Harry emerged into the strangest-looking classroom he had ever seen. In fact, it didn't look like a classroom at all, more like a cross between someone's attic and old fashioned tea shop. At least twenty small, circular tables were crammed inside it, all surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little poufs. Everything was lit with a dim crimson light; the curtains at the windows were all closed, and the many lamps were draped with dark red scarves. It will stiflingly warm, and the fire was burning under the crowded mantlepiece was giving off a heavy, sickly sort of perfume as it heated a copper kettle. The shelves running around the circular walls were crammed with dusty looking feathers, stubs of candles, many packs of tattered playing cards, countless silvery crystal balls, and a huge array of teacups.
Draco appeared at Harry's shoulder as the class assembled around them, all talking in whispers.
"Where is she?" Draco said.
A voice came suddenly out of the shadows, a soft, misty sort of voice.
"Welcome," it said. "How nice to see you in the physical world at last."
Harry's immediate impression was of a large, glittering insect.
Professor Trelawney moved into the firelight, and they saw that she was thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to several times their natural size, and she was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl.
Innumerable chains and beads hung around her spindly neck, and her arms and hands encrusted with bangles and rings.
"Sit, my children, sit," she said, and they all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto poufs. Harry, Draco and Blaise sat themselves around the same round table.
"Welcome to Divination," said Professor Trelawney, who had seated herself in a winged armchair in front of the fire. "My name is Professor Trelawney. You may have not seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye.
Nobody said anything to this extraordinary pronouncement. Professor Trelawney delicately rearranged her shawl and continued, "so you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little i will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field. . . ."
"Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future," Professor Trelawney went on, her enormous, gleaming eyes moving from face to nervous face. "It is a Gift granted to few. In the second term," "we shall progress to the crystal ball — if we have finished with fire omens, that is. Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice.
"Such a pity" Harry said.
Draco snorted.
And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever. "
A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seemed unaware of it.
"Now i want you all to divide into pairs. Collect a teacup from the shelf, come to me and i will fill it . Then sit down and drink, drink until only the dregs remain. Swill these around the cup three times with your left hand, then turn the cup upside down on its saucer, wait for the last of the tea to drain away, then give your cup to your partner to read. You will interpret the patterns using pages five and six of Unfogging the Future. I shall move among you, helping and instructing.
When Harry and Draco had their teacups filled, they went back to their table and tried to drink the scalding tea quickly. They swilled the dregs around as Professor Trelawney had instructed, then drained the cups and swapped them.
"What can you see in mine?" Draco said as they opened their books at page five and six.
"A load of soggy brown stuff," said Harry. The Heavily perfumed smoke in the room was making him feel sleepy and stupid.
"Broaden your minds, my dears, and allow your eyes to see past the mundane!" Professor Trelawney cried through the gloom.
Harry thought of something. He focused and his eyes glowed bright.
"Right, you've got a crooked sort of cross. . ." He consulted Unfogging the Future. "That means you're going to have 'trials and suffering'— but there's a thing that could be a knight . . . Hang on . . . That means 'soldier' . . . So you're gonna suffer to become a knight. . ."
The glow of Harry's eyes died down
"I have no idea what to say to that Draco said anyway my turn." Draco peered into Harry's teacup, "there's a blob that looks like a bowler hat,"maybe you become Minister. . . ."
He turned the teacup the other way up.
"But this way it looks looks more like an acorn. . . . What's that?" He scanned his copy of Unfogging the future. "A windfall, unexpected gold.' Like you need more gold. . . . And there's a thing here," he turned the cup again, "that looks like a stag skull. . . Yeah, that's definitely a stag skull.
"Let me see that my dear," she said reprovingly to Draco, sweeping over and snatching Harry's cup from him. Everyone went quiet to watch.
Professor Trelawney was staring into the teacup, rotating it counterclockwise.
The falcon . . . My dear, you have a deadly enemy."
Professor Trelawney lowered her eyes to Harry's cup and turned it again.
"The club . . . an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup. . . ."
Everyone was staring, transfixed, at Professor Trelawney, who gave the cup a final turn, gasped.
"A stag" Professor Trelawney said that's impossible there are no stags in tea leaves.
"I think we will leave the lesson here for today," said Professor Trelawney in her mistiest voice. "Yes . . . Please pack away your things . . . ."
Harry was pleased to get out of the castle after lunch. Yesterday's rain had cleared; the sky was clear, pale gray, and the grass was springy and damp underfoot as they set off for their first-ever Care of Magical Creatures class.
Dumbledore's biggest Dick rider was waiting for his class at the door of his hut. He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with his boarhound at his feels, looking impatient to start.
"C'mon,now get a move on!" He called to the class approached. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
Five minutes later, they found themselves outside a kind of paddock. There was nothing in there. "Everyone gather 'round the fence here!" He called. "That's it — make sure yeh can see — now, first thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books — "
Harry pulled out his book.
"How?!" Draco said.
Harry took Hermione's copy and ripped off the spellotape that bound it. The book tried to bite but Harry made it go still with a spell.
"If I couldn't the damn thing would have bitten one of my fingers" Harry said.
"I — I thought they were funny," Dumbeldore Dick rider said.
"Oh tremendously funny!" Harry said. "Really witty giving us books that try and rip our hands off!"
Right' then," Dumbeldore Dick rider said, who seemed to have lost his thread, "so —yeh've got yer books an' — an' — now yeh need the Magical Creatures. Yeah. So I'll go an' get 'em. Hang on . . .
He strode away from them and into the forest and out of sight.
"God, this place is going to the dogs," said Draco. "That oaf teaching classes."
"Shut up Malfoy," Weasley said.
Trotting toward them were a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Harry had ever seen. They had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be giant eagles, with cruel, steel colored beaks and large, brilliantly orange eyes. The talons of their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking. Each of the beasts had a thick leather collar around its neck, which was attached to a long chain, and the ends of all of these were held in the vast hands of the oaf, who came jogging into the paddock behind the creatures.
"Gee up, there!" He roared happily, shaking the chains and urging the hippogriffs toward the fence where the class stood. Everyone drew back slightly as the oaf reached them and tethered the hippogriffs to the fence.
"Hippogriffs!" The oaf roared happily, waving a hand at them. "Beau'iful, aren' they?"
"So," The oaf said rubbing his hands together and beaming around, "if yeh wan' ter come a bit nearer —"
Harry approached the fence cautiously.
"Now, firs' thing yeh gotta know abou' hippogriffs is, they're proud," said dumbledick licker. "Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don't never insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do."
"Yeh always wait fer the hippogriffs ter make the firs' move," The oaf continued. "It's polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an' yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh're allowed ter touch him. If he doesn't bow, then get away from 'em sharpish 'cause those talons hurt.
"Right — who wants ter go?"
"I'll do it" said Harry.
"Good man, Harry!" Roared the oaf said. "Right then —let's see how yeh get on with buckbeak."
He untied one of the chains, pulled the gray hippogriff away from its fellows, and slipped off its leather collar. The class on the other side of the paddock seemed to be holding it's breath.
Harry's eyes glowed golden and buckbeak bowed as if Harry was his master.
Harry moved slowly toward the hippogriff and reached out toward it. He patted the beak several times and the hippogriff closed its eyes lazily, as though enjoying it.
Harry put his foot on top of buckbeak's wing and hoisted himself onto its back. Buckbeak stood up.
"Go on, then!" The oaf roared, slapping the hippogriff's hindquarters.
Without warning, Twelve-foot wings flapped open on either side of Harry.
Buckbeak flew once around the paddock and then headed back to the ground. Buckbeak hit the ground and Harry calmly sat on his back.
Harry got off buckbeak's back and climbed down.
Emboldened by Harry's success, the rest of the class climbed cautiously into the paddock. The oaf untied the hippogriffs one by one, and soon people were bowing nervously, all over the paddock.
Weasley had taken over Buckbeak. He had bowed to Weasley, who was now patting his beak.
