Chapter 32

And for a moment when the world and time stop, there's a real hand across the book! What was there to overcome me, as it were? I knew and loved the hand I had seen on the book, and Margaret Trelawney's hand was a delight to me to see and to touch, and yet in that moment after other wonderful things, it had a strangely poignant effect on me, and it was a moment, and yet it passed even before her voice reached me.

"What's bothering you? What are you staring at in a book? I thought for a moment you should be beat again!"

I jumped up and said "I was reading an old book from the library".

While I was talking I closed it and put it under my arm.

"I will now return them, for I understand that your father desires all things, especially books, kept in their proper places."

My words were intentionally misleading; I did not wish her to know what I was reading, and I thought it best not to awaken her curiosity by leaving