When the Insurgents, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I entered the Great Hall the next day, the first thing I saw was Floppy, who seemed to be entertaining a large group of Slytherins with a very funny story. As we passed, he did a ridiculous impression of a swooning fit and there was a roar of laughter.

"Ignore him." Hermione said, who was right behind me. "Just ignore him, it's not worth it..."

"Hey, Potter!" Pratinson shrieked. "Potter! The Dementors are coming, Potter! WOOOOOOOO!"

I dropped into a seat at the Gryffindor table, next to Lee.

"New third-year timetables." Lee said, passing them over. "What's up with you guys?" 

Harry was looking irritated, Terry looking exasperated, the twins looking pissed and slightly amused at Floppy's attempt to embarrass Harry and I.

"Floppy." Terry rolled his eyes.

Lee looked up to see Floppy pretending to faint with terror again.

"That little git." He said calmly. "He wasn't so cocky last night when the Dementors were down our end of the train. Came running into our compartment, didn't he, Amy?" 

"Nearly wet himself." Amy sniggered, who had sneaked over from the Ravenclaw table.

"I wasn't too happy myself." Lee said. "They're horrible things, those Dementors..."

"Sort of freeze your insides, don't they?" Amy said.

"You didn't pass out though, did you?" I said in a low voice.

"Forget it, Softpaw." George said bracingly. "Dad had to go out to Azkaban one time, remember, Fred? And he said it was the worst place he'd ever been. He came back all weak and shaking...They suck the happiness out of a place, Dementors. Most of the prisoners go mad in there."

"So we need to cheer the place up, right? Make so much happiness that the Dementors can't suck it all out." I grinned.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Terry started to grin slowly.

"Yes! Major Prank War!" I yelled. Us Insurgents all high-fived.

"Anyway, we'll see how happy Floppy looks after our first Quidditch match." Fred said. "Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first game of the season, remember?" 

"Thanks, Red, that really cheered me up!" I exclaimed, grinning.

Did I mention that last night, I had given everyone I knew and liked phones, and now word has got around that phones are fucking brilliant, and everybody's got them in the post now? Even Floppy and the teacher's, it seems.

I put 'Gonna beat Slytherin in the first match of the year!' as my status.

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Harry Potter: Ha, we're going to beat that scum

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Felix Malfoy: I wouldn't be so sure Potter

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Terry Boot: aye, we're sure as anything, floppy

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Felix Malfoy: Shut up Boot and go away you're stupid

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Daisy Potter: says the guy who likes his own comments.

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Suzanne Wanders: BUSTED!!

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I looked at my timetable. 

All - Entire year | [c] - Students who chose the subject | G - Gryffindor | S - Slytherin | H - Hufflepuff | R - Ravenclaw

Monday 

Divination (All [c]) + Muggle Studies (All [c]) 

Transfiguration (G) 

Care of Magical Creatures (G+S [c]) + Arithmancy (G+R [c]) + Ancient Runes (G+H [c])

Tuesday 

Charms (G+R) 

Astronomy (All)

History of Magic (All)

Wednesday 

Transfiguration (G)

Charms (G+R)

Herbology (G+H)

History of Magic (All)

Thursday

Potions (G+S) 

Defence Against the Dark Arts (All)

Friday 

Transfiguration (G)

Herbology (G+H)

Charms (G+R)

Hermione had the same timetable as me. Ron tried to question how we would be in two classes at once but we successfully changed the subject.

We set off for our first class, Divination. As we passed the Slytherin table, Floppy did yet another impression of a fainting fit. I whirled around, drawing out my wand.

"Fight me!" I growled.

"Come at me, bro!" Floppy snarled back, standing up and drawing his own wand.

"C'mon then!" I yelled, as we both stepped sideways into the Entrance Hall, out of sight of the teachers.

"Swing first!"

I shot a hex at him. It hit him right in the face. Boils immediately erupted all over it. A crowd had gathered.

He shot a jinx at me but I dodged it. I deflected it back towards him. 

Minutes later, and I was striding through the corridors, the Insurgents, Harry, Ron, and Hermione behind me, everyone in the corridor parting to let us through, clapping and cheering because I'd won the duel.

Fred and George were patting me on the back, grinning, and Terry was gushing about how fantastic my spells were. Hermione was rolling her eyes, Ron yelling things like, "Fantastic! Brilliant!" and Harry cheering.

As everyone looked on admiringly, I fluffed up my hair and grinned, tossing my wand up in the air and catching it one-handed.

I updated my status on Facebook.

'Beat Floppy in a duel!'

Terry Boot, Ron Weasley, Amy Rolfing, and 108 others like this.

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Fred Weasley: fuck yeah softpaw

George Weasley: go softpaw

Terry Boot: my beautiful girlfriend showed that asshole who's boss

1 like 

Felix Malfoy: stfu all of you 

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Daisy Potter: nah, fuck off He-Who-Likes-His-Own-Comments

50 likes 

Harry Potter: OWNED

Remus Lupin: All of you please get to class!

2 likes 

Fred and George left us for Charms, and we hurried up North Tower to Professor Trelawney's classroom.

"Welcome." She said. "How nice to see you in the physical world at last."

I raised an eyebrow. Creepy...

"Sit, my children, sit." We all sat around tables, and Dean, Seamus, and I sat around a table while Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat at the one next to us, Terry, Anthony, and Michael the next one, and Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle next to that one.

"Welcome to Divination." Professor Trelawney said. "My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye. So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can only take you so far in this field..."

I looked pointedly at Hermione, and Dean and Seamus sniggered.

"Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings," everyone in the classroom looked at me, "are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future." 

"Challenge accepted." I muttered, and I low-fived Dean and Seamus.

"It is a Gift granted to few. You, boy." She said suddenly to Neville, who almost toppled off his pouffe, "Is your grandmother well?"

"I think so." Neville said tremulously.

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, dear." Neville gulped. "We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be devoted to reading the tea leaves. Next term we shall progress to palmistry. By the way, my dear," she shot suddenly at Parvati, "beware a red-haired man." 

Parvati gave a startled look at Ron, who was right behind her, and edged her chair away from him. 

"In the summer term," Professor Trelawney went on, "we shall progress to the crystal ball - if we have finished with fire-omens, that is. Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever."

A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seemed unaware of it.

"I wonder, dear," she said to Lavender, who was nearest and shrank back in her chair, "if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?"

Lavender, looking relieved, stood up, took an enormous teapot from the shelf, and put it down on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.

"Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading - it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October."

Lavender trembled.

She told us to split into pairs or threes, and read each other's tea leaves.

"Oh, and dear -" she caught Neville by the arm as he made to stand up, "after you've broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue patterned ones? I'm rather attached to the pink."

Sure enough, Neville had no sooner reached the shelf of teacups than there was a tinkle of breaking china. Professor Trelawney swept over to him holding a dustpan and brush and said, "One of the blue ones, then, dear, if you wouldn't mind...thank you..."

I got Seamus's cup. He apparently was going to come across unexpected gold - "It's because you're a leprechaun, Seamus!" - and someone was going to 'fail' him, according to our copies of 'Unfogging the Future'.

Then Dean was to read my cup. "There's a thing like a bowler hat." He said. "Maybe you're going to work for the Ministry of Magic..."

He turned the cup over. "But this way it looks more like an acorn...what's that?" He scanned his copy of Unfogging the Future. "'A windfall, unexpected gold.' Nice, you too. There's something else though." He turned the cup again. "It looks like an animal. Yeah, if that was its head...it looks like a hippo...no, a sheep..."

"You need your Inner Eye tested." I said, and Seamus snorted.

Professor Trelawney whirled around. "Let me see that, my dear." She said reprovingly to Dean, snatching my cup from him. Everyone went quiet to watch.

Professor Trelawney was staring into the teacup, rotating it anti-clockwise.

"The falcon...my dear, you have a deadly enemy."

"But everyone knows THAT." Hermione said in a loud whisper. Professor Trelawney stared at her. "Well, they do. Everybody knows about the twins and You-Know-Who."

Harry, Ron, and I stared at her with a mixture of amazement and admiration. We had never heard Hermione speak to a teacher like that before. Professor Trelawney chose not to reply. She lowered her huge eyes to my cup again and continued to turn it.

"The club...an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup..."

"Damn. I thought that was a bowler hat." Dean said sheepishly.

"The skull...danger in your path, my dear..."

Everyone was staring, transfixed, at Professor Trelawney, who gave the cup a final turn, gasped, and then screamed. 

There was another tinkle of breaking china; Neville had smashed his second cup.Professor Trelawney sank into a vacant armchair, her glittering hand at her heart and her eyes closed.

"My dear girl - my poor dear girl - no - it is kinder not to say - no - don't ask me..."

"What is it, Professor?" Terry said at once. Everyone had got to their feet, and slowly, they crowded around Dean, Seamus, and I's table, pressing close to Professor Trelawney's chair to get a good look at my cup.

"My dear." Professor Trelawney's huge eyes opened dramatically. "You have the Grim."

"The what?" I said.

Dean shrugged at me and Lavender looked puzzled, but everybody else clapped their hands to their mouths in horror.

"The Grim, my dear, the Grim!" Professor Trelawney cried, who looked shocked that I hadn't understood. "The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear girl, it is an omen - the worst omen - of DEATH!" 

Oh Merlin...That dog on the cover of Death Omens in Flourish and Blotts - the dog in the shadows of Magnolia Crescent...Lavender clapped her hands to her mouth, too. Everyone was looking at me; everyone except Hermione, who had got up and moved around to the back of Professor Trelawney's chair.

"I don't think it looks like a Grim." She said flatly.

Professor Trelawney surveyed Hermione with mounting dislike. 

"You'll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future."

Seamus was tilting his head from side to side.

"It looks like a Grim if you do this." He said, with his eyes almost shut. "But it looks more like a donkey from here." He leaned to the left.

"When you've all finished deciding whether my sister is going to die or not!" Harry said. Professor Trelawney glanced over at his cup and shrieked a second time.

"My dear boy - you too! The Grim is in your cup - oh, my -"

Nobody seemed to want to look at us.

"I think we will leave the lesson here for today." Professor Trelawney said in a hushed voice. "Yes...please pack away your things..."

Everyone packed up. Even Terry and Draco were avoiding my eyes.

"Until we meet again." Professor Trelawney said faintly. "Fair fortune be yours. Oh, and dear -" she pointed at Neville, "you'll be late next time, so make sure you work extra hard to catch up."

My next status was 'Professor Trelawney says I'm going to die lol'

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Louis Barnock: oh no daisy where would we be without your pranks

Dobby: No one shall harm Daisy Potter!

Harry Potter: DOBBY

Daisy Potter: how did you get a phone let along a FB account, Dobby?

Dobby: The kind Professor Dumbledore gave Dobby one to communicate with his friends, miss!

Daisy Potter: nice

We all descended the stairs, then us Gryffindor's split off for Transfiguration.

Terry gave me a kiss before he headed off to Potions. He wrapped his arms around my lower back, and mine slid into his hair. The Gryffindor's were all giggling behind us, and Harry was snarling. 

We broke apart. "Be careful, Daisy." Terry warned.

"Oh, shut up, you, I'll see you later after Transfiguration!" I laughed at him. But he still had that worried look in his eye as he gave me one last kiss, then stalked off. I saw Draco around another corner, but only for a second before his heartbroken face disappeared again. 

In Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall turned into her Animagus form (which was a tabby cat) and back - at which Harry and Ron looked pointedly at me - but she hardly got a reaction. She guessed that someone was going to die this year, according to Professor Trelawney, and we told her that it was Harry and I. She told us that Professor Trelawney had predicted the death of a student every year when she got a new class, and none of them had died yet.

Hermione and I used our Time Turners after Transfiguration to go back to when we were going to Divination. We went to our Muggle Studies class, taking care not to be seen by our past selves, Harry, Ron, and the Insurgents as they paraded down the corridors after the duel.

In Muggle Studies, I sat beside Shannon. We giggled and passed notes the entire time.

But in the Great Hall later, my friends were not convinced that Harry and I weren't going to die.

"WHAT?!" The twins chorused when we told them about our Divination lesson.

"Softpaw." Terry said, in a low, serious voice. "You HAVEN'T seen a great black dog anywhere, have you?" 

"Yeah, we have." I said. "We saw one the night we left the Dursley's."

Terry let his fork fall with a clatter. 

"Probably a stray." Hermione said calmly.

Everyone looked at Hermione as though she had gone mad. 

"Hermione, if Harry and Softpaw have seen a Grim, that's - that's bad." Fred said. "Our - our Uncle Bilius saw one and - and he died twenty-four hours later!" 

"Coincidence." Hermione said airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Ron said, starting to get angry. "Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!" 

"There you are, then." Hermione said in a superior tone. "They see the Grim and die of fright. The Grim's not an omen, it's the cause of death! And the twins are still with us because they're not stupid enough to see one and think, right, well, I'd better pop my clogs then!"

Ron mouthed wordlessly at Hermione, who opened her bag, took out her new Arithmancy book, and propped it open against the juice jug. 

"I think Divination seems very woolly." She said, searching for her page. "A lot of guesswork, if you ask me." 

"Professor Trelawney said you didn't have the right aura! You just don't like being rubbish at something for a change!"

"Get a room!" I cried, getting up and stalking out of the Great Hall, the Insurgent's following.

We all collapsed against a wall, chortling. 

"Good one, Softpaw!" George sniggered.

~~~

In Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid was telling us how to open our biting books.

"Oh, how silly we've been!" Floppy sneered. "We should have STROKED them! Why didn't we guess!"

"I...I thought they were funny." Hagrid said uncertainly to Hermione, Shannon, and I.

"Of course they were, Hagrid!" I beamed at him, but of course Floppy had to ruin it.

"Oh, tremendously funny!" He said. "Really witty, giving us books that try and rip our hands off!" 

Hagrid went off into the Forest and out of sight.

"God, this place is going to the dogs." Floppy said loudly. "That oaf teaching classes, my father'll have a fit when I tell him -"

"Shut up, Floppy, you prick." I said.

"Careful, Potter, there's a Dementor behind you -"

"Oooooooh!" Lavender squealed, pointing towards the opposite side of the paddock.

Things that I recognised as Hippogriffs from my reading trotted towards us.

"So." Hagrid rubbed his hands together and beamed around at us. "If yeh wan' ter come a bit nearer..."

No one seemed to want to. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Shannon, Draco, and I, however, approached (though I was dragging Draco a bit). 

"Now, firs' thing yeh gotta know abou' Hippogriffs is they're proud." Hagrid said. "Easily offended, Hippogriffs are. Don't never insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do." 

Floppy and his friends weren't listening. 

Hagrid went on to explain about Hippogriffs, then said, "Right - who wants ter go firs'?"

"I'll do it." I stepped forward bravely, grinning around at the class.

There was an intake of breath from behind me and Draco whispered, "Oh no, Daisy, remember your tea leaves!" 

I ignored him and climbed over the paddock fence. 

"Good lass, Daisy!" Hagrid roared. "Right then - let's see how you get on with Buckbeak."

I bowed to him, and Buckbeak bowed back. 

"Well done, Daisy!" Hagrid said, ecstatic. "Right - yeh can touch him! Pat his beak, go on!" 

I grinned around at the class, feeling pleased, and patted the Hippogriff's beak, and he closed his eyes lazily, as though enjoying it.

The class broke into applause, except for Floppy and Pratinson, who were looking disappointed.

Then Hagrid told me to climb onto Buckbeak's back and fly him. 

Buckbeak took off, and everyone down below shrunk in size. I quickly took out my phone and updated my status to 'Flying on a Hippogriff in Care of Magical Creatures - look out the windows!' I also took a selfie, and uploaded it to Facebook and Instagram. He flew me over the Lake, and we soared over the water. I leant down and skimmed my hand in the water, then we flew upright again, soaring around Hogwarts - every class was peering out the windows to see me - past Fred and George's window in History of Magic - I waved to them, and they looked astounded - we flew back over the Forbidden Forest and back down to the paddock. Everyone was cheering.

When everyone else was having a go, Floppy was practising on Buckbeak this time.

"This is very easy." He drawled. "I knew it must have been, if Weakling could do it...I bet you're not dangerous at all, are you?" He said to the Hippogriff. "Are you, you ugly great brute?"

Then the Hippogriff struck out at him and sliced him in the arm. Hagrid had to dash up to the school, carrying him, but what really got me was that he had called me 'Weakling'. What was that supposed to mean?

My new status was 'Floppy's dying lol'

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~~~

I went up to the hospital wing to ask him about the 'Weakling' thing and maybe taunt him a bit after Arithmancy (which I sat beside Terry and Amy in), and Ancient Runes (in which I sat beside Suzanne). I knew I shouldn't, not while Madam Pomfrey was there, but I did anyway. I'm too damn curious for my own good.

"Yo, Floppy, why'd you call me 'Weakling', huh?" I asked when I saw him lying on a bed, moaning in fake pain.

"Because you are." He smirked at me. "Tom Riddle possessed, controlled you. He USED you. He kidnapped you. You're WEAK, Daisy Potter."

I clenched my fists. "At least I'm not a snivelling, pathetic coward like you!" 

Floppy looked stunned. 

"Look at you, pretending to be all hurt! YOU'RE the weak one, and you - are - PATHETIC." I turned and strode out the door.

Go Daisy!