“How—dare—you—aaaaargh!”

“How—dare—you—aaaaargh!”

The noise was coming from a corridor nearby; Harry sprinted towards it, his wand at the ready, hurtled round another corner and saw Professor Trelawney sprawled upon

the floor, her head covered in one of her many shawls, several sherry bottles lying beside her, one broken.

“Professor—”

Harry hurried forwards and helped Professor Trelawney to her feet. Some of her glittering beads had become entangled with her glasses. She hiccoughed loudly, patted her

hair and pulled herself up on Harry's helping arm.

“What happened, Professor?”

“You may well ask!” she said shrilly. “I was strolling along, brooding upon certain Dark portents I happen to have glimpsed ...”

But Harry was not paying much attention. He had just noticed where they were standing: there on the right was the tapestry of dancing trolls and, on the left, that

smoothly impenetrable stretch of stone wall that concealed—

“Professor, were you trying to get into the Room of Requirement?”

“... omens I have been vouchsafed—what?”

She looked suddenly shifty.

“The Room of Requirement,” repeated Harry. “Were you trying to get in there?”

“I—well—I didn't know students knew about—”

“Not all of them do,” said Harry. “But what happened? You screamed ... it sounded as though you were hurt...”

“I—well,” said Professor Trelawney, drawing her shawls around her defensively and staring down at him with her vastly magnified eyes. “I wished to—ah—deposit

certain – um—personal items in the Room ...” And she muttered something about “nasty accusations".

“Right,” said Harry, glancing down at the sherry bottles. “But you couldn't get in and hide them?”

He found this very odd; the Room had opened for him, after all, when he had wanted to hide the Half-Blood Prince's book.

“Oh, I got in all right,” said Professor Trelawney, glaring at the wall. “But there was somebody already in there.”

“Somebody in—? Who?” demanded Harry. “Who was in there?”