The Forgotten Olympian |BOOK 1| PJO X HP | Alexandra Marine

Chapter 155 - Percy - Met Dumbledore for No Reason

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. We passed Mrs. Norris, who turned her lamplike eyes upon us and hissed faintly but Professor McGonagall said, "Shoo!" and Mrs. Norris slunk away into the shadows, and in a few minutes we had reached the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

"Fizzing Whizzbee," said Professor McGonagall.

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. As we stepped on to the moving stairs; the wall closed behind us with a thud and we were moving upwards in tight circles until we 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 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 McGonagall led us in.

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; 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 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. 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 McGonagall.

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

"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."

"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. 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 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. "Inside my head, I suppose--"

"You misunderstand me," said Dumbledore, 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?"

Harry gaped at Dumbledore. "I was the snake," he said. "I saw it all from the snake's point of view."

Nobody else spoke for a moment, then Dumbledore, now looking at Ron who was still whey-faced, asked in a new and sharper voice, "Is Arthur seriously injured?"

"Yes," said Harry emphatically.

Dumbledore stood up, so quickly it made Harry jump, and addressed one of the old portraits hanging very near the ceiling. "Everard?" he said sharply. "And you too, Dilys!"