She looked down the list they had made in the library.

“I like the look of this one,” she said, “this Impediment Curse. Should slow down anything that’s trying to attack you, Harry. We’ll start with that one.”

The bell rang. They hastily shoved the cushions back into Flitwick’s cupboard and slipped out of the classroom.

“See you at dinner!” said Hermione, and she set off for Arithmancy, while Harry and Ron headed toward North Tower, and Divination. Broad strips of dazzling gold sunlight tell across the corridor from the high windows. The sky outside was so brightly blue it looked as though it had been enameled.

“It’s going to be boiling in Trelawney’s room, she never puts out that fire,” said Ron as they started up the staircase toward the silver ladder and the trapdoor.

He was quite right. The dimly lit room was swelteringly hot. The fumes from the perfumed fire were heavier than ever. Harry’s head swam as he made his way over to one of the curtained windows. While Professor Trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, he opened it an inch or so and settled back in his chintz armchair, so that a soft breeze played across his face. It was extremely comfortable.

“My dears,” said Professor Trelawney, sitting down in her winged armchair in front of the class and peering around at them all with her strangely enlarged eyes, “we have almost finished our work on planetary divination. Today, however, will be an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of Mars, for he is placed most interestingly at the present time. If you will all look this way, I will dim the lights…”

She waved her wand and the lamps went out. The fire was the only source of light now. Professor Trelawney bent down and lifted, from under her chair, a miniature model of the solar system, contained within a glass dome. It was a beautiful thing; each of the moons glimmered in place around the nine planets and the fiery sun, all of them hanging in thin air beneath the glass. Harry watched lazily as Professor Trelawney began to point out the fascinating angle Mars was making to Neptune. The heavily perfumed fumes washed over him, and the breeze from the window played across his face. He could hear an insect humming gently somewhere behind the curtain. His eyelids began to droop…

He was riding on the back of an eagle owl, soaring through the clear blue sky toward an old, ivy covered house set high on a hillside. Lower and lower they flew, the wind blowing pleasantly in Harry’s face, until they reached a dark and broken window in the upper story of the house and entered. Now they were flying along a gloomy passageway, to a room at the very end… through the door they went, into a dark room whose windows were boarded up…

Harry had left the owl’s back… he was watching, now, as it fluttered across the room, into a chair with its back to him… There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair… both of them were stirring…

One was a huge snake… the other was a man… a short, balding man, a man with watery eyes and a pointed nose… he was wheezing and sobbing on the hearth rug…

“You are in luck, Wormtail,” said a cold, high pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. “You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He is dead.”

“My Lord!” gasped the man on the floor. “My Lord, I am… I am so pleased… and so sorry…”

“Nagini,” said the cold voice, “you are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you, after all… but never mind, never mind… there is still Harry Potter…” The snake hissed. Harry could see its tongue fluttering.

“Now, Wormtail,” said the cold voice, “perhaps one more little reminder why I will not tolerate another blunder from you…”

“My Lord… no… I beg you…”

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<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
He took another long draw from his hip flask, and his magical eye swiveled onto the window. The topmost sail of the Durmstrang ship was visible through it.	\|	The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail.

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