New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|05| Chapter Five

F I V E 

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Making it back safely and seamlessly from Diagon Alley came as a relief to Saffron and her siblings alike, as they knew that had Ms Squire realised that one of her orphans/paycheques was missing, they'd have had hell to pay. Luckily, they didn't have to worry about that, as the second Saffron made it home, she transitioned smoothly into helping Rachel clean out the shed (they were always left with the most tedious jobs to do), giving her an opportunity to explain what Sage's plan was. Predicably, Rachel was ecstatic and the excitement was pouring off of her in waves.

"Thank Merlin, I've been praying all morning that they'd take us," enthused Rachel brightly, as she swept up a pile of leaves that had blown into the shed overnight. "Hopefully by next Summer they'll have everything sorted out and we can get out of this place,"

"That's the plan," nodded Saffron in agreement. "Only a few more days to go until the World Cup begins, maybe we could even convince them to let us stay with them until we go back to school,"

"Fingers crossed," replied Rachel hopefully. "Six weeks here is six weeks too long,"

The day stretched out as Saffron and Rachel were left outside in the breezy Welsh countryside, handling all of the gardenings that Squire wanted to be completed, whilst Maya and Rowan, who finished two hours before the two youngest Mitchell girls, lounged around upstairs idly waiting for them. Once they finished, though, they had a lot to talk about. 

Their excitement about going to the Quidditch world cup was rivalled only by their first days of school respectively. Getting to have a long enough break from Squires over the Summer was a rarity for them and a rarity they were going to savour. Additionally, Amanda and Remus were going to talk to Ms Squire about taking them and assured the siblings no issues would arise about them going. At the end of the day, all Squire cared about was her money so as long as she didn't catch wind of any potential adoption plans, it would all be okay and smooth sailing.

They talked until they were blue in the faces about Sage, Sirius, Noah and even Quidditch, which was something Saffron had never done before unless you were to count giggling about Oliver Wood with Lavender and Parvati. The conversation then drifted towards the oncoming school year in two weeks time, and Saffron's curiosity when she realised that Rachel and Rowan had chosen the exact same electives.

"I didn't really picture the two of you as Divination or Arithmancy type people," Saffron was lying on Rowan's mattress, with her brother on a cushion beside her and Maya sitting with Rachel on her bed. "I thought it wasn't something Ravenclaws usually did, Ro, only Olly and Brynn chose it last year,"

"Yeah, well, I wanted to do something different to everyone else," said Rowan slowly. "Ancient Runes is supposed to be the most difficult, and you'd be committing like social suicide if you chose A Care of Magical Creatures in Ravenclaw. It's sort of always been like that but now that Hagrid's teaching it's even worse, which is the exact reason why Luna's taking it," He paused. "Well, actually, now she's all into that stuff, to be fair,"

"And Muggle Studies is just boring," Rachel added pointedly. "It's in the name, I don't even have to take the class to know,"

"They're two fortune-telling type subjects you've chosen," remarked Maya thoughtfully, raising her eyebrows across at Rachel. Saffron sat up at that. First, the twins take two subjects together, which she never would have expected up until the end of the last school year. More importantly, they had chosen subjects linked to Clairvoyants. There was no way that was a coincidence. 

"That was so intentional," Saffron looked from Rachel to Rowan, longing for information. One of the things about being locked in Squires for most, if not all, of the day, was that it got to a point where you had very little to talk about as pretty much everything had been covered already. The reasoning behind Rachel and Rowan choosing these electives in conjunction with one another hadn't been touched upon yet. "This has something to do with your mind thing, doesn't it?"

"So what if it does?" Rachel shrugged her shoulders absently. "Isn't it good that we want to find out more about it?"

"I never said it wasn't," responded Saffron cooly. "But I'm not sure it's going to help. I can't speak for Arithmancy, but I know for a fact that Divination is a load of rubbish. The only time I ever saw something was during our exam last year, and I'm pretty sure that was only because my mind wanted me to see something,"

"What did you see?" asked Maya.

"A girl who looked like me," Saffron answered, thinking back to what she saw in the crystal ball last year. It was quite difficult to remember the details, as so much happened after that exam and the day was jam-packed of things that she would never forget. "I don't know if it was me, though, I only saw her from behind, but I thought maybe she was our mum or even either of you two," She looked up at Maya and Rachel who were sitting on the bed, as it certainly wasn't Rowan she saw. "The reason being she didn't have a ribbon in her hair, and I usually do. Anyway, I could be misremembering but it kept showing three crosses, like for an old grave or something, and once the last one disappeared from the crystal ball, the girl did to, it was really strange,"

Saffron brushed it off with a flick of her hand. "It was a load of rubbish, I was just really hot when I was in there. It didn't mean anything. Anyway, my point was doing Divination isn't going to make you any more telepathic or make it happen any sooner, and don't even think of telling Professor Trelawney about anything even close to it, she'll try and make it all about her,"

"Emilia thought it was a good idea," Rowan said as though that settled the matter, while Rachel nodded profusely in agreement and Maya stared into space tiredly. "Anyway, I'm tired, and I can tell you are too, Maya. Can we do our thing and get it over with?"

The Mitchells had a tradition, which was originally implemented as a strategy to get toddlers Rachel and Rowan to sleep all those years ago. They were teenagers now and usually didn't need to be told to go to bed but they did it anyway for old times sake.

Maya sighed, looking exhausted which Saffron found to be rather ironic considering she had done the least amount of work during the day. But she led them into their tradition, knowing she could get to sleep quicker if she did so.

"Three, two, one...!"

"Bed!" The four Mitchells chorused and as the light to their bedroom was shut off, Saffron realised that that was probably one of the last times they would ever do that together again. As ready as she was to leave Squires, her life was there and she wasn't sure she'd ever be fully ready to let that go.