Is Professor Trelawney a fraud?

[catherine at cator-manor.demon.co.uk]

No: HPFGUIDX 25507

I've just read Luke's superb post on references to the Grim.  
Excellent, but I am not sure I totally agree that Professor Trelawney 
is a complete fraud.

Firstly, she does have some psychic poweres, as she has had at least 
two real predictions that we know of.

Secondly, I do think that her constantly seeing the grim isn't 
indicative of what a fraud she is, but that she does actually see a 
large black dog in Harry's tealeaves/crystal ball, but she interprets 
in wrongly, by actually presuming that the only thing a large black 
dog could be is the grim.

One may put this down to coincidence, and the fact that she is 
determined to predict Harry's death - but surely there are lots of 
other death omens she could have chosen, not just the grim.  This 
makes me think that she did see the dog, and therefore isn't as 
fraudulent as most of us believe.

I think the jury's still out on PT.  I also think that JKR is 
deliberatly being very ambiguous about it.  It is an undisputable 
fact, however, that Professor Trelawney does pick up on certain 
things - how else would she have picked that particular date for 
Lavender?  The thing Lavender was dreading might not have been the 
death of her rabbit, but hearing about the death of her rabbit - or 
any bad news from home, for that matter.  Perhaps a relative is ill 
and she was worried?  Therefore Professor Trelawney could have known 
that Lavender was going to get some bad news from home - just not 
what it was.

This makes me think that JKR is playing a game with us - she is 
letting Professor Trelawney get just enough right for us to worry 
about whether it was Ron or Harry who got up first from the Christmas 
dinner table.  If this is true, and everyone has money on Dumbledore 
dying before the end of the series, he cannot be the first to die, as 
Harry and Ron left the table before him.  In that case, my money has 
to be on Ron.  Make sense?

Catherine
BTW, I can see the early stirrings of a shipping war hitting our 
list.  Is anyone besides me running for cover at this point?!