Kassandra Bauer and the Order of the Phoenix. (Book 5)

Chapter 21: St. Mungo's Hospital.

Ryan Tyler (P.O.V)

Harry jumped out of bed at once, pulled on his dressing gown, and pushed his glasses back onto his nose. 

"Weasley, Tyler. you ought to come too." McGonagall decided.

We followed McGonagall past the silent figures of Neville, Dean, Seamus, out of the dormitory down the stairs into the Common Room, and out of the portrait hole. This did not sound good. And if what Harry said was true... then that meant Mr. Weasley was injured, and Dad... Dad was... I shivered at the thought. But I needed to hear it for myself. No. He couldn't be dead. It couldn't be true. 

Finally we reached the Griffon Statue marking the entrance to Dumbledore's Office.

"Fizzing Whizzbee." McGonagall said. The Gargoyle sprang to life and leaped aside; the wall behind it split in two to reveal the stone staircase that moved continually upwards like a spiral escalator. All of us stepped on to the moving stairs; the wall closed behind us with a thud and we were suddenly moving upwards in tight circles until we reached the highly polished oak door with the brass knocker shaped like a griffon. 

It may have been well past midnight, but there were voices coming from inside the room, a positive babble of them. It sounded as though Dumbledore was entertaining at least a dozen people. 

McGonagall rapped three times with the Griffon knocker and the voices ceased abruptly as though someone had switched them all off. The door opened of its own accord and McGonagall lead Harry, Ron, and myself. 

"Horus?" I asked. "Is Dad..." 

Horus was the God that lived inside me and he was my best friend. "I don't know, Ryan. But we will find out soon enough." 

Dad was fine. He just had to be.

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. He was wearing an embroidered purple and gold dressing gown over a snowy white nightshirt, but seemed wide-awake, his penetrating light blue eyes fixed intently upon McGonagall.

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

"It wasn't a nightmare." Harry interrupted quickly. 

McGonagall rounded at Harry, frowning slightly. "Very well, then, Potter, you tell the Headmaster about it." 

"I was asleep... in my dorm." Harry started. Dumbledore didn't even look at Harry, which I found rather odd. He examined his own interlocked fingers. "But it wasn't an ordinary dream... it was real... I saw it happen..." Harry took a deep breath. "Ron's dad- Mr. Weasley, and Ryan's Dad- Mr. Tyler were attacked by a Giant Snake. And some Dark Wizard who called himself the Dragon Priest." 

"The Dragon Priest was there as well?" Anubis asked. 

The words seemed to reverberate the air after Harry had said that. What was the Dragon Priest doing there, wherever there was? There was a pause in which Dumbledore leaned back and stared meditatively at the ceiling. Ron looked from us to Dumbledore, white face and shocked.

I felt the same way. The Dragon Priest. He attacked Dad. "And what happened to Dad? Is he okay? Is he... Where is he?" I asked.

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

"Well... I don't know." Harry answered. "Inside my head, I suppose- I've had the same dream before-" 

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