Brighter Than the Sun

Chapter Forty-Eight

"Ash, are you okay?" Harry asked, breaking the silence.

"What... what do you mean?" I asked. Maybe it had been just me who'd seen the green smoke.

"You just... blanked out."

"Oh. Well, I do that all the time."

"Not in the middle of a sentence," Ron said. "And your eyes were all weird too."

"My eyes were weird."

"Yeah, they were sort of glowing green."

"My eyes are blue, Ron."

"I'm not thick, Ash, I know they're blue," Ron grumbled.

"They turned green while you were spacing out," Harry explained. "Then just now, when you came back, they turned blue again. It sort of reminded me of... of when..." he trailed off and cast a nervous glance at Ron.

"Reminded you of what?" I asked.

"Well... It... it sort of reminded me of when Trelawney... when she spoke that prophecy last year."

I frowned. "Was there green smoke everywhere?"

Harry blinked. "Well, no, but your eyes—"

"Was I talking in a raspy voice?"

"No."

"Then it wasn't a prophecy," I said stoutly.

"Did you See anything?" Ron asked.

I thought about the scene I'd witnessed: Luke betraying Percy and leaving camp forever to serve Kronos. He'd summoned a pit scorpion to finish Percy off, but it obviously hadn't worked, because I'd seen plenty of visions from the future that showed me a much older Percy.

"No," I said slowly. "I... I didn't See anything. I just — I just spaced out. Probably got distracted or something. You know how my ADHD is."

"Ash—" Harry tried.

"So, what's going to happen to me on Tuesday?" I wondered loudly, trying desperately to change the subject. "I know! Jab is going to try to rip my face off!" I seized my quill and energetically scribbled down my fate.

As I moved on to Wednesday, I noticed Harry and Ron exchange a wary look. I tried to ignore them and instead stared around the room, trying to think of a kind of misfortune I hadn't used yet. I noticed Fred and George sitting together against the opposite wall, heads together, quills out, poring over a single piece of parchment.

It was extremely unusual to see Fred and George hidden away in a corner and working silently; they usually liked to be in the thick of things and the noisy center of attention. There was something secretive about the way they were working on the piece of parchment, and I was reminded of how they had sat together writing something back at the Burrow. I'd assumed it was another order form for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, but it didn't look like it this time. If it had been, they would've let Lee Jordan in on the joke. Maybe it had something to do with the Triwizard tournament.

As I watched, George shook his head at Fred, scratched out something with his quill, and said, in a very quiet voice that barely carried across the almost deserted room, "No — that sounds like we're accusing him. Got to be careful..."

Then George looked over and saw me watching him. I didn't want him to think I was eavesdropping, so in a moment of a indecision, I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him. He snorted loudly and wheezed a laugh, which caused Fred to look over and see me making the weird face, which caused him to start laughing, too. Harry and Ron looked at them in bewilderment as the twins guffawed loudly. Once they'd finally calmed down, the twins rolled up their parchment, said good night, and went off to bed.