The Sybil Trelawney Method of Assigning Marks

Ron staggered, sputtering, eyes watering, into the smoky, perfumed office where Madam Trelawney was sitting in the lotus-position, turning the entrails of a goat on a brazier with a toasting-fork. She invited him to a paisley-patterned pouf with a wave of her hand, and in a crystalline voice tinkled: 'Well, Mr Weasley…it is time for marks on your first test. Now let me ask you – what mark do you foresee Destiny assigning to you?"

'Er…' Ron hesitated, 'I suppose … Destiny might have assigned me… er… an 8?'

'I'm so sorry, Mr Weasley – you've misread the signs. This formation on the goat's spleen tells me had you not sat at the back of the class laughing all last week, you would have made an 8: as it is, you get a 6.'

Ron departed; it was not Destiny he was cursing. Harry Potter entered next, coughing, steam fogging his glasses. Madam Trelawney looked at him with misty eyes, through the greasy reek of smoke sent up from the now burning entrails. 'Well, Mr Potter,' she warbled in a melancholy minor, wafting him to a seat, 'what marks, do you think, have the awful decrees of Fortune set down for you?'

Harry thought rapidly. 'Fortune decrees that I have earned a 4,' he said, seriously, 'but – that you take compassion on my miseries, and raise my mark to a 9. This makes me so happy, that I go for a victory flight on my broomstick, fall off, and die – in agony,' he added for good measure.

Trelawney's face lit up. 'Oh, well done, my boy!' she fluted. 'I think you may have the makings of a Seër after all! What a pity your young life must be tragically cut short!' A tear ran down her large nose and plopped, hissing, onto the blackening goat.

Harry exited with a sigh of relief, and Hermione Granger strode uncompromisingly in, waving away the smoke with her hand. Madam Trelawney, who did not invite her to sit, asked with pursed lips, 'Well, Miss Granger, what marks have the Fates given you?'

'If you mean what marks have I earned, I suppose, since I answered every question correctly, I got – '

'I'm sorry, my dear, I – that is, the Fates, don't assign marks in that low, materialistic way. I'm afraid you got a 1. And now, I fear, Destiny decrees I must go to the Little Witches' room. Good day, Miss Granger,' pronounced the Prophetess, and vanished in a thick cloud of smoke. The goat was now as black as a coal.

But it did not splutter half as loudly as Hermione.