Tripe and Tea Leaves

Tripe and Tea Leaves

"Thank you," Minerva McGonagall said to Professors Flitwick and Sprout. "Let me speak with her alone."

Having deposited Sibyll Trelawney and her luggage back in her classroom in the North Tower, Flitwick and Sprout nodded and then left. Minerva turned to the madwoman.

"Do you have a kettle?"

Trelawney couldn't seem to move at all. Trembling slightly, she only stared into space. Her spectacles were still askew. Minerva sighed and hunted around a bit until she found an ornate jewelled teapot and tea leaves.

'Tea leaves,'

Minerva thought with disgust. 'They're probably contaminated.'

She felt just a little guilty for this uncharitable thought, but banished it from her mind. Pushing some star charts aside she uncovered a burner, placed the teapot on, and lit a fire beneath it. She looked quickly around the room and wished she hadn't. The place made her head spin and she didn't understand how anyone could live with that smell.

Taking a seat opposite Sibyll, Minerva tried very hard to refrain from using the words, "Get over it."

Neither spoke for several minutes. It seemed to Minerva that Sibyll hadn't the slightest idea she was even still on the planet, let alone in Hogwarts.

The whistle of the tea broke the silence and Minerva went to pour. She could only find two teacups and assumed the rest had been broken by Neville Longbottom.

"Didn't want me, hic, making a scene, hic, Minerva?"

Minerva turned around quickly, nearly pouring boiling tea down the front of her robes. Sibyll was staring at her, hiccuping again, looking just as mad as before although with a slightly less hysterical quality.

"What's that you say, Sibyll?" Minerva asked, handing the other woman the blue cup. She took a sip of tea from her own cup, which was pink, and decided it needed more lemon.

"I said," Sibyll repeated, loudly this time as if Minerva were a particularly slow child, "'Didn't want me making a scene?' Couldn't have batty Sibyll Trelawney making Hogwarts look bad, could we. You're just like her."

Minerva resented that remark greatly. "Is that what you think, you silly little woman? Precisely how much of that sherry did you drink?"

'And where did you get it?'

she added privately.

"Not tha' much," Sibyll slurred. Her hair was still wild and Minerva had the insane desire to take a brush to it.

"You never liked me," Sibyll accused.

What could one say to a statement like that? Especially when it was true. Sibyll did not seem to be in the proper state of mind for the truth at that moment.

"Nonsense," Minerva replied crisply. "Drink your tea. It will help you calm down."

"I am, hic, calm."

"No, you're quite drunk. Look at you! You made a fool of yourself!"

She regretted her harsh words. The sensitive part of her knew that this wasn't what Sibyll needed right now, but that part of her was buried under several layers of thick skin and tartan robes. To mask her discomfort, she poured more tea for the both of them.

"Oh, I am sorry," Sibyll said snidely, sounding quite unlike her usual airy-fairy self. She made a nasty drunk. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your...your...Umbridge. I didn't, hic, ask you to come up here."

"Don't be ridiculous, Sibyll."

"Oh, ridiculous am I?" The Divination Professor's voice rose to an alarming pitch. "I've been sacked!" She ended with a wail.

"It's only temporary," Minerva soothed as best she could. "And you're still at Hogwarts."

Sibyll let out a great snort of derision and blew her nose on one of her many scarves. "Without my students, my Inner Eye will cloud, and then I will see nothing! I have no purpose."

"Well, what did you do before you came to Hogwarts?" Minerva asked sensibly. The woman could make a drama out of sneezing

Turning a special shade of scarlet, Sibyll knocked over her cup of tea, forcing Minerva to dive for it to prevent it from shattering.

"Don' remember," she mumbled. "Doesn' matter. Hic. Nobody wants me here."

"That is entirely untrue," Minerva said, trying not to snap. "Albus asked you to stay, didn't he?"

"He's just trying' to...to...to put one over on that foul Umbridge woman," Trelawney sobbed. "May she be attacked by...by centaurs!"

Minerva had no great love for Umbridge either (couldn't stand the woman actually), so she patted Sibyll awkwardly on the back a few times.

"Now, now," she added for good measure.

"And you don't want me here." Sibyll finally readjusted her spectacles and was staring at Minerva with a magnified, haunted glare. "You've hated me ever since we were children."

"Oh, I have not!" Minerva snapped. "But perhaps if you'd just do your job-"

"See! See!" Sibyll leapt out of her chair and pointed an accusatory finger. "You've always been jealous of my Gift!"

"Jealous!" Minerva exclaimed. "I most certainly am not jealous of your imaginary gifts. And I never have been."

"Just because I went to Beauxbatons," Sibyll continued, still crying large quivering tears. "And left you behind in England."

"Don't be stupid, Sibyll," Minerva said, losing her temper. "I couldn't have cared less that you went to France. I was already in my fifth year at Hogwarts by the time you started!"

There was a terrible sound, like that of a piano dying. Sibyll began to wail.

"Don't think I didn't know how hard you tried to fight my position here," she cried. "You didn't want me to interfere in your perfect little world. You were afraid I'd steal your spotlight!"

"That's a load of tripe." Minerva forced herself to breathe; her entire body was tense and her knuckles were turning white where she gripped the arms of her chair. "I don't believe in Divination, there I said it. I think it's an imprecise form of magic if it can be considered magic at all."

She stood up and moved to leave the attic. "I can see I'm not being any help."

"It's because of Tom, isn't it? Isn't it!"

Minerva stopped suddenly in her tracks. "What did you say?"

"Oh, I knew all about you and dear Tommy, Minerva. And you hate me because I showed you what he truly was, what you were too blind to see!"

Sibyll Trelawney had passed through sanity and was now sitting daintily on the other side. Her eyes glittered in the dim room, and as she collected herself she continued to talk. Minerva couldn't do anything but stare. She sat down again.

"I knew him for what he was," Sibyll added smugly, "knew what he would become. I am my great-great-grandmother's great-great-granddaughter after all. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen. Oh no, not the great Minerva who never took anyone's advice but her own. One would think you had learned your lesson."

"That was a long time ago, Sibyll," Minerva said finally after a long silence. "And you're very, very wrong. About it all."

There was some momentary confusion on Sibyll's behalf, but she shrugged it aside. There was great sadness in Minerva's eyes, and Sibyll felt a little guilty for hitting so below the belt. It was not a secret that there was animosity between them, and yet Minerva had come to help her on the night in which she was most in need. Why?

"There was love," Sibyll said in a voice that was not her own. "You loved him. When you saw the monster inside, it destroyed you."

Coming out of her trance, she saw that Minerva had paled and was shaking.

"I did that, didn't I?" Sibyll asked in barely a whisper. "I showed you the truth, I caused you that pain, didn't I?"

Minerva forced a smile, but it hurt her terribly. "It was a great many things, Sibyll. In the long run you did me a great service, but that doesn't mean I don't resent you for it. Yes, you opened my eyes, and yes, I died inside. But I was a silly girl. I have since learned better."

"But you haven't forgotten."

"I never will. I can't. But I try to push it aside."

This time it was Sibyll who poured the tea and it was she who comforted Minerva.

"You did hate me when we were children," she said pointedly. "Always pushing me aside, lying about where you were going, even though I knew perfectly well."

"You were a nuisance," Minerva replied, still blinking back tears. "Always clinging to me, whinging about death. And you were absolutely terrified of Smokey."

"He was a Grim," Sibyll replied indignantly.

"He was a dog. A big black dog, and that was all. You were so...soppy, Sibyll. And I was older, I didn't want to spend all day with my little cousin."

"You could have at least tried to be nice," Sibyll returned. "Even when we grew up, when I came here, you still were horrible to me." She paused. "Why did you come up here?"

"Because as awful as you are, no one deserves what Umbridge did to you."

It was so automatic that all Sibyll could do was nod, smoothing down her hair. It was the truth. The brutal, nasty truth. But she understood it.

Absently she drank the tea until only the dregs remained, then she swirled the cup three times with her left hand and turned it upside down on her saucer.

"My goodness," Sibyll said. "A crooked cross. The club. This cup is a bit late." She forced a laugh. "I don't believe there's a symbol for being fired, however. That's a bit too specific. Ah, but here's the 'experience of great humiliation.'"

Then to her great surprise, Minerva finished her tea, swirled it around with her left hand and turned it over on her saucer.

"I appear to have a lantern here," Minerva observed, peering over her rectangular spectacles.

"That's hope," Sibyll said, taken aback.

"Oh? And what is-" She turned the cup around and held it close to her nose. "I can't see a damned thing. Ah, what does a tree represent?"

"Growth, generally pertaining to a friendship."

They smiled at one another, having reached an understanding. It wasn't quite friendship, not yet, but it was something.

"Good evening, Sibyll."

"Good evening, Minerva."