When Myths Meet Magic || 5

25|| Thalia

Divination had never been so... comfortable.

For once the room wasn't a) boiling hot, b) more stuffy than Annabeth's teddy bear, c) filled with the uber strong scents of perfume and incense, or d) run by a lady in an over abundance of jewelry with a creepy voice and an obvious lack of talent in the prediction zone.

Firenze the centaur had taken a ground floor room. The floor was a carpet of moss, the walls had vanished behind the trees that were growing out of the ground, and had vines snaking up them softly, and the desks were completely gone, replaced with a few boulders here or there that certainly weren't placed with the intention of a seat. A wastepaper basket on the side of the room was the only indication that they weren't in the forest.

Thalia inhaled deeply and grinned. "Well, this certainly is an improvement!"

From her position leaning against a tree trunk, Parvati shot Thalia a nasty look. "Professor Trelawney--" she began.

"Had no sense of comfort," Thalia finished with a contented sigh, settling down on the mossy floor. "This is more like it."

"Please sit," Firenze said from his quiet position in the middle of the room. Those who weren't sitting plopped down on a rock or the floor. "And let us begin."

As everyone settled down, Firenze swished his tail, raised his hand toward the leafy canopy, and lowered it slowly; as he did so, the light dimmed until they appeared to be sitting in a room bathed in twilight, finishing the appearance of a forest. The wastepaper basket did little to ruin the effect. There were several gasps of awe, and Ron said loudly, "Blimey!"

"Lie back upon the floor," Firenze said serenely. "And observe the heavens. Here is written, for those who can see, the fortune of our races."

Throughout the lesson, the sky remained the solid starry image, but they did take a break from their nap time on the ground. The class was spent burning sage and mallowsweet on the floor, with Firenze pacing and continuing to speak softly and serenely about how it was okay that they couldn't see anything in the smoke that was conjured because humans hadn't developed the area of complexity in the art of foreseeing, and how even centaurs were still unfoolproof in their knowledge.

"I dunno, Chiron seems to know everything," Nico said, leaning back slightly from the nature-y smell of burning sage.

Firenze, who was pacing around them at the moment, stopped and turned to their group.

"You are a friend of Chiron's?"

They nodded. The smoke billowed in Firenze's face, giving him a mysterious shadow.

"The centaurs are not happy with him," he said softly before moving onto Parvati and Lavender's group, neither of which seemed too happy with old, wise, centaur-teachers either.

In contrast to the smooth, quiet, cool, calming atmosphere of Firenze's classroom, the rest of the classes were increasingly stressful. Divination had retained its sleepy atmosphere, but had changed from a drowsiness caused from overheating and boredom to a gentle, soothing kind of rest. However much calm it did to them though, it still failed to keep the peace of the fifth years as the O.W.L.s drew steadily closer. Hannah Abbott was the first to burst into tears in Herbology, sobbing that she was too stupid to take exams and wanted to leave school. After sending Hannah to get a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey, Professor Sprout had to replace Hazel and Susan's pots of Branulch Weeds as they had received too large a dosage of water from Hannah's tears.

In fact, DA meetings seemed to be the only thing that kept some people going. Harry, for one, didn't seem like he could bear Hogwarts except at the meetings. Terry Boot walked around with dark shadows under his eyes, sluggish until he stepped foot into the Room of Requirement. Cho seemed constantly close to tears.