"Great Green!"
Fred whipped off a red-and-green striped hat and bowed dramatically to Sean.
"So you're finally coming to the Burrow with us?" George popped out from behind a portrait next to Sean's head.
Sean went quiet for a second. Professor McGonagall had said yes instantly and even offered to take him to Diagon Alley over the summer for some presents.
She'd told him the Weasleys were a solid wizarding family (multiple generations of proud Gryffindors).
But Professor Snape…
The man was drowning in work.
Literally. He barely had time to breathe between classes. When Sean went down to the dungeons to brew, Snape just left a seventh-year Ravenclaw who'd stayed back for NEWT-level Potions to supervise.
At least he seemed to love being the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Even when he looked like death warmed over, he still didn't dock Gryffindor a single point.
Harry especially was suffering.
Used to be he only had to survive two Potions classes a week. Now he had to tiptoe through four Defense lessons. He spent every meal moaning to Ron about Snape's "evil crimes."
Funny thing: under Snape's teaching, Harry's Defense marks had skyrocketed.
It made Harry's feelings about the professor even weirder. He wasn't a nice teacher, but… he was a damn good one.
The stuff he taught wasn't as neat or fun as Sean's notes, but it was deeper, broader; miles ahead in raw knowledge.
Because Snape was so swamped, Sean never found the right moment to ask about the summer.
Also, Snape still seemed completely in the dark about everything that had happened at the trapdoor. He'd only talked to Dumbledore, and the headmaster apparently never mentioned the kids.
Right outside the caretaker's office.
"Sorry, I can't decide yet," Sean said, dipping his head.
"Great Green, your loyal followers will wait a hundred years!" Fred declared with a ridiculous flourish.
Sean just looked at the twins. Fred grinned, then the two of them turned their attention to the caretaker's doorknob.
"Weird little biter. Think we could copy it, George?"
Fred poked the knob. It snapped and snarled, but Fred kept his fingers just out of reach.
Sean's face went strange. Then Fred yelped.
"Who upgraded the bloody thing?! It bit straight through my hand!"
"Perfect! One hole down, one to go—"
George cackled.
Before Sean left, it hit him: the Weasleys hadn't pranked Filch in ages.
The sky outside the castle was crystal clear. Perfect night for stargazing.
Deep in the Forbidden Forest, thick branches blocked every scrap of light. Sean felt eyes on him.
Fang came bounding over a second later, rubbing against his legs.
Then Hagrid appeared, leading Woo-Woo and feeding him extra scraps. First male thestral in the forest; always got spoiled.
"Sean! Looks like a good one tonight!"
Hagrid didn't understand the mystical star stuff, but he was happy when his friends were.
"See you later, Hagrid."
Sean nodded and kept walking.
Firenze was already waiting in the clearing, staring up at the sky.
Not far off, foals galloped around while a circle of centaur elders taught the next generation.
"Clouds are hiding the planets. Patience," Firenze said.
Sean settled in quietly beside him.
The foals made a racket. Firenze spoke in his usual slow, calm voice.
"Centaurs never interfere with what the stars decree. We believe everything is fated. We have followed this law for centuries.
Seeing the future made us proud. We stopped caring about the other creatures on this land. One day, when every fighter falls, the centaur herds will face a great crisis."
His eyes glowed bright blue.
"Sean, in the clear patches of sky, Jupiter shines strong. Our meeting was no accident.
We are both outcasts…"
Centaurs always spoke in riddles, just like their smoke readings.
Sean leaned against a boulder and stared at the endless stars.
"Tonight you learn to read planetary brightness."
That's when Sean realized why divination was so unreliable.
Brightness changed with clouds, seasons, nearby planets; a dozen things.
Trying to judge with the naked eye alone was a joke.
Firenze's solution?
"Experience. And feeling."
Sean translated: talent or dumb luck.
[You practiced divination magic at apprentice level. Proficiency +1]
Third success.
Maybe he had a tiny spark after all.
"You've found guidance from your planet," Firenze said, nodding.
They lit sage and mallow again. Wind whipped through the forest, shaking the beech trees and twisting the smoke into wild shapes.
They had to wait for the breeze to die down. Firenze explained that in different seasons, for different houses of the sky, centaurs used different herbs.
The quality and state of the herbs changed the reading too.
Watching the smoke and the stars, Sean suddenly wondered: was this another kind of ritual magic? Ancient, deep, forgotten?
…
Divination progress crawled, but every moonless night when the stars blazed, Sean went to the forest.
Bane, an older centaur, sometimes showed up to drag curious foals away and snort at Firenze.
Firenze wasn't popular among his kind; he was shunned. He sighed about it, but never wavered.
And just like that, exam week arrived.
The air was thick and sticky. The Great Hall turned into a sweatbox. Professors handed out brand-new quills enchanted with Anti-Cheating charms.
Everything looked chaotic, but really there were only two kinds of tests: theory and practical.
Morning of the first day: practical.
Charms exam.