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by hvgwcrts

by hvgwcrts

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
AND THREE
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH AVIANA PRESENTS
SOME KIND OF IDEA

. . .

"Harry." Aviana's whisper sounded more like a hiss than anything, as she placed the Firewhiskey bottle down on the table with a distinct clink. She had been sat beside him in a similar, disgruntled silence until then, but unlike the four Weasley children as they worried for their father, Aviana's was one of confusion and thought.

Nonetheless, after the course of the night, Harry jumped at the simple sound of his name. A message from Dumbledore, another of Fawkes' feathers appearing alongside a small scrawl of parchment, had come not twenty minutes earlier, with words of certain panic but undisguised worry for Mr Weasley from his wife, who reassured her children that he was going to be just fine - although it certainly seemed like the man was in a state of limbo between life and death.

And yet, more anxious, suspecting looks had come from the twins over to Harry, who hadn't been able to stop visibly shaking under the pressure of it all. More furtive glances was shot towards Aviana, who had broken the silence of the four attempting to get some sleep to pass by the hours of early morning quicker, but as always, the girl ignored them.

Harry didn't reply, just nodded slightly as he met her eyes. She tilted her head just slightly, nodding towards the door, and got up. Silently, he followed her.

"What?" He asked warily, watching as she made her way up the stairs a bit, just before the curve up onto the first floor and sat down. She patted the floor next to her and he followed her, coming to sit beside her.

Aviana pursed her lips, their hands finding one another to hold instinctively. "I..." She paused. "Your nightmare... your vision, can you explain it to me?" Harry stared at her for a moment. "Harry." Her voice was a little harder, a little more serious. "It's an awful situation, I know, but... please, just explain it to me."

Harry had never quite heard her use that tone before and it unnerved him, and he nodded slowly, struggling to find the words to begin. "It was in a dark corridor, quite long... black bricks, black floor. The snake, it was making it's way down it to the end, and Mr Weasley was sat there, alone. In front of the door. And then," Harry took a deep breath in, slowly shaking his head, "then the snake began attacking Mr Weasley, without him even be able to get his wand-"

Aviana nodded, and looked quite uncomfortable under the pressure of emotion but nonetheless shifted closer to him, reaching an arm around him in some kind of a hug. "Harry," she began slowly, "the snake. Were you watching from above... or were you looking at the scene through the snake's eyes?"

"How do you know that?" Harry sat up, shocked.

"I..." Aviana crossed her arms, tight around herself. "You can't tell anyone else, at least not for now - nobody down there." She watched as he nodded. "That's a corridor in the Department of Mysteries. You remember the Bell Jar of Time? That's the sort of thing that's kept behind those doors."

"So that's what Mr Weasley was protecting?"

"Something like that." Aviana looked uncomfortable again, like she wasn't telling the whole truth. "But, whatever it is, the Dark Lord wants it. The snake - it was Nagini."

"Nagini?" Harry repeated.

"I couldn't tell you exactly what's happening, because I don't really understand it and any Legilimency I've performed has been by accident." She looked unusually unsure of herself, rattled by the entirety of the night. "Harry, we know what you saw was real, Mr Weasley was attacked. But... I don't think it's an accident that you saw it."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, confused. Everything about Aviana completely bewildered him daily, but to see her speaking so openly, yet managing to hide everything behind a veil of secrecy simultaneously was a new level. "Aviana-"

"Alright, alright." She waved her hand dismissively, even quicker to turn to impatience with the lack of sleep. "I believe that the Dark Lord personally implemented that vision in your brain. He used some highly skilled level of Legilimency to attack you in your sleep... and I always knew he had a creepy connection with that stupid snake, but... Harry, you became the snake, didn't you?"

He nodded, slowly, and Aviana knotted her fingers together. "The Dark Lord was trying to get into that room, but he knows that if he was to attack the Ministry prematurely to get what he wants then he would lose; he can't reveal himself now, you have to understand. Nagini though, she can get in there, not into the room but into the Ministry. He wanted you to see an attack against someone close to you, Harry."

Before her, he winced, hand instinctively raising to his scar. The same horrific feeling, that awful surge of anger, of a need to kill filled him again, and Aviana stared at him, her eyes flickering up to his scar. She looked extraordinarily pale in the dim light, so pale it almost illuminated her.

She pursed her lips. "You need to talk to Sirius." She said blankly, and he made to get up. "Not now, idiot, she reached up to pull his hand back down, and he stumbled down onto the step again. "Later, when-"

But she was cut off by the sound of the door swinging open and Molly Weasley bustling through. Harry and Aviana were on their feet instantly, and the woman's entrance interrupted the portrait of Mrs Black from her slumber.

Before the portrait could start screeching again, Aviana flicked her wand in it's direction and the curtains shut over it, and she glared at the sight, slowly making her way down the stairs, behind Harry, as he joined the rest of the Weasleys as they burst out into the hallway, desperate to hear news of Arthur's condition.

Sirius stood behind them, and he looked up, noticing his daughter on the stairs.

Aviana met his eyes, expression more grave than ever before. And that worried him more than he could say.

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