Hecate's Realm

Tea Leaves and Absurdities

AN: This hiatus will be a lot shorter than I originally anticipated, turns out Prisoner of Azkaban is available as a free PDF online, so there will be some direct parts from the book in this story. Also, I'm finally caught up on all my writing accounts.

-

Seamus yawned and ran a hand through his hair. "Do you want to answer their questions when they see all the battle scars?" Frank begrudgingly got up to start the day.

-

Seamus and Frank had managed to escape any questions, something the older demigod was thankful for. Anytime a mortal saw his skin, ninety percent of the time they showed him pity, disgust, or something along those lines. He was thankful that the son of Vulcan had let him have this moment of peace, something he guessed he'd be needed many more of as the quest wore on.

They managed to get to the Great Hall and taken their seats when Hazel had walked in. She made eye contact with Frank and barely nodded. After years of fighting together, they, among most of the other Romans, had developed a code of sorts that didn't require anything verbal. A single nod meant to see if Frank was okay. Either that, or she wanted him transform, though he doubted that was the case. She looked satisfied when he nodded back, saying that he was, well, as okay as he could be in this new world.

Later on, Frank noticed that Harry and Hermione came in and sat relatively close, along with a red headed boy that had been accompanying the two the night before. They had all gotten their schedules, and with a little help, he managed to read that their first class of the day was Transfiguration with a Sybill Trelawney. They finished their food and excused themselves to start the long walk to the Divination Tower.

-

When Frank climbed through the trapdoor, he looked around as his heightened sense of smell was bombarded by a sickly sweet kind of perfume. He tried to cover his nose with his sleeve to filter the smell, but he was disappointed to see that nothing he did helped any. Harry and the ginger boy came up the ladder right before he assumed class would begin.

"Where is she?" The redhead asked.

A voice came suddenly out of the shadows, a soft, misty sort of voice.

"Welcome," it said. "How nice to see you in the physical world at last."

The source of the sound stepped into the light. He saw that she was very thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to several times their natural size, and she was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl. Innumerable chains and beads hung around her spindly neck, and her arms and hands were encrusted with bangles and rings.

"Sit, my children, sit," she said, and they all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto poufs.

"Welcome to Divination," said Professor Trelawney, who had seated herself in a winged armchair in front of the fire. "My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye."

Nobody said anything to this extraordinary pronouncement. Professor Trelawney delicately rearranged her shawl and continued, "So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field..." Frank looked towards Seamus to see that he was just as surprised as most of the other students. If books were useless in this course of study, how was one going to study to perform well on the test? Frank was also rather surprised that he even cared about grades when he technically didn't even belong in this strange world.