Word

As Professor Trewlawney moodily ruminated on the disastrous power that, so her inner eye told her, lurked just outside the Great Hall and was poised to utterly decimate the whole school in twenty-seven seconds unless the administration heeded her warning and interceded, which wasn't bloody likely since they were too far under the finger of that skeptical fathead, McGonagall, who had, once, with her fatiguing paucity of mystical understanding, made Sybill mad enough to shatter one of her beloved pink tea cups into a thousand jagged shards – but as she reminded herself that she mustn't let her emotions get carried away by such a bitter memory, she could not help but allow her bespectacled eyes to wander from her plate of rapidly congealing scrambled eggs over to those of her colleague, Professor Snape (his eyes, not his scrambled eggs), and she allowed her breath to momentarily catch in her breast as she contemplated the light sweat of a thousand nights of manly potion brewing that glistened so handsomely on his forehead and caught the rising sun, and the strings of greasy hair that hung over his face like ethereal strands of black star dust - but just as she thought shyly of what might transpire if she eased into a conversation with Severus by tossing out an offhand but fetching comment about the demoralizing lack of inspiration in students these days, a raging horde of feral vampire bats burst through the doors and beset the school populace in a shrieking, frothing horde, causing Professor Trelawney to sigh angrily as she realized that her dreams of romances - like the bowls of sorbet that were ordinarily passed around after breakfast to cleanse one's palate - had just been dreadfully delayed, cast to the winds of time where they would wait while she dealt with this latest crisis, this latest encroachment on her moments of inner solitude, this plague upon her dreams of the lovely and talented yet strangely mischievous Potions Master, until Trelawney realized, in one of those fits of brilliance that came so easily to her yet were often overlooked by those without the Second Sight, those blasted imbeciles that failed to recognize genius and locked Trelawney up in a tower that, while cozy, lay far away from the bustling hub of activity that was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and tended to get rather warm during those long spring days, that this would be the perfect opportunity to show off her witchly skills to said imbeciles (and one rather attractive Professor, who, though not an imbecile, often chose to ignore Trelawney in the same manner as those of far less mental capacity, the frustrating bastard), and so she jumped onto the staff table (nearly upsetting the turkey, which gave a loud gobble before Trelawney kicked it towards the Slytherin table), straight into the path of the onrushing vampire bats, heedless of the danger into which she was putting her oh-so-valuable life – a life more valuable than the diamonds that encrusted the furniture of her beloved's bedroom (despite never having seen the interior, her penetrating mystical vision allowed her glimpses of the riches that adorned his sleeping quarters), for she was of the flesh and blood, though more flesh than blood, of course – and waved her arms, screaming “Begone, bats!” until she was sure they had heard her; and yet they refused to listen, the stubborn creatures; refused to listen just as the high-and-mighty yet somewhat daft deputy headmistress had (Trelawney was sure the bats were somehow in league with her, yet couldn’t prove it; the bitchy witch had covered her tracks too well, and the bats seemed to be merely flying mammalian creatures with a knack for annoying hominids and an appetite for sanguine pleasures), and Trelawney was forced to duck her head and retreat beneath the table to avoid being pincushioned by the bats, lethal creatures they were; so lethal, in fact, that they shishkabobbed poor Professor Flitwick, who had jumped up and clutched at the chandelier the moment the bats had appeared (he, obviously, was not Gryffindor material, and Trelawney allowed herself a moment of smug superiority beneath the table as she gloated over how she had bravely faced the bats while Flitwick clutched at ceiling fixtures) and was now lying dead as a doorknob in the middle of the Great Hall, surrounded by demoralizingly inspirationless yet very curious students, led by one particularly meddlesome third-year student named Wicky (or so Trelawney thought; a thick fog obscured her spectral vision on this matter, and it could just as easily have been Skye, or Calypso, or Rena, or any of the other strange names that Muggle parents were inclined to give their children nowadays), that little brat who obviously needed to be taught a lesson, and there was no one better qualified to teach that lesson than Trelawney, who had taught more than her fair share of lessons and always managed to get it into her students heads that she, in her trance-induced wisdom and utter communion with the astral plane, was someone to be respected and feared, or else the future would hold dire portents for them and their misbegotten spawn (nevermind that these were just children and hopefully had no spawn; the phrase caught in Trelawney’s imagination, and she figured it would sound good in her memoirs and impress Professor Snape), fears that were now coming to pass, for the vampire bats had reversed course like a flock of angry bees (Trelawney couldn’t help but think of the time she had gone out for a walk with her honey and run across a nest of the nasty little buggers, who had a tendency to buzz in one’s ear even more than the evil Professor McGonagall, and packed a more painful sting than Filch’s whip, though the thought of that made Trelawney quiver with anticipation and gaze longingly and lustfully at Professor Snape, who was sitting calmly and demurely at the head of the staff table, watching her every move with his hawk-like vision, and – she hoped – approving with roving eyes), and were now headed straight for her, like a torpedo cutting through the water, or other subtly phallic yet completely innocent metaphor, approaching so fast that they appeared to be nothing more than a blur, a cloud in the sky, yet more akin to a poisonous cloud, for they were a deadly lethal blur and made Trelawney quiver in her robes (a fact that she hoped would be overlooked by the Potion Master at the end of the table, unless, of course, he found the thought of women’s quivering bodies attractive), and she contemplated briefly the idea of hiding under the table again; briefly, only because of the Snape’s unwavering gaze upon her body, a gaze that spurred her on to new heights of bravery, increasing her already formidable resolve until she could stand firm in the onrushing swarm of vampiric flying mammals, stand firm with wand outstretched, hand ready to cast the spell that would banish them from this plane forever and assure Professor Trelawney of a hero’s reward and the love of the Potion Master too, and she would have succeeded, too, had a tights-wearing transvestite who looked astonishingly like Tom Riddle not chosen that moment to wander into the Great Hall and cry out “Gunnhild, my sweet! Where art thou? Or willst I have to content myself with the pleasures of these blood-sucking vermin?” which distracted Trelawney from her spell and allowed the vampire bats to rush past her, a black cloud bearing death and destruction, a cloud that soon engulfed her beloved Professor Snape, enshrouding him in a clinging, stinging cloak that consumed him before Trelawney even had time to yell a strangled “No!”, and as she rushed over to his limp body, one thought passed through her mind – she had just been sentenced to death.