Megan Potter - A saga of the Heart - Book 3 - Past and Present

Chapter 23 - Hidden Powers

Megan had no idea where she was. She was standing in a shabby old wooden building. She’d never seen it before, and wondered what she was doing here. How had she gotten there anyway? The last time she’d checked, she was in the Divination classroom. And she maybe didn’t know where she was now, but she could tell for certain it wasn’t the Divination Tower. It was dimly lit but she could still make things out. The broken door, the dusty table and moth eaten curtains… In a corner to her left, was a tattered chair on which Ron was sitting, clutching his leg, which Megan now saw was bleeding. She wanted to move to his side, ask him what had happened, try and help somehow… but she couldn’t move and her voice seemed caught in her throat, like almost every other time she’d dreamed lately. But she hadn’t even fallen asleep… had she? And not being able to move or speak was getting tiresome. At least her head responded normally. She took in Ron more carefully. He looked like he was in pain, and his face was white. Hermione was near her, looking scared but determined, Harry and Cedric were beside her, the latter holding an arm out in front of her. What was going on? Why were they in this strange place? She couldn’t hear a sound, except for the thumping of her heart. And when she turned her head to look around I felt like it was happening in slow motion. And in front of her, with his back turned to her, was a tall man with long tangled brown hair, his arms outstretched… she thought she knew who it was but couldn’t remember for some reason. A little to their right, to her utter astonishment, was Lupin, looking at a small man dressed in old grey clothes, and a face like a rat and claw like nails.

She snapped back into reality and touched her temple with a gasp.

“Megan? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Harry asked, touching her arm.

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine… it’s just a headache.” She said. “It’s these ruddy fumes, they’re making me nauseous.”

She wasn’t sure they would believe her if she told them the man who was supposed to be after her was protecting her in a vision…

“Are you really okay?”

“Yes, I was just dizzy because of that smoke and heat,” she said.

She was especially trying to convince herself because whatever it was she had seen it didn’t make sense. It was nowhere she recognised, and if Sirius Black was after her, which they still hadn’t irrefutably proven yet, why would he try and protect her? And from who? She’d seen no one who’d threaten her. There was the tiny man, whom she didn’t know, but he hardly seemed that dangerous… the more things progressed, the more complex and incomprehensible they got… it was really getting tiresome. And she was reluctant to tell her friends about the vision because she reckoned they would take it as fear of Black and worry even more. The school was already nervous enough as it was regarding Black. But for some reason Megan couldn’t feel scared when she thought of him. She wasn’t sure why. She voiced the feeling to Cedric, that afternoon during a common study period they had.

“I don’t know for sure,” he said after thinking a moment. “But I suppose you aren’t that scared of Black because he’s not You-Know-Who.”

They were sitting on one of the stone benches in the Transfiguration courtyard. The weather was getting a little warmer.

“… Maybe. I don’t know.” She said. “Or maybe it’s because I can’t decide whether Black scares me or not.”

“Why not?”

“… Because… I don’t know, at lot of this doesn’t make sense. Maybe I just…want to give the benefit of the doubt or something because he was my parents’ best friend.”