Crystal Balls and Stupid Boys

Lily ran down the hallway, cursing the fact that she had once again stayed after Transfiguration to discuss the lesson with Professor McGonagall. She absolutely adored her talks with her favorite Professor, but now she was running late for her least favorite and most useless class, Divination. She thoroughly disliked Vablatsky and thought the subject of Divination was entirely rubbish as a whole. She rounded a corner and ran straight into the back of none other than one James Fleamont Potter. She, along with her books and the rest of her belongings, ended up sprawled over the stone floor at Potter’s feet. Much to her indignation and annoyance, Potter was quickly turning the incident into one of his horridly juvenile jokes.

“Wow, Evans. I know I said you’d fall for me, but I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

Lily scowled up at him, her face red from exertion and embarrassment, and spoke in a sharp tone, her words biting and angry. “Fuck off, Potter. I would no sooner fall for you than I would snog a blast-ended skrewt. Now, get your Merlin’s bedamned arse off of my notes and get the hell out of my way. I’m already late for Divination as it is.”

Potter grinned, his hazel eyes glittering with barely restrained mirth as he helped gather the parchment that had scattered around them. “That’s twice this week you’ve mentioned my arse, Evans. I’m starting to think you might actually want to touch it. Feel free to cop a feel whenever you’d like; I promise I won’t mind.”

Lily let out a frustrated groan and snatched her notes out of Potter’s hands. “I do not, nor have I ever wanted to touch your arse, you absolute nutter! Out of my way!” Lily pushed past him and quickly made her way to class. Even Professor Vablatsky’s inane mutterings were better than spending any more time with that prat.

She finally made it to the Divination classroom; the incense laden air instantly gave her a pounding headache. Much to her relief, Lily had managed to sneak in as Vablatsky leaned over a crystal ball at the front of the room—probably predicting yet another terrible event or death. But just as she slid into her seat, Professor Vablatsky stood up and looked towards the back of the room and gave a watery smile. “Oh Mr. Potter, how lovely of you to join us. Unfortunately, everyone else but Miss Evans has found a partner so you’ll have to sit with her for the rest of today’s class.”

Lily’s eyes widened and shot to the entrance of the classroom, but Potter was already headed in her direction with an infuriatingly self satisfied grin. Vablatsky’s thin voice rang out again, “Quickly now Mr. Potter, the art of reading the crystal ball requires time and concentration, the former of which is quickly running out.”

Lilly gritted her teeth as Potter sat down next to her, placed his chin in his hand and gave her one of his damnable smirks. “Well Evans, I see you just can’t stay away from me. I can hardly blame you, I am quite the catch after all.”

She narrowed her eyes and shifted as far as she could to put as much distance possible between herself and Potter. “Just hurry up, would you? Let’s get this over with so I can be that much closer to this stupid day being done and I can get the hell away from you.”

Potter winced. “While that does sting a bit Evans, I shan’t take it to heart because I know that I’ll eventually win you over and that all of this will be a very distant memory.”

Lily chose to ignore Potter’s comment and proceeded to pull out her Divination text, flipping to the section on crystal ball divination. “It says here that to properly divine the future using a crystal ball, one must burn the correct herb mixture—you can start putting that together Potter—and then whoever is wanting their future to be divined must place their hands on the crystal ball as the smoke wafts around it and sinks deeply into their senses.” Lily snorted in disbelief. “I say it’s a load of rubbish, but I don’t want to deal with Professor Vablatsky any longer than I have to, so let’s get on with it.”

James handed Lily the bowl of herbs that he had prepared and she raised her wand to the lip of the bowl and lit the content with a simple Incendio. The pungent smoke rose lazily from the bowl and started to curl around the crystal ball that sat on the table before them.

James lifted his hand to one side of the large orb and cocked his head at Lily. “You ready, Evans?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Of course I am, you dunce. Not that there’s anything to be ready for, that is.” They pressed their hands to the crystal ball at the same time, their fingers pushing through the impossibly thick smoke to lay against the surprisingly cold surface. Neither one could see anything past the smoke, and they certainly couldn’t hear anything above the Professor's droning. Lily was about to remove her hand when all of a sudden, there was the flash of what looked like someone facing away from her with dark hair—hair almost like Potter’s. She looked over at James, her eyes wide with surprise. “Did you see that? Tell me you saw that and it’s not just me hallucinating from these blasted herbs and that bloody incense.”

James’s eyebrows rose, “No, I definitely saw that. I’ve never seen eyes as green as yours until today. I could almost have sworn they were yours at first.”

Lily’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Green eyes? What are you going on about Potter? There was clearly someone with dark hair, I couldn’t see their face but it almost looked like your hair.”

James looked at Lily with a funny look in his eyes but it was quickly replaced by his usual sparkling mischief. “Well, if we both saw different things, then maybe if we put both of our hands on the crystal ball, we’ll see more?”

Lly thought for a moment and then nodded tightly. “Fine, anything to get us out of here sooner.”

As soon as they each placed both of their hands on the smoke swathed ball, the image returned with much more clarity. They both stared, taking in the sight of a baby with dark hair like James and green eyes like Lily. Just as James was about to speak, the Professor's reedy voice filled the classroom.

“That is all for today students. Bring your notes on what you have divined to the next class and we will discuss them then.”

Lily yanked her hands from the crystal ball as if she’d been burned, grabbed her things and left the room before James could say anything else to her. He sat, staring at the now blank crystal ball for a few moments, but then abruptly stood with determination written across his face. He didn’t know how or when that child would come to be, but he would be damned if he didn’t do his best to make sure the child became real someday.