when i met you

103

"Wake up! Harry, wake up! Harry! HARRY!" yelled Lexi with worry.

He opened his eyes.

"Harry!" exclaimed Lexi and Ron with relief.

Ron was standing over him looking extremely frightened. Lexi was sitting on the edge of his bed, hands formerly on his shoulders. Harry clutched his head in his hands; he rolled right over and vomited over the edge of the mattress.

"Harry!" Lexi leapt backwards to avoid the splatter on the floor, then immediately went back to help him sit up. The younger boy leant on his sister with a dazed look and pain on his face, he was taking great gulps of air and seemed to be trying to say something.

"He's really ill," said a scared Neville. "Should we call someone?"

Lexi looked up to the boy, "Go get Professor McGonagall." Neville nodded and darted from the room.

"Harry, you've got to calm down!" Lexi rubbed his back.

"Your dad," he panted looking at Ron, his chest heaving. "Your dad's... been attacked..."

"What?" said Ron uncomprehendingly.

"Your dad! He's been bitten, it's serious, there was blood everywhere..."

"Harry, mate," said Ron uncertainly, "you... you were just dreaming —"

"No!" said Harry furiously; he turned to his sister with a pleading face.

"It wasn't a dream... not an ordinary dream... I was there, I saw it... I did it..."

Harry retched over the side of the bed again and frantically looked to his sister, praying she'd believe him.

Lexi pulled her brother into her arms and held his shaking body against hers, "I believe you," she whispered into his ear.

"Mr Weasley," Harry pulled back and looked around the room, "— we need to find out where he is—he's bleeding like mad—I was—it was a huge snake."

He tried to get out of bed but Lexi held him firmly. Ron's eyes kept flicking to Lexi's with concern as they communicated without words. They were all silent as they waited for Neville and Professor McGonagall; then there were hurried footsteps coming up the stairs and he heard Neville's voice again.

"Over here, Professor."

Professor McGonagall came hurrying into the dormitory in her tartan dressing gown, her glasses perched lopsidedly on the bridge of her bony nose.

"What is it, Potter? Where does it hurt?"

"It's Ron's dad," he said, wriggling out of his siter's grip. "He's been attacked by a snake and it's serious, I saw it happen."

"What do you mean, you saw it happen?" said Professor McGonagall, her dark eyebrows contracting.

"I don't know... I was asleep and then I was there..."

"You mean you dreamed this?"

"No!" said Harry angrily, "I was having a dream at first about something completely different, something stupid... and then this interrupted it. It was real, I didn't imagine it. Mr. Weasley was asleep on the floor and he was attacked by a gigantic snake, there was a load of blood, he collapsed, someone's got to find out where he is..."

Professor McGonagall was gazing at him through her lopsided spectacles as though horrified at what she was seeing.

"I'm not lying and I'm not mad!" Harry told her, his voice rising to a shout. "I tell you, I saw it happen! Lexi believes me!"