✓ Heavenly

029. Girl Interrupted

       "Professor Dumbledore, Venus had a . . . well, what did you have?" Constance trailed off, shifting her eyes between Venus and Dumbledore.

       "Professor, this will sound completely and utterly insane," Venus said, "but you need to check on Arthur Weasley."

       "Care to elaborate, Ms. Rosario?" Dumbledore said quietly.

       "Do I have to?" Constance gave Venus a shadowy look. "I- I heard a voice. It told me that Arthur Weasley would die, unless I stopped it."

       Dumbledore said nothing, he only raised his arms and two chairs screeched behind Constance and Venus.

        "He thinks I'm crazy," Venus whispered to Constance as she lowered into her seat.

       "Girl, Interrupted." Constance muttered back sinking into her own chair.

       "Ms. Rosario, can you describe to me what exactly happened when you heard this voice?" Dumbledore sat upright in his high chair, folding his hands and looking at Venus showing her that he was going to listen to what she had to say.

       "Er — well. I wasn't here, it was more like I was in my own head. It was dark, really dark. Like I was surrounded by nothing but blackness."

       "Empty." Dumbledore added.

       "Yeah," Venus said, then she looked up at Dumbledore, "how did you know that?"

       "They told me this would happen," he said in a hushed and hurried tone.

       They? Who was they?

       Dumbledore was in mid-rise from his high hair when another three knocks sounded from his door. The door Constance and Venus walked in only twenty minutes ago uncovered three others: Professor McGonagall, a sweat-stricken Harry and a horrified Ron. The headmaster mustered another welcoming smile at them.

       "Oh, it's you, Professor McGonagall. . . and. . . ah!"

       "Professor Dumbledore, Potter has had a . . . well, a nightmare," said Professor McGonagall. "He says . . ."

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

       Professor McGonagall looked around at Harry, frowning slightly. "Very well, then, Potter, you tell the headmaster about it."

       "I . . . well, I was asleep. . . ." said Harry and even in his terror and his desperation to make Dumbledore 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, "Ron's dad — Mr. Weasley — has been attacked by a giant snake."

       The words seemed to reverberate in the air after they'd escaped Harry's lips had said them, slightly ridiculous, even comic. There was a pause in which Dumbledore leaned back and stared meditatively at the ceiling. Ron looked from Harry to Dumbledore, white-faced and shocked.

       "How did you see this?" Dumbledore asked quietly, still not looking at Harry.

       "Well . . . I don't know," said Harry, rather angrily "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?"

       This was such a curious question and Venus watched Harry gape at Dumbledore.

       "I was the snake," he said. "I saw it all from the snake's point of view. . . ."