"Though many wizards are gifted when it comes to rattling noises, curious smells, and sudden disappearances...
they still cannot pierce the mysterious veil of the future."
Professor Trelawney went on, her enormous glittering eyes moving from one tense face to another.
"This is a gift possessed by only a select few.
You, child—"
she suddenly said to Neville, startling him so badly he nearly toppled off his pouf,
"is your grandmother well?"
"I think so."
Neville was no longer quite as timid as he used to be, but he still answered shyly.
"If I were you, dear, I wouldn't be so sure."
Professor Trelawney said it as the firelight made her long emerald earrings flash.
Neville stared blankly at Sean.
Sean's expression grew slightly serious.
Hermione, meanwhile, looked startled by the professor's complete lack of tact.
Sean thought to himself that if this counted as a prophecy, then it did come true.
Later on, Neville would leave the password carelessly lying around, allowing Black into Gryffindor Tower, which would infuriate his grandmother so badly that she would send him a Howler.
Professor Trelawney continued calmly:
"This year, we shall study the basic methods of Divination.
During the first term, we will concentrate on reading tea leaves. In the second term, we shall begin palmistry.
By the way, my dear—"
she suddenly threw the remark at Parvati Patil,
"beware a red-haired man."
Parvati looked nervously at Ron, who was sitting behind her, and quickly moved her chair farther away from him.
"Oi!"
Ron muttered under his breath, offended for no reason at all.
In a world without magic, Sean would have called this a classic kind of scam.
All you had to do was give one vague detail and let people match it to whatever they liked.
For example: beware a boy marked in black.
That could apply to far too many things—black hair, black eyes, black clothes... even a name involving black.
Take a highly flexible detail and match it to any random event, add the right tone of voice, and anyone could become a prophet.
It was a kind of verbal suggestion, what psychology would call cold reading.
But this was magical Hogwarts...
Sean tried hard to recall it. This warning, random as it sounded, might point to several things:
It pointed to Ron Weasley: the red-haired man Parvati encountered most often in Gryffindor was Ron.
That suggested trouble would come to her through Ron. The specific event would be this:
Not long afterward, Ron's pet rat, Scabbers, would be believed dead—when in truth he had escaped after shedding skin and leaving behind bloodstains—and Parvati's pet would be terrified by what was taken to be Scabbers's blood.
As the red-haired boy closest to Parvati, Ron really did indirectly bring her fright and trouble.
Of course, there was also another red-haired man involved, one with nothing to do with Parvati at all.
A man who was also red-haired, but had turned himself into a rat.
"In the summer term,"
Professor Trelawney continued,
"we shall begin crystal gazing—assuming, of course, that we have completed fire omens by then.
Unfortunately, classes will be interrupted in February by a severe bout of influenza. I myself shall lose my voice.
And around Easter, one of us will leave us forever."
After those words, a tense silence fell over the room, though Professor Trelawney seemed not to notice.
"My dear,"
she said to Lavender Brown, who was nearest to her and had curled up nervously in her chair,
"would you be so kind as to hand me the largest silver teacup?"
Lavender seemed to breathe a little easier. She got up, took down a large teacup from the shelf, and set it on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.
"Thank you, dear. And by the way, the thing you fear most will happen on Friday, October the sixteenth."
Lavender immediately began to tremble.
That prophecy was true as well.
On October 16, Lavender would receive terrible news from home—her beloved pet rabbit Binky had been killed by a fox. It was exactly the thing she feared most.
Professor Trelawney let her gaze wander idly over the young wizards.
Then her eyes locked onto Sean.
"You... you..."
Suddenly, Professor Trelawney dropped stiffly back into her armchair, her eyes unfocused and her mouth hanging open.
"What are you trying to say?"
Hermione shouted, worried enough to sound sharp.
But Professor Trelawney seemed not to hear her. Her eyes began to roll, and the students stood there in alarm, feeling as though she were about to have some kind of fit.
"We'd better take her to the hospital wing..."
Neville suggested, biting his finger.
Then Professor Trelawney spoke again, but now her voice was harsh and grating, utterly unlike her usual one.
"An ending unacknowledged, a path diverted from its destined course... he remains cunning. He comes from a place where nothing is expected, he who would defy fate must beware... the seventh..."
Professor Trelawney's head lolled forward onto her chest, and she made a low, rattling sound in her throat.
Then, very suddenly, she lifted her head again.
"I'm sorry, my dear children,"
she said vaguely,
"the weather is terribly warm, you know... I must have dozed off..."
Sean stared at her in confusion.
Just now, Professor Trelawney seemed to have made a prophecy about him.
His quill reacted faster than his mind did, rapidly recording every word she had spoken.
He stared at the writing on the parchment.
In this magical world, prophecy was no empty superstition.
And what had just happened seemed to be Professor Trelawney's true prophetic state...
Sean decided then and there that after class, he would think carefully about the meaning behind it.
"Oh..."
Professor Trelawney sat up again. The startled students all edged a little farther away from her.
"Now, I want you to divide into pairs.
Each of you is to take a teacup from the shelf and come to me, and I shall fill it with tea.
Then you will sit down and drink until only the tea leaves remain.
With your left hand, swirl the leaves around the cup three times, then invert the cup onto the saucer. Once the final drop has drained out, hand the cup to your partner for interpretation.
You may consult pages five and six of Unfogging the Future to help identify the shapes in the leaves.
I shall move among you, helping and guiding you. Oh, my dear—"
She suddenly grabbed Neville by the arm just as he was about to stand.
"After you break your first cup, would you mind choosing one with a blue pattern? I'm very fond of the pink one."
Sure enough, the instant Neville reached the shelf of teacups, there came the sharp sound of china smashing.
Professor Trelawney hurried over with dustpan and broom in hand, saying,
"My dear, if you don't mind, perhaps take a blue one this time... thank you…"
~~~
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