Days wandering around Hogwarts

Chapter 716 Divination
Perhaps because she had previously predicted bad luck and it turned out to be really bad, Professor Trelawney approached Harry and Ron from the very beginning.

“Alright.” Harry took a deep breath and stood up stiffly as Professor Trelawney floated toward their table as if sleepwalking.

“Professor,” he tried to make his voice sound normal, “I had a very unusual dream the night before last.”

The whispers around him subsided, and several curious glances were cast his way; everyone wanted to hear what story he would tell this time.

Professor Trelawney leaned forward slightly to listen carefully, and the beaded necklaces and bracelets on her body made a soft clinking sound, while the strong scent of incense and spices wafted over.

“Tell me carefully, my dear child,” she urged in her ethereal voice, her eyes behind thick glasses gleaming with anticipation. “Every detail in the dream may be a pebble thrown by fate, stirring up ripples of omens on the lake reflecting the future.”

Harry glanced at Ron, who gave him an encouraging look.

He cleared his throat and began to weave the absurd story that had just taken shape in his mind:
"I dreamed that I was in a forest, it was very dark, and the trees were all strangely shaped."

"Then I saw a... uh... a winged... sharp-beaked toad."

As he said this, he heard suppressed chuckles from Pavati and Lavender beside him.

Professor Trelawney, however, showed no smile, her expression focused, as if listening to some divine revelation.

“It was hopping right in front of me, its wings flapping, but it couldn’t fly very high.” Harry continued his rambling, trying to make the story sound more “fateful.” “I don’t know why, but I just started chasing it.”

"As I ran, the forest disappeared, and in front of me appeared a huge... upside-down cauldron."

"It's the kind where the bottom is up and the opening is down."

"The toad jumped in right away."

He paused, unsure how many more details he needed to add.

Ron secretly gave him a thumbs-up under the table.

“And then, my dear child?” Professor Trelawney urged, her breathing seeming to quicken.

“Then…then I woke up.” Harry decided to stop there, but added before sitting down, “It looks like the cauldron broke.”

He felt his face getting hot.

Now it's Ron's turn.

He picked up the book "Omens of Dreams" and pretended to flip through it, his brow furrowed.

“Well, according to the book,” Ron’s voice sounded very serious, “forests usually represent unknown dangers and inner confusion.”

He glanced furtively at Professor Trelawney and saw that the professor was tilting her head back slightly, her eyes closed, as if sensing something.

“And that… winged, sharp-beaked toad…” Ron paused, then, noticing the professor wasn’t looking at him, began to improvise, “That’s very unusual.”

"Toads usually symbolize... uh... dirty wealth or disgusting entanglements?"

"Adding wings might mean this trouble...can fly?"

"Or rather, from an unexpected direction?"

He himself found the explanation ridiculously far-fetched.

"As for that upside-down cauldron..." Ron continued flipping through the book, trying to find some basis for his claim. "The cauldron is a symbol of potions and transformation. Upside down and broken means it's a mess?"

His voice trailed off as he spoke, realizing he couldn't continue the story. Finally, he closed the book and concluded, "In short, it sounds like a bad dream. It might foreshadow some trouble."

After Ron finished speaking, he looked at Harry, shrugged, and indicated that the mission was accomplished.

Normally, at this point, Professor Trelawney would take over, using her esoteric theories to elevate the wildly interpreted dream to a new level concerning fate and disaster.

She would sigh, look at the victims of the "omen" with pity, and then announce some vague, frightening prophecies.

However, this time, the situation was completely different.

Professor Trelawney's eyes remained closed, but her face was visibly losing color.

Her fingers, which were resting on her temples, began to tremble violently, and fine beads of sweat seeped from her forehead.

Her thin lips moved silently, as if communicating with some unseen being. "Professor...?" Ron called out tentatively, sensing something was amiss.

Suddenly, Professor Trelawney gasped sharply, the sound piercing and shrill, breaking the languid and stifling atmosphere in the classroom.

"The golden toad is no ordinary creature; it leaks as soon as it gets near the crucible..."

The sound was extremely faint, but everyone heard it clearly.

Then she pulled her hand back as if she had been burned, and her eyes suddenly opened.

Behind the thick lenses, those eyes, which usually appeared hazy and dreamlike, were now wide open, their pupils constricted, filled with genuine, undisguised horror.

Professor Trelawney suddenly shuddered, staggered back a small step, and bumped into an empty chair next to her. The chair legs scraped against the stone floor, making a grating sound.

“Oh…no…” she murmured, almost a sob, her gaze fixed on Harry as if he were about to die. “My dear child…you…you…”

Her voice trembled violently, filled with a deep-seated fear.

The classroom fell silent. All the students stopped what they were doing, and even Lavender and Parvati stopped watching the spectacle and looked at Professor Trelawney with suspicion.

Harry's mind flashed back to the endless death prophecies that had emerged during his third year.

But this time, Professor Trelawney's reaction seemed different from any other time.

It wasn't some kind of mystery or enigma, but a pure fear that almost devoured her.

Especially the first two sentences, the tone was exactly the same as the ones in the prophecy orb, which made Harry feel a little dazed.

"Professor?" Harry couldn't help but ask, his voice a little nervous.

Professor Trelawney's movements became extremely slow, as if the surrounding air had frozen.

With great difficulty, she looked away from Harry's face and stared blankly at the shadow behind him.

Her eyes lost focus, as if piercing through the stone walls of the classroom to see some distant and terrifying scene.

This gave her an eerie aura that sent chills down your spine.

“The symbol…” she finally spoke again, her voice drifting from an ancient tomb, distant and cold, “I saw it… that forest, the place where crisis breeds… those wings, a distant land… that sharp beak, piercing the root of trust… that toad, merely the most insignificant…”

Her words, like a cold, venomous snake, silently burrowed into Harry's ears, spreading through his veins and throughout his body, sending a chill down his spine.

Did she really "see" something from the absurd imagery he casually fabricated?
“And that upside-down crucible…” Her voice suddenly rose, trembling with sobs, tears welling up behind her large glasses, “It is the collapse of the foundation! It is the disintegration of order! Everything will be shattered!”

Professor Trelawney suddenly reached out, her fingers almost poking Harry's nose, and her voice became hoarse with extreme fear as she spoke next.

“This is… a tremendous misfortune! I have never seen such a dark, such a clear omen!” She choked up, barely able to speak. “A betrayal… from the deepest recesses of my being! It will follow me like a shadow, not far away, but in the air I breathe, in the eyes of those I trust!”

"It will tear apart the connection, turning warmth into an ice cave... There is no escape... There is no way to break free..."

Before she could finish speaking, she recoiled as if burned, abruptly pulling her hand back and clutching it tightly to her chest, as if she could draw some warmth from it.

She was breathing heavily, her eyes were unfocused, and she staggered backward, bumping into the chair again.

“Darkness… endless darkness…” she murmured to herself, her expression dazed, as if her soul had left her body. “I saw… a shadow that devours everything…”

Then, to the astonishment of all the students, she fled like a bird startled by a wild beast, almost scrambling on her hands and feet, back to the armchair at the front of the classroom, which was filled with cushions. She buried herself in the shadows, curled up, and refused to look at anyone again.

The entire divination classroom fell into a deathly silence, as if time itself had stopped; even the sound of a quill pen falling and gently hitting the table could be clearly heard.

All eyes were on Harry, a mixture of curiosity, sympathy, disbelief, and a barely concealed fear, all intertwined in an invisible web that bound him tightly.

Harry stood frozen in place, feeling his fingertips grow cold and tremble slightly, as if he were holding a block of ice.

He kept repeating in his mind: This is just Trelawney's performance, nonsense, a charade, clearly a dream he made up, and Ron's interpretation is just offhand...

However, the same voice as the prophecy orb, combined with her almost collapsing, terrifyingly real reaction of fear, led Harry to believe that it was a real prophecy.

Professor Trelawney is in very bad shape and has not recovered for a long time. It seems that today's class will not be able to be held and will become a self-study class.

(End of this chapter)