Mountain Fold (Oliver Wood)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A heavy perfume clouded the air along with the student's minds. Divination wasn't the most interesting subject in the first place, but the heavily scented fog did nothing to lengthen their attention span. The only students who seem to be able to pay attention were the ones with a genuine interest in Divination, and those students were few and far between. Anna definitely wasn't one of those students. After years of attending the class, her brain has come to associate it with sleep and relaxation. She was tired the moment she entered the room; it was classical conditioning at its finest. But somehow today was different, the perfume and cosy chairs were failing her. Not that she was paying attention to the class, that would be absurd, but she definitely wasn't sleepy. In fact she didn't even look remotely relaxed. Her attentiveness didn't go unnoticed, Darian was getting worried. He couldn't remember the last time they had been awake for Divination. He waited until Professor Trelawney was on the other side of the room, before gently poking Anna's arm to get her attention.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He gently asked.

"It's nothing," Anna replied quietly, turning her attention back to the crystal ball they were meant to be focusing on. But Darian could tell she wasn't really focused on the ball, it was probably the last thing on her mind at the moment. He gently nudged her again, cautiously eyeing Professor Trelawney as she made her way around to different students.

"Come on Anna," he gently encouraged. She let out a sigh of defeat.

"I'm worried about Zinnia," she admitted reluctantly. Darian waited a second for her to clarify.

"I'm worried that people are bullying her," she tells him. Realisation dawned on Darian. Anna was very overprotective of her friends and also tended to overthink thing, this led to her often worrying about her friends.

"You don't have to worry Anna; Marcus and his friends have left her alone ever since you beat him up last year."

"That is an extreme over exaggeration," Anna huffed. Darian giggled at her indignant look but was quickly quieted by Professor Trelawney's glare. He noticed that Anna was still looking a little worried.

"Anna, if Zinnia felt like she was in trouble she would tell us. She's happier than she's ever been, especially now that she has Alicia. You're making up problems that don't exist. You're overthinking things so much that you're worrying about things that are even happening. Zinnia's fine."

That finely seem to calm Anna down, "thank you Darian," she said sincerely, giving him a smile.

Professor Trelawney had finally made it over to them, looking at them expectedly for a prediction. Neither on them had really been paying attention to the crystal ball in front of them. If fact they had nearly forgotten that it was there.

"Ahhh, I see a pine marten sitting on a book," Darian made up, if Divination has taught them anything it's how to improvise an answer, "the marten is getting off the book and walking towards a compass, next to the compass is a midnight black cat sitting in front of a knife. The cat destroys the knife and the marten and cat sit next to each other before going their separate ways."

Professor Trelawney very impressed and went into a detailed analysis of what it all meant. Even Anna was impressed with Darian improvisation skill, although it all just sounded like nonsense to her.

Anna was truly grateful to have Darian as a friend. He was the first friend she had made at Hogwarts. They had known each other for years and he always seem to know what to say to make her feel better. She knew that even if Darian started hanging out with other people more or they left school and went their separate ways, they would still be friends. The same goes for Zinnia. They were more similar than her and Darian, but she loved them both equally. Darian was the friend that she could go to for advice and was pushing her out of her comfort zone but never pushed her too far. While Zinnia made Anna life feel brighter, she was so kind, and Anna always enjoyed relaxing by the fireplace with her. She only wanted them to be happy which is why she worried about them so much. Anna wondered what she did to deserve such amazing friends.

AN: Sorry for not updating in forever. This uni semester was a lot. I also had trouble writing this chapter and I've writing a little bit of it everyday but I really wasn't having fun with it and I'm not too happy with how it turned out. It's also VERY short so sorry about that