Harry Potter 03 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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!’
    ‘Yeah, we’ll call you,’ muttered Ron, as the knight disappeared, ‘if we ever need someone mental.’
    They climbed the last few steps and emerged onto a tiny landing, where most of the class was already assembled. There were no doors off this landing; Ron nudged Harry and pointed at the ceiling, where there was a circular trap door with a brass plaque on it.
    ‘Sybill Trelawney, Divination teacher,’ Harry read. ‘How’re we supposed to get up there?’
    As though in answer to his question, the trap door suddenly opened, and a silvery ladder descended right at Harry’s feet. Everyone went quiet.
    ‘After you,’ said Ron, grinning, so Harry 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 teashop. At least twenty small, circular tables were crammed inside it, all surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little pouffes. 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 which 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 Harry’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.’
    Harry’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 pouffes. Harry, Ron and Hermione 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 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 in answer 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 Harry and Ron glanced, 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 pouffe, ‘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 summer