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, "Potter! The dementors are coming, Potter! Woooooooooo!"

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

"New third-year course schedules," said George, passing then, 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 runing 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'd 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.

"Yes you wish. Sorry boys but that win is ours."

Fred, George, and Harry look up to see a smiling Karina. She sits down beside Fred who is across from George beside Harry. Hermione who is on Fred's other side looks across him and glares at Karina.

"Shouldn't you be with your other Slytherins? Making fun of and hexing people."

"I've already had my share last year, Granger. This year is a brand new Karina Grey. Unless you'd like to volunteer-"

"No thanks." Hermione says rudely then starts to pile up her plate.

"Oh well your loss. I've been studying over the summer. Learned quite a few new tricks." Karina smiles as the boys all give her a small grin.

"You study?" Hermione says sarcastically while looking at her biscuit.

"I'll let that one slide Granger."  Karina stands up and moves past Fred then leans down beside Hermione's ear. "Only this once so I'd watch your back if I was you." She whispers then stands up.

"Oh and your front." She winks, waves goodbye at the boys, then walks away to the table.

Hermione watches as all the boys stare at her swishing hips. Grabbing her textbook she hits each one on the head. 

"Ouch Hermione!!" 

"Are you crazy woman?!"

"What was that for?"

"You know... I don't know what you guys see in her." Hermione stuffs jam in her mouth then chomps on her bread angrily. 

"She's hot." Dean Thomas says from beside Ron.

"He's not wrong." George shrugs, then Hermione grabs her book again making him hold up his hands as if saying 'I surrender.'

"Geez women." Fred smirks.

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Karina's POV

As I walk over to my table I feel people staring. I quickly glance over my shoulder to see the table of Gryffindors looking at me as I walk away.

Oh boys can't live with them, can't live without them.

I sit down at my usual seat ignoring the crowd as Draco continues to make fun of the Gryffindors. Honestly I could care less what he does, I guess just sometimes he takes it a little too far.

"Dray could you say goodbye to your little friends so we could talk?"

Draco glances over at me, who is giving him puppy dog eyes, then chuckles to himself before shooing everyone away. "I'll finish the story later."

Everyone groans then walks to their seats. Draco gets down from the table and sits beside me. He grabs my hand and kisses right where my ring is then the middle of my hand. 

"Sorry love what do you want to talk about?"

"Nothing I just wanted to eat in peace without hearing the story of the train all over again. You do remember that I was there? It was very scary Dray. I would like to go at least a few hours without hearing about it and re-living it please."

"I'm sorry Karina I completely forgot. Of course whenever you are around I will not mention it. Swear on my life."

I hit his chest making him say ouch then look at me confused, "Don't say that Draco. Don't swear on yourself.  You know how I get."

"Everything is going to be fine love." He kisses my forehead then lets go of my hand and starts to put food on his plate.

"I hope so."

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3rd Person's POV

"Sibyll Trelawney, Divination teacher," Pansy 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 Karina's feet. Everyone got quiet.

"After you," said Karina, grinning while looking at Pansy. 

"Why me?"

"You asked." Karina shrugs then moves to the side of the ladder.

Pansy groans then starts to climb the ladder first with the rest of the group following. They 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.

Draco appeared at Karina's shoulder as the class assembled around them, all talking in whispers.

"Where is she?" Daphne 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 last round table which so happened to be by the Slytherins. Karina and Draco sat together while Daphne and Gregory sat with one another, leaving Pansy, Blaise, and Vincent to a 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," she said suddenly to Karina, who almost toppled off her chair. "Is your grandmother well?"

"I don't know... I would like to think so," said Karina tremulously.

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

"What?" Karina gasps then looks down at her hands.

"You know it my dear. You have felt that something is wrong for the longest. I'm sorry to say that your nightmares may be true." Everyone stares at Karina who has said nothing and not moved an inch. Harry feels his heart sink as he watches a small almost invisible tear fall into her teacup. Draco whispers to her but she doesn't say or do anything making him glare at the teacher. Professor Trelawney pats Karina on the shoulder for a moment with sad eyes then continues 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 over.

"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.

"Karina are you okay?" Draco says while rubbing her hand.

"No.  You heard her Dray. My nightmares will come true. I have three specific nightmares that I have dreamt over and over again. I have been feeling that bad things are going to happen. Now she says that they will..."

"Don't believe everything she says love. She's crazy." 

Karina just shakes her head as her eyes start to water thinking about her three very specific very detailed very heartbreaking nightmares.

"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 as Professor Trelawney gazed in their direction. She walks over to them and tells Ron to tell the class what he sees in Harry's cup.

"Right, you've got a crooked sort of cross... " Ronconsulted 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 happy about it...."

"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. 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- it is-"

"Taking the form of a giant spectral dog, it's among the darkest omens in our world. It's an omen...of death." Karina reads from her book as everyone just stares at Harry's teacup.

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. Now now Pansy let's be nice."

Pansy looks up from her conversation with Daphne confused, "I didn't even say anything."

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.

"God you're so dumb. Were you dropped on your head as a child or do you really not und- Ohhhh sorry." Pansy says frowning more confused as ever.

"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."