Natsu Dragneel and the Order of the Phoenix

St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Natsu was so relieved he was taking him seriously that he did not hesitate, but jumped out of bed at once, pulled on his dressing gown and pushed his glasses back on to his nose.

"Fullbuster, you ought to come too," said Professor Connell.

They followed Professor Connell past the silent figures of Gajeel, Wally and Loke, 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. Natsu felt as though the panic inside him might spill over at any moment; he wanted to run, to yell for Master Makarov; Mrs. Milkovich was bleeding as they walked along so sedately, and what if those fangs (Natsu tried hard not to think 'my fangs') had been poisonous?

They passed Shagotte, who turned her lamplike eyes upon them and hissed faintly, but Professor Connell said, "Shoo!" Shagotte slunk away into the shadows, and in a few minutes they had reached the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Master Makarov's office.

"Fizzing Whizzbee," said Professor Connell.

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 three 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 Master Makarov was entertaining at least a dozen people.

Professor Connell 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 Connell led Natsu and Gray 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 Connell... and... ah."

Master Makarov 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 wideawake, his penetrating light blue eyes fixed intently upon Professor Connell.

"Master Makarov, Dragneel has had a... well, a nightmare," said Professor Connell. "He says..."

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

Professor Connell looked round at Natsu, frowning slightly.

"Very well, then, Dragneel, you tell the Headmaster about it."

"I... well, I was asleep..." said Natsu and, even in his terror and his desperation to make Master Makarov 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, "Gray's mom - Mrs. Milkovich - 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 Master Makarov leaned back and stared meditatively at the ceiling. Gray looked from Natsu to Master Makarov, white-faced and shocked.

"How did you see this?" Master Makarov asked quietly, still not looking at Natsu.

"Well... I don't know," said Natsu, rather angrily - what did it matter? "Inside my head, I suppose -"