"Nice one Potter, get scared by the little demon? I was the one being attacked and even I didn't pass out." He laughed again just before Madam Pomfrey came back into the room with a tin of cream to put onto Draco's scratches.

Determined to stare at the floor, Harry didn't lift his eyes until Draco had gone and Madam Pomfrey had finished her diagnostic spell. "I can see why you collapsed Mr. Potter," she tutted, pouring pink potion that smelled like strawberries into a cup and handing it to him.

"Maam?" he asked uncertainly.

She motioned for him to drink the potion down and when he did she said, "Your magical core was a bit depleted. The potion should give you some strength back. What kind of magic were you doing to drain such strength?"

She seemed to be looking at Harry and waiting for an answer but he only shook his head and raised his hands up. "Nothing! I was just watching Draco get attacked by that thing!"

"All right. You're free to go Mr. Potter. Let me know if you don't feel better in a few hours. I'll let Professor Snape know the results of the scans."

"Professor Snape?"

"He's the one that carried you here."

Harry's cheeks turned red again and he slid off the bed and hurried out the door. He hated that he was small enough to be carried. He bet that Snape wouldn't have been able to carry Draco if he'd passed out, though Harry was forced to remind himself yet again, that Draco hadn't passed out.

He was nearly back down to the Great Hall to finish his meal when a throat cleared behind him and a silky voice stopped him in his tracks. "Potter."

Harry turned and his face turned red yet again at the sight of the Potion's Master. The man stalked up to him and looked him over critically. "Madam Pomfrey has released you already?" He sounded skeptical, as if Harry might have run off on his own.

"She gave me potion to replenish the magic I lost is all."

"Your core was depleted?"

Harry nodded.

With a heavy sigh Severus reached up and rubbed his temple. So the boy was fueling this creature, though he wasn't sure he subscribed completely to the Headmaster's theory of the Tulpa. A piece of Voldemort inside Potter? He was more likely to believe that the boy needed protection from something.

"Come with me Potter," he said finally, and turned to stalk towards the dungeons, Harry in tow.

Safely inside his office with the door shut, he motioned for Harry to have a seat and took a seat in his own chair across the desk.

"There are two possibilities as to what this creature is Potter. Both indicate trouble for yourself and others."

Harry stared at him and listened intently, finally ready for some answers.

"The Headmaster believes that it's a possibility, that you, or another person may somehow have conjured what is known as a Tulpa, a creature that literally takes form from an idea. If this is true, then this, ‘Tulpa' may believe that you are its master, and while it may obey you for a short time, it will eventually try defeat you, by means of death, and break free from you."

Harry paled and Severus didn't fail to notice. "And- the other possibility?"

"One of the books about Hogwarts mentions a creature that the castle sometimes conjures called a Protector. It has only happened a handful of times. It is invisible and its sole purpose is to protect the student it came into being for."

"A creature to protect me? From what?" Harry was confused. Nobody ever wanted to protect him because... well, because he was just Harry.

Severus remained quiet for a few moments as he watched the boy think.

"But I saw that thing in the Great Hall. It was- it was disgusting."

"Yes," Severus said carefully, "and yet, the creature that attacked me and cornered you in the dungeons was unseen."

"It- it was like cat... I'm sure of it." Harry hoped desperately that it wasn't that, rotting fetid thing from the Great Hall that had been rubbing up against his legs, or else he'd never leave his dorm room again.

"Describe what happened in the Great Hall."

Harry frowned and thought hard before saying, "That thing tackled Draco, and then I think it turned and stared at me, and I felt weak. I- I couldn't look away. It was like I was trapped. And then-" Harry stopped and looked up at Snape with his mouth wide open and surprise in his eyes.

"Yes?"

"And then I felt the little monster rubbing up against my legs again and just before you started shooting off spells at the creature it took off and I collapsed!"

"You felt the invisible creature?"

Harry nodded emphatically.

"You're absolutely positive?"

"Yes, it was there! I think- I think maybe it made the nasty rotting thing go away and made it let me go."

Severus startled then as Harry startled and leaped up out of his chair before falling back into it and looking around wildly at the ground around him.

"Potter?"

"I felt it just now. It's here."

Severus stood and began casting spells cautiously around the office, though they revealed nothing.

"Is it still touching you Potter?"

"Yes." Harry's voice shook as he said it. Was this a second rotting creature? He hoped that if there was a protector, that it didn't look nasty, though Harry thought that if it looked like the one in the hall that it would have the proper decency to at least smell like death as well to announce itself.

"Can you pick it up?"

Harry's eyes grew wide. "Do what sir?"

"Can you pick it up Potter," he snapped impatiently. They heard a low growl then and Harry drew his hands in to his chest.

Snape held up his hands as if to show thin air that he meant no harm and the growling stopped.

"Pick the thing up and bring it here," he ordered in as calm a voice as he could muster. They were going to solve this mystery once and for all if for nothing else than for his sanity, he decided.

The small Gryffindor tentatively reached out a hand and picked up what looked like thin air, before cradling it in his arms and following his Potion's Professor through the secret entrance into his quarters.

"What are we going to do sir?" Harry asked. The thing felt furry, not like rotting flesh, and this at least gave him some comfort, though he didn't know what he'd do if the creature wasn't a cat and was instead something with a terrifying face or wings or rows of large sharp teeth.

"Determine what this is," Snape said matter of factly, leading him straight into the kitchen. Severus pulled a large jar out of a cupboard and set it on the counter.

"Hold the creature away from you," Snape instructed, and though Harry felt it struggle as he took it away from his chest, he did as he was told. Snape took a large handful of white powder from the jar and dropped it over the top of Harry's hands.

Another growl emanated from the squirming mass, but it began to take form. Harry could make out wild fur, a body, and a flapping tail, but nothing else.

"What is that?" he asked of the powder, thinking perhaps that it was some kind of anti-invisibility powder that Snape had made in his Potion's lab.

"Flour," Snape said plainly, dropping another handful over the creature, revealing four legs, a head and, to Harry's dismay, a set of little furry wings that looked like a bat's. He fought the urge to drop the creature.

"Can I put him down now?" Harry asked, closing his eyes and turning his head away. There were no eyes, just holes where the flour refused to reveal anything.

"Yes," Snape said with a sneer, knowing the beast would probably track flour all around his kitchen floor.

After Harry set it down, he and Snape watched as it shook out it's fur like a wet dog and flour flew up into the air and filled the kitchen, though it was still visible, unable to get it all off of itself.

"What is it?" Harry asked. "Is it the Tupo thing or the protector?"

"It's pronounced Tulpa, and this creature has not done you any harm, correct?"

Harry nodded.

"The creature in the Great Hall drained you of magical energy. I believe the one in the Great Hall was the Tulpa."

"So- so there's a protector and a Tulpa?"

"I believe so."

Harry stared down at the creature. Maybe he needed the protector because of the Tulpa?

"Have you seen anything like this before?" Harry asked as the protector began licking itself clean, and the flour began to disappear on the animal's tail.

"It looks like a Kissan. A winged cat," he translated at Harry's confused look. "They are native Finland and other cold northern magical communities. I have only seen them in books."

"Well what do I do with it?"

"I do not know," Severus said then, and Harry looked up to see the man giving him a piercing glare.

"The question is, what does it have to do with you Potter?"

"It's protecting me from that Tulpa thing," Harry said as if it were quiet obvious. "It made it go away didn't it?" The protector was almost invisible again, though Harry could still see one ear and a bit of flour on the back of its head where it couldn't seem to reach with its wet paw.

"And angry Potion's Masters?" Snape questioned. Oh, that, Harry thought, remembering the man's scratched up leg from the other night.

"Maybe it doesn't like detention," Harry said defensively. It wasn't his fault after all that the little thing had attacked him.

"I see," Severus said. "I will escort you back to your dormitory, where you will stay unless escorted by a Professor, or your little beast." He motioned down to the one ear and one patch of flour that was visible bobbing around the kitchen in a circle around Harry's legs.

"What will I do about the Tulpa then? How do I get rid of it and the protector?"

Severus sneered. "Enough questions. I have work to do and don't have time to babysit you all night."

He motioned to the door from his quarters out into the other dungeon hallway, and Harry moved, not wanting to get detention again for arguing. The visible ear bobbed along behind him.

* * *

Hermione had the excellent idea it turned out, to tie a piece of clothing or ribbon to Harry's new ‘pet'.

"He won't let you," Harry cautioned. He didn't want to see his friend get clawed up.

"I'll be careful," Hermione insisted as she conjured a red collar with the Gryffindor logo on it and approached the one visible ear carefully.

"Can I put this on you?" she asked it. When no growl came, she felt for the neck and then clipped the collar on.

"See," she said. "Now you'll know when it's with you."

"Great," Ron said. "Two creatures lurking in the night, and they're both bound to be somewhere around you," he pointed at Harry.

"At least this one's nice," Harry offered, but Ron scoffed.

"Nice? It about ripped Snape's leg off, remember?

"Yeah but it chased away the Tulpa thing. You didn't see it Ron, that thing was nasty. It had skin falling off of it and everything. It was like a little troll."

"Did the Professor know where it came from Harry?" Hermione asked.

"No, he just said someone else conjured it and it thinks I'm its master."

"Don't sick it on me," Ron said, sitting cross legged on his bed.

"That's not fair, I didn't sick it on Draco. It just attacked him."

Ron smiled then. "If it's your master, you might as well use it before it tries to off you, right? Why not, you know, have some fun?"

Hermione crossed her arms. "Ron Weasley!"

"What? It's his monster, he can use it to- to- to tuck him in to bed," Ron finished lamely at the glare Hermione was sending his way.

She stuck her nose up in the air. "If you use it for anything I'm going straight to Professor McGonagall or Snape," she told Harry, before turning on her heel and leaving the second year boy's dormitory, slamming the door behind her.

"Girls," Ron muttered, and the little winged protector gave a low quiet growl from the foot of Harry's bed.