Harry Potter and Percy Jackson half-blood heroes (Book 5)

Chapter 14

They followed Professor McGonagall past the silent figures of Neville, Dean, and Seamus, out of the dormitory, down the spiral stairs into the common room, through the portrait hole, and off along the Fat Lady's moonlit corridor.  Harry was so weak that he and Ron frog marched him. They passed Mrs. Norris, who turned her lamplike eyes upon them and hissed faintly, but Professor McGonagall said, "Shoo!" Mrs. Norris slunk away into the shadows, and in a few minutes, they had reached the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

 "Fizzing Whizbee," said Professor McGonagall.

The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside; the wall behind it splitin two to reveal a stone staircase that was moving continuously upward like a spiral escalator. The four of them stepped onto the moving stairs; the wall closed behind them with a thud, and they weremoving upward in tight circles until they reached the highly polishedoak door with the brass knocker shaped like a griffin.

Though it was now well past midnight, there were voices comingfrom inside the room, a positive babble of them. It sounded as thoughDumbledore was entertaining at least a dozen people.Professor McGonagall rapped three times with the griffin knocker,and the voices ceased abruptly and the door opened of its own accord and Professor McGonagallled Harry, Percy and Ron inside.

The room was in half darkness; the strange silver instrumentsstanding on tables were silent and still rather than whirring and emitting puffs of smoke as they usually did. The portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses covering the walls were all snoozing in theirframes. Behind the door, a magnificent red-and-gold phoenix the size of aswan dozed on its perch with its head under its wing.

"Oh, it's you, Professor McGonagall . . . and . . . ah."

Dumbledore was sitting in a high-backed chair behind his desk; heleaned forward into the pool of candlelight illuminating the paperslaid out before him. He was wearing a magnificently embroideredpurple-and-gold dressing gown over a snowy-white nightshirt, butseemed wide awake, his penetrating light-blue eyes fixed intentlyupon Professor McGonagall.

"Professor Dumbledore, Potter had a . . . well, a nightmare,"said Professor McGonagall. "He says . . ."

"It wasn't a nightmare," said Harry quickly.

Professor McGonagall looked around at Harry, frowning slightly. "Very well, then, Potter, you tell the headmaster about it." 

"I . . . well, I was asleep. . . ." said Harry "But it wasn't an ordinary dream . . . it wasreal. . . . I saw it happen. . . ." He took a deep breath, "Ron's dad —Mr. Weasley — has been attacked by a giant snake."

There was a pause in which Dumbledore leaned back and stared meditatively at the ceiling. Ron lookedfrom Harry to Dumbledore, white-faced and shocked.

"How did you see this?" Dumbledore asked quietly, still not looking at Harry.

"Well . . . I don't know," said Harry, rather angrily "Inside my head, I suppose —"

"You misunderstand me," said Dumbledore, still in the same calmtone. "I mean . . . can you remember — er — where you were positioned as you watched this attack happen? Were you perhaps standingbeside the victim, or else looking down on the scene from above?"

Harry gaped at Dumbledore;it was almost as though he knew . . ."I was the snake," he said. "I saw it all from the snake's point ofview. . . ." 

Nobody else spoke for a moment, then Dumbledore, now lookingat Ron, who was still whey-faced, said in a new and sharper voice,

"Is Arthur seriously injured?"

"Yes," said Harry.

 Dumbledore stood up so quickly that Harry jumped, and addressed one of the old portraits hanging very near the ceiling.