Sybill Trelawney and the Clueless Evening

Sybill Trelawney and the Clueless Evening

'Fred! Everyone goes up to the Astronomy Tower -- there's no privacy up there. What about the North Tower instead?'

'Are you serious? Trelawney lives up there, and hardly ever leaves it, even for meals -- do you want to be caught?'

Angelina grinned. 'If she never leaves her rooms, she won't be walking in on us if we're a couple of floors below, will she?'

'But she'd still hear us!' Fred objected. 'If she hears someone below her rooms, she's bound to come down to find out who it is, and what they're doing. I don't want her walking in on us. A Locking Charm isn't likely to keep a teacher out -- not even Trelawney.'

'What would she think if she heard voices? Think about it -- she'd think the spirits were talking to her.'

Fred laughed. 'Do spirits say "Oh, Fred, oh ... oh ... oh ..."?'

She looked at him, wide-eyed. 'Do girls say that then?'

'You'll find out later, won't you?' he said with a grin. 'Ten o'clock tonight? We can meet in the common room and go up there together.'

Angelina agreed. The two of them had been lagging behind the rest of the team for privacy as they walked back to the castle after Quidditch practice, and now hurried to catch up with the others.

*

That evening, Sybill Trelawney sat writing out her lesson plan for the next day's fourth-year lesson. Occasional sounds from elsewhere in the castle were audible, but she ignored them as usual. This late in the evening, nobody would be coming up to see her.

*

Angelina tapped her wand on the lock on the door of the classroom she'd chosen. 'Alohomora!' she said in a whisper. The door sprang open, revealing a room full of dusty benches and other unwanted items that seemed to have been left there in case they ever became useful again.

'Benches -- how wonderful,' said Fred quietly, still not certain whether they might be overheard.

Angelina was also being quiet. 'Oh,' she said, disappointed. 'I'd hoped there might be some of Trelawney's old furniture in here.' She'd explained to Fred earlier how the Divination classroom was furnished. Fred didn't take Divination, partly because Charlie had given him a very negative view of the class, and partly because, as he put it, he and George preferred to make their own future.

'It's got possibilities though,' he said. He pointed his wand at the nearest of the dusty benches, and Transfigured it into a very comfortable-looking, clean double-width divan. He looked at Angelina's amazed expression. 'Well, you remember the Canary Creams? Transfiguration's just too useful for pranks for me to ignore.'

'Yes, but ...'

'George and I practice. A lot.'

'So I see,' she said weakly. She sat carefully on the divan, to try it out.

'It's not going to turn into anything else,' said Fred. 'No pranks today, for a change. You know I've got very different plans for this evening.'

'Well ... I hoped you had,' she said, smiling back at him. She patted the divan beside her. 'So ...'

Fred cast a Locking Charm on the door, just in case, and then joined her.

*

Trelawney suddenly looked up. For a moment, it had seemed that she had heard spirit voices. She listened intently. There seemed to be a moaning sound -- perhaps a spirit in torment? She pushed aside the parchments she'd been working on, took a blank parchment, and put a crystal ball beside it. She listened again.

'You look great,' said one of the voices, obviously praising her skill at Divination. She smiled, and wrote that down on the parchment. After this, she had to strain to hear the voices, which seemed to be more distant for a while.

The spirit voice -- no, voices -- started moaning again, but they didn't seem to be in torment after all. Sybill couldn't recognise the emotion. She thought perhaps they were chanting to provide an eerie background.

'No, there ... yeees,' she heard next. She wrote it down, without trying to interpret it yet. It sounded as if some of the voices' messages were being drowned out by the moaning -- she would have to try to work out any missing words later.

'... and I'd heard you had a ten-inch wand ...' was next -- so it was a wizard's ghost.

'Are you complaining?' Sybill just wrote that out without trying to understand it.

'Oh, Fred, oh ... oh ... oh ...' was next. She assumed the spirit was telling her that something dreadful was about to happen to someone called Fred. The laughter that followed that message must have been from an evil spirit.

Then the voices grew quieter. She could no longer hear more than the occasional word, and stopped writing.

She studied the crystal ball carefully, now that there was no need to hurry to transcribe the voices. The mists revealed nothing, to her disappointment. She reread the transcript, seeking the true meaning behind the voices, but in vain.

*

Fred and Angelina lay on the divan, exhausted. Their robes were thrown across one of the benches.

Angelina whispered, 'You see? Trelawney didn't walk in on us. I bet she never even heard us.'

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