UnExpected

Chapter 58

"...sometimes she does. Most of the time she doesn't. It's all internal with her, seeing as she sees with her inner eye. Not a lot of confidence in that."

"Well not every Seer can see everything."

"Yeah, some are bound to be wrong sometimes. I mean no one's perfect."

"But doesn't that contradict the whole 'all seeing' thing that she's supposed to have?"

"Uh..."

"Well..."

Buffy, Lavender, and Parvati were comparing the psychic stylings of Professor Trelawney and Firenze as they made their way from the library to the common room. The Trelawneyites had been expressing their very strong faith in Trewlaney's abilities, and unwavering feelings, of having their favorite teacher return since Buffy had bumped into them while looking for the appropriate research material for the Divination homework they had been assigned. Trelawney and Firenze had very different styles of fortune telling, made clearly obvious if one had sat in both classes, and it was only natural to debate who was the better of the two. Buffy was only glad that the subject of conversation had not included the little broom-fiasco that had occurred earlier that afternoon. Her ears were still ringing from all the verbiage about the whole madcap adventure, and of all the reprimands from her friends because of it. It was nice to forget about the whole situation and talk about something as pointless as who was the best Divination teacher.

The girls were midway through their discussion, and destination, when a certain Slytherin with a determined expression caused a pause in their path.

"Buffy, I need to talk to you."

There was something very serious about the way Theodore spoke. It was such a straightforward tone, and Buffy had a sudden feeling of dread in her stomach.

"O-okay, sure," she sputtered nervously.

She moved away from Parvati and Lavender, both girls expressing that innate worried feeling girls get when they sense something's off, and stepped aside to a quieter area with her dark-haired guy.

"What's up?" she asked, feigning casualty.

"Buffy, I –"

"Miss Summers."

The sugary voice sent her skin crawling. Buffy turned around and there Ms. Ribbit was. Her eyes gleaming and her smile too wide, which of course kids never added up to anything good.

"Follow me please," Umbridge ordered briskly, turned on her heels and tap-tapped down the hall.

"Sorry," Buffy apologized to Theodore, not so sorry if the dreaded feeling in her gut was any indication, "but when evil croaks you gotta..."

She smiled hastily and turned to follow Umbridge. The first time she had ever been somewhat eager to do so. All sorts of bad thoughts went through her head. What would Theodore want to talk to her about? Her woman's intuition was on red alert. It was bad news, she knew that much. And when a boy had bad news it only meant one thing. One very, very bad thing.

Theodore stood there until he could see them no more. Even when trying to end things he didn't stand a chance. If he wasn't so sure about his decision before, he was sure about it now. Harsh? Maybe, but this instance only added to the multitude of other times he was either blown off or didn't have a start to begin with. There was no wavering now. No more to be taken. What a morose way to end the day. Theodore gave a resigning sigh and slumped back down to the dungeons; waiting, yet again, to talk to Buffy.

It might've been all in her mind, but whenever Buffy walked into Umbridge's office she could swear there was a medicinal smell floating around in the air. Might've been that whole Pepto thing the room had going on. Mind trickery and all that.