Puppet Strings (Hogwarts x Reader)

Chapter 4

Thursday morning, Malfoy still hadn't returned to classes. And Y/n still hadn't been able to talk with Harry. She tried to ask Hermione, but the poor girl seemed so busy with classes that Y/n thought better of it.

Emi, Val, and Solene walked with Y/n up to their first Divination class of the week. On Tuesday it had been cancelled—apparently that morning Professor Trelawney had accidentally knocked over a vase that was the color red, which she took to be a "bad omen."

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, but Sol nudged Y/n and pointed at the ceiling, where there was a circular trapdoor with a brass plaque on it.

"How're we supposed to get up there?" Emi asked, frowning.

As though in answer to her question, the trapdoor suddenly opened, and a silvery ladder descended right at their feet. Everyone got quiet, then began to ascend.

They emerged into the strangest-looking classroom Y/n 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 tea shop. At least twenty small, circular tables were crammed inside it, all surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little poufs. 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 that 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.

"Looks like my tía's crazy half-sister's place," Val muttered, looking around.

"I think it's cozy," Emi 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."

Y/n'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 poufs. Emi, Val, Solene, and Y/n 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 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. . . .

"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.

"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.

"In the second term," Professor Trelawney went on, "we shall progress to the crystal ball — if we have finished with fire omens, that is. 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."