Friends in Class

When class ended, Evita left the Potions Classroom and headed to her elective, feeling a slight headache coming on.

Of her five electives, Care of Magical Creatures was her best, and she got along well with the reckless Professor Silvanus Kettleburn.

She had been memorizing the Runes Dictionary, Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms, and Spellman's Syllabary lately, so she was also doing very well in Ancient Runes. Arithmancy required complicated mathematical tables, but Evita enjoyed it, while Muggle Studies was purely theoretical and easy for her thanks to her excellent memory.

Only Divination...

Professor Trelawney said she had a gift, but Evita didn't think so herself. She stared at the teacup with deep resentment and lowered her voice to ask Bill, who was sitting beside her, "Can you see anything?"

Bill, who had been staring intently at his own cup, answered with a profoundly mysterious and serious air, "I can't see a thing."

"Open your minds and let your sight transcend the boundaries of the mundane!" Professor Trelawney's voice rang out in the dim classroom. "Exchange your cups!"

Evita opened Unfogging the Future and read from it, comparing it with the cup. "There's a... horseshoe shape in your cup? It symbolizes good luck, and there's a rat, which means you might lose something soon. So you'll have the good luck to lose something?"

She snapped the book shut, her mouth twitching. "Nonsense. This is awful."

"There's an anchor in your cup, symbolizing safety and smooth sailing, and a crescent moon... symbolizing loss," Bill also read from the book, his voice growing quieter as he went on. The two stared at each other.

Evita slumped over the desk in agony. "I really don't understand why Divination hasn't shut down yet. This stuff is far too fanciful."

She remained dejected for a while, but soon pulled herself together and went to Arithmancy, where Professor Septima Vector asked them to use the textbook to interpret the names of the students in their groups.

"Let me see..." Evita flipped through the book. "First, we need to convert the letters in the name into their corresponding numbers."

"Bill Weasley..."

"Actually, it's William Arthur Weasley."

"Oh, sorry," Evita said offhandedly and went back to checking the corresponding numbers.

"The numbers add up to 93, which converts to 12, then converts again to 3. That's the character number, which represents personality."

"The heart number represents desires and fears," Evita continued, flipping through the book. "You add the vowels and convert the sum, which gives you 4. The social number represents the traits a person shows to the outside world. You add the consonants and convert the sum, which gives you 8."

She closed the book and declared confidently, "So you're a humorous and approachable genius with a good chance of business success. You're also practical, enjoy logical thinking, and have contradictory traits."

"I see." Evita nodded. "You're going to work for the goblins at Gringotts someday."

"The three numbers are 9, 4, and 5," Bill said, picking up where she had left off without commenting on her speculation. "Nine represents completion and success. People with this number might be teachers or humanitarians."

"It also says people with 4 and 5 value logical thinking, can be a mixture of opposites, enjoy adventure, and are willing to make new friends, but might not like staying in one place for too long."

"Sounds a little more reliable than Divination," Evita commented. "Numbers are pretty interesting."

She wrote down the homework the professor had assigned on a piece of parchment, then took the spiral staircase to Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class.

Evita chose a seat at the back of the classroom. Professor McGonagall began teaching them about Animagi, transforming into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes in front of the whole class and earning a round of enthusiastic applause.

"Can we learn to become Animagi too?" a student asked, raising a hand.

"It's very difficult," Professor McGonagall explained. "That's why there have only been seven Animagi registered with the Ministry of Magic this century. The process is very complicated, and with bad luck, you might not succeed even after years of practice."

It seems I was quite lucky, Evita thought. I only needed one summer holiday. It's simply unbelievable.

"Next, we'll continue practicing turning teapots into tortoises," Professor McGonagall said, changing the subject. "Only Miss Lorand can do it perfectly. I hope the rest of you can try harder."

Evita rested her cheek in one hand and waved her wand. After turning the teapot into a green-backed tortoise, she let her mind go blank and stared into space.

She had used the Time-Turner many times lately, not only for her studies but for all her various studies, keeping busy with everything like an octopus.

By the time she finally had a chance to catch her breath, she had learned nearly half of the advanced spells and at last had time to visit Hogsmeade.

"You look so haggard, Evita." Bill was shocked. Sitting across the round table from her, he took a sip of soda amid the swirling haze.

The Three Broomsticks was noisy, but a cheerful atmosphere filled the bar. Evita lay with her cheek against the round table and said weakly, "If you knew I had twelve classes a week and had to go to Quidditch practice or Professor Snape's office every night... you'd think I ought to be exhausted too."

Especially since she also had to find time to practice spells... Evita wouldn't have been surprised if she suddenly dropped dead one day.

Perhaps her only comfort in that painful life was that, under Snape's high-pressure guidance, she had mastered two extremely complicated potion recipes...

Bill hurriedly took a sip of soda to calm his nerves. "Is Professor Snape still..." He tactfully changed his wording. "Still guiding you?"

"Not exactly." Evita frowned. "Professor Snape just leaves me to brew potions on my own and scolds me now and then. If things go well, I walk out of his office. If they don't, I get thrown out."

Snape really was persistent. She couldn't figure out whether someone had given him a mission, the kind he wouldn't give up on until he made her a Potions Master.

Dumbledore: "Achoo-"

He sneezed and gave Snape an apologetic smile.

"When will this end?" Snape said coldly. "I don't want to see someone who is always acting on sudden whims and can't appreciate the charm of Potions at all in my office again."

Dumbledore smiled cheerfully. "Don't say that, Severus. She's a very talented and lively girl, isn't she?"

"If you're referring to her attempt to add water to turn dark green into light green," Snape said coldly, "then she clearly has an extraordinary talent only for cheating."

Dumbledore took a sip of mead and said nothing more, smiling.