Ruby couldn't contain her smile. It was one thing to be told that her art was good and another to suggest that they ought to have been displayed in a museum. They lived in time where there were strict rules as to what proper art was and what wasn't. What ought to be displayed in galleries and whatnot. A hand-painted tarot deck wasn't considered 'high' art.

‘‘Oh, thank you,’’ Ruby humbly answered. ‘‘They're fine, really. They're not Boticellis!’’ She was proud of her art and wanted the whole world to see it, yet she felt guilty for feeling that way. Humility was a virtue and Ruby mistook it for having low self-esteem.

‘‘I could give you a reading if you want,’’ Ruby shyly suggested then. Something she would never have done if she knew that he actually had the Sight.

  

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set by MJ

Not Botticellis, she said, like it was that or bust! “No, they’re not,” Savino said, grinning easily, too taken by the sudden upswing of her spirits to make things dreary again just yet. “I like these much better.” All of Botticelli’s people looked rather the same.

At her suggestion, he paused in the middle of inspecting the tarot set, worried that reading his future too closely would put a damper on things again, if the death dream came up in the cards as it often did as, one way or another, looming disaster.

“I’d like that,” he said anyway, stacking up the cards and sliding them back over to her - not able to resist the opportunity of trying a reading with a handmade set - “but only if you tell me your name.” He was supposed to know it - that much was obvious, with the way she’d spoken earlier - but if he didn’t ask he was just going to have to try and figure it out in a dream or by reading some tea leaves, so.

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   Ruby Urquart

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It was so strange to have to introduce herself to someone. Refreshing, too. She wondered if Mr. Zabini would have sat down and spoken to her if he had known who she was from the beginning. Probably. He was still here even after she'd told him about Topaz.

‘‘It's Ruby Urquart,’’ she replied. She hoped that he wouldn't tell his family about their meeting. A family like the Zabinis would surely try to ruin his impression of her. It was so refreshing to meet someone who loved Divination as much as her and who wasn't a classmate.

She shuffled the deck, gathered the cosmic vibes, and turned a card which she explained was Mr. Zabini's essence in this particular reading that she was doing. ‘‘Ah, the hanged man,’’ Ruby said. She didn't bother explaining the card to him, seeing that he likely knew the Tarot even better than she did. ‘‘Perhaps you would have been a Gryffindor too, Mr. Zabini.’’

  

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set by MJ

Ruby Urquart. “Good name for Divination,” he commented absently, focusing mostly on the cards. “One of my friends likes to use precious stones for his casting.”

The Hanged Man was no surprise, and he was a little glad she didn’t interrogate it too much aloud to see if her reading was as yet feeling accurate, which it rather was. But it could also mean something new might come out of this - this; his time in Britain, or otherwise - or that he might encounter some new perspective. (He would keep his mind open. He usually tried to, anyway.)

On the topic of new perspectives was her mention of Gryffindor. “Were you one?” Savino inquired with a chuckle, intrigued by her assessment. “I don’t know much about that one. I think my English cousins were all Slytherins.”

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Ruby had never put much thought into her name and how it was suitable for Divination. Now that it was being mentioned, she could see it. Ruby was a very Divination-y name. It was further proof on how everything in the universe was interconnected and how nothing happened randomly.

‘‘I'm not surprised,’’ Ruby commented at Savino mentioning his cousins being all Slytherins. She didn't really know any Zabinis personally, but the entire vibe of that family was very Slytherin. The thing with Slytherin was that they were misunderstood as a house. Ruby didn't find ambition to be a bad thing necessarily. It was just some terrible people who identified as Slytherins. Many Slytherins weren't even that Slytherin-y, they were simply there because they had begged the Hat to put them there, so their strict father wouldn't give them dirty looks during family dinners.

‘‘I was a Gryffindor myself, yes. The House of the brave and daring. We're the most likely to do stupid things on a dare and we love attention. Slytherin is the House of the ambitious. People there are the most likely to murder someone for power. My brother is one too.’’ She smiled as she shared this information, to show the joking nature of her words.

  

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set by MJ

She was only teasing about the ambition thing, but he supposed he could see that in his family too. Not even just the cousins: his mother, he thought, was made of the same stock.

“I suppose I do crave attention more than power,” Savino joked in answer, finding Ruby Urquart as perceptive as she was at, almost inadvertently, putting him - and Divination, and herself - down. He laughed. “And at least we can see the stupid things coming.” (See in both senses.)

“But I’ll take brave, thank you,” he added just as playfully, as she turned over another of his cards that spoke of a moment of decisive change.

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"Then I can definitely see Gryffindor," Ruby said with a smile. Ruby wished that there were more boys like Mr. Zabini in her house. None of the boys that also took Divination really won Ruby's attention. That was perhaps because either they didn't take the art seriously enough, or they weren't handsome and... manly. Mr. Zabini was a quite attractive man, by Ruby's standards at least.

"Will you be coming here often, Mr. Zabini?" Ruby asked. She had glanced at the clock and saw that the time she and Topaz had agreed upon was approaching. She would soon have to bid him goodbye, but she'd like to keep the acquaintance.

  

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set by MJ

“Oh yes, probably,” Savino answered, shifting back in the chair as she glanced at the clock. He had dallied here long enough, himself, and hadn’t even finished looking through the Divination section!

He hadn’t given up on trying to get permission to access the Ministry’s prophecy records, and there was plenty of work he ought to be doing while the family was in London that had nothing to do with his own pursuits, but... that was not to say he regretted this encounter.

Not at all. He smiled as he slid her set of cards back towards her in a neat pile, not wanting to overstep the boundaries of a new acquaintance but hopeful all the same. “Maybe I’ll see you here again?” He knew so few people in the country, and let alone such at kindred spirit as Miss Urquart. “It’s been nice.”

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Ruby received her neatly ordered stack of cards and placed it in a little velvet pouch she owned for that purpose.

"Definitely!" Ruby replied. Seeing that Topaz hadn't come asking for them to leave yet, Ruby assumed she could get her twin to come with her again. Or she could come on her own. Her father wouldn't object to going to a library! And things were laxer at a place like that chaperone-wise. If only the Zabinis were of the same social standing as the Urquarts! She could have arranged a meeting with Mr. Zabini much easier that way.

She bid her goodbyes and went to find her twin.

  

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set by MJ