Joanne Murray - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Parvati gave a startled look at Ron, who was right behind her, and edged her chair away from him.

‘In the summer term,’ Professor Trelawney went on, ‘we shall progress to the crystal ball - if we have finished with fire-omens, that is. Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us for ever.’

A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seemed unaware of it.

‘I wonder, dear,’ she said to Lavender Brown, who was nearest and shrank back in her chair, ‘if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?’

Lavender, looking relieved, stood up, took an enormous teapot from the shelf and put it down on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.

‘Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading -it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October.’

Lavender trembled.

‘Now, I want you all to divide into pairs. Collect a teacup from the shelf, come to me and I will fill it. Then sit down and drink;

drink until only the dregs remain. Swill these around the cup three times with the left hand, then turn the cup upside-down on its saucer; wait for the last of the tea to drain away, then give your cup to your partner to read. You will interpret the patterns using pages five and six of Unfogging the Future. I shall move among you, helping and instructing. Oh, and dear -’ she caught Neville by the arm as he made to stand up, ‘after you’ve broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue patterned ones? I’m rather attached to the pink.’

Sure enough, Neville had no sooner reached the shelf of teacups than there was a tinkle of breaking china. Professor Trelawney swept over to him holding a dustpan and brush and said, ‘One of the blue ones, then, dear, if you wouldn’t mind ... thank you ... ’

When Harry and Ron had had their teacups filled, they went back to their table and tried to drink the scalding tea quickly. They swilled the dregs around as Professor Trelawney had instructed, then drained the cups and swapped them.

‘Right,’ said Ron, as they both opened their books at pages five and six. ‘What can you see in mine?’

‘A load of soggy brown stuff,’ said Harry. The heavily perfumed smoke in the room was making him feel sleepy and stupid.

‘Broaden your minds, my dears, and allow your eyes to see past the mundane!’ Professor Trelawney cried through the gloom.

Harry tried to pull himself together.

‘Right, you’ve got a wonky sort of cross ...’ he said, consulting Unfogging the Future. ‘That means you’re going to have “trials and suffering” - sorry about that - but there’s a thing that could be the sun. Hang on ... that means “great happiness” ... so you’re going to suffer but be very happy ... ’

‘You need your Inner Eye testing, if you ask me,’ said Ron, and they both had to stifle their laughs as Professor Trelawney gazed in their direction.

‘My turn ...’ Ron peered into Harry’s teacup, his forehead wrinkled with effort. ‘There’s a blob a bit like a bowler hat,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’re going to work for the Ministry of Magic ...’

He turned the teacup the other way up.

‘But this way it looks more like an acorn ... what’s that?’ He scanned his copy of Unfogging the Future. ‘ “A windfall, unexpected gold.” Excellent, you can lend me some. And there’s a thing here,’ he turned the cup again, ‘that looks like an animal. Yeah, if that was its head ... it looks like a hippo ... no, a sheep ...’

Professor Trelawney whirled around as Harry let out a snort of laughter.

‘Let me see that, my dear,’ she said reprovingly to Ron, sweeping over and snatching Harry’s cup from him. Everyone went quiet to watch.

Professor Trelawney was staring into the teacup, rotating it anti-clockwise.

‘The falcon ... my dear, you have a deadly enemy.’

‘But everyone knows that,’ said Hermione in a loud whisper. Professor Trelawney stared at her.

‘Well, they do,’ said Hermione. ‘Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who.’

Harry and Ron stared at her with a mixture of amazement and admiration. They had never heard Hermione speak to a teacher like that before. Professor Trelawney chose not to reply. She lowered her huge eyes to Harry’s cup again and continued to turn it. ‘The club ... an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup ...’

‘I thought that was a bowler hat,’ said Ron sheepishly.

‘The skull ... danger in your path, my dear ...’

Everyone was staring, transfixed, at Professor Trelawney, who gave the cup a final turn, gasped, and then screamed.

There was another tinkle of breaking china; Neville had smashed his second cup. Professor Trelawney sank into a vacant armchair, her glittering hand at her heart and her eyes closed.

‘My dear boy - my poor dear boy - no - it is kinder not to say -no - don’t ask me ... ’

‘What is it, Professor?’ said Dean Thomas at once. Everyone had got to their feet, and slowly, they crowded around Harry and Ron’s table, pressing close to Professor Trelawney’s chair to get a good look at Harry’s cup.

‘My dear,’ Professor Trelawney’s huge eyes opened dramatically, ‘you have the Grim.’

‘The what?’ said Harry.

He could tell that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand; Dean Thomas shrugged at him and Lavender Brown looked puzzled, but nearly everybody else clapped their hands to their mouths in horror.

‘The Grim, my dear, the Grim!’ cried Professor Trelawney, who looked shocked that Harry hadn’t understood. ‘The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen - the worst omen - of death!’

Harry’s stomach lurched. That dog on the cover of Death Omens in Flourish and Blotts - the dog in the shadows of Magnolia Crescent ... Lavender Brown clapped her hands to her mouth, too. Everyone was looking at Harry; everyone except Hermione, who had got up and moved around to the back of Professor Trelawney’s chair.

‘I don’t think it looks like a Grim,’ she said flatly.

Professor Trelawney surveyed Hermione with mounting dislike.

‘You’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. very little receptivity to the resonances of the future.’

Seamus Finnigan was tilting his head from side to side.

‘It looks like a Grim if you do this,’ he said, with his eyes almost shut, ‘but it looks more like a donkey from here,’ he said, leaning to the left.

‘When you’ve all finished deciding whether I’m going to die or not!’ said Harry, taking even himself by surprise. Now nobody seemed to want to look at him.

‘I think we will leave the lesson here for today,’ said Professor Trelawney, in her mistiest voice. ‘Yes ... please pack away your things ... ’

Silently the class took their teacups back to Professor Trelawney, packed away their books and closed their bags. Even Ron was avoiding Harry’s eyes.

‘Until we meet again,’ said Professor Trelawney faintly, ‘fair fortune be yours. Oh, and dear -’ she pointed at Neville, ‘you’ll be late next time, so mind you work extra hard to catch up.’

Harry, Ron and Hermione descended Professor Trelawney’s ladder and the winding staircase in silence, then set off for Professor McGonagall’s Transfiguration lesson. It took them so long to find her classroom that, early as they had left Divination, they were only just in time.

Harry chose a seat right at the back of the room, feeling as though he was sitting in a very bright spotlight; the rest of the class kept shooting furtive glances at him, as though he was about to drop dead at any moment. He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and wasn’t even watching when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes.