OOO

"Well that was interesting," Nott commented the moment he returned to the common room and found Harry and Hermione sitting off to one side.

"What do you mean by that?" Hermione asked.

"Did you get the books back?" Harry added before he could reply.

"Right here," Nott said, passing him Quidditch Through the Ages. "And mine too. I learned something really important tonight though." He leaned over to them and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Snape went after that dog on the third floor."

"What!" Hermione gasped by managed to keep her disbelief relatively quiet. "Nott, that isn't possible. He's a teacher."

"So?" Harry snapped, eager to believe something untoward of the man who disliked him so much. "I could believe it. How did you find out?"

"I was sneaking about with the cloak and wondered if he might have taken the books to the teacher's lounge. I would have checked in the dungeons first, but the lounge was on the way and it was as likely a spot as any. When I go there, I heard him muttering inside so I pushed the door open a crack. He was there, getting bandaged up by Filch, grumbling about getting past all three heads at once. That's why his was walking oddly earlier today; he injured himself trying to get past the dog."

"Serves him right," Harry sniffed. "So what did you do?"

"Slipped out before he could notice me; I can't even imagine how furious he would have been if he'd known I was there. Went to the dungeons and found the books sure enough, lying on the desk at the front of the room. They weren't even in a drawer. So I simply scooped them up and took them and if he wants to give me detention later, at least I have my Emerson back."

"Knowing him he'll probably blame me too." Harry rolled his eyes. "Since it was my book you took as well."

"Sorry – should I have left it there?" Nott retorted dryly.

"No, no. I'm glad it's back. Need it for tomorrow. Just saying that Snape's a git is all."

"A suspicious git."

"I still don't believe it!" Hermione interjected for the first time in a long while. "I mean, he's a teacher. Why would he try something like that? Especially when it means going against Dumbledore."

"Being a teacher is no assurance of innocence," Nott remarked.

"Maybe you were mistaken?"

"Not a bit of it. I know what I saw and what he said. I suppose he could have been trying to get past something else with three heads, huge claws and sharp teeth, but how likely is that?"

Hermione fell silent; even she had to admit that it was a bit difficult to defend Snape's actions, given the circumstances. Harry, who had already developed a strong dislike for him, had no problem mentally convicting him, nor did Nott after the seizure of his literature. She was the last holdout among them, but at last she nodded.

"I guess you could be right. But what should we do about it? Tell Dumbledore?"

"No way; that would involve us revealing Draco's cloak and letting him know I was breaking the rules. Several times, since my knowledge of the dogs means we went down the forbidden corridor. Besides – he might not believe us. The word of a first year or three against the words of a faculty member? Even Dumbledore isn't that nice. Let's keep an eye on him for now, and if something else happens, maybe then we can act."

"You two can decide what to do," Harry stood with a yawn. "I think I'm getting to bed, now that I have my book back. A little light reading and then I'm hitting the sack."

Hermione nodded, understanding. "That's probably a good idea. You don't want to be late or unrested for your first match."

"Tell me about it," he sighed. "I'm worried about enough things. Don't need to be falling off my broom from lack of sleep too."

He stumbled up the stairs on the boy's side of the dorms and made for his bed. Nott continued to sit beside Hermione in silence for a few moments before opening his book and running his fingers across the pages.

"You really like those poems, don't you?"

"I like all of my books," he replied smoothly.

"Seriously? There's never been a book you've just hated?"

"I tend to stay away from the ones that are almost guaranteed to be worthless. Romance novels and the like. Occasionally I might read something for an entertaining indulgence. And some books I do not enjoy, although I do still value them. But in my experience, any work into which the author has put at least some amount of effort is worth reading on some level. There's always something to be gained from the reading of it."

"Do you have a favorite?" She looked at him turn a page and read the words Song of Myself at the top of the leaf.

"Would it be cliché to tell you I have too many favorites to name?"

"You can't get out of the question that easily," she smiled. "Come on. I just want to know what stuff you like better than what other stuff."

"I can tell you some of what I don't like. I'm not a very big science fiction fan – H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, etcetera, although Ray Bradbury is a notable exception to that rule. I find James Joyce to be tedious and even pretentious but I can still manage to muddle through his work. And my feelings towards some of Dickens' works are inexpressible in polite company."

"Oddly enough I really don't find any of that surprising. Well, except for the Dickens part, maybe. Why him?"

"Everything's a coincidence with that man! A Tale of Two Cities was nearly unreadable. And little Nell's death… it's enough to make me retch. Of course he's of tremendous social and literary import, and I don't mind David Copperfield or A Christmas Carol nearly as much. But mostly he's so stiff and hackneyed… you get the idea."

"Well enough about what you don't like – what do you like?"

He gave her a mischievous smile. "As I said, it's hard to narrow it down. But I can tell you this; the ones I like the most are the ones that have a character I should deeply wish to emulate." With that, he snapped the book shut, stood and then walked in the direction of the stairwell. "I think I'm going to emulate Harry for once and turn in. Good night."

He disappeared up the steps, leaving her looking after him, dumbfounded and a bit puzzled as to what books he might be referring to.

OOO

"Remember," Draco leaned over and whispered in his dog's ear, "That Harry's game is tomorrow. We can't risk you being seen by Peter and the crowd will be too large to let us use the invisibility cloak safely – it could get ripped off – but you should be able to see everything out of the window in Gryffindor tower. We'll take you there before breakfast." Sirius gave a short bark and Draco sighed. "I know," he muttered. "I wish you could see it too."

Giving Dragon on last pat on the head, Draco stood and started getting ready for bed. As he did the curtains rustled and pulled apart to reveal Ernie.

"Hey Draco," he grinned. "Ready for the Quidditch game tomorrow?"

"Oh yeah," he said, his enthusiasm written on his face. "I can't wait; Harry's going to be awesome."

"You really think so? I know he's your friend and all, but…"

"I know so. I've seen him fly," he said, thinking of the times they'd messed about in Grimmauld Place with old brooms of Sirius' or ones that Draco snatched, swooping down hallways and stairwells, crashing into paintings and the like.

"They let you come to their practices?" Ernie asked and Draco realized with a blush that, since Harry was supposed to have been living with Muggles, that was the only place where he would have seen him playing Quidditch.

"Um… yeah. I mean, they mostly want to keep it a secret, but being a close friend and all, I dropped by once or twice."

Ernie nodded as if it made perfect sense – which to him, it did. "And you think he's good enough to beat Slytherin?"

"I'd say so, yeah."

"Well, I hope so too, and I think everybody else does as well even if they tease Potter about being a first year. All of the older students are tired of Slytherin winning everything, like last year; well, all of the older students who aren't in Slytherin."

"That reminds me – mind if a Slytherin sits with us tomorrow?"

"Millicent?" Draco nodded in affirmation. "Yeah, I guess so. But aren't we supposed to sit by house?"

"People do traditionally. But you don't absolutely have to. Most people just do because… well, it makes sense. Most people know people in their house best and all. But since she's cheering for Harry I thought we might let her sit by us. Slytherins being Slytherins and Gryffindors being Gryffindors and all…"

"I understand. No problem. Although I'll ask Susan and Hannah just to be sure, I don't think they'll have a problem with it. They seemed to be getting along with her well enough the other day."

"You mean when you were trouncing me at wizard chess?"

"Yeah," Ernie grinned. "Speaking of which – care for another game any time soon?"

"Pft. Not likely. At leat not with other people watching."

Ernie laughed, and then went back to the curtains. "G'night then."

"Night," Draco replied, crawling into his own four-poster and pulling the covers up around him.

He really, really hoped Harry won tomorrow.

OOO

Heading back to the Slytherin common room with Pansy fairly attached to his arm, Ron was absolutely livid.

"Calm down!" She begged. "It's not the end of the world. You shouldn't do anything stupid!"

He couldn't hear her, however; his ears were buzzing and his face was red with rage. It had all started out so well. The whole house was still coming down from the enthusiasm of winning the cup the previous year, so the air had been electric. Pansy had gotten in a stab or two at that traitor Millicent who was, apparently, going to sit with that bunch of duffers in Hufflepuff. He couldn't have been happier; she wasn't good enough to sit with them and it was about time she recognized that.

Despite all of the boasting that the Gryffindors had made, all of the pretentious bragging and boasting, Harry hadn't been able to circumvent Flint. And then he'd begun flying absolutely terribly. Everybody around them had pointed and laughed as his jerky flying and it didn't really matter to Ron whether or not he was just that terrible or whether there was foul play afoot. The point was that the famous Harry Potter was screwing up in front of everybody in the school, much to his immense delight.

Then somehow, before he even knew what was happening, Harry was screaming that he had the Snitch and the game was over. That idiot friend of Fred and George's was screaming out their victory and Ron felt like he was going to be sick.

"He just got lucky!" Pansy was still at his side, trying to calm him down. "Ron, don't get worked up, you won't be able to track him down and you'll get into trouble if you do anything to them…"

"Well then what do you suggest I do?" He whirled on her in a fury. "He's going to be insufferable now!"

"Don't fly off the handle," she snapped. Then she drew nearer, watching Crabbe and Goyle catch up to them out of the corner of her eye. "Be a Slytherin," she whispered. "Be sneaky."

OOO

"It take it that it didn't work," Peter commented when Quirrell returned to the room, his face looking like thunder.

"That's n-n-none of your b-b-business," he snapped – well, snapped as well as he could between his nervous stammering. "Did you get w-w-what you were s-s-supposed to?"

"Yes. It took me forever, though. The game was practically over by the time I dragged the last few ingredients back here."

"At least you got it done b-b-before everybody came back," Quirrell replied, looking over the items that Peter had stolen from Snape's stores. As a rat, he was small enough to get into such places and was proving to be useful. The only difficulty was that Quidditch games were the only times he could act; with everybody at the game they could be fairly assured that nobody would be looking at the map or noticing a rat scurrying around with potions ingredients and a definite purpose.

"What're you planning to brew?" Pettigrew asked nervously.

"That's n-n-none of your business!" Quirrell shrieked.

"Well, he better not be expecting me to brew it," Pettigrew replied in a high-strung voice. "I can't do anything like that, terrible in Potions when I was here…"

"J-j-just forget it!" Quirrell blurted. "You d-d-did your part!"

He left the room rapidly after glancing through the ingredients once more and Peter slumped in relief. At least the Dark Lord hadn't made an appearance; and better that Quirrell fail than him.

OOO

Nott puffed on the tea Hagrid had given him as Hermione attempted to convince the game keeper about the fact that Snape had been hexing Harry. They had, along with Harry and Draco, dashed over to Hagrid's house. Draco looked at them skeptically; he could have easily believed it, but he hadn't been there to see for himself. Though given his sighting of Snape in the dog's corridor and what Nott had told him about the gashes on his leg, having filled Draco in while they were busy transporting Dragon to Gryffindor tower, he was leaning in the direction of Snape being something far more sinister.

"I know its sounds ridiculous," Nott added. "After all, unpleasant though he may be, he is still a teacher. However, we have other reasons to believe as such. I saw gashes on his leg and him muttering about getting past all three heads." Nott admitted it nervously, finally deeming that Hagrid believing them outweighed the possible consequence of Hagrid turning them in over the matter of the dog.

"And I saw him going down that corridor the night the troll attacked," Draco added.

"Wha'?" Hagrid looked shocked. "You lot know 'bout Fluffy?"

"Fluffy?" Hermione uttered in disbelief.

""Yes!" Draco burst in. "Isn't he absolutely magnificent? Where did you get him?

"Greek chappie in th' pub…"

"Figures," Nott muttered.

"And his coat was simply magnificent and those teeth – I'll tell you, you'd go a long way before seeing something so heart-stopping and amazing… I mean, he could defend from just about anything."

"Draco!" Nott interrupted him. "I know you like the dog, but we need to know…"

"I know, couldn' he though?" Hagrid was beaming and sharing in Draco's enthusiasm, prattling on as much as the boy was. "Tha's why I lent him to Dumbledore to guard.." Suddenly he fell silent, realizing that the kids were focused on him.

"Guard what?" Harry asked.

"Ferget it, can't tell yeh. Top secret." He turned to make another pot of tea.

"But it could be stolen by Snape!" Hermione wailed.

They fell back into arguing about Snape's relative guilt or innocence, with Hermione loudly citing her knowledge about jinxes and Hagrid insisting in a loud voice that they had misread the situation and that whatever Fluffy was guarding was safe. It ended with him outright shouting at them to forget the whole matter.

"It's between Professor Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel!" He admonished them crossly.

"Flamel?" Nott repeated. "The famous alchemist?"

More furious with himself than with them, Hagrid yelled, shouted, begged and pleaded for them to forget the whole matter, though when they left his house he suspected they hadn't.

"Flamel?" Harry repeated as they trudged back to the school. "Who's he?"

"Flamel was a celebrated alchemist from long ago," Nott replied.

"Well then how could Dumbledore know him? How 'long ago' are we talking?" Draco quirked an eyebrow.

"Very long – centuries. But the thing Flamel is most know for," he frowned, "is the creation of the Philosopher's Stone."

"The Philosopher's Stone?" Hermione gasped.

"I know," Nott sighed. "I think we might be in trouble…"

Harry and Draco, however, exchanged blank looks.

"What's so bad about a stone?" Draco asked.

"I'll explain on the way," Nott rolled his eyes.

OOO

A/N: So there you have it. And I have read DH and gained many plot bunnies from it, so I might be writing a few more HP stories over the coming weeks. As for this story, there won't be any explicit spoilers for a long, long while, although I now know some of my facts were inaccurate (about dwellings and such). I might go back and change those, but in the future things will be described accurately, so it will be in one's interest to have read DH.

Next chapter (probably) – Christmastime, the Mirror of Erised and more about Nott, other characters and what Voldy and co. are up to. See you then.