“Divination next,” Peter Pettigrew, a third-year boy, informed his three best friends as they walked down the hall. “We’d better go get our stuff.”

“Divination,” groaned Sirius Black, a very handsome boy with dark hair. He was being stalked by several giggling girls. “Why did I sign up for that?”

“Because the rest of us did,” answered pale, thin Remus Lupin promptly.

“And ickle Sirikins couldn’t bear the thought of being left out,” sniggered James Potter, who was checking to see whether his crush, Lily Evans, was among the Sirius stalkers. (She wasn’t, of course.) Tall, bespectacled James, with his hazel eyes and messy raven hair, was regarded as nearly as attractive as Sirius by everyone but Lily.

*****

“Look who’s here,” said Sirius fifteen minutes later. The four Marauders had joined the other Gryffindor and Hufflepuff third-years at the top of the North Tower to wait for Professor Brookes’ trap door to open.

James looked around so fast that his head was a blur. “Evans?” he asked hopefully.

“No,” sighed Peter. “You’re obsessed with that girl, James.”

“It’s Sybill Trelawney, the Hufflepuff girl with her brain screwed in backwards,” Remus supplied helpfully.

James quickly spotted her. Sybill was a batty-looking girl with stringy pigtails whose Hogwarts robes were almost hidden under layers of outrageous shawls and beads. She wore very, very thick glasses which magnified her eyes to inhuman size. She was telling anyone who would listen about her “inner eye.”

“She doesn’t need an inner eye if her real ones are that big,” James muttered to his friends.

Suddenly, the trap door swung open. While everyone else looked wary, Sybill eagerly clambered up. The Marauders and their classmates were left with no choice but to follow- though Sirius thought there was a lot to be said for skipping class.

The classroom looked very little like a classroom. Cushiony stools were placed in groups of three or four around small tables. Another, larger table held books, tea sets, and crystal balls. A fire was burning in the grate, and the whole room smelled faintly of perfume.

Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter placed their books at one table and sat down. They looked up at Professor Brookes, a tall witch with gray hair that fell past her waist. She wore no glasses and only one shawl and five strands of beads. Sybill appeared to have tried and failed to mimic her style.

Professor Brookes began the lesson by lecturing them on the “mystical art of Divination” and the many methods of telling the future. Sybill was on the edge of her seat. Sirius was beginning to wonder again just why he was taking this stupid subject.

“All right,” Professor Brookes said loudly. “When you have finished your tea, you may begin to interpret the omens in each others’ cups.”

The Marauders realized for the first time that there were steaming cups of tea in front of them.

“Here, Sirius,” said James a few moments later, pushing his empty cup toward his best friend. “You do mine.”

Sirius peered into the teacup. “Umm… I guess that could be a big dog….”

“The Grim,” said Remus, looking up from his book. “That’s a death omen. Sudden, violent death to be specific.”

Peter shivered.

“You don’t honestly believe this stuff, do you?” Sirius rolled his eyes. “Yeah, listen. James here will die heroically at the hands of an evil wizard while trying to protect, er… somebody. And so will I,” he added quickly, realizing he’d just given James the best possible death scene.

“What’ll I do before I die?” asked James, interested now. Sirius continued, all tea leaves forgotten.

“Why, you’ll marry Evans of course! And have a lovely little baby.”

James grinned, a dreamy look in his eye, then glared at Remus and Peter as they began to chuckle. “It’s not funny, you know!” he said indignantly.

“Sorry, James,” Remus sighed, “but Lily hates you. Probably always will.”

“She thinks you’re an arrogant, flea-bitten prick,” said Peter very solemnly. “With messy hair.”

“She’s playing hard to get,” insisted James, turning back to Sirius. “Any more details about Evans?”

“The future is foggy,” his friend intoned mystically, waving his hands in either a very good impression of Sybill Trelawney or a terrible impression of Professor Brookes. “I do see, however, they you will become an Aurour. Quite a good one. You might even be rich.”

“Hey!” whined Peter, “why does he get the good future?”

“He doesn’t! He’s going to die young, remember?” Sirius protested. “I’ll do yours if you want, Pete.”

“Don’t call me Pete,” the other boy mumbled, pushing Sirius his empty teacup.

“I don’t need that,“ Sirius scoffed. “I can see into the Beyond without it.”

This drew more laughter from the others. Sybill was now glaring at them disapprovingly, though Professor Brookes didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Right then,” Sirius began again, “I can see that, you, Pete, will become… an evil minion!”

As Peter’s mouth dropped open and the other three howled with laughter, Sybill was marching to the professor’s desk and tattling for all she was worth. This went unnoticed by the four friends until Brookes appeared and took ten points from Gryffindor. “It will be detention if you don’t quiet down,” she warned.

“I won’t be a minion!” said Peter in an undertone when she had gone.

“Oh yes you will. You’ll help-er, an evil lord, defeat-er, the good guys. But you’ll lose. Of course.”

“No fair! I want a different future!” Peter whined- much too loudly.

“Silencio!” Professor Brookes snapped, pointing her wand at the Marauders. “And detention for all of you!”

Sybill Trelawney smirked.
When the silencing charm wore off, Sirius (unperturbed by any punishment) continued in hushed tones. “Very well,” he sighed, “you can be a Herbologist, Pete. You won’t be world-famous, but fairly well-known locally.” Peter looked reasonably pleased, so Sirius added, “And then you’ll be a minion.” James and Remus stuffed their fists in their mouths to keep their laughter silent this time.

“But enough about you, what about me?” said Sirius loftily. “What will I do before my heroic death?” He thought for a moment formulating his own perfect future, then answered himself, “I will, of course, escape from my dreadful family! I will be an Auror, like James, but then, in an unexpected turn of events, I will be arrested and sent to Azkaban.” He paused for effect.

“On what charges?” Remus asked. He could defiantly see Sirius in prison.

“Oh, I haven’t decided yet. I may be framed or it may simply be my unlawfully good looks.” He winked. Remus rolled his eyes, but several girls, who were choosing to look at Sirius rather than their teacups, seemed to agree.

“What else?” James prompted. Sirius reluctantly tore his eyes away from the girls to continue.

“I’ll escape,” he said. “I’ll be rescued from the clutches of certain doom by a beautiful girl on a hippogriff and ride off into the sunset.”

He grinned at his fan club, who twittered like nervous canaries. One bold soul spoke up. “I’ll rescue you, Sirius!”

He grinned roguishly at her. “Will I see you in Hogsmeade next weekend?”

“Ooh, yes,” she squealed, blushing.

“Anyway“, Remus said pointedly, attempting to bring Sirius back to earth. “What were we talking about again?”

“I dunno,” muttered Sirius, busy staring at his sixty-ninth new girlfriend (Remus and James were counting).

“Anyone home, Sirius? Predictions!”

“Oh, yeah… predictions… Um, then I’ll be on the run for several years, frequently evading Ministry capture and people who want me dead. And then I’ll die. Heroically. In an attempt to beat the evil lord who killed my best friend and avenge said friend.” He put on a brave, tragically heroic face. New Girlfriend #69 sighed with delight. Old Girlfriends #56 and 60 watched with envy, and #68 burst into tears.

“Now for Remus,” Sirius said, with a slightly evil grin. He had already planned a very special prediction for him. “Remus,” he began, deciding to save the best part for last, “will become a professor here at Hogwarts. Defense, as a matter of fact. Dear old Dumbledore will let him in despite his ly-”

“Shut up!” hissed three voices at once.

“Okay, furry little problem then. Back to the future. So, after James and I die tragically young and Pete becomes an evil minion, Remus will fall madly in love.”

The next thing Sirius was aware of was Remus’s secondhand copy of the “Dream Oracle” connecting painfully with the top of his head.

“Ow!”

“Really, Remus, violence? It’s not like you,” said James.

Remus mumbled something incomprehensible and hid his face behind the tattered book. “Go on, Sirius,” prompted Peter.

“I will,” he replied, rubbing the top of his head resentfully. “Remus will be very depressed for, oh, about fifteen years or so, due to James and I dying and Peter’s betrayal. Then, when he is drowning in his sorrow, all alone in the cold world, he will fall deeply in love with-” Sirius cast about for the most random name he could think of, “-Nymphadora Tonks.”

“What?” spluttered Remus, who was now a very interesting shade of scarlet. “Your cousin Dora?”

“The very same.”

“But- but-”

“But what?”

“Sirius, she’s nine months old!”

Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be your soul mate someday,” Sirius laughed. “This is in about twenty-five years, remember?”

“Great,” Remus grumbled, rolling his eyes. “So she’ll be twenty-five and I’ll be, what, thirty-eight, thirty-nine. Whatever you say.”

“The fans’ll love it,” said Peter wisely.

“What?”

“…Nothing…”

“So, Remus,” Sirius continued, “your beautiful Dora will love you sooo much that she won’t care about your ‘little problem’ and the two of you will get married and live happily ever after. The end,” he finished with a mocking bow. Remus turned redder than ever.

“You know, Sirius,” he said as they were leaving the classroom, “I’m really glad you’re not a real Seer. If any of this madness came true, I don’t know what I’d do.”