting, Miss O'Keefe," said Umbridge, smiling widely. "But don't you think it might be best if you had someone else summon your cards?"
Mairead frowned. "No, why?"
Umbridge's smile grew. "I know you are trying to save face in front of your students, but you know as well as I do that Squibs cannot use Summoning Charms."
"You're a Squib?" another boy spoke up, looking fascinated. "I didn't know they were allowed to teach at Hogwarts."
"She isn't a Squib!" Ron spoke up hotly. "Look at her - she's got a wand."
"Wands can be stolen," Umbridge pointed out in a sing-song tone of voice. "And I am afraid I must disagree with you, Mr. Weasley. Perhaps ten points from Gryffindor will teach you not to challenge my word."
Mairead sighed. She sent a meaningful look Harry's and Ron's way. Ron's ears were pink, and Harry was looking agitated, too. The last thing any of them needed would be for Ron or Harry to lose their temper and let on that they knew each other.
Just then, her tarot deck arrived, zoomed across the classroom, and landed softly in Mairead's outstretched hand. She couldn't help herself; she sent a triumphant look Umbridge's way.
Umbridge did not look pleased. "Which of you helped her?" she asked the class. "Which of you Summoned the cards nonverbally?" No one spoke. Umbridge clicked her tongue. "Well, then I am afraid I shall just have to deduct fifteen points from Gryffindor for dishonesty."
"I summoned the deck," Mairead said, indignation lending her courage she did not actually feel.
Umbridge gave an unpleasant little laugh. "Miss O'Keefe, you may have your students fooled, you may even have Albus Dumbledore fooled, though I am not entirely sure how you managed that, given the limited intellect that so often crops up in Squibs, but you do not have me fooled. I know you cheated your way through Hogwarts, and I will relish the day when I prove it."
It was as if Mairead were twelve again. All of her bravado failed her and she quailed under the nasty smile on Umbridge's face. She wanted to curl up under her desk and hide. She wanted to throw herself down the stepladder, make a break for it, and not stop until she was deep inside the Forbidden Forest.
These options were not currently open to her, though. And so she swallowed with difficulty, turned back to the class, and said, "Okay, let's get into it. Who can think of a good question we can ask the tarot?"
"Are you really a Squib?" asked the black-haired girl, looking repulsed.
"Not a great question for the tarot," Mairead said in an attempt to be funny. "I know! You're all going to be getting career advice later on this year, right? Let's pretend we're asking a question about our career."
Mairead immediately regretted this idea, as it hit a little too close to her current insecurities, but it was too late to change her mind now. Slipping the cards out of the box she kept them inside, Mairead said, "All right, so let's think of a good career-related question. Can anyone suggest one?"
Silence.
Mairead took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For the thousandth time in a week, Mairead found herself wishing she had a tenth of Remus's ability to engage his students. Nothing he had ever said had been met by crickets. His classroom discussions had always been lively, and he'd had a gift for drawing out even the quietest of students. Casting that thought aside, Mairead's heart leapt when she saw Harry raise his hand. "Yes!" she called on him.
"Er - what about..." Harry was clearly floundering, trying to help her. She felt a rush of gratitude for him. "Er... what would be a good career choice for me?" he finished, sounding uncertain.
"That's a great question to ask!" Mairead said, beaming at him. "Yes. Okay. So: I'm going to shuffle the cards now, and I'm going to focus on the question I want to ask the cards." Her hands began shuffling the cards. Normally she did this with the ease that came with practice, but with a classroom full of teenagers staring at her and a reptile of a woman at her back, Mairead found herself fumbling with the cards, and it was all she could do not to drop them all over the ground.
When she had finished shuffling, she looked around and said, "You know, I think we can all fit at one table. That way we can all watch what's going on." She walked over to the large table that the three boys Mairead didn't know were sitting at, and said, "Can you all please gather 'round?"
The two girls reluctantly stood up and walked over to the table, whereas Ron and Harry readily sidled up beside Mairead. To Mairead's intense displeasure, Umbridge pulled up a chair, as well. Mairead did her best to ignore the way Umbridge's quill was scratching away at her clipboard.
"Okay," she said, fighting down a wave of dizzying nerves as everyone looked at her. She laid the cards facedown in the pattern of the Celtic Cross. "Who can tell me what the first card is?"
"The self," the girl with the curly, brown hair answered promptly, pointing to the bottom card in the center of the spread.
"Right," said Mairead. "There's a wide number of variations to the Celtic Cross, but generally, in all the different interpretations you see, the first card represents the querent." She flipped the card over.
"What's that?" asked the girl with the long, black hair, pointing at the card and looking confused.
"That's the Nine of Wands, and it's reversed," Mairead explained. "Are you familiar with the Minor Arcana?"
"The minor what now?" Mairead heard Ron mutter to Harry, who shrugged.
"That doesn't look like the Nine of Wands," the girl with the black hair said. "You must be doing something wrong."
Mairead lifted up the card crossing the first card to make sure she had it right. "Nope," she said, pointing. "That's definitely the Nine of Wands. Have you not gotten into the Minor Arcana yet?"
The girl with the curly brown hair reached for the deck of cards that had not been selected for the spread. She turned the deck over and looked through it, faceup. "These aren't the right cards," she said. "I don't recognize any of these images."
A quick glance over at Umbridge told Mairead that the older woman was delighted at the confusion. "What deck have you been practicing on?" Mairead asked.
"The Mystical Unknown," said the girl with the black hair.
Mairead's eyebrows shot up. "The Mystical Unknown?" she repeated. "But that's like, one of the most obscure, difficult-to-work-with decks out there! Why would -" she broke off, not wanting to throw Trelawney under the manticore. She sighed. "Okay, well, this is the Rider Waite deck. It's widely considered to be the standard-bearer for all Tarot cards, and it is by far the easiest deck to learn on, so let's stick with this."
"Professor Trelawney said that the Mystical Unknown taps into your subconscious and frees your higher power and inner eye," said the girl with the curly hair in a lofty voice.
Professor Trelawney sounds like she's been breathing this fecking incense for too long, Mairead thought nastily to herself before saying, "Okay, well, we don't have those cards on hand, so this is what we've got to work with. Now, who can tell me what the Nine of Wands means?"
The girl threw her shining black hair over one shoulder and said, "Wands represent violent death," she said promptly. "And also war, cheating, and scandal."
Mairead's mind temporarily went blank with just how wrong this was. "Erm... no," she said. "No. What you may be thinking of is the suit of Swords, which often represent conflict or oppression. They can be a difficult suit, but they also represent intellect, communication, ration, and logic. Wands, on the other hand," she went on, tapping the card, "represent passion, innovation, starting something new, inspiration - divine or otherwise. It's a suit of adventure, strength, courage, of planting seeds and waiting for them to grow. Can anyone tell me what element Wands correspond to?"
The silence was deafening. The two girls were looking mutinous, and the boys were all exchanging nonplussed looks.
Mairead cleared her throat. "Wands correspond with the element Fire," she supplied.
"That's not what Professor Trelawney said," said the curly-haired girl, looking intensely sulky. Mairead couldn't help but note that Umbridge wasn't doing a thing to stop them addressing their former teacher as 'Professor' as long as it made Mairead look bad.
Mairead pulled her lips into her mouth, bit down, and prayed for patience. "Okay, so we have a Nine of Wands in position one, and it's reversed. Have you gone over reversals yet? Can anyone tell me what they mean?"
The girls were silent, but it looked less like they did not know the answer and more like they were giving Mairead the silent treatment. The round-faced boy tentatively raised his hand. Mairead beamed at him and nodded.
"A reversal in fortunes?" he asked in a small voice.
Mairead ground her teeth together. Starting to notice a theme, here... "Erm, not quite," she said.
"Hem, hem."
Mairead's teeth were still grinding together painfully when she forced a polite smile onto her face and looked over at Umbridge.
"You may wish to move along," Umbridge said in a breathy voice. "There is not much time left in the lesson - oh, I'm sorry!" Here she gave a fake little start of surprise and adopted a simpering look of sympathy. "Can you tell time, dear?"
Mairead heard titters from the girls. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry's face go pale with outrage. She subtly slid her hand over and laid it over his just as he was opening his mouth to retort. She said, "Thank you, Professor Umbridge," and personally felt that she deserved an Award for Special Services to the School that she did not bodily throw Umbridge out one of the classroom windows. The last thing this place needs is Umbridge haunting it, she thought darkly to herself. "Let's move on. Who can tell me what the second position represents in the Celtic Cross?"
"What curses you," the Black boy spoke up.
Mairead reached up and massaged her eyebrows. "Erm, close," she said in a strained voice. "It's what crosses you. In other words, the second position represents the immediate challenge the querent is facing. Here we have the Eight of Swords. Can anyone tell me what that means?"
The two girls were openly glowering at her now. The round-faced boy stared intently down at the card, then tentatively said, "It looks like... maybe an execution?"
Mairead had a pounding headache by the time the bell finally rang. Everyone seemed in a hurry to leave, even Harry and Ron, who shot sympathetic looks at her as they gathered their bags. The two girls walked away, heads together. Mairead distinctly heard one of them say, "What a fraud."
Mairead closed her eyes, counted to three, and told herself she was not allowed to start crying until lunchtime. When she opened her eyes, Professor Umbridge was standing in front of her, wide mouth spread in a satisfied smile.
"You will receive the results of your inspection in ten days' time," said Umbridge. She turned and started to walk away, but then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. "But I wouldn't waste too much time unpacking, if I were you, Miss O'Keefe."
Author's Note: Oof, so Mairead's first couple of weeks... did not go so well. But ugh, Umbridge just makes me want to bite a wall. I don't even enjoy writing her! Anyway, I hope you liked getting to see Mairead's first attempts at teaching. I'm sorry there was hardly any Remus in this chapter, but I hope you liked it anyway!