It was a very subdued Harry who looked up three nights later and realised that he had five minutes until curfew to get from the library to the dorms. In the dungeons. He'd been trying to research what might cause black outs, but had come up completely empty. If he'd asked Madam Pince, she would have directed him to the books Hermione had been perusing, but Harry was more than used to not asking help from adults. They never tended to actually, well, help.

"Shit," he cursed under his breath as he slammed his books into his bag, crumpling his Transfiguration homework in the process. No matter, he'd fix it in the common room, Harry promised himself as he flung himself past the narrow-eyed librarian into the main corridor. It would be difficult, but he was sure if he slid down the banister and took the trick door to the left he'd make it with a minute to spare.

It might have worked, had a ghost not startled him, making him slip off at the wrong spot and end up cursing fluently at a patch of bare wall. Great. Now he was going to get in trouble with Professor Snape, and Harry was already sure the man hated him. His shoulders slumped. He wasn't sure which was worse, a detention or that look the bloody man gave you, like you were lower than the grit on the bottom of his shoe.

"But Master, I..." a desperate, quavering voice caught his attention from a classroom only a few yards away, and Harry froze, his heart thundering in his ears. That didn't sound good. That sounded very, very bad, and yet he couldn't help getting closer, his shoes treading as quietly as he could make them.

"I know, but the boy-" the voice continued, along with a low hissing that Harry couldn't properly make out. It reminded him of a snake, but he'd never heard a snake that sounded like that. It sounded ineffably wrong somehow, and made his whole body feel very weak and shivery.

"Snape poking around..." he heard the person grumble, and he perked up. Snape? What about Snape? He couldn't tell if Snape poking around was good or bad. The classroom's doorknob turned a few minutes later and Harry leaped back, scrambling to hide behind a very rusty-looking knight and barely managing it.

Just in time to see Professor Quirrell straighten his turban with shaking hands, glare around at the shadows, and stride off, not looking a bit like his normal stuttering self.

What was that all about? Harry thought in confusion, before remembering that curfew had already passed, and he had to get down to the common room post haste. In the ensuing rush, he almost managed to forget his DADA professor's odd behaviour.

The others, however, didn't.

That was weird, Jay remarked later, after Harry had made his shame-faced way to bed. One of the prefects had given him a lecture, and warned him that he was lucky it wasn't more.

What? Tom asked, sliding out in control of the body as he brushed their teeth, changed into slightly ragged pyjamas, and cast a proper locking spell on their curtains. With Quirrell?

Yes, with Quirrell, who the fuck did you think I meant? The rusty knight? Jay rolled his eyes. He was arguing with someone, yeah? Then how come no one else followed him out?

Perhaps there is another exit, Raven suggested primly. A lot of the classrooms have more than one entrance. I know. It's in Hogwarts, a History.

You would know that, Jay scowled. But I doubt it. Besides, what was the hissing?

"It reminded me of someone," Tom said aloud, contemplative. "But I can't put my finger on who," he added in frustration. "Someone-unpleasant."

Uncle Vernon? Jay snickered.

"No, Jay," Tom said, sighing as he clambered beneath the covers. "Someone dangerous. More dangerous than our unfortunate uncle."

But who, Tom couldn't remember, and wasn't inclined to guess.

Their dreams that night were more fragmented than ever, and filled with the same odd, angry hissing that had punctuated Quirrell's sobbing. Tom woke up grainy-eyed, a migraine threatening his temples, and even more convinced he knew the source of the hissing.

Of course, that didn't matter anyway, because as soon as he stumbled into the common room, tie still undone and halfway through a gaping yawn, Professor Snape swooped down on him like a massive bat and informed him that he would be spending breakfast in his Head of House's quarters, whether he wanted to or not.