Harry was growing increasingly paranoid.

In part, this was due to how his first year had ended. After all, one of the teachers, the meekest and least scary of them all, had turned out to be a host for Voldemort, bent on ressurecting the Dark Lord and killing Harry. However, that wasn't all. If it had been, the paranoia would've worn off within a couple of weeks, even if the nightmares would've taken longer to fade than that. No, there was something else, and the 'something' had been stalking Harry for most, if not all of his summer break. He wasn't sure when it had started following him, nor what it was, but he was understandably rather worried that it was a minion of Voldemort's. Certainly, whoever (Whatever?) they were was being extremely secretive about it. It was, in fact, an enormous fluke that he knew they were there at all. A fluke he was grateful for, certainly, but a fluke nonetheless. The whole thing was disturbing, frightening, and worrisome, and he had already resolved to speak to Dumbledore on it as soon as he could. Unfortunately, he didn't have any way of contacting the Headmaster while living with the Dursleys, and he was starting to wonder if he was going to be killed before he had the chance. Admittedly, there'd been nothing he could construe as an attempted attack in the entire time, and whoever was watching him had thus far seemed content with just that: watching him, but Harry quite reasonably attributed this to the fact that he was almost never in a good position to be secretly killed. After all, he had no friends that he visited, which meant no walking out in the open on his own, and any time he left the house at all was when the Dursley's were driving somewhere and had been unable (Or unwilling) to leave him alone in the house, in which case he was constantly in their presence to some degree. Not exactly secretive. Even so, there had been at least three separate occasions where Harry had been left alone for an extended period of time, in the house, with no significant safeguards in place that Harry knew of. It wasn't as though the Dursley's had good home security. Yet there hadn't been even the slightest sign of an attempt to break in and kill him.

Things went on in this vein the whole vacation. Harry grew more paranoid, his watcher didn't seem to do anything, and the Dursley's were completely terrified of Wizard Harry, painfully unaware that he wasn't allowed to do magic off school grounds as yet. (Not that he was ever going to tell them that) Harry was understandably surprised when he eventually found himself in front of the Hogwarts Express without anything terrible happening. Stranger yet was the presence of a number of oddly dressed folks, wearing face-concealing masks, body-shrouding robes (Not entirely unlike wizard robes), and a somewhat frightening attitude. He had a few ideas as to what they might be, but a more pressing consideration was why didn't he recall seeing anyone like this last year? It was possible that he just didn't notice, it wasn't as though he knew anything at all about the wizarding world at the time, and the robes were fairly similar to what wizards and witches wore, other than the hood. Still, it seemed odd that he wouldn't remember them.

Harry became even more convinced that this was new when he was stopped, subjected to a thorough search, and stamped on the forehead with something by two of the figures before being allowed on the train. He noted, while searching for Ron and Hermione, that everyone had a symbol on their head, though what that symbol was and meant, he had no idea. He presumed the one on his forehead was the same. Interestingly, nobody recognized him this time, not even Draco (Whom bumped into him with a "watch where you're going, idiot", never mind that he was the one that wasn't paying attention), which he supposed was due to his scar being covered up by the ink. At least, it looked like ink, though it was odd that it hadn't run any. Either way, he eventually found Ron and Hermione, though it took a bit of work to convince them that, yes, they were looking at good ol' Harry, not some random stranger. From there, conversation wandered fairly quickly through Harry's time with the Dursley's, including his increasingly paranoid suspicion that someone had been watching him, and on in short order to the topic of the strange people. Hermione and Ron both confirmed Harry's suspicion that, no, they had not been here last year, and all three of them noted quietly, as the train started moving, that the people were patrolling the halls of the train.

Their conversation largely died down after that, other than the usual small talk. Eventually, Hermione commented, with a frown, that it was getting rather late and yet no sweets cart or the like had come by. Shortly after, Ron noted that he hadn't seen anyone other than the weirdos wandering the halls, no Neville looking for Trevor, no Draco looking for trouble, no one at all. While the it was possible that this was just an odd coincidence, the three friends agreed that it almost certainly had something to do with the masked patrollers. They resolved to find out who and/or what these strangers were, and more importantly, what they were doing here. Other than the odd horseless carriages and, of course, the strangers, the rest of the trip was quiet and unremarkable.

The question of what these people were doing here was answered at last in the Great Hall, during Dumbledore's post-feast speech, when he explained that the people were neither Hogwarts staff nor students, but rather were guards hired to help protect the students. Students were advised not to disobey the guards, were not to harass the guards when they were on duty, and extra importance was placed on not trying to sneak around unauthorized. The Forbidden Forest was, as always, called forbidden for a reason, and Filch had a new, longer list of items not allowed on Hogwarts grounds. This year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, was introduced (Harry was disturbed when he noticed how most of the female students seemed to, for lack of a better word, swoon at Lockhart's introduction) indicating himself with a jaunty little wave but otherwise doing nothing in particular. Snape somehow managed to look moodier than Harry ever remembered him being, so much so that he hadn't glared at Harry even once the entire time. The boy was left to wonder what, exactly, could vex Snape so.

Inevitably, Dumbledore finished speaking and sent everyone to their dorms with a hearty good night, at which point it occured to Harry that he hadn't seen the Sorting occur. From there he realized he hadn't seen the first-year students at all since Hagrid had taken them on the boats, which marked up as yet another odd thing this year. Then he remembered his desire to speak to Dumbledore about his strange stalker, but found himself unable to act on this desire due to the presence of the guards, who were once more escorting everyone, this time to their dorms, and would not allow him to leave for any reason at all. In fact, claiming he needed to go to the bathroom merely led to one of them escorting him away from the rest of the group to one of the restrooms. He couldn't get any real privacy to escape; they were waiting right outside the stall! Which was bothersome not just because he wasn't going to be visiting Dumbledore tonight at this rate, but also because of the uncomfortable realization that he had no clue what gender this particular guard was. They had spoken, if only to say "follow me", but their voice was neither feminine nor masculine, and the all-concealing outfit hid all clues to their identity, excepting their hair, which was just barely visible. That it was black and straight was not very informative at all.

The only reason the whole ordeal wasn't a complete waste was because he really had needed to go to the bathroom pretty badly.

From there the guard escorted Harry straight to the Gryffindor dorm, all but dragging him there. Upon reaching the Fat Lady's portrait, instead of saying a password, they did... something with their hands, Harry couldn't see it, it happened too fast, but whatever it was apparently satisfied the Fat Lady, because the picture swung out of the way, at which point the guard practically shoved him in and left. Harry wasn't sure how to feel about that, nor about the rather ominous click he heard when the portrait was shut entirely, and decided to instead speak to Ron and Hermione. He was surprised to learn that neither of them had noticed the lack of first-years in the Hall, though he was a bit less surprised to learn that it was because Hermione had been focused on Lockhart and Ron on the food. Harry proceeded to cover his bathroom experience, expressing concern as to whether this treatment would continue throughout the year. Hermione firmly believed that it would be over in short order and not to worry, while Ron was of the opinion that it was probably some horrible plot on Snape's part to make everyone miserable. Harry shot down this plan by pointing out how unhappy Snape was, which pleased Ron and left Hermione with a thoughtful look on her face, but they were cut off by a round of yawns. Rather than pursuing further discussion, the three friends bid each other sleepy good nights, and went to bed, peripherally noting the continuing lack of first-year faces in the dorm.

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When Harry awoke, it was to an empty room. Shrugging off his his apparent lateness to wake, he dressed properly, took care of hygiene, and headed down to the dorm, only to find that it, too, was empty, leaving him to wonder what could have had everyone in such a rush to leave that Ron didn't even bother to wake him. Still, this was unlikely to be a problem. They didn't have class for a few days yet, if he recalled correctly, and anything important happening, well, Hermione or Ron would fill him in later if it was that big a deal. They were good friends like that. Odd how no one was left in the dorm, but then again, it was a very nice day outside. So putting the whole thing out of his mind, Harry decided to head down to the Great Hall and see if there was anything to eat. He was rather hungry. Along the way, he noted, to himself, the complete lack of guards, and realized Hermione was probably going to gloat about being right, as always. So caught up was he in this scenario, imagining how Ron would roll his eyes and protest the whole thing as a lucky guess on her part or something like that, that it took him quite some time before he noticed that it wasn't just the guards that weren't around. He hadn't seen any of the students, nor the teachers, nor, when he gave it further thought, had he spotted Peeves or even one ghost. And that is when he noticed the blood.

It wasn't that alarming, not really, not truly. It was only a little bit of blood, probably somebody scraped their knee, or had a nosebleed, or something, but somehow it seemed ominous. It only got worse when he spotted another bit of blood. And another. And another. And yet another, becoming first a distinct trail, and then a stream, and then a wider stream, and so on until the entire floor and parts of the walls were coated in blood. On one level, Harry found himself extremely worried, and yet he continued to put one foot in front of the other, not panicking in any discernable manner, still heading towards the Great Hall. When the blood on the walls began to take on shapes, he found himself wondering who, or perhaps what, would go through all this effort, though as the shapes became increasingly snake-like, his thoughts turned instead to what it might mean, even as another part of him was appalled at how calm he was. Just how much blood would it take to paint this much corridor red, anyway? A lot more than he wanted to think about, that much he knew for certain. The thought alone made him ill. He was sure Hermione would be able to tell him how many people would have to be sucked dry to produce this quantity of blood. Part of him wondered if some of this blood was, in fact, hers.

He felt sick.

At last he turned a corner, immediately wondering just how long that hall had gone on, and found himself before the doors of the Great Hall. They were clean of blood, but were nonetheless coated in designs resembling snakes. It occured to him that this probably meant Slytherin fancied itself in charge of Hogwarts now, but that thought fled into the aether as he reached out, almost against his own will, to open the enormous doors. In a way, he was surprised at how readily the massive doors turned on their hinges, with nary a squeak, but he supposed that magic might have something to do with it, and turned his attention to the room beyond. Immediately he noticed that the tables and chairs both students and stuff sat upon were gone. From there his attention wandered over the odd stains on the floor and walls, some black like ash, others yellow, or green, or something ugly in between, on to the markings on the walls, once again of snakes. Enormous snakes, vicious snakes, looking capable of taking on a dragon with sheer unpleasant force of will, etched into the wall in enormous detail. Harry noticed he was stalling, trying not to look into the center of the room. He supposed that was a natural reaction, and looked anyway.

There he saw a pile of massive bones, only they were not nice and clean, bleached white, but rather had muscle, flesh, and of course blood, always with the blood, staining them. It was grisly, though a part of him wondered what would make such messy kills, and then go through all the effort of shoving them into such a formation. Perhaps it was the man... thing... man... man-thing? The being standing upon it. This... person, whoever they were, seemed almost like a monster in a man's skin, or flesh at least. Pale, with eyes like a snake (And not metaphorically, either), and an ease of holding himself atop all this death that left Harry feeling horrified and, of all things, slightly envious. Most unnerving of all was the way the thing was watching him intently, with a small smirk on its face and a tilt to its head that somehow conveyed amusement. The creature reminded him of Voldemort, on some deeper level, but it was not that man. Even as Harry found himself in something of a staring contest with this repulsive entity, a part of him noticed the massive snake rearing up behind the other, eyes closed and mouth wide open, preparing to strike. And then a voice that was not human rang out, though the other's mouth did not move, and Harry knew he was going to die. The voice said so.

And then he awoke.