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Part One / Chapter Thirty-Three
Professor Trelawneywas standing in the middle of the Entrance Hall with her wand in one hand and an empty sherry bottle in the other, looking positively infuriated. Her hair was sticking up on end, her glasses were lopsided so that one eye was magnified more than the other; her innumerable shawls and scarves were trailing haphazardly from her shoulders, giving the impression that she was falling apart at the seams. Venus, Constance, Hermione and Ron watched her two large trunks be thrown down the stairs after her.
"No!" she shrieked. "NO! This cannot be happening. . . . It cannot . . . I refuse to accept it!"
"You didn't realize this was coming?" said a high girlish voice, Professor Umbridge was trailing dangerously close behind her. "Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow's weather, you must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable you would be sacked?"
"You c-can't!" howled Professor Trelawney, tears streaming down her face from behind her enormous lenses, "you c-can't sack me! I've b-been here sixteen years! H-Hogwarts is m-my h-home!"
"It was your home," said Professor Umbridge, and Venus was revolted to see the enjoyment stretching her toadlike face as she watched Professor Trelawney sink, sobbing uncontrollably, onto one of her trunks, "until an hour ago, when the Minister of Magic countersigned the order for your dismissal. Now kindly remove yourself from this hall. You are embarrassing us." But she stood and watched, with an expression of gloating enjoyment, as Professor Trelawney shuddered and cried, rocking backward and forward on her trunk in fits of grief.
Professor McGonagall had broken away from the spectators, marched straight up to Professor Trelawney and was patting her firmly on the back while withdrawing a large handkerchief from within her robes. "There, there, Sibyll . . . Calm down. . . . Blow your nose on this. . . . It's not as bad as you think, now. . . . You are not going to have to leave Hogwarts. . . ."
"Oh really, Professor McGonagall?" said Umbridge in a deadly voice, taking a few steps forward. "And your authority for that statement is . . . ?"
"That would be mine," said a deep voice.
The oak front doors had swung open. Students beside them scuttled out of the way as Dumbledore appeared in the entrance. Venus let a prideful smile dawn her face.
"Yours, Professor Dumbledore?" said Umbridge with a singularly unpleasant little laugh. "I'm afraid you do not understand the position. I have here" — she pulled a parchment scroll from within her robes — "an Order of Dismissal signed by myself and the Minister of Magic. Under the terms of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts has the power to inspect, place upon probation, and sack any teacher she — that is to say, I — feel is not performing up to the standard required by the Ministry of Magic. I have decided that Professor Trelawney is not up to scratch. I have dismissed her."
