Chapter 269: Chapter 269: Unanimous Prophecy (Edited)
Hermione's little expression, in Tom's eyes, was extremely cute and endearing, and he couldn't help but laugh.
"What are you laughing at?" Hermione kicked Tom's knee under the table again. "This tea is too hot!"
This time Tom was quick enough to catch Hermione's extended foot. Hermione was horrified and struggled vigorously, but she couldn't free herself from Tom's "grasp."
"What do you want?" She didn't dare to speak loudly, so she lowered her voice.
"What does it mean? Miss Granger, you need to drink your tea now." Tom acted as if nothing was happening, but his hands were moving under the table.
With one hand, he grabbed Hermione's ankle, and with the other, he took off her little leather shoes from her feet.
"No..." Hermione's face turned red. She hadn't expected Tom to be so bold, and she was glad that the two of them were sitting in a corner of the Divination classroom, so as long as they didn't make too much noise, they wouldn't attract attention.
Feeling the softness in his hand, Tom couldn't help but take advantage of the situation and tickle Hermione's foot with his fingers. The small depression in the center of the foot has a sensitive spot, so Tom rubbed his finger on Hermione's sole, immediately causing her body to ache and go numb.
"Stop... I give up... I won't kick you..." Hermione's resistance time was shorter than France's, and she opted to surrender and disarm herself directly. Tom also stopped, but he not only let her go, but also took off Hermione's socks.
"Swear, so that you don't surrender and rebel." Tom said with a sneering smile, pointing at the teacup in front of Hermione. He hung Hermione's little leather shoes on his fingers under the table and released her feet.
Like a startled octopus, Hermione quickly retracted her feet, then turned slightly to the side and put her shoes back on. She shot Tom a fierce glare when she was done.
The tea had cooled down a bit after all this. Despite her reluctance, Hermione drank from her cup as quickly as she could and disposed of the tea leaves as he had asked.
"Take it, you can keep it! No need to return it." Hermione threw the tea leaves at Tom, staring at him with a ruthless gaze. Only the slight reddening of her cheeks made the threat less oppressive.
Tom also handed Hermione his tea.
Hermione grabbed the teacup and looked at it.
"As I see it, you're about to be struck by lightning, not just lightning, but you're about to tumble down the stairs and break a few bones... well, you're about to have a bloody disaster!"
"Hey, hey! Don't be blind!" Tom pursed his lips.
He glanced at Hermione's teacup, froze for a moment, and then compared it to 'Unraveling the Mists of the Future'. "Bloody disaster?"
He froze: Was Hermione going to have a bloodbath?
He reread the tea leaves in the cup and found that, after doing a cross-reference, the tea was giving him the hint that Hermione would have a bloody disaster, but she would be safe, just a little uncomfortable.
"Take care," Tom shrugged, but he only received a blank look from Hermione. As she listened to Tom, Hermione really wanted to turn the teacup she was holding upside down on his head.
At that moment, Professor Trelawney, who had just been drawn in by the commotion between Harry and Ron, spoke up. The two of them were laughing hysterically in her class and not behaving properly, which puzzled her a little.
"Let me see your tea, dears," she said as she quickly approached Ron and took the cup from Harry. Seeing that the professor was about to do something on her own, the class quieted down and watched silently as Professor Trelawney performed the tea leaf reading.
Tom also watched the act with astonishment.
Professor Trelawney finished her reading with a glance at the tea leaves, and as she turned her attention away from the cup, she felt Tom's gaze on her.
An idea struck her suddenly.
"Mr. Yodel," she said as she placed the teacup in front of Tom, "What do you see in the cup?"
Tom stared at the cup, the tea leaves in it resembling an eagle.
"An eagle," he replied honestly.
Professor Trelawney seemed perplexed. She had only given him the tea on a whim to see how the peculiar wizard would interpret it, but to her surprise, he immediately told her the image he had seen.
"Yes, that's right, you have a nemesis." She looked at Harry.
"Everyone knows that Harry has a mortal enemy," Ron muttered. But Professor Trelawney ignored him, her attention now more focused on Tom, whose reading had just caught her attention.
"Look again." She rotated the teacup for Tom, and the tea leaves shaped like an eagle inside took on the form of a stick.
"Oh, bludgeon! An attack!" Upon Tom's response, Professor Trelawney exclaimed, "My child, it is exactly what I saw too!"
Upon these words, the students in the classroom were startled. If what Professor Trelawney had just said could have been a trick, then Tom's situation couldn't be explained by a trick. Unless Professor Trelawney had been so audacious as to echo what Tom had said, then they had truly seen the same pattern!
And the sign Tom was allegorizing matched Harry's experience to a great extent: he had an old enemy, Voldemort, and had just been attacked on the Hogwarts Express. The news had almost reached Hogwarts.
"Well, my dear, don't say what the next figure is just yet..." Trelawney brought the teacup closer with excitement. "Here's the deal, I will write down the answer on a piece of paper, and you write down what you see, and we'll compare. Come on--"
She handed Tom a quill and a small piece of parchment.
Tom wrote down the pattern he saw on the paper, and Professor Trelawney combined their writings. At that moment, the other students craned their necks, trying to see the answer on the parchment before the rest of the class... even Hermione.
A thud was heard as Neville accidentally knocked over the table, but no one cared, at most they glanced at him and then averted their gaze, waiting for Professor Trelawney to reveal the final answer.
Neville's ears turned red as he hurried to clean up the mess.
At that moment, Professor Trelawney glanced at the words on the two parchments, exclaimed, and sat back down in her chair, covering her chest with one hand and closing her eyes.
Both parchments read: Skull and Bones: Harry is in danger.
Chapter 270: Chapter 270: Extraordinary Talent (Edited)
Everyone stood up and slowly approached Professor Trelawney, looking at the two parchments on the table. They all shuddered when they saw the two words on the parchment, written in different handwriting but with the same meaning—it didn't seem like a coincidence.
Even Ron looked at Harry and began to suspect.
"An acute observation, an astonishing talent!" exclaimed Professor Trelawney in a sing-song tone. "Boy, I've been teaching at Hogwarts for fourteen years, and you're the most gifted student I've seen in Divination."
The young wizards emitted a sound of uncertainty, amazed by Professor Trelawney's appraisal of Tom. It was the first time they had seen a professor praise a student in such a way.
Hermione also made a strange sound, like a cat with a ball of yarn in its throat. She was perplexed by what had just happened, beyond her knowledge.
It was impossible for Tom to be in collusion with Professor Trelawney, so they were truly doing the same reading. Did Tom really have the gift of prophecy? Hermione thought to herself, but it wouldn't be good if the exam answers were exactly the same as the liar's, would it?
Could it be that Professor Trelawney had a genuine talent? A thought crossed Hermione's mind. She couldn't reach a conclusion, but she was sure of one thing: Tom and Professor Trelawney must have roughly the same level of prophetic talent.
Professor Trelawney seemed extremely pleased, and she even had the feeling that she had found her soulmate—at last, after so many years, a student who could keep up with her thoughts.
"Yodel, isn't it?" Although she didn't know him, Professor Trelawney recognized all the students in the class. After all, at the end of each year, she asked Dumbledore for a list of the students who had enrolled in her class for the following year, and then she noted their faces and names.
"No need to continue with other classes, with your talent, you should distance yourself from the hustle and bustle of the school and dedicate yourself to Divination. With your talent, you could be the next seer!"
The students around couldn't help but tremble. A "seer" is a wizard who is born with the ability to see the future through the Inner Eye. All prophecies made by a seer are recorded by the Ministry of Magic and stored in the Hall of Prophecies in the Department of Mysteries.
The title of "seer" carries a lot of weight in the magical world. The only two surviving prophets are Cassandra Vablatsky, author of "Unfogging the Future," and Gellert Grindelwald, the first Dark Lord. One of them is elderly, and the other is in prison.
As for Professor Trelawney, I'm afraid she won't be called a prophet until she has made a powerful enough prophecy.
To leave other courses and study Divination? From Professor Trelawney's point of view, this was like "Focus on one thing and you'll succeed." But in Tom's eyes, it would be wasting his entire life.
Learning Divination won't save a wizard. Or, to put it more elegantly, it wouldn't help him in his future career. In Tom's opinion, Divination was the biochemical subject of the magical world. Is biochemistry and civil engineering important? Of course, they are, but would you want to study them? Or if you had the chance to do it again, would you? Would you want your child to major in materials, civil engineering, or biology?
This course is a trap! Tom knew exactly how bad Professor Trelawney had been before meeting Dumbledore. It was best to avoid getting into that pit. He wanted to learn Divination, but he didn't want to learn just Divination.
So he shook his head. "Professor, I would prefer to be an adventurer."
Professor Trelawney sighed, "The North Tower of Hogwarts Castle will always be open to you... if your eyes haven't been blinded by then."
An indifferent Professor Trelawney lost interest in continuing to read. She was about to return the teacup to Harry when, as she grabbed it, she took another look at the remains inside.
She gasped, screamed, and dropped the cup from her hand. Dean Thomas, who was beside her, was quick enough to catch the teacup, which was on the verge of shattering.
"Professor, what did you see?" he cautiously asked.
Professor Trelawney, her face pale, took the teacup from Dean's hand and remained silent for a while before saying, "I see a Grim. Did you see a Grim?" She looked at Harry, piercing him with her large eyes, causing Harry to shudder.
But there was a problem—what was a "Grim"?
Harry wasn't the only one who didn't understand.
Professor Trelawney was as surprised as if she had met an Egyptian who didn't know Nasser.
"Ominous! It's a bad omen! I just saw a large dog lurking in the cemetery in your teacup. That's the most sinister omen, the omen of death!"
All eyes were on Harry, and Harry himself felt as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been poured over him, recalling the large black dog he had seen after fleeing "home," remembering his encounter on the train, remembering the man whose name he couldn't even mention...
But Hermione was a little different from the others. She addressed Professor Trelawney.
"Professor, does divination only show bad omens?" She didn't let herself be swayed by the atmosphere in the classroom; instead, she calmly analyzed, "Professor, you only saw bad omens. Is there any good news?"
Professor Trelawney looked at her coldly and said, "You have no sense of the future, my dear, since I see a small aura around you; your questions confirm it. I'm sorry to say, but this state of yours can have a profound effect on your future relationships..."
Hermione tried to argue, but Tom tugged at her sleeve to calm her down for a moment—Harry was about to lose his temper.
Professor Trelawney was bored, and it was time to end the class, so she declared it over.
Once the class was over, Hermione and Tom deliberately sought a corner where no one else was present, and she rummaged around her neck, taking out the golden Time-Turner necklace.
She brought it closer to Tom, also placing the chain around his neck and flipping the hourglass.
Time began to reverse.
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