O, CURSED CHILD. ﹙ harry potter ﹚

LIX ; st. mungo's

            "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, with a side-glance to elara.

            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. "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."

            elara inhaled sharply. it was real. it was present. mr. weasley was in danger. dumbledores head snapped up.

            "see?" cried elara incredulously. "we need to do something — "

            "how did you see this?" dumbledore spoke over elara.

            "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?"

            "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 whey-faced, said in a new and sharper voice, "is arthur seriously injured?"

            "i've just told you this," said elara angrily.

            "yes," said harry emphatically.

            but dumbledore stood up so quickly that elara jumped, 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 short, black bangs 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 —"

            "now you listen," grumbled elara.

            both nodded and moved sideways out of their frames, but instead of emerging in neighboring pictures (as usually happened at hogwarts), neither reappeared; one frame now contained nothing but a backdrop of dark curtain, the other a handsome leather armchair. elara noticed that many of the other headmasters and mistresses on the walls, though snoring and drooling most convincingly, kept sneaking peeks at her under their eyelids, and she suddenly understood who had been talking when they had knocked.

            "everard and dilys were two of hogwarts's most celebrated Heads," dumbledore said, now sweeping around elara, luna, harry, ron, and professor mcgonagall and approaching 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. . . ."