Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.
Today, we’re going to be discussing Sybill Trelawney and her role as a seer.
Depending on how you look at it, Sybill Patricia Trelawney is one of the finest seers of her age.
And she’s actually the one who correctly prophesied the fate
that both Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort would share.
But even though she correctly divined the destiny of the Chosen One,
Trelawney seems to get a bad rap.
And it only takes one quick glance at her to see why. With frizzled hair… an ancient,
dust covered purse… and glasses as thick as coke bottles… Professor Trelawney doesn’t
really give the impression that she’s able to see much of anything… let alone the future.
But you might be surprised to know that this humble divination professor from Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry correctly foresaw dozens of predictions and prophecies.
And today, we’re going to take a look at the majority of them.
When we take a deep dive into Professor Trelawney’s life,
it’s hard to look past the very first true prophecy she made.
While sitting alongside Albus Dumbledore, in Aberforth’s Hog’s Head Inn, Trelawney
foresaw the future, and the fate of Lord Voldemort. The Prophecy reads
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…. Born to those who have thrice
defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal,
but he will have power the Dark Lord Knows not…
and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…
the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”
To most, this was an obvious premonition about Harry Potter and Tom Riddle.
Born in July in 1980, Harry Potter was the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,
and once Lord Voldemort heard about it, he wasted no time. He frantically journeyed to the Potter’s
residence, aimed his wand at Harry, and cast a spell to end the infant’s life.
But it backfired. In later years, Dumbledore would remark that it was Voldemort’s own actions,
his own killing curse, that was his undoing.
And that if the Dark Lord had done nothing at all, perhaps the prophecy wouldn’t have come true.
As Harry grew, and eventually enrolled in Hogwarts, this prophecy fell under further
scrutiny, as there was another child born in the 7th month of that year: Neville Longbottom. He,
too, could have been the one to end Voldemort’s life, as he fit the requirements that Trelawney’s
prophecy laid out. But while reflecting on the possibility of Neville being the Chosen One,
Dumbledore only said that Voldemort’s own actions decided the prophecy… and in the end,
Voldemort decided to attack Harry, which meant Harry would be the one to fulfill the prophecy.
After that meeting, in Hogsmeade, early in 1980,
Trelawney went on to work full time at Hogwarts. During her time there, the students all marveled
at her ability to seemingly fail at predicting the future, and perceiving things in general.
But in 1994, she made another striking prophecy. In the midst of a class,
Trelawney’s body was consumed by a wave of visions, and her voice transformed, almost
as if it were someone else’s entirely. As a vessel for the future, Trelawney loudly proclaimed what
she saw to the gathering of third year students: "It will happen tonight. The Dark Lord lies alone
and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years.
Tonight, before midnight... the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master.
The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was.
Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master…”
This of course was about the former member of the Order of the Phoenix, and secret Death Eater,
Peter Pettigrew. Not long after Trelawney's frightening vision, Peter Pettigrew stopped
hiding in the form of Ron Weasley’s pet, Scabbers, and revealed who he truly was.
Now… when we take a fine-toothed comb through the
rest of Professor Trelawney’s divinations of the future,
it’s hard to find much of consequence. Even Albus Dumbledore seemed to regularly enjoy teasing
Trelawney, and even poked fun of her abilities when discussing her with Harry and other students.
Besides her Great Prophecy, about Harry and Voldemort,
and her second one, regarding Peter Pettigrew, Professor Trelawney’s later visions
weren’t too remarkable…. Or, at least, not seriously considered.
But, they were accurate.
During class, she was especially insightful when it came to Neville Longbottom. At several points
in time, she was able to correctly predict what the Gryffindor boy would do next…
like breaking a cup or arriving late to class.
Although this might have just been common sense, considering how clumsily Neville seemed
to navigate life in Hogwarts, it might have also been evidence of her divination powers.
But Professor Trelawney didn’t limit her predictions to mild observations. She also
was able to predict the love lives of her students. Once, when she saw the future of a
young Gryffindor girl named Parvati Patil, she warned the student about a man with red-hair.
Patil waited… and waited… and as the days turned to weeks, and the weeks turned to
months… Patil must have thought it was another wild raving that Trelawney had become known for.
But after a few years, Ron Weasely ended up dating Patil’s best friend,
one date, anyway, which caused a riff between the two.
To those that discredit Professor Trelawney’s gifts of divination,
this prediction might seem pretty bizarre. After all,
if Parvati Patil waited her whole life for a random red-haired man to do something upsetting,
then she surely would have experienced something to justify Trelawney’s prophecy.
At some point in the future, if a red-haired man said a rude remark, or accidentally shut a door in
her face, could Patil point to that and claim it was evidence of Trelawney’s powers of foresight?
This type of criticism… that Trelawney’s visions were so broad,
that they were inevitably right… is hard to contend with.
But we simply have to look back at her two most powerful prophecies,
and we can see that surely Trelawney possessed some gift for seeing the future.
At various other times, events unfolded within Hogwarts that seemed to add more and more evidence
to Trelawney’s claim that she could see the future.
Once, the same girl that Ron would date, received a notice that her pet hare had died.
Trelawney predicted that Lavendar would receive bad news on that very day,
and her pet’s death seems to make it true.
At some point, Trelawney claimed that a member of their class would be leaving them forever.
Many of the students thought this meant that someone would move, or worse,
that they would die. But later in the year, Hermione simply un-enrolled in the course. It was
a far less dramatic turn of events than Trelawney had made it seem, but it came true, nonetheless.
But, the consequences of these unofficial prophecies weren’t always so shallow. At
one point, while eating lunch on Christmas day, Professor Trelawney looked at her fellow staff
members, and declared that the first teacher to stand up would also be the first one to die.
That came true, as Albus Dumbledore eventually rose from the table,
and he would give his life in a ruse to trick the Dark Lord, Voldemort.
And when the new headmistress, Dolores Umbridge, took over Hogwarts, Professor Trelawney made
another ambiguous, but grim, prediction. She claimed that Umbridge’s future was dark…
which really wasn't’ all that interesting. Given how remarkably broad Trelawneys’ prophesying
skills seemed to be, Umbridge decided to remove her from her position as Divination professor.
But in later years, Umbridge’s fate, imprisoned amongst the Centaurs,
and later, in the cells of Azkaban, seemed to redeem Trelawney.
Sometime later, shortly before Dumbledore’s death, Trelawney sensed the headmaster’s doom yet again.
Her mind was plagued with images of a tall tower,
and a bolt of lightning. On the night of his death, Dumbledore was struck with the
green bolt of the killing curse, which matched Trelawney’s prediction entirely.
While the exact time and location was likely to move, Dumbledore himself would eventually ask
Snape to kill him to further their cause, and help bring them one step closer to defeating Voldemort.
When we look back at the life, and predictions, of Professor Trelawney, it’s certainly tough to
make sense of it all. Just like her critics, you might be tempted to point to all the wild
claims the diviner has made through the years, and use that as evidence of her lack of skills.
And I’m not sure many people would blame you for it.
If it weren't for her other-wordly premonition, while sitting with Albus Dumbledore at Hogsmeade…
nobody in the wizarding world would have ever taken her seriously. But even though that
prophecy, and a few others, would eventually come true.. Trelawney’s own penchant for
ambiguous visions, and seemingly flat-out wrong predictions, would always stain her reputation.
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Until next time
Remember
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live