You Get What You Deserve

My immediate impression was a large, glittering insect. Professor Trelawney moved into the firelight, and we saw that she was very thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to several times their natural size, and she was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl. Innumerable chains and beads hung around her spindly neck, and her arms and hands were encrusted with bangles and rings.

“Sit, my children, sit,” she said, and we all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto pouffes. Harry, Ron, Hermione and I sat ourselves around the same round table.

“Welcome to Divination,” said Trelawney, who had seated herself in a winged armchair in front of the fire. “My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye.”

Nobody said anything in answer to this extraordinary pronouncement. Trelawney delicately rearranged her shawl and continued, “So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field...”

At these words, Harry, Ron and I glanced, grinning, at Hermione, who looked startled at the news that books wouldn’t be much help in this subject.

“Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future,” Trelawney went on, her enormous, gleaming eyes moving from face to nervous face. “It is a Gift granted to few. You, boy,” she said suddenly to Neville, who almost toppled off his pouffe, “is your grandmother well?”

“I think so,” said Neville tremulously.

“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you, dear,” said Trelawney, the firelight glinting on her long emerald earrings. Neville gulped. Trelawney continued placidly, “We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be devoted to reading the tea leaves. Next term we shall progress to palmistry. By the way, my dear,” she shot suddenly at Parvati Patil, “beware a red-haired man.”

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

“In the summer term,” Trelawney went on, “we shall progress to the crystal ball – if we have finished with dire 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 forever.”

A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but 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 and enormous teapot from the shelf and put it down on the table in front of 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, than 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. 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 I had had our teacups filled, we went back to our table and tried to drink the scalding tea quickly. We swilled the dregs around as Trelawney had instructed, then drained the cups and swapped them.

“Right,” I said, as we both opened our 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 me feel sleepy and stupid.

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

“Right, you’ve got a wonky sort of cross...” Harry 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,” I said, and we both had to stifle our laughs as Trelawney gazed in our direction.

“My turn...” I said, peering into Harry’s teacup, my forehead wrinkled with effort. “There’s a blob a bit like a bowler hat,” I said. “Maybe you’re going to work for the Ministry of Magic...” I turned the teacup the other way up. “But this way it looks more like an acorn... what’s that?” I scanned my book. “ ‘A windfall, unexpected gold.’ Excellent, you can lend me and Ron some. And there’s a thing here,” I turned the cup again, “that looks like an animal. Yeah, if that was its head... it looks like a hippo... no, a sheep...”

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

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