Call it what you want {Theodore Nott}

chapter seven

When the bell rang to signal the start of afternoon lessons, the group set off for North Tower where, at the top of a lightly spiralling staircase, a silver stepladder led to a circular trapdoor in the ceiling, and the room where Professor Trelawney lived.

The familiar sweet perfume emanating from the fire met their nostrils as they emerged at the top of the stepladder.
As ever, the curtains were all closed; the circular room was bathed in a dim reddish light cast by many lamps, which were all draped with scarves and shawls.
Amy, Iris, Mattheo and Theo walked through the mass of occupied chintz chairs and pouffes that cluttered the room, and sat down at the same small circular table.

"Good day" said the misty voice of Professor Trelawney right behind Amy, making her jump.
She always thought that she was not quite right in the head and her presence always freaked the girl out.

"You are preoccupied, my dear" she said mournfully to Amy
"My inner eye sees past your happy face to the troubled heart within. And I regret to say that your worries are not baseless. I see difficult times and choices ahead for you, alas......most difficult......I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass....and perhaps sooner than you think..."

Her voice dropped to almost a whisper.
Iris rolled her eyes at Amy, who looked stonily back and then looked up making eye contact with Theo who looked as though he was fighting the urge to say something.

Trelawney swept past them and seated herself in a large winged armchair before the fire, facing the class.

Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who deeply admired the woman, were sitting on pouffes very close to her.
"My dears, it is time for us to consider the stars" she said "the movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance. Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle..."

Amy's thoughts had drifted.
The perfumed fire always made her feel sleepy and dull-witted, and Professor Trelawneys rambling talks on fortune telling never had her exactly spellbound - though she couldn't help thinking about what she had said to her.
'I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass....'

"Amy!" Iris muttered
"What?"
The whole class was staring at her.
She sat up straight; she had almost dozed off, lost in the heat and her inner thoughts.

"I was saying, my dear, that you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn" said Professor Trelawney, a faint note of resentment in her voice at the fact that she had obviously not been hanging onto her words.

"Come again?" Said Amy genuinely lost

"Saturn, dear, the plant Saturn!" Said Professor, sounding definitely irritated that she wasn't riveted by this news.
" I was saying that Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth....your light hair.....your mean stature....I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born mid-winter?"

"No" said Amy "I was born in August "
Iris hastily turned her laugh into a cough

Half an hour later, each of them has been given a complicated circular chart, and was attempting to fill the position of the planets at the moments of their births.
It was dull work, requiring much consultation of timetables and calculations of angles.

"I've got two Neptunes here" said Mattheo after a while, frowning down at his piece of parchment, "that can't be right can it?"

"Ah" said Iris, imitating Professor Trelawneys mystical whisper. "When two Neptune's appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a big-headed twat is being born" she said laughing at her own comedy.