"Good, we're starting some new subjects today," Daphne said happily as she sat at breakfast with Blaise, Theo and Pansy. Johnny had been in the library since the early hours

"Daph," said Blaise, frowning as he looked over her shoulder, "they've messed up your timetable. 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 Snape," Daphne said.

"But look," said Theo, laughing, "see this morning? Nine o'clock, Divination. And underneath, nine o'clock, Muggle Studies. And --" Theo and Blaise leaned closer to the timetable, disbelieving, "look -- underneath that, Arithmancy, nine o'clock. I mean, I know you're good, but no one's that good. How're you supposed to be in three classes at once?"

"Don't be silly," said Daphne shortly. "Of course I won't be in three classes at once."

"Well then --"

"Pass the marmalade," said Daphne.

"But --"

"Oh, boys, what's it to you if my timetable's a bit full?" Daphne snapped. "I told you, I have fixed it all with Professor Snape."

At that moment Johnny walked into the Great Hall, dropping two books about Advanced Potion making onto the table with a loud thud as he piled a full English breakfast onto his plate.

"Hungover?" Pansy asked, a small, teasing smile on her face as she gently rubbed his back.

"Hmm," Johnny groaned, his friends laughing at him. He placed his free hand on Pansy's knee under the table, the girl was trying to hide her smile behind a goblet of pumpkin juice.

"Okay, I gotta go back to the library," he announced, rising from the table, suddenly a lot more chirpier.

"But you've just got-" Pansy didn't finish her sentence. Before anyone could react, Johnny leaned down and pressed a passionate kiss on Pansy's lips. Daphne, Theo, and Blaise looked on with wide eyes, their mouths agape.

Once the kiss ended, Johnny straightened up, his heart racing, suddenly realising what he had just done. "And uh, Daphne, good to see you this morning," he said, trying to brush off the moment.

Without waiting for a response, he strode over to Daphne, who was still processing Pansy's kiss. Johnny leaned in and gave her the same passionate treatment, his lips meeting hers in a lingering kiss that left Daphne utterly stunned.

"Johnny!" she exclaimed, pulling back, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide in disbelief. "What was that for?"

"Just spreading the love!" he declared with an exaggerated grin. With a laugh and a shake of his head, Johnny turned to Theo, who was still trying to wrap his mind around the scene he had just witnessed. "Theo, my dude!" Johnny called, striding over with a charismatic flair.

Before Theo could respond, Johnny leaned in and planted a a quick kiss on his lips, leaving Theo speechless and momentarily frozen in shock. "What just happened?" he managed to stammer, looking from Pansy to Daphne, who both wore expressions of bewilderment.

"Just thought you needed some affection, mate!" Johnny quipped, his tone light and teasing.

"Blaise, my man!" Johnny turned to his friend, moving toward him with the same enthusiastic energy.

"Don't you fucking dare kiss me," Blaise warned, his eyes narrowing as he raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

Johnny nodded and opted for a quick dap instead, a playful grin on his face. "Always a pleasure."

With that, Johnny strutted out of the Great Hall, leaving a trail of astonished expressions in his wake.

The four, after their bewilderment, quickly headed off to Divination, their first new subject where they found Johnny already waiting.

It was the strangest-looking classroom they 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.

"Where is she?" Blaise whispered, he and Theo looking around as Daphne and Pansy took a seat either side of Johnny.

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."

"Merlin's saggy left nut!" Theo jumped a foot, latching onto Blaise.

"You-Know-Who literally held you as a baby, and she made you jump?" Blaise asked, shoving Theo to the floor.

"Yeah, well..." Theo couldn't think of a good comeback and said: "You're a melt, you melt."

Blaise laughed and helped his best friend up, even helping him dust off his robes before they joined the other three.

Johnny'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.

"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, Johnny, Blaise, Pansy and Theo glanced, grinning, at Daphne, 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 Weasley, 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, two of our numbers will leave us for ever."

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 Pansy and Johnny 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 Johnny as they both opened their books at pages five and six. "What can you see in mine?"

"A load of soggy brown stuff," said Pansy. The heavily perfumed smoke in the room was making them feel sleepy and stupid.

"That sounds so wrong," Johnny grimaced, earning a smack from her.

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

Pansy and Johnny decided to listen to Weasley trying to tell Potter about his.

"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 Johnny, and the Potter and Johnny had to stifle their laughs as Professor Trelawney gazed in their direction.

Weasley peered into Potter'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 and Hermione let out a snort of laughter.

"Let me see that, my dear," she said reprovingly to Weasley, 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 Granger in a loud whisper. Professor Trelawney stared at her.

"Well, they do," said Hermione. "Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who."

"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 Hermione, 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 Raven."

"The what?" said Johnny.

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 Raven, my dear, the Raven!" cried Professor Trelawney, who looked shocked that some hadn't understood. "The giant, spectral Raven that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen -- the second worst omen -- of death!"

Everyone was looking at Potter, everyone except Granger, who had gotten up and moved around to the back of Professor Trelawney's chair.

"I don't think it looks like a Raven," 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 was tilting his head from side to side.

"It looks like a Raven 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 Potter, 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.

"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."

"That was weird," Theo mentioned. As they were about to leave, Johnny touched one of the crystal balls on display and gasped.

His four friends and the Professor whirled around to see Johnny, his eyes had rolled back into his head and he was staring up at the ceiling, his breathing ragged.

"He has the sight!" Professor Trelawney cried, stopping his friends from approaching him.

"Always had to play the hero, didn't you, Potter?" Johnny's voice was cold and distant. He let out a menacing laugh.

And like nothing else happened, Johnny's eyes returned to normal. Glancing between his Professor and his friends, Johnny dashed out of the classroom and down the ladder.

"What was that?" Theo asked when they caught up to Johnny. "Johnny, what did-?"

"Nothing!" Johnny snapped. He took a deep breath, sending an apologetic look Theo's way. "Don't worry about it."

Daphne, Blaise and Theo nodded reluctantly, while Pansy sent him a look to say 'you'll tell me later.'

They made their way towards McGonagall's Transfiguration classroom. Johnny a chose a seat right at the back of the room, Daphne opting to sit next to him, much to Pansy's annoyance. Johnny hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi, 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 Potter again, but nobody spoke. Then Granger 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.

"Potter," said Johnny, finally.

"I see," said Professor McGonagall, fixing Potter with her beady eyes. "Then you should know, Potter, that Sibyll 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."

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

"Sure you're okay, mate?" Blaise asked quietly as Johnny stared at an empty plate, the Potions book levitating in front of him.

"Yeah, fine," Johnny managed a small weak smile. "I'll live."