Fifth Period Predictions

    "...And so that is how the art of – God bless you, Mr. Longbottom," Professor Trelawney said, her large gray eyes swiveling around to look at her student directly, as Neville sneezed for the umpteenth time in that half hour. Something in the incense Professor Trelawney burned or the perfumes she sprayed always tickled Neville's nose.

     "Thanks," he said quietly once again, shifting around on his overlarge pillow in an attempt to make himself more comfortable. He had noticed this year that he had outgrown the pillow-seats, as his legs were now much too long and prevented him from sitting comfortably.

     Ron, however, seemed to be having no trouble at all getting relaxed. Sprawled out on the rug to the left of Neville, his eyes were half-closed and his head was in his hands. He appeared very content, or at least very comfortable.

     "As I was saying, since you are all now familiar with the origin of the Egyptian Letter Bag technique," continued Professor Trelawney to her class of rather stupefied-looking sixth years, "you are all going to try it for yourselves. Everyone up please. Hurry now, find a seat at a table and let's begin," she said, and she clapped her hands together a few times, causing her many large rings to clink together.

     Ron awoke from his stupor and Neville stood up, his stiff knees and back cracking as he pulled himself out of the deep recesses of the down-stuffed pillow. Then he, Seamus, Dean, and Ernie MacMillan, a Hufflepuff in their year, sat down at one of the odd-shaped tables. Harry and Ron sat down at the table nearest to them, and they were soon joined by Lavender and Parvati, who wanted seats as close to the front as possible.

     "Now, I'm giving you all a Letter Bag, but I advise you not to open them until I tell you to. We don't want any early spills," Professor Trelawney said softly as she handed everyone a smallish velvet sack with a drawstring of varying colors and patterns. Dean's was a deep red color and Lavender's had tiny yellow flowers embroidered around the rim, but Ron found his much less of a sight for sore eyes and much more of an eyesore: it had probably once been dark green or possibly black, but the entire bottom was now covered in floral and plaid patches and the drawstring was frayed.

     "Typical," he whispered, showing Harry his rather delapidated old sack, and Harry tried not to laugh. His bag was very nice-looking and not at all tattered.

     "Before we begin, I would like to show you the proper technique," said the professor. Her bracelets jangled as she waved her thin arms. "Who would like to volunteer? Miss Brown, all right then," she said, floating over to the table where Lavender sat. Lavender looked absolutely giddy with excitement.

     "Let me see your bag dear. Good. Now, to begin, first one must close one's eyes and give the bag a little shake, like so." She did so, and there was a clinking sound from inside the bag. "Now – this is the most important part – you must say Epeler Charmetrice, say it just like that. Very good Miss Brown. Finally, tip the bag over and let a single letter fall out." ("This is just like Scrabble!" Dean noted.) "No more than one at a time, or else the results will be skewed and you won't be able to make any sense of the message you are receiving," Professor Trelawney advised.

     "That's how it always is, isn't it? Incomprehensible?" Harry muttered. Ron laughed into his hand.

     "Once you have your first letter," continued the professor, "continue tipping out letters and laying them in the order in which you received them until you feel you have enough. Hopefully, if you have done everything correctly –" she eyed Harry and Ron accusingly at this point "– you will be able to interpret the message.

     "Commence," she said after a pause, and then she floated to the back of the room, probably to light more incense or douse herself in some more intoxicating perfume, Neville though to himself.

     "All right, let's see how this works then," Seamus said. He shook his little bag slightly more vigorously than he was instructed to do, said "Epeler Charmetrice," and tipped out a single letter onto the table.

     The four boys at the table leaned in and looked at the small wooden block with bated breaths.

     "It's – a Q," Seamus said. Then he added, "Well, if the next letter's anything but a U we'll know this whole thing's a fraud, won't we."

     Neville smiled and shook his own bag (gently of course), uttered the key phrase, and poured out a letter. "H," he said.

     "All right, my turn," Ernie said, and soon there was an L on the table in front of him.

     They spent the next few minutes shaking their bags and tipping out letters, nearly everyone getting puzzling results. After several tips of the bag Neville had the letters H, E, and L, at which point Seamus loudly accused him of spelling out a bad word. Neville's face reddened considerably, but he was able to laugh along with them as none of them really took the class seriously anyway. Besides, he was obviously having much better luck than Seamus, whose second letter had in fact been a U, but after that his "word" was really more a jumble of randomly placed consonants and vowels.

     Over at the next table, Professor Trelawney was commending Parvati and Lavender on their excellent "foreseeing skills."

     "Yes, that's really quite good, Miss Patil," she said, to which Parvati replied with a squeal of delight. ‘Yes, I really do see how that could possibly say ‘Texas'," she assured her.

     "But what do you think it means, Professor?" Parvati asked, intrigued by her mysterious message.

     "Only you can interpret the meaning of your mystic visions," the woman said softly, her large eyes widening even more than usual. She smiled and glided away, leaving Parvati and Lavender tittering in their seats.

     Across the table from them, Ron's letters seemed to be spelling out a rather enigmatic word as well.

     "P-A-R-V-A," Harry observed, reading the letters on the table in front of Ron. "What's that?"

     "Sounds like a sort of cheese I ate once," said Ernie from the next table.

     "I think I have an Aunt Parva," Ron said, looking anywhere but at anyone at his table. "Died a while ago. Yes, that's it. Might be a message from beyond the grave or something, I don't know."

     Harry rubbed his chin. "Parva? That's a weird name, isn't it? Maybe it's Polish, or – hey, wait a minute!" said Harry, lowering the volume of his voice significantly. "Add two more letters and you've got –" He glanced with exaggerated secrecy across the table, only moving his eyes, so that Ron could see exactly what he was looking at: Parvati.

     "What? No," hissed Ron. "Why would it spell out her name? That doesn't make any sense."

     Harry smiled but didn't argue. "All right, if you say so," he said, but he couldn't help smiling to himself as he tipped his Letter Bag Again.

     After ten or so minutes of shaking and tipping, Professor Trelawney signalled everyone to stop with a gentle wave of her arms.

     "Let us see what you have come up with," she said. "And remember, do not be discouraged if you were unable to make any sense of what you found. Other realms often have strange ways of communicating with us, sometimes ways that require the eye of a true Seer to interpret them."

     She paused to let this soak in, then said, "Who would like to tell us what messages they've received? Mr. Finnigan, how about you?"

     "All right," said Seamus, a smile creeping across his lips. "Er, I don't really know how to pronounce this –"

     "You may spell it then," said Professor Trelawney rather impatiently.

     "Q-U-T-P-R-L-A-C-F," he said, trying to appear serious.

     "Yes, well, it may seem like nonsense to you, but perhaps it holds some deeper meaning of which you are unaware," Professor Trelawney said in a mystical voice. "Who would like to continue?"

     She asked numerous other students to share what they had found, however most people ended up reading aloud words that had no apparent connection whatsoever to their lives.

     "Slippers," said a blond-haired Hufflepuff girl.

     "Elephant."

     "Chew."

     "Cacti."

     "I got ‘Muenster'," said Ernie. "Isn't that a kind of cheese?"

     "My letters spelled out ‘Tromboni'," Dean said, exchanging a quick smirk with Seamus.

     "You mean trombone?" asked Professor Trelawney, looking rather displeased.

     "No, tromboni," he said in all seriousness.

     "Mr. Longbottom, what did your letters spell?" the professor asked.

     "I don't – I don't think mine really makes much sense." Whenever Neville was addressed by a teacher or most anyone else of a high authority or stature than himself, he found himself somewhat tongue-tied, and had to struggle to say what he meant properly, oftentimes resulting in a bit of a stutter.

     "That's all right dear, just tell us what you got and I will aid you in your interpretation," Professor Trelawney said, almost sympathetically.

     "It says – well, it says ‘Helen'," he said, looking at Professor Trelawney from behind his light brown bangs.

     The professor's face registered an expression of mild surprise and understanding for a brief moment, as if she had expected Neville to produce such an enigmatic result. However she quickly wiped her countenance clear of expression.

     "Interesting," she said to Neville. "Who else would like to share?"