Harry Potter 03 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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 Harry and Ron’s table, pressing close to Professor Trelawney’s chair to get a good look at Harry’s cup.
    ‘My dear,’ Professor Trelawney’s huge eyes opened dramatically, ‘you have the Grim.’
    ‘The what?’ said Harry.
    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 !’
    Harry’s stomach lurched. That dog on the cover of Death Omens in Flourish and Blotts – the dog in the shadows of Magnolia Crescent … Lavender Brown clapped her hands to her mouth, too. Everyone was looking at Harry; everyone except Hermione, who had got up and moved around to the back of Professor Trelawney’s chair.
    ‘I don’t think it looks like a Grim,’ she said flatly.
    Professor Trelawney surveyed Hermione with mounting 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.
    ‘When you’ve all finished deciding whether I’m going to die or not!’ said Harry, taking even himself by surprise. Now nobody seemed to want to look 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. Even Ron was avoiding Harry’s eyes.
    ‘Until we meet again,’ said Professor Trelawney faintly, ‘fair fortune be yours. Oh, and dear –’ she pointed at Neville, ‘you’ll be late next time, so mind you work extra hard to catch up.’
    Harry, Ron and Hermione descended Professor Trelawney’s ladder and the winding staircase 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.
    Harry chose a seat right at the back of the room, feeling as though he was sitting in a very bright spotlight; the rest of the class kept shooting furtive glances at him, as though he was about to drop dead at any moment. He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and wasn’t even watching when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her 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 towards Harry again, 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 Harry, finally.
    ‘I see,’ said Professor McGonagall, fixing Harry with her beady eyes. ‘Then you should know, Potter, that Sybill 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 favourite way of greeting a new class. If it were not for the fact