113 Tea Leaves and Cards

Arth patted Harry on the shoulder.

"You should go and see if Ron is ok, from the sound of it-" Arth cupped his hands to his ears as if trying to listen better, "-it seems like Ron might be a tad bit... injured."

Harry nodded before rushing down the stairs at a pace that would allow Harry to be careful, yet go down at a fast pace.

Arth waited until Harry disappeared down the stairs before pulling Hermione to the side.

Hermione blushed.

"W-What are you doing?"

Arth slowly slid his hands over Hermione's shoulders as if trying to feel something. Hermione let out a slight whimper that had a mixture of surprise and expectancy.

Arth finally felt the thing he was looking for and let out a grin.

"There we go."

"W-What?"

Arth pulled out the time turner hanging on from Hermione's neck and smiled.

"Let's go back in time shall we? I'm curious on how it feels to turn back time."

"..."

Looking a bit disgruntled, Hermione slapped Arth's hand away and held the time turner in her hand.

"...one turn should do it right?"

Arth frowned.

"Make it two, we don't want to be late to our first class of Arithmancy."

Hermione spun the delicate hourglass on the chain two turns and Arth had the sensation that he was flying very fast, backward. A blur of colors and shapes rushed past him, his ears were pounding.

And then he felt solid ground beneath his feet, and everything came into focus again.

"...wow. That was amazing!"

Arth took a glance at the gleaming time turner with a amazed look.

Hermione glances at the clock.

"Let's go to our next class shall we?"

Arithmancy was honestly a very interesting class. The idea that numbers held magical properties and could aid in predicting the future was an eye opener for Arth. It was a lot less based on prediction and guesswork and more mathematical and logical.

The Professor of Arithmancy, Septima Vector, showed them a few demonstrations where she brought out a deck of cards and calculated everyone's personality based on their names alone. And surprisingly, most of them were spot on.

Hermione enjoyed the class and had a question every few minutes to which Professor Vector would answer with a smile.

After the classes ended, Hermione and Arth set off for Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration lesson.

Arth chose a seat right at the front of the room, waiting for Professor McGonagall to start teaching.

He listened to what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and clapped it a very enthusiastic manner when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes.

However, Arth quickly realized that he was the only one clapping.

"Really, what has got into you all today?" said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all.

"Not that it matters, but that's the first time my transformation didn't receive an applause from a class."

Arth sadly put down his hands that were rhythmically clapping.

Then Hermione raised her hand.

"Please, Professor, we've just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and —"

"Ah, of course," said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning. "There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?"

Everyone stared at her.

"Me," said Harry, finally.

"I see," said Professor McGonagall, fixing Harry with her beady eyes. "Then you should know, Potter, that Sibyll Trelawney has predicted the death of one student a year since she arrived at this school. None of them has died yet. Seeing death omens is her favorite way of greeting a new class. If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues —"

Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white. She went on, more calmly, "Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic. I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it. True Seers are very rare, and Professor Trelawney —"

She stopped again, and then said, in a very matter-of-fact tone, "You look in excellent health to me, Potter, so you will excuse me if I don't let you off homework today. I assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in."

Arth sighed.

They had already discussed that what Harry had seen wasn't a death omen so why was everyone still caught up in it?

...was he that hard to notice?

Not everyone was convinced, however. Ron still looked worried.

When the Transfiguration class had finished, they joined the crowd thundering toward the Great Hall for lunch.

"Ron, cheer up," said Hermione, pushing a dish of stew toward him. "You heard what Professor McGonagall said."

Ron spooned stew onto his plate and picked up his fork but didn't start.

"Harry," he said, in a low, serious voice, "you haven't seen a great black dog anywhere, have you?"

"Yeah, I have," said Harry. "I saw one the night I left the Dursleys'."

Ron let his fork fall with a clatter and Arth frowned.

"Huh... I guess what I saw in the cup really was a grim..."

"It was probably just a stray," said Hermione calmly.

Ron looked at Hermione as though she had gone mad. "Hermione, if Harry's seen a Grim, that's — that's bad. My — my uncle Bilius saw one and — and he died twenty-four hours later!"

"Coincidence," said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" said Ron, starting to get angry. "Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!"

"There you are, then," said Hermione in a superior tone. "They see the Grim and die of fright. The Grim's not an omen, it's the cause of death! And Harry's still with us because he's not stupid enough to see one and think, right, well, I'd better kick the bucket

then!"

Arth chuckled.

"If I was scared of every big black dog I saw on the street, I would've been dead by now. You know how many labradors there are in Britain?"

Ron mouthed wordlessly at Arth and Hermione who opened her bag, took out her new Arithmancy book, and propped it open against the juice jug.

"I think Divination seems very woolly," she said, searching for her page. "A lot of guesswork, if you ask me."

"There was nothing woolly about the Grim in that cup!" said Ron hotly.

"You didn't seem quite so confident when you were telling Harry it was a sheep," said Hermione coolly.

Arth sighed and gave a tired look towards Harry who looked back with an equally tired look.

"Can we not fight over our own opinions?"

"You are just angry at the fact that you aren't good at divination."

"Ron, please listen to me and shut up."

"I-if you were better at it, then you wouldn't think it was stupid!"

Ron had touched a nerve. Hermione slammed her Arithmancy book down on the table so hard that bits of meat and carrot flew everywhere.

"If being good at Divination means I have to pretend to see death omens in a lump of tea leaves, I'm not sure I'll be studying it much longer! That lesson was absolute rubbish compared with my Arithmancy class!"

"Hermione, calm down. Let's be logical-"

She snatched up her bag and stalked away.

Ron frowned after her.

"What's she talking about?" he said to Harry. "She hasn't been to an Arithmancy class yet."

Arth sighed.

"Why does nobody listen to me..."