Tea Leaves

• Type: Divination Tool
• Owners: Not owned, but used by practitioners of Tasseomancy, most notably Sybill Trelawney and her Divination students at Hogwarts.
• Maker: Natural product; not made by a specific individual.

Tea leaves, when used for Divination, are the dregs or residue left at the bottom of a teacup after the tea has been mostly consumed. They consist of small, dark, wet fragments of the tea plant. When the cup is swirled and drained, these leaves adhere to the inside of the cup, forming various shapes and patterns. The interpretation of these patterns is the basis of Tasseomancy, or tea-leaf reading. The leaves are typically read within a wide, shallow, white teacup to make the dark patterns clearly visible.

The primary magical function of tea leaves is to serve as a medium for foretelling the future. The practice is considered a specific branch of Divination and is taught to third-year students at Hogwarts. The method, as taught by Professor Trelawney, is as follows:

1. The querent (the person whose fortune is being told) must drink the tea until only the dregs and a tiny amount of liquid remain.
2. The querent then swirls the cup three times with the left hand.
3. The cup is turned upside down onto its saucer and left to drain.
4. The seer then reads the patterns formed by the tea leaves inside the cup, interpreting them as symbols and omens.

Certain shapes are believed to correspond to specific future events. During Harry Potter's first Divination class, Professor Trelawney interpreted the leaves in his cup as follows:

• A falcon, which she identified as a deadly enemy.
• A club, which she interpreted as a sign of an attack.
• A skull, which she read as danger in his path.
• The Grim, a spectral black dog that is considered one of the worst omens in the wizarding world, signifying death.

The validity of tea-leaf reading is a subject of debate. Characters like Hermione Granger and Minerva McGonagall view it as an imprecise and “woolly” branch of magic. Often, the predictions are vague or based on the seer's interpretation. For example, Ron Weasley's attempts to read Harry's cup resulted in him seeing a bowler hat, which he unconvincingly interpreted as a sign of Harry working for the Ministry of Magic.

The use of tea leaves for Divination is an established part of the magical education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is a required subject for third-year students who elect to take Divination. The practice is taught by Professor Sybill Trelawney in her classroom at the top of the North Tower. The subject appears to be a standard, if not universally respected, method of fortune-telling within the wizarding community.

Tea leaves play a significant role in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They are the first form of Divination that Harry and his classmates learn, introducing the reader to the concepts of prophecy and fate within the magical world. Most importantly, Professor Trelawney's “discovery” of the Grim in Harry's teacup becomes a major plot device and a source of dread throughout the book. This supposed death omen haunts Harry and is repeatedly referenced by other characters. The omen ultimately serves as a powerful piece of foreshadowing, though its meaning is misconstrued. The Grim is not an omen of Harry's death, but rather a representation of Sirius Black's Animagus form as a large black dog, whose appearance is central to the book's climax. This twist highlights a key theme of Divination: prophecies and omens can be true, but their interpretations are often flawed. The tea-leaf reading class also serves to characterize the main trio: Harry's apprehension, Ron's flippant attitude, and Hermione's staunch skepticism, which eventually leads her to drop the subject entirely.

• The practice of reading tea leaves is based on the real-world divination method known as Tasseomancy or tasseography, which has been practiced for centuries.
• In the film adaptation of *Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*, the Grim in Harry's cup is shown as an animated image that snarls before dissolving, a more explicitly magical event than described in the novel (film).