Lily Potter (Harry Potter's Twin)

Chapter 23

I followed McGonagall, Harry, and Ron through the portrait hole and off along the Fat Lady's moonlit corridor. Harry looked on the point of a break down, he was shaking violently every other moment or so, his wild eyes unable to focus. We passed Mrs. Norris, who turned her lamp like eyes upon us 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 spank to life and kept aside. The wall behind it split in two to reveal a stone staircase that was moving continuously upwards like a spiral escalator. The five of us stepped onto the moving stairs, the wall closed behind us with a thud, and we were moving upward in tight circles until we reached the highly polished oak door with a brass knocker shaped like a griffin.

Though it was now we'll past midnight, there were several voices coming from inside the room, a positive babble of them. It sounded as though Dumbledore was entertaining at least a dozen people.

Professor McGonagall rapped three times with the griffin knocker, and all the voices ceased abruptly as though someone had switched then all off. The door opened of its own accord and Professor McGonagall led Harry and Ron 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 covered the walls were all snoozing in their frames. Behind the door, a magnificent red-and-gold bird the size of a swan fixed 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. He leaned forward into the pool of candle light illuminating the papers laid out before him. He was wearing a magnificently embroidered purple and gold dressing gown over a snow white night shirt, but he seemed wide awake, his penetrating light-blue eyes fixed intently upon Professor McGonagall.

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

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

"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 was real... I saw it happen.." he took a deep breath, "Ron's dad-Mr Wealey - had been attacked by a giant snake."

The words seemed to reverberate the air after he had said them, slightly ridiculous, even comic. There was a pause in which Dumbledore leaned back and stared meditatively at the ceiling. Ron looked from Harry to Dumbledore, white faced and shocked.

"How did you see this? " Dumbledore asked quietly, 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 calming tone. "I mean, can you remember 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?"

"I.. I was the snake, " he said. "I saw it all from the snakes point of view... "

Nobody spoke for a moment, then Dumbledore, now looking at Ron, which was still whey-faced, said in a new sharper voice, "Is Author seriously injured?"
"Yes! " said Harry, clearly impatient.

Dumbledore looked at me and I nodded and made my eyes wide, HE NEEDS HELP!

Dumbledore stood up quickly, and addressed one of the portraits on the walls.