Dreaming of Tea Leaves

"Good afternoon class," came the misty voice of Professor Trelawney from the shadowy corner of the room near the fire. "The Planets have shown me that today would be an excellent day to practice our tea-leaf divining skills. Can anyone tell me why?"

"Tea leaves are less expensive because they're in season?" Ron Weasley guessed, though thankfully his voice was only loud enough for Harry, who was sitting next to him, to hear. He really didn't want to have the professor's attention drawn to their table - he'd had enough death predictions to last him into the afterlife.

"Do tea leaves have a season?" Harry wondered. Ron shrugged and focused his attention on Lavender Brown, who was answering the professor's question.

"Mercury is in Neptune, which combines learning with the spiritual."

"Excellent Miss Brown, 5 points to Gryffindor. Now if everyone would please get their cups and tea...."

Their was a rustle of movement as everyone got up to do as they were asked, and return to their seats.

Harry absently studied the sunlight from the window behind him reflecting off the surface of the steaming liquid. It was too hot yet to drink, and he swirled it around in an attempt to cool it.

A shadowy shape in his cup caught his attention, and Harry leaned closer to the table, peering at the tea suspiciously. The tea leaves floating on the surface seemed to be forming some sort of shape... yes... it was....

How odd. It appeared to be a fish. There was a tea-leaf fish swimming in his tea.

"Hey Ron? Look at this, would you?" Harry glanced up at his friend when there was no response and did a double-take. But no, he wasn't seeing things. Ron really was wearing his school robes as a turban. "Ron? What are you doing?" Harry hissed, looking nervously at Trelawney out of the corner of his eye - who surprisingly, hadn't noticed the redhead's strange headwear. In fact, it seemed no one had.

"You need to be quiet Harry, I am contacting the Otherworld," Ron told him solemnly, and shut his eyes, settling himself in a lotus position on his cushion.

"You're what?" Harry demanded.

"Contacting the Otherworld. Now please, be quiet." Harry tugged on his hair nervously. Was there something in the tea? But... no one else was acting odd. In fact....

Everyone else was frozen. Still. Completely and utterly motionless. Even the tea spilling from Neville's cup was frozen in midair.

"Ron? Ron, something weird is going on." Looking back at the other boy, Harry was startled to realize he was floating. Very much on the verge of panicking, Harry scrambled off his cushion and raced out the door and down the ladder, not caring that he knocked Professor Trelawney over in the process - though he did take note of the fact that she fell over in the same way a statue would, as opposed to the human she supposedly was (though Harry had occasionally questioned this fact).

Harry raced to the closest classroom, intent on getting another professor's help, because clearly something had gone magically wrong in the Divination classroom. Harry barged into Flitwick's class without bothering to knock.

"Professor! Please, something strange has happened to -" Harry stopped mid-sentence. Because Professor Flitwick had just turned around to reveal himself as a muggle garden gnome in wizard robes. "You," Harry finished. Then he began to back hesitantly out of the room, suddenly very aware that he was surrounded by muggle garden gnomes, all of whom were grinning happily at him in a rather menacing way.

Harry took a deep breath and fled the classroom, slamming the door behind him.

Obviously, it wasn't just the Divination classroom, and Harry was the only one immune to whatever magic was being cast. Either that or someone was purposely messing with him.

Probably Voldemort. It's always Voldemort. Harry glanced around suspiciously, and yelled rather loudly in surprise when he looked down and found Mrs. Norris glaring up at him, a large fat rat twitching in her mouth.

"Eargh. That's disgusting. Go away you stupid cat." Mrs. Norris dropped the rat, and intensified her glare.

"I'd like to see you catch a rodent. Then we'd see who's stupid, you insolent human," she snapped, in a voice Harry imagined wouldn't have been out of place coming from the Queen of England.

"Humans don't eat rats," Harry pointed out, in a tone that stated that fact should be obvious.

"They do if they're starving." The cat slapped her paw down on the head of the twitching rodent, effectively stopping its movement. "Just add a sprig of catnip and a tuna salad, served on a golden platter..." she trailed off with a glazed look in her yellow eyes.

"Served on a golden platter? That's ridiculous." Mrs. Norris gave him a haughty look and stuck her nose in the hair.

"I'll have you know cats were once worshipped as gods."

"Well not anymore," Harry retorted rudely. "Besides, you're to ugly to ever be considered a god." Mrs. Norris hissed at him angrily and picked up her meal. She gifted Harry with one last glare, before stalking away.

It wasn't until the cat had turned the corner that Harry realized who, or rather, what he'd been talking to.

"Argh, not me too!" he moaned and thumped his forehead against the stone wall beside him.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Harry."

Thump. Thump.

"Harry!"

Thump.

"MR. POTTER! STOP THAT INCESSANT THUMPING THIS INSTANT."

Harry jerked away from the table that he'd been banging his head against, effectively bumping it with his knee and knocking his tea cup over. He yelped as the hot liquid landed in his lap and stood up, trying unsuccessfully to brush the liquid from his pants.

"Arefacio!" Ron said quickly, drying Harry's clothes. Harry let his had drop to his side, and hesitantly looked around.

He was in the Divination classroom, and everyone, while still not moving, was now staring at him in either confusion or amusement.

"Um... I... er..." Harry stammered, trying to come up with an excuse for his behavior. "There was a fish in my tea." Much blinking and raising of eyebrows followed this pronouncement. "I mean, the tea leaves were shaped like a fish. And... that means... that..." Harry glanced desperately at Ron, but his friend was giving him the same look as everyone else in the classroom. He obviously wasn't going to be of any help. "That we're going to have fish for dinner one night this week, and I hate fish," he finished lamely. A few people chucked, while the rest just gave him a disbelieving (and in the case of Lavender and Parvati, disapproving) look and shook their heads. Clearly, the Boy-Who-Lived had gone off the deep end.

Harry hurriedly sat down and righted his tea cup, dabbing miserably at the spilt tea on the table with the edge of his cushion.

"Harry," Ron whispered, and Harry looked up at him. "Why were you thumping your head on the table?"

"Because I realized cats can't talk."