Tim's favorite place in the house was a spot on the stairway that led from the second floor, upstairs to the bedrooms. It was the exact middle stair. His Nana used to tell him a poem about the middle stair, but he only remembered a little bit of it,

I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

He sat there now, listening for Dad to come home. Mum had finally agreed to let him out of bed. Lily and Al were playing a loud game of Exploding Snap in the drawing room. They'd asked him to play, but after a few games, he'd crept out here to his favorite thinking spot.

He wondered if he should mention to Dad that the Dark Man had come back.

The Dark Man hadn't been around at all since Tim had been adopted.

He'd talked to Healer Phoebe about the Dark Man, during some of their weekly session, of course. He'd told her how he'd always heard the man's voice in his head, how he'd tell Tim what to do when things were bad.

She'd told him that the Dark Man was a helper he'd created. Someone to look after him, when there weren't any adults. She'd assured him (after running a few diagnostic spells) that the Dark Man was somehow a part of himself. Like a shadow of his future adult self, perhaps.

He'd asked her why the Dark Man was so very, well...dark. She'd told him how black was a protective color, how it absorbed harmful magics, which made some sense, Tim supposed. The Dark Man was always most present when Smith had come to visit he and his Muggle mother.

Tim hadn't seen Healer Phoebe since the beginning of term, although she'd owled him frequently. Perhaps, he should tell his mum that he should make an appointment. The weird head injury stuff gave him a handy enough excuse.

This term had been pretty stressful, too. Maybe that was why the Dark Man had returned.

There had been dead silence in the Hall, when Tim had been sorted into Slytherin. Tim remembered the shocked stares that had greeted the Sorting Hat's pronouncement, and how he had tried hard not to show his nerves at the uncomfortable scrutiny.

He took two steps towards the Slytherin table, when applause broke out from the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Griffyndor tables. His siblings and cousins made their approval known. Tim found Lily's eyes and then Al's. They smiled at him, as the rest of the school seemed to get over whatever weirdness had gripped them. They smiled at him reassuringly, and all was mostly all right again.

The rest of the feast had been fun, as the new Slytherins were welcomed by their housemates. That night he'd fallen as deeply asleep as he could, sleeping in a dormitory with eight other boys. He was exhausted, the Sorting should have taken forever, as there were sixty children to be sorted. However, Tim suspected some meddling with time had happened (he thought he'd ask Aunt Hermione about that, next time he saw her).

It wasn't until the next day, that he found just how shocking people thought his Sorting was. On the way to breakfast, one of the prefects had, very seriously, asked him if his parents were going to have problems with it.

Tim had confidently told the prefect not to be concerned.

He could have shaken that off. However, after his first Potions lesson, Professor Bulstrode had quietly taken him aside in the corridor to ask if he wanted her to write his parents and explain, he'd begun to get nervous.

He really hadn't known what to say. If even the professors were worried, perhaps there was something to be worried about?

Fortunately the Headmistress had happened by. She'd just wanted a word with the Potions professor, but Tim had the distinct feeling that she was rescuing him. She'd given him a kind smile and said, "I'm sure you have somewhere to be, Mr. Potter?"

He heard Professor McGonagal whisper, "Millie, I know you don't know Harry and Ginny well, but they'll be fine about it, I promise.

Tim couldn't help but get worried though. He'd waited anxiously for that first letter from home, and Mum and Dad's reassurance that, yes, it was fine. His dad mentioned that Auntie Roz was over the moon.

After that, the term had gone well. Until that idiot decided to chuck a firework into someone's cauldron. That was the last thing Tim remembered, before he'd woken up with a godawful headache, that felt like that bastard Smith was using his wand on him.

Dreadful nightmares had accompanied the pain.

Mum had been there, though, and the Dark Man.

His mum had rocked him and talked him through the pain. The Dark Man had whispered a spell into his mind, and Tim didn't fight it, falling gratefully back into a painless sleep.

The next thing Tim knew, Healer Ernie was standing right in front of him, fixing his head.

His head didn't hurt anymore, but Tim could feel the Dark Man's presence, still in the back of his mind. The Dark Man felt angry and frightened. Tim wasn't sure what could frighten the Dark Man, and that frightened Tim.

The word "possession" drifted through Tim's mind, several times. Tim remembered the Hougan and Mambos in Haiti that his Dad had worked with, talking about possession. He'd asked Dad to explain what it was, one night at dinner. Mum had turned white and left the room. She hated talking about Dark Magic and Dad said that possession especially upset her.

Tim had borrowed a few of Dad's books that talked about the subject, over his Mum's objections. He could always count on his Dad that way. Anytime he asked, his Dad would tell him the truth, no matter how dark or scary.

He didn't think that the Dark Man could be like a Bokor who possessed people, even though the Dark Man had, from time to time, just taken over. That had always been when something horrible had been about to happen.

Tim shivered, remembering that the Dark Man had stood between he and the Cruciatus more than once. After Smith would leave, his Muggle mum would be completely useless. Sometimes, Tim would look after her, getting her up off the floor, guiding her to find her medicine. Once or twice, the Dark Man had just sent Tim to sleep and took care of Mary himself.

So, the Dark Man could be a Hougan? Hougans and Mambos could possess people too, but they usually did it to help people. Why would a strange Hougan send his spirit to help Tim?

It was really too much for Tim to puzzle out, and although he could feel the Dark Man, Tim was sure he wasn't going to get any more answers out of him than he ever did.