Chapter 78, everybody! About three chapters off from having an update for every week remaining in this year, we're doing good friends.
I feel like Sirus takes advantage of his status as part-time dog to sleep wherever, which includes rugs beside beds. And ah, book plot!
Harry Potter © 1997 J.K. Rowling
Boxing Day night Harry finally got his wish and got a variation of the hall dream.
It was one that had him catapulting upright in a cold, terrified sweat.
"Sirius!" he gasped, looking around—practically dove off the bed in his endeavor to shake the black dog awake. "Sirius wake up!"
"Rrr!? What, what is it?" Sirius asked, turning back into a person.
"I just—the hall dream—it was the same thing as always but—I was closer to the floor this time, like a snake, and Mr. Weasley was at the end of it, and—and—I think he's in trouble," he managed finally, aware that around his eyes were wet. "That...it felt too real to be a dream."
Sirius, to his credit, didn't try to convince him otherwise. "Let me run over to the Weasleys to make sure—you go to the kitchen, get Kreacher to make you something warm."
Harry nodded, Snips flying to his shoulder as a big black dog ran out the room—wiped at his face before grabbing his wand, not really needing to cast a lumos but wanting it handy, aware that he was shaking as he headed downstairs.
Kreacher must have heard his name mentioned, because he had a mug of hot chocolate waiting, sat with him and listened as Harry recounted his dream—
Looked sharp, as Harry and Snips did, when a glowing white dog shot past them and up the stairs, the cold knot in Harry's stomach tightening as Remus came barreling down them a few moments later, looking frantic.
"What happened?" Harry demanded, startling Remus.
"Arthur—" Remus started—seemed to have to take a moment to recenter himself as well. "Mr. Weasley—he was working late at the Ministry and was attacked."
Harry deeply regretted wishing for a different dream in that moment.
As near as anyone could figure, one Arthur Weasley was attacked by a huge snake.
Harry and Draco had sat up with the Weasleys as Remus, Narcissa, and Mrs. Weasley flooed to St. Mungo's, all of them sick with panic and praying frantically, some rocking or pacing or staring into their mugs of hot chocolate that Kreacher and Dobby had made, Dobby trying to get any of them to eat something—"Would make yous feel better—"
Harry didn't think he could ever eat again, that dream playing far too vividly in his head as he stared out the dark windows, gray dawn slowly making itself known through fat flakes. Snips sat with him, not trying to comfort or distract him, just there.
It felt like an agonizing eternity later, when Remus, Sirius, and Narcissa came back.
"They kicked out everyone but immediate family and informed us that pure-bloods all being related didn't count," Remus said. "Mr. Weasley will live, he'll be fine."
"But what happened?" Ginny demanded, finally tearing her eyes away from the Weasley family clock. "Why was he attacked? Did you-know-who do it?"
"A giant snake did," Harry croaked, not looking away from the window—the most he had said since learning what he had dreamed was real.
Remus and Narcissus set to explaining everything to the others; Sirius came and sat by Harry.
"Hey, pup," Sirius said gently. "You look peaked."
"I dreamt I was the snake," Harry said hollowly, feeling his eyes water again. "Through everything—all I can taste is blood. It's horrible."
Sirius nodded. "Just so you know, if you hadn't woken me up and said something...they said if we had been even a few more minutes later, he wouldn't have made it. You saved him, you know."
"But why?" Shake his head. "Why did I see that?"
"Maybe you're an actual seer," Sirius mused. "The good news is, if you're anything like Trelawney you only have like, two or three of these stocked up." Hug him. "It'll be all right."
Harry nodded, not trusting himself to answer—that had been terrifying, when he realized what was happening, terrifying because he knew the snake had been elated—
Or rather, the person behind the snake—because he was certain that Voldemort was the one controlling it.
And apparently, Voldemort desperately wanted behind that door.
It was towards evening that Percy came back, announcing to a bleary household that Mr. Weasley was conscious and recovering.
"What I don't understand was why Dad was outside the Department of Mysteries," he said, looking exhausted as he paced. "He could have sent a memo—did someone want to talk to him and asked to meet him there? What?"
"Department of Mysteries?" Harry echoed.
"Basically everything we don't understand is put there to be studied, in theory," Ron said. "Probably a TV made it in there and Dad was going to retrieve it."
"Which then bears asking why a great bloody snake was there," Percy grumbled.
"I think it was Moldy-Voldy's snake," Harry said, kind of glad that Sirius had insisted on such terminology; it took some of the edge off of the horror of the whole thing. "Which also means that he wants in the Department of Mysteries." Something occurred to him then. "This department—does it have blue halls and a black door?"
"Leading up to it, yes," Percy said, looking a little consternated at Harry's declarations. "Inside, I don't know, only Unspeakables are allowed in there."
"Wait a minute," Ron said, cottoning on to what Harry was intimating. "Are you saying all this time you've been dreaming of the Department of Mysteries?"
"I think so," Harry said. "Only I've never seen it—no, wait, I saw it in passing the day of my hearing, but I had been dreaming about it before then." Look at Sirius, who exchanged glances with Remus.
"Dumbledore does think that Moldy-Voldy wants something in there," Remus said, looking ponderous.
"One of the Unspeakables had to go to St. Mungo's earlier in the year," Percy said. "You don't think the two are connected."
"It's possible."
Narcissa was slowly turning her teacup around and around in its saucer. "Lucius was outside the courtroom that day; at the time I thought he had been wanting a moment with me. Now I'm wondering if he wasn't there on orders."
Harry glanced at Draco, whose expression was thunderous as he studiously avoided looking at the rest of them.
"It bears asking what he's after, then," George said.
"Dad could have been imperiused," Fred mused. "And when he couldn't get in..."
"The impression I'm getting is, he didn't want to discuss it where others could hear," Percy said. "We'll find out when he gets back."
They were able to visit him at the hospital, assure themselves that he was in one piece—Harry especially needed to see him, although he squirmed a little at Mr. Weasley thanking him.
"I heard it was because of you they knew to look for me," Mr. Weasley told him quietly, glancing at the next bed over to make sure they weren't overheard.
Running into Neville while there, and meeting Neville's parents, however, was what truly and finally put how serious it all was into perspective.
Harry made sure to double down on their club meetings when they returned to Hogwarts.