Reflections - Mattheo Riddle

Mortal Peril

Kirra was so relieved she was taking her seriously that she did not hesitate, but jumped out of bed at once, pulled on her jumper and then her dressing gown over the top.

'You lot stay here,' said Professor Sprout firmly.

Kirra followed Professor Sprout past the boys, out of the dormitory, down the spiral stairs into the common room, through the entrance and off along the corridor and up and up stairs. 

Kirra felt as though the panic inside her might spill over at any moment; she wanted to run, to yell for Dumbledore; Mr Weasley was bleeding as they walked along so sedately, and what if those fangs had been poisonous? They passed Mrs Norris, who turned her lamplike eyes upon them and hissed faintly, but Professor Sprout 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 Whizzbee,' said Professor Sprout.

The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside; the wall behind it split in two to reveal a stone staircase that was moving continually upwards like a spiral escalator. The two of them stepped on to the moving stairs; the wall closed behind them with a thud and they were moving upwards in tight circles until they reached the highly polished oak door with the brass knocker shaped like a griffin.

Though it was now well past midnight 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.

Professor Sprout 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 Sprout led Kirra inside.

The room was in half-darkness; the strange silver instruments standing 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 their frames. Behind the door, a magnificent red and gold bird the size of a swan dozed on its perch with its head under its wing.

'Oh, it's you, Professor Sprout ... 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. He was wearing a magnificently embroidered purple and gold dressing gown over a snowy white nightshirt, but seemed wide-awake, his penetrating light blue eyes fixed intently upon Professor Sprout.

'Professor Dumbledore, Potter has had a ... well, a nightmare,' said Professor Sprout. 'She says the same thing that Mr Po...'

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

Professor McGonagall looked round at Harry, frowning slightly. 'Very well, then, Potter, you tell the Headmaster about it.' Harry and Kirra made eye contact before Harry spoke up

'I ... well, I was asleep ...' said Harry and, even in his terror and his desperation to make Dumbledore understand, he felt slightly irritated that the Headmaster was not looking at him, but examining his own interlocked fingers. 'But it wasn't an ordinary dream ... it was real ... I saw it happen ...' He took a deep breath, 'Ron's dad – Mr Weasley – has been attacked by a giant snake.'

The words seemed to reverberate in the air after he had said them, sounding slightly ridiculous, even comic. There was a pause in which Dumbledore leaned back and stared meditatively at the ceiling. Ron looked from Harry, to Kirra, 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 – what did it matter? 'Inside my head, I suppose –'