Lydia, Sophie and Freddie made their way along the corridor to the North Tower. There was an excited buzz among the many female students and a general feeling of foreboding hanging over the boys.
"I wish we'd got Firenze," Sophie grumbled. "Trelawney's supposed to be a bit weird, by all accounts."
"It's Divination," Freddie reminded her. "It's meant to be weird. Anyway it's not like Firenze is your average warlock. His top half's a bloke – a naked bloke, actually – and the back half is a horse! How normal is that?"
Lydia looked around them. "I'm surprised how many Slytherins are taking Divination."
Sophie nodded. "It must be a power thing. If you know something about the future you've got power over events and people's lives. Anyone would want that!"
"Mmm," Lydia retorted.
"Oh, sorry Lydz," she said. "Wasn't thinking."
"What?" said Freddie, then realised. "Oh yeah. Shush."
They gathered around the tower room looking up at the round trap door above. It opened. A silver ladder descended and a voice called: "Enter". The students looked at each other.
"This is cool!" Freddie said, then started to climb the ladder.
Lydia and Sophie looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him.
They emerged into another round tower room. It was scattered with furniture and trinkets. There were a number of low, round tables each with armchairs and beanbags surrounding them. There was a wide fireplace in which a fire was burning, heating a large copper kettle. By the fireplace was a high-backed armchair. The room was warm and had a heavy, heady atmosphere. Lydia felt her head was swimming with the warmth and the strange herbal scent. Here and there around the room crystal balls glittered in the reflected light of the fire and several red-shaded lamps.
A slender figure emerged from the shadows. It glittered all over and Lydia got the impression of two large, staring eyes. These turned out to be Professor Trelawney's glasses.
"Welcome," she said in calculatedly mystical tones. "We meet at last. Please take a seat, each and every one of you."
The professor herself took to the high-backed armchair. She sat in a flurry of sparkly robes and diamante-strewn shawl, her jewellery tinkling as she moved. Lydia and Sophie took to armchairs at one table. Freddie threw himself into the leather-clad beanbag between them.
Professor Trelawney introduced herself and her subject. There was much talk of 'The Sight', of 'Inner Eyes', and of people either having or not having 'The Gift'. After this she began to tell various students things about themselves. These were things she could only have known if she had read their files or talked to their other professors. For some she made predictions of vaguely-worded occurrences at unspecified dates. She came to Lydia's table.
The professor pointed a long, thin finger at Freddie. "You. You! One day you will be famous. People will praise you and bless your name. But I see a veil cast around you. People will not see you and they will weep."
Freddie smiled and nodded. "I get that a lot."
Trelawney stared at him for a while then looked to Sophie. "You. I see a small girl, sad and lonely. Then I see you surrounded by friends. You are chasing something. People are cheering and calling out your name."
Sophie nodded slowly. "Ri-i-i-i-ight."
The professor turned to Lydia. She frowned and looked at her from several different angles. When she spoke, she sounded confused and unsure.
"Someone is watching you. There are… trees. Mist. A grey cloak. A grey face. He is… watching. Trying to understand something about you. Trying to get the measure of you. I see a woman. She is terrified. She screams. She wants to die. She would rather die. I can taste something… bitter on the wind. It is betrayal. I see an old man standing guard. He wears silver armour, but it is old and dirty, now – almost black. You will…"
Her voice tailed off. She leaned close to Lydia, her glasses almost touching Lydia's face. She whispered one word. "Kill."
The room around Lydia had become very dark. Tall objects stood all about her. Looking up, she could see stars in a midnight sky through some manner of latticework. As her eyes became more accustomed to the dark, she realised Trelawney had gone, the classroom had gone. She was standing in an old ruin. She felt, rather than saw, a presence behind her and to one side. She knew that if she turned around she would see the Grey Watcher she had seen in many half-remembered dreams.
From the shadowed part of the ruin before her a knight stepped forward. He, if it was a he, wore dark-streaked silvery armour and a black cloak. He drew his sword and held it out, handle-first, toward her. She reached out and took it, holding the point up towards the stars. Something warm and sticky flowed down the blade and onto her naked hand. Though it was too dark to see colours she knew it was blood. She wanted to drop the sword but she knew she must not, could not. She turned on her heel to face the Watcher, her sword poised to strike. She saw…
Freddie's face was close. The bitter wind had gone. The air was warm and scented with herbs.
"You all right, chick?" Freddie asked.
She shuffled to sit up in her chair. "Yeah. Just went a bit dizzy."
Freddie nodded. "You didn't say anything after Trelawney moved on. I didn't know if she'd scared you or sent you to sleep. She went a bit weird, there."
"Yeah," said Sophie. "It was all a bit Goth. She must have thought her act needed spicing up a bit."
After doing her best to unsettle the students, Trelawney gave them all a cup of tea. Lydia was thinking how nice that was of her when she told them she wanted them to look at the tea leaves once they had finished. The idea was to divine the future from the shapes the tea leaves made in the bottom of the cup. They had to use their textbooks to decipher the shapes. Lydia thought it seemed a mundane and round-about way of telling the future. Her tea leaves looked like a three-headed snake. This did not seem likely and there was no corresponding figure in the textbook. Maybe Divination was the bit of silliness people often said it was.
As chance would have it their first Care of Magical Creatures lesson was on the afternoon of the same day. Lydia always felt unsettled after she had dreamed of the Grey Watcher. Trelawney's antics had made it seem even worse. Freddie and Sophie said it was part the professor's act, though they were interested to hear about Lydia's repeated dreams of the Grey Watcher.
"It was all just a bunch of spooky stuff," Sophie explained. "Y'know, to make her seem mystical and all that. I don't know how she knew about your dreams but look what she said to me! 'You're all little and lonely, then you got friends, now you're chasing something and people are cheering'. There can't be one person in the school that couldn't have come out with that."
"And mine," said Freddie "'People adore you then, when they can't see you, they cry'. That's my daily routine."
The girls laughed a bit more at this than was strictly diplomatic.
Lydia wiped her eyes. "Sorry, Freddie. That was funny, though."
"It was meant to be," he explained. "I'm not that big-headed."
Lydia smiled at him and held his hand. "Actually, I would be sad if I couldn't see you, either of you two. If you couldn't come to visit in the holidays or something."
Freddie looked at his friends. "Same here, babes."
Sophie nodded and sniffed.
"This is what we call in the military a 'group hug situation'," said Freddie in a reasonable attempt at a gruff voice. "Bring it in."
They hugged.
"Get a room, you three!" called a random Gryffindor fifth-year.
"We did!" Freddie called back. "It's called the JCR."
They arrived outside Hagrid's hut, where the students were gathering for their lesson. Hagrid was counting heads. He did not seem to find it easy.
"Right, if yer could all just stand still for a minute I'll check how many more we're expectin'."
He counted again then looked up the slope towards the castle. "Ah. There's the last two."
The whole class turned to look. Two figures, one large and one small, were hurrying down towards them.
Freddie turned to Lydia. "Is that who think it is?"
"Yep," said Sophie. "If you think it's Dean and Oddy, that is."
"Sorry," puffed Dean as they drew up. "Bit of a book opening incident."
"Yeh know yer supposed to stroke the spine, to calm it down first? I mean, it was on yer 'Ogwarts letter," Hagrid said.
Dean gave a grimace. "I do, now."
Oddy rolled his eyes.
Hagrid nodded. "Right, well. Good. Er, welcome to yer first lesson in Care of Magical Creatures. There's some stuff I've got to tell yer all afore we get goin'. Safety stuff an' the like. Some o' the magical creatures yeh'll be dealin' with in this class can be right dangerous. These are animals that stupid people calls 'monsters'. The real monsters go around on two legs wi' wands killin' and destroyin', like in the war. The creatures yeh'll meet in this class are magical and important. They 'ave feelin's and understandin's, just like us. An' they deserve yer respect. Listen careful to all yer instructions and abide by 'em. But most of all give every animal yer respect. If yeh understand 'em and respect 'em then ain't nobody going to get 'urt. If yeh disrespect any o' these creatures yeh'll be off this course, maybe even expelled. If yer survive, that is. Does everybody understand and agree to that?"
There was nodding and murmuring of "Yes, sir," from all the students.
"Good, good," Hagrid crooned. "Now, I'm goin' ter start yeh all off with Bowtruckles. They won't likely kill yeh but if yeh don't treat 'em with care and respect yeh could end up wi' a nasty cut."
They spent the rest of the lesson learning about the little stick-like creatures. They heard that the creatures lived in wand-grade trees and ate small insects and woodlice. There was not one unfortunate incident and some of the Bowtruckles became quite friendly after a while. Several of them seemed interested in Lydia. Some seven or eight swarmed over her at one point, examining her. One sat on Lydia's shoulder for almost the whole second half of the lesson. Dean found a particularly mischievous example who crawled inside his robes to tickle him. This one befriended Oddy, who made copious notes and drawings.
At the end of the lesson, as the students were packing up their books, Hagrid took Lydia to one side.
"I'm busy tonight," he said. "But if yeh come down 'ere after classes tomorrer, I'd like to show yeh round the forest a bit – see all the animals an' that. If yeh'd like."
Lydia nodded. "Can I bring my friends?"
"Er, no. Sorry," Hagrid said. "It's just there's some of 'em who'd like to meet yeh. You specially, like. Maybe another time yer friends could come but this time it's special, cos you're special to them."
Lydia frowned.
Hagrid smiled. "It'll all make sense tomorrer evenin'."
Lydia smiled. "OK. See you then."
Lydia had been intrigued that Oddy and Dean had decided to take the Magical Creatures course. She asked them about it that evening in the Ravenclaw common room, before tea.
"It was Oddy's idea," said Dean.
Oddy looked up from a book and nodded. "I like animals, now. Cats are interesting. People say humans should be more like dogs. I think they should be like cats. If you do something to a cat that it doesn't like, it lets you know. Then it moves on and forgets about it, because you've learned not to do it again. If you do something a human doesn't like, they say nothing. They smile, but they hate you and try to find sneaky ways to punish you. Or they get hurt and upset about it and never forget. Why do people do that? Friends are better. If I say something funny about Dean, he doesn't mind. If I go too far, he tells me and I say 'sorry' and don't do it again. It works. Why can't people be like that, like cats?"
Lydia frowned. "People usually show some sign when they've been upset."
"Really?" Oddy asked. "Did you tell Teddy that he upset you as soon as he started ignoring you for not being popular?"
"Well, no, but…"
"That's what I mean," Oddy said. "People try to be subtle. Tell me I did something wrong. Tell me what I did and how it made you feel. Tell me if I say sorry and never do it again we are friends, but if I don't stop then I need to go away and we won't be friends. And when I stop it should be over. Don't say 'Remember that time when you did that thing?'. Of course I remember, that's why I've never done it again. Be more cat."
Lydia nodded slowly. "So you're taking Magical Creatures to see if other animals are like that."
Oddy nodded. "Yes. To see if they're honest."
"So, you must tell me if I ever upset you, Oddy," said Lydia. "Promise?"
Oddy frowned. "No. I'm human. I've just proven that humans are rubbish."
Lydia was about to say something.
"That was a joke, Lydia," Oddy said. "That's another thing humans do."
Dean laughed. Lydia grinned. Oddy started reading again.
6