Nico woke up to the sound of screaming. Naturally, he was a really light sleeper, unless of course, he was too exhausted after a particularly long shadow-jump. But usually, due to his reflexes and demigod stimuli, he woke up at the slightest sound. So to have someone scream louder than Coach Hedge was definitely significant.
Nico sat up upright in bed. Apparently, the yelling was loud enough to wake his dorm-mates up as well.
In a second, all Hades broke lose.
"Harry! HARRY!" Harry was yelling his head off, clutching his scar and looking deeply anguished. His skin was paler than usual, and he looked as though he was about to be violently sick.
Ron was standing over him looking extremely frightened. Dean, and Seamus were at his side in seconds, and Nico didn't hesitate.
Then, Harry turned to the side ans threw up. Right, no doubt about it. Definitely sick.
"He's really ill," Neville said, sounding scared."Should we call someone?"
But before anyone could react, Harry pushed himself off the bed, looking like he was trying hard not to throw up again.
Nico could almost hear Will's voice yelling in disapproval.
"Your dad," he panted, his chest heaving. "Your dad's . . . been attacked . . ."
"What?" said Ron uncomprehendingly.
"Your dad! He's been bitten, it's serious, there was blood everywhere..."
"I'm going for help,"said Neville, and he ran out of the dormitory.
"Harry, mate," said Ron uncertainly, "you . . . you were just dreaming.."
"No!' said Harry furiously; it was crucial that Ron understand.
"It wasn't a dream . . . not an ordinary dream . . . I was there, I saw it . . . I did it . . ."
"Listen to him," Nico interupted suddenly, recognizing the signs of drems similar to those demigods usually had.
"Did...did you feel a presence of some sort? Did it seem more vivid that usual?" That was a damn good way to break his cover, but right now, he didn't care. Someone was in danger.
Harry nodded, and frowned slightly, although wether it was because of suspiscion or illness, Nico couldn't tell. Harry starting retching all over the floor again, and Ron jumped out of the way.
"Harry, you're not well," he said shakily. "Neville's gone for help."
Nico knew was classifed as sane as rag doll in Ron's book since the Umbridge incident, but this was just too much. "The hell with help!" Nico half-yelled. "This isn't just a dream! You're dad's in danger!"
Before Ron could answer back to Nico, Professor McGonagall. Neville's voice said,"'Over here, Professor.", as he caught up to her.
Professor McGonagall came hurrying into the dormitory in her tartan dressing gown, her glasses perched lopsidedly on the bridge of her bony nose.
"What is it, Potter? Where does it hurt?"
"It's Ron's dad,' he said, sitting up again. "He's been attacked by a snake and it's serious, I saw it happen."
"What do you mean, you saw it happen?" said Professor McGonagall, her dark eyebrows contracting.
"I don't know . . . I was asleep and then I was there . . ."
"You mean you dreamed this?"
"No!" Nico exploded. He could help it. Wizard were so...He sighed, and took a calming breath. McGonagall looked at him expectantly.
"It was a vision...a glimpe of-"
"Of the future?" Seasmus Finigan interupted skeptically. It was no secret he hated Divination and didn't trust anything to do with it.
"Of the present," Nico corrected. He looked at McGonagall, hoping that was enough to convey the message.
Professor McGonagall pursed her lips intoa thin line. "Very well. I believe you Mr. Potter. Put on your dressing gown-we're going to see the Headmaster." she gave Nico a piercing look that told him he had better come, too.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
'Weasley, you ought to come too,' said Professor McGonagall. She looked at Nico. "Mr. Di Angelo." McGonagall didn't say anything else. She just nodded in his direction, as if that set it.
They walked out of the portrait hole, through the corridors, and wove their way to the Headmaster's office.
If Nico wasn't in such a hurry, he would have taken a moment to admire the biazarre room.
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 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.
McGonagall cleared her throat. "Headmaster, Mr. Potter here had...well, a nightmare."
"It wasn't a nightmare!" Nico and Harry demanded angrily.
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, sounding desperate. "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."
Dumbledore locked eyes with Nico. Nico nodded, and Dumbledore broke his twinkly blue eyes from Nico's line of vision.
Ron looked from Harry, to Nico, to Dumbledore, white-faced and shocked.
"How did you see this?" Dumbledore asked quietl. Nico was about to ask him what it mattered, and why was he keen on making Harry nervous but Harry quickly beat him to it.
"Well . . . I don't know," said Harry, looking angry."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 seemed a little reluctant at this. "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 white-faced, asked in a new and sharper voice, "Is Arthur seriously injured?"
Nico felt like tearing his hair apart. What was this guy playing at?
"Yes," Harry answered gravely.
Dumbledore stood up, so quickly it made Nico almost jump, and addressed one of the old portraits hanging very near the ceiling. "Everard?" he said sharply. "And you too, Dilys!"
A sallow-faced wizard with a short black fringe and an elderly witch with long silver ringlets in the frame beside him, both of whom seemed to have been in the deepest of sleeps, opened their eyes immediately.
"You were listening?" said Dumbledore.
The wizard nodded; the witch said, "Naturally."
" The man has red hair and glasses," said Dumbledore. "Everard, you will need to raise the alarm, make sure he is found by the right people - "
Both nodded and moved sideways out of their frames, but instead of emerging in neighbouring pictures (as usually happened at Hogwarts) neither reappeared. One frame now contained nothing but a backdrop of dark curtain, the other a handsome leather arm-el" air. Harry noticed that many of the other headmasters and mistresses on the walls, though snoring and drooling most convincingly, kept sneaking peeks at him from under their eyelids, and he suddenly understood who had been talking when they had knocked.
"Everard and Dilys were two of Hogwartss most celebrated Heads," Dumbledore said, now sweeping around Harry, Ron and Professor McGonagall to approach the magnificent sleeping bird on his perch beside the door. "Their renown is such that both have portraits hanging in other important wizarding institutions. As they are free to move between their own portraits, they can tell us what may be happening elsewhere . . ."
"But Mr Weasley could be anywhere!" said Harry, and Nico could not help but agree. He narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore. What was he planning to do? Couldn't wizards, like, cast charms to inform them where a particular person was?
"Please sit down, all three of you," said Dumbledore, as though Harry had not spoken, "Everard and Dilys may not be back for several minutes. Professor McGonagall, if you could draw up extra chairs."
In a few seconds, they were all seated down, waiting for something to happen.
Moment later,Everard had reappeared in his portrait., panting slightly.
"Dumbledore!"
"What news?" said Dumbledore at once.
"I yelled until someone came running," said the wizard, who was mopping his brow on the curtain behind him, "said I'd heard something moving downstairs - they weren't sure whether to believe me but went down to check - you know there are no portraits down there to watch from. Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn't look good, he's covered in blood, I ran along to Elfrida Cragg's portrait to get a good view as they left - "
"Good,"said Dumbledore as Ron made a convulsive movement. "I take it Dilys will have seen him arrive, then - "
Things happened so quickly that Nico had no time whatsover todo or say anything. Moments afterwards, the silver-ringleted witch had reappeared in her picture, too; she sank, coughing, into her armchair and said, "Yes, they've taken him to St Mungo's, Dumbledore . . . they carried him past my portrait . . . he looks bad . . ."
"Thank you," said Dumbledore. He looked round at Professor McGonagall.
"Minerva, I need you to go and wake the other Weasley children."
"Of course . . ."
Professor McGonagall got up and moved swiftly to the door. Nico cast a sideways glance at Ron, who was looking terrified. Nico couldn't blame him.
"And Dumbledore - what about Molly?" said Professor McGonagall, pausing at the door.
" That will be a job for Fawkes when he has finished keeping a lookout for anybody approaching,"said Dumbledore. "But she may already know . . . that excellent clock of hers . . ."
Dumbledore was now rummaging in a cupboard behind them. He emerged from it carrying a blackened old kettle, which he placed carefully on his desk. He raised his wand and murmured, "Portus!" For a moment the kettle trembled, glowing with an odd blue light; then it quivered to rest, as solidly black as ever.
Dumbledore marched over to another portrait, this time of a clever-looking wizard with a pointed beard, who had been painted wearing the Slytherin colours of green and silver and was apparently sleeping so deeply that he could not hear Dumbledore's voice when he attempted to rouse him.
"Phineas. Phineas."
The subjects of the portraits lining the room were no longer pretending to be asleep; they were shifting around in their frames, the better to watch what was happening. When the clever-looking wizard continued to feign sleep, some of them shouted his name, too.
"Phineas! Phineas! PHINEAS!"
He could not pretend any longer; he gave a theatrical jerk and opened his eyes wide.
"Did someone call?" At this point, Nico had to admit that nothing surprised him anymore.
"I need you to visit your other portrait again, Phineas," said Dumbledore. "I've got another message."
"Visit my other portrait?" said Phineas in a reedy voice, giving a long, fake yawn. "Oh, no, Dumbledore, I am too tired tonight."
The portatis of Hogwarts started protesting, yelled at Phineas and demanding things, reminding him they were pledged tos erve the headmaster.
"Shall I persuade him, Dumbledore?" called a gimlet-eyed witch, raising an unusually thick wand that looked not unlike a birch rod.
"Oh, very well," said the wizard called Phineas, eyeing the wand with mild apprehension, "though he may well have destroyed my picture by now, he's done away with most of the family - "
"Sirius knows not to destroy your portrait," said Dumbledore. Harry and Ron jumped. They looked at Nico with wide eyes, then at Dumbledore. Nico had no idea what was wrong with them. He gave them a questioning look, and they turned away at once. 'You are to give him the message that Arthur Weasley has been gravely injured and that his wife, children and Harry Potter, and Nico Di Angelo will be arriving at his house shortly. Do you understand?"
"Arthur Weasley, injured, wife and children Harry Potter, and aDeath Spawn coming to stay,' repeated Phineas in a bored voice. "Yes, yes . . . very well . . ."
He scurried away so fast that he missed the accusing look Dumbledore threw at his direction.
Thw Weasley children were rushing through the door in a second, asking about their father. Dumbledore assured them he was at St. Mungos. They all seemed either too worried or too confused to acknowledge Nico's pressence.
"Professor Umbridge must know you're out of your beds . . . Minerva, go and head her off - tell her any story - "
Professor McGonagall was gone in a swish of tartan.
"He says he'll be delighted," said a bored voice behind Dumbledore; the wizard called Phineas had reappeared in front of his Slytherin banner. "My great-great-grandson has always had an odd taste in house-guests."
Then, it struck everyone. They stared at Nico in shock.
Ron and Harry were staring at Dumbledore as if he'd lost his marble.
Dumbledore sighed, as if he got that glance alot. He looked at Nico. "Mr. Di Angelo," he said, looking grim. "I believe you have some explaining to do. You know about the Order?"
Then, it hit Nico. Of course! He had it all in his head. But for some strange reason, that oart of his mind was untouched until then. So to put it clearly, he didn't know. But now he did.
Sorry about that. A small voice spoke in Nico's head.
"Yes, sir." Nico said firmly. He looked at Harry, then frowned, trying to grasp the memories and beliefs Hecate had installed into his mind. "It's Sirius Orion Black you're talking about, I suppose? Uh, accused murderer?"
Five pairs of eyes locked on Nico, shocked. Nico didn't know if this meant his cover was offically blown, but then he caught Dumbledore's eyes, and they seemed to say; Not yet.
And he was right. Now, they had to see Arthur Weasley- to make sure he was alive
HA! You really thought I was gonna let Nico's cover drop that easily? No way, it's way too fun when no one know's just how awesome it is. The moment of truth, in my mind, is reaallly dramatic and awesome! Don't think they'll figure out his identity with little slips or catching him IMing or anything. I don't do much cliche, babe!
*Does a little victory dance because I want to.*
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