Harry lurched awake in his fourposter beside Ron who was sitting in an upright position staring wide-eyed at his own bed a few feet away.
"What are you doing in my bed, Ron?" asked Harry startled. Ron whipped his head around, just noticing Harry was awake, and said,
"Harry, I-I keep on hearing strange noises from under my bed... it sounds like someone muttering."
"Muttering?" Ron's lips quivered as he nodded, and Harry noticed he was very ashen-faced. "Well did you look underneath the bed?" Ron shook his head slowly, his eyes still glued to the scarlet hangings around his mattress.
Harry got out of bed, grabbed his wand, and muttered "lumos!" He could hear Ron's terrified sobs behind him as he knelt down and shined his wand under the fourposter. He met a pair of black, malevolent eyes staring back at him behind a rather large nose and crusty lips curled back into a sneer.
Severus Snape, the Hogwarts Potions Master, slithered out from beneath the bed and let out a high-pitched laugh. The laugh turned into a moan as he half-crawled, half-slithered out of the boys' dormitory.
"He did that to me just two nights ago!" said Fred at breakfast the next morning. "Something's gotten into that old git."
"You reckon it's got something to do with You-Know-Who?" said George as Ginny and Hermione sat down on either side of Ron.
"Voldemort can spit on my—" (Everyone winced at the sound of Voldemort's name.)
"Shhh!" hissed Ginny before Harry could finish his sentence. Snape had just arrived at the end of the Gryffindor table wearing a twisted grin on his face. No one spoke. Snape took a sip out of George's goblet of pumpkin juice, cast a peculiar glance across the students, and headed off towards the Entrance Hall.
"He's got problems," said Ron.
Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry hadn't been off to a great start. The Daily Prophet had made him and Dumbledore out to be a couple of untrustworthy fools over the summer so no one would believe that the Dark Lord really had risen again.
A group of Hufflepuff third-years scowled at Harry as they passed him on the way to their table. He'd become accustomed to hostile reactions from fellow students at this point, so he opened his copy of Quidditch Through the Ages in his lap and tried to block out his surroundings.
"Potter!" said a familiar voice a few feet away. Not now, Malfoy... "Is it true you dueled with the Dark Lord?" Harry felt heat rise in his cheeks but was determined to keep his focus on his book. "Looks like you escaped without a battle scar this time," Malfoy sneered. "I guess that's a good thing. Two hideous scars across your face wouldn't look very good on headlines." Crabbe and Goyle guffawed stupidly on either side of him.
"Shove off, Malfoy," said Ron. But Malfoy smirked and strode up to the edge of the table where Snape had been moments ago. He held his bag over his shoulder with one arm and clutched a Bible at his side with the other.
"Better keep your distance from Potter, Weasley. Wouldn't want to end up like poor Diggory, would you?" No one spoke, but Harry struggled to look oblivious to Malfoy's comments as he clenched his fists under the table. "It would probably be good for your parents though. Maybe they could afford to put a few plates of food on the table with one less child."
Harry risked a glance up from his book and saw Ron chewing his bottom lip with a flushed look across his face and Ginny narrowing her eyes beside him. "Not that they ever spent much on you, to begin with," said Malfoy in an undertone, eyeing Ron's frayed robes. Harry had had enough.
