Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 27

"This above all; to thine own self be true." - William Shakespeare

Connor left the Great Hall feeling aggravated. Everywhere he went, people's eyes tracked him, and it seemed that no one had trouble talking about him as though he weren't even there. Ivy, Quentin and Zack meant well, but he was getting tired of them crowding around him as they walked the corridors; Rachel was hexing people for talking about him, for Merlin's sake! He knew that he would have to talk to them later, and get them to back off and let him deal with things in his own way, or they would all end up in real trouble.

The last class of the day was double Herbology. Connor walked into greenhouse number three, expecting the whispers and comments that had greeted him in his other classes, but the room was strangely quiet. At his puzzled look, Zack reminded him that they were with the Ravenclaws, and that Connor had saved one of their students, and so they were less likely to pick on him than the other houses were. As Connor took a seat on a stool around one of the huge potting tables set up around the room, one of the Ravenclaw girls, Sharon Whitaker, approached him.

"I've been hearing a lot of things about you today, Potter," she said bluntly, tucking her dark hair behind her ears so that it didn't impede her vision. "And I don't know how much of it is true, and how much of it is rubbish. What I do know is that you saved my cousin's life last night, and I want you to know that if you ever need anything, you can count on me to back you up."

A few of her housemates nodded emphatically, and Connor stammered his thanks, pleased that she returned to her seat without expecting him to tell her his version of events. He hadn't had any idea that Cicely Green had relatives at the school, but was glad to know that not everyone blindly believed everything that was being said about him.

Professor Wexler called them all to order and set them about repotting dozens of disgusting little plants called Morphopods. Their leaves resembled nothing so much as globs of dark green gelatin on the end of a slimy stem, and seemed to have a shifting shape that writhed and undulated unpleasantly when touched; they also smelled strongly of ginger. Their task was made more difficult by the fact that the sap these fragile little plants produced was extremely unstable, and forced them to wear their thick dragon hide gloves during the whole process. All of them were too busy trying not to damage the tiny plants with their clumsy gloves to carry on any kind of conversation. The only person who seemed to have no problem at all with her repotting was Ivy, and that came as a surprise to no one. The two hours passed relatively uneventfully, except for a tense moment when Jack Murphy scratched his nose with a gloved hand, and his nose began to slide sideways on his face. Professor Wexler was on hand to control the situation, though, with a nicely placed sticking charm and a little bottle of potion that corrected the problem.

After class, everyone headed to the Common Room except Zack, who said he needed a book from the Library. They met Rachel on the staircase to the fifth floor, and learned that she had been given detention by Filch for hexing Martin Iverson in the corridor earlier. They were approaching the sixth floor stairs when they heard someone call out, "Potter! Wait up!" They all halted and turned to see another Gryffindor boy, a fifth year, jogging toward them.

"You guys go ahead," Connor sighed. "I might as well get this over with; the more Gryffindors that have the real explanation, the less I'll have to hide in my room for the rest of the year."

They nodded reluctantly and continued up the stairs, walking slowly. The boy caught up with Connor and stopped for a minute to catch his breath before grinning and saying, "Had yourself a bit of an adventure last night, did you?"

"A bit," Connor agreed mildly, beginning to take the stairs again. The other boy, who Connor recognized as Richard Murray, fell into step beside him.

"So there's some pretty wild rumors flying around," Richard said casually. "I'll bet you're getting sick of it, huh?"

"You could say that," Connor said, wishing that the other boy would just get to the point or go away.

"I was just wondering what the truth was," Richard said finally. "Can you really predict the future?"

"No," Connor said. "Sometimes I just know things, or I get a mental image. I'm not a seer or anything."

"Of course not!" the other boy said amiably, waving the very idea away. "Seers don't really predict the future, do they? They just spout off riddles that can be interpreted any number of ways."

"I don't predict the future either," Connor frowned. He was starting to get the feeling that Richard wasn't just asking out of curiosity to know the truth. His feeling was confirmed in the very next moment.

"Riiiight," Richard winked. "But listen. If you ever - just know - about the outcome of any of the league Quidditch matches, I could really make it worth your while to let me know about it ahead of time. There are a lot of people out there who like to make friendly wagers, you know. Harpies against the Bats is coming up this week; we could really..."

"I don't think so," Connor said, interrupting. "I told you, it doesn't work like that, and even if it did, it wouldn't be right to cheat people like that."

"Riiiight," the boys said again. "But if it did work like that..."

"It doesn't," Connor snarled, grateful that they had reached the portrait hole. "And it's never going to happen, so just drop it." He had expected something like this to happen if anyone ever found out, but he hadn't reckoned it would happen quite this soon, not by anyone in his own house. It didn't even cheer him up to think of what his mother would have had to say to Richard if she ever caught wind of what he had just asked her son to do.

Settling himself at a table in the corner of the common room, Connor angrily pulled out his Herbology text and began reading the section about Morphopods so that he could answer the questions that Professor Wexler had given them. Ivy, Rachel and Quentin settled themselves at the same table, but remained quiet, sensing that Connor didn't want to talk about it. They sat silently, except for the scratching of their quills until Zack returned from the library with a bloody lip.

"What happened to you?" Ivy exclaimed when he sat down with his books, holding a handkerchief to his face.

"Just a little disagreement with a Slytherin," Zack said, showing them his abused lip. "Believe me, he looks worse."

"Did you get in trouble?" Connor asked worriedly, knowing that this had something to do with him.

"Nah," Zack said with a shrug. "No teachers were around at the time; which is probably why he dared to start up with me in the first place. He won't be trying it again in a hurry."

"What did you do to him?" Quentin asked, not sure if the feeling of pride in his friend was strictly appropriate. None of them had any doubt that the disagreement that had split Zack's lip had everything to do with the rumors flying around about Connor.

"Just punched him a couple of times. I don't think he was expecting me to hit him, but I didn't have time to draw my wand at first," Zack said dismissively. "It's done, and when his friends find him, they'll let him out of the full body bind and take him back to his common room, and he'll know better than to open his fat mouth around me."

"Look guys," Connor said to his friends. "I appreciate that you're worried about me and all, but you can't go around hexing people and getting in fights just because you don't like what they're saying about me. It's just not worth it."

"Hey," Zack said. "I would have walked away if he'd backed off. He started it by trying to hex me."

Connor sighed. "Just promise me that you won't let anyone else provoke you into fighting, okay?"

The others nodded glumly, and then they all went back to their work, only to be interrupted a few minutes later by Connor and Rachel's cousin, Shawn.

"Hey Con," he said easily, getting straight to the point. "I hear you've been talking to a couple of people, and I just wanted to know what you want the rest of us to say or not say when they ask us."

"Just tell them the truth," Connor answered. "You don't need to go into details. Just plain, 'He doesn't predict the future, he has no control over what he sees, blah, blah, blah.'"

"Right," Shawn said affably. "Can do. I'll let the others know." He was about to go back and join a couple of other cousins, but stopped and said quietly, "Remember that you have that Skiving Snackbox my dad sent you if you need to get away for a bit." Then he winked and was gone.

Connor nodded thoughtfully; he had forgotten about that; the box was still packed away in his trunk with the wet-start fireworks he was waiting for an opportunity to use He made a mental note to dig them out, just in case.

While he was finishing his homework, three other Gryffindors approached Connor in a group, and he patiently explained that he had no control over his abilities, and the he did not predict the future on command. He knew it would not take long for word to spread, and he hoped that if he kept it simple, people would be more inclined to believe him, and less inclined to bother him. It was wishful thinking.

He wound up skipping dinner, simply because he didn't want to deal with it all, and he ended up going to bed with a headache. He wasn't comforted by the thought that tomorrow wasn't bound to be any better than today had been. Just before going up to bed (rather earlier than he normally would have), a fourth year girl stopped him on his way to the staircase, asking him if he could tell her where she had lost her charm bracelet last week. Gritting his teeth, he gave her the same explanation that he had given the others; he had no control over what he saw, and left her pouting after him in disappointment.

By the time he finally fell asleep, he was grinding his teeth and itching to hex the next person to bother him, no matter what he'd told his friends about avoiding doing the same.

"Hey Connor!" Quentin said, pulling his friend aside in the Common Room, "Look, I sort of lost the Quidditch gloves my father sent me. Have you 'seen' anything lately that might help me find them?"

Connor looked back at Quentin, incredulous.

"April Fool!" Quentin said, punching him in the arm. "Don't have a very high opinion of me, do you?"

Connor punched him back, and the got into a mock wrestling match.

"Cut it out you two!" Rachel scolded. "We need to think up a plan to clear out the Common Room tonight if there's anyone still awake."

"I'm more worried about breaking into Lupin's office to use his fire," Ivy said nervously. "How can we be sure it'll take us to the Ministry of Magic?"

"I told you," Connor said. "Lupin's fire is connected to the Floo so that he can get home to the Shrieking Shack every night."

"I'm not sure..." Ivy said.

"Look," Zack interrupted. "Connor has already said that he's going no matter what. I'm not letting him go alone."

"Besides, he's been having dreams for months that we're all there with him, so that means that we do actually get there." Quentin pointed out.

"Yes," Ivy said, "But we still need to...."

BANG!

Connor shot up in his bed and jerked the curtains aside before he was even awake. Andrew was standing by his trunk; cringing, and turned around when the hangings around Connor's bed flew open.

"Sorry!" he whispered, though there was no one else in the room. "The lid to my trunk fell. I was trying to be quiet."

"S'allright," Connor slurred sleepily. He looked over at the clock to find that he had been asleep for less than an hour. Rubbing his eyes, he grabbed his wand from the bedside cabinet and used it to unlock the drawer to retrieve his journal and a quill. He pulled his hangings closed once more and tiredly wrote down the details of his dream, knowing that he would never remember it in the morning otherwise. Once done, he shoved everything under his pillow and let sleep claim him once more.

As Connor expected, the following day brought more speculation and attempts by some of the thicker students to get predictions from him. He wished more than ever that his father had given him his invisibility cloak when he'd come to school. Potions had been the worst. Snape had deducted a total of thirty points from Gryffindor because the stupid Hufflepuffs kept hissing questions to Connor and his friends across the dungeon. True, the Hufflepuffs had lost a total of fifty, but Connor had wanted to scream by the time the class was over, and by the look on the potions master's face, Snape did too. The Hufflepuffs had glared at him whenever Snape deducted points from their house, as if it was Connor's fault that they couldn't mind their own business and keep their mouths shut.

Double Charms wasn't quite so bad, because it was all Gryffindors, but he still had to deal with odd requests from his classmates. "Guess which hand the sickle is in, Potter!" Or "Is Carrie Mulligan planning on asking Trent Scully to join her study group?" By lunchtime, Connor was cursing himself for not bringing his Skiving Snackbox with him to his classes; he could do with a good hard nosebleed or a fainting spell about then. When he went back to his room to exchange his books for his afternoon classes before lunch, he slipped a few of the double ended chews his uncles had sent into his pocket, and swore he'd either take one himself, or else cram it down someone else's throat very soon.

People seemed to be getting irate with Connor, as well, when he was unable to be of use to them with his talents. Many of them seemed to believe that he was being deliberately unhelpful out of spite, and as a result, things were beginning to get ugly. Students who were turned away by Connor had begun approach his friends, to try to get Ivy, Quentin, Zack and Rachel to convince him to help them. He was sure that his other Weasley cousins were getting much of the same, though he didn't know how to prevent that. It finally culminated in a confrontation that afternoon.

"Come on, Potter." A burly seventh year Slytherin cornered him in the boys' toilet after lunch, and demanded a bit forcefully to know who was going to win the Swedish Cross Country Broom Race that was coming up. He was standing so close, that Connor couldn't even draw his wand if he'd wanted to. "Just try! If you can give me the names of the first three to cross the finish line, we could both be rich!"

"I keep telling everyone- IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT!" Connor said, losing his patience and shouting at the other boy, uncaring that he was twice his own size. "I'm not some traveling fortune teller who can just pull stuff out of the air for other people's amusement! Why would I even want to help you anyway? I don't even know you! If I could just find lost stuff or predict the end of races or... or..."

"Connor."

Both boys turned to see Professor Lupin standing in the doorway of the boys' toilet observing the scene. "Go to class, Mr. Woodland," he said quietly, but with firm authority. "Five points from Slytherin. Connor, you come with me."

Connor picked up his school bag and jerked it angrily onto his arm, and then followed Professor Lupin down the hallway toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. The professor opened the classroom to admit the queue of students who were waiting in the hallway, and asked Connor to go straight through the classroom and up the steps to his office while he gave his class instructions. Connor threw himself into the armchair across from the professor's desk and thought about taking a Nosebleed Nougat from his pocket and eating the half necessary to get him a pass to the hospital wing. He rejected the idea almost immediately, though, since Lupin would most likely guess the source of the sudden bleeding and force the other half down him without batting an eye.

Professor Lupin could be heard bringing his classroom of fourth years to order through the open office door, and asking them to copy the long list of notes on the blackboard while he took care of a matter in his office.

"Connor," Lupin said, sitting behind his desk. "Have you been getting a lot of people like Mr. Woodland approaching you?"

Connor shrugged. "I guess. Not all of them want to know that same thing, but people think I can just predict the future whenever I feel like it... or tell them weird stuff like where something they lost is and stuff like that."

"Yes, well, I don't think that Kyle Woodland will make that mistake again," the professor said. "Nor anyone within ear shot of the boy's toilet."

"Sorry," Connor said, though he really wasn't. "I just got mad."

"From what I've heard, you have good reason to be frustrated." He said calmly. "Which is why I will be having a talk with the other Gryffindors this evening about it, and the other heads of houses will be addressing their charges as well. If anyone gets out of hand after today, the consequences for that person will be... enough of a deterrent to keep them from doing it again."

Connor knew from Lupin's tone that this subject was not open for debate. Lupin wrote him an excuse for being tardy to Transfiguration, and dismissed Connor, who walked to class with a feeling of gloom.

"Hey Potter!"

Connor turned just as he was about to turn a corner and saw a familiar looking sixth year Slytherin Prefect approaching him. He pulled out his excuse note, but it seemed that the Prefect was not interested in his reasons for being out of class, but more in having him alone.

"How about, since I helped you out with Cicely Green and all, you can give me a little prediction on the outcome of...."

"I have a prediction for you," both startled boys turned to see Sarah Weasley coming around the corner, where she had obviously been standing and listening. "I predict that you will lose your prefect badge if I hear about you harassing other students again. We've already had a meeting about this type of situation, and here I find you being the cause of it!" Sarah's voice held barely contained fury. "Ten points from Slytherin, and you're going on report; now get to class!"

The other boy shot them both a venomous look before turning and hurrying away, muttering to himself the whole time, and Connor simply shook his head with a sigh. No doubt there would be even more talk now about 'that Potter kid' having girls bossing him around and fighting his battles. And after the announcements that Professor Lupin had told him would be made in each house tonight, he had a feeling that things weren't really going to improve at all; those that wanted to exploit him would just become sneakier about it.

"Don't worry, Connor," Sarah said with a hint of sadness in her voice. "This will blow over sooner or later."

Connor nodded, appreciating the fact that she didn't try to tell him it was no big deal or that he should report anyone who bothered him. He trudged to transfiguration class and didn't meet his friends' questioning eyes as he took his seat and opened his book. All of this constant hovering and worrying by everyone who cared about him was appreciated, but was really getting on his nerves quickly, and he feared that he would end up snapping at one of them if he didn't watch his temper. They walked to History of Magic slowly, mostly because they weren't eager to reach their destination. The others seemed to have realized that they were smothering Connor a bit, and attempted to draw him out of his foul mood with talk of Quidditch, and the upcoming game against Hufflepuff at the beginning of March. Connor gratefully latched onto the subject, glad to have a conversation to participate in that didn't include his current situation in any way.

Binns's class was a boring as ever, and so Connor rested his chin on his hand, and slowly drifted into a light doze and waited for the last class of the day to be over so that he could get to Quidditch practice and leave the rest of his troubles on the ground.

"Connor!" Ivy hissed in his ear.

Connor jerked awake and found that the rest of the class was already on their way out the door, and Binns was melting through the blackboard to go wherever it was he went when he wasn't boring them all to death.

"They should have Binns checked to make sure he's not hypnotizing us all." Connor grumbled as he gathered his books with a yawn. "I swear he's planted some sort of suggestion in my head telling me to forget everything he's ever taught."

They all walked back to Gryffindor tower, joined by Rachel, who was looking cross about something, but only hissed and shook her head angrily when they questioned her.

"We're going to go get changed for Quidditch practice," Connor said as he and Quentin headed for the stairs.

"Hold up, Potter," Mariah Rexhall was striding across the Common Room with a frown on her face. She pulled him aside and kept her voice low, and said, "I just came from a meeting with Professors McGonagall and Lupin. It seems that the other house teams, led by the Slytherins, have voiced a grievance with the Headmistress over your place on the Gryffindor team, stating that your precognitive abilities are an unfair advantage to us."

"WHAT?" Connor couldn't help the volume of his voice, nor the expletive that followed.

The Gryffindor team captain winced at his reaction, though she understood his incredulous expression. The rest of the students were now looking at them curiously, and so she pulled him a little further toward the corner. Aiden, Ivy and Quentin were now approaching to find out what the commotion was about, ready to defend Connor if Mariah was attempting to exploit Connor's gift, which none of them could imagine her doing.

"I know," Mariah said angrily. "But we haven't got any way to prove that it isn't true, so for now, you've been suspended from the team."

"I don't believe it!" Ivy interrupted, not even pretending that she wasn't eavesdropping. "They can't do that!"

"They can, and they did," Mariah answered stonily. "Lupin and McGonagall explained to the other Heads of Houses and team captains that your precognition isn't something that you can control, but it didn't matter. They formally protested your place on the team, and Professor McGonagall was given no choice."

Aiden uttered another strong swear word that had Mariah glaring at him, but he ignored her. "There has to be a way around this! We've got the best team in the ruddy school again for the first time in years!"

"Professor Lupin said that he would look into it and see what he could come up with, but that we shouldn't be holding our breaths that it'll be in time for the match against Hufflepuff next week."

Quentin groaned. "We can't let them have the Cup again this year!"

"We won't," Mariah said furiously, eyes blazing. "I don't care what they say, I'm putting Connor on reserve and he's going to practice with us. If we work hard, we can get the first reserve chaser into decent shape in time for the Hufflepuff match, and then we're going to do what it takes to get him back on the first team."

All eyes turned to Connor, who looked as though he was going to protest, but then his expression hardened and he nodded and grabbed Quentin's sleeve. "Let's go get changed."

Connor spent the next two hours on the pitch in the freezing late afternoon with his replacement, a third year named Carolyn Scott, drilling her mercilessly and guiding her through the moves he'd been working on for weeks in preparation for the upcoming match. By the time they came down to the ground a final time, they were both tired and muddy, and Connor was feeling a little less forlorn. Quentin, Ivy and Connor were all heading to the Great Hall for dinner, when Vanessa Malfoy stepped into their path.

"Shame about your place on the team, Potter," she drawled with a smile. "But I felt it was my duty to my own house to point out the obvious problems with your being able to continue on playing."

"It won't be a problem for long," Connor shrugged, forcing himself to appear calm. "I've actually just come in from practice, and I'm starving, so if you could excuse us; don't you have a detention to get to?"

Vanessa scowled at them, unhappy that she had been unable to get a rise out of Connor, and not even sparing her brother or Ivy a glance as she stalked away.

"I'll find a way to play for Gryffindor again if it's the last thing I ever do," Connor growled as he walked with his friends to their house table. He could see several of the players from other house teams looking at him with varying degrees of satisfaction, and he determined to wipe the looks off of all of their faces before he was through.

At Dinner, Professor McGonagall stood and made an announcement that all students were to return to their house common rooms immediately after dinner for a brief meeting concerning school policy. Everyone looked quizzical at this, and Connor groaned and quietly told his friends what the meeting was supposed to entail. Luckily, Professor Lupin gave Connor permission to be excused from the meeting if he chose, and Connor elected to spend the evening in the Library, doing homework. He only left the quiet of the Library when Madam Pince made him leave so that she could close it up for the night. He had a feeling that tomorrow was going to be even worse than today had been.