The Darkwood Wand

Judgment

"Tell me about the spell," he called down, running his hand over the wood grain. Ordinary oak. Maybe this wouldn't take long.

Trelawney peered up at him through roundgoggles, her stringy, greying hair fanning out under a green turban.

"It is not merely a spell, Mr. Malfoy, it is a spiritual quest," she called back. "Those with minds rooted to the mundane cannot hope to ascend."

Draco grunted. Something had definitely gone wrong. Trelawney might be a mad fraud most of the time, but she was not mundane.

"See, Seeeeee the seven rungs," she continued. "A successful acolyte must embody spiritual virtues. This ladder will only admit the chaste, the disciplined, the kind, the humble ..."

Draco nearly fell off the ladder. He didn't embody any of those qualities, except perhaps discipline, since he hadn't yet hexed Trelawney.

"A rather high bar, don't you think, Professor?" he drawled.

Trelawney blinked up at him, confused, and Draco sighed as he descended. The professor had added too many amendments to the spell, requiring the ladder to make a series of complex moral judgments whenever someone tried to use it, and now the enchantment was working on its own.

Draco grimaced. He sounded like Granger and her "Adventures in Wood."

"We need to know what the ladder's looking for," he told Trelawney. "It's likely applying some random criteria—"

High-pitched gasps and squeals shattered that line of thinking. A pack of girls had entered the Divination landing and spotted Draco on the ladder.

"It's Draco Malfoy!"

"The Death Eater!"

"He'll curse us all!"

"Aaaaaeeee!"

A sudden gust of wind blew from the open window and slammed a door shut. The girls screamed and cowered, clearly expecting the bloodletting to begin.

Draco leaped off the ladder, then scowled at Trelawney. "What's all this?"

The professor beamed. "My Third-Year Divination Club." She turned to the girls. "So sorry, my dears, the spirits will not allow any love prophecies tonight."

"No love prophecies?" one girl squeaked.

"But I brought a lock of Stuart's hair!"

"How will I know what to dooooooo ...?"

The girls continued to protest, their mortal peril forgotten, and a tiny blonde girl burst into tears.

"I wrote Carlton a love note," she blubbered. "Please, Professor Trelawney! I need to know what he will feel!" The girl pulled out a bit of parchment and began reading aloud: "My love is a flower ..."

She rolled through a few verses, and Draco could only stand and gape. He knew exactly what Carlton would feel: outrage, horror and incapacitating nausea. No teenage boy could enjoy reading about his "downy, petal-pink lips."

"That will be quite enough," he interrupted, sounding uncomfortably like his father to his own ears. "Professor Trelawney is having a little trouble with her ladder." An idea came to him. "Why don't you all try to enter the classroom?"

The girls all looked at the Seer, who nodded encouragingly, then they tried the ladder one by one. Two girls were rejected, one of them the note writer.

"Doooooomed," Trelawney lamented. She pointed to the two girls. "Spiritually barren ..."

Both girls burst into tears: "Noooooo!"