Eye of the Serpent | HP MARAUDER ERA [2]

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"For many Divination students in seventh-year, Ovomancy was their favourite topic to learn in this class last year," said the nasally voice of Professor Quinley as she taught the class. Her nose was turned up in disgust and she eyed the few students that made up her class. "Although I can't imagine why the heck this would be their favourite... There's too much sticky egg for my liking and it's just gross, but I suppose it is accurate."

As I looked down into the bowl in front of me, which was set on my table, I couldn't help but disagree with the woman. I didn't get grossed out easily by these type of things. If anything, I found it all much more interesting than gross. Shrugging, I took an egg and cracked it, inspecting it carefully.

Ovomancy was a type of Divination that had to do with cracking eggs open and observing the way the yolk fell. I found myself enjoying it for the most part.

N.E.W.T-level Divination consisted of learning about many more ways of predicting the future than I was accustomed to. Thus far, we had covered heptomology and cartomancy, as well as going into greater depth in subjects that we'd done in past years. I had even had a chance to polish up on palmistry, something that I'd never really had a knack for. This class was shaping up to be one of my favourites as I became better and better at it.

Once class was over, I made my way down to the Great Hall from the North Tower to eat dinner. Along the way, I met Sirius, Remus and Peter, all of whom had had a free period. I furrowed my eyebrows at the fact that James wasn't with them.

"Hey," I greeted them.

"How was Divination?" Remus asked me.

"Pretty good, we were doing Ovomancy," I told them. "Quinley wasn't too happy to be teaching it, though. She was being all snobbish about having to crack eggs open."

"That woman scares me, I wouldn't want to be taught by her while she's in a bad mood," said Sirius. "Sometimes I wonder whether she's predicting the future or actually causing everything herself."

"Me too," said Remus. "She once predicted that I would be having the worst day ever and was completely right about it. I never knew if she had predicted it or caused it to happen..."

"Why have we never heard about this before?" Peter asked Remus, frowning.

"Because... I didn't want to tell you all I failed a Potions essay right after it happened," Remus grumbled under his breath.

"Ooooooh, Mr Prefect wasn't so—" Sirius began.

"Shush, Sirius, not now," I interrupted him, whacking him on the arm. "By the way, where's James?"

"He went to send a letter home," Sirius replied, his eyebrows knitting together. "I dunno what about, he was acting very weird about it and he wouldn't let any of us come with him. He said he'll meet us in the Great Hall later, though."

I nodded, shrugging as we trudged our way to the Great Hall.

All throughout dinner, James was gone. For the first few minutes, we didn't take too much notice to it, but after a while, we each began getting suspicious. He had been supposed to meet us in time for our meal; surely sending a letter wouldn't take too long.

"Maybe he got in trouble on the way back," suggested Peter. "He was probably up to not good and ended up doing something that would get him a detention."