Kim Shimmers and the Screech Owl
This Harry Potter fanfiction will be posted, as long as all goes well, every week around midweek. (I’m trying out the weekend for now to see how it goes)
Chapter 6
Hogsmeade
Kim ran her finger along the spines of books in the magical creatures section of the library. She’d been in there for days, hunting through tomes of dark omens and obscure divination practices. Still she couldn’t make any sense of what had happened with Professor Trelawney.
“You’re wasting your time,” Hermione reminded her, once again, from where she sat writing an essay on star patters for Astronomy.
“I know you think everything about divination is completely stupid,” Kim said, forcing a book that was too large for its place back on the shelf, “but I just don’t think it’s 100% a waist.”
“Why bother with something that’s 99% a waist then?” she asked, looking up.
Kim sighed, sinking into the chair across from her and rubbing her eyes. She’d been pouring over books for hours, and unlike Hermione, this wasnot how she wanted to spend her Saturday. She’d much rather be spending it with Fred and George, or even going to watch Harry run practice rounds for quidditch season coming up like Ron had done.
“Maybe you’re right,” Kim finally said. She was running out of books to skim through anyway, and she had long since run out of patience. “I don’t understand Trelawney.”
“No one does. She’s not meant to be understood,” Hermione muttered, scribbling more of her essay.
“She does do that thing where she’s kind of… purposefully mysterious for no reason.”
Hermione let out a breathy laugh. “Exactly. Don’t worry yourself about it. You have a pet owl, and for whatever reason she decided that meant you were a harbinger of death, or something completely insane like that,” she said, laughter in her voice. She even looked back up and started speaking in a terrible impersonation of Professor Trelawney. “Beware, Shimmers. That owl sucks away aura and steels… socks!”
At this Kim exploded into laughter, not expecting Hermione to go so out of her way to be funny. Hermione laughed at herself as well, and at Kim’s enjoyment. They chuckled together, gripping their sides until a befuddled Hufflepuff told them to please shush!
From then on, Kim let go of her search, though she didn’t totally abandon Divination. Quite the opposite, actually, she started studying it outside of class, seeing as how Kim had a hard time focusing with the ridiculous show Trelawney put on every day. Kim thought she was actually becoming quite attuned to the concept of Heptomology. It was far beyond the third year level, but Kim felt she was ready to give one of the future reading methods a try. In secret, of course.
With a combination of dried herbs (borrowed from the Herbology gardens) burnt to produce aroma, and muttered incantations for focused magical power, one should be able to meditate and awaken a spiritually unclouded state. It is in this state in which the future can be made clear. Kim followed the instructions in the book she’d borrowed from the library, for this was far beyond the introductory Unfogging the Future. She sat on her bed cross-legged, planning to claim this was an extra credit assignment for Divinations if someone walked in on her. She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of the burning shrivelfig root and moly stems. It smelled mostly of burning plant, but after a few inhales, Kim’s head started to feel a bit light. Not dizzy, but hazy. Like she wasn’t quite present in this world.
She let her mind wander through the sensations of sitting as still as absolutely possible. She did it for a long time. A time she wasn’t sure how long. In fact, she wasn’t sure about time at all. When she opened her eyes she felt clear again, like a fog had lifted, and she could hardly remember the fuzzy feeling from before. She was also certain that the magic hadn’t worked, because the only thing she felt was a strong desire to go find Fred and George. But that wasn’t odd, was it?
