The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|81| Jinx

Harry and I were in the middle of an Occlumency lesson with Snape when there was a woman screaming from somewhere outside the room. Snape's head jerked upward; he was gazing at the ceiling.

"What the —?" he muttered.

I could hear a muffled commotion coming from what he thought might be the entrance hall. Snape looked around at us, frowning.

"Did either of you see anything unusual on your way down here, Potter?"

We shook our heads. Somewhere above us, the woman screamed again. Snape strode to his office door, his wand still held at the ready, and swept out of sight. Harry and I hesitated for a moment, then followed.

The screams were indeed coming from the entrance hall; they grew louder as we ran toward the stone steps leading up from Professor Snape's office. When we reached the top I found the entrance hall packed. Students had come flooding out of the Great Hall, where dinner was still in progress, to see what was going on. Others had crammed themselves onto the marble staircase. I pushed forward, with Harry in tow, through a knot of tall Slytherins and saw that the onlookers had formed a great ring, some of them looking shocked, others even frightened. Professor McGonagall was directly opposite of us on the other side of the hall; she looked as though what she was watching made her feel faintly sick.

Professor Trelawney was standing in the middle of the entrance hall with her wand in one hand and an empty sherry bottle in the other, looking utterly mad. Her hair was sticking up on end, her glasses were lopsided so that one eye was magnified more than the other; her innumerable shawls and scarves were trailing haphazardly from her shoulders, giving the impression that she was falling apart at the seams. Two large trunks lay on the floor beside her, one of them upside down; it looked very much as though it had been thrown down the stairs after her. Professor Trelawney was staring, apparently terrified, at something I could not see but that seemed to be standing at the foot of the stairs.

"No!" she shrieked. "NO! This cannot be happening— It cannot— I refuse to accept it!"

"You didn't realize this was coming?" said a high girlish voice, sounding callously amused. Umbridge. "Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow's weather, you must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable you would be sacked?"

"You c-can't!" howled Professor Trelawney, tears streaming down her face from behind her enormous lenses, "you c-can't sack me! I've b-been here sixteen years! H-Hogwarts is m-my h-home!"

"It was your home," said Professor Umbridge who had enjoyment stretching her toadlike face as she watched Professor Trelawney sink, sobbing uncontrollably, onto one of her trunks, "until an hour ago, when the Minister of Magic countersigned the order for your dismissal. Now kindly remove yourself from this hall. You are embarrassing us."

Professor McGonagall walked forward and help Professor Trelawny as she wept.

"There, there, Sibyll... Calm down. Blow your nose on this... It's not as bad as you think, now... You are not going to have to leave Hogwarts."

"Oh really, Professor McGonagall?" said Umbridge in a deadly voice, taking a few steps forward. "And your authority for that statement is —?"

"That would be mine," said a deep voice.

"Yours, Professor Dumbledore?" said Umbridge with a singularly unpleasant little laugh. "I'm afraid you do not understand the position. I have here" — she pulled a parchment scroll from within her robes— "an Order of Dismissal signed by myself and the Minister of Magic. Under the terms of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts has the power to inspect, place upon probation, and sack any teacher she— that is to say, I— feel is not performing up to the standard required by the Ministry of Magic. I have decided that Professor Trelawney is not up to scratch. I have dismissed her."