Lust, War, and... Love?

Chapter 1: Twelfth Night After Christmas

   Two tall candles cast golden light on the girls' faces in the dark room. Parvati peered into an oval mirror set on a desk. Across from her, Padma squinted at a tattered paperback book in the flickering candlelight, and Hermione held her wand over a large bowl filled with water. Desks, stacked high against a wall, loomed behind their backs. The abandoned classroom in the farthest end of the third floor corridor was cold and draughty, and the girls wrapped their robes around themselves tightly.

"What's your governing sign, my Promised One?" Parvati whispered huskily to the mirror.

Hermione waved her wand in circles over the bowl. A blob of hardened white wax melted and spread in swirls in the dark water. The swirls gathered together and merged into a vague form, which gradually took a more defined shape.

"A snake!" gasped Padma and put the book on the desk. "It's a snake again, Parvati. First the skull, now it's a snake like I had."

"Looks like you both are going to end up dating Slytherins. Under the Sign of Death as your book professes it," Hermione snorted. "Crabbe, Goyle or both?"

"Neither!" Parvati could not suppress a giggle. "It's -"

"You aren't supposed to tell us the name until you're done!" Padma interrupted her sister crossly. "You'll disturb the innocence of our divination. Let's try the other two!"

Innocence of divination - that was quite a term to coin, Hermione thought. She already regretted being sucked by the Patil sisters into this fortune-telling session with the mirror, melted wax and book aptly titled The Divine Almanac of Heavenly Maidens. It was the Twelfth Night after Christmas. Every young witch, who was eager to find out about her date this year or, furthermore, her future husband, employed the ancient practices of foretelling her Promised One on this magic night.

Lavender Brown had come down with the flu this morning and could not take part in the Patil sisters' plans. In the afternoon the twins, desperate for a third person, coaxed Hermione into joining them. Padma was the first to sit down in front of the enchanted mirror flanked by the two flickering candles. Her future suitors were supposed to appear in the mirror, and they did. The Ravenclaw prefect squashed her sister's curiosity about their identities on the spot and went on asking her would-be boyfriends cryptic questions. For each of Padma's inquiries Hermione melted the wax in the water bowl with her wand, and Parvati deciphered the forming shapes with the help of the small book.

"The Other One, I wish to talk to you," Parvati implored the mirror. She sighed, "No, he isn't coming clear. He's more like a blur."

"Then he's going to be only a fling. Did you say he resembled Anthony Goldstein?" Padma asked authoritatively.

"I'm going to dump Goldstein anyway. Even though he's in Dumbledore's Army," was Parvati's answer. "The third was a blur too. Could be from Dumbledore's Army as well. They sort of came out together."

Padma chuckled and closed her book.

"If to listen to you both, Dumbledore's Army is a dating club and dumping ground altogether." Hermione was already grouchy in the dark and chilly room.

"Oh well, but we've got such cool boys in the Army, haven't we?" Padma said dreamily. "Except that our Promised Slytherins aren't there."

"Who knows, they might want to join the Army," Parvati piped up from behind the mirror. "All right, I'm done. Your turn, Hermione."

"They'll join us when hell freezes over." Hermione stowed her wand in her pocket. "I'm sure I'll get no one this year, so why bother with this divining? We've got to build the Army first of all."

"You're sneaky, Hermione!" Parvati got up from her chair. "I'm sure who you'll see. Harry and Ron, right, Padma?"

"The big question: which of them will be your date?" Padma giggled again and prodded Hermione in her side. "Let's find out who'll marry you!"

"How about Krum?" smirked Parvati.

Seeing that there was no way to wiggle out of it, Hermione sat down in front of the mirror. Parvati handed her the cheat sheet with the questions and took over the bowl. In the dark glass of the mirror something appeared that looked like a long, gloomy tunnel. Hermione glanced at the parchment proffered by Parvati and read the runic incantation aloud to bring out the image of her Promised One.

Two small whitish outlines appeared in the end of the tunnel. They seemed to float towards Hermione and grow in size. Hermione's heart fluttered at the sight of the first one. It was Ron with a very confused look on his face. His features were slightly blurry. The other figure hovered in the back, still undistinguishable. Probably Harry. Or Krum? Hermione took a deep breath.

"Ask questions!" Padma whispered anxiously. "How many?"

"Two." Hermione gazed at the cheat sheet. "What is your governing sign?"

Parvati swished her wand over the bowl with ardour.

"Looks like a lion's head," muttered Padma. "Gryffindor!"

"Show me our path. What's it going to be like?" Hermione questioned again.

The twins put their heads together over the bowl. Padma's slender fingers flipped through the book pages.

"Always close but never joined," she announced loudly. Hermione stared at her quizzically.

"There are two really long snaky lines. They are very close to each other but don't merge, " explained Parvati. "Doesn't look like you'll marry this one."

"Ask more questions," Padma pressed on.

"What's the breaking stone in our path?" Hermione read from the list with trepidation.

"I long for you but kiss another," was the book quote.

A faint smoky shape appeared by Ron's side, slightly resembling a woman. Hermione could not make out her features because the fluid image kept shifting.

"There's a female form by his side but it's constantly changing," mused Hermione.

"Which tells us there are going to be a few." Padma already had the verdict at her fingertips.

Although Hermione had never put much faith in Divination, the images in the mirror unsettled her greatly.

"I'd rather talk to the other, "she told the twins. "The Other One, come forth!"

Ron's figure slid into the back and the other boy came to the front. The sight of him nearly made Hermione scream but she managed to keep herself in check. The cold grey eyes and malicious grin were unmistakable. Disturbingly clear and sharp, Draco Malfoy's features literally jumped at her out of the mirror.

"Are you all right?" the sisters wondered in unison. "You've got such a look..."

"I'm okay... It - it's just that I didn't expect this," mumbled Hermione.

"Questions?" Padma prodded her.

"Oh, yes. What's your governing sign? "said Hermione and cursed herself instantly for her stupid question. Naturally, the wax morphed into a serpent.

"Show me our path. What's it going to be like?"

The twins leafed through the book and emitted a collective gasp.

"It's long, twisted and broken. You join together, then break up, and reunite and break up again, and so on. The Sign of Death marks every your reunion and break-up." Padma uttered in her most prophetic voice. "I - I can't believe it - I can see it so well now! The Dark Mark - that's what it was, Parvati!"

"Yes, it was so blurred for you, Padma, but it's so clear now!" Parvati was now all flustered. "Who's the Slytherin boy in the mirror? It's going to be a Death Eater!"

"Wait, don't tell us yet," Padma demanded. "Go on, Hermione."

"What's our breaking stone?" Hermione asked weakly. Malfoy, the Dark Mark and the Sign of Death - it was too much to be taken seriously.

"He's bound to another but takes you." Padma could make a great substitute for Trelawney whenever the teacher went down with the flu.

"There's no other woman's shadow by him," objected Hermione.

"That's because she isn't in his heart!" Parvati was well on her way to get an "Oustanding" in her Divination O.W.L.

"Let's find out when you'll get married!" Padma proposed brightly.

"I doubt I'll ever marry this bloke," Hermione grunted.

"Either the first or the second one," pleaded Parvati.

"When will the bonds of marriage unite us?" Hermione asked no one in particular.

Parvati flicked her wand over the water. "Oi, look!"

"Yeah, it's just one big blob and a droplet on the side," nodded Padma.

"In two years?" Things were going too fast here, Hermione thought.

"In a little over a year, I guess," Parvati spoke expertly. "Year and a half, at most."

"I think I've had enough fortune-telling tonight." Hermione looked at the mirror. Unnervingly, Ron's image seemed to recede more into the background while Malfoy's face became brighter in the candlelight. "I'm sure I won't be marrying anyone before I sit my N.E.W.T.s."

"It could be a shotgun wedding," mused Parvati. "You know, things happen."

Hermione put the mirror facedown on the desk. Parvati took the Divine Almanac and pondered over its pages for a little while.

"Looks like we all going to end up dating Slytherins. Who was yours, Hermione?" Parvati asked. "Not Zabini?"

"It's a stranger," Hermione fibbed. She was in no mood to discuss their findings.

"Seems like we all are going to date blokes who've got some relations with Death Eaters. I guess, yours is going to be a Death Eater, Hermione," Parvati proclaimed. "I wonder how it'll happen."

"Maybe Hermione will become a spy for Dumbledore's Army," speculated Padma. "And a Death Eater will fall for her!"

"That's would be so adventurous!" exclaimed Parvati. "We could be secret agents too."

"I see nothing adventurous in a shotgun wedding with a criminal and murderer," Hermione said glumly. "I'm no Mata Hari."

"I think we could try to recruit our boys for the Army, Parvati," said Padma.

"Oh, could you give it a rest?" Hermione sighed. "We can't trust the Slytherins at all! Let's get back to the dorms before the Umbridge toad gives us detentions for wandering the corridors at night."

"What an epic saga of love and war it's going to be..." Parvati was descending into a Trelawney-like trance. "Like Ramayana or Mahabharata!"