Reflections - Mattheo Riddle

Permission

"I suppose this is relevant?" Snape asked, his black eyes narrowed. "Oh yes," said Professor Umbridge. "Yes, the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of teachers' — er — backgrounds. . . ."

She turned away, walked over to Pansy Parkinson and began questioning her about the lessons. Snape looked around at Kirra and their eyes met for a second. Kirra hastily dropped her gaze to her potion, which was now congealing foully and giving off a strong smell of burned rubber.

"No marks then, Potter," said Snape maliciously, emptying Kirra's cauldron with a wave of his wand. "You will write me an essay on the correct composition of this potion, indicating how and why you went wrong, to be handed in next lesson, do you understand?"

"Yes," said Kirra furiously, her eyes rolling as she looked away from him. Snape had already given them homework, and she had Quidditch practice this evening; this would mean another couple of sleepless nights.

 It did not seem possible that she had awoken that morning feeling very happy. All she felt now was a fervent desire for this day to end as soon as possible.

"Maybe I'll skive off Divination," she said glumly as they stood again in the courtyard after lunch, the wind whipping at the hems of robes and brims of hats. "I'll pretend to be ill and do Snape's essay instead, then I won't have to stay up half the night. . . ."

"You'll get all the work done love and If you don't, Ill finish it off," said Mattheo softly.

"There's just so much Theo, and I'm so tired and I have train-!" said Kirra with a huff

"Don't you worry that pretty little head of yours," said Mattheo softly. "I'll do your potions homework, and you do the other stuff okay?"

"Thanks love," Kirra mumbled softly, standing up on her tippy toes and pulling his face down to kiss him on the cheek, "you're the best."

Half an hour later Kirra took her seat in the hot, over-perfumed atmosphere of the Divination classroom feeling angry at everybody. Professor Trelawney was handing out copies of The Dream Oracle yet again; she would surely be much better employed doing Snape's punishment essay than sitting here trying to find meaning in a lot of made-up dreams.

It seemed, however, that she was not the only person in Divination who was in a temper. Professor Trelawney slammed a copy of the Oracle down on the table between Kirra and Theodore and swept away, her lips pursed; she threw the next copy of the Oracle at Mattheo and Jasper, narrowly avoiding Jasper's head, and thrust the final one into Neville's chest with such force that he slipped off his pouf.

"Well, carry on!" said Professor Trelawney loudly, her voice high pitched and somewhat hysterical. "You know what to do! Or am I such a substandard teacher that you have never learned how to open a book?"

The class stared perplexedly at her and then at each other. Kirra, however, thought she knew what was the matter. As Professor Trelawney flounced back to the high-backed teacher's chair, her magnified eyes full of angry tears, she leaned her head closer to Theodores's and muttered, "I think she's got the results of her inspection back."

"Professor?" said Parvati Patil in a hushed voice (she and Lavender had always rather admired Professor Trelawney). "Professor, is there anything — er — wrong?"

"Wrong!" cried Professor Trelawney in a voice throbbing with emotion. "Certainly not! I have been insulted, certainly. . . . Insinuations have been made against me. . . . Unfounded accusations levelled . . . but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not. . . ."

She took a great shuddering breath and looked away from Parvati, angry tears spilling from under her glasses.

"I say nothing," she choked, "of sixteen years' devoted service. . . . It has passed, apparently, unnoticed. . . . But I shall not be insulted, no, I shall not!"

"But Professor, who's insulting you?" asked Parvati timidly.

"The establishment!" said Professor Trelawney in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice. "Yes, those with eyes too clouded by the Mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know . . . Of course, we Seers have always been feared, always persecuted. . . . It is — alas — our fate. . . ."

She gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, and then pulled a small, embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, into which she blew her nose very hard with a sound like Peeves blowing a raspberry. Theodore sniggered. Lavender shot him a disgusted look.

"Professor," said Parvati, "do you mean . . . is it something Professor Umbridge . . . ?"

"Do not speak to me about that woman!" cried Professor Trelawney, leaping to her feet, her beads rattling and her spectacles flashing. "Kindly continue with your work!"

And she spent the rest of the lesson striding among them, tears still leaking from behind her glasses, muttering what sounded like threats under her breath.

". . . may well choose to leave . . . the indignity of it . . . on proba- tion . . . we shall see . . . how she dares . . ."

"You and Umbridge have got something in common," Kirra told Teddy quietly when they left the room to go to Defense Against the Dark Arts. "She obviously reckons Trelawney's an old fraud too. . . . Looks like she's put her on probation."

They sat down in DADA, pulling out their stuff.  Umbridge entered the room wearing her black velvet bow and an expression of great smugness.

"Good afternoon, class."

"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," they chanted drearily. "Wands away, please . . ."
But there was no answering flurry of movement this time; nobody had bothered to take out their wands.

"Please turn to page thirty-four of Defensive Magical Theory and read the third chapter, entitled 'The Case for Non-Offensive Responses to Magical Attack.' There will be —"

"— no need to talk," Kirra, Theodore, Mattheo and Jasper said together under their breaths.

*

 They all sat down in the Slytherin common room, it was late and they were all tired. Kirra was especially exhausted due to just finishing practice. Kirra took her Divination essay reluctantly from her bag, and set to work.

Everyone else had gone up to bed and it was just them. It was very hard to concentrate; even though she knew that Sirius was not due in the fire until much later she could not help glancing into the flames every few minutes just in case.  Kirra, who was making very little progress with her Div essay, decided to give it up for the night. As she put her books away, Jasper, who was dozing lightly in an armchair, gave a muffled grunt, awoke, looked blearily into the fire and said, "Sirius!"