"Tell me again," Branch murmured, voice as quiet as he could make it, and hardly moving his lips—Professor Cybil had ears like a bat, even in the crowded confines of her overheated classroom, "how I got dragged into this."

Chenille smoothed out her hair for the sixth time that morning—"The humidity in Professor Cybil's classroom! My hair will never be the same, Branch!"—put her elbow up on the desk, and dropped her chin into her palm before she answered. "Poppy."

Yeah. Right. Of course. Poppy. Three years at this place, and so far, they'd all been the same: Poppy wanted to do something stupid, or ridiculous, or life-threatening—like try out for Quidditch, never mind the enormous black balls whizzing around trying to knock people off their brooms, honestly, Poppy, please—or go into the Forbidden Forest to find a unicorn, because who cared about the werewolves and Acromantulas and centaurs who'd have them for breakfast before they could shout Expelliarmus—or sign up for a Divination class even though she didn't even want to go into fortune-telling, and she'd never shown the slightest interest in it before that fourth-year flower-child, Creek or whatever his name was, mentioned how much he liked it—

Well. The fact remained. Poppy did stupid things. Dangerous things.

And—for some reason, for some ridiculous reason Branch could never really put into words, not even in his own head—he always did the stupid, dangerous thing with her. Okay, not the trying-out-for-Quidditch part—if Poppy wanted to break her stupid neck on a flimsy little broomstick hundreds of feet in the air, she was completely on her own—never mind how Branch had sat in the stands the entire time, biting his nails down to the quick and chewing his bottom lip until it bled—he was not going anywhere near that accident-waiting-to-happen that Poppy liked to call her Firebolt, thank you very much.

Branch huffed out a resigned sigh. "Why," he said, instead of putting his head down on his desk, the way he really wanted to—it'd be just his luck if Professor Cybil decided to pull her head out of the clouds and look his way right as he gave in to temptation, "why do I keep listening to her?"

Chenille shrugged, gazing through half-lidded eyes, lashes thick and heavy with her favorite Muggle mascara, at their crystal ball—which had remained stubbornly blank all lesson. "'Cause it's Poppy." She shifted a little in her seat, and smoothed her hair again. "And you're a sucker."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Chenille stifled a yawn. "Want to start making stuff up?"

Branch slumped back in relief. "Thought you'd never ask."

A/N: So it's autumn, or as I like to call it, that time of year where I reread Harry Potter and have at least three good ugly cries because Nostalgia, and I realized I've never actually written a legitimate Hogwarts AU, ever. I Had to Rectify This. But I just got finished with Prisoner of Azkaban, and the mental image of Branch in a Divination class entered my head, and I laughed so hard, I knew I had to write it. Side note on my Sorting choices: Poppy and Smidge are both in Gryffindor, because of course, but Biggie, Cooper, Satin, Guy Diamond, DJ Suki, Bridget, and Gristle are in Hufflepuff, while Branch and Chenille are in Ravenclaw. Creek's likely in Slytherin, as he fits the criteria there best, but I'm not one hundred percent committed to that choice. He might be in Ravenclaw in later chapters.

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