The snake slithered over to Harry, and Harry accepted the rat. The markings were familiar. For sure, it was the rat that had once been Ron's pet. Before Pettigrew could transform, Harry stunned him and slipped him into his pocket. Not having the heart to destroy the newly created snakes, Harry let them be as he mounted his broom and flew back to the village where he collected his trunk and stowed the broom. From the trunk, he retrieved a bottle in which he placed Pettigrew. Anticipating that he may catch Pettigrew in his rat form, Harry had prepared the bottle with holes in the lid and an unbreakable charm on the glass. Finished with that business, Harry tossed the bottle into the trunk, shrunk the trunk, and pocketed it before making his way back to the tavern.
Confused villagers milled just outside what remained of the tavern's front. Harry slipped into the heavily damaged building to discover the barkeep and someone who must have been the local constable eyeing Lucius's blasted, dead body. Harry winced, feeling slightly sorry for the son of his old friend, though keeping that sorrow in check by reminding himself of the horrors Lucius must have committed, helping to murder his father not being the least of them.
Draco had been shifted aside where he could lay unconscious on the floor out of the way while someone who seemed like a doctor or mediwizard examined some of the people who had been injured, but thankfully, not killed by the blast. Furtively looking around, Harry discerned that nobody was watching him or Draco's unconscious form.
Harry smiled as he waved his wand and transfigured Draco into a ferret. He picked up the unconscious ferret and walked outside and to a secluded place where he enlarged and opened up his trunk to get another bottle.
.....
"I hate this class," Leo told Rose, putting all the emphasis he could into a whisper, as he gazed into a professional grade, academically priced crystal ball.
"It'll be the easiest NEWT we ever got," Rose told him reassuringly as she waved her wand in a circle underneath their classroom table, using the wand to cast a spell on the crystal ball so that its insides would be good and cloudy by the time she got around to making a prediction for Professor Trelawney's amusement.
"I don't have a problem with the subject or the easy NEWT," Leo replied quietly as he eyed Ron and Sidra who were seated across the room. "But, couldn't we have taken this class with all the other students our age?"
Rose shrugged. "I thought you really liked the idea of skipping a year worth of Divination and still getting the NEWT for it."
"We should have skipped this year," Leo groused. "Ron and Sidra would have graduated. Then, you could have your little 'vision' about how we needed to take the final NEWT level of divination immediately."
"Trust me, it is better this way," Rose said, casting a calculated smirk toward Ron and Sidra who had been in the process of glaring at Rose and Leo. "If we had waited a year, selling the vision to Trelawney would have been a little bit more difficult. Even she would have been able to see our true motivations."
"Ginny refused to buy into this scheme. Maybe I should have followed suit," Leo grumbled, rubbing the crystal ball and pretending to peer into its depths.
"Yeah, well, Ginny is a wet blanket sometimes, isn't she?" Rose retorted as she sat up and grabbed the crystal ball. "I think you're done with the crystal ball. Let me have a vision and maybe I can convince Trelawney that it is imperative for us to get out of here-immediately."
By now, the fog in the crystal ball was swirling enough that even some of the students at neighboring tables had noticed and were eyeing Rose and Leo out of the corners of their eyes. Rose straightened her back and stuck her arms out horizontally over the crystal ball, having pocketed her wand. Just before she could loudly announce that she was having a vision, Lavender Brown started screeching.
"I've got something, I've got something!" Lavender exclaimed, clapping her hands and bringing her face right up to the crystal ball that was resting on her table.
Rose dropped her arms, a disgusted expression on her face. "Unbelievable," she muttered.
The whole class was gathering around Lavender's table to see what she was seeing-or at least hear about it. Reluctantly, Rose and Leo joined the throng. From what Leo could see, the fog in Lavender's ball might be genuine. Trelawney seemed to think so as well, for she had taken a seat at Lavender's table and was excitedly gripping the crystal ball as Lavender looked into its depths.
"This is a genuine manifestation!" Trelawney declared, doing her best to sound very experienced in these matters, though it was pretty clear that she was just as excited and curious as her students.
"Nonsense," Rose said a little bit too loudly.
Everyone in the class paused and looked at Rose.
"Shut up," Sidra snarled at Rose. "For once, refrain from trying to be the center of attention."
Rose glared at Sidra, but instead of retorting, she pushed through the crowd and grabbed the crystal ball, wrenching it out of Lavender and Professor Trelawney's hands. "Let's see what is in this seemingly authentic vision," Rose said sarcastically. She held the ball close to her face and gazed into it. Leo grinned nervously as he watched Rose and anticipated her next caustic comment. However, it did not come.
After several moments, Rose broke her concentration on the crystal ball. "Fascinating," she murmured.
"What? What did you see?" Trelawney asked excitedly, her belief that Rose was a true seer overriding any sense of being offended. Lavender looked on sullenly.