Harry didn't quite know what to do with the egg that he had won in the previous task of the Triwizard Tournament. Lacquered with gold, the dragon's egg made an awful earsplitting screech if one so much as slid a nail into opening crack. Supposedly, this was the clue that needed to be cracked in order to successfully participate in the second task... as it was; Harry Potter wasn't doing so well with the puzzle.

Thus, this was the reason why Harry was wandering the halls of Hogwarts in the middle of the night, clad in pajamas and invisibility cloak, unable to sleep. It wasn't his fault... really. For the past several nights Harry would go to bed, exhausted from meetings with the other champions and the overly large pile of homework assigned, only to find him self awoken by a strange dream of Voldemort-sweaty and full of shivers. This previous time was the first that he had retched after, though.

Harry shivered and clutched the egg in the left crook of his arm while the other hand gripped his wand. The castle was drafty at night, and Harry had forgotten his slippers in the rush to leave the fourth year dormitories. Groaning silently to himself, Harry tried to think of a place where he could just relax for a while... maybe even sleep. He was pretty much set on adjourning back to the Gryffindor Commons when a boot click echoed through the hall.

Harry froze and watched as Snape turned the corner, his wand out and lighted at the tip.

Damn it!

Harry hurriedly moved to crush himself against the left hand wall, but only succeeded in loosing his clumsy grip on the dragon egg. He watched in horror as it crashed to the ground and the rolled lazily toward Snape. The icing on the cake came when it ominously clicked open and then started it's wailing screech... like giant nails on a blackboard, only a thousand times worse.

Snape sneered at the egg and swooped down to pick it up. The wailing stopped as suddenly as if had begun and the remnants of the sound echoed through the corridor.

Harry cringed slightly at the murderous look on Snape's face and backed himself further into the wall, wishing that it would swallow him whole and transport him to the safety of his Common Room.

Snape looked malevolent as his eyes darted around the hall and then finally rested where Harry was standing.

"Accio Invisibility Cloak."

He tried to hang on, he really did! The cloak was ripped from his grasp, leaving Harry completely revealed and not just a bit mortified. Snape looked ready to kill someone, namely him.

"Potter." Snape spat at him, walking up to Harry. His black boots clicking ominously on the flagstone. "It would seem that it is past curfew, is it not?"

Harry gapped at Snape and tried to come up with a plausible explanation. Nothing was coming to mind at the moment...

"Sir, I was just... um..."

Snape sneered at him and clenched his fist on the cloak in his hand, his eyes were fixated on Harry. He was in serious trouble.

"It may or may not have escaped your notice, Mister Potter, that you are a prime target at the moment." Snape snapped at him. "This," Snape shook the cloak under Harry's nose, "is not by any means a sufficient source of safety to you!"

"I'm sorry, sir. I was-"

"Oh, you're sorry, are you?" Snape sneered, tossing the egg back at him (Harry caught it just in time to avoid it smashing into his nose.) "Potter, I would suggest no more nightly wanderings. If I find that you are, you will be serving detention with me ever Saturday of the school year. Do I make myself clear?"

Harry nodded dumbly. Was he actually getting away from Snape without a detention?

Snape stared at him shrewdly before speaking again.

"Why are you shivering, Potter?"

Harry realized with a jolt, that he wasn't wearing his slippers and that with the cloak gone he was quite cold. Harry cleared his throat.

"I'm just cold, sir."

Snape heaved a large sigh before turning the cloak in his hands inside out and draping it around Harry's shoulders. He gave a flick of his wand and Harry found that his pajamas were now radiating a soft heat.

"Sir?"

"Go back to your dormitory, Potter." Snape said. He seemed to gaze at the egg for a few moments before his stare snapped back to Harry's face.

"Take a warm bath for the chills... you might as well take the egg with you."

Harry nodded and turned to leave. His eyes flickered briefly towards Snape.

"Um... thanks, sir."

Snape sneered at him again. "Do not let me catch you out of bounds at night again, Potter. You will wish you'd never heard of Hogwarts if you do."

Harry gulped at that and hurried back toward Gryffindor Tower.

It so happens that the egg clue was solved by each of the champions for the second task, even the youngest champion of Hogwarts. Harry Potter was awarded points for merit, but one Professor knew that the celebration wouldn't last forever...