While he waited for others to join him, Skyler pulled out this year's herbology book.  It was important to understand herbology in order to be good at potions, but Skyler found this a bit more difficult.  More memorization, whereas potions seemed to be governed by a set of rules that were hidden away yet to be discovered.  Skyler, in fact, had a book of these rules that he was using.  He started writing it in his first year, and there were many that he had crossed out and revised.  Now he had a handful of rules that Skyler was confident he could eventually prove true.  These rules allowed him to stray from the guidance of the potions books they use in class, and improve on the technique oftentimes.  He definitely benefited from the journal during his OWLs last year.  Unlike some of the prodigies he knew, Skyler had to learn potionmaking the hard way.  He had spent much of his sparetime making potions over and over again in order to discover these rules.  Only then had he begun to excell.  It also helped to have proficiency with the tools at hand.

Herbology looked to be signifigantly more difficult this year, as did his other classes.  He was taking quite a few.  Skyler knew he was in for a tough year.  Alchemy alone would be incredibly difficult, and it would be a new subject altogether.  Thankfully it built on foundations they had already established.  Divination would be fairly simple, but necessary.  Charms would probably be the next biggest headache, simply because Skyler had so much to do.  Charms was not as easy as many thought it was, even if it wasn't as complex as Transfiguration or requiring as much awareness as Defense Against the Dark Arts.  Herbology would be pretty difficult as well, simply do to the amount of memorization.  After reading a few pages, for familiarity if anything, Skyler had that feeling.  It was fairly strong.  Something important was about to happen.  So he shut the book in his hands and put it away, waiting patiently, alert, but not overly so.  And then came Astoria.  Skyler knew her somewhat, having had some classes with her before.  They weren't exactly friends, but Skyler could say that about a lot of people.

"Hello Astoria.  Please, feel free to join me."  He gestured to the seat across from him.  It would be odd to sit next to her as they weren't all that friendly.  To intimate.  "My summer went well,"  Skyler paused only briefly, considering how much to tell her.  That feeling lingered, "My father allowed me to assist him on one of his projects.  It was a good experience, but I definitely need more practice with ancient runes."  Skyler smiled at her, "Will you be taking Ancient Runes again this year?"  Astoria was definitely one of the few in their class Skyler was certain got a good score in Ancient Runes.  In fact, he would be very surprised if she didn't get an Outstanding on her OWLs.

There was still that lingering feeling.  Skyler could almost say that it centered on Astoria.  It wasn't a feeling of danger, simply one of importance.  Unfortunately there was no way of knowing what, even with some magic-which he wouldn't perform in front of her as it was rude-Skyler wouldn't have a solid answer.  That isn't how it worked.  Still, he knew Astoria was important somehow.  While Skyler knew that he wasn't going to intentionally be rude to her, now there was a more signifigant meaning to this conversation.  He had to make a good impression, or so he thought.  Unfortunately, Skyler didn't really know how to do that.  People swarmed him for all sorts of reasons, and after his first year he learned to be cautious and distrustful.  What an odd situation to be in, feeling a need to trust someone but having only ever trusted himself.

[i]More importantly,[/i] Skyler thought, [i]Why do I get such a strong feeling?  I've had a couple classes with her, I know she is quite the flier, but otherwise I know little.  Maybe she'll be important for figuring out something important in a project?  But I don't even have a project of my own yet...I wouldn't get a feeling like this over something so vague.[/i]  Skyler could only sigh inwardly.  It was unlikely he would figure it out.  While he was very good at divination, it was not a very friendly art.  If anything, it was the least reliable form of magic.  Some doubted it as a branch of magic alltogether.  Skyler knew enough to know this wasn't the case, but it didn't change the fact that divination was largely unreliable.