Sybill Trelawney's Date with Danger
"Excuse me!" shouted Sybill through the crowd. "EXCUSE ME, COULD I GET TH…oh, sh—" She stopped and picked up the contents of her ripped bag, shaking a bit of ink off her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3. It was lucky she'd thought to leave her ink and instead bring her Quick Quotes Quill with her to Charms, or she'd have had an enormous mess on her hands. She'd accidentally left a bit of a bottle in her bag, though, which she frowned at as she shook her Divination homework clean.
"What, Sib," drawled a voice nearby, "didn't see that coming?"
Sybill pushed her glasses up her nose and turned around as though in a completely relaxed state. "Pettigrew." She put her head down and walked by him.
"WHAT, SIB, SCARED? DIDN'T YOU SEE THIS COMING?" he shouted at her retreating back.
She returned to her previous state of wringing out her Divination homework. The Professor would be so angry. She could see it now.
"Sybill Trelawney," said the vision of her fierce, bat-like Divination teacher, bangles jangling upon her wrists, "great-great-granddaughter of the Seer," (snort) "Cassandra Trelawney, hasn't even got her homework properly done? I suppose she thought she was above homework, didn't she?"
Sybill spluttered angrily before she realized the vision of the teacher was, in fact, just in her head.
That was, of course, right when she ran face-first into Remus Lupin.
"Sorry," she said, shaking her head and making to move past him. "Really, sorry…"
The last thing she wanted to do was walk headfirst into an acquaintance of James Potter, who did his utmost to make her life as miserable as possible. Everybody seemed to assume that, because she was the great-great-granddaughter of Cassandra Trelawney, and because she was signed up for Divination (it would be a crime if she hadn't been), that she also assumed she was a Seer.
Sybill, of course, knew better. The furthest she'd ever seen into the future was twenty minutes, and that was because she foresaw herself having porridge with raisins for breakfast. This was even less revolutionary than it seemed, for Sybill had porridge with raisins in every morning for breakfast, except once in her second year when she'd had a bit of toast, because Sirius Black had taken the porridge and poured it over Severus Snape's head. She thought she would have sympathized with him, only she found he was quite as terrible as his enemies were. She remembered a particularly unpleasant scratch she'd had with him during the first year, when he'd decided to make a laughingstock out of her as he delivered a message to the Potions teacher and used the jelly-legs curse on her. She wasn't that great with a wand, and was altogether too intimidated by him to pour her entire cauldron of Punchy Potion over his head.
"Wait a minute," said Remus, rubbing at his rather sleepy-looking eyes and pushing back his unkempt hair. Sybill started. She'd completely forgotten that she'd run into him. "Aren't you that Trelawney…?"
Sybill nodded.
"Great-great-granddaughter of Cassandra Trelawney?"
Sybill nodded again. She decided against keeping her mouth shut, for her matters were altogether more pressing than random conversational banter that seemed to accompany her wherever she went. While attempting to brush past him, she said, "Listen, I'm late for Divi—"
"Hang on," said Remus, putting his hand on her chest and pushing her back to her position in front of him. "Have you ever foreseen anything before?"
There was no point beating around the bush. But then, she didn't exactly want to make herself look disgraceful. "Yes, once or twice," she said nonchalantly and made to leave again. She figured that the porridge counted, anyhow.
He didn't look convinced, but he continued to talk, anyway. "Would you be willing to attempt to predict some exam questions for… er… some friends?"
Sybill crossed her eyes frustratedly. "NO. After all, nothing's in it for me, and you know you shouldn't be cheating like that, especially if it's on an O.W.L… and really, I'm incredibly late for Divination," she said, dropping her semi-drenched Divination homework on accident as she looked at her watch.
The obstacle standing between Sybill and Divination made to empty his pockets. "One galleon," he said, holding it out in his hand for her to see, "and…" he continued to dig, pulling out various things such as lint, a wand, a Sneakoscope, and a single Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Bean which appeared to be banana (or perhaps vomit?) flavored, "…eleven sickles… and three knuts."
"No," said Sybill, firmly, knowing that it was not worth even a galleon, eleven sickles, and three knuts in order to make a perpetual fool of herself. "Aren't you a Prefect?" she sighed.
"You see," he said, and at this point his voice dropped to a low whisper, "I'm a Prefect, yes, only I'm absolutely sure James Potter and Sirius Black are going to score better on their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. than I. Well, I was hoping that, er, maybe you could, erm, give me a few questions to throw off James and Sirius."
"N—well…" she said, thoughtfully. It would mean making a fool of James Potter and Sirius Black, who had been working fruitlessly to do the same to her. She extended her hand. "Buy now, pay now, no refunds," she said, and took the galleon, eleven sickles, and three knuts from Remus.
"It's a deal. But you'd better have your predictions, and you'd better have them looking rather convincing, by the time you get to the common room tonight."
* * *
"Sorry I'm late," said Sybill, dropping her things for the third time that day on the floor in the Divination room atop North Tower. "I had a run-in with the suit of armor on the fourth floor, and fell into the trick stair on the second."
"Your homework, please," said a large clinking noise to her left. She held up her scarlet-covered parchment. "Sybill Trelawney, great-great-granddaughter of Cassandra Trelawney, hasn't even got her homework done? I suppose she thought she was above homework, didn't she?"
Sybill considered the fact that she'd predicted that almost to the exact word mere coincidence and extreme knowledge of cliché in her life. She sighed and bowed her head, nodding as though to listen while the Professor continued her rant.
When she'd finally finished her weekly Sybill Trelawney Rant, she turned to the class.
"Today we will be consulting the crystal ball once more," she said, dreamily. "I hope that all of you will find vital information concerning your future."
"Yes," mumbled Sybill, her eyes crossing once again as she stared blearily ahead at the crystal ball, "I suspect you shall suffer a crystal ball wound to the head after one of your students has thrown it at you before the year is out."
Bellatrix Black, who was sitting nearby, snickered at this. "Sib," she said, patting her on the shoulder and joining her in a stiff-backed chair at the same table, "you never cease to amaze me."
"I aim to please, Trix," said Sybill, faintly, continuing her stare into the crystal ball.
"Why were you late?" Bellatrix asked, adjusting her necklace attached to a vial full of some clear liquid. Bellatrix insisted it was Veritaserum but Sybill was quite confident that it was water.
"Ran into a few fifth years," she said, bitterly.
"Ah? And was my dearest cousin Sirius among them?"
"No, but that fat kid that always follows them around was."
"Ah. Pet-a-shrew, or something?"
"Pettigrew. Peter."
"Oh, ah," said Bellatrix, turning toward the orb sitting upon their table. "I'll never understand it." Sybill was not quite sure whether she was referring to the crystal ball, or the fifth years, including Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew.
"Trix," said Sybill, jerking Bellatrix out of her trance-like stupor as she gazed in the air slightly right of the crystal ball, "would you pay for exam questions before the exam?"
"How much?" Bellatrix asked, interestedly.
"A galleon, eleven sickles, and three knuts."
"For which exam?" she asked.
"Defense Against the Dark Arts."
Bellatrix looked rather taken aback. "Well, I'd pay more than that. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a joke."
"How much would you pay if it was for the O.W.L. questions?"
"Sybill," said Bellatrix, looking panicked, "get a hold of yourself! Nobody'd ever sell O.W.L. questions for under ten galleons!"
Sybill, abandoning all pretense, leaned back from her position inches from the orb. "What, you can buy O.W.L. questions?"
"Well, no," Bellatrix admitted, "but if you could, they would cost at least ten galleons per exam."
"Oh," said Sybill. She squirmed in her chair. "Do you know, if ever I'm a teacher at this place, I'm going to get some more comfortable chairs. Especially if it was the Divination class. How does anybody expect you to see the future in a big hunk of glass if you're worried about breaking your neck if you move wrong in one of these chairs?"
"Why do you ask?" said Bellatrix, who hadn't heard this rant about the uncomfortable chairs.
"Well, you see, when I was on my way to this class, I ran into Remus Lupin…"
* * *
"Right," said Sybill, over what she suspected to be Hippogriff Casserole, "do these seem reasonable?" She handed a bit of parchment over to Bellatrix, who scanned it.
"Well, you'll have to check with a fifth year. I'm not quite sure how advanced the fifth years are. But from what I know, they look quite good."
"Okay. Hold on," said Sybill, as she stood up, holding her fork in one hand and the parchment in the other. She hurried over to Remus Lupin, who sat alone a little way down the table. "I've got your questions," she said. "What do you think?"
Remus looked rather surprised to be pulled so abruptly back into the mundane universe. He attempted to read the parchment upside-down, thought better of it, and pulled it out of Sybill's hands (carefully avoiding, to Sybill's notice, cutting her). He looked down the page.
"How did you…?" he sputtered, unable to finish the question.
"Quick Quotes Quill," said Trelawney. "My mum got it for my birthday. Does wonders for essays. All you've got to do is read a passage out of a book and there you are."
"I should get one of these," said Remus. "Yeah, yeah, this is excellent." He handed the paper back to her.
"Er… don't you want it…?"
"No! No, of course not!" He looked revolted at the idea. "No, you've got to give it to them. Er, later. You have to come to me in the common room, and, er, make sure I'm sitting in front of Sirius and James."
"Oh," said Sybill, going slightly pale. "Well, that's extra."
It seemed that Remus Lupin, when slightly nervous, did not go pale, but instead looked even messier and more disheveled than he ordinarily did. Bellatrix Black was quick to comment that she thought this did wonders for his complexion when they saw him in the common room.
"I haven't got anymore money," he said. "But…"
"But what?"
"Er. I've got…" he dug around in his bag. "A vial of Polyjuice Potion."
"Why?" said Sybill, before thinking twice.
"That's my business," snapped Remus. "Do you want it or not?"
"Well, er, you keep it." Sybill was really too nice to refuse the Polyjuice Potion and refuse to do as he said as well. It wasn't as though he hadn't offered her anything.
"You should have taken it," Bellatrix hissed at her when she sat back down in her seat. "Do you have any idea how long it takes to make Polyjuice Potion?"
"It doesn't matter," said Sybill, breathlessly. "I've got an idea."
* * *
"Well," said Remus, rubbing his chin and staring at the questions. "You could certainly get seven galleons for it, if you found a buyer."
"I know," said Sybill, offhandedly. Remus shot her a look that she understood quite clearly. "Well, a friend told me that there's a bit of a Black Market for O.W.L. questions. And exam questions in general." He continued to stare at her. "I've got a business proposition for you."
"They always come running to Remus," he said, smugly. "Fire away."
"What I need to know is if there's a spell so that only the buyer can access the questions."
Looking rather tired, and very disconcerted, Remus nodded his head. "I'm sure there is one, or something like it, only I can't remember it. I know it's in one of my books, though." He looked at her piercingly. "I charge to put the spell on the parchment."
"How much?"
"Ten percent."
"I'll charge eight galleons and you get one."
"Good. I was far too lazy to do the math."
She held out her hand. He took and shook it. "It seems we've got a deal, then," he said, and flipped open a book.
* * *
The next day a rather large sign appeared in the common room.
EXAM QUESTIONS
Great-great-granddaughter of celebrated Seer Cassandra Trelawney is offering you once-in-a-lifetime chance for a premature look at exam questions.
Buy now, pay now,
NO REFUNDS.
N.E.W.T. Questions: 20 Galleons per exam
O.W.L. Questions: 10 Galleons per exam
Other: 8 Galleons per exam
Inquire with Sybill Trelawney, Seer, or Remus Lupin, Prefect and Spellcaster Supreme
"I don't know," said Remus, biting his lip and staring at the flyer. "Do you really think it's a good idea?"
"No," said Sybill, "but I need money."
"Money can't buy happiness," singsonged Bellatrix.
"No, but I don't want happiness. I want money," snapped Sybill.
"Heavens no, I didn't mean to imply that one would pick happiness over money. I was merely quoting an ancient proverb."
"I think it's rather unfair that you're charging people twenty galleons for N.E.W.T. exams," said Remus.
"It means two galleons for you," said Sybill.
"Which is why I've not taken down the sign yet. Because my avarice overrides my guilt."
"Yes, I do feel slightly bad that I'm charging people twenty galleons for exam questions that will turn out to be false," said Sybill. "But with twenty galleons for a page of questions I think that maybe I can develop a device which predicts exam questions for me."
"Then you'd charge forty galleons," said Bellatrix.
"You've got a point."
"What are you going to do when somebody tries to turn you in?" she inquired.
"Point out that it's their fault that they believed me, that they should have been moral enough to go without cheating on their exams, anyway."
"Good idea," said Remus. "I also plan to take that route. But also I plan to bring up the fact that I am but the, ah, Spellcaster Supreme."
"You know," said Bellatrix, "with those spells that're on them, I don't think anybody has any proof that you've been stealing money from them, anyway. Even if they are man enough to admit that they've stupidly consulted a person who's shown no more foresight than a Fizzing Whizbee. For N.E.W.T. questions at great lightening of their pockets, even."
"Did you just say that entire thing without breathing?" Remus said faintly.
Within the next day orders started pouring in. Remus kindly volunteered, at a rather large cost, to shorten Sybill's workload by copying the exam questions onto several parchment sheets at a time using joint writing.
"Well," said Remus, "it's not really fair that you get all the money when I'm really doing all the work, is it? After all, you're only using a Quick Quotes Quill."
Sybill had to admit that he did have a point, so she allowed him to blatantly overcharge her.
"You know," said Remus, as he copied the twenty-seventh question to the Transfiguration O.W.L. that Sybill had come up with, "if the questions are really this easy I'll eat the Sorting Hat." He released his quill from the stack of parchment, looking quite satisfied with his handwriting. "I'd be really angry I'm using up so much study time doing this, only I've just remembered that I don't care. As long as I can tell a grindylow from a werewolf, I think I'm safe."
"Some people would have difficulty discerning a werewolf from a grindylow," Bellatrix commented as she watched and sucked on a Sugar Quill.
"I wouldn't," said Remus so sharply that the other two looked at him suspiciously. "You look at me as though you expect me to turn into a werewolf now," he chuckled, and pulled out a textbook.
"Hey," said Bellatrix, "haven't you got friends?"
"I imagine they're out tormenting Severus Snape or something," he said, flipping a page. "James is probably showing off."
"You don't think too highly of your friends, do you?" Bellatrix said as Sybill bent studiously over a piece of parchment, mumbling to her Quick Quotes Quill. "And do those things come in any other color?"
"I think they come in fuschia," said Sybill.
* * *
The next week was full of fifth and seventh year exams. Sybill's only breaks from studying were spent copying more cheats, one sheet of parchment at a time. She could no longer rely on Remus to continue with his joint writing regime, as he was taking his Ordinary Wizarding Levels.
This meant that she hadn't exchanged a word with Remus since the exams had begun. When finally she did get a word in with him at dinner one night, he looked rather distressed.
"I've just come from my History of Magic O.W.L.," he said, explaining in a nutshell why he looked so flustered. Professor Binns may well have been so dull that he'd made ears bleed all around Britain. He tore more chicken off a drumstick and chewed on it viciously. "But that's not why I'm so flustered."
Or not.
"Why are you so flustered, then?" asked Sybill, as Lupin searched his pockets for his wand so he could perform the charm on her stack of newly-copied exam questions lying near the gravy. She picked up her goblet of pumpkin juice and took a sip.
"Because the exam questions that you made up were right."
She spit it out all over the freshly-copied exam questions.
"Hark?" she said.
"I don't know how you did it. Whether it was that Quick Quotes Quill, or you actually are a Seer, but the exam questions you sold turned out to be the actual questions."
Bellatrix looked as though she was about to vomit. "And I never looked at them?"
"And I didn't charge more?" said Sybill, in much the same attitude.
"I'm not complaining," said Lupin, finishing his mashed potatoes and draining a goblet of juice. "I've got to go. Just because your exam questions were right doesn't mean I won't make a complete idiot of myself on the practicals."
* * *
"You're Sybill Trelawney, great-great-granddaughter of Cassandra Trelawney, correct?"
"Yes," said Sybill, knocking over a glass of sherry as the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, approached her. The tavern was rather dank and very uninviting, which, it seemed, was making her quite nervous.
He sat down and ordered a drink, staring at her with a look that made her feel as though he was looking right through her.
"Have you had any past teaching experience before?"
"Well," she said, timidly, as she pushed her glasses further up her nose. "I, er, learned what not to do. Or some of it. I think."
"And what should you not do?"
"Er."
"I see," said Dumbledore, a bemused expression covering his aged facial features. "And have you ever Seen before?"
"Once or twice," said Sybill, rather reluctant to repeat her experiences with the exam questions.
"And did that have anything to do with Remus Lupin, some O.W.L. questions, and a Quick Quotes Quill?"
"Er," said Sybill. She drained her glass in one go.
"I see," he said.
A moment of silence. All the people in the tavern seemed to be looking in their direction. Perhaps it was the presence of one rather batty woman seeking a job at Hogwarts, the great-great-granddaughter of the famous Seer Cassandra Trelawney; or perhaps it was the presence of the tall and great wizard Albus Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump, Order of Merlin, First Class, and member of a limited club of witches and wizards who'd been featured on Chocolate Frog cards.
"Well, I'll be getting back to you," said Dumbledore, standing up and fastening his cloak. He turned to leave.
"THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES…."
"Eh?" said Dumbledore, turning around.
"BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES…."
"You're hired!" he shouted, slamming his hands on the table.