𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 | draco malfoy [3]

𝐕𝐈. THE GRIM

CHAPTER SIX
THE GRIM

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The talking throughout the classroom lasted a while due to the fact that Professor Trelawney, the Divination Professor, was nowhere in sight. 

"Where is she?" Draco muttered with annoyance. 

As if on cue, a voice said "Welcome. How nice to see you in the physical world at last." The professor states from behind her desk.

"So she's seen us in her mental world?" I whispered to Draco, who laughed. The professor sent us a look and we shut up. 

"Welcome to Divination. 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 the vision of my Inner Eye." She begins. I look at Draco, and he looks back, uncomfortable expressions on our faces.

"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 only take you so far in this field..."

I glanced over at Hermione and smirked at her startled look at the fact that we won't be using books very much in this class.

Wait... Hermione? Since when had she been there?

"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 chair. "Is your grandmother well?"

"I- I think so." Neville stuttered.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that." Professor Trelawney, and my eyebrows raised at Neville's panicked look. He was buying into this rubbish?

The thin women 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 looked over at Ron with a worried look. Ron made an annoyed face at the Professor. "I'm not going to bloody do anything to Parvati." He huffed.

"In the second term,"Trelawney went on, "we shall progress to the crystal ball -- if we have finished with fire omens, that is." She then paused. "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 forever."

A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seemed unaware of it. Someone leaving forever? That doesn't sound too bright.

"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 fearfully and I cast a weary glance at the professor.

"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." She smiles and looks at all of us. "Let's begin, shall we?"

I wasn't complaining when the task was simply drinking tea. Draco and I did as we were told, then swapped cups. After studying Draco's cup for a little, I looked up at him. He was frowning at my cup, then the symbols in the book, and back and forth.

I wasn't really listening to what Trelawney was saying until the words, "What do you see in Mr. Potter's cup, Mr. Weasley?" came out of her mouth. I stopped studying Draco's and looked over at Ron, Harry, and Hermione.

"Well. He's got a wonky sort of cross - that's trials and suffering. " Ron began. "But this lot here could be the sun - that's great happiness. So... he's going to suffer but be very happy about it. "

When the professor looked away, Draco muttered, "Brilliant. Downright brilliant." He was still laughing a little. I grinned. Draco then looked at my cup and frowned. "What did Weasley say he saw?"

"Um, some sort of like cross? And a sun?" I frowned. "Why?"

We were interrupted by a gasp from Trelawney. She had taken Harry's cup from Ron and was peering at it. "Ahh!"

"What is it, Professor?" Parvati asked Trelawney.

But the professor was looking at Harry with an expression of fear and pity. "My dear boy, you have... the grim."

"The grin? What's the grin?" Seamus called out somewhere from the back of the room.

"Not the grin, you idiot, the grim." Dean tells him.

"But what does it mean, Professor?" Draco asked, which surprised me. Why was he suddenly so interested?

Finally, Lavender spoke up, reading from her textbook, "The grim. Taking the form of a giant spectral dog, it is among the darkest omens of our world. It is an omen... of death."

I frowned at Harry, until Draco muttered my name.

"What?" I snapped, looking at the pale boy. He tipped my cup towards me so I could see the bottom of it, where my omen lay.

And now I knew why he had been so interested in what it meant. I had the same omen as Harry. The grim.