From Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The first Divination class: A voice came suddenly out of the shadows, a soft, misty sort of voice.
‘Welcome,’ it said. ‘How nice to see you in the physical world at last.’
Harry’s immediate impression was of a large, glittering insect. (PA6)
‘Sit, my children, sit,’ she said, and they all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto pouffes… (PA6)
‘Welcome to Divination,’ said Professor Trelawney, who had seated herself in a winged armchair in front of the fire. ‘My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school
clouds my Inner Eye.’ (PA6)
Professor Trelawney delicately rearranged her shawl and continued, ‘So you may have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far ion this field…’
At these words, both Harry and Ron glances, grinning, at Hermione, who looked startled at the news that books wouldn’t be much help in this subject.
‘Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future,’ Professor Trelawney went on […] ‘It is a Gift granted to few. You, boy,’ she said suddenly to Neville, who almost toppled off his pouffe, ‘is your grandmother well?’
‘I think so,’ said Neville tremulously.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you, dear,’ said Professor Trelawney… (PA6)
‘We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be devoted to reading the tea leaves. Next term we shall progress to palmistry. By the way, my dear,’ she shot suddenly at Parvati Patil, ‘beware a red-haired man.’
Parvati gave a startled look at Ron… (PA6)
‘In the summer term,’ Professor Trelawney went on, ‘we shall progress to the crystal ball – if we have finished with fire-omens, that is. Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever.’ (PA6)
‘I wonder, dear,’ she said to Lavender Brown, who was nearest and shrank back in her chair, ‘if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?’
Lavender, looking relieved, stood up… (PA6)
To Lavender: ‘Incidentally, that thing you are dreading – it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October.’
Lavender trembled. (PA6)
‘Now, I want you all to divide into pairs. Collect a teacup from the shelf, come to me, and I will fill it. Then sit down and drink; drink until only the dregs remain. Swirl these around the cup three times with the left hand, then turn the cup upside-down on its saucer; wait for the last of the tea to drain away, then give your cup to your partner to read. You will interpret the patterns using pages five and six of Unfogging the Future. I shall move among you, helping and instructing. Oh, and dear –’ she caught Neville by the arm as he made to stand up – ‘after you’ve broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue patterned ones? I’m rather attached to the pink.’
Sure enough, Neville had no sooner reached the shelf of teacups than there was a tinkle of breaking china. Professor Trelawney swept over to him holding a dustpan and brush and said, ‘One of the blue ones, then, dear, if you wouldn’t mind … thank you …’ (PA6)
Professor Trelawney whirled around as Harry let out a snort of laughter.
‘Let me see that, my dear,’ she said reprovingly to Ron, sweeping over and snatching Harry’s cup from him. Everyone went quiet to watch.
Professor Trelawney was staring into the teacup, rotating it anti-clockwise.
‘The falcon… my dear, you have a deadly enemy.’ (PA6)
She lowered her huge eyes to Harry’s cup again and continued to turn it.
‘The club… an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup…’
‘I thought that was a bowler hat,’ said Ron sheepishly.
‘The skull … danger in your path, my dear …’
Everyone was staring, transfixed at Professor Trelawney, who gave the cup a final turn, gasped, and then screamed.
There was another tinkle of breaking china; Neville had smashed his second cup. Professor Trelawney sank into a vacant armchair, her glittering hand at her heart and her eyes closed.
‘My dear boy – my poor dear boy – no – it is kinder not to say – no – don’t ask me…’
…’
‘What is it, Professor?’ said Dean Thomas at once. Everyone had got to their feet and slowly, they crowded around Harry and Ron’s table, pressing close to Professor Trelawney’s chair to get a good look at Harry’s cup.
‘My dear,’ Professor Trelawney’s huge eyes opened dramatically, ‘you have the Grim.’ (PA6)
‘The Grim, my dear, the Grim!’ cried Professor Trelawney, who looked shocked that Harry hadn’t understood. ‘The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen – the worst omen – of death!'(PA6)
Professor Trelawney surveyed Hermione with mounting dislike.
‘You’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future.’ (PA6)
‘Until we meet again,’ said Professor Trelawney faintly, ‘fair fortune be yours. Oh, and dear –’ she pointed at Neville, ‘you’ll be late next time, so mind you work extra hard to catch up.’ (PA6)
‘The sixteenth of October! “That thing you’re dreading, it will happen on the sixteenth of October!” Remember? She was right, she was right!’
The whole class was gathered around Lavender now. (PA8)
… the doors of the Great Hall opened again. It was Professor Trelawney, gliding towards them as though on wheels. She had put on a green sequined dress in honour of the occasion, making her look more than ever like a glittering, oversize dragonfly.
‘Sybill, this is a pleasant surprise!’ said Dumbledore, standing up.
‘I have been crystal-gazing, Headmaster,’ said Professor Trelawney, in her mistiest, most faraway voice, ‘and to my astonishment, I saw myself abandoning my solitary luncheon and coming to join you. Who am I to refuse the prompting of fate? I at once hastened from my tower, and I do beg you to forgive my lateness…’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. ‘Let me draw you up a chair –’
[…] Professor Trelawney, however, did not sit down; her enormous eyes had been roving around the table, and she suddenly uttered a kind of soft scream.
‘I dare not, Headmaster! If I join the table, we shall be thirteen! Nothing could be more unlucky! Never forget that when thirteen dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die!’
‘We’ll risk it, Sybill,’ said Professor McGonagall impatiently. ‘Do sit down, the turkey’s getting stone cold.’ (PA11)
McGonagall: ‘Tripe, Sybill?’
Professor Trelawney ignored her. (PA11)
On Lupin’s absence: ‘But surely you already knew that, Sybill?’ said Professor McGonagall, her eyebrows raised.
Professor Trelawney gave Professor McGonagall a very cold look.
‘Certainly I knew, Minerva,’ she said quietly. ‘But one does not parade the fact that one is All-Knowing. I frequently act as though I am not possessed of the Inner Eye, so as not to make others nervous.’
‘That explains a great deal,’ said Professor McGonagall tartly.
Professor Trelawney’s voice suddenly became a good deal less misty.
‘If you must know, Minerva, I have seen that poor Professor Lupin will not be with us for very long. He seems aware, himself, that his time is short. He positively fled when I offered to crystal-gaze for him –’
‘Imagine that,’ said Professor McGonagall drily. (PA11)
Harry and Ron got up first from the table and she shrieked loudly.
‘My dears! Which of you left his seat first? Which?’
‘Dunno,’ said Ron, looking uneasily at Harry.
‘I doubt it will make much difference,’ said Professor McGonagall coldly, ‘unless a mad axe-man is waiting outside the doors to slaughter the first into the Entrance Hall.’ (PA11)
Harry: ‘Don’t complain, this means we’ve finished palmistry,” Harry muttered back. ‘I was getting sick of her flinching every time she looked at my hands.’ (PA15)
‘Good day to you!’ said the familiar, misty voice, and Professor Trelawney made her usual dramatic entrance out of the shadows. Parvati and Lavender quivered with excitement, their faces lit by the milky glow of their crystal ball.
‘I have decided to introduce the crystal ball a little earlier than I had planned,’ said Professor Trelawney, seating herself with her back to the fire and gazing around. ‘The fates have informed me that your examination in June will concern the Orb, and I am anxious to give you sufficient practice.’
Hermione snorted.
‘Well, honestly… “the fates have informed her”… who sets the exam? She does! What an amazing prediction!’ she said, not troubling to keep her voice low. (PA15)
‘Crystal-gazing is a particularly refined art,’ she said dreamily. ‘I do not expect any of you to See when first you peer into the Orb’s infinite depths. We shall start by practising relaxing the conscious mind and external eyes’ – Ron began to snigger uncontrollably, and had to stuff his hand in his mouth to stifle the noise – ‘so as to clear the Inner Eye and the superconcious. Perhaps, if we are lucky, some of you will See before the end of the class.’ (PA15)
‘Would anyone like me to help them interpret the shadowy portents within their Orb?’ she murmured over the clinking of her bangles.
‘I don’t need help,’ Ron whispered. ‘It’s obvious what this means. There’s going to be loads of fog tonight.’ (PA15)
To Hermione: ‘Now, really!’ said Professor Trelawney, as everyone’s heads turned in their direction. Parvati and Lavender were looking scandalised. ‘You are disturbing the clairvoyant vibrations!’ She approached their table and peered into their crystal ball. Harry felt his heart sinking. He was sure he knew what was coming…
‘There is something here!’ Professor Trelawney whispered, lowering her face to the ball, so that it was reflected twice in her huge glasses. ‘Something moving… but what is it?’
Harry was prepared to bet everything he owned, including his Firebolt, that it wasn’t good news, whatever it was. And sure enough…
‘My dear …’ Professor Trelawney breathed, gazing up at Harry. ‘It is here, plainer than ever before … my dear, stalking towards you, growing ever closer… the Gr–’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake!’ said Hermione, loudly. ‘Not that ridiculous Grim again!’ (PA15)
To Hermione: ‘I am sorry to say that from the moment you have arrived in this class, my dear, it has been apparent that you do not have what the noble art of Divination requires. Indeed, I don’t remember ever meeting a student whose mind was so hopelessly Mundane.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then —
‘Fine!’ said Hermione suddenly, getting up and cramming Unfogging the Future back into her bag. ‘Fine!’ she repeated, swinging her bag over her shoulder and almost knocking Ron of his chair. ‘I give up! I’m leaving!’
And to the whole class’s amazement, Hermione strode over to the trapdoor, kicked it open, and climbed down the ladder out of sight. (PA15)
‘Ooooo!’ said Lavender suddenly, making everyone start. ‘Oooooo, Professor Trelawney, I’ve just remembered! You saw her leaving, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Professor? “Around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever!” You said it ages ago, Professor!’
Professor Trelawney gave her a dewy smile.
‘Yes, my dear, I did indeed know that Miss Granger would be leaving us. One hopes, however, that one might have mistaken the Signs… The Inner Eye can be a burden, you know….’ (PA15)
Neville: ‘She says the crystal ball’s told her that, if I tell you, I’ll have a horrible accident!’ squeaked Neville, as he clambered back down the ladder towards Harry and Ron, who had now reached the landing.
‘That’s convenient,’ snorted Ron. ‘You know, I’m starting to think Hermione was right about her’ (he jabbed his thumb towards the trapdoor overhead), ‘she’s a right old fraud.’ (PA16)
Parvati came back down the ladder glowing with pride.
‘She says I’ve got all the makings of a true Seer,’ she informed Harry and Ron. ‘I saw loads of stuff… well, good luck!’ (PA16)
‘Good day, my dear,’ she said softly, ‘If you would kindly gaze into the Orb…. Take your time, now … then tell me what you see within it…’ (PA16)
‘Well?’ Professor Trelawney prompted delicately. ‘What do you see?’
The heat was overpowering and his nostrils were stinging with the perfumed smoke wafting from the fire beside them. He thought of what Ron had just said, and decided to pretend.
‘Er –,’ said Harry, ‘a dark shape… um…’
‘What does it resemble?’ whispered Professor Trelawney. ‘Think, now…’
Harry cast his mind around and it landed on Buckbeak.
‘A Hippogriff,’ he said firmly.
‘Indeed!’ whispered Professor Trelawney, scribbling keenly on the parchment perched upon her knees. ‘My boy, you may well be seeing the outcome of poor Hagrid’s trouble with the Ministry of Magic! Look closer…. Does that Hippogriff appear to … have its head?’
‘Yes,’ said Harry firmly.
‘Are you sure?’ Professor Trelawney urged him. ‘Are you quite sure, dear? You don’t see it writhing on the ground, perhaps, and a shadowy figure raising an axe being it?’
‘No!’ said Harry, starting to feel slightly sick.
‘No blood? No weeping Hagrid?’
‘No!’ said Harry again, wanting more than ever to leave the room and the heat. ‘It looks fine, it’s – flying away…’
Professor Trelawney sighed.
‘Well, dear, I think we’ll leave it there… a little disappointing… but I’m sure you did your best.’ (PA16)
‘IT WILL HAPPEN TONIGHT.’
Harry wheeled around. Professor Trelawney had gone rigid in her armchair; her eyes were unfocused and her mouth sagging.
‘S–sorry?’ said Harry.
But Professor Trelawney didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes started to roll. Harry sat there in a panic. She looked as though she was about to have some sort of seizure. He hesitated, thinking of running to the hospital wing — and then Professor Trelawney spoke again, in the same harsh voice, quite unlike her own:
‘THE DARK LORD LIES ALONE AND FRIENDLESS, ABANDONED BY HIS FOLLOWERS. HIS SERVANT HAS BEEN CHAINED THESE TWELVE YEARS. TONIGHT, BEFORE MIDNIGHT … THE SERVANT WILL BREAK FREE AND SET OUT TO REJOIN HIS MASTER. THE DARK LORD WILL RISE AGAIN WITH HIS SERVANT’S AID, GREATER AND MORE TERRIBLE THAT EVER HE WAS. TONIGHT … BEFORE MIDNIGHT … THE SERVANT WILL SET OUT TO REJOIN HIS MASTER …’
Professor Trelawney’s head fell forward onto her chest. She made a grunting sort of noise. Harry sat there, staring at her. Then quite suddenly, Professor Trelawney’s head snapped up again.
‘I’m so sorry, dear boy,’ she said dreamily. ‘The heat of the day, you know… I drifted off for a moment…’
Harry stood there, still staring.
‘Is there anything wrong, my dear?’
‘You – you just told me that the – the Dark Lord’s going to rise again… that his servant’s going to go back to him…’
Professor Trelawney looked thoroughly startled.
‘The Dark Lord? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? My dear boy, that’s hardly something to joke about … rise again, indeed…’
‘But you just said it! You said the Dark Lord…’
‘I think you must have dozed off too, dear!’ said Professor Trelawney.
‘I would certainly not presume to predict anything quite as far-fetched as that!’ (PA16)
‘Professor Dumbledore – yesterday, when I was having my Divination exam, Professor Trelawney went very – very strange.’
‘Indeed?’ said Dumbledore. ‘Er – stranger than usual, you mean?’
‘Yes… her voice went all deep and her eyes rolled and she said… she said Voldemort’s servant was going to set out to return to him before midnight… she said the servant would help him come back to power.’ Harry stared up at Dumbledore. ‘And then she sort of became normal again, and she couldn’t remember anything she’d said. Was it – was she making a real prediction?’
Dumbledore looked mildly impressed.
‘Do you know, Harry, I think she might have been,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Who’d have thought it? That brings her total of real predictions up to two. I should offer her a pay rise…’ (PA22)
From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
‘Good day,’ said the misty voice of Professor Trelawney right behind Harry, making him jump. (GF13)
‘You are preoccupied, my dear,’ she said mournfully to Harry. ‘My Inner Eye sees past your brave face to the troubled soul within. And I regret to say that your worries are not baseless. I see difficult times ahead for you, alas… most difficult… I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass… and perhaps sooner than you think…’ (GF13)
‘My dears, it is time for use to consider the stars,’ she said. ‘The movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance. Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle…’ But Harry’s thoughts had drifted. (GF13)
‘I was saying, my dear, that you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn,’ said Professor Trelawney, a faint note of resentment in her voice at the fact that he had obviously not been hanging on her words.
‘Born under – what, sorry?’ said Harry.
‘Saturn, dear, the planet Saturn!’ said Professor Trelawney, sounding definitely irritated that he wasn’t riveted by this news. ‘I was saying that Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth… your dark hair… your mean stature… tragic losses so young in life… I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in mid-winter?’
‘No,’ said Harry, ‘I was born in July.’ (GF13)
‘Can I have a look at Uranus, too, Lavender?’ said Ron.
Most unfortunately, Professor Trelawney heard him, and it was this, perhaps, which made her give them so much homework at the end of the class.
‘A detailed analysis of the way the planetary movements in the coming month will affect you, with reference to your personal chart,’ she snapped, sounding much more like Professor McGonagall than her usual airy-fairy self. ‘I want it ready to hand in next Monday, and no excuses!’ (GF13)
‘Next Monday,’ he [Ron] said, as he scribbled, ‘I am likely to develop a cough, owing to the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter.’ He looked up at Harry. ‘You know her – just put in loads of misery, she’ll lap it up.’ (GF14)
‘I would think,’ se said, in a mystical whisper that did not conceal her obvious annoyance, ‘that some of us’ – she stared very meaningfully at Harry – ‘might be a little less frivolous had they seen what I have seen, during my crystal-gazing last night. As I sat here, absorbed in my needlework, the urge to consult the orb overpowered me. I arose, I settle myself before it, and I gazed into its crystalline depths… and what do you think I saw gazing back at me?’
‘An ugly old bat in outsize specs?’ Ron muttered under his breath.
Harry fought hard to keep a straight face.
‘Death, my dears.’ (GF21)
‘Yes,’ said Professor Trelawney, nodding impressively, ‘it comes, ever closer, it circles overhead like a vulture, ever lower… ever lower over the castle…’
She stared pointedly at Harry, who yawned very widely and obviously.
‘It’d be a bit more impressive if she hadn’t done it about eighty times before,’ Harry said… (GF21)
‘My dears,’ said Professor Trelawney, sitting down in her winged armchair in front of the class and peering around at the all with her strangely enlarge eyes, ‘we have almost finished our work on planetary divination. Today, however, will be an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of Mars, for he is placed most interestingly at the present time. If you will all look this was, I will dim the lights…’ (GF29)
‘You all right?’ he [Ron] said.
‘Of course he isn’t!’ said Professor Trelawney, looking thoroughly excited. Her great eyes loomed over Harry, gazing at him. ‘What was it, Potter? A premonition? An apparition? What did you see?’
‘Nothing,’ Harry lied. He sat up. He could feel himself shaking. He couldn’t stop himself looking around, into the shadows behind him; Voldemort’s voice had sounded so close…
‘You were clutching your scar!’ said Professor Trelawney. ‘You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! Come now, Potter, I have experience in these matters!’
‘Harry looked up at her.
‘I need to go to the hospital wing, I think,’ he said. ‘Bad headache.’
‘My dear, you were undoubtedly stimulated by the extraordinary clairvoyant vibrations of my room!’ said Professor Trelawney. ‘If you leave now, you may lose the opportunity to see further than you have ever –’
‘I don’t want to see anything except a headache cure,’ said Harry. (GF29)
From Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
‘good day,’ said Professor Trelawney in her usual misty, dreamy voice, and Harry broke off, again feeling both annoyed and slightly ashamed of himself. ‘And welcome back to Divination. I have, of course, been following your fortunes most carefully over the holidays, and am delighted to see that you have all returned to Hogwarts safely – as,
of course, I knew you would.’
‘You will find on the tables before you copies of The Dream Oracle, by Inigo Imago. Dream interpretation is a most important means of divining the future and one that may very probably be tested in your OWL. Not, of course, that I believe examination passes or failures are of the remotest importance when it comes to the sacred art of
divination. If you have the Seeing eye, certificates and grades matter very little. However, the Headmaster likes you to site the examination, so…’
Her voice trailed away delicately, leaving them all in no doubt that Professor Trelawney considered her subject above such sordid matters as examinations.
‘Turn, please, to the introduction and read what Imago has to say on the matter of dream interpretation. Then, divide into pairs. Use The Dream Oracle to interpret each other’s most recent dreams. Carry on.’ (OP12)
‘Good afternoon, Professor Trelawney,’ said Professor Umbridge with her wide smile. ‘You received my note, I trust? Giving the time and date of your inspection?’
Professor Trelawney nodded curtly and, looking very disgruntled, turned her back on Professor Umbridge and continued to give out books. (OP15)
‘We shall be continuing our study of prophetic dream today,’ she said in a brave attempt at her usual mystic tones, though her voice shook slightly. ‘Divide into pairs, please, and interpret each other’s latest night-tome visions with the aid of the Oracle.’ (OP15)
‘Now,’ said Umbridge, looking up at Trelawney, ‘you’ve been in this post how long, exactly?’
Professor Trelawney scowled at her, arms crossed and shoulders hunched as though wishing to protect herself as much as possible from the indignity of the inspection. After a slight pause in which she seemed to decide that the question was not so offensive that she could reasonably ignore it, she said in a deeply resentful tone, ‘Nearly sixteen years.’
‘Quite a period,’ said Professor Umbridge, making a note on her clipboard. ‘So it was Professor Dumbledore who appointed you?’
‘That’s right,’ said Professor Trelawney shortly.
Professor Umbridge made another note.
‘And you are a great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated Seer Cassandra Trelawney?’
‘Yes,’ said Professor Trelawney, holding her head a little high.
Another note on the clipboard.
‘But I think – correct me if I am mistaken – that you are the first in your family since Cassandra to be possessed of the Second Sight?’
‘These things often skip – er – three generations,’ said Professor Trelawney.
Professor Umbridge’s toadlike smile widened.
‘Of course,’ she said sweetly, making yet another note. ‘Well, if you could just predict something for me, then?’ And she looked up enquiringly, still smiling.
Professor Trelawney stiffened as though unable to believe her ears. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said, clutching compulsively at the shawl around her scrawny neck.
‘I’d like you to make a prediction for me,’ said Professor Umbridge very clearly.
…
‘The Inner Eye does not See upon command!’ she said in scandalised tones.
‘I see,’ said Professor Umbridge softly, making yet another note on her clipboard.
‘I – but – bit – wait!’ said Professor Trelawney suddenly, in an attempt at her usual ethereal voice, though the mystical effect was ruined somewhat by the way it was shaking with anger. ‘I… I think I do see something… something that concerns you… why, I sense something… something dark… some grave peril…’
Professor Trelawney pointed a shaking finger at Professor Umbridge who continued to smile blandly at her, eyebrows raised.
‘I am afraid… I am afraid that you are in grave danger!’ Professor Trelawney finished dramatically.
There was a pause. Professor Umbridge’s eyebrows were still raised.
‘Right,’ she said softly, scribbling on her clipboard once more.
‘Well, if that’s really the best you can do…’ (OP15)
‘Well?’ she said, snapping her long fingers under Harry’s nose, uncharacteristically brisk. ‘Let me see the start you’ve made on your dream diary, please.’ (OP15)
‘Well, carry on!’ said Professor Trelawney loudly, her voice high-pitched and somewhat hysterical, ‘you know what to do! Or am I such a sub-standard teacher that you have never learned how to open a book?’ (OP17)
‘Professor?’ said Parvati Patil in a hushed voice (she and Lavender had always rather admired Professor Trelawney), ‘Professor, is there anything – er – wrong?’
‘Wrong!’ cried Professor Trelawney in a voice throbbing with emotion. ‘Certainly not! I have been insulted, certainly… insinuations have been made against me… unfounded accusations levelled… but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not!’ She took a great shuddering breath and looked away from Parvati, angry tears spilling from under her glasses. ‘I say nothing,’ she choked, ‘of sixteen years of devoted service… it has passed, apparently, unnoticed… but I shall not be insulted, no, I shall not!’
‘But, Professor, who’s insulting you?’ asked Parvati timidly.
‘The Establishment!’ said Professor Trelawney, in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice. ‘Yes, those with eyes too clouded by the mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know… of course, we Seers have always been feared, always persecuted… it is – alas – our fate.’ (OP17)
‘Professor,’ said Parvati, ‘do you mean… is it something Professor Umbridge –?’
‘Do not speak to me about that woman!’ cried Professor Trelawney… (OP17)
‘… may well choose to leave… the indignity of it… on probation… we shall see… how she dares…’ (OP17)
‘You and Umbridge have got something in common,’ Harry told Hermione quietly when they met again in Defence Against the Dark Arts. ‘She obviously reckons Trelawney’s an old fraud, too… looks like she’s put her on probation.’ (OP17)
On Thestrals: ‘But they’re really, really unlucky!’ interrupted Parvati, looking alarmed. ‘They’re supposed to bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them. Professor Trelawney told me once –’ (OP21)
Harry though Professor Trelawney might soon crack under the strain. (OP25)
On Trelawney: … and a woman screamed from somewhere outside the room. Snape’s head jerked upwards; he was gazing at the ceiling.
‘What the –?’ he muttered. (OP26)
‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘NO! This cannot be happening… it cannot… I refuse to accept it!’ (OP26)
Umbridge: ‘Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow’s weather, you must surely have realised that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable that you would be sacked?’ (OP26)
‘You c – can’t!’ howled Professor Trelawney, tears streaming down her face from behind her enormous lenses, ‘you c – can’t sack me! I’ve b – been here sixteen years! H – Hogwarts is m – my h – home!’
‘It was your home,’ said Professor Umbridge, and Harry was revolted to see the enjoyment stretching her toadlike face as she watched Professor Trelawney sink, sobbing uncontrollable, on to one of her trunks, ‘until an hour ago, when the Minister for Magic countersigned your Order of Dismissal. Now kindly remove yourself from this Hall. You are embarrassing us.’ (OP26)
Umbridge: ‘… I have decided that Professor Trelawney is not up to scratch. I have dismissed her.’ (OP26)
Dumbledore: ‘… it is my wish that Professor Trelawney continue to live at Hogwarts.’
At this, Professor Trelawney gave a wild little laugh in which a hiccough was barely hidden.
‘No – no, I’ll g – go, Dumbledore! I sh – shall leave Hogwarts and s – seek my fortune elsewhere –’
‘No,’ said Dumbledore sharply. ‘It is my wish that you remain, Sybill.’ (OP26)
‘Professor Trelawney did astrology with us!’ said Parvati excitedly, raising her hand in front of her so that it stuck up in the air as she lay on her back. ‘Mars causes accidents and burns and things like that, and when it makes an angle to Saturn, like now –’ she drew a right-angle in the air above her ‘– that means people need to be extra careful when handling hot things –’
‘That,’ said Firenze calmly, ‘is human nonsense.’ (OP27)
‘Professor Trelawney –’ began Parvati, in a hurt and indignant voice.
‘– is a human,’ said Firenze simply. ‘And is therefore blinkered and fettered by the limitations of your kind.’ (OP27)
Firenze: ‘Sybill Trelawney may have Seen, I do not know,’ continued Firenze, and Harry heard the swishing of his tail again as he walked up and down before them, ‘but she wastes her time, in the main, on the self-flattering nonsense humans call fortune-telling.’ (OP27)
Dumbledore: “I did [hear the prophecy],” said Dumbledore. “On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog’s Head Inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave.” (OP37)
But when Sybill Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the hard, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before:
‘The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…’ (OP37)
From Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry was surprised to see the Divination teacher, Professor Trelawney, sitting on Hagrid’s other side; she rarely left her tower room and he had never seen her at the start-of-term feast before. She looked as odd as ever, glittering with beads and trailing shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size by her spectacles. Having always considered her a bit of a fraud, Harry had been shocked to discover at the end of the previous term that it had ben she who had made the prediction that caused Lord Voldemort to kill Harry’s parents and attack Harry himself. The knowledge had made him even less eager to find himself in her company, but thankfully, this year he would be dropping Divination. Her great beacon-like eyes swivelled in his direction; he hastily looked away towards the Slytherin table. (HBP8)
Professor McGonagall turned next to Parvati Patil, whose first question was whether Firenze, the handsome centaur, was still teaching Divination.
‘He and Professor Trelawney are dividing classes between them this year,’ said Professor McGonagall, a hint of disapproval in her voice; it was common knowledge that she despised the subject of Divination. ‘The sixth year is being taken by Professor Trelawney.’
Parvati set off for Divination five minutes later looking slightly crestfallen. (HBP9)
Harry proceeded through deserted corridors, though he had to step hastily behind a statue when Professor Trelawney appeared round a corner, muttering to herself as she shuffled a pack of dirty-looking playing cards, reading them as she walked.
‘Two of spades: conflict,’ she murmured, as she passed the place where Harry crouched, hidden. ‘Seven of spades: an ill omen. Ten of spades: violence. Knave of spades: a dark young man, possibly troubled, one who dislikes the questioner –‘.
She stopped dead, right on the other side of Harry’s statue.
‘Well, that can’t be right,’ she said, annoyed, and Harry heard her reshuffling vigorously as she set off again, leaving nothing but a whiff of cooking sherry behind her. (HBP10)
‘Hello,’ said Luna politely to Professor Trelawney.
‘Good evening, my dear,’ said Professor Trelawney, focusing upon Luna with some difficulty. Harry could smell cooking sherry again. ‘I haven’t seen you in my classes lately …’
‘No, I’ve got Firenze this year,’ said Luna.
‘Oh, of course,’ said Professor Trelawney with an angry, drunken titter. ‘Or Dobbin, as I prefer to think of him. You would have thought, would you not, that now I am returned to the school Professor Dumbledore might have got rid of the horse? But no… we share classes… it’s an insult, frankly, an insult. Do you know …’ (HBP15)
There stood Professor Trelawney.
‘Aha!’ she cried, pointing dramatically at Harry as she blinked at him through her magnifying spectacles. ‘So this is the reason I am to be thrown unceremoniously from your office, Dumbledore!’
‘My dear Sybill,’ said Dumbledore in a slightly exasperated voice, ‘there is no question of throwing you unceremoniously from anywhere, but Harry does have an appointment and I really don’t think there is any more to be said –‘
‘Very well,’ said Professor Trelawney, in a deeply wounded voice. ‘If you will not banish the usurping nag, so be it … perhaps I shall find a school where my talents are better appreciated …’
She pushed past Harry and disappeared down the spiral staircase; they heard her stumble halfway down and Harry guessed that she had tripped over one of her trailing shawls.
[…]
‘Professor Trelawney still isn’t happy Firenze is teaching, then?’ Harry asked.
‘No,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Divination is turning out to be much more trouble than I could have foreseen, never having studied the subject myself. I cannot ask Firenze to return to the Forest, where he is now an outcast, nor can I ask Sybill Trelawney to leave. Between ourselves, she has no idea of the danger she would be in outside the castle. She does not know — and I think it would be unwise to enlighten her — that she made the prophecy about you and Voldemort, you see.’ (HBP20)
‘Harry, Harry, only because Voldemort made a grave error, and acted on Professor Trelawney’s words! […]’ (HBP23)
[The first part of HBP25, pages 505 to 510 in the british edition, contains quite a long dialogue between Prof. Trelawney and Harry in which she tells him about Malfoy in the Room of Requirement, and then about Snape interrupting her first interview with Dumbledore. The following are only prediction-related quotes in that chapter.]
‘I was strolling along, brooding upon certain Dark portents I happen to have glimpsed …’
[…]
‘… omens I have been vouchsafed — what?’
[…]
‘The Inner Eye,’ said Professor Trelawney with dignity, straightening her shawls and many strands of glittering beads, ‘was fixed upon matters well outside the mundane realms of whooping voices.’
‘Right,’ said Harry hastily; he had heard about Professor Trelawney’s Inner Eye all too often before.
[…]
‘If Dumbledore chooses to ignore the warnings the cards show –‘
Her bony hand closed suddenly around Harry’s wrist.
‘Again and again, no matter how I lay them out –‘
And she pulled a card dramatically from underneath her shawls.
‘– the lightning-struck tower,’ she whispered. ‘Calamity. Disaster. Coming nearer all the time …’
[…]
‘I am afraid,’ she went on, ‘that the nag — I’m sorry, the centaur — knows nothing of cartomancy. I asked him — one Seer to another — had he not, too, sensed the distant vibrations of coming catastrophe? But he seemed to find me almost comical. Yes, comical!’
Her voice rose rather hysterically, and Harry caught a powerful whiff of sherry even though the bottles had been left behind.
‘Perhaps the horse has heard people say that I have not inherited my great-great-grandmother’s gift. Those rumours have been bandied about by the jealous for years. You know what I say to such people, Harry? Would Dumbledore have let me teach at this great school, put so much trust in me all these years, had I not proved myself to him?’ (HBP25)
‘[…] it seemed hours ago that he had met Professor Trelawney, […]’ (HBP26)
Primary editor: Lisa Waite Bunker. Many thanks to Lori Damerell who helped compile the quotes from Books 1-5, and to Santiágo Peresón who sent in the quotes from Half-Blood Prince.
Original page date 23 January, 2005; Last page update 21 January, 2008.