Instincts and Insomnia
Sometimes, he had trouble sleeping. Not always, of course, for growing boys need their rest, but when it was darker than is traditional at night, when all the stars were covered by clouds and the moon had waned until it was thinner than a necklace chain, he would stay awake. Bad things happened in the deepest shadows when you weren't vigilant.
Sometimes, he had trouble sleeping. It was just this nagging urge that something was off, a little off, not terribly far from the centre but also not quite there. In a school like Hogwarts, anomalies were practically the norm and magic ran like an electric current through the air. But this, this was more unusual, and this, this was in his dorm.
Sometimes, he had trouble sleeping. He would stay awake, sitting on his pillows and resting his back against the headboard, and he would mull over all the possibilities. He knew, for his own peace of mind, that he had to make clear just what had been bothering him all year. Were he James, were he Sirius, were he rather clever like one of them, he might well have figured it out, but he was neither James nor Sirius nor particularly clever, and he simply could not suss out a logical solution.
Sometimes, he had trouble sleeping. He was the sort of boy who worked on instinct rather than intellect. He had good instincts, strong instincts, instincts that kept him awake and wary when the shadows grew quite deep, instincts that he felt would keep him alive. After all, despite his classmates' wit, it was he who noticed something off in the tower room they shared.
Sometimes he had trouble sleeping. The year ended before he thought to mention his any of his worries to his friends. Although watchfulness was in his character, he was hardly a harbinger of doom, and the train ride back to London was one of those rare chances to indulge one's childish impulses without any fear of reprimand. He was too busy eating chocolate and watching dust motes sparkle in the sun and laughing at and with his clever and witty and inattentive friends to mention a thing.
Sometimes, he had trouble sleeping. At home, though, in a flat in London, where light pollution blotted out both the stars and the darkness, this was more rare. It happened of course, when the shadows were too deep for comfort, when the nights were so similar to that waning crescent night when he heard his parents talking about a green skull in the sky and when his older brother vanished. On those nights, he wished for that peculiar Hogwarts nervousness, for his own bed had were no red velvet curtains with which to close out the fear.