Divination

> Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future.
>
> Sybill Trelawney, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

**Divination** was a branch of magic that involved attempting to foresee the future, or gather insights into past, present and future events, through various rituals and tools.

Divination was different from other branches of magic in that it required the practitioner to possess a natural aptitude. One could not simply study hard and expect to get better at it, if a witch or wizard lacked any aptitude for divination, then they were doomed to fail no matter how hard they worked.

## Human divination

> Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic. I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it.
>
> Minerva McGonagall's negative view of Divination, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Witches and wizards who were born with the rare natural gift for prophecy were known as Seers, who cold foresee the future with their ***Inner Eye***. A Naming Seer was an occupation for Seers which involved predicting the future of an unborn child and advising their parents to give them a suitable name, in exchange for gold.

Non-Seers could learn divination methods and develop and gain various insights with them, but their success varied. **Divination** was taught as an elective subject from the ***third year*** on at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A common way of seeing the future was with the aid of a ***crystal ball***.

Divination had been practised since ancient times. The earliest known method of human fortune-telling was the product known in the West as ***Chinese Fortune Sticks***.

Learned wizards and witches seemed to regard the practice of divination with scepticism. Hermione Granger once described it as "*woolly*" and "*a lot of guesswork*," Minerva McGonagall thought it was "*one of the most imprecise branches of magic*," and before he decided to take on Sybill Trelawney as Divination professor at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore was inclined to scrap the subject altogether.

***Silver lime*** wands had a reputation for performing best for Seers and those skilled in Legilimency.

## Centaur divination

***Centaurs*** had a way of practising divination distinct from that of humans, apparently mainly based around observing the movement of planets, moons, and stars, which they had been doing for centuries by 1996. It could take up to a decade for centaurs to understand what these celestial portents meant, and even then, the results were rarely precise. They may have attempted to narrow their prediction of when an event would take place by burning certain herbs, such as sage and ***mallowsweet***, and looking for various shapes and symbols in the fumes. The ***Forbidden Forest centaur colony*** heavily practised this kind of Divination which helped them reach their predictions about what would happen.

Centaurs seemed to have had a low opinion of human methods of divination. Firenze, who taught Divination at Hogwarts, described what "*humans call fortune-telling*" as "*self-flattering nonsense*," and voiced the belief that humans obsessed over mundane, day-to-day predictions because they were "*blinkered and fettered by the limitations of [their] kind*."

## Behind the scenes

* In real life, Template:Wplink is the practice of communing with supernatural forces to determine the future. Though dismissed by modern science as superstition, many cultures worldwide have practised or do practise some form of divination. As magic consists of supernatural forces, true Divination actually can be learned and achieved like the other magical arts, whether or not a wizard possesses the Inner Eye.
* In *Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban* (film), Hermione Granger compares Divination to ***Ancient Runes***, thinking the first a woolly subject and the second very fascinating; however, in the novel she did the same but with Divination and ***Arithmancy***.

## Appearances

* *Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban* (film) (First Entire Appearance)
* *Harry Potter and The Order-Of-The Phoenix* (film)
* *Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (film) (Mentioned only)*
* *Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (film) (Appears In Flashback(s))*
* *Pottermore*
* *Wizarding World (website)*
* *The Wizarding World of Harry Potter*
* *Harry Potter: The \_\_\_ Vault* (Mentioned only)
* *Harry Potter: The \_\_\_ Vault* (Mentioned only)

## Notes and references

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 *Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban* (film)
2. ↑ *Harry Potter and The Order-Of-The Phoenix* (film)
3. ↑ Writing by J. K. Rowling: "Naming Seers" at *Wizarding World (website)*
4. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban* (film)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 *Harry Potter and The Order-Of-The Phoenix* (film)
6. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* (film), Chapter 14
7. ↑ *Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban* (film)
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 *Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban* (film)
9. ↑ Writing by J. K. Rowling: "Wand Woods" at *Wizarding World (website)*
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 *Harry Potter and The Order-Of-The Phoenix* (film)
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 , Chapter B, page 15
12. ↑ Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

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