Professor Trelawney had her third years for a double-session of tea-leaf reading just before heading into the forest with the sixth years to learn about the divination discipline of xylomancy. Now, she walked with a bit of a warble and her voice was broken by the occasional hiccup as she called out instructions for the students who were gathering twigs from amongst the bracken at the edge of the forrest.

"This is malarkey," Herbert Fleet was saying as he, Cedric Diggory, and Roger Davies were rooting through moulding leaves.

"Utter and complete thestral turd," agreed Roger.

"Reckon if thestral turds are invisible?" Cedric asked.

Herbert let out a hooting cacophony of laughter. Roger was about to answer correctly when Herbert said, "Imagine if they aren't invisible and you're walking along behind a thestral and he's invisible but he takes a shat and you just see the turd appear in thin air!"

Cedric laughed to the point of tears as Roger Davies shook his head and decided not to justify their stupidity with the real answer.

"How the blazing many sticks do we need for this stupid exercise?" Herbert asked.

"Thirteen," Roger said.

Cedric sighed.

"That's it, I'm making my own fortune," Herbert announced and he reached into a tree and started snapping twigs off.

"You can't do that," Roger said, "That's not how xylomancy works. They have to be naturally fallen twigs you happen upon and --"

"I'm sorry, xylomancy is divination," Herbert said, "Which means it doesn't work."

Roger shrugged. Once, he'd been a disbeliever, too, but then again in fourth year his crystal ball had forseen his parents divorce before anyone else had done. He was a skeptic, sure, but one with a healthy respect for the possibility that there may be some merit to the art of fortune telling on some level, perhaps, sometimes.

"I'm just saying," Roger said, "It takes like two extra seconds to get twigs off the ground."

"Ah but my twigs aren't covered with invisible manure."

Cedric grabbed the last of his twigs, sending a whole nest of spiders running off in all directions from where he'd pulled it out of the bracken and he tossed it into the pile he'd formed by the edge of the path next to Roger's. Roger was organizing his own pile and Cedric climbed back over a fallen trunk to count the twigs on his stack. "Thirteen," he said gleefully.

Through the trees, Trelawney's voice was carrying on and on.

"On a scale of one to the whole bottle, how much sherry d'you reckon she's under right now?"

Roger said, "She had the third years before us - tea leaf reading - there's more sherry than there is tea in her cup during that."

Cedric chortled and followed Roger and Herbert back down the path to where the rest of the class was, some were still gathering their twigs, but most had finished and returned already to form a circle 'round  the rock that Professor Trelawney had set herself upon, her eyes wide and magnified behind her inch-thick glasses, her shawls hanging off her like colorful drapes.

"D'you reckon anything she's predicted has ever actually been accurate?" Cedric asked. "Remember last year, when she had half the school waiting for Harry Potter to drop dead in the corridor at any moment?"

"Poor bloke," Roger Davies said, shaking his head. "At least usually when she says she's seen the grim she does it to a student who's had her a couple terms and knows how she goes on about it every year.... Knows it's a tradition." He laughed.

"Ah traditions," Herbert said, chucking his sticks to the ground at his feet and flinging his arm about Cedric's neck so suddenly that Cedric's sticks fell from his arms and mixed with Herberts as they kicked and wrestled, laughing loudly. The sticks scattered across the grass and Roger jumped out of the way as they rolled about, dropping his own among theirs, too.

"You guys c'mon," Roger complained. He was all one for messing about, but he also liked order in the classroom - being a Ravenclaw he did, after all, consider learning very important. And, worse, their horseplay had garnered Trelawney's attention. "Guys, knock it off, Trelawney's coming over." She was wobbly and they had time to scramble to their feet, their robes and hair disheveled.

"What is going on over - hiccup - here?" Trelawney asked. "Such a disruption to the class! Sixth years, you ought to be ashamed, acting like OOHhh!" she stopped dead in her tracks and covered her face with both palms, then sanctimonously made the sign of the cross touching her forehead, heart and shoulders with her eyes even wider than usual.

"What's'matter?" Herbert asked, grinning.

Trelawney was staring down at the spread-about sticks, a look of horror on her face. Students were tightening the circle, scrambling to look at the pile of sticks.

"Whose twigs are these!?" Trelawney asked, waving her palm over the giant mess of thirty nine twigs.

"All of ours," Cedric said, shrugging. "Herbert threw his down and knocked mine and Davies out of our arms."

"I mean, THESE twigs," Trelawney said, pointing to just a portion of them that had fallen.

"Dunno," Roger said, "As Ced just said, Herbert threw his down and knocked ours down, they got mixed up..."

"Oughtn't you know whose is whose with divination?" Herbert asked, wagging his fingers.

"Oh no," said Cedric, suddenly realizing what was coming.

"The twigs! They form -- the - the grim!"

"We ought to have seen it coming, chaps," said Cedric, sighing as the three of them walked back up the hill to the castle, bringing up the rear of the long line of students headed back in for dinner in the Great Hall.

Herbert shook his head, "I'm sorry I called attention to us."

"It'll be alright, Fleet," Roger Davies said, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Cedric said, "Well, at least it's not some pathetic kid that doesn't know. Like we said before - it's tradition. We know better than to believe her rubbish."

Herbert smirked, "I liked how she couldn't even decide which of us the twigs belonged to. So much for divination."

They paused on the stairs going into the castle and Roger Davies leaned against the stone bannister, looking up at the castle. "Well I'll tell you what; you lot might think I'm mental for this but - I think that was the final straw on this camel's proverbial back. I'm definitely not putting my name in for the tournament."

"What's this got to do with the tournament?" laughed Cedric.

"It's a death omen, Diggory," Roger said ominously. "That's what."

"Oh c'mon, Davies, surely you aren't superstitious. Besides that, we've just all agreed it's a tradition for Trelawney to pick someone to be the person who gets the grim."

"Yeah well - tradition or not, I don't fancy signing up for a deadly game the same time that I've just been declared the person who's gotten this year's grim!"

"It could be any of the three of us!" Cedric argued.

Roger shrugged. "Dunno, Ced, I'm just saying that I'm not taking chances." He stood upright, "Anyway. I'm heading to dinner. I'll see you lot, hey?"

"Bye Davies," Cedric said, waving half-heartedly.

"Don't let the grim bite'cha!" called Herbert, grinning wickedly. But when Davies was up the stairs and had ducked through the doors, he turned to Cedric. "Tell me you're giving up on the Triwizzy thing, too."

Cedric shook his head, "Are you kidding, mate? If Davies isn't going for it, that means the pool of possible entrants just went down even smaller. My odds just went up if anything. Sounds to me like the grim is a good luck omen, if it was even there at all. Nothing about those sticks looked like a black dog to me." He shook his head and patted Herbert on the back. "C'mon, I dunno about you but I'm exhausted from being up half the night and that damned trek in the woods - let's get some food and head up to the dorms and get some sleep."

"Alright," Herbert said, and he followed Cedric up the stairs, passing by a cluster of fifth year girls who giggled and turned to watch Cedric go by.

"Hi Cedric," called one of the girls, playing nervously with the long strands of black hair that hung over her shoulders, her almond eyes bright with hope.

"Hey Cho," Cedric answered without hardly a glance up as he passed by.

"Hi Cho," said Herbert, grinning at her.

But Cho had already turned back to giggling with the other girls.