selenophile || remus lupin

chapter forty eight

3 December 1976

9:02 am

As Ophelia climbed up the ladder, she was hit with that familiar smell of incense, and the warmth of the classroom above her. She pulled herself up and saw the divination class. She walked over to one of the many, rather short, tables and sat on a pouf next to Alice.

As the classroom filled with students, a quiet bang was heard, and smoke the color of the moon started appearing throughout the classroom. Then, a sudden coughing started and they could make out the silhouette of their divination professor pounding on her chest. She stepped out of the smoke and opened her arms in a welcoming gesture.

"Hello my dears, hello. The fates have decided that today, I will reveal to you all the magic within books. And I'm not talking about any of that 'magic of reading' nonsense. We will, of course, be delving into bibliomancy. Let's immerse ourselves in books and reveal the secrets of the universe!"

Alice and Ophelia smirked at each other, in response to the professor's dramatics. They pulled out a large book that Alice had gotten from the library, The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll. He was a very popular author in muggle England, Ophelia learned, but he was actually a wizard from ages ago.

"Do you want to go first or do you want me to go?" Alice asked politely.

"You can go if you'd like," Ophelia said.

Alice opened the book to a random page and skimmed over it before looking at her with confusion etched on her face. "They're looking for a bird, the jubjub bird. And I guess one of them is attacked by a Bandersnatch and loses his sanity? What does that mean? I don't even know what a jubjub bird or Bandersnatch are."

"Maybe you'll lose your sanity? No, no that can't be, it's way long gone already, you can't lose it twice," Ophelia teased.

"Shut up," Alice nudged her playfully.

"My turn," said Ophelia, flipping through the book before landing on a page. "There's a baker who can only bake wedding cakes. That's all I can really understand, all of this sounds like gobbledygook. What in Merlin's name is that supposed to mean?"

"I think it's a sign from the universe that you're single as hell and need to get the bandwagon moving along," Alice smirked as Ophelia glared at her. 

"You say that, but you're practically engaged to Frank. Who do I have? No one."

"Give it time, I'm sure there's someone perfect for you who you don't even realize is so close," she said, an odd glint in her eyes that Ophelia couldn't tell the meaning of.

After divination, the two girls met up with the rest of their Gryffindor friends along with the Hufflepuffs. They all filed into greenhouse three and Ophelia walked over to where Maisie and her friends were.

"Ophelia, hey how are you?" Maisie smiled warmly.

"I'm good, how are you?" Ophelia reciprocated.

"I'm good thanks for asking!"

"And you," Ophelia turned to her two friends. "You're Laney and you're Lisa, I remember you both from quidditch."

"We saw each other at your party last month too, right?" asked Laney.

"Yeah, that party was totally groovy!" Lisa smiled.

"Groovy?" asked Ophelia.

"Do wizards not say that?" Ophelia shook her head. "Weird. Must be a muggle thing. I'm muggleborn if you couldn't tell," Lisa explained.

"Lisa!" hissed another Hufflepuff who overheard their conversation.

"Molly? What's wrong?" Lisa asked concernedly. Molly Elphick jerked her head, gesturing for Lisa to come closer so that they could have a private conversation. Or at least what they thought to be private.