Faith .|. H. J. POTTER ✔

Chapter fifty-two

Faith awoke with a jerk. Her breath was heavy and she could feel the sweat on her forehead. If she hadn't stopped herself she would've screamed or yelled. She had never seen or felt anything like this before. Guilty and shocked. After calming herself down she finally realised. It was Mr Weasley who she attacked. She tried to collect her thoughts, it felt so real, it had to be real but why did she see it. And how. And as if she was the snake.

She might've killed Mr Weasley.

Without a second thought, Faith jumped out of her bed and put on her dressing gown. She had to tell someone Mr Weasley was hurt. She rushed down the stairs but halted in her footsteps when she saw three figures coming down the boys' dormitories staircase. It was Professor McGonagall with Harry and Ron. Both boys looked frightened, like Faith.

"Miss Diggory, what are you doing out of bed?" Professor McGonagall asked when she noticed her first.

"It's Mr Weasley, Professor! There was a snake!" 

Both the boys looked up and a deep frown appeared on Professor McGonagall's forehead.

"You come with us, too, Miss Diggory, you can explain it to Professor Dumbledore," 

All four hurried through the portrait hole. Both Faith and Harry wanted to run. What if the fangs (they tried not to think of it as 'their fangs') were poisonous? He was just bleeding out somewhere, who knows where.

When they met with the gargoyle guarding Professor Dumbledore's office, Professor McGonagall said the password (Fizzing Whizzbee) and they rushed up the stairs. Once they were at the door, Faith heard faint voices despite it being the middle of the night. Why was Dumbledore having visitors at this hour?

Professor McGonagall tapped three times on the door and it opened. Right at that moment, the voices stopped. The four went inside and the door closed behind them. They were in semi-darkness; Faith could still spot the silver instruments standing on tables and in cupboards, the portraits of old-headmasters were all fast asleep and snoring. Behind the door was a large bird Faith recognised as a Phoenix. That must be Fawkes the Phoenix, the one that helped Harry in the Chamber of Secrets.

"Oh, it's you, Professor McGonagall ... and ... ah," Faith spotted Dumbledore sitting behind the desk on a high-back chair, wearing robes of gold and purple.

"Professor Dumbledore, Potter has had a ... well, a nightmare, and it seems like Diggory here saw it too," Professor McGonagall explained to Dumbledore. Faith looked at Harry with a frown. He saw it too? "He says -"

"It wasn't a nightmare," Harry quickly corrects Professor McGonagall. Faith nodded. It was much more than a nightmare despite it happening while she was asleep.

"Very well, then, Potter, you tell the Headmaster about it,"

"I ... well, I was asleep ..." Harry said. He was fumbling with his words to make Dumbledore understand but the man wasn't even looking at him. "But it wasn't an ordinary dream ... it was real ... I saw it happen ..." Harry took another deep breath. "Ron's dad - Mr Weasley - has been attacked by a giant snake,"

"Yes, that's true, that's what I saw too," Faith nodded, a horror-struck expression. Ron looked at his two friends with a pale face before turning to Dumbledore but Dumbledore remained silent for a little while. It made Faith impatient. Why wasn't he doing anything?

"How did you see this?" Dumbledore asked, still not looked at either of the students.

"What?" Faith asked confused. Didn't they just tell him that?

"Inside my head, I suppose -"

"You misunderstand me," Dumbledore calmly said. "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?" Faith opened her mouth and but didn't know how to say it. It was almost as if Dumbledore knew how odd the vision was for the two.