Albus Potter, Classmates and Elves

Ch 38 Prophetea and a Crystal Balls

Thank you, Deb, for more additions and asking for a significant addition from me.

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It was the last week in November, and the Slytherin students, along with the few Gryffindor students who were studying with them, climbed into the Divination classroom of Sybil Trelawney. Albus sat down across from Scorpius, Rose across from Cleo. Harry Wang and John Chang sat next to them.

"Does your Chinese Prophetea work any better than the tea Professor Trelawney uses?" Albus wondered.

"Tea reading is mostly parlor tricks," Harry Wang scoffed with a shake of his head. "Parlor tricks, reading the person who you are supposed to be prophesying for, and learning how to write some trash that Professor Trelawney likes."

"I am dropping this stupid course as soon as I can," Rose insisted, rolling her eyes at Professor Trelawney's dramatics.

"It is stupid," Scorpius agreed.

Professor Trelawney floated into the room, looked up at the ceiling, and moaned, "Today we are going to start to learn about the Crystal Ball, that mysterious orb that foretells the future to those with the skill and innate ability to plumb its mysteries. Please take a Crystal Ball, one for each four students."

Rose looked over to Albus, sneering, "Pick one for us, like any one is any better than any other one."

Albus walked over to the row of Crystal Balls, and started touching them. He was the first student to do so. Most of the students in the class were leery of Professor Trelawney's pseudo-mystical and at times confusing instructions. Albus came to one of them and felt it call to him. He quickly finished scanning the other ones, and then came back to the one. It looked totally smooth but somehow older and darker than the other orbs. As soon as he picked it up the inside became cloudy.

Once all the students were grouped around Crystal Balls, Professor Trelawney asked them to touch the orbs, and she started to chant. All the rest of the balls began to get cloudy inside. Trelawney's chanting, and the incense she was burning, could put you to sleep, and some of the students were beginning to nod off. There was something calling to Albus and his friends, however. All the other Crystal Balls remained an off-white cloudy appearance, but the orb that Albus, Rose, Cleo and Scorpius were touching had begun to glow a cloudy fire-like red, and the four students' eyes were glued to it.

"NO!" Albus yelled, trying to turn his head away. "NO! NO! DO NOT LOOK! IT IS EVIL!"

"GOD HELP US!" Rose yelled as she broke contact with the orb. She grabbed the back of Scorpius' robe and pulled him off the orb, and held his hands as Scorpius tried to re-touch it. "IT IS EVIL!" she shouted as she held his struggling hands.

Meanwhile Albus had slid over to where Cleo was sitting, and with great effort took one of his hands off the Crystal Ball and put it on the back of Cleo's hand. "Cleo, close your eyes," Al told her. Cleo closed her eyes, and let Al pull her hand off the Crystal Ball. Al took Cleo's other hand off, and then told her, "Pull me off, Cleo." It looked like one hand was still stuck on the Crystal Ball.

Cleo stood up, grabbed Albus under both arms, and bodily pulled him off the Crystal Ball, all but throwing him across the cushions away from the orb, which rolled on the floor. Everybody nearby scrambled to get away from the rolling ball.

"Get out, get out!" Professor Trelawney moaned dramatically. "Oooohhh, the mysteries. Oooohhh."

The students scrambled to leave the classroom.

"We need to tell Professor McGonagall what just happened," Albus suggested. "Something went wrong in there."

"You think?" Scorpius quipped, rubbing his temples trying to understand what happened.