"Professor Hagrid, was there something you wanted to ask me?" Oleandra said when he asked her to stay after the class ended. Everyone else was heading back up the hill to the castle.
"I wanted ter ask fer yer opinion," Professor Hagrid said. "I managed ter breed yer Lethifold wi' a Manticore."
"You didn't!" Oleandra exclaimed, aghast. "Are you trying to create an unstoppable Wizard-killing monster?"
Although any large magical creature will have inborn resilience against magical attacks, the Manticore's skin was something else entirely. The Muggle legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece was based upon this mighty creature! The Lethifold was also incredibly resistant to magical attacks. Combine the two together, and you had yourself an unstoppable flying tank, in theory.
"I did!" said Professor Hagrid proudly. "It was hard 'nuff coaxin' yer Lethifold, but the Manticore was willin' enough fer two. They'll breed wi' anythin', they will. Even wi' Fire-Crabs, which is how I got my Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
Oleandra suddenly felt very dirty; she would give Cloak a good washing before she went to bed tonight. She would also have suggested that Professor Hagrid get rid of the babies before they killed him, but she knew he wouldn't do that.
"I really don't know, Professor," she said weakly. "Maybe you should give Mr. Newt Scamander a call for advice?"
Newt Scamander had written Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and was considered the world's foremost magizoologist.
"Wha' a grea' idea!" Professor Hagrid exclaimed. "Now why didn' I think o' tha'?"
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After lunch, Oleandra and Tracey's next class was Divination. After learning last summer that Sibyll Trelawney, the Divination teacher, was actually a true Seer who believed she was a fraud, but masqueraded as a true Seer (even though she really was one), Oleandra had lost all respect for her. What could this woman possibly teach her?
But to her surprise, despite dropping the class, Oleandra found that she still had Divination in her schedule, so she resolved herself to ask Professor Trelawney for an explanation. When the bell rang, signalling the start of the afternoon classes, Oleandra and Tracey headed to the North Tower and up the silver ladder to the Divination classroom. And unfortunately, they would no longer be joined by Daphne, as she had dropped the class, since she no longer had access to her Time-Turner.
"Good day," said Professor Trelawney, gliding over to Oleandra as soon as she saw her come up from the trapdoor in the floor. "My dear, it is good to see you again."
"Good day," Oleandra replied. "I was wondering—"
"Of course, I noticed a mistake had been made as soon as I received the class register for fourth years," said Professor Trelawney theatrically. "I went to the headmaster immediately. We had the mistake rectified immediately, and added you back into my class."
"About that," Oleandra began. "I actually—"
"It would be a shame to let such talent go to waste," continued Professor Trelawney, "and I'm certain that Professor Dumbledore agrees. Now, you were about to say something, dear?"
"No, Professor," said Oleandra glumly.
The headmaster would probably be sorely disappointed if his intentions were to keep her around to get more divinations out of her, like with Professor Trelawney. However, that one prophecy would be her last; the one she had recited had been the Magus' doing! Ah well, the class was easy enough already, it wouldn't hurt much to stick around for a little longer.
Professor Trelawney glided off to sneak up behind Harry and Ron, who had come up the ladder and settled into some poufs while she'd been talking with Oleandra. No doubt she wanted to predict something terrible again.
Oleandra and Tracey found themselves some comfy-looking poufs in the outer rim of chairs. Professor Trelawney would be sitting in the centre of the round room, so with a bit of luck, she wouldn't be calling on them during class.
"My dears, it is time for us to consider the stars," Professor Trelawney said. "The movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance. Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle with the strands of the weave of fate."
Oh? This was rather interesting, Oleandra thought to herself. Stars and planets were her speciality, and spinning the graphemes of the stars into spells known as Galdr by consecutively assuming the shapes of the runes was a sort of dance. The Centaurs predicted the future by reading the celestial bodies, so this form of Divination probably had some merit…
Centaurs… Centaurs… Centaurs…
"Ah!" Oleandra exclaimed out loud.
She had completely forgotten about those fellows in the Forbidden Forest. Hadn't she promised to find them a new home beyond the stars in her first year at Hogwarts? They'd called her the Lady of the Stars, or something like that. She should probably make good on that promise sooner or later, and the same went for the Dementors who belonged in Niflheim.
"What is it, dear?" asked Professor Trelawney gently. "Do you want to try divining under which planet's influence Mr. Potter was born?"
Oleandra had stopped listening at some point and drifted off into the world of thoughts. What exactly had they been talking about? Professor Trelawney was standing next to Harry, so she must have been predicting something tragic.
"Er…" Oleandra said, looking into Harry's bleary eyes. Had he also been daydreaming?
"Go on, dear," Professor Trelawney said. "What do you feel?"
"Ingwaz, grant me inspiration," Oleandra mumbled under her breath. The contents of the lesson flooded back into Oleandra's mind as if she'd been paying attention, synapses firing and connections being reestablished.
"He must have been born when the moon was opposite Saturn," Oleandra said confidently. "This is made evident by his… familial disharmony. He was definitely born in midsummer."
She definitely knew that last part; she'd sent him a cake for his birthday.
"Very good," said Professor Trelawney approvingly. "Although, I do believe you got one detail wrong—" She turned to Harry and asked, "am I right in saying, my dear, that you were born in midwinter?"
"No," said Harry in amusement, "I was born in July."
Oleandra had to stop herself from grinning; Professor Trelawney quickly changed the subject after that, pretending like she hadn't heard anything.