(Author’s Note: Those of us who have read J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” now know that Prof. Trelawney was not at Hogwarts at the time this story takes place, but I didn’t know that when I wrote the little story that follows. I considered trashing or rewriting this, but I had too much fun doing it to throw it out, and I like it the way it is. Just consider it an Out of Canon tidbit.)
It was the first day of Freddy Shrike’s third year of classes at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he was sunk in a pillowy, chintz armchair that seemed bent on swallowing him whole, blowing into a cup of scalding tea in a vain effort to cool it to a halfway-drinkable temperature. He had been in the eerie, foggy, crimson-tinted classroom for all of ten minutes and he was already convinced that Divination was going to go down as the least favorite subject of his entire academic career.“How can you do that?” he hissed at Angharad Jones, who was perched cross-legged on a poufy hassock next to his chair, guzzling her steaming tea.
The tiny girl sniffed at him with her hatchet nose. “It isn’t all that hot.”
Sitting with Angharad had not been Freddy’s idea. Professor Trelawney, the new Divination teacher, had used her Inner Eye to pair them off for their first lesson, although why in the world her Inner Eye wanted to stick him with Angharad, he couldn’t imagine. Although the Welsh girl had already informed him proudly that her mother was gifted with ‘the sight,’ and rather thought that Angharad had a knack for it, herself, Freddy would much rather have been doing this with his best friend, Kevin Grahame, who had been partnered, instead, with Polly Allbright. Through the cloud of incense that hung in the warm air, Freddy could make out Kevin’s head of dark, bristly hair across the room, and noted that the steaming tea had forced his poor friend to remove his glasses and wipe them off on his robes.
Freddy finally managed to sip his way through the tea, while Professor Trelawney floated amongst their tables, explaining to them the procedure for reading each other’s tea leaves. Irene Lupin, who already had a reputation among her friends as a fledgling Diviner, fluttered her hand in the air for attention, and the Professor drifted over to observe as she took her first stab at deciphering Milo Kettlesmith’s teacup. At last down to the dregs, Freddy handed his own teacup to Angharad. She took it carefully in her tiny hands, and peered into it with a solemn expression. He was not used to seeing her so serious, and was half-expecting her to make some silly joke and break out in that giggle of hers. But instead, she said, in a mysterious voice, “The tea leaves show me the secrets of your inmost soul… Look here,” she tilted the cup where he could see inside it. “There’s your heart.”
“That doesn’t look like a heart,” he squinted at it.
“Not a Valentine cutout heart,” Angharad sniffed at him, “a real heart, like the one in your body. Hush, you’re disrupting my bond with the infinite.”
“I beg your pardon,” Freddy tried not to snicker at the act she was putting on.
Angharad flashed a glare at him as she consulted the book, then gazed into the cup again. “We must see what touches your heart… An arrow… or it might be a spear…” She checked the book and decided, “It’s an arrow. There’s an arrow piercing your heart. That means…” turning the page, “you’re going to fall in love. But with whom?” Angharad peeped up at him, a sly smile on her lips as she enjoyed the moment. “Are you certain you want me to go on?”
“Why not?” Freddy leaned closer, wondering what she’d come up with, and chuckling inwardly at how far off the mark she was bound to be.
Angharad turned the cup in her hands, squinting at the pattern in the dregs. She consulted the book, turned the cup, and consulted again. Frowning this time, she rotated the cup back the other way, squinted with her other eye, and gave the cup a little shake.
“Having trouble?” Freddy asked, amused.
“No,” she snapped. “I’m looking at it the wrong way round, that’s all. Stop breaking my concentration.” Starting over again, she muttered under her breath, “Heart… arrow…” Another revolution of the cup and three pages farther into the text, she slapped the book closed. “This is a load of rubbish! They’ve got it all wrong, it doesn’t make sense at all.”
Professor Trelawney came to see what Angharad was raising a fuss about. “Perhaps, my dear, your mind is not as open to the infinite as…”
“My mind’s so open, it’s catching a chill!” the girl retorted. “It’s the stupid book that’s the problem, they’ve got the signs all mixed up. According to that,” she glanced at Freddy, and dropped her voice to a more considerate whisper. “According to the stupid book, Freddy, here, is supposed to fall in love with a dark, handsome man! How likely is that, I ask you?”
Freddy sat back in his chair, glad that the red light in the room hid the pink in his cheeks. Professor Trelawney picked up the cup and examined it.
“Ah, my dear, I see where you have erred. You have mistaken the spear for the arrow. Mr. Shrike will be killed by a dark, handsome man.”
“Really?” Freddy asked, trying to look suitably frightened.
“You mustn’t be alarmed,” said Professor Trelawney, in a voice that suggested he should be very alarmed, indeed. “You are safe for now… Your death is not predicted until… Oh, my!” She put her hand to her heart. “This cannot be!”
“What, when am I going to die?” asked Freddy, attempting to tremble a bit for effect.
Professor Trelawney sank onto the chair beside his and spoke in a hushed voice. “You will die in your fourth year at Hogwarts. The dark man who will take your life is – are you certain you can bear the truth?”
“Yes, I can take it,” Freddy drew himself up bravely.
“Is in this school right now.” Her magnified eyes gazed into his. “Ask no more of me – ask not if he is,” her voice sank to a deadly whisper, “in this very room, as we speak!”
“He’s in this room?” the boy gasped convincingly.
The Professor motioned him to silence. “Your death is written in the cup, my dear. It is a heavy burden for one so young, but… the tea leaves never lie. Ask me no more… no more…” She rose and drifted away from them.
Angharad picked up the cup again and muttered, “She’s cracked. That’s not a spear, it’s an arrow, it’s got a tail on it, see? A spear would be longer, and angled so. You’re not dying, you’re falling in love. Maybe it’s a dark, handsome woman.”
“But, is it someone in this room?” Freddy asked, in earnest this time, bending close to her.
“Yes,” Angharad mused, “she looks to have that part right.” Suppressing her voice, she asked him, “Do you like Jane Tweedy? She’s dark, and I suppose you might call her handsome.”
“If you’re Ludo Bagman,” Freddy muttered, and Angharad sputtered out a poorly-stifled snicker.
“Well, the only other dark one’s me,” she pointed out, “and I’m very flattered, Freddy, but I don’t think you’re my type.”
“No offense, Angharad,” he smiled at her, “but I know you’re not mine.”
“As long as we understand each other,” she winked.
“Do the tea leaves ever lie?” Freddy asked her, taking the cup back and looking into it, himself.
“No, not ever,” she said, and he was surprised by the solemnity of her look. “There’s truth enough in there. I’ve got a longer way to go in working it out than I thought, that’s all,” she admitted, with a disappointed sigh.
Freddy wished he could tell her she’d hit the truth more closely than she knew.
THE END
Continue to Making the Team