“Next Monday,” he said as he scribbled, “I am likely to develop a cough, owing to the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter.” He looked up at Harry. “You know her—just put in loads of misery, she’ll lap it up.”

“Right,” said Harry, crumpling up his first attempt and lobbing it over the heads of a group of chattering first years into the fire. “Okay . . . on Monday, I will be in danger of—er—burns.”

“Yeah, you will be,” said Ron darkly, “we’re seeing the skrewts again on Monday. Okay, Tuesday, I’ll . . . erm . . . ”

“Lose a treasured possession,” said Harry, who was flicking through Unfogging the Future for ideas.

“Good one,” said Ron, copying it down. “Because of . . . erm . . . Mercury. Why don’t you get stabbed in the back by someone you thought was a friend?”

“Yeah . . . cool . . . ” said Harry, scribbling it down, “because . . . Venus is in the twelfth house.”

“And on Wednesday, I think I’ll come off worst in a fight.”

“Aaah, I was going to have a fight. Okay, I’ll lose a bet.”

“Yeah, you’ll be betting I’ll win my fight . . . ”

They continued to make up predictions (which grew steadily more tragic) for another hour, while the common room around them slowly emptied as people went up to bed. Crookshanks wandered over to them, leapt lightly into an empty chair, and stared inscrutably at Harry, rather as Hermione might look if she knew they weren’t doing their homework properly.

Staring around the room, trying to think of a kind of misfortune he hadn’t yet used, Harry saw Fred and George sitting together against the opposite wall, heads together, quills out, poring over a single piece of parchment. It was most unusual to see Fred and George hidden away in a corner and working silently; they usually liked to be in the thick of things and the noisy center of attention. There was something secretive about the way they were working on the piece of parchment, and Harry was reminded of how they had sat together writing something back at the Burrow. He had thought then that it was another order form for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, but it didn’t look like that this time; if it had been, they would surely have let Lee Jordan in on the joke. He wondered whether it had anything to do with entering the Triwizard Tournament.

As Harry watched, George shook his head at Fred, scratched out something with his quill, and said, in a very quiet voice that nevertheless carried across the almost deserted room, “No—that sounds like we’re accusing him. Got to be careful . . . ”

Then George looked over and saw Harry watching him. Harry grinned and quickly returned to his predictions—he didn’t want George to think he was eavesdropping. Shortly after that, the twins rolled up their parchment, said good night, and went off to bed.