[Part 2] "Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban" by Rowling J.K.

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐑

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Tom woke Harry the next morning with his usual toothless grin and a cup of tea.

Harry got dressed and was just persuading a disgruntled Hedwig to get back into her cage when Ron banged his way into the room, pulling a sweatshirt over his head and looking irritable.

“The sooner we get on the train, the better,” he said.

“At least I can get away from Percy at Hogwarts. Now he’s accusing me of dripping tea on his photo of Penelope Clearwater. You know,” Ron grimaced, “his girlfriend. She’s hidden her face under the frame because her nose has gone all blotchy. . . .”

“I’ve got something to tell you,” Harry began, but they were interrupted by Fred and George, who had looked in to congratulate Ron on infuriating Percy again.

They headed down to breakfast, where Mr. Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow and Mrs. Weasley was telling Hermione and Ginny about a love potion she’d made as a young girl.

All three of them were rather giggly.

“What were you saying?” Ron asked Harry as they sat down.

“Later,” Harry muttered as Percy stormed in.

Harry had no chance to speak to Ron or Hermione in the chaos of leaving; they were too busy heaving all their trunks down the Leaky Cauldron’s narrow staircase and piling them up near the door, with Hedwig and Hermes, Percy’s screech owl, perched on top in their cages.

A small wickerwork basket stood beside the heap of trunks, spitting loudly.

“It’s all right, Crookshanks,” Hermione cooed through the wickerwork.

“I’ll let you out on the train.”

“You won’t,” snapped Ron.

“What about poor Scabbers, eh?”

He pointed at his chest, where a large lump indicated that Scabbers was curled up in his pocket.

Mr. Weasley, who had been outside waiting for the Ministry cars, stuck his head inside.

“They’re here,” he said.

“Harry, come on.”

Mr. Weasley marched Harry across the short stretch of pavement toward the first of two old-fashioned dark green cars, each of which was driven by a furtive-looking wizard wearing a suit of emerald velvet.

“In you get, Harry,” said Mr. Weasley, glancing up and down the crowded street.

Harry got into the back of the car and was shortly joined by Hermione, Ron, and, to Ron’s disgust, Percy.

The journey to King’s Cross was very uneventful compared with Harry’s trip on the Knight Bus.

The Ministry of Magic cars seemed almost ordinary, though Harry noticed that they could slide through gaps that Uncle Vernon’s new company car certainly couldn’t have managed.

They reached King’s Cross with twenty minutes to spare; the Ministry drivers found them trolleys, unloaded their trunks, touched their hats in salute to Mr. Weasley, and drove away, somehow managing to jump to the head of an unmoving line at the traffic lights.

Mr. Weasley kept close to Harry’s elbow all the way into the station.

“Right then,” he said, glancing around them.

“Let’s do this in pairs, as there are so many of us. I’ll go through first with Harry.”

Mr. Weasley strolled toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing Harry’s trolley and apparently very interested in the InterCity 125 that had just arrived at platform nine.

With a meaningful look at Harry, he leaned casually against the barrier.

Harry imitated him.

In a moment, they had fallen sideways through the solid metal onto platform nine and three-quarters and looked up to see the Hogwarts Express, a scarlet steam engine, puffing smoke over a platform packed with witches and wizards seeing their children onto the train.

Percy and Ginny suddenly appeared behind Harry.

They were panting and had apparently taken the barrier at a run.

“Ah, there’s Penelope!” said Percy, smoothing his hair and going pink again.

Ginny caught Harry’s eye, and they both turned away to hide their laughter as Percy strode over to a girl with long, curly hair, walking with his chest thrown out so that she couldn’t miss his shiny badge.

Once the remaining Weasleys and Hermione had joined them, Harry and Ron led the way to the end of the train, past packed compartments, to a carriage that looked quite empty.

They loaded the trunks onto it, stowed Hedwig and Crookshanks in the luggage rack, then went back outside to say good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

Mrs. Weasley kissed all her children, then Hermione, and finally, Harry.

He was embarrassed, but really quite pleased, when she gave him an extra hug.

“Do take care, won’t you, Harry?” she said as she straightened up, her eyes oddly bright.

Then she opened her enormous handbag and said, “I’ve made you all sandwiches. . . . Here you are, Ron . . . no, they’re not corned beef. . . . Fred? Where’s Fred? Here you are, dear. . . .”

“Harry,” said Mr. Weasley quietly, “come over here a moment.”

He jerked his head toward a pillar, and Harry followed him behind it, leaving the others crowded around Mrs. Weasley.

“There’s something I’ve got to tell you before you leave —” said Mr. Weasley, in a tense voice.

“It’s all right, Mr. Weasley,” said Harry.

“I already know.”

“You know? How could you know?”

“I — er — I heard you and Mrs. Weasley talking last night. I couldn’t help hearing,” Harry added quickly.

“Sorry —”

“That’s not the way I’d have chosen for you to find out,” said Mr. Weasley, looking anxious.

“No — honestly, it’s okay. This way, you haven’t broken your word to Fudge and I know what’s going on.”

“Harry, you must be very scared —”

“I’m not,” said Harry sincerely.

“Really,” he added, because Mr. Weasley was looking disbelieving.

“I’m not trying to be a hero, but seriously, Sirius Black can’t be worse than Voldemort, can he?”

Mr. Weasley flinched at the sound of the name but overlooked it.

“Harry, I knew you were, well, made of stronger stuff than Fudge seems to think, and I’m obviously pleased that you’re not scared, but —”

“Arthur!” called Mrs. Weasley, who was now shepherding the rest onto the train.

“Arthur, what are you doing? It’s about to go!”

“He’s coming, Molly!” said Mr. Weasley, but he turned back to Harry and kept talking in a lower and more hurried voice.

“Listen, I want you to give me your word —”

“— that I’ll be a good boy and stay in the castle?” said Harry gloomily.

“Not entirely,” said Mr. Weasley, who looked more serious than Harry had ever seen him.

“Harry, swear to me you won’t go looking for Black.”

Harry stared.

“What?”

There was a loud whistle.

Guards were walking along the train, slamming all the doors shut.

“Promise me, Harry,” said Mr. Weasley, talking more quickly still, “that whatever happens —”

“Why would I go looking for someone I know wants to kill me?” said Harry blankly.

“Swear to me that whatever you might hear —”

“Arthur, quickly!” cried Mrs. Weasley.

Steam was billowing from the train; it had started to move.

Harry ran to the compartment door and Ron threw it open and stood back to let him on.

They leaned out of the window and waved at Mr. and Mrs. Weasley until the train turned a corner and blocked them from view.

“I need to talk to you in private,” Harry muttered to Ron and Hermione as the train picked up speed.

“Go away, Ginny,” said Ron.

“Oh, that’s nice,” said Ginny huffily, and she stalked off.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione set off down the corridor, looking for an empty compartment, but all were full except for the one at the very end of the train.

This had only one occupant, a man sitting fast asleep next to the window.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione checked on the threshold.

The Hogwarts Express was usually reserved for students and they had never seen an adult there before, except for the witch who pushed the food cart.

The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard’s robes that had been darned in several places.

He looked ill and exhausted.

Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with gray.

“Who d’you reckon he is?” Ron hissed as they sat down and slid the door shut, taking the seats farthest away from the window.

“Professor R. J. Lupin,” whispered Hermione at once.

“How d’you know that?”

“It’s on his case,” she replied, pointing at the luggage rack over the man’s head, where there was a small, battered case held together with a large quantity of neatly knotted string.

The name Professor R. J. Lupin was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.

“Wonder what he teaches?” said Ron, frowning at Professor Lupin’s pallid profile.

“That’s obvious,” whispered Hermione.

“There’s only one vacancy, isn’t there? Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had already had two Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, both of whom had lasted only one year.

There were rumors that the job was jinxed.

“Well, I hope he’s up to it,” said Ron doubtfully.

“He looks like one good hex would finish him off, doesn’t he? Anyway . . .” He turned to Harry.

“What were you going to tell us?”

Harry explained all about Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s argument and the warning Mr. Weasley had just given him.

When he’d finished, Ron looked thunderstruck, and Hermione had her hands over her mouth.

She finally lowered them to say, “Sirius Black escaped to come after you? Oh, Harry . . . you’ll have to be really, really careful. Don’t go looking for trouble, Harry —”

“I don’t go looking for trouble,” said Harry, nettled.

“Trouble usually finds me.”

“How thick would Harry have to be, to go looking for a nutter who wants to kill him?” said Ron shakily.

They were taking the news worse than Harry had expected.

Both Ron and Hermione seemed to be much more frightened of Black than he was.

“No one knows how he got out of Azkaban,” said Ron uncomfortably.

“No one’s ever done it before. And he was a top-security prisoner too.”

“But they’ll catch him, won’t they?” said Hermione earnestly.

“I mean, they’ve got all the Muggles looking out for him too. . . .”

“What’s that noise?” said Ron suddenly.

A faint, tinny sort of whistle was coming from somewhere.

They looked all around the compartment.

“It’s coming from your trunk, Harry,” said Ron, standing up and reaching into the luggage rack.

A moment later he had pulled the Pocket Sneakoscope out from between Harry’s robes.

It was spinning very fast in the palm of Ron’s hand and glowing brilliantly.

“Is that a Sneakoscope?” said Hermione interestedly, standing up for a better look.

“Yeah . . . mind you, it’s a very cheap one,” Ron said.

“It went haywire just as I was tying it to Errol’s leg to send it to Harry.”

“Were you doing anything untrustworthy at the time?” said Hermione shrewdly.

“No! Well . . . I wasn’t supposed to be using Errol. You know he’s not really up to long journeys . . . but how else was I supposed to get Harry’s present to him?”

“Stick it back in the trunk,” Harry advised as the Sneakoscope whistled piercingly, “or it’ll wake him up.”

He nodded toward Professor Lupin.

Ron stuffed the Sneakoscope into a particularly horrible pair of Uncle Vernon’s old socks, which deadened the sound, then closed the lid of the trunk on it.

“We could get it checked in Hogsmeade,” said Ron, sitting back down.

“They sell that sort of thing in Dervish and Banges, magical instruments and stuff. Fred and George told me.”

“Do you know much about Hogsmeade?” asked Hermione keenly.

“I’ve read it’s the only entirely non-Muggle settlement in Britain —”

“Yeah, I think it is,” said Ron in an offhand sort of way, “but that’s not why I want to go. I just want to get inside Honeydukes!”

“What’s that?” said Hermione.

“It’s this sweetshop,” said Ron, a dreamy look coming over his face, “where they’ve got everything. . . . Pepper Imps — they make you smoke at the mouth — and great fat Chocoballs full of strawberry mousse and clotted cream, and really excellent sugar quills, which you can suck in class and just look like you’re thinking what to write next —”

“But Hogsmeade’s a very interesting place, isn’t it?” Hermione pressed on eagerly.

“In Sites of Historical Sorcery it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion, and the Shrieking Shack’s supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain —”

“— and massive sherbet balls that make you levitate a few inches off the ground while you’re sucking them,” said Ron, who was plainly not listening to a word Hermione was saying.

Hermione looked around at Harry.

“Won’t it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?”

“’Spect it will,” said Harry heavily.

“You’ll have to tell me when you’ve found out.”

“What d’you mean?” said Ron.

“I can’t go. The Dursleys didn’t sign my permission form, and Fudge wouldn’t either.”

Ron looked horrified.

“You’re not allowed to come? But — no way — McGonagall or someone will give you permission —”

Harry gave a hollow laugh.

Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House, was very strict.

“— or we can ask Fred and George, they know every secret passage out of the castle —”

“Ron!” said Hermione sharply.

“I don’t think Harry should be sneaking out of school with Black on the loose —”

“Yeah, I expect that’s what McGonagall will say when I ask for permission,” said Harry bitterly.

“But if we’re with him,” said Ron spiritedly to Hermione, “Black wouldn’t dare —”

“Oh, Ron, don’t talk rubbish,” snapped Hermione.

“Black’s already murdered a whole bunch of people in the middle of a crowded street. Do you really think he’s going to worry about attacking Harry just because we’re there?”

She was fumbling with the straps of Crookshanks’s basket as she spoke.

“Don’t let that thing out!” Ron said, but too late; Crookshanks leapt lightly from the basket, stretched, yawned, and sprang onto Ron’s knees; the lump in Ron’s pocket trembled and he shoved Crookshanks angrily away.

“Get out of here!”

“Ron, don’t!” said Hermione angrily.

Ron was about to answer back when Professor Lupin stirred.

They watched him apprehensively, but he simply turned his head the other way, mouth slightly open, and slept on.

The Hogwarts Express moved steadily north and the scenery outside the window became wilder and darker while the clouds overhead thickened.

People were chasing backward and forward past the door of their compartment.

Crookshanks had now settled in an empty seat, his squashed face turned toward Ron, his yellow eyes on Ron’s top pocket.

At one o’clock, the plump witch with the food cart arrived at the compartment door.

“D’you think we should wake him up?” Ron asked awkwardly, nodding toward Professor Lupin.

“He looks like he could do with some food.”

Hermione approached Professor Lupin cautiously.

“Er — Professor?” she said.

“Excuse me — Professor?”

He didn’t move.

“Don’t worry, dear,” said the witch as she handed Harry a large stack of Cauldron Cakes.

“If he’s hungry when he wakes, I’ll be up front with the driver.”

“I suppose he is asleep?” said Ron quietly as the witch slid the compartment door closed.

“I mean — he hasn’t died, has he?”

“No, no, he’s breathing,” whispered Hermione, taking the Cauldron Cake Harry passed her.

He might not be very good company, but Professor Lupin’s presence in their compartment had its uses.

Midafternoon, just as it had started to rain, blurring the rolling hills outside the window, they heard footsteps in the corridor again, and their three least favorite people appeared at the door: Draco Malfoy, flanked by his cronies, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.

Draco Malfoy and Harry had been enemies ever since they had met on their very first train journey to Hogwarts.

Malfoy, who had a pale, pointed, sneering face, was in Slytherin House; he played Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team, the same position that Harry played on the Gryffindor team.

Crabbe and Goyle seemed to exist to do Malfoy’s bidding.

They were both wide and musclely; Crabbe was taller, with a pudding-bowl haircut and a very thick neck; Goyle had short, bristly hair and long, gorilla-ish arms.

“Well, look who it is,” said Malfoy in his usual lazy drawl, pulling open the compartment door.

“Potty and the Weasel.”

Crabbe and Goyle chuckled trollishly.

“I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley,” said Malfoy.

“Did your mother die of shock?”

Ron stood up so quickly he knocked Crookshanks’s basket to the floor.

Professor Lupin gave a snort.

“Who’s that?” said Malfoy, taking an automatic step backward as he spotted Lupin.

“New teacher,” said Harry, who got to his feet, too, in case he needed to hold Ron back.

“What were you saying, Malfoy?”

Malfoy’s pale eyes narrowed; he wasn’t fool enough to pick a fight right under a teacher’s nose.

“C’mon,” he muttered resentfully to Crabbe and Goyle, and they disappeared.

Harry and Ron sat down again, Ron massaging his knuckles.

“I’m not going to take any crap from Malfoy this year,” he said angrily.

“I mean it. If he makes one more crack about my family, I’m going to get hold of his head and —”

Ron made a violent gesture in midair.

“Ron,” hissed Hermione, pointing at Professor Lupin, “be careful . . .”

But Professor Lupin was still fast asleep.

The rain thickened as the train sped yet farther north; the windows were now a solid, shimmering gray, which gradually darkened until lanterns flickered into life all along the corridors and over the luggage racks.

The train rattled, the rain hammered, the wind roared, but still, Professor Lupin slept.

“We must be nearly there,” said Ron, leaning forward to look past Professor Lupin at the now completely black window.

The words had hardly left him when the train started to slow down.

“Great,” said Ron, getting up and walking carefully past Professor Lupin to try and see outside.

“I’m starving. I want to get to the feast. . . .”

“We can’t be there yet,” said Hermione, checking her watch.

“So why’re we stopping?”

The train was getting slower and slower.

As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded louder than ever against the windows.

Harry, who was nearest the door, got up to look into the corridor.

All along the carriage, heads were sticking curiously out of their compartments.

The train came to a stop with a jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told them that luggage had fallen out of the racks.

Then, without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.

“What’s going on?” said Ron’s voice from behind Harry.

“Ouch!” gasped Hermione.

“Ron, that was my foot!”

Harry felt his way back to his seat.

“D’you think we’ve broken down?”

“Dunno . . .”

There was a squeaking sound, and Harry saw the dim black outline of Ron, wiping a patch clean on the window and peering out.

“There’s something moving out there,” Ron said.

“I think people are coming aboard. . . .”

The compartment door suddenly opened and someone fell painfully over Harry’s legs.

“Sorry — d’you know what’s going on? — Ouch — sorry —”

“Hullo, Neville,” said Harry, feeling around in the dark and pulling Neville up by his cloak.

“Harry? Is that you? What’s happening?”

“No idea — sit down —”

There was a loud hissing and a yelp of pain; Neville had tried to sit on Crookshanks.

“I’m going to go and ask the driver what’s going on,” came Hermione’s voice.

Harry felt her pass him, heard the door slide open again, and then a thud and two loud squeals of pain.

“Who’s that?”

“Who’s that?”

“Ginny?”

“Hermione?”

“What are you doing?”

“I was looking for Ron —”

“Come in and sit down —”

“Not here!” said Harry hurriedly.

“I’m here!”

“Ouch!” said Neville.

“Quiet!” said a hoarse voice suddenly.

Professor Lupin appeared to have woken up at last.

Harry could hear movements in his corner.

None of them spoke.

There was a soft, crackling noise, and a shivering light filled the compartment.

Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames.

They illuminated his tired, gray face, but his eyes looked alert and wary.

“Stay where you are,” he said in the same hoarse voice, and he got slowly to his feet with his handful of fire held out in front of him.

But the door slid slowly open before Lupin could reach it.

Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Lupin’s hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling.

Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood.

Harry’s eyes darted downward, and what he saw made his stomach contract.

There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water. . . .

But it was visible only for a split second.

As though the creature beneath the cloak sensed Harry’s gaze, the hand was suddenly withdrawn into the folds of its black cloak.

And then the thing beneath the hood, whatever it was, drew a long, slow, rattling breath, as though it were trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings.

An intense cold swept over them all.

Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest.

The cold went deeper than his skin.

It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart. . . .

Harry’s eyes rolled up into his head.

He couldn’t see.

He was drowning in cold.

There was a rushing in his ears as though of water.

He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder . . .

And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams.

He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move his arms, but couldn’t . . . a thick white fog was swirling around him, inside him — “Harry! Harry! Are you all right?”

Someone was slapping his face.

“W-what?”

Harry opened his eyes; there were lanterns above him, and the floor was shaking — the Hogwarts Express was moving again and the lights had come back on.

He seemed to have slid out of his seat onto the floor.

Ron and Hermione were kneeling next to him, and above them he could see Neville and Professor Lupin watching.

Harry felt very sick; when he put up his hand to push his glasses back on, he felt cold sweat on his face.

Ron and Hermione heaved him back onto his seat.

“Are you okay?” Ron asked nervously.

“Yeah,” said Harry, looking quickly toward the door.

The hooded creature had vanished.

“What happened? Where’s that — that thing? Who screamed?”

“No one screamed,” said Ron, more nervously still.

Harry looked around the bright compartment.

Ginny and Neville looked back at him, both very pale.

“But I heard screaming —”

A loud snap made them all jump.

Professor Lupin was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces.

“Here,” he said to Harry, handing him a particularly large piece.

“Eat it. It’ll help.”

Harry took the chocolate but didn’t eat it.

“What was that thing?” he asked Lupin.

“A dementor,” said Lupin, who was now giving chocolate to everyone else.

“One of the dementors of Azkaban.”

Everyone stared at him.

Professor Lupin crumpled up the empty chocolate wrapper and put it in his pocket.

“Eat,” he repeated.

“It’ll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me . . .”

He strolled past Harry and disappeared into the corridor.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Harry?” said Hermione, watching Harry anxiously.

“I don’t get it. . . . What happened?” said Harry, wiping more sweat off his face.

“Well — that thing — the dementor — stood there and looked around (I mean, I think it did, I couldn’t see its face) — and you — you —”

“I thought you were having a fit or something,” said Ron, who still looked scared.

“You went sort of rigid and fell out of your seat and started twitching —”

“And Professor Lupin stepped over you, and walked toward the dementor, and pulled out his wand,” said Hermione, “and he said, ‘None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go.’ But the dementor didn’t move, so Lupin muttered something, and a silvery thing shot out of his wand at it, and it turned around and sort of glided away. . . .”

“It was horrible,” said Neville, in a higher voice than usual.

“Did you feel how cold it got when it came in?”

“I felt weird,” said Ron, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably.

“Like I’d never be cheerful again. . . .”

Ginny, who was huddled in her corner looking nearly as bad as Harry felt, gave a small sob; Hermione went over and put a comforting arm around her.

“But didn’t any of you — fall off your seats?” said Harry awkwardly.

“No,” said Ron, looking anxiously at Harry again.

“Ginny was shaking like mad, though. . . .”

Harry didn’t understand.

He felt weak and shivery, as though he were recovering from a bad bout of flu; he also felt the beginnings of shame.

Why had he gone to pieces like that, when no one else had?

Professor Lupin had come back.

He paused as he entered, looked around, and said, with a small smile, “I haven’t poisoned that chocolate, you know. . . .”

Harry took a bite and to his great surprise felt warmth spread suddenly to the tips of his fingers and toes.

“We’ll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes,” said Professor Lupin.

“Are you all right, Harry?”

Harry didn’t ask how Professor Lupin knew his name.

“Fine,” he muttered, embarrassed.

They didn’t talk much during the remainder of the journey.

At long last, the train stopped at Hogsmeade station, and there was a great scramble to get outside; owls hooted, cats meowed, and Neville’s pet toad croaked loudly from under his hat.

It was freezing on the tiny platform; rain was driving down in icy sheets.

“Firs’ years this way!” called a familiar voice.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned and saw the gigantic outline of Hagrid at the other end of the platform, beckoning the terrified-looking new students forward for their traditional journey across the lake.

“All righ’, you three?” Hagrid yelled over the heads of the crowd.

They waved at him, but had no chance to speak to him because the mass of people around them was shunting them away along the platform.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed the rest of the school along the platform and out onto a rough mud track, where at least a hundred stagecoaches awaited the remaining students, each pulled, Harry could only assume, by an invisible horse, because when they climbed inside and shut the door, the coach set off all by itself, bumping and swaying in procession.

The coach smelled faintly of mold and straw.

Harry felt better since the chocolate, but still weak.

Ron and Hermione kept looking at him sideways, as though frightened he might collapse again.

As the carriage trundled toward a pair of magnificent wrought iron gates, flanked with stone columns topped with winged boars, Harry saw two more towering, hooded dementors, standing guard on either side.

A wave of cold sickness threatened to engulf him again; he leaned back into the lumpy seat and closed his eyes until they had passed the gates.

The carriage picked up speed on the long, sloping drive up to the castle; Hermione was leaning out of the tiny window, watching the many turrets and towers draw nearer.

At last, the carriage swayed to a halt, and Hermione and Ron got out.

As Harry stepped down, a drawling, delighted voice sounded in his ear.

“You fainted, Potter? Is Longbottom telling the truth? You actually fainted?”

Malfoy elbowed past Hermione to block Harry’s way up the stone steps to the castle, his face gleeful and his pale eyes glinting maliciously.

“Shove off, Malfoy,” said Ron, whose jaw was clenched.

“Did you faint as well, Weasley?” said Malfoy loudly.

“Did the scary old dementor frighten you too, Weasley?”

“Is there a problem?” said a mild voice.

Professor Lupin had just gotten out of the next carriage.

Malfoy gave Professor Lupin an insolent stare, which took in the patches on his robes and the dilapidated suitcase.

With a tiny hint of sarcasm in his voice, he said, “Oh, no — er — Professor,” then he smirked at Crabbe and Goyle and led them up the steps into the castle.

Hermione prodded Ron in the back to make him hurry, and the three of them joined the crowd swarming up the steps, through the giant oak front doors, into the cavernous entrance hall, which was lit with flaming torches, and housed a magnificent marble staircase that led to the upper floors.

The door into the Great Hall stood open at the right; Harry followed the crowd toward it, but had barely glimpsed the enchanted ceiling, which was black and cloudy tonight, when a voice called, “Potter! Granger! I want to see you both!”

Harry and Hermione turned around, surprised.

Professor McGonagall, Transfiguration teacher and head of Gryffindor House, was calling over the heads of the crowd.

She was a stern-looking witch who wore her hair in a tight bun; her sharp eyes were framed with square spectacles.

Harry fought his way over to her with a feeling of foreboding: Professor McGonagall had a way of making him feel he must have done something wrong.

“There’s no need to look so worried — I just want a word in my office,” she told them.

“Move along there, Weasley.”

Ron stared as Professor McGonagall ushered Harry and Hermione away from the chattering crowd; they accompanied her across the entrance hall, up the marble staircase, and along a corridor.

Once they were in her office, a small room with a large, welcoming fire, Professor McGonagall motioned Harry and Hermione to sit down.

She settled herself behind her desk and said abruptly, “Professor Lupin sent an owl ahead to say that you were taken ill on the train, Potter.”

Before Harry could reply, there was a soft knock on the door and Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, came bustling in.

Harry felt himself going red in the face.

It was bad enough that he’d passed out, or whatever he had done, without everyone making all this fuss.

“I’m fine,” he said, “I don’t need anything —”

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said Madam Pomfrey, ignoring this and bending down to stare closely at him.

“I suppose you’ve been doing something dangerous again?”

“It was a dementor, Poppy,” said Professor McGonagall.

They exchanged a dark look, and Madam Pomfrey clucked disapprovingly.

“Setting dementors around a school,” she muttered, pushing back Harry’s hair and feeling his forehead.

“He won’t be the last one who collapses. Yes, he’s all clammy. Terrible things, they are, and the effect they have on people who are already delicate —”

“I’m not delicate!” said Harry crossly.

“Of course you’re not,” said Madam Pomfrey absentmindedly, now taking his pulse.

“What does he need?” said Professor McGonagall crisply.

“Bed rest? Should he perhaps spend tonight in the hospital wing?”

“I’m fine!” said Harry, jumping up.

The thought of what Draco Malfoy would say if he had to go to the hospital wing was torture.

“Well, he should have some chocolate, at the very least,” said Madam Pomfrey, who was now trying to peer into Harry’s eyes.

“I’ve already had some,” said Harry.

“Professor Lupin gave me some. He gave it to all of us.”

“Did he, now?” said Madam Pomfrey approvingly.

“So we’ve finally got a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who knows his remedies?”

“Are you sure you feel all right, Potter?” Professor McGonagall said sharply.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“Very well. Kindly wait outside while I have a quick word with Miss Granger about her course schedule, then we can go down to the feast together.”

Harry went back into the corridor with Madam Pomfrey, who left for the hospital wing, muttering to herself.

He had to wait only a few minutes; then Hermione emerged looking very happy about something, followed by Professor McGonagall, and the three of them made their way back down the marble staircase to the Great Hall.

It was a sea of pointed black hats; each of the long House tables was lined with students, their faces glimmering by the light of thousands of candles, which were floating over the tables in midair.

Professor Flitwick, who was a tiny little wizard with a shock of white hair, was carrying an ancient hat and a four-legged stool out of the hall.

“Oh,” said Hermione softly, “we’ve missed the Sorting!”

New students at Hogwarts were sorted into Houses by trying on the Sorting Hat, which shouted out the House they were best suited to (Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin).

Professor McGonagall strode off toward her empty seat at the staff table, and Harry and Hermione set off in the other direction, as quietly as possible, toward the Gryffindor table.

People looked around at them as they passed along the back of the hall, and a few of them pointed at Harry.

Had the story of his collapsing in front of the dementor traveled that fast?

He and Hermione sat down on either side of Ron, who had saved them seats.

“What was all that about?” he muttered to Harry.

Harry started to explain in a whisper, but at that moment the headmaster stood up to speak, and he broke off.

Professor Dumbledore, though very old, always gave an impression of great energy.

He had several feet of long silver hair and beard, half-moon spectacles, and an extremely crooked nose.

He was often described as the greatest wizard of the age, but that wasn’t why Harry respected him.

You couldn’t help trusting Albus Dumbledore, and as Harry watched him beaming around at the students, he felt really calm for the first time since the dementor had entered the train compartment.

“Welcome!” said Dumbledore, the candlelight shimmering on his beard.

“Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to say to you all, and as one of them is very serious, I think it best to get it out of the way before you become befuddled by our excellent feast. . . .”

Dumbledore cleared his throat and continued, “As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business.”

He paused, and Harry remembered what Mr. Weasley had said about Dumbledore not being happy with the dementors guarding the school.

“They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds,” Dumbledore continued, “and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises — or even Invisibility Cloaks,” he added blandly, and Harry and Ron glanced at each other.

“It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors,” he said.

Percy, who was sitting a few seats down from Harry, puffed out his chest again and stared around impressively.

Dumbledore paused again; he looked very seriously around the hall, and nobody moved or made a sound.

“On a happier note,” he continued, “I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year.

“First, Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

There was some scattered, rather unenthusiastic applause.

Only those who had been in the compartment on the train with Professor Lupin clapped hard, Harry among them.

Professor Lupin looked particularly shabby next to all the other teachers in their best robes.

“Look at Snape!” Ron hissed in Harry’s ear.

Professor Snape, the Potions master, was staring along the staff table at Professor Lupin.

It was common knowledge that Snape wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, but even Harry, who hated Snape, was startled at the expression twisting his thin, sallow face.

It was beyond anger: It was loathing.

Harry knew that expression only too well; it was the look Snape wore every time he set eyes on Harry.

“As to our second new appointment,” Dumbledore continued as the lukewarm applause for Professor Lupin died away.

“Well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at one another, stunned.

Then they joined in with the applause, which was tumultuous at the Gryffindor table in particular.

Harry leaned forward to see Hagrid, who was ruby-red in the face and staring down at his enormous hands, his wide grin hidden in the tangle of his black beard.

“We should’ve known!” Ron roared, pounding the table.

“Who else would have assigned us a biting book?”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the last to stop clapping, and as Professor Dumbledore started speaking again, they saw that Hagrid was wiping his eyes on the tablecloth.

“Well, I think that’s everything of importance,” said Dumbledore.

“Let the feast begin!”

The golden plates and goblets before them filled suddenly with food and drink.

Harry, suddenly ravenous, helped himself to everything he could reach and began to eat.

It was a delicious feast; the hall echoed with talk, laughter, and the clatter of knives and forks.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, were eager for it to finish so that they could talk to Hagrid.

They knew how much being made a teacher would mean to him.

Hagrid wasn’t a fully qualified wizard; he had been expelled from Hogwarts in his third year for a crime he had not committed.

It had been Harry, Ron, and Hermione who had cleared Hagrid’s name last year.

At long last, when the last morsels of pumpkin tart had melted from the golden platters, Dumbledore gave the word that it was time for them all to go to bed, and they got their chance.

“Congratulations, Hagrid!” Hermione squealed as they reached the teachers’ table.

“All down ter you three,” said Hagrid, wiping his shining face on his napkin as he looked up at them.

“Can’ believe it . . . great man, Dumbledore . . . came straight down to me hut after Professor Kettleburn said he’d had enough. . . . It’s what I always wanted. . . .”

Overcome with emotion, he buried his face in his napkin, and Professor McGonagall shooed them away.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione joined the Gryffindors streaming up the marble staircase and, very tired now, along more corridors, up more and more stairs, to the hidden entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

A large portrait of a fat lady in a pink dress asked them, “Password?”

“Coming through, coming through!” Percy called from behind the crowd.

“The new password’s ‘Fortuna Major’!”

“Oh no,” said Neville Longbottom sadly.

He always had trouble remembering the passwords.

Through the portrait hole and across the common room, the girls and boys divided toward their separate staircases.

Harry climbed the spiral stair with no thought in his head except how glad he was to be back.

They reached their familiar, circular dormitory with its five four-poster beds, and Harry, looking around, felt he was home at last.

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈. 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐄𝐀 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐒

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When Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the Great Hall for breakfast the next day, the first thing they saw was Draco Malfoy, who seemed to be entertaining a large group of Slytherins with a very funny story.

As they passed, Malfoy did a ridiculous impression of a swooning fit and there was a roar of laughter.

“Ignore him,” said Hermione, who was right behind Harry.

“Just ignore him, it’s not worth it. . . .”

“Hey, Potter!” shrieked Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl with a face like a pug.

“Potter! The dementors are coming, Potter! Woooooooo!”

Harry dropped into a seat at the Gryffindor table, next to George Weasley.

“New third-year course schedules,” said George, passing them over.

“What’s up with you, Harry?”

“Malfoy,” said Ron, sitting down on George’s other side and glaring over at the Slytherin table.

George looked up in time to see Malfoy pretending to faint with terror again.

“That little git,” he said calmly.

“He wasn’t so cocky last night when the dementors were down at our end of the train.

Came running into our compartment, didn’t he, Fred?”

“Nearly wet himself,” said Fred, with a contemptuous glance at Malfoy.

“I wasn’t too happy myself,” said George.

“They’re horrible things, those dementors. . . .”

“Sort of freeze your insides, don’t they?” said Fred.

“You didn’t pass out, though, did you?” said Harry in a low voice.

“Forget it, Harry,” said George bracingly.

“Dad had to go out to Azkaban one time, remember, Fred?

And he said it was the worst place he’ve ever been, he came back all weak and shaking. . . .

They suck the happiness out of a place, dementors.

Most of the prisoners go mad in there.”

“Anyway, we’ll see how happy Malfoy looks after our first Quidditch match,” said Fred.

“Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first game of the season, remember?”

The only time Harry and Malfoy had faced each other in a Quidditch match, Malfoy had definitely come off worse.

Feeling slightly more cheerful, Harry helped himself to sausages and fried tomatoes.

Hermione was examining her new schedule.

“Ooh, good, we’re starting some new subjects today,” she said happily.

“Hermione,” said Ron, frowning as he looked over her shoulder, “they’ve messed up your schedule.

Look — they’ve got you down for about ten subjects a day.

There isn’t enough time.”

“I’ll manage.

I’ve fixed it all with Professor McGonagall.”

“But look,” said Ron, laughing, “see this morning?

Nine o’clock, Divination.

And underneath, nine o’clock, Muggle Studies.

And” — Ron leaned closer to the schedule, disbelieving — “look — underneath that, Arithmancy, nine o’clock.

I mean, I know you’re good, Hermione, but no one’s that good.

How’re you supposed to be in three classes at once?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Hermione shortly.

“Of course I won’t be in three classes at once.”

“Well, then —”

“Pass the marmalade,” said Hermione.

“But —”

“Oh, Ron, what’s it to you if my schedule’s a bit full?” Hermione snapped.

“I told you, I’ve fixed it all with Professor McGonagall.”

Just then, Hagrid entered the Great Hall.

He was wearing his long moleskin overcoat and was absentmindedly swinging a dead polecat from one enormous hand.

“All righ’?” he said eagerly, pausing on the way to the staff table.

“Yer in my firs’ ever lesson!

Right after lunch!

Bin up since five gettin’ everythin’ ready. . . .

Hope it’s okay. . . .

Me, a teacher . . . hones’ly. . . .”

He grinned broadly at them and headed off to the staff table, still swinging the polecat.

“Wonder what he’s been getting ready?” said Ron, a note of anxiety in his voice.

The hall was starting to empty as people headed off toward their first lesson.

Ron checked his course schedule.

“We’d better go, look, Divination’s at the top of North Tower.

It’ll take us ten minutes to get there. . . .”

They finished their breakfasts hastily, said good-bye to Fred and George, and walked back through the hall.

As they passed the Slytherin table, Malfoy did yet another impression of a fainting fit.

The shouts of laughter followed Harry into the entrance hall.

The journey through the castle to North Tower was a long one.

Two years at Hogwarts hadn’t taught them everything about the castle, and they had never been inside North Tower before.

“There’s — got — to — be — a — shortcut,” Ron panted as they climbed their seventh long staircase and emerged on an unfamiliar landing, where there was nothing but a large painting of a bare stretch of grass hanging on the stone wall.

“I think it’s this way,” said Hermione, peering down the empty passage to the right.

“Can’t be,” said Ron.

“That’s south, look, you can see a bit of the lake out of the window . . .”

Harry was watching the painting.

A fat, dapple-gray pony had just ambled onto the grass and was grazing nonchalantly.

Harry was used to the subjects of Hogwarts paintings moving around and leaving their frames to visit one another, but he always enjoyed watching it.

A moment later, a short, squat knight in a suit of armor clanked into the picture after his pony.

By the look of the grass stains on his metal knees, he had just fallen off.

“Aha!” he yelled, seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

“What villains are these, that trespass upon my private lands!

Come to scorn at my fall, perchance?

Draw, you knaves, you dogs!”

They watched in astonishment as the little knight tugged his sword out of its scabbard and began brandishing it violently, hopping up and down in rage.

But the sword was too long for him; a particularly wild swing made him overbalance, and he landed facedown in the grass.

“Are you all right?” said Harry, moving closer to the picture.

“Get back, you scurvy braggart!

Back, you rogue!”

The knight seized his sword again and used it to push himself back up, but the blade sank deeply into the grass and, though he pulled with all his might, he couldn’t get it out again.

Finally, he had to flop back down onto the grass and push up his visor to mop his sweating face.

“Listen,” said Harry, taking advantage of the knight’s exhaustion, “we’re looking for the North Tower.

You don’t know the way, do you?”

“A quest!”

The knight’s rage seemed to vanish instantly.

He clanked to his feet and shouted, “Come follow me, dear friends, and we shall find our goal, or else shall perish bravely in the charge!”

He gave the sword another fruitless tug, tried and failed to mount the fat pony, gave up, and cried, “On foot then, good sirs and gentle lady!

On!

On!”

And he ran, clanking loudly, into the left side of the frame and out of sight.

They hurried after him along the corridor, following the sound of his armor.

Every now and then they spotted him running through a picture ahead.

“Be of stout heart, the worst is yet to come!” yelled the knight, and they saw him reappear in front of an alarmed group of women in crinolines, whose picture hung on the wall of a narrow spiral staircase.

Puffing loudly, Harry, Ron, and Hermione climbed the tightly spiraling steps, getting dizzier and dizzier, until at last they heard the murmur of voices above them and knew they had reached the classroom.

“Farewell!” cried the knight, popping his head into a painting of some sinister-looking monks.

“Farewell, my comrades-in-arms!

If ever you have need of noble heart and steely sinew, call upon Sir Cadogan!”

“Yeah, we’ll call you,” muttered Ron as the knight disappeared, “if we ever need someone mental.”

They climbed the last few steps and emerged onto a tiny landing, where most of the class was already assembled.

There were no doors off this landing, but Ron nudged Harry and pointed at the ceiling, where there was a circular trapdoor with a brass plaque on it.

“‘Sybill Trelawney, Divination teacher,’” Harry read.

“How’re we supposed to get up there?”

As though in answer to his question, the trapdoor suddenly opened, and a silvery ladder descended right at Harry’s feet.

Everyone got quiet.

“After you,” said Ron, grinning, so Harry climbed the ladder first.

He emerged into the strangest-looking classroom he had ever seen.

In fact, it didn’t look like a classroom at all, more like a cross between someone’s attic and an old-fashioned tea shop.

At least twenty small, circular tables were crammed inside it, all surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little poufs.

Everything was lit with a dim, crimson light; the curtains at the windows were all closed, and the many lamps were draped with dark red scarves.

It was stiflingly warm, and the fire that was burning under the crowded mantelpiece was giving off a heavy, sickly sort of perfume as it heated a large copper kettle.

The shelves running around the circular walls were crammed with dusty-looking feathers, stubs of candles, many packs of tattered playing cards, countless silvery crystal balls, and a huge array of teacups.

Ron appeared at Harry’s shoulder as the class assembled around them, all talking in whispers.

“Where is she?” Ron said.

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.

Professor Trelawney moved into the firelight, and they saw that she was very thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to several times their natural size, and she was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl.

Innumerable chains and beads hung around her spindly neck, and her arms and hands were encrusted with bangles and rings.

“Sit, my children, sit,” she said, and they all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto poufs.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat themselves around the same round table.

“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.”

Nobody said anything to this extraordinary pronouncement.

Professor Trelawney delicately rearranged her shawl and continued, “So you 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 in this field. . . .”

At these words, both Harry and Ron glanced, 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, her enormous, gleaming eyes moving from face to nervous face.

“It is a Gift granted to few.

You, boy,” she said suddenly to Neville, who almost toppled off his pouf.

“Is your grandmother well?”

“I think so,” said Neville tremulously.

“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you, dear,” said Professor Trelawney, the firelight glinting on her long emerald earrings.

Neville gulped.

Professor Trelawney continued placidly.

“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, who was right behind her, and edged her chair away from him.

“In the second 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.”

A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seemed unaware of it.

“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, took an enormous teapot from the shelf, and put it down on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.

“Thank you, my dear.

Incidentally, that thing you are dreading — it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October.”

Lavender trembled.

“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.

Swill 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 when 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. . . .”

When Harry and Ron had had their teacups filled, they went back to their table and tried to drink the scalding tea quickly.

They swilled the dregs around as Professor Trelawney had instructed, then drained the cups and swapped them.

“Right,” said Ron as they both opened their books at pages five and six.

“What can you see in mine?”

“A load of soggy brown stuff,” said Harry.

The heavily perfumed smoke in the room was making him feel sleepy and stupid.

“Broaden your minds, my dears, and allow your eyes to see past the mundane!” Professor Trelawney cried through the gloom.

Harry tried to pull himself together.

“Right, you’ve got a crooked sort of cross . . .” He consulted Unfogging the Future.

“That means you’re going to have ‘trials and suffering’ — sorry about that — but there’s a thing that could be the sun . . . hang on . . . that means ‘great happiness’ . . . so you’re going to suffer but be very happy. . . .”

“You need your Inner Eye tested, if you ask me,” said Ron, and they both had to stifle their laughs as Professor Trelawney gazed in their direction.

“My turn . . .” Ron peered into Harry’s teacup, his forehead wrinkled with effort.

“There’s a blob a bit like a bowler hat,” he said.

“Maybe you’re going to work for the Ministry of Magic. . . .”

He turned the teacup the other way up.

“But this way it looks more like an acorn. . . .

What’s that?” He scanned his copy of Unfogging the Future.

“‘A windfall, unexpected gold.’ Excellent, you can lend me some . . . and there’s a thing here,” he turned the cup again, “that looks like an animal . . . yeah, if that was its head . . . it looks like a hippo . . . no, a sheep . . .”

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 counterclockwise.

“The falcon . . . my dear, you have a deadly enemy.”

“But everyone knows that,” said Hermione in a loud whisper.

Professor Trelawney stared at her.

“Well, they do,” said Hermione.

“Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who.”

Harry and Ron stared at her with a mixture of amazement and admiration.

They had never heard Hermione speak to a teacher like that before.

Professor Trelawney chose not to reply.

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.”

“The what?” said Harry.

He could tell that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand; Dean Thomas shrugged at him and Lavender Brown looked puzzled, but nearly everybody else clapped their hands to their mouths in horror.

“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!”

Harry’s stomach lurched.

That dog on the cover of Death Omens in Flourish and Blotts — the dog in the shadows of Magnolia Crescent . . .

Lavender Brown clapped her hands to her mouth too.

Everyone was looking at Harry, everyone except Hermione, who had gotten up and moved around to the back of Professor Trelawney’s chair.

“I don’t think it looks like a Grim,” she said flatly.

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.”

Seamus Finnigan was tilting his head from side to side.

“It looks like a Grim if you do this,” he said, with his eyes almost shut, “but it looks more like a donkey from here,” he said, leaning to the left.

“When you’ve all finished deciding whether I’m going to die or not!” said Harry, taking even himself by surprise.

Now nobody seemed to want to look at him.

“I think we will leave the lesson here for today,” said Professor Trelawney in her mistiest voice.

“Yes . . . please pack away your things. . . .”

Silently the class took their teacups back to Professor Trelawney, packed away their books, and closed their bags.

Even Ron was avoiding Harry’s eyes.

“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.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione descended Professor Trelawney’s ladder and the winding stair in silence, then set off for Professor McGonagall’s Transfiguration lesson.

It took them so long to find her classroom that, early as they had left Divination, they were only just in time.

Harry chose a seat right at the back of the room, feeling as though he were sitting in a very bright spotlight; the rest of the class kept shooting furtive glances at him, as though he were about to drop dead at any moment.

He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and wasn’t even watching when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes.

“Really, what has got into you all today?” said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all.

“Not that it matters, but that’s the first time my transformation’s not got applause from a class.”

Everybody’s heads turned toward Harry again, but nobody spoke.

Then Hermione raised her hand.

“Please, Professor, we’ve just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and —”

“Ah, of course,” said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning.

“There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger.

Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?”

Everyone stared at her.

“Me,” said Harry, finally.

“I see,” said Professor McGonagall, fixing Harry with her beady eyes.

“Then you should know, Potter, that Sybill Trelawney has predicted the death of one student a year since she arrived at this school.

None of them has died yet.

Seeing death omens is her favorite way of greeting a new class.

If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues —”

Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white.

She went on, more calmly, “Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic.

I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it.

True Seers are very rare, and Professor Trelawney —”

She stopped again, and then said, in a very matter-of-fact tone, “You look in excellent health to me, Potter, so you will excuse me if I don’t let you off homework today.

I assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in.”

Hermione laughed.

Harry felt a bit better.

It was harder to feel scared of a lump of tea leaves away from the dim red light and befuddling perfume of Professor Trelawney’s classroom.

Not everyone was convinced, however.

Ron still looked worried, and Lavender whispered, “But what about Neville’s cup?”

When the Transfiguration class had finished, they joined the crowd thundering toward the Great Hall for lunch.

“Ron, cheer up,” said Hermione, pushing a dish of stew toward him.

“You heard what Professor McGonagall said.”

Ron spooned stew onto his plate and picked up his fork but didn’t start.

“Harry,” he said, in a low, serious voice, “you haven’t seen a great black dog anywhere, have you?”

“Yeah, I have,” said Harry.

“I saw one the night I left the Dursleys’.”

Ron let his fork fall with a clatter.

“Probably a stray,” said Hermione calmly.

Ron looked at Hermione as though she had gone mad.

“Hermione, if Harry’s seen a Grim, that’s — that’s bad,” he said.

“My — my uncle Bilius saw one and — and he died twenty-four hours later!”

“Coincidence,” said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Ron, starting to get angry.

“Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!”

“There you are, then,” said Hermione in a superior tone.

“They see the Grim and die of fright.

The Grim’s not an omen, it’s the cause of death!

And Harry’s still with us because he’s not stupid enough to see one and think, right, well, I’d better kick the bucket then!”

Ron mouthed wordlessly at Hermione, who opened her bag, took out her new Arithmancy book, and propped it open against the juice jug.

“I think Divination seems very woolly,” she said, searching for her page.

“A lot of guesswork, if you ask me.”

“There was nothing woolly about the Grim in that cup!” said Ron hotly.

“You didn’t seem quite so confident when you were telling Harry it was a sheep,” said Hermione coolly.

“Professor Trelawney said you didn’t have the right aura!

You just don’t like being bad at something for a change!”

He had touched a nerve.

Hermione slammed her Arithmancy book down on the table so hard that bits of meat and carrot flew everywhere.

“If being good at Divination means I have to pretend to see death omens in a lump of tea leaves, I’m not sure I’ll be studying it much longer!

That lesson was absolute rubbish compared with my Arithmancy class!”

She snatched up her bag and stalked away.

Ron frowned after her.

“What’s she talking about?” he said to Harry.

“She hasn’t been to an Arithmancy class yet.”

Harry was pleased to get out of the castle after lunch.

Yesterday’s rain had cleared; the sky was a clear, pale gray, and the grass was springy and damp underfoot as they set off for their first-ever Care of Magical Creatures class.

Ron and Hermione weren’t speaking to each other.

Harry walked beside them in silence as they went down the sloping lawns to Hagrid’s hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

It was only when he spotted three only-too-familiar backs ahead of them that he realized they must be having these lessons with the Slytherins.

Malfoy was talking animatedly to Crabbe and Goyle, who were chortling.

Harry was quite sure he knew what they were talking about.

Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut.

He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with Fang the boarhound at his heels, looking impatient to start.

“C’mon, now, get a move on!” he called as the class approached.

“Got a real treat for yeh today!

Great lesson comin’ up!

Everyone here?

Right, follow me!”

For one nasty moment, Harry thought that Hagrid was going to lead them into the forest; Harry had had enough unpleasant experiences in there to last him a lifetime.

However, Hagrid strolled off around the edge of the trees, and five minutes later, they found themselves outside a kind of paddock.

There was nothing in there.

“Everyone gather ’round the fence here!” he called.

“That’s it — make sure yeh can see — now, firs’ thing yeh’ll want ter do is open yer books —”

“How?” said the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy.

“Eh?” said Hagrid.

“How do we open our books?” Malfoy repeated.

He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope.

Other people took theirs out too; some, like Harry, had belted their book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.

“Hasn’ — hasn’ anyone bin able ter open their books?” said Hagrid, looking crestfallen.

The class all shook their heads.

“Yeh’ve got ter stroke ’em,” said Hagrid, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Look —”

He took Hermione’s copy and ripped off the Spellotape that bound it.

The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then fell open and lay quiet in his hand.

“Oh, how silly we’ve all been!” Malfoy sneered.

“We should have stroked them!

Why didn’t we guess!”

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the Great Hall for breakfast the next day, the first thing they saw was Draco Malfoy, who seemed to be entertaining a large group of Slytherins with a very funny story.

As they passed, Malfoy did a ridiculous impression of a swooning fit and there was a roar of laughter.

“Ignore him,” said Hermione, who was right behind Harry.

“Just ignore him, it’s not worth it. . . .”

“Hey, Potter!” shrieked Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl with a face like a pug.

“Potter! The dementors are coming, Potter! Woooooooo!”

Harry dropped into a seat at the Gryffindor table, next to George Weasley.

“New third-year course schedules,” said George, passing them over.

“What’s up with you, Harry?”

“Malfoy,” said Ron, sitting down on George’s other side and glaring over at the Slytherin table.

George looked up in time to see Malfoy pretending to faint with terror again.

“That little git,” he said calmly.

“He wasn’t so cocky last night when the dementors were down at our end of the train.

Came running into our compartment, didn’t he, Fred?”

“Nearly wet himself,” said Fred, with a contemptuous glance at Malfoy.

“I wasn’t too happy myself,” said George.

“They’re horrible things, those dementors. . . .”

“Sort of freeze your insides, don’t they?” said Fred.

“You didn’t pass out, though, did you?” said Harry in a low voice.

“Forget it, Harry,” said George bracingly.

“Dad had to go out to Azkaban one time, remember, Fred?

And he said it was the worst place he’ve ever been, he came back all weak and shaking. . . .

They suck the happiness out of a place, dementors.

Most of the prisoners go mad in there.”

“Anyway, we’ll see how happy Malfoy looks after our first Quidditch match,” said Fred.

“Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first game of the season, remember?”

The only time Harry and Malfoy had faced each other in a Quidditch match, Malfoy had definitely come off worse.

Feeling slightly more cheerful, Harry helped himself to sausages and fried tomatoes.

Hermione was examining her new schedule.

“Ooh, good, we’re starting some new subjects today,” she said happily.

“Hermione,” said Ron, frowning as he looked over her shoulder, “they’ve messed up your schedule.

Look — they’ve got you down for about ten subjects a day.

There isn’t enough time.”

“I’ll manage.

I’ve fixed it all with Professor McGonagall.”

“But look,” said Ron, laughing, “see this morning?

Nine o’clock, Divination.

And underneath, nine o’clock, Muggle Studies.

And” — Ron leaned closer to the schedule, disbelieving — “look — underneath that, Arithmancy, nine o’clock.

I mean, I know you’re good, Hermione, but no one’s that good.

How’re you supposed to be in three classes at once?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Hermione shortly.

“Of course I won’t be in three classes at once.”

“Well, then —”

“Pass the marmalade,” said Hermione.

“But —”

“Oh, Ron, what’s it to you if my schedule’s a bit full?” Hermione snapped.

“I told you, I’ve fixed it all with Professor McGonagall.”

Just then, Hagrid entered the Great Hall.

He was wearing his long moleskin overcoat and was absentmindedly swinging a dead polecat from one enormous hand.

“All righ’?” he said eagerly, pausing on the way to the staff table.

“Yer in my firs’ ever lesson!

Right after lunch!

Bin up since five gettin’ everythin’ ready. . . .

Hope it’s okay. . . .

Me, a teacher . . . hones’ly. . . .”

He grinned broadly at them and headed off to the staff table, still swinging the polecat.

“Wonder what he’s been getting ready?” said Ron, a note of anxiety in his voice.

The hall was starting to empty as people headed off toward their first lesson.

Ron checked his course schedule.

“We’d better go, look, Divination’s at the top of North Tower.

It’ll take us ten minutes to get there. . . .”

They finished their breakfasts hastily, said good-bye to Fred and George, and walked back through the hall.

As they passed the Slytherin table, Malfoy did yet another impression of a fainting fit.

The shouts of laughter followed Harry into the entrance hall.

The journey through the castle to North Tower was a long one.

Two years at Hogwarts hadn’t taught them everything about the castle, and they had never been inside North Tower before.

“There’s — got — to — be — a — shortcut,” Ron panted as they climbed their seventh long staircase and emerged on an unfamiliar landing, where there was nothing but a large painting of a bare stretch of grass hanging on the stone wall.

“I think it’s this way,” said Hermione, peering down the empty passage to the right.

“Can’t be,” said Ron.

“That’s south, look, you can see a bit of the lake out of the window . . .”

Harry was watching the painting.

A fat, dapple-gray pony had just ambled onto the grass and was grazing nonchalantly.

Harry was used to the subjects of Hogwarts paintings moving around and leaving their frames to visit one another, but he always enjoyed watching it.

A moment later, a short, squat knight in a suit of armor clanked into the picture after his pony.

By the look of the grass stains on his metal knees, he had just fallen off.

“Aha!” he yelled, seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

“What villains are these, that trespass upon my private lands!

Come to scorn at my fall, perchance?

Draw, you knaves, you dogs!”

They watched in astonishment as the little knight tugged his sword out of its scabbard and began brandishing it violently, hopping up and down in rage.

But the sword was too long for him; a particularly wild swing made him overbalance, and he landed facedown in the grass.

“Are you all right?” said Harry, moving closer to the picture.

“Get back, you scurvy braggart!

Back, you rogue!”

The knight seized his sword again and used it to push himself back up, but the blade sank deeply into the grass and, though he pulled with all his might, he couldn’t get it out again.

Finally, he had to flop back down onto the grass and push up his visor to mop his sweating face.

“Listen,” said Harry, taking advantage of the knight’s exhaustion, “we’re looking for the North Tower.

You don’t know the way, do you?”

“A quest!”

The knight’s rage seemed to vanish instantly.

He clanked to his feet and shouted, “Come follow me, dear friends, and we shall find our goal, or else shall perish bravely in the charge!”

He gave the sword another fruitless tug, tried and failed to mount the fat pony, gave up, and cried, “On foot then, good sirs and gentle lady!

On!

On!”

And he ran, clanking loudly, into the left side of the frame and out of sight.

They hurried after him along the corridor, following the sound of his armor.

Every now and then they spotted him running through a picture ahead.

“Be of stout heart, the worst is yet to come!” yelled the knight, and they saw him reappear in front of an alarmed group of women in crinolines, whose picture hung on the wall of a narrow spiral staircase.

Puffing loudly, Harry, Ron, and Hermione climbed the tightly spiraling steps, getting dizzier and dizzier, until at last they heard the murmur of voices above them and knew they had reached the classroom.

“Farewell!” cried the knight, popping his head into a painting of some sinister-looking monks.

“Farewell, my comrades-in-arms!

If ever you have need of noble heart and steely sinew, call upon Sir Cadogan!”

“Yeah, we’ll call you,” muttered Ron as the knight disappeared, “if we ever need someone mental.”

They climbed the last few steps and emerged onto a tiny landing, where most of the class was already assembled.

There were no doors off this landing, but Ron nudged Harry and pointed at the ceiling, where there was a circular trapdoor with a brass plaque on it.

“‘Sybill Trelawney, Divination teacher,’” Harry read.

“How’re we supposed to get up there?”

As though in answer to his question, the trapdoor suddenly opened, and a silvery ladder descended right at Harry’s feet.

Everyone got quiet.

“After you,” said Ron, grinning, so Harry climbed the ladder first.

He emerged into the strangest-looking classroom he had ever seen.

In fact, it didn’t look like a classroom at all, more like a cross between someone’s attic and an old-fashioned tea shop.

At least twenty small, circular tables were crammed inside it, all surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little poufs.

Everything was lit with a dim, crimson light; the curtains at the windows were all closed, and the many lamps were draped with dark red scarves.

It was stiflingly warm, and the fire that was burning under the crowded mantelpiece was giving off a heavy, sickly sort of perfume as it heated a large copper kettle.

The shelves running around the circular walls were crammed with dusty-looking feathers, stubs of candles, many packs of tattered playing cards, countless silvery crystal balls, and a huge array of teacups.

Ron appeared at Harry’s shoulder as the class assembled around them, all talking in whispers.

“Where is she?” Ron said.

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.

Professor Trelawney moved into the firelight, and they saw that she was very thin; her large glasses magnified her eyes to several times their natural size, and she was draped in a gauzy spangled shawl.

Innumerable chains and beads hung around her spindly neck, and her arms and hands were encrusted with bangles and rings.

“Sit, my children, sit,” she said, and they all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto poufs.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat themselves around the same round table.

“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.”

Nobody said anything to this extraordinary pronouncement.

Professor Trelawney delicately rearranged her shawl and continued, “So you 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 in this field. . . .”

At these words, both Harry and Ron glanced, 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, her enormous, gleaming eyes moving from face to nervous face.

“It is a Gift granted to few.

You, boy,” she said suddenly to Neville, who almost toppled off his pouf.

“Is your grandmother well?”

“I think so,” said Neville tremulously.

“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you, dear,” said Professor Trelawney, the firelight glinting on her long emerald earrings.

Neville gulped.

Professor Trelawney continued placidly.

“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, who was right behind her, and edged her chair away from him.

“In the second 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.”

A very tense silence followed this pronouncement, but Professor Trelawney seemed unaware of it.

“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, took an enormous teapot from the shelf, and put it down on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.

“Thank you, my dear.

Incidentally, that thing you are dreading — it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October.”

Lavender trembled.

“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.

Swill 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 when 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. . . bond.”

When Harry and Ron had had their teacups filled, they went back to their table and tried to drink the scalding tea quickly.

They swilled the dregs around as Professor Trelawney had instructed, then drained the cups and swapped them.

“Right,” said Ron as they both opened their books at pages five and six.

“What can you see in mine?”

“A load of soggy brown stuff,” said Harry.

The heavily perfumed smoke in the room was making him feel sleepy and stupid.

“Broaden your minds, my dears, and allow your eyes to see past the mundane!” Professor Trelawney cried through the gloom.

Harry tried to pull himself together.

“Right, you’ve got a crooked sort of cross . . .” He consulted Unfogging the Future.

“That means you’re going to have ‘trials and suffering’ — sorry about that — but there’s a thing that could be the sun . . . hang on . . . that means ‘great happiness’ . . . so you’re going to suffer but be very happy. . . .”

“You need your Inner Eye tested, if you ask me,” said Ron, and they both had to stifle their laughs as Professor Trelawney gazed in their direction.

“My turn . . .” Ron peered into Harry’s teacup, his forehead wrinkled with effort.

“There’s a blob a bit like a bowler hat,” he said.

“Maybe you’re going to work for the Ministry of Magic. . . .”

He turned the teacup the other way up.

“But this way it looks more like an acorn. . . .

What’s that?” He scanned his copy of Unfogging the Future.

“‘A windfall, unexpected gold.’ Excellent, you can lend me some . . . and there’s a thing here,” he turned the cup again, “that looks like an animal . . . yeah, if that was its head . . . it looks like a hippo . . . no, a sheep . . .”

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 counterclockwise.

“The falcon . . . my dear, you have a deadly enemy.”

“But everyone knows that,” said Hermione in a loud whisper.

Professor Trelawney stared at her.

“Well, they do,” said Hermione.

“Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who.”

Harry and Ron stared at her with a mixture of amazement and admiration.

They had never heard Hermione speak to a teacher like that before.

Professor Trelawney chose not to reply.

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.”

“The what?” said Harry.

He could tell that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand; Dean Thomas shrugged at him and Lavender Brown looked puzzled, but nearly everybody else clapped their hands to their mouths in horror.

“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!”

Harry’s stomach lurched.

That dog on the cover of Death Omens in Flourish and Blotts — the dog in the shadows of Magnolia Crescent . . .

Lavender Brown clapped her hands to her mouth too.

Everyone was looking at Harry, everyone except Hermione, who had gotten up and moved around to the back of Professor Trelawney’s chair.

“I don’t think it looks like a Grim,” she said flatly.

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.”

Seamus Finnigan was tilting his head from side to side.

“It looks like a Grim if you do this,” he said, with his eyes almost shut, “but it looks more like a donkey from here,” he said, leaning to the left.

“When you’ve all finished deciding whether I’m going to die or not!” said Harry, taking even himself by surprise.

Now nobody seemed to want to look at him.

“I think we will leave the lesson here for today,” said Professor Trelawney in her mistiest voice.

“Yes . . . please pack away your things. . . .”

Silently the class took their teacups back to Professor Trelawney, packed away their books, and closed their bags.

Even Ron was avoiding Harry’s eyes.

“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.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione descended Professor Trelawney’s ladder and the winding stair in silence, then set off for Professor McGonagall’s Transfiguration lesson.

It took them so long to find her classroom that, early as they had left Divination, they were only just in time.

Harry chose a seat right at the back of the room, feeling as though he were sitting in a very bright spotlight; the rest of the class kept shooting furtive glances at him, as though he were about to drop dead at any moment.

He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and wasn’t even watching when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes.

“Really, what has got into you all today?” said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all.

“Not that it matters, but that’s the first time my transformation’s not got applause from a class.”

Everybody’s heads turned toward Harry again, but nobody spoke.

Then Hermione raised her hand.

“Please, Professor, we’ve just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and —”

“Ah, of course,” said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning.

“There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger.

Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?”

Everyone stared at her.

“Me,” said Harry, finally.

“I see,” said Professor McGonagall, fixing Harry with her beady eyes.

“Then you should know, Potter, that Sybill Trelawney has predicted the death of one student a year since she arrived at this school.

None of them has died yet.

Seeing death omens is her favorite way of greeting a new class.

If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues —”

Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white.

She went on, more calmly, “Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic.

I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it.

True Seers are very rare, and Professor Trelawney —”

She stopped again, and then said, in a very matter-of-fact tone, “You look in excellent health to me, Potter, so you will excuse me if I don’t let you off homework today.

I assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in.”

Hermione laughed.

Harry felt a bit better.

It was harder to feel scared of a lump of tea leaves away from the dim red light and befuddling perfume of Professor Trelawney’s classroom.

Not everyone was convinced, however.

Ron still looked worried, and Lavender whispered, “But what about Neville’s cup?”

When the Transfiguration class had finished, they joined the crowd thundering toward the Great Hall for lunch.

“Ron, cheer up,” said Hermione, pushing a dish of stew toward him.

“You heard what Professor McGonagall said.”

Ron spooned stew onto his plate and picked up his fork but didn’t start.

“Harry,” he said, in a low, serious voice, “you haven’t seen a great black dog anywhere, have you?”

“Yeah, I have,” said Harry.

“I saw one the night I left the Dursleys’.”

Ron let his fork fall with a clatter.

“Probably a stray,” said Hermione calmly.

Ron looked at Hermione as though she had gone mad.

“Hermione, if Harry’s seen a Grim, that’s — that’s bad,” he said.

“My — my uncle Bilius saw one and — and he died twenty-four hours later!”

“Coincidence,” said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Ron, starting to get angry.

“Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!”

“There you are, then,” said Hermione in a superior tone.

“They see the Grim and die of fright.

The Grim’s not an omen, it’s the cause of death!

And Harry’s still with us because he’s not stupid enough to see one and think, right, well, I’d better kick the bucket then!”

Ron mouthed wordlessly at Hermione, who opened her bag, took out her new Arithmancy book, and propped it open against the juice jug.

“I think Divination seems very woolly,” she said, searching for her page.

“A lot of guesswork, if you ask me.”

“There was nothing woolly about the Grim in that cup!” said Ron hotly.

“You didn’t seem quite so confident when you were telling Harry it was a sheep,” said Hermione coolly.

“Professor Trelawney said you didn’t have the right aura!

You just don’t like being bad at something for a change!”

He had touched a nerve.

Hermione slammed her Arithmancy book down on the table so hard that bits of meat and carrot flew everywhere.

“If being good at Divination means I have to pretend to see death omens in a lump of tea leaves, I’m not sure I’ll be studying it much longer!

That lesson was absolute rubbish compared with my Arithmancy class!”

She snatched up her bag and stalked away.

Ron frowned after her.

“What’s she talking about?” he said to Harry.

“She hasn’t been to an Arithmancy class yet.”

Harry was pleased to get out of the castle after lunch.

Yesterday’s rain had cleared; the sky was a clear, pale gray, and the grass was springy and damp underfoot as they set off for their first-ever Care of Magical Creatures class.

Ron and Hermione weren’t speaking to each other.

Harry walked beside them in silence as they went down the sloping lawns to Hagrid’s hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

It was only when he spotted three only-too-familiar backs ahead of them that he realized they must be having these lessons with the Slytherins.

Malfoy was talking animatedly to Crabbe and Goyle, who were chortling.

Harry was quite sure he knew what they were talking about.

Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut.

He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with Fang the boarhound at his heels, looking impatient to start.

“C’mon, now, get a move on!” he called as the class approached.

“Got a real treat for yeh today!

Great lesson comin’ up!

Everyone here?

Right, follow me!”

For one nasty moment, Harry thought that Hagrid was going to lead them into the forest; Harry had had enough unpleasant experiences in there to last him a lifetime.

However, Hagrid strolled off around the edge of the trees, and five minutes later, they found themselves outside a kind of paddock.

There was nothing in there.

“Everyone gather ’round the fence here!” he called.

“That’s it — make sure yeh can see — now, firs’ thing yeh’ll want ter do is open yer books —”

“How?” said the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy.

“Eh?” said Hagrid.

“How do we open our books?” Malfoy repeated.

He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope.

Other people took theirs out too; some, like Harry, had belted their book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.

“Hasn’ — hasn anyone bin able ter open their books?” said Hagrid, looking crestfallen.

The class all shook their heads.

“Yeh’ve got ter stroke ’em,” said Hagrid, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Look —”

He took Hermione’s copy and ripped off the Spellotape that bound it.

The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then fell open and lay quiet in his hand.

“Oh, how silly we’ve all been!” Malfoy sneered.

“We should have stroked them!

Why didn’t we guess!”

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐆𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐄

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Malfoy didn’t reappear in classes until late on Thursday morning, when the Slytherins and Gryffindors were halfway through double Potions.

He swaggered into the dungeon, his right arm covered in bandages and bound up in a sling, acting, in Harry’s opinion, as though he were the heroic survivor of some dreadful battle.

“How is it, Draco?” simpered Pansy Parkinson.

“Does it hurt much?”

“Yeah,” said Malfoy, putting on a brave sort of grimace.

But Harry saw him wink at Crabbe and Goyle when Pansy had looked away.

“Settle down, settle down,” said Professor Snape idly.

Harry and Ron scowled at each other; Snape wouldn’t have said “settle down” if they’d walked in late, he’d have given them detention.

But Malfoy had always been able to get away with anything in Snape’s classes; Snape was head of Slytherin House, and generally favored his own students above all others.

They were making a new potion today, a Shrinking Solution.

Malfoy set up his cauldron right next to Harry and Ron, so that they were preparing their ingredients on the same table.

“Sir,” Malfoy called, “sir, I’ll need help cutting up these daisy roots, because of my arm —”

“Weasley, cut up Malfoy’s roots for him,” said Snape without looking up.

Ron went brick red.

“There’s nothing wrong with your arm,” he hissed at Malfoy.

Malfoy smirked across the table.

“Weasley, you heard Professor Snape; cut up these roots.”

Ron seized his knife, pulled Malfoy’s roots toward him, and began to chop them roughly, so that they were all different sizes.

“Professor,” drawled Malfoy, “Weasley’s mutilating my roots, sir.”

Snape approached their table, stared down his hooked nose at the roots, then gave Ron an unpleasant smile from beneath his long, greasy black hair.

“Change roots with Malfoy, Weasley.”

“But, sir — !”

Ron had spent the last quarter of an hour carefully shredding his own roots into exactly equal pieces.

“Now,” said Snape in his most dangerous voice.

Ron shoved his own beautifully cut roots across the table at Malfoy, then took up the knife again.

“And, sir, I’ll need this shrivelfig skinned,” said Malfoy, his voice full of malicious laughter.

“Potter, you can skin Malfoy’s shrivelfig,” said Snape, giving Harry the look of loathing he always reserved just for him.

Harry took Malfoy’s shrivelfig as Ron began trying to repair the damage to the roots he now had to use.

Harry skinned the shrivelfig as fast as he could and flung it back across the table at Malfoy without speaking.

Malfoy was smirking more broadly than ever.

“Seen your pal Hagrid lately?” he asked them quietly.

“None of your business,” said Ron jerkily, without looking up.

“I’m afraid he won’t be a teacher much longer,” said Malfoy in a tone of mock sorrow.

“Father’s not very happy about my injury —”

“Keep talking, Malfoy, and I’ll give you a real injury,” snarled Ron.

“— he’s complained to the school governors.

And to the Ministry of Magic.

Father’s got a lot of influence, you know.

And a lasting injury like this” — he gave a huge, fake sigh — “who knows if my arm’ll ever be the same again?”

“So that’s why you’re putting it on,” said Harry, accidentally beheading a dead caterpillar because his hand was shaking in anger.

“To try to get Hagrid fired.”

“Well,” said Malfoy, lowering his voice to a whisper, “partly, Potter.

But there are other benefits too.

Weasley, slice my caterpillars for me.”

A few cauldrons away, Neville was in trouble.

Neville regularly went to pieces in Potions lessons; it was his worst subject, and his great fear of Professor Snape made things ten times worse.

His potion, which was supposed to be a bright, acid green, had turned —

“Orange, Longbottom,” said Snape, ladling some up and allowing it to splash back into the cauldron, so that everyone could see.

“Orange.

Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours?

Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed?

Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice?

What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?”

Neville was pink and trembling.

He looked as though he was on the verge of tears.

“Please, sir,” said Hermione, “please, I could help Neville put it right —”

“I don’t remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger,” said Snape coldly, and Hermione went as pink as Neville.

“Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens.

Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly.”

Snape moved away, leaving Neville breathless with fear.

“Help me!” he moaned to Hermione.

“Hey, Harry,” said Seamus Finnigan, leaning over to borrow Harry’s brass scales, “have you heard?

Daily Prophet this morning — they reckon Sirius Black’s been sighted.”

“Where?” said Harry and Ron quickly.

On the other side of the table, Malfoy looked up, listening closely.

“Not too far from here,” said Seamus, who looked excited.

“It was a Muggle who saw him.

’Course, she didn’t really understand.

The Muggles think he’s just an ordinary criminal, don’t they?

So she phoned the telephone hot line.

By the time the Ministry of Magic got there, he was gone.”

“Not too far from here . . . ,” Ron repeated, looking significantly at Harry.

He turned around and saw Malfoy watching closely.

“What, Malfoy?

Need something else skinned?”

But Malfoy’s eyes were shining malevolently, and they were fixed on Harry.

He leaned across the table.

“Thinking of trying to catch Black single-handed, Potter?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Harry offhandedly.

Malfoy’s thin mouth was curving in a mean smile.

“Of course, if it was me,” he said quietly, “I’d have done something before now.

I wouldn’t be staying in school like a good boy, I’d be out there looking for him.”

“What are you talking about, Malfoy?” said Ron roughly.

“Don’t you know, Potter?” breathed Malfoy, his pale eyes narrowed.

“Know what?”

Malfoy let out a low, sneering laugh.

“Maybe you’d rather not risk your neck,” he said.

“Want to leave it to the dementors, do you?

But if it was me, I’d want revenge.

I’d hunt him down myself.”

“What are you talking about?” said Harry angrily, but at that moment Snape called, “You should have finished adding your ingredients by now; this potion needs to stew before it can be drunk, so clear away while it simmers and then we’ll test Longbottom’s. . . .”

Crabbe and Goyle laughed openly, watching Neville sweat as he stirred his potion feverishly.

Hermione was muttering instructions to him out of the corner of her mouth, so that Snape wouldn’t see.

Harry and Ron packed away their unused ingredients and went to wash their hands and ladles in the stone basin in the corner.

“What did Malfoy mean?” Harry muttered to Ron as he stuck his hands under the icy jet that poured from the gargoyle’s mouth.

“Why would I want revenge on Black?

He hasn’t done anything to me — yet.”

“He’s making it up,” said Ron savagely.

“He’s trying to make you do something stupid. . . .”

The end of the lesson in sight, Snape strode over to Neville, who was cowering by his cauldron.

“Everyone gather ’round,” said Snape, his black eyes glittering, “and watch what happens to Longbottom’s toad.

If he has managed to produce a Shrinking Solution, it will shrink to a tadpole.

If, as I don’t doubt, he has done it wrong, his toad is likely to be poisoned.”

The Gryffindors watched fearfully.

The Slytherins looked excited.

Snape picked up Trevor the toad in his left hand and dipped a small spoon into Neville’s potion, which was now green.

He trickled a few drops down Trevor’s throat.

There was a moment of hushed silence, in which Trevor gulped; then there was a small pop, and Trevor the tadpole was wriggling in Snape’s palm.

The Gryffindors burst into applause.

Snape, looking sour, pulled a small bottle from the pocket of his robe, poured a few drops on top of Trevor, and he reappeared suddenly, fully grown.

“Five points from Gryffindor,” said Snape, which wiped the smiles from every face.

“I told you not to help him, Miss Granger.

Class dismissed.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione climbed the steps to the entrance hall.

Harry was still thinking about what Malfoy had said, while Ron was seething about Snape.

“Five points from Gryffindor because the potion was all right!

Why didn’t you lie, Hermione?

You should’ve said Neville did it all by himself!”

Hermione didn’t answer.

Ron looked around.

“Where is she?”

Harry turned too.

They were at the top of the steps now, watching the rest of the class pass them, heading for the Great Hall and lunch.

“She was right behind us,” said Ron, frowning.

Malfoy passed them, walking between Crabbe and Goyle.

He smirked at Harry and disappeared.

“There she is,” said Harry.

Hermione was panting slightly, hurrying up the stairs; one hand clutched her bag, the other seemed to be tucking something down the front of her robes.

“How did you do that?” said Ron.

“What?” said Hermione, joining them.

“One minute you were right behind us, the next moment, you were back at the bottom of the stairs again.”

“What?” Hermione looked slightly confused.

“Oh — I had to go back for something.

Oh no —”

A seam had split on Hermione’s bag.

Harry wasn’t surprised; he could see that it was crammed with at least a dozen large and heavy books.

“Why are you carrying all these around with you?” Ron asked her.

“You know how many subjects I’m taking,” said Hermione breathlessly.

“Couldn’t hold these for me, could you?”

“But —” Ron was turning over the books she had handed him, looking at the covers.

“You haven’t got any of these subjects today.

It’s only Defense Against the Dark Arts this afternoon.”

“Oh yes,” said Hermione vaguely, but she packed all the books back into her bag just the same.

“I hope there’s something good for lunch, I’m starving,” she added, and she marched off toward the Great Hall.

“D’you get the feeling Hermione’s not telling us something?” Ron asked Harry.

Professor Lupin wasn’t there when they arrived at his first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson.

They all sat down, took out their books, quills, and parchment, and were talking when he finally entered the room.

Lupin smiled vaguely and placed his tatty old briefcase on the teacher’s desk.

He was as shabby as ever but looked healthier than he had on the train, as though he had had a few square meals.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“Would you please put all your books back in your bags.

Today’s will be a practical lesson.

You will need only your wands.”

A few curious looks were exchanged as the class put away their books.

They had never had a practical Defense Against the Dark Arts before, unless you counted the memorable class last year when their old teacher had brought a cageful of pixies to class and set them loose.

“Right then,” said Professor Lupin, when everyone was ready.

“If you’d follow me.”

Puzzled but interested, the class got to its feet and followed Professor Lupin out of the classroom.

He led them along the deserted corridor and around a corner, where the first thing they saw was Peeves the Poltergeist, who was floating upside down in midair and stuffing the nearest keyhole with chewing gum.

Peeves didn’t look up until Professor Lupin was two feet away; then he wiggled his curly-toed feet and broke into song.

“Loony, loopy Lupin,” Peeves sang.

“Loony, loopy Lupin, loony, loopy Lupin —”

Rude and unmanageable as he almost always was, Peeves usually showed some respect toward the teachers.

Everyone looked quickly at Professor Lupin to see how he would take this; to their surprise, he was still smiling.

“I’d take that gum out of the keyhole if I were you, Peeves,” he said pleasantly.

“Mr. Filch won’t be able to get in to his brooms.”

Filch was the Hogwarts caretaker, a bad-tempered, failed wizard who waged a constant war against the students and, indeed, Peeves.

However, Peeves paid no attention to Professor Lupin’s words, except to blow a loud wet raspberry.

Professor Lupin gave a small sigh and took out his wand.

“This is a useful little spell,” he told the class over his shoulder.

“Please watch closely.”

He raised the wand to shoulder height, said, “Waddiwasi!” and pointed it at Peeves.

With the force of a bullet, the wad of chewing gum shot out of the keyhole and straight down Peeves’s left nostril; he whirled upright and zoomed away, cursing.

“Cool, sir!” said Dean Thomas in amazement.

“Thank you, Dean,” said Professor Lupin, putting his wand away again.

“Shall we proceed?”

They set off again, the class looking at shabby Professor Lupin with increased respect.

He led them down a second corridor and stopped, right outside the staffroom door.

“Inside, please,” said Professor Lupin, opening it and standing back.

The staffroom, a long, paneled room full of old, mismatched chairs, was empty except for one teacher.

Professor Snape was sitting in a low armchair, and he looked around as the class filed in.

His eyes were glittering and there was a nasty sneer playing around his mouth.

As Professor Lupin came in and made to close the door behind him, Snape said, “Leave it open, Lupin.

I’d rather not witness this.”

He got to his feet and strode past the class, his black robes billowing behind him.

At the doorway he turned on his heel and said, “Possibly no one’s warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom.

I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult.

Not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear.”

Neville went scarlet.

Harry glared at Snape; it was bad enough that he bullied Neville in his own classes, let alone doing it in front of other teachers.

Professor Lupin had raised his eyebrows.

“I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation,” he said, “and I am sure he will perform it admirably.”

Neville’s face went, if possible, even redder.

Snape’s lip curled, but he left, shutting the door with a snap.

“Now, then,” said Professor Lupin, beckoning the class toward the end of the room, where there was nothing but an old wardrobe where the teachers kept their spare robes.

As Professor Lupin went to stand next to it, the wardrobe gave a sudden wobble, banging off the wall.

“Nothing to worry about,” said Professor Lupin calmly because a few people had jumped backward in alarm.

“There’s a boggart in there.”

Most people seemed to feel that this was something to worry about.

Neville gave Professor Lupin a look of pure terror, and Seamus Finnigan eyed the now rattling doorknob apprehensively.

“Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces,” said Professor Lupin.

“Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks — I once met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock.

This one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice.

“So, the first question we must ask ourselves is, what is a boggart?”

Hermione put up her hand.

“It’s a shape-shifter,” she said.

“It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Professor Lupin, and Hermione glowed.

“So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form.

He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door.

Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.

“This means,” said Professor Lupin, choosing to ignore Neville’s small sputter of terror, “that we have a huge advantage over the boggart before we begin.

Have you spotted it, Harry?”

Trying to answer a question with Hermione next to him, bobbing up and down on the balls of her feet with her hand in the air, was very off-putting, but Harry had a go.

“Er — because there are so many of us, it won’t know what shape it should be?”

“Precisely,” said Professor Lupin, and Hermione put her hand down, looking a little disappointed.

“It’s always best to have company when you’re dealing with a boggart.

He becomes confused.

Which should he become, a headless corpse or a flesh-eating slug?

I once saw a boggart make that very mistake — tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug.

Not remotely frightening.

“The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind.

You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is laughter.

What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.

“We will practice the charm without wands first.

After me, please . . . Riddikulus!”

“Riddikulus!” said the class together.

“Good,” said Professor Lupin.

“Very good.

But that was the easy part, I’m afraid.

You see, the word alone is not enough.

And this is where you come in, Neville.”

The wardrobe shook again, though not as much as Neville, who walked forward as though he were heading for the gallows.

“Right, Neville,” said Professor Lupin.

“First things first: What would you say is the thing that frightens you most in the world?”

Neville’s lips moved, but no noise came out.

“Didn’t catch that, Neville, sorry,” said Professor Lupin cheerfully.

Neville looked around rather wildly, as though begging someone to help him, then said, in barely more than a whisper, “Professor Snape.”

Nearly everyone laughed.

Even Neville grinned apologetically.

Professor Lupin, however, looked thoughtful.

“Professor Snape . . . hmmm . . . Neville, I believe you live with your grandmother?”

“Er — yes,” said Neville nervously.

“But — I don’t want the boggart to turn into her either.”

“No, no, you misunderstand me,” said Professor Lupin, now smiling.

“I wonder, could you tell us what sort of clothes your grandmother usually wears?”

Neville looked startled, but said, “Well . . . always the same hat.

A tall one with a stuffed vulture on top.

And a long dress . . . green, normally . . . and sometimes a fox-fur scarf.”

“And a handbag?” prompted Professor Lupin.

“A big red one,” said Neville.

“Right then,” said Professor Lupin.

“Can you picture those clothes very clearly, Neville?

Can you see them in your mind’s eye?”

“Yes,” said Neville uncertainly, plainly wondering what was coming next.

“When the boggart bursts out of this wardrobe, Neville, and sees you, it will assume the form of Professor Snape,” said Lupin.

“And you will raise your wand — thus — and cry ‘Riddikulus’ — and concentrate hard on your grandmother’s clothes.

If all goes well, Professor Boggart Snape will be forced into that vulture-topped hat, and that green dress, with that big red handbag.”

There was a great shout of laughter.

The wardrobe wobbled more violently.

“If Neville is successful, the boggart is likely to shift his attention to each of us in turn,” said Professor Lupin.

“I would like all of you to take a moment now to think of the thing that scares you most, and imagine how you might force it to look comical. . . .”

The room went quiet.

Harry thought . . . What scared him most in the world?

His first thought was Lord Voldemort — a Voldemort returned to full strength.

But before he had even started to plan a possible counterattack on a boggart-Voldemort, a horrible image came floating to the surface of his mind. . . .

A rotting, glistening hand, slithering back beneath a black cloak . . . a long, rattling breath from an unseen mouth . . . then a cold so penetrating it felt like drowning. . . .

Harry shivered, then looked around, hoping no one had noticed.

Many people had their eyes shut tight.

Ron was muttering to himself, “Take its legs off.”

Harry was sure he knew what that was about.

Ron’s greatest fear was spiders.

“Everyone ready?” said Professor Lupin.

Harry felt a lurch of fear.

He wasn’t ready.

How could you make a dementor less frightening?

But he didn’t want to ask for more time; everyone else was nodding and rolling up their sleeves.

“Neville, we’re going to back away,” said Professor Lupin.

“Let you have a clear field, all right?

I’ll call the next person forward. . . .

Everyone back, now, so Neville can get a clear shot —”

They all retreated, backed against the walls, leaving Neville alone beside the wardrobe.

He looked pale and frightened, but he had pushed up the sleeves of his robes and was holding his wand ready.

“On the count of three, Neville,” said Professor Lupin, who was pointing his own wand at the handle of the wardrobe.

“One — two — three — now!”

A jet of sparks shot from the end of Professor Lupin’s wand and hit the doorknob.

The wardrobe burst open.

Hook-nosed and menacing, Professor Snape stepped out, his eyes flashing at Neville.

Neville backed away, his wand up, mouthing wordlessly.

Snape was bearing down upon him, reaching inside his robes.

“R-R-Riddikulus!” squeaked Neville.

There was a noise like a whip crack.

Snape stumbled; he was wearing a long, lace-trimmed dress and a towering hat topped with a moth-eaten vulture, and he was swinging a huge crimson handbag.

There was a roar of laughter; the boggart paused, confused, and Professor Lupin shouted, “Parvati! Forward!”

Parvati walked forward, her face set.

Snape rounded on her.

There was another crack, and where he had stood was a blood-stained, bandaged mummy; its sightless face was turned to Parvati and it began to walk toward her very slowly, dragging its feet, its stiff arms rising —

“Riddikulus!” cried Parvati.

A bandage unraveled at the mummy’s feet; it became entangled, fell face forward, and its head rolled off.

“Seamus!” roared Professor Lupin.

Seamus darted past Parvati.

Crack!

Where the mummy had been was a woman with floor-length black hair and a skeletal, green-tinged face — a banshee.

She opened her mouth wide and an unearthly sound filled the room, a long, wailing shriek that made the hair on Harry’s head stand on end —

“Riddikulus!” shouted Seamus.

The banshee made a rasping noise and clutched her throat; her voice was gone.

Crack!

The banshee turned into a rat, which chased its tail in a circle, then — crack! — became a rattlesnake, which slithered and writhed before — crack! — becoming a single, bloody eyeball.

“It’s confused!” shouted Lupin.

“We’re getting there! Dean!”

Dean hurried forward.

Crack!

The eyeball became a severed hand, which flipped over and began to creep along the floor like a crab.

“Riddikulus!” yelled Dean.

There was a snap, and the hand was trapped in a mousetrap.

“Excellent! Ron, you next!”

Ron leapt forward.

Crack!

Quite a few people screamed.

A giant spider, six feet tall and covered in hair, was advancing on Ron, clicking its pincers menacingly.

For a moment, Harry thought Ron had frozen.

Then —

“Riddikulus!” bellowed Ron, and the spider’s legs vanished; it rolled over and over; Lavender Brown squealed and ran out of its way and it came to a halt at Harry’s feet.

He raised his wand, ready, but —

“Here!” shouted Professor Lupin suddenly, hurrying forward.

Crack!

The legless spider had vanished.

For a second, everyone looked wildly around to see where it was.

Then they saw a silvery-white orb hanging in the air in front of Lupin, who said, “Riddikulus!” almost lazily.

Crack!

“Forward, Neville, and finish him off!” said Lupin as the boggart landed on the floor as a cockroach.

Crack! Snape was back.

This time Neville charged forward looking determined.

“Riddikulus!” he shouted, and they had a split second’s view of Snape in his lacy dress before Neville let out a great “Ha!” of laughter, and the boggart exploded, burst into a thousand tiny wisps of smoke, and was gone.

“Excellent!” cried Professor Lupin as the class broke into applause.

“Excellent, Neville. Well done, everyone. . . .

Let me see . . . five points to Gryffindor for every person to tackle the boggart — ten for Neville because he did it twice . . . and five each to Hermione and Harry.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” said Harry.

“You and Hermione answered my questions correctly at the start of the class, Harry,” Lupin said lightly.

“Very well, everyone, an excellent lesson.

Homework, kindly read the chapter on boggarts and summarize it for me . . . to be handed in on Monday.

That will be all.”

Talking excitedly, the class left the staffroom.

Harry, however, wasn’t feeling cheerful.

Professor Lupin had deliberately stopped him from tackling the boggart.

Why?

Was it because he’d seen Harry collapse on the train, and thought he wasn’t up to much?

Had he thought Harry would pass out again?

But no one else seemed to have noticed anything.

“Did you see me take that banshee?” shouted Seamus.

“And the hand!” said Dean, waving his own around.

“And Snape in that hat!”

“And my mummy!”

“I wonder why Professor Lupin’s frightened of crystal balls?” said Lavender thoughtfully.

“That was the best Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson we’ve ever had, wasn’t it?” said Ron excitedly as they made their way back to the classroom to get their bags.

“He seems like a very good teacher,” said Hermione approvingly.

“But I wish I could have had a turn with the boggart —”

“What would it have been for you?” said Ron, sniggering.

“A piece of homework that only got nine out of ten?”