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Lydia breathed deeply in before she opened the trapdoor. "Professor Trewlaney?" She tried not to choke on the incense and squinted through the smoke. "I need to speak with you."
Silence."Professor Trewlaney?" She peered into the lightly smokey room, trying to see past the hanging scarves and bead curtains. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she stepped further into the classroom. "Professor?" she breathed in a little too sharply and choked on the scented air. By the time she was able to stop coughing her eyes were watering."So you have come at last." Professor Trewlaney's quavery voice seemed to echo in the tower room but when her eyes cleared she wasn't surprised to see the woman directly in front of her, peering down through her glasses. (Really, any other frames would compliment her face shape so much better.) "You have accepted your doom then, my dear."Lydia gritted her teeth and straightened. She'd long since perfected the art of looking down on people several centimeters taller than herself. "I've accepted," she said, holding onto her composure by her fingertips. "That I have to do
something about my abilities. They aren't going to stop."For a moment, Trewlaney looked almost sad. "No they won't." Lydia nodded sharply in acknowledgement."So I would like to take Divination this year as an O.W.L."Trewlaney hummed and brushed past her towards a shelf of tea cups. "The Ministry, with its mundane requirements, insists that there be bookwork," she snorted contemptuously, "completed which you will not have the necessary background for, since you did not take my classes in your third and fourth years."Lydia opened her mouth to reply but Trewlaney continued as if she hadn't noticed. "However your gift should compensate for that. Those whose inner eyes are blind do not understand that what we can do cannot be so easily quantified.
You want tea of course."In an odd sort of way, Trewlaney's
air-headed dithering was almost comforting. At any rate, it was better than the sideways looks and hurriedly hushed whispers she was getting from most of the student body. "Yes, please."Trewlaney seated herself at one of the tables and motioned for Lydia to join her. "Death
sings for you." She said in a voice that Lydia thought was supposed to sound mystical but mostly sounded breathless. "It is not something meant for mortal ears." Despite her flightiness, she poured the tea into the mismatched cups with a practiced and graceful hand. "It would probably be wise for us to meet outside of class at times. Gifts like ours require guidance so that they may blossom to their full potential.""My potential is not what I am concerned with," Lydia said somewhat coldly as she lifted her teacup. "What I want is to not go running naked in the Forbidden Forest again. And if I could not find another dead body that would be nice.""The greatest of us are often ridiculed for what our gifts compel us to say and do." Trewlaney said and Lydia had the suspicion that the professor hadn't really
listened to
what she'd said. "Such is the burden we must bear." She sighed and sipped her tea.There was so much incense in the air Lydia could barely taste the tea but she drained the cup anyway. "I shall see you in class then, Professor." She glanced down at the tea leaves before she left and really wished she hadn't. Or that she hadn't read the book on tessomancy she'd checked out from the library.
It could be a skull for suffering. But it almost looked like it was screaming.