His robes were soaked clean through with sweat, and his wet hair clung to his cheeks in dark, heavy clumps. When the late-night wind swept down the corridor and over him, its bone-piercing cold struck Harry like a bucket of water, and the fever of the dream drained out of him, and his mind came dragging back to clarity.
There were already quite a few people crowded round him, standing in a loose, anxious ring.
Besides Ginny, whose arms were still wrapped tightly round his shoulders, Hermione and Luna had come to his side as well.
One look at the way Hermione was watching him told Harry that she had already guessed something of what had happened. Even Luna, who was usually so dreamy and so far away, had opened her bright silver eyes as wide as they would go, and she was gazing at him fixedly, without a blink.
Farther off, a few paces beyond the circle, Roya and her people stood waiting with a handful of goblins, and they were all watching Harry with a wary, uncertain look, like people who have stumbled upon something that they were not meant to see.
But the most astonishing thing of all was that Ron was there too.
Harry remembered perfectly well telling Ron to carry Filch to the hospital wing, and to stay there until he and Hermione came down to join him. He could not think what Ron was doing in this corridor.
Ron was looking at Harry's deathly pale face, and then at Ginny, who was clinging to Harry so hard, and his lips moved as though he meant to say something. Nothing came out.
"Oh, Harry…"
Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth and sniffed softly, once and then again began blinking hard.
"How long was I out?"
Harry's voice, when it came, was as grating as two rusty saws drawn against each other.
"Not even ten minutes. You just collapsed, all at once, and you looked as though you were in terrible pain. You were thrashing about on the floor, and you kept shouting 'Sirius,' over and over—"
Hermione's brown eyes brimmed with worry.
"Harry, what on earth did you—"
"Never mind that for a moment. Ron, why did you come down here? And did Neville find Professor McGonagall? Professor Dumbledore?"
Harry left the question unanswered for the moment and asked his own, wheezing raggedly between the words.
"Neville found Professor McGonagall all right. But she said… Dumbledore's left the school. He's gone, Harry. She seemed to be saying that something's happened over in Paris—"
Harry's heart sank to the very bottom of his chest, like a stone dropped down a well.
What a coincidence, he thought bitterly. Professor Dumbledore and Professor Watson, both gone from Hogwarts on the very same night. And who was he supposed to turn to now?
Oh. But this was no coincidence at all.
It was a conspiracy, one that must have been laid out long ago, piece by careful piece!
"The reason I came to find you—"
Ron was panting hard as well, and he went on to answer Harry's other question.
"Is that after I got Filch into the hospital wing, I noticed Crabbe wasn't there. He never showed up. Harry, do you think—"
A wave of dizziness washed over Harry, and the corridor tilted for a moment. Malfoy had fooled him again!
How stupid he had been! Something so plainly wrong had stood in front of him under the torchlight, and he had walked right past it.
"Malfoy," he said.
His face was twisted and savage, and his teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw ached.
"Oh, are you looking for him?"
A clear, crisp voice that seemed to come out of nowhere made the whole huddle jump. Harry looked up, and saw that it was Elune Gangrel.
This little vampire, whom Professor Watson had brought to Hogwarts, liked to wander the castle in the middle of the night, and, under cover of darkness, to slip out through the secret passages into Hogsmeade to buy sweets.
Judging by the enormous box of sweets that floated along behind her in the air, tied with a ribbon, she had just that moment come back from there.
"What do you mean, Elune? You've seen Malfoy?"
Harry gave Ginny's back a gentle pat, and when she let go of him, he walked straight up to Elune and looked at her with burning urgency. A blood-red lollipop was still stuck in her mouth.
"I ran into him just now in the secret passage. I hid first, so he didn't see me. Oh, but he was wearing somebody else's face."
Elune had not yet worked out what was going on. Her red eyes darted from face to face, taking in everyone present, and she licked her lollipop and asked, baffled,
"What's the matter? Why is everyone standing about in the corridor like this?"
Malfoy had used the Hunchbacked Witch's passage on the fourth floor to leave Hogwarts?
"How did you know it was Malfoy?"
Hermione had instantly caught the flaw in Elune's words, as keen as a hawk seeing a mouse, and she eyed the little vampire with suspicion.
"If, as you say, he was wearing a different face?"
"I'm a vampire, aren't I?"
Elune shrugged, entirely unconcerned.
"A month ago, when he tried to open Watson's office, the magic on the door struck back and he got hurt and bled a little. I memorised the scent of his blood right then. Oh, but you were all there too, weren't you?"
"So that means—!"
Hermione's face went livid, and she glared furiously at Elune, quite unable to keep down her rage.
"You knew, even then, that it was Malfoy who tried to break into Professor Watson's office, Elune! And you never told a soul!"
"So what if I did?"
Hermione's attitude had enraged Elune in her turn. The little vampire bared her teeth and showed Hermione a pair of sharp, gleaming fangs.
"I'd only just been kidnapped by Watson and dragged off to Hogwarts back then, and I was in a foul temper! And anyway, nobody asked me!"
Hermione was so angry that her bushy hair seemed to stand on end. She opened her mouth to say a good deal more, but Harry suddenly roared.
"Stop it! Stop arguing, all of you!"
He took two quick, sharp breaths, and then abruptly shoved Ron aside and bolted off down the corridor.
"Harry, what on earth is going on?"
Ron hurried after him at once, nearly tripping over his own feet.
"What's happened to Sirius? What did you see in the dream?"
"There's no time to explain, Ron! I've got to find Professor McGonagall, now!"
Harry bawled it at the top of his lungs and left Ron and the rest of them behind him in the dim passage.
"Everyone else, go back to your rooms and stay there! Nobody is to go out tonight!"
Hermione snapped out the order to Roya and her people, shot Elune a hasty glare, and then set off after Harry's retreating back, with Ginny, Luna and Ron at her heels.
"Oh, and who gave you the right to give me orders, Granger? You're nothing but a pipsqueak!"
Elune said indignantly, in her high clear voice.
"I'm going to see for myself what mischief you lot are up to!"
And with that, she dropped her box of sweets right where she stood and went hurrying after them as well, her steps quick but no less graceful for it.
That left Roya and her people standing there in the corridor, torn and at a loss, among the scattered sweets.
By the time Harry reached the hospital wing, Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey were gathered at a bed at the inner end of the long ward, and Neville stood at the foot of Filch's bed with his hands twisting together.
There were other young wizards in the ward too, laid up with heavy colds and curious ailments, and they were propped up in their beds with their heads craned round the curtains, sneaking looks at the caretaker's still form.
The group that came bursting through the doors in a clatter of footsteps drew every eye in the room at once.
Professor McGonagall's face was full of worry as she rose. She watched Harry hurry toward her in a flurry, and her eyebrows lifted instinctively. Then she sighed, and gave Harry a smile that was friendly enough,
"Although you broke the school rules, Potter, I must still thank you on Argus's behalf.
"If we had not found him until tomorrow morning, then everything—Oh, what is it, Potter!"
"That can wait, Professor!"
Harry was gasping for breath. He swept his eyes round the ward, and then, under the astonished stares of everyone present, and without another word, he seized Professor McGonagall by the wrist and rushed her into a private room.
"It's Voldemort!"
Hermione and the others had burst in after him in bewilderment, and now they froze on the spot, staring at Harry in horror.
"He's caught Sirius, Professor. He's torturing him right now. We must tell Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore as soon as we possibly can. They're at the Ministry of Magic!"
When he saw that the whole group stood there struck dumb, Professor McGonagall among them, Harry grew only more frantic, and he roared.
"I swear everything I'm saying is true! I really saw it, in the dream—but it wasn't a dream, I know it was all real. Sirius is on a mission for the Order of the Phoenix, he's in the Department of Mysteries—and then—hah—then Voldemort just appeared, and he made Sirius—"
Recalling all that had happened in the vision, Harry felt his scar begin to burn with pain again. He sucked in a long breath of cold air through his teeth, and insisted,
"I swear to you, it's a conspiracy. It's Voldemort's conspiracy!
"Something happened in Paris. I'd guess it was meant to get both Professor Dumbledore and Professor Watson to leave. And he's got Malfoy taking tonight to carry the staff out of Hogwarts, while he himself goes to the Ministry to steal the crystal ball. Sirius is the one guarding it tonight. Do you understand? He's in danger! Voldemort's caught him!"
Harry very nearly screamed that last sentence.
He could not lose his godfather. Sirius was the only family he had!
A silence like the bottom of the sea fell over the ward, and every eye was turned on the anguished Harry.
"You are… You're saying you saw all of this in a dream, Potter?"
It was more than ten seconds before Professor McGonagall came back to herself out of her shock and bewilderment.
And from her expression, so far as everything Harry had said was concerned, she hung somewhere between believing it and not believing it, as if she stood on a narrow plank over a ravine.
"But it's real!"
Harry shouted, pointing at Ron and Hermione.
"They all know—I can see Voldemort; they know that what I see is true!"
Professor McGonagall looked back at Hermione and Ron. Both of them had their mouths slightly open, and neither of them seemed to know what to say.
"Very well, Potter. Given all that has happened tonight, Filch included, it is certainly necessary to notify Bryan and Albus."
Professor McGonagall drew a deep breath to steady herself, and held Harry in a burning stare.
"I shall go and write to them at once."
"That'll be too late! We've got to find them right now!"
Everyone saw it: Harry, clutching at his scar and glaring at them, with his green eyes flashing through with a soul-chilling streak of crimson!
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