Not Gazing Into a Crystal Ball
Harry and Ron ascended the ladder into the infamous Divination room. The clarity of the air flabbergasted them, and they whipped their heads around, looking towards Professor Trelawney's favored armchair.
"Where's the old fraud got to?" Ron whispered, in case she was lurking behind them.
"Dunno," replied Harry. "Just because she's on Probation doesn't mean that she has to stop teaching." Parvati gasped.
"Look!" she half cried, half whispered. Professor Trelawney seemed to be in a store room above the classroom, gazing out of a window. Lavender Brown climbed up to remind her that there were twenty students below her.
"Professor!" Lavender called. "Professor…what are you staring at?" Parvati climbed up to join her.
"Hagrid is a fine teacher, don't you think?" Trelawney sighed.
"Professor, no!" Parvati cried, trying to break Trelawney's grip on the windowsill. "Professor, what's wrong with you?"
"Nothing, dear. Students aren't allowed in my storerooms," she said brusquely to the girls who were tying to interfere with her mad obsession.
Torn between obeying and persuading, Lavender and Parvati tried one more time to pull their dear professor from the window. When she refused to budge, they returned to the classroom with the air of a pair of deflated balloons.
"Free class!" called Seamus Finnigan.
"Anyone else finish McGonagall's essay?" asked Dean. Murmurs of disagreement abounded, Harry and Ron included. But, as Ron put it, "Hermione'll just give us the answers anyway, right?" So they spent the class discussing Trelawney's newfound love.
"Hagrid? But I don't think he saw her back, so it's just a one way obsession," said Ron.
"Yeah, Hagrid never drinks at breakfast," replied Harry. "Good thing, or we might have had some work to do."
"How long do you think this stuff lasts?" Ron asked.
"Fred and George wouldn't make it permanent…would they?" Harry said.
"I don't think so, because they've been talking about leaving."
"I might be right behind them."
"Hey, look! The bat's coming down from her cave." Surely enough, Trelawney was descending from the storeroom.
"I must see if the heavens declare this romance to be," she said in that misty, un-earthly voice.
"Well, if he does not agree, I do not foresee this affair occurring, ah me!" whispered Ron. He and Harry collapsed in silent giggles, not avoiding Trelawney's notice.
"Fine. If my room is to be disrupted by the vibes of the unseeing, then you all can see what you make of it!" she said. A collective groan arose from the class, except from Parvati and Lavender, who squealed and moved into their usual seats on either side of her.
"I see, in their future…the Grim!" Harry announced dramatically.
"Who doesn't?" asked Ron. "And I see a load of fog. Possibly a fog-lit date?"
"Yeah. They could take a midnight stroll through a graveyard!" laughed Harry.
"For a homework assignment, I would like your views on why the minds of some are so hopelessly and mundanely clouded," Trelawney announced. "You may go."
Harry and Ron met up with Hermione outside of Umbridge's classroom. Frequently interrupting one another, Harry and Ron told Hermione about Trelawney and Hagrid.
"Well, Professor Vector seemed unharmed," she said. "But then some Slytherin bewitched a stack of books to fly at my head, and I went to the Hospital Wing."
"Oh, and who has Pomfrey fallen for?" Ron asked eagerly.
"Professor Flitwick. They're over there giggling at each other. I guess she must have given him some Pumpkin Juice that Fred and George got at," Hermione answered.
"Why was he even in the Hospital Wing?" Harry asked.
"He said he toppled off his stack of books again and broke his wrist," Hermione replied. "You know, Fred and George are in Charms right now. I'd bet anything that they had a hand in that."
"How could they? He toppled off his books!" Ron said.
"I…" Hermione started, but she was cut off by the opening of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom door.
"This should make for a very interesting lesson," Harry said.
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A/N: As always, please do review, because I will eventually return the favor!
