Mischievous-A Marauders Fanfic

25-Multiplied In The Stars?

To make matters worse for Halley and her concience, it seemed that Fate had decided to drag Sephy out of her reach for the first half of that school term.

For one, after the incident with the smashed window and the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder on the train, their bags had been searched on arrival at Hogwarts and despite her best efforts Sephy had been caught with the package. She didn't turn any of the others in, as per their long-standing agreement, and spent her first evening back at Hogwarts in detention, revising for her Care Of Magical Creatures exam the following day.

Halley had spent that same evening testing Samantha on classifications of dangerous beasts, and worrying.

The following day brought their Herbology exams, and as everyone were all revising as a group, Halley had no time to talk to Sephy then either.

This pattern continued to the weekend, and the group crossed off their Astronomy written and practical exams in the process. Halley had her first Arithmancy paper on the following Monday, and she was sitting in the library with Colton on the Saturday afternoon, working through some practice questions, a bundle of nerves.

"You forgot to add on four" Colton pointed out patiently, as Halley passed him another of many incorrect predictions she'd made that afternoon. "There are two D's here. You only considered one, so you were four short in your original add-up."

Halley groaned and dropped her head onto the table.

"Is everything OK, Hal?" Colton then asked. "You don't seem yourself."

Halley bit her lip and decided to admit.

"You remember what you said to me last term?" she asked. "About Nashville and Sephy?"

"Yeah?" Colton replied, looking puzzled.

"I honestly think they've both got a crush on each other" Halley explained confidentially. "But Sephy doesn't realise that she's made Nashville think she's seeing someone else. I meant to tell her that she's hurt him, but I just haven't been able to get her alone..."

Colton sucked through his teeth and fidgetted on the seat.

"That's a bad situation" he agreed. "I genuinely don't know what to do, Halley-Nash seems fine this term, as I was talking to him about Quidditch the other morning-but he's got his N.E.W.T.s and Sephy's got her O.W.L.s..."

"Thanks, Colton" Halley remarked, a little sarcastically, but Colton wasn't finished.

"Put it this way" the sixth year continued. "Nash has had the whole of the Easter break to clear his head. Sephy, as far as I know, doesn't feel like she's done anything wrong. They're both, currently, fine, no?"

"They're both currently fine" Halley repeated.

"So I say wait" Colton advised her. "There's no reason to mess with either of their heads in exam season. It's not fair."

Halley sighed, and repressed her inner turmoil once more.

"Can we do some more of these?" she asked. Colton nodded.

"You need to get your head in the bloody game, Hal. Come on. Give me the character number of and then predict accordingly a potential future partner for..." Colton trailed off as he tried to think of an example.

"Persephone Cardale" Halley decided for him. He shrugged.

"If you like."

Halley brought up her charts and thought. To calculate a Character Number meant using the whole name, every letter, and applying them to the number grid.