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Anthracomancy


James and Sirius and Lily were all half asleep in class the next day. James fell asleep in Transfiguration in the morning, his forehead slamming against the desk, and McGonagall walked down the aisle with a sour expression on her face, coming to a stop directly beside James as Sirius nudged him quickly, “James, wake up, Minnie knows your napping.”

He got himself a detention for the following Tuesday.

At lunch, Remus snuck off for the Shrieking Shack and Sirius was very tempted to skip all the afternoon classes to go with him, but one of the afternoons was Divination and they all had such poor grades in that already that Remus insisted they go. “I need the notes, you guys,” he pleaded. So Sirius found a charm to keep his eyelids from closing so that he couldn’t fall asleep and took the most meticulous notes he’d ever done in his entire life. Peter looked over halfway through and asked if he could borrow them later, and Sirius said, “Only after Moony’s done with them.”

“Well he’s in the Shack overnight so can’t I use them tonight?” Peter asked.

Sirius replied, “No because he won’t be in the Shack, he’ll be in the woods and so won’t you. We all will be.”

James looked over, “Are you numb in the mind? I have Quidditch this evening and I do plan to sleep tonight.... Tomorrow’s Hogsmeade!”

“And tonight’s the full moon,” Sirius hissed. “You’ve seen Hogsmeade. There’s so much still to explore in the forest. And besides I have a plan.”

“Merlin. Not a plan.” James shovelled food into his mouth.

That afternoon in Divination, they all gathered around the firepit Professor Clearwater had set up and watched consulted the spirits of the fire and air and taught them about Anthracomancy - a sort of divination that had to do with reading the coals. “These are anthracite coals,” Professor Clearwater was saying as she used a long poker to push them about the great brass bowl at the front of the room in which the embers burned. “They have a special coating that helps the god of fire speak through them… His words and touch is remembered by the stone!”

The whole room was hotter than blazes and James was tugging at his Gryffindor tie, loosening it up. Sirius had his eyes closed, though he was awake and he sighed. Peter was on the edge of his seat, staring down at the coals as they glowed red and black and smoke tendrils rose up from among them.

Professor Clearwater stirred and stirred and then one particular coat seemed to strike her interest and she used her poker to push it to the edge of the brass bowl. “Yes, we have a message… and who is it for…” she ran her poker along the edge of the basin and came to a stop before James, who had finally gotten his tie off and was looking down as he rolled it in his lap. “James Potter,” she said clearly.

He looked up. “Sorry, Professor, I was hot, I had to take off my tie and --”

“Fire has chosen you,” Professor Clearwater said, “Take the coal.”

James blinked, “Excuse me?”

“Take the coal!” she used the poker to push it to him.

The coal burned red-hot and James blinked, perplexed, “I dunno, do you have gloves or something?” he looked about.

“I’ve my beaters gloves…” Sirius said, opening his bag.

“No, Mr. Potter, take up the coal - with your hand. Your will feel the place the fire gods have touched it… you’ll put your fingers in the same places as the gods!”

“But… ma’m. It’s a hot coal. I’ll burn my damned skin off.” James stared up at her.

“You will not. The gods have cooled the coal where you must touch. Go on. Take up the coal.”

Sirius looked at James helplessly, and James took a deep breath and reached forward for the black stone, nervous, and preparing himself for the sting of a burn. But Professor Clearwater was right, the places his fingers naturally gravitated toward on the coal were not hot, they were actually quite cool and he easily lifted it. He could feel that the coal was very, very hot, just not beneath his fingertips. It was a very strange sensation - the heat of it radiating against his palm.

“Come, over here.” Professor Clearwater motioned for James to come around the basin and she motioned to a clear bowl of water and a large parchment on her desk. “You’ll put your hand bearing the coal into this bowl of sea water, and when the coal has gone black, you’ll pull it out, smash it against the parchment… and we will read your fortune.”

“Alright.” James thought this was really stupid but he went along with it anyway. He shoved his hand into the water, which was thick with the salt from the sea and he swished his wrist about a bit. The water was cold and the ember quickly turned from red-hot to black. He pulled it out and put it on the parchment and brought his hand down over it, splattering the coal so that it burst, like a firework against the parchment, making an interesting sort of sundial mark.

“Draw at random with it, Mr. Potter, drag it across the parchment in whatever ways you feel moved to do.”

James felt moved at nothing so he sort of squiggled it about for a moment in a series of random lines and dashes, dragged it along one side and zig-zagged it about, finally, the coal ran out and he was just dragging empty fingers across the parchment and he lifted up his hand, which was black from the coal dust.

“Very good, Mr. Potter,” Professor Clearwater said. She handed him a cloth and he wiped his hands as she waved her wand to hang the parchment on the wall so that everyone could see what he’d done.

“Bloody ought to frame that masterpiece,” snickered Sirius.

“Yes you’re quite the artist, Prongs,” laughed Peter.

James made a rude gesture at them.

Professor Clearwater studied the charcoal drawing a moment and made oooh and yes, as I suspected type comments as James continued trying to smear all the charcoal from his fingers. “Very interesting, Mr. Potter,” she said.

“Is it?” he asked.

“What do you see on the parchment, James?” she counter-questioned.

James stared at it. “I see I don’t have a future in drawing.”

Sirius hooted with laughter.

“Were you trying to draw a house, Mr. Potter?”

“A house?” James squinted, “No… where do you see a house?”

She used her wand to outline what did, he had to admit, look like a house in the charcoal - made entirely accidentally. “This house is very important to you. Do you recognize this house?”

“No…” James thought that it was only vaguely shaped like a house to begin with, not to mention a recognizable house.

She plowed on, as though James had said he recognized the house, “There is a child in this house.”

“Alright,” James said.

“The child cries.”

James looked at Sirius who was stifling laughter. “Well… well I reckon someone ought to make it stop crying then,” he said with a shrug.

“You will,” Professor Clearwater answered. “You and the girl.”

“What girl?” James asked, utterly confused.

“This girl…” Professor Clearwater ran her wand about a figure. “Do you recognize the girl, James?” It was a sort of face in the coal that James had also not noticed before she pointed it out - a face he had not drawn. A face that… that now he could see it was vaguely familiar and he felt his stomach sort of twist a bit and he looked down, hoping nobody else would recognize it.

“No, m’am,” he lied.

Just then, a musical sort of chime filled the room and Professor Clearwater sighed. “Very well, that’s the end of our time today…” She waved her wand and the parchment rolled up and flew to James’s hands. “You’ll each write me a page on the art of anthracomancy; we’ll try again with a new student next week… James, you’ll have a page on the interpretation of your parchment, please.”

“This is rubbish,” James was complaining as the boys walked down the hall. He stared at the unrolled parchment with hatred, “I dunno what the hell is going on in here, it’s a load of scribbles I made while trying not to get scorched by a bloody hot coal! What’s she think I’m going to get out of it?”

“Dunno,” Sirius said, snickering, “Are you sure you haven’t knocked anyone up? That’s what it sounded like to me.” He had tears in his eyes he was laughing so hard.

“Bugger off Sirius,” James replied, shoving him so that he tripped into the banister of the stairs.

“Wait ‘til Moony hears about this!” Sirius grinned.

James rolled his eyes.

Remus did, indeed, have a fairly good laugh off the mental image of poor James trying to interpret his squiggly drawings before the whole class.

The Marauders brought dinner that Peter knicked out to the shack that evening and they hung the thing up on the wall in the Shrieking Shack and spent a good deal of time turning it and squinting at it, trying to see things. James couldn’t even find the face or the house again now that Professor Clearwater wasn’t there to point them out, and he murmured, “Oi I’m buggered, how am I supposed to write a paper about something I can’t even see?”

“Just do what I do,” Sirius said, “When in doubt in Divination, just make shit up!”

“No wonder your grades are subpar,” laughed Remus.

Sirius grinned.

James sighed. “Well, I’ve got to get back to Hogwarts again. I’ve got to hold my try-outs. Sirius are you coming to try out for Beater again?”

Sirius wanted to. But -- he looked at Moony and he couldn’t bare the idea of leaving him. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Alright.” James sounded disappointed. He got up and dusted himself off. “Well, if any of you lot see anything in that blasted drawing… please, let me know. I’ll be back in an hour or two...” He shook his head and left, headed back for his try-outs.

Sirius leaned back against the pillows of the bed in the upstairs room and took a licorice wand from Peter, who was offering them out. Remus shook his head (he had a Honeyduke’s chocolate bar in his hand Peter had already given him) and he stared at James’s drawing.

“Hey… Sirius?”

“Yeah, mate?”

“How many floors is Number 12 Grimmauld Place?”

“There’s the basement under ground, the kitchen, also underground, the main hall, mum’s library, their room, Reg’s, mine, the attic… so… Eight; six you can see.” He sat up. “Why?”

“Is there a broken window in the attic?”

“I busted it when I was nine, playing quidditch with Regulus. He was the Quaffle. Threw him through the ring and he hit the window with his head. Big crack right through the center. Of the window, of course, not his head. Oi, reckon that’s why he’s mental? Did I break my little brother?”

Remus struggled to his feet, his knees making him wince with each step as he walked over and he pointed to the parchment, tracing the outline of the house… six levels and the broken window in the attic... “This is Number 12 Grimmauld Place.”