"Class is over for today."
Professor McGonagall said it in a flat, emotionless voice.
Then she strode out, leaving a room full of stunned young wizards behind.
"What was that about?"
Ron edged over to Sean and asked in a whisper.
"Class is over,"
Sean explained.
Then he hurried after her.
Before he even reached the corridor, he heard Professor McGonagall's cold voice:
"Dumbledore, from the very beginning I suggested that you ought to assess your professors' teaching ability properly...
instead of allowing a witch who predicts a student's death every single year into Hogwarts—even if she is the great-great-granddaughter of the famous Seer Cassandra Trelawney."
As he stepped through the elm door, Sean saw that Headmaster Dumbledore had appeared there at some point and had been cornered by an angry McGonagall.
"Oh? And who died this year?"
Dumbledore asked with a faint smile, sounding genuinely interested.
McGonagall said nothing, only continued to stare at him coldly.
"Was it Harry, then?"
Apparently McGonagall had come after Dumbledore like this more than once, because the Headmaster sounded entirely used to it.
They were conversing as casually as though they were old friends catching up after years apart. Even when a nervous, excited young wizard greeted Headmaster Dumbledore, he still had time to answer with a kindly smile.
"So I guessed wrong? How unusual..."
Dumbledore turned back just as McGonagall's anger seemed on the verge of bursting out of her head.
"Oh, Minerva, give me one more chance—could it be... our dear Mr. Green—"
Dumbledore spotted Sean.
So did McGonagall. Her expression seemed to soften a little.
Sean paused, a little blank. Whenever he was in front of Professor McGonagall, he always felt as though he somehow shrank by another size.
"Your second lesson is about to begin, child, and I need to discuss certain important matters with Headmaster Dumbledore..."
McGonagall said, doing her best to keep her tone even.
Sean silently turned and left.
Before going, though, fine hairs sprouted from his ears, and a moment later they stood upright.
This was advanced Transfiguration: changing part of his "self" into that of a living creature.
For now, he had a cat's hearing.
"Dumbledore."
Professor McGonagall said it one word at a time.
"Green..."
Dumbledore seemed to drift into a momentary trance.
"You must assess her teaching ability properly. Up to now, I haven't seen her make a single clear, concrete prophecy..."
McGonagall continued her accusation.
Dumbledore, however, seemed not to care in the slightest. Instead, he suddenly asked, quite stiffly:
"We have a serious problem, Minerva.
I need to know—when Professor Trelawney made that prophecy, was she conscious?"
"What?"
McGonagall looked as if she thought she'd misheard him.
"Come with me, Minerva."
Dumbledore said it as he headed toward the castle entrance, where the young wizards were gathering.
Slytherin and Gryffindor still had a Care of Magical Creatures lesson that afternoon.
"You're going to dismiss her?"
McGonagall pressed her lips together.
"No, quite the opposite, Minerva."
Dumbledore passed a suit of armor.
"The truth is, Sybill really did inherit her grandmother's gift..."
"You know perfectly well, Dumbledore—ever since Sybill Trelawney came to this school, she has predicted the death of one student every year. So far, not a single one of them has died—"
McGonagall spoke so fast she sounded like a cat with its tail stepped on.
"That is true most of the time..."
Dumbledore's expression turned very grave.
"But if Sybill had never proved her gift to me, how do you imagine she ever entered Hogwarts Castle in the first place?"
McGonagall opened her mouth, but in the end, not a single word came out.
She looked at Dumbledore in alarm. Only in front of Dumbledore did she ever show that kind of expression.
"We have a serious problem, Minerva..."
Dumbledore did not elaborate. He simply repeated what he had already said.
"Divination is the least rigorous of all branches of magic... true Seers are few and far between..."
McGonagall hurried alongside Dumbledore for quite some time before finally asking:
"Let us hope so... Good afternoon, Mr. Finnegan. Child, may I ask about your lesson?"
Dumbledore stopped in front of Seamus.
"I... of course, Headmaster Dumbledore."
Seamus swallowed hard.
He had no idea how Dumbledore intended to "ask about the lesson," but clearly he couldn't say no.
On the other side, beside the stained-glass window in the corridor,
Sean followed quietly behind them, pretending he was just another student on the way to class.
He was absolutely certain that Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall had misunderstood something, though exactly what remained to be seen.
Dumbledore gazed kindly at the trembling Mr. Finnegan, but as time passed, his expression gradually grew heavier.
"Minerva, we need to go find Sybill. Right now."
Dumbledore turned and left at once.
He walked faster and faster, until finally he simply grabbed the deeply unsettled McGonagall and Apparated.
—inside Hogwarts, where Apparition was impossible.
Was that the Headmaster's privilege?
Sean wondered silently.
But now he understood what had happened.
Professor McGonagall thought Trelawney had predicted his death, while in reality, Trelawney really had made a genuine prophecy about Sean.
And Headmaster Dumbledore had clearly mixed the two up.
In other words, Dumbledore thought it was him...
At the same time, Sean thought of another fact that gave him pause.
Every student whose death Professor Trelawney predicted each year eventually died in the Battle of Hogwarts.
At the North Tower, the silver ladder still hung in place, sunlight spilling across every rung.
"She made another true prophecy..."
Dumbledore murmured.
"Dumbledore—"
Professor McGonagall seemed to sense what he meant, and resisted it at once.
"Oh, Minerva..."
Dumbledore could not bring himself to continue.
"He'll be alright, won't he?"
McGonagall felt the world spin around her.
"I can't lie to you, Minerva..."
Dumbledore could no longer restrain himself. Tears glimmered faintly at the corners of his eyes.
...
Misunderstandings always get cleared up eventually,
Sean thought.
Right now, though, he had to get to Care of Magical Creatures.
Not to listen.
To teach.
Hagrid had reminded him several times to get there early.
"Ron,"
As Sean reached the castle entrance, Hermione happened to be standing right in front of him.
"You heard what Professor McGonagall said, didn't you?"
"I heard it..."
Ron answered, then turned to Harry and asked in a low, serious voice,
"You haven't seen a huge black dog anywhere, have you?"
"I have,"
Harry said.
"We all did. At the Leaky Cauldron."
Ron's jaw dropped with an audible clack.
"It was just a black dog."
Hermione said it calmly.
Ron looked at Hermione as though she had gone mad.
"Hermione, if Harry really saw the Grim, then—that's bad, really bad,"
he said.
"My Uncle Bilius saw one once, and then—then he died twenty-four hours later!"
"Coincidence."
Hermione sounded utterly unconcerned.
"You don't know what you're talking about!"
Ron was starting to flare up.
"Most wizards are scared out of their wits when they see the Grim!"
"That's exactly the point,"
Hermione said in a lofty tone.
"They see the Grim and frighten themselves to death. The Grim isn't an omen of death—it causes death!
Harry's still here with us because he isn't stupid enough to see a Grim and think, right, that's it, I'm done for."
Ron mouthed something at Hermione without making a sound.
Hermione opened her bag, took out her brand-new Arithmancy textbook, and flipped it open.
"I think Divination is complete nonsense,"
she said while leafing through it.
"It's just wild guessing."
"That thing in the cup was not nonsense!"
Ron said hotly.
"You didn't sound nearly so certain when you were calling it a sheep."
Hermione replied coolly.
"Professor Trelawney said you haven't got the right aura!
You're just used to excelling at everything—you can't stand the idea of not being good at something!"
That struck a nerve.
Hermione snapped her Arithmancy book shut with so much force that all the nearby students flinched away.
"If being good at Divination means pretending I can see omens of death in a pile of tea leaves, then maybe I won't study it anymore!
Compared to Arithmancy, that subject is complete rubbish!"
She snatched up her bag and stormed off.
Ron frowned after her retreating figure.
"What's she even talking about?"
he said to Harry.
"She hasn't even had Arithmancy yet."
Hermione had gone off another way to Care of Magical Creatures, and Sean saw her striding angrily across the lawn.
The sky was cloudless, the sunlight bright and clear.
The grass underfoot was still damp after the rain, soft and springy to walk on.
Sean headed down the grassy slope toward Hagrid's hut at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Hagrid was waiting for him outside the cabin.
He was still wearing that moleskin coat, and Fang stood at his feet, looking just as eager as he was to get to class.
"How're you feeling, Sean? Letting Buckbeak out there'll make this a lesson they'll never forget!"
Hagrid rubbed his hands together excitedly.
"I think it's a good idea,"
Sean said.
"Ah—with you saying that..."
Hagrid's eyes lit right up.
"You'll make a very good Care of Magical Creatures professor, Hagrid,"
Sean said with a smile.
Hagrid really did have a wealth of experience when it came to magical creatures.
If Buckbeak didn't attack Malfoy... and if Hagrid could only understand clearly that young wizards were built differently from him, Sean thought he would probably make quite a good teacher.
"But Hagrid, you do need to be careful."
That extra warning was rare coming from Sean.
"Yeah, yeah! I know, I know—you've told me loads of times. I'll be gentler with the little ones."
Hagrid laughed freely, his wild beard quivering all over.
Judging by how cheerful he looked, Sean thought he probably hadn't understood the warning at all.
"Come on, come on, hurry up!"
The students were drawing near.
Hagrid shouted happily:
"I've got something really good for you terday! This lesson's going to be brilliant! Everybody here? Right, then—come on!"
Harry panicked for a moment, thinking Hagrid meant to lead them into the Forbidden Forest.
He'd had far too many unpleasant experiences in there to ever forget them.
So he quickly looked at Sean. The young wizard was following behind the group with a book in his hands, and that steadied Harry like a calming charm.
Fortunately, Hagrid was only leading them around the edge of the forest, and five minutes later they arrived outside a paddock.
There was nothing in it.
"Everyone gather round this fence!"
Hagrid called.
"And make sure you can all see. Right—first of all, you need to open your books—"
"How?"
came Draco Malfoy's cool, lazy voice.
"Huh?"
said Hagrid.
"How are we supposed to open our books?"
Malfoy asked again.
He held up his Monster Book of Monsters, tied shut with string.
The other students got theirs out too.
Some, like Harry, had theirs bound up tightly; others had crammed them into narrow bags or clipped them shut with clamps.
"You mean—you mean none of you managed to open them?"
Hagrid asked, looking a bit disappointed.
The whole class shook their heads.
"Sean, help me out here—"
Hagrid called, sounding almost aggrieved.
"Some things that seem ferocious really just need a gentle touch."
Sean crooked a finger, and one copy of The Monster Book of Monsters flew into his hand. The book snapped its jaws, trying to bite, but Sean simply ran his index finger down the spine. The book shuddered and fell open, lying quietly in his palm.
The young wizards didn't move.
But their attention did not seem to be on the book. It was on Sean's fingers.
"What was that?"
someone asked in a respectful whisper.
"Wandless magic, idiot—"
Malfoy sneered.
"I've never heard of that at Hogwarts..."
someone whispered back.
"That's because no Hogwarts student can cast without a wand..."
Malfoy lifted his chin high.
Sean swept a glance over the students and saw that no one seemed to be paying attention to how to calm the books. He let out a quiet sigh.
Unexpectedly, Malfoy was the first one to get his book under control, then cast Sean a cautious, pleased-with-himself look, as if asking for credit.
Sean gave a slight nod, and only then did the rest of the students remember to settle their books properly.
By that point, Neville's book had already bitten through his shoe.
Hagrid looked even more excited, clearly feeling that his first lesson had gone wonderfully well.
"Excellent!"
Hagrid boomed.
"Right then, you've all got your books open—now what you need is the creature! I'll go get them."
And with that, Hagrid left them there and disappeared into the forest.
"Merlin, this school's finished,"
Malfoy said loudly.
"That idiot's teaching now too. My father'll have a heart attack when he hears—
If you ask me, Mr. Green ought to be the one teaching us directly—"
Even now, the young wizards were astonishingly willing to accept Sean teaching them.
Not one of them had asked why a student was allowed to serve as an assistant at all.
"Malfoy!"
Harry had no idea whether he ought to argue or agree, so all he could do was shout his name.
"Careful, Potter—there's a Dementor behind you—"
Malfoy shot back at once.
~~~
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