Beyond the Sound || Neville Longbottom

two

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chapter twothe overly flirty partner••••

Out of all the classes she was forced to take Nia had a special love for Divination. It wasn't because she thought that telling the future was cool (even though it actually was), and it wasn't because she thought she had a special gift for it.

Nia loved Divination because it was the single most entertaining class that she'd ever had the pleasure of sitting through. Sybill Trelawney had been graced with two gifts. The first being the wonderful gift of spouting out prophecies, and the second was possessing mannerisms that would put even the coldest of heart into a fit of giggles. The entire class period was practically a comedy show, filled with muffled giggles and students laughing at the over exaggerations, and clumsiness of their teacher.

In her first year, when Nia met Sybill for the first time, she almost cried. She was glad to finally meet someone that was more forgetful than she was.

Much to Nia's initial disdain, her partner for the year was Blaise Zabini, who was undoubtedly one of the most attractive boys in her year, and this was a fact that Nia was no stranger to. It was a weird sensation. She wanted to not like the boy, but she couldn't. Every time she would turn her head there he was, just staring at her, giving her eyes.

"Today," Trewlawney started, drawing out her words in the most dramatic manner that Nia had ever seen. "Today class, we will be reading tarot, does everyone have their cards?"

Nia pulled her and Blaise's cards out of the case that sat in the middle of their table and began to shuffle them lazily.

"It seems that I've misplaced my own deck, silly me." Nia, along with the whole class, then watched as Trewlawny began to haphazardly roam around the room, stumbling over random objects, and whispering things to herself.

After about 12 minutes of watching her stumble around the classroom, she finally found her cards; after she slipped on them of course. Nia watched as Trewlaney fumbled around on the floor gathering up the spread-out cards and then jumped up and began to speak again. "Now! Let's talk about placement and how it affects the meaning of your readings."

Once that happened, Nia only vaguely paid attention to her professor's ramblings. Shuffle the cards, place the cards, interpret the cards. How hard could it really be?

Halfway through zoning out, Nia felt a presence looming over her right shoulder and turned only to see Blaise Zabini himself smirking and quietly whispering in her ear. Or at least that's what Nia thought he was doing. She watched as he pulled back, his hands still fiddling with the tarot card case that he'd taken off of the table.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes darting back to Trewlaney for a quick second. "Could you repeat that?"

And so he did. Just like the first time, he leaned in close to her right ear. "I said.... sprouting ...crumming." And just like the first time, he pulled back, smirking to himself as if he'd just said the most amusing thing in the world.

The girl quietly laughed at the small mistake the handsome boy was unknowingly making. She turned her gaze from Sybill's antics and turned her body to fully face Zabini. "Could you maybe speak up?" Nia lifted her hand to her ear and tugged lightly on it. "I'm deaf in this ear. So..." She trailed off, letting Blaise figure out on his own that he'd basically been whispering to a wall.

For a second, Blaise looked taken aback, and then, in the same second, he looked absolutely mortified. "Oh, Merlin!" He sat up straight and then began to profusely apologize.