Realizing they were running late, Dudley and Dean hurried to get to the North Tower where their divination class was.
The journey through the castle to North Tower was a long one. Two years at Hogwarts hadn't taught them everything about the castle, and they had never been inside North Tower before.
"I'm exhausted," Dudley panted, as they climbed the seventh long staircase and emerged on an unfamiliar landing, where there was nothing but a large painting of a bare stretch of grass hanging on the stone wall.
"Look on the bright size, you're getting a lot of exercise," Dean replied.
Dudley was too worn out to reply.
On the painting, a short, fat, dappled-gray pony had just ambled onto the grass and was grazing nonchalantly. Dudley was used to the subjects of Hogwarts paintings moving around and leaving their frames to visit each other, but he always enjoyed watching them. A moment later, a short, squat knight in a suit of armour had clanked into the picture after his pony. By the look of the grass stains on his metal knees, he had just fallen off.
"Aha!" he yelled, seeing Dudley and Dean"What villains are these, that trespass upon my private lands! Come to scorn at my fall, perchance? Draw, you knaves, you dogs!"
They watched in astonishment as the little knight tugged his sword out of its scabbard and began brandishing it violently, hopping up and down in rage. But the sword was too long for him; a particularly wild swing made him overbalance, and he landed facedown in the grass.
Dudley glanced at Dean. "Another weirdo," he said under his breath.
"Get back, you scurvy braggart! Back, you rogue!"
The knight seized his sword again and used it to push himself back up, but the blade sank deeply into the grass and, though he pulled with all his might, he couldn't get it out again. Finally, he had to flop back down onto the grass and push up his visor to mop his sweating face.
"Listen," said Dean, taking advantage of the knight's exhaustion, "we're looking for the North Tower. You don't know the way, do you?"
"A quest!" The knight's rage seemed to vanish instantly. He clanked to his feet and shouted, "Come follow me, dear friends, and we shall find our goal, or else shall perish bravely in the charge!"
He gave the sword another fruitless tug, tried and failed to mount the fat pony, gave up, and cried, "On foot then, good sirs and gentle lady! On! On!"
And he ran, clanking loudly, into the left side of the frame and out of sight.
They hurried after him along the corridor, following the sound of his armor. Every now and then they spotted him running through a picture ahead.
"Be of stout heart, the worst is yet to come!" yelled the knight, and they saw him reappear in front of an alarmed group of women in crinolines, whose picture hung on the wall of a narrow spiral staircase.
Puffing loudly, Dudley climbed the tightly spiraling steps, getting dizzier and dizzier, until at last they heard the murmur of voices above them and knew they had reached the classroom.
"Farewell!" cried the knight, popping his head into a painting of some sinister-looking monks. "Farewell, my comrades-in-arms! If ever you have need of noble heart and steely sinew, call upon Sir Cadogan!"
"I'd have to be desperate to call him for help," Dean said. Unlike Dudley, he wasn't out of breath at all.
Ron, Neville and Hermione were already there.
"Took you long enough," Ron said.
"Oh Dudley, you didn't go and hit him. You'll get in trouble again," said Hermione.
"Nah, nothing like that—I just pointed out that it was Malfoy's dad who caused the Chamber to open."
"Loudly," Dean pointed out. "So everybody was reminded of it."
"He's not going to have a very happy year," Dudley said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
As though in answer to his question, the trapdoor suddenly opened, and a silvery ladder descended right at Dudley's feet. Everyone got quiet.
"After you," said Ron, grinning, so Dudley climbed the ladder first.
He 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 an 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 was stiflingly warm, and the fire that was burning under the crowded mantelpiece was giving off a heavy, sickly sort of perfume as it heated a large 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.
Ron appeared at Dudley's shoulder as the class assembled around them, all talking in whispers.
"Where is she?" Ron 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."
Dudley's immediate impression was of a large, glittering insect. Professor Trelawney moved into the firelight, and they saw that she was very 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 were encrusted with bangles and rings.
"Sit, my children, sit," she said, and they all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto poufs. Dudley, Ron and Dean sat themselves around the same round table.
Hermione sat with Dean at the table next to them.
"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 not have 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..."
At these words, both Dudley and Ron glanced over, grinning, at Hermione, who looked startled at the news that books wouldn't be much help in this subject.
"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. You, boy," she said suddenly to Neville, who almost toppled off his pouf. "Is your grandmother well?"
"I think so," said Neville tremulously.
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, dear," said Professor Trelawney, the firelight glinting on her long emerald earrings. Neville gulped. Professor Trelawney continued placidly. "We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be devoted to reading the tea leaves. Next term we shall progress to palmistry. By the way, my dear," she shot suddenly at Parvati Patil, "beware a red-haired man."
Parvati gave a startled look at Ron, who was right behind her and edged her chair away from him.
"In the second term," Professor Trelawney went on, "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. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us for ever."
A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seemed unaware of it.
"I wonder, dear," she said to Lavender Brown, who was nearest and shrank back in her chair, "if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?"
Lavender, looking relieved, stood up, took an enormous teapot from the shelf, and put it down on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.
"Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading - it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October."
Lavender trembled.
"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 the 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. Oh, and dear," - she caught Neville by the arm as he made to stand up, "after you've broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue patterned ones? I'm rather attached to the pink."
Sure enough, Neville had no sooner reached the shelf of teacups when there was a tinkle of breaking china. Professor Trelawney swept over to him holding a dustpan and brush and said, "One of the blue ones, then, dear, if you wouldn't mind...thank you..."
Dudley and Ron were working together. Despite Trelawney's instructions to work in pairs, Dean joined them too.
When Harry, Dean and Ron had 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 over.
Dudley took Ron's, Ron took Dean's and Dean took Dudley's.
They opened their books at pages 5 and 6.
"Anyone see anything?" Dean asked.
Dudley squinted. "There's a sort of star … let's see. That means you are going to be inspired."
"You've got something that looks like a cow," Dean said. "No, if I tilt my head this way it's more like a hippo."
Dudley and Ron laughed loudly.
"Let me see that, my dear," she said reprovingly to Dean, sweeping over and snatching Dudley'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."
"Well, everybody knows that," Hermione said loudly. Everyone turned to look at her. "Well, they do. We all saw the newspapers about how Dudley sent Malfoy to Azkaban and Malfoy's escape."
Trelawney huffed and lowered her huge eyes to Neville's cup again and continued to turn it.
"The club...an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup..."
"The skull...danger in your path, my dear..."
Everyone was staring, transfixed, at Professor Trelawney, who gave the cup a final turn, gasped, and then screamed.
There was another tinkle of breaking china; Neville had smashed his second cup. Professor Trelawney sank into a vacant armchair, her glittering hand at her heart and her eyes closed.
"My dear boy - my poor dear boy - no - it is kinder not to say - no - don't ask me..."
"What is it, Professor?" said Dean Thomas at once. Everyone had got to their feet, and slowly they crowded around Neville and Hermione's table, pressing close to Professor Trelawney's chair to get a good look at Neville's cup.
"My dear," Professor Trelawney's huge eyes opened dramatically, "you have the Grim."
Neville let out a frightened squeak.
"The what?" said Dudley.
He could tell that he wasn't the only one who didn't understand; Dean Thomas shrugged at him and Lavender Brown looked puzzled, but nearly everybody else clapped their hands to their mouths in horror.
"The Grim, my dear, the Grim!" cried Professor Trelawney, who looked shocked that Harry hadn't understood. "The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen - the worst omen - of death!"
"I don't think it looks like a Grim," she said flatly.
Professor Trelawney surveyed Hermione with dislike.
"You'll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future."
Seamus Finnigan was tilting his head from side to side. "It looks like a Grim if you do this," he said, with his eyes almost shut, "but it looks more like a donkey from here," he said, leaning to the left.
"I think it looks like a sheep," Dudley said with a shrug.
Trelawney glared at him.
"I think we will leave the lesson here for today," said Professor Trelawney in her mistiest voice. "Yes...please pack away your things..."
Silently the class took their teacups back to Professor Trelawney, packed away their books, and closed their bags.
They all descended Professor Trelawney's ladder and the winding stair in silence, then set off for Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration lesson. It took them so long to find her classroom that, early as they had left Divination, they were only just in time.
Dudley chose a seat right at the back of the room, sitting with Dean. Hermione was with Neville, trying to comfort him.
Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), Dudley thought it would be a useful spell to master, but most of the class barely noticed when she turned into a cat before their eyes.
"Really, what has got into you all today?" said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all. "Not that it matters, but that's the first time my transformation's not got applause from a class."
Everybody's heads turned toward Dudley, but nobody spoke. Then Hermione raised her hand.
"Please, Professor, we've just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and -"
"Ah, of course," said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning. "There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?"
Everyone stared at her.
"Me," said Dudley..
"I see," said Professor McGonagall, fixing Dudley with her beady eyes. "Then you should know, Dursley, that Sibyll Trelawney has predicted the death of one student a year since she arrived at this school. None of them has died yet. Seeing death omens is her favorite way of greeting a new class. If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues -" Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white. She went on, more calmly, "Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic. I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it. True Seers are very rare, and Professor Trelawney..."
She stopped again, and then said, in a very matter-of-fact tone, "You look in excellent health to me, Dursley, so you will excuse me if I don't let you off homework today. I assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in."
Hermione laughed. So did Dudley.
"I'm not worried Professor," Dudley said. "It seemed a bunch of old nonsense. I didn't see a grim. I saw a sheep."
McGonagall looked approving.
Not everyone was convinced, however. Ron still looked worried, and Lavender whispered, "But what about his cup?"
When the Transfiguration class had finished, they joined the crowd thundering toward the Great Hall for lunch.
Dean, who had nipped to the toilet came hurrying towards them. "Dud, Ron—did you hear about Malfoy?"
They looked round. Dean looked excited.
"I heard two fourth years talking about it—apparently Roger Davies got him with the Hair-Loss Curse. He's in the Hospital Wing now."
Dudley and Ron laughed, but Hermione remained silent.
"Come on, Hermione, you're not feeling sorry for the sniveling brat are you?"
"Well, no," Hermione admitted. "But as vile as he is—him being bullied doesn't seem right."
"His father set a giant snake on the school," Dean said. "Malfoy himself has spent the past two years calling us mudbloods."
Hermione didn't argue as they headed into the hall. At the Gryffindor table they saw Fred handing over his charms homework and a shiny galleon to George.