Coming Out of the Broom Closet (Chapter Five)

"She's been like that for at least five minutes, professor." I heard Ginny say. I felt someone shake me.

"She was casting in her sleep again, too." I heard Lavender tell a professor. Again, I was shaken.

"Is that," Professor McGonagall began, "why her cat is sitting on her chest?" She shook me a third time.

"Yes." Parvati told McGonagall.

"Get it off of her, you silly girls! It will suffocate her!" McGonagall exclaimed. They scrambled toward me. She continued to shine something in my eyes as I felt the large cat being lifted off my chest.

I heard Ginny croon to it. "Yes. That's right, kitty. Your mommy will be just fine. Professor McGonagall will help her." There was a pleading tone to her voice as if she was trying to convince herself as well. Once Crookshanks had been removed from my chest, I took a large gulping breath and blinked open my eyes to find Professor McGonagall hovered over me with her wand shining lights in my eyes, looking, one would assume, for a reaction. I shrank back into my pillow and cringed. Terror struck my heart, but I couldn't think of why.

No one else had noticed, but Ginny had. She fixed me with a weird and confused glare.

"Nox." McGonagall said once I had opened my eyes. The light went out and she took a step back. "It seems that you gave your roommates…"

Ginny cleared her throat.

McGonagall laughed. "And young Miss Weasley, here, quire the scare. Are we to assume that you are okay now?"

I coughed and reached into my mouth and extracted several ginger colored hairs and laughed. "Yes, I'm fine professor." McGonagall nodded that she understood and swept out of the room.

"Bloody hell!" Ginny exclaimed, sounding quite a lot like her brother. "What had happened? You were casting in your sleep!" I laughed. "What did you dream?" I ceased my laughter.

"Hmmm…" I thought. "What had I dreamt?" I remembered I had been terrified of McGonagall. "Why would I be scared of her?" I asked myself. "I don't really remember." I told them all honestly.

"Well," Lavender interjected, "You called your cat to yourself and then we woke up and Parvati grabbed her want to light the room, but you disarmed her!" she pointed to the wall, where Parvati's wand laid, untouched and forgotten once all the excitement had started. Reviewing the spells they told me I used, I recalled my dream. A shiver went down my spine, no one noticed, though.

Parvati walked over and retrieved it as Ginny sat on the edge of my bed and placed Crookshanks down. "We were really scared." Parvati told me. "Lavender called for Ginny and Ginny called McGonagall. When she saw you thrashing on your bed and gasping for air, she paled. I don't know if I have ever seen McGonagall that scared before." I whitened but Parvait either didn't notice or didn't care. "She rushed to your bed and began shining the light in your eyes until you woke up all the while trying to get Crookshanks off your chest, shaking you, and questioning us to get answers. The cat wouldn't let go, though."

"Well," I began, "I'm okay now. You guys can go back to sleep. Thank you." They nodded and returned to their beds. Ginny, however, didn't move. She only glared.

"Come. Now." she told me, before getting up and leading me out of the dormitory. I followed her to the common room where she sat down. "Explain." I sat as well.

"Well," I started, "what do you want me to explain?" I asked innocently.

Ginny glared again. "Your dream! You were freaking out!"

"Well, it was…" I shivered again. "A bad dream."

"What happened in it? When you woke up and saw McGonagall, you paled and shrank back. That is not the customary response to seeing your favorite teacher or being saved by her!"

"Well… In the dream… I know it wouldn't happen in real life… But it was so real, and…" I began sobbing. I realized then just how much the dream had affected me. I looked at my hands and saw how badly they were shaking. My body wracked with a sob again.

"It's okay…" Ginny told me. "Just, get it all out. It will help. I swear it will." She put my head on her shoulder and rocked me back in forth until I stopped sobbing.

I lifted my head. "Thank you." I sniffled. "Well… In the dream, she tried to… to… I don't even know what she was doing, but my heart felt as though it had been ripped out and discarded and my stomach felt as if it had dropped twenty feet. I don't know if I had ever felt that scared." Tears streamed down my face again. "And… it was just horrid! Harry and Ron sat there as she and Hooch killed me."

"Aww… Well, you know that wouldn't really happen! Any of it! Harry and Ron are your best friends! They wouldn't just stand idle while something was hurting you! And McGonagall wouldn't let anything harm you either! She and Hooch certainly wouldn't be the ones doing the harming!" Ginny told me. They were all very good points, but… it had felt so real.

"I know… But, Ginny, you don't understand!" I didn't know how to explain it without giving away my secret. It hardly mattered. Once I had spoken, Ginny fixed me with a hard glare reminding me of her mother this time.

"No. No buts. None of it was true. It was a bad dream, and that's it. You have a better chance of You-Know-Who coming into Hogwarts for tea with Dumbledore!" Ginny laughed, "You are safe. Now, I am marching you straight to bed. Then, you are going to sleep soundly and when you wake up, you will forget all of this nonsense!"

Ginny pulled me up from the couch and marched me to my dormitory as promised. But, as we walked, I realized that this was not the first time I had that particular dream. I began remembering many of my recent dreams.

"That was it." I told myself. "Tomorrow, you are waking up early and checking your divination book. The whole theory maybe codswallop, but any indication will help. And, if you must, you will ask Trelawney. She may be a crazy old bat, but she should know. That is the subject she teaches. She should be a master." I climbed into bed as Ginny had instructed and she stayed until I fell asleep. My last thought that ran through my mind as I drifted into an uneasy sleep was that the dream probably held no significance.

Probably.