“See you at dinner!” said Hermione, and she set off for Arithmancy, while Harry and Ron headed toward North Tower, and Divination. Broad strips of dazzling gold sunlight fell across the corridor from the high windows. The sky outside was so brightly blue it looked as though it had been enameled.
“It’s going to be boiling in Trelawney’s room, she never puts out that fire,” said Ron as they started up the staircase toward the silver ladder and the trapdoor.
He was quite right. The dimly lit room was swelteringly hot. The fumes from the perfumed fire were heavier than ever. Harry’s head swam as he made his way over to one of the curtained windows. While Professor Trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, he opened it an inch or so and settled back in his chintz armchair, so that a soft breeze played across his face. It was extremely comfortable.
“My dears,” said Professor Trelawney, sitting down in her winged armchair in front of the class and peering around at them all with her strangely enlarged eyes, “we have almost finished our work on planetary divination. Today, however, will be an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of Mars, for he is placed most interestingly at the present time. If you will all look this way, I will dim the lights. . . .”
She waved her wand and the lamps went out. The fire was the only source of light now. Professor Trelawney bent down and lifted, from under her chair, a miniature model of the solar system, contained within a glass dome. It was a beautiful thing; each of the moons glimmered in place around the nine planets and the fiery sun, all of them hanging in thin air beneath the glass. Harry watched lazily as Professor Trelawney began to point out the fascinating angle Mars was making to Neptune. The heavily perfumed fumes washed over him, and the breeze from the window played across his face. He could hear an insect humming gently somewhere behind the curtain. His eyelids began to droop. . . .
He was riding on the back of an eagle owl, soaring through the clear blue sky toward an old, ivy-covered house set high on a hillside. Lower and lower they flew, the wind blowing pleasantly in Harry’s face, until they reached a dark and broken window in the upper story of the house and entered. Now they were flying along a gloomy passageway, to a room at the very end . . . through the door they went, into a dark room whose windows were boarded up. . . .
Harry had left the owl’s back . . . he was watching, now, as it fluttered across the room, into a chair with its back to him. . . . There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair . . . both of them were stirring. . . .
One was a huge snake . . . the other was a man . . . a short, balding man, a man with watery eyes and a pointed nose . . . he was wheezing and sobbing on the hearth rug. . . .
“You are in luck, Wormtail,” said a cold, high-pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. “You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He is dead.”
“My Lord!” gasped the man on the floor. “My Lord, I am . . . I am so pleased . . . and so sorry. . . .”
“Nagini,” said the cold voice, “you are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you, after all . . . but never mind, never mind . . . there is still Harry Potter. . . .”
The snake hissed. Harry could see its tongue fluttering.
“Now, Wormtail,” said the cold voice, “perhaps one more little reminder why I will not tolerate another blunder from you. . . .”
“My Lord . . . no . . . I beg you . . .”
The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail.
“Crucio!” said the cold voice.
Wormtail screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body were on fire, the screaming filled Harry’s ears as the scar on his forehead seared with pain; he was yelling too. . . . Voldemort would hear him, would know he was there. . . .
“Harry! Harry!”
Harry opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of Professor Trelawney’s room with his hands over his face. His scar was still burning so badly that his eyes were watering. The pain had been real. The whole class was standing around him, and Ron was kneeling next to him, looking terrified.
“You all right?” he said.
“Of course he isn’t!” said Professor Trelawney, looking thoroughly excited. Her great eyes loomed over Harry, gazing at him. “What was it, Potter? A premonition? An apparition? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Harry lied. He sat up. He could feel himself shaking. He couldn’t stop himself from looking around, into the shadows behind him; Voldemort’s voice had sounded so close. . . .
“You were clutching your scar!” said Professor Trelawney. “You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! Come now, Potter, I have experience in these matters!”
Harry looked up at her.
“I need to go to the hospital wing, I think,” he said. “Bad headache.”
“My dear, you were undoubtedly stimulated by the extraordinary clairvoyant vibrations of my room!” said Professor Trelawney. “If you leave now, you may lose the opportunity to see further than you have ever —”
“I don’t want to see anything except a headache cure,” said Harry.
He stood up. The class backed away. They all looked unnerved.