Luck of Nines

45

He could sleep in the middle of the bustle of the city streets, he could sleep in a classroom, no matter how all encompassing the smell was. Despite the noise and smell he remained dozing and only semi-conscious of what was happening around him, waking fully up only as everybody was gathering their stuff and leaving for the day. Surprisingly no one, not even the teacher tried to wake him. Drowsily, he got up and followed in leaving the classroom.

     "Mr. Potter, a moment please?" His head turned towards the front for his first up close glimpse of the Professor who stood there, he didn't smell anything specific beyond the garlic that stabbed at his nostrils and with his sense of smell firmly tamped down on in response to the overpowering scent of garlic, but he knew this man.

      It was the professor who had startled him so badly the other day, the one who's scent was massed with the rancid smell of rotting meat and garlic.

       He quietly eyed the teacher and, noticing Theo, Malfoy, and the others lingering in the doorway, he turned and faced the teacher. Killing was illegal in the human world. To attack him here was relatively high stakes, but was it worth it for this rotting man anyway?

       There was always the chance. If he was defenseless, he had learned with the Cerberus that his peers were even more so. Tiger cubs were still just defenseless babies at the end of the day until they grew big and strong enough to be otherwise. And the Slytherins had only just begun that journey.  There were mind effecting spells, there were so many spells that could hide a body... or more too.

        "Yes Professor?" He asked, his stance easy, casual, so that he could dodge at a moment's notice without appearing tense like a trapped rabbit and thus encouraging attacks.

          "I'm worried for you, no matter the circumstances for these absences, you've still missed all three defense classes which you should have attended. If this continues you might get behind. Building up the fundamentals of defense is crucial for everything that follows, and if you don't master them correctly to build the base of your knowledge you won't be able to defend yourself at all later in life when you truly need it. If you find yourself to be defenseless then, that wouldn't be good at all, would it?" Quirrel plowed on, "You may be cocky from your defeat of the Dark Lord, but you were young then, you don't even know how you did it... do you?"

Harry stared, "Dark Lord? I'm sorry, I don't think I understand. I didn't grow up much involved in wizarding society so I doubt anything magical would have sought me out. Sir."

Quirrell looked like he had been struck, "So you do not know?"

Harry stared back in silence, apparently he was less knowledgeable about the magical world than he had expected; the other snakes certainly hadn't mentioned it, nor had the handful of people who he had met outside of Slytherin house during joined classes and such. He had gotten quite a bit of attention, but he hadn't heard of any Dark Lord before now. Had the Slytherins purposefully kept that away from him? He went off on his own occasionally, but when he did he avoided places students would go, it wasn't like he was socializing. 

After a long pause where Quirrel got increasingly more twitchy throughout, Harry finally spoke again, "I'm sorry sir, I might be late to my next class; I have to go." And then he turned and fled the classroom.

The day continued, except with multiple of the professors frequently trailing after them, to the Slytherin's great and increasing annoyance.

"Just what have we done to make them this suspicious!" Millicent finally cried out in ire, several days after the meeting with Quirrell, making sure, as was the new practice when speaking of anything even remotely interesting and non-school related, that her voice still didn't fall much louder than in a hushed tone as they hurried into the common room, all of them watching the door immediately close shut behind the last one of them as had become the other new habit. "It's the Gryffindor first years who keep making scenes!"

They might not have caught all the times, but with the sheer number and frequency which the teachers sought to tail them and be in their general vicinity, it would have been difficult for any of the Slytherin first years not to notice. Even the other years and other houses had begun to take notice. They had been asked eight times now by other students where such and such Professor was and when they had seen said Professor last. This second question was then politely- as almost certainly there was yet another, different, Professor within earshot- followed up with an inquiry on which direction the Professor had taken off in and where they might be headed.

One student had tailed them for five minutes when they said they didn't know where the specific Professor who said student was asking after was.

Ch- Harry could admit, it was wearing on him as well. It had been too long since his last chance to slip off into the forbidden forest was- twice he had tried in the dead of night only to smell the recent scent of Dumbledore or see the cat form of Mcgonagall lurking in the darkness. It was getting to be a little disturbing, surely human schools were not all as confining as this, nor the teachers as bizarrely behaving.

It was on what had become his semi-frequent trips of wandering the halls to try and find casual ways to ditch his newfound tails in order to somehow find a way to take another brief vacation into the forest just outside the carefully maintained lawn that made up the grounds, that he met quite possibly some of the sanest people confined with him, trapped inside the cold, stone walls of Hogwarts castle.

Keep in mind that Harry picked up his information about the magical world from watching people go about their daily lives in the alleys, meaning he has enough information to upon casual inspection make it appear he knows about the world, but not much more.  Any stories he heard, he did not connect with himself as he obviously hasn't been off fighting dragons and saving damsels. Plus he saw himself as Chipper rather than Harry as he had never been referred to such before- not even at the Dursleys- and is only just adjusting to it. Meaning that even when he heard talk of Harry Potter he didn't care enough to listen. The Slytherins haven't mentioned it directly. Because they like to think that they are playing five d chess against the world.

-T.A.L.A.