Trelawney the fraud?

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 86852

I think that Professor Trelawney isn't so much a fraud as a person who, not
unlike Luna Lovegood, believes a lot of things that probably aren't so.  She
_believes in_ her powers as a Seeress, but the real Seeings come only very,
very rarely, and she feels that she has to eke them out with her
"fortune-teller" act.  She does this partly to keep people in awe of her,
and partly to remind them  that she _is_ a Seeress.  (You know, I wonder how
well she'd do with ordinary witches' skills...can she duel her way out of a
paper bag, is she any good at Transfiguration...?)

As for why she's at Hogwarts, I think that not only did Dumbledore want to
protect her from people who'd have wanted to abduct her and torture her for
information, but to expose the students to the methods of Divination, on the
chance that one or another student might "click" with them.  She does seem
to know her stuff about things like crystallomancy (crystal-ball reading),
tea-leaf reading, and other things along those lines, and a familiarity with
them can't hurt and might help.

--Eric, who wanted to punch Umbridge right in her mouth in the scene where
she was sacking Trelawney, despite his belief that Hermione was mostly right
about Trelawney.