Disclaimer: I own Angela and the plot. That's it. Got it?
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As Angela and Harry were walking together to the North Tower the next morning when Angela realized something. She didn't even know what divination was.
"Um, Harry, what exactly is Divination?"
"Well, it's the 'art' of telling the future. The professor, Professor Trelawny, isn't really good at it, but I guess it's hard to find someone who's willing to teach it if they have a genuine talent for it. Though I do wish Firenze could have kept on teaching it…" he finished, his voice trailing off thoughtfully.
"Wait, telling the future? I can do that already. Why am I taking this class?"
Harry laughed. "I ask myself that every year. No, she teaches you different ways to tell the future. Reading the stars, palms, tea leaves, crystal balls, that sort of thing."
Angela didn't like the sound of that. That went beyond ability and straight to things Angela didn't want to do. Learning spells was one thing. That, in Angela's mind, was the same as learning math equations. This, palm reading and such, was always something she had avoided, even in the Muggle world. For one thing, it was not very accurate. She had looked at horoscopes occasionally for fun, but nothing in any of them had ever come true. And for another this truly went against her religion.
"I don't know about this, Harry. I've always thought that this kind of stuff was, well, fake."
"Well, it's worth a try, Angela. For Dumbledore, come on." He took her hand and led her up the last winding staircase. They finally reached a landing that had no doors off of it. Most new students would assume that one of the walls was a door, but Angela knew to look up. She had dreamed about this only last night, so she wasn't at all surprised to see the ladder descending to the landing when she looked up. She was also prepared for the dimness of the room. But there was one thing her dreams couldn't prepare her for.
Angela had always been a very vivid dreamer, even as a small child. She had full use of most of her senses in her dreams, dreaming in color and hearing things very clearly. She had even discovered that it was pointless to pinch herself to see if it was really a dream, as it hurt when she pinched herself in dreams. She couldn't however, smell anything in her dreams.
When she climbed into the classroom the first thing that hit her was the sickly perfume coming from the fire. She coughed at the thick smell, forgetting to get out of the way until Harry tapped her on the back of the leg.
"So-so-sorry, Harry," she managed to choke out through her coughs. "Whe-where's the tea-teacher?"
"She's around. Are you ok?"
"I'll be al-alright. Wha-what is that smell?"
"We haven't figured that one out yet, but it's always like that in here. Come over here by the window. We can open it, let some air in."
Angela could only nod, she was coughing so hard now. She felt like she was going to throw up at any minute as Harry led her to a table in the back of the class.
Just as Harry was opening the window Professor Trelawny appeared. She was very thin and wore glasses that magnified her eyes to what must have been at least five or six times their normal size. "Welcome to Divination, Angela. It's nice to finally meet you in the physical world. I have seen you, of course, many times in my crystal ball."
"The-the pleasure's all mi-mine, I'm su-sure," Angela got out chokingly. "Is the-there any way you ca-can get rid of tha-that awful smell?" she asked, before resuming her hacking.
"I'm sorry that you cannot handle the clairvoyant vibrations in my room, but if you are to complete this lesson it will be necessary," Professor Trelawny said sharply, looking disapprovingly at Angela. She then turned her extra large eyes to Harry, looking at him with extreme sadness. "I see it's coming closer, my dear. And it saddens me each time I see your death." With that she walked across the room to the teapot sitting on one of the very full shelves lining the room.
Angela looked over at Harry, still coughing, but very concerned now. What did she mean, his death? Surely this woman didn't know what she was talking about.
"Don't worry. She's been predicting my death every class for the past two years. I'm used to it, and if you're going to take this class you will be too." Harry reassured her in a low voice. Just then Professor Trelawny came back and set a teacup in front of each of them.
"Drink the tea until only the dregs remain and then swirl the leaves three times with your left hand. You should then turn the cup upside down on its saucer and let the last of the tea drain away. You will then read each other's tea leaves."
Angela looked dubiously down at the tea in her cup, then over at Harry. She couldn't resist. "Um, professor, I take *cough* my tea with cream and sugar. You wouldn't happen to have any, would you?" She gave the professor the sweetest smile she could muster, coughing slightly.
Professor Trelawny looked as if someone had just suggested she eat from the hand of a dement or. Harry was trying to control his laughter and was doing a very poor job of it.
"Cream and sugar?" Trelawny sputtered. "That would ruin any reading that you could get! Of course you cannot put that in your tea!"
Angela sighed and reluctantly began to drink her tea, which was very hot and quite bitter. She tried to drink it fairly quickly, hoping that the quicker she drank the sooner she could leave. She was still occasionally coughing, but the open window was definitely helping. She and Harry finished at about the same time and drained their cups as they had been instructed. Harry, having had much more experience at this sort of thing immediately saw various shapes in Angela's tealeaves.
"There's a clover, that means you'll have good luck. A sun, that means you'll be happy. That one looks like a butterfly. I don't know that one. Hold on." He pulled out his copy of Unfogging the Future and looked in it for the meaning. "Oh! It means you'll have 'much expected happiness'. And this last one looks like…oh, crap. It looks like the Grim."
"The what? What's a Grim?"
"Well, they say that if you get the Grim then you're going to die soon, but," he said looking around, "Professor Trelawny saw one in mine the first day of Divination in third year and I'm still here," he added, quietly, seeing Trelawny not far away. "Well, at least you got a mostly good cup," he said, sounding upbeat.
"Right. I guess that means it's my turn." Angela looked down at the cup full of tealeaves and saw…nothing. She turned it this way and that and couldn't find one discernable shape in the whole cup. "I…I can't see anything. At all." Professor Trelawny, who had been sitting quietly in an armchair watching them came over to see how they were progressing.
"Does there seem to be a problem, Miss Harte?"
"Well, it's just that I don't see any shapes in Harry's tea leaves. It just looks like a wet lump of leaves in a cup." Harry snorted at that, but looked very serious when Trelawny shot him a look.
Professor Trelawny glared at her. "It is never just a wet lump of leaves on a saucer," as she snatched the cup out of Angela's hands. She studied it for several minutes before speaking. "This is a raven, which means you'll get bad news soon. A snake, meaning an enemy is nearby. A tower, meaning you'll suffer a disappointment. And, oh dear…" she looked as if she didn't want to say it.
"Is it the Grim again professor?" Harry asked, trying to look worried, but with an amused look in his eye.
"Yes, my dear. Oh my this isn't happy at all." She set the cup down and looked at Harry again with her huge eyes.
Angela, wondering how she had missed all that, grabbed the cup and looked at it again. She saw nothing still. There was no bird shaped clump, or even a line coming off of anything that could possibly be the snake. There definitely wasn't a tower anywhere on the saucer.
"Professor, I wonder if you could show me where you saw all of those things in the cup. It would help me a lot."
If looks could kill, Angela would have died on the spot.
"I do not need to explain myself to you, Miss Harte. I see that you have the smallest aura of anyone I've ever met, including Miss Granger. It's obvious that you do not have the gift for this."
Angela thought to herself for a minute before speaking. "You know what Professor? I think this is all crap. I don't know you, and you obviously don't know me, but I don't think it's very astute of you to tell me about my 'aura'. If auras did exist, I believe you would have none, you crazy old bat. Now, if you don't mind, I'm leaving before I puke."
With that Angela stood up and walked out the trap door, Harry close behind her.
* * *
With that Angela finished "learning" five years of information. It had taken her a month and a half to recall all of the information, but now she knew that when the situation arose she would know just what to do. She took the O.W.L.s and Dumbledore told her that she would know her results by the time classes began again.
Dumbledore had called her to his office later that day to discuss what had happened that morning in the Divination class. Apparently Trelawny hadn't liked her comments at all and had made a rare traverse out of her classroom to discuss this with Dumbledore. Dumbledore had smiled at Angela understandingly when she explained what had happened.
He, of course, knew something that Trelawny didn't. He knew that Angela could already see the future. There truly was no point in her continuing the lessons. He told Trelawny as much and she had stormed out of the room, livid.
Harry had thought it was one of the funniest things he had ever seen and had written to Ron and Hermione about it as soon as they got back to Gryffindor Tower. He had also asked when they could come to visit. With Angela's studies now done they had two weeks of summer left and as much as Angela loved Hogwart's she was eager to meet the Weasley's. Dumbledore had told her that they would return by train on September 1st, and until then the rest of the summer was theirs to do with what they wished.
Ron wrote back the next day, saying that they could come that day around noon.
"Good. That gives me time to finish packing." Harry had said, giving Angela a kiss on the cheek then rushing up to his room.
Angela also had to finish packing so she headed up to her room. She had gotten a trunk from Dumbledore as a gift for finishing her studies. She tried to pack everything she had into it but it was simply too small. Giving a glance around to make sure no one was around she magically enlargened it to be able to hold all of her stuff easily. Thankfully it looked the same from the outside.
They were to travel by Floo Powder from the Gryffindor Common Room fireplace, so that they wouldn't have to drag their trunks through the castle. Dumbledore came to see them off and he could tell that Angela was nervous.
"Is something wrong, Angela?"
"No, well, it's just…I'm a bit nervous about traveling by…fire. Surely there has to be an easier way to do this. Couldn't we just Apparate? Or fly? Or something else?"
Dumbledore chuckled "Well, Harry here doesn't have an Apparition license, and neither do you. I know you can do it," he added, as she opened her mouth to protest, "but it's much safer to travel by Floo. Trust me."
Angela sighed and said "Alright. Well, it's almost noon, I guess we should go. Thank you for everything, sir. I guess I'll see you in two weeks."
"Thank you, Angela. This means a lot that you've come. And that you are staying."
Angela blushed as Dumbledore smiled at her with a twinkle in his eye.
"We should go now, Professor. See you in a few weeks." Harry said, turning toward the fireplace. He threw a handful of Floo Powder into the fire causing the fire to turn from orange to green. Angela helped him get his trunk on its end and into the fireplace. When he got into the fireplace he shouted "The Burrow!" and disappeared in a flash of green flames. Angela then got herself and her trunk into the fire, which felt like a warm summer breeze. Giving a final wave to Dumbledore she shouted "The Burrow!"