their flagons, Harry cleared away his things, seething. His potion had been no worse than Ron's, which was now giving off a foul odour of bad eggs; or Neville's, which had achieved the
consistency of just-mixed cement and which Neville was now having to gouge out of his cauldron; yet it was he, Harry, who would be receiving zero marks for the day's work. He stuffed his wand back into his bag and slumped
down on to his seat, watching everyone else march up to Snape's desk with filled and corked flagons. When at long last the bell rang, Harry was first out of the dungeon and had already started his lunch by the time Ron and
Hermione joined him in the Great Hall. The ceiling had turned an even murkier grey during the morning. Rain was lashing the high windows.
‘That was really unfair,’ said Hermione consolingly, sitting down next to Harry and helping herself to shepherd's pie. ‘Your potion wasn't nearly as bad as Goyle's; when he put it in his flagon the whole thing shattered and set
his robes on fire.’
‘Yeah, well,’ said Harry, glowering at his plate, ‘since when has Snape ever been fair to me?’
Neither of the others answered; all three of them knew that Snape and Harry's mutual enmity had been absolute from the moment Harry had set foot in Hogwarts.
‘I did think he might be a bit better this year,’ said Hermione in a disappointed voice. ‘I mean ... you know ...’ she looked around carefully; there were half a dozen empty seats on either side of them and nobody was passing
the table ’ ... now he's in the Order and everything.’
‘Poisonous toadstools don't change their spots,’ said Ron sagely. ‘Anyway, I've always thought Dumbledore was cracked to trust Snape. Where's the evidence he ever really stopped working for You-Know-Who?’
‘I think Dumbledore's probably got plenty of evidence, even if he doesn't share it with you, Ron,’ snapped Hermione.
‘Oh, shut up, the pair of you,’ said Harry heavily, as Ron opened his mouth to argue back. Hermione and Ron both froze, looking angry and offended. ‘Can't you give it a rest?’ said Harry. ‘You're always having a go at each
other, it's driving me mad.’ And abandoning his shepherd's pie, he swung his schoolbag back over his shoulder and left them sitting there.
He walked up the marble staircase two steps at a time, past the many students hurrying towards lunch. The anger that had just flared so unexpectedly still blazed inside him, and the vision of Ron and Hermione's shocked
faces afforded him a sense of deep satisfaction. Serve them right, he thought, why can't they give it a rest ... bickering all the time ... it's enough to drive anyone up the wall ...
He passed the large picture of Sir Cadogan the knight on a landing; Sir Cadogan drew his sword and brandished it fiercely at Harry, who ignored him.
‘Come back, you scurvy dog! Stand fast and fight!’ yelled Sir Cadogan in a muffled voice from behind his visor, but Harry merely walked on and when Sir Cadogan attempted to follow him by running into a neighbouring
picture, he was rebuffed by its inhabitant, a large and angry-looking wolfhound.
Harry spent the rest of the lunch hour sitting alone underneath the trapdoor at the top of North Tower. Consequently, he was the first to ascend the silver ladder that led to Sybill Trelawney's classroom when the bell rang.
After Potions, Divination was Harry's least favourite class, which was due mainly to Professor Trelawney's habit of predicting his premature death every few lessons. A thin woman, heavily draped in shawls and glittering with
strings of beads, she always reminded Harry of some kind of insect, with her glasses hugely magnifying her eyes. She was busy putting copies of battered leather-bound books on each of the spindly little tables with which her
room was littered when Harry entered the room, but the light cast by the lamps covered by scarves and the low-burning, sickly-scented fire was so dim she appeared not to notice him as he took a seat in the shadows. The
rest of the class arrived over the next five minutes. Ron emerged from the trapdoor, looked around carefully, spotted Harry and made directly for him, or as directly as he could while having to wend his way between tables,
chairs and overstuffed pouffes.
‘Hermione and me have stopped arguing,’ he said, sitting down beside Harry.
‘Good,’ grunted Harry.
‘But Hermione says she thinks it would be nice if you stopped taking out your temper on us,’ said Ron.
‘I ‘m not—’
‘I'm just passing on the message,’ said Ron, talking over him. ‘But I reckon she's right. It's not our fault how Seamus and Snape treat you.’
‘I never said it —’
‘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 sit 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.’
The one good thing to be said for this lesson was that it was not a double period. By the time they had all finished reading the introduction of the book, they had barely ten minutes left for dream interpretation. At the table next
to Harry and Ron, Dean had paired up with Neville, who immediately embarked on a long-winded explanation of a nightmare involving a pair of giant scissors wearing his grandmother's best hat; Harry and Ron merely looked
at each other glumly.
‘I never remember my dreams,’ said Ron, ‘you say one.’
‘You must remember one of them,’ said Harry impatiently.
He was not going to share his dreams with anyone. He knew perfectly well what his regular nightmare about a graveyard meant, he did not need Ron or Proiessor Trelawney or the stupid Dream Oracle to tell him.
‘Well, I dreamed I was playing Quidditch the other night,’ said Ron, screwing up his face in an effort to remember. ‘What d'you reckon that means?’
‘Probably that you're going to be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something,’ said Harry, turning the pages of The Dream Oracle without interest. It was very dull work looking up bits of dreams in the Oracle and Harry was not
cheered up when Professor Trelawney set them the task of keeping a dream diary for a month as homework. When the bell went, he and Ron led the way back down the ladder, Ron grumbling loudly.
‘D'you realise how much homework we've got already? Binns set us a foot-and-a-half-long essay on giant wars, Snape wants a foot on the use of moonstones, and now we've got a month's dream diary from Trelawney! Fred
and George weren't wrong about OWL year, were they? That Umbridge woman had better not give us any ...’
When they entered the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom they found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teachers desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and the black velvet bow on top of her
head. Harry was again reminded forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad.
The class was quiet as it entered the room; Professor Umbridge was, as yet, an unknown quantity and nobody knew how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be.
‘Well, good afternoon!’ she said, when finally the whole class had sat down.
A few people mumbled ‘good afternoon’ in reply.
‘Tut, tut,’ said Professor Umbridge. ‘That won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply “Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge". One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!’
‘Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,’ they chanted back at her.
‘There, now,’ said Professor Umbridge sweetly. That wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please.’
Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order ‘wands away’ had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting. Harry shoved his wand back inside his bag and pulled cut quill, ink and parchment.
Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once:
Defence Against the Dark Arts
A Return to Basic Principles
‘Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it?’ stated Professor Umbridge, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her. The constant changing of
teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your OWL year.
‘You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centred, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following,
please.’
She rapped the blackboard again; the first message vanished and was replaced by:
Course Aims:
1. Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic.
2. Learning to recognise situations in which defensive magic can legally be used
3. Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.
For a couple of minutes the room was full of the sound of scratching quills on parchment. When everyone had copied down Professor Umbridge's three course aims she asked, ‘Has everybody got a copy of Defensive Magical
Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?’
There was a dull murmur of assent throughout the class.
‘I think we'll try that again,’ said Professor Umbridge. ‘When I ask you a question, I should like you to reply, “Yes, Professor Umbridge", or “No, Professor Umbridge". So: has everyone got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory
by Wilbert Slinkhard?’
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