Lost Memories

xxxiii. the dream

The dream.

Shooting up out of bed, I ran down the stairs and to the boys' dormitory to see Neville bolting out of their room and down the stairs.

"Is Harry—?" I stopped him abruptly.

"H-He's ill... I'm going to get help," he muttered running away.

Pushing the door opened, I saw Harry leaning over his bed, throwing up, as Ron jumped out of the way. Seamus and Dean were muttering to each other, trying to figure out what was happening.

"I could hear you screaming from the girls' dorm," I said to them. "I reckon the whole tower is up– Is it your dream? The—"

"Ron's dad, Charlotte. We need to find out where he is — he's bleeding like mad — I was — it was a huge snake," Harry wiped his mouth on his pyjamas and was shaking uncontrollably.

Mr Weasley. Nagini. Department of Mysteries.

"Harry, I know, but you need to calm down—"

"No! I'm fine," he shook his head. "We need to s-save Ron's d-dad—"

Harry tried to get out of bed, but Ron pushed him back into it. I walked quietly over to him and rubbed his back.

"Lottie, please," he pleaded, breaking my heart.

There were footsteps coming down the hall and I heard Neville's voice.

"Over here, Professor..."

Professor McGonagall came hurrying into the dormitory in her tartan dressing gown, her glasses perched lopsidedly on the bridge of her bony nose. She gave me an odd look and walked over to Harry, who was trying to get up again.

"What is it, Potter? Where does it hurt?"

"It's Ron's dad," he said, sitting up again. "He's been attacked by a snake and it's serious, I saw it happen."

"What do you mean, you saw it happen?" said Professor McGonagall, her dark eyebrows contracting.

"I don't know... I was asleep and then I was there..."

"You mean you dreamed this?"

"No! I had a dream before and then this interrupted it. It was real, I didn't imagine it, Mr Weasley was asleep on the floor and he was attacked by a gigantic snake, there were loads of blood– Lottie, tell her..."

"Miss Harring, what do you know of this?" Professor McGonagall looked up at me through her lopsided spectacles.

"We need to go to Dumbledore immediately," I said seriously. Professor McGonagall took my word for it and told him to dress.

"Weasley, Harring, both of you ought to come too," said Professor McGonagall.

Ron passed me another one of his huge sweaters and placed his dressing-gown on as well. I was only wearing sweatpants and a short-sleeved tee-shirt, not enough for the cold corridor. We 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.

"Fizzing Whizbee," said Professor McGonagall as we approached the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

Professor McGonagall rapped three times with the griffin knocker, and the voices ceased abruptly as though someone had switched them all off. The door opened of its own accord and Professor McGonagallled the three of us inside.

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

Dumbledore was sitting in a high-backed chair behind his desk; he leaned forward into the pool of candlelight illuminating the papers laid out before him.