Painted Scars // WOLFSTAR

Year Three: Tea Leaves

There were those moments in life when big changes happened, like taking your first steps or hitting double-digits for the first time. Third year was sort of like that, in the sense that there was more freedom; becoming a third year meant gaining the ability to choose the elective classes that each student wanted, or for Sirius, it meant gaining the ability to choose the electives that his friends were choosing.

Unfortunately for Sirius, he was apparently friends with a gaggle of nerds, which meant he was stuck with Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy. Really, he had no idea how Remus had convinced them all to take Arithmancy, but he'd somehow made it seem cool at the time. Peter picking Divination was a wild card as well; his father called it 'a muggles attempt at magic,' and Sirius found himself in rare agreement.

The only one of those classes that sounded even relatively interesting was Care of Magical Creatures, James had picked it, of course, but on their first day, they discovered they wouldn't even be dealing with dangerous creatures for multiple months. If it were Sirius' choice, he would've picked Muggle Studies; he'd actually have the drive to do it, (as the thought of his mother opening his report card to an O in that class made his gut hurt with laughter,) and it really couldn't be all that hard.

But since students were only really required two electives and they'd already gone above their designated amount, Sirius decided it not necessary to take the other course just for a laugh. Even if the walk to Divination made him regret that decision, the slim, winding staircase sure to be a pain in the future.

Their first assignment was a bit of a joke–reading tea leaves, she had said, which Sirius wasn't overly excited for. He didn't much like the taste of tea, and he was required to drink a whole cup of it to get a 'proper reading.' He would've preferred palm reading to this, at least then he could trick his friends into thinking they had a short life line.

He discovered quickly that tea made from actual leaves was much stronger than tea made from those prepackaged teabags, which did not encourage him to continue drinking it. "Just down it in one go," James had suggested at his internal battle, half of his mug already gone. He groaned, eyeing the cup suspiciously before forcing his throat to swallow around it. It tasted like stagnant pond water.

"How are you drinking that?" he asked Remus in mock exasperation, the freckled boy sipping at his tea as though he enjoyed it. He shrugged.

"It's earl grey," he replied in lieu of a response. Their attention was called to the front of the room when Professor Bardot's mystical voice requested that they all pair up with someone from another group. The boys groaned; it was first year potions all over again when Sirius and James were forced to separate.

"Marlene," Sirius greeted when she made her way over with a smile. If he couldn't partner up with just the boys, he was glad she wanted to work with them. "Sit down." She did, pulling up a chair from a nearby desk and sitting on the edge, next to Peter and across from Remus.

"Who's excited to have me read to them their future?" James asked, a dazzling–and slightly condescending–smile lighting up his face.

"Piss off," Sirius said, shoving his arm with his own. It was no secret to the four of them that James wasn't a believer; the only one who actually found any truth in the loony subject was Peter, but he had the ability to favour the more fantastical classes such as Divination. James took his cup anyways, peering into it.

"Hmm," he said conversationally, "This one looks a bit like a bloated letter C. Perhaps you'll run into someone chubby with a 'C' name sometime soon."

Peter looked into the cup as well, glancing at the textbook. "It's a duck, you idiot. It represents money."