The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

Huntress Holiday

That night Elise had a rather amusing dream about Uncle Higglebottom. She was lying on a beach somewhere watching a short, pot-bellied man with a toupee waddling after a large seagull. Clutched in the man's hand was a long French fry which he held out to the gull, but the elusive bird showed no interest at all as it led the struggling man in zigzags across the sand.

All at once the dream changed, and Elise found that she was no longer lying on a beach. Instead, she was in the middle of a burning forest that went on for as far as she could see. The ground around her was scorched, and she appeared to be standing at the edge of an enormous crater. The man with the French fry had changed as well. His French fry and toupee were gone, and he seemed younger now, and much more handsome. He stood a few feet away yelling desperately for Elise to do something—or not to do something—but no matter how hard she tried, she could not understand what the man was saying.

Elise awoke late in the morning to what sounded like an argument going on in the Divination classroom, which was located just beyond the door to Professor Trelawney's apartment.

Opening the door just a crack to avoid being seen, Elise peered through out and saw Trelawny with a teacup in her hand. She had a pained, desperate look on her face as she responded to question after question, hurled at her by a merciless interrogator that seemed bent on forcing the poor divination teacher into a nervous breakdown.

"You have been the Divination teacher at Hogwarts for over sixteen years, have you not?" asked Professor Umbridge in a pleasant, yet demeaning voice. "Certainly, you should be able to predict something for me?"

"Well, I..." stammered Professor Trelawney.

"Nothing too difficult, mind you," continued Umbridge, adding a slight giggle. "Perhaps you could start with something simple like...the weather. Do you foresee a large amount of rain this afternoon, or only a small amount?"

Elise cringed in anger. She could see what this foul woman was trying to do.

Trelawney thought about it or a moment, then said confidently, "Large rain, very large. I see a tremendous rainstorm this afternoon and..."

"Rain, you say? In the middle of one of the coldest winters Hogwarts has seen in years?" Umbridge said as a few additional, high-pitched giggles escaped her smug lips. "Now, if you perhaps had said it might snow, I think I would have been more likely to..."

Elise could take no more. She closed her eyes and whispered a short incantation. Before Professor Umbridge could finish her sentence, there was a crack of thunder and a cloudburst of rain poured down from the ceiling and landed on top of her, instantly drenching her green, tweed dress and pink cardigan.

"Oh, my!" Umbridge exclaimed, trying to remain calm, "We seem to be having some trouble with the plumbing."

She stepped away from the deluge that seemed to be falling on her alone, but the pillar of rain moved right along with her."

"Well, this is definitely a problem," said Umbridge. Then she shook her wand at the ceiling and screamed, "Stop, I order you to stop!" But that only made the downpour become even stronger.

"I believe we should continue this conversation later on," Umbridge said, followed by another high-pitched giggle—the nervous type. Then she rushed out of the classroom through the trap door on the floor, pursued relentlessly by her own miniature supercell which remained with her for much of the remaining morning.

Elise pushed open the apartment door and walked over to Trelawney, placing her arm around her. She felt horrible for the poor woman and was ready to do whatever she could to comfort her after her encounter with that heartless toad-woman.