Wow wow wow, an actual story update! I've been having severe writer's block and trying to force myself to keep to a schedule was doing nothing for me. I've taken a break from writing altogether and have come back with a chapter that I hope you will enjoy. Without further ado here is this chapter and the next one has a lot of the curious defense professor.

Happy reading!

It took an hour for Willow to calm everyone down and convince them that no, she wasn't injured, yes, she really did see the troll, and she didn't know why the troll left her alone. Flint looked at her with curiosity shining in his narrowed eyes, like he didn't believe her fully. He straightened from his position against the fireplace and cleared his throat, catching the attention of the entire room and standing tall over the seated first years.

"So you're telling me that you encountered it, tried to calm it, which somehow worked, and then you what? Just walked away?" Willow winced as she realized how unbelievable it sounded coming from him, but it was how it happened… more or less.

She got a quizzical look from her Theodore and Zabini, but thankfully they didn't say anything. They both knew that there was more to the story but knew not to push Willow on the topic.

At least, not in front of everybody. She knew that tomorrow would be a different story, however she couldn't even begin to prepare herself from that line of questioning, the feeling of pure terror and dread still fresh on her mind.

She finally nodded her head in affirmation after a beat or two of tense silence. Flint's eyes hardened and he looked like he was about to say something else, but was cut off by the common room door opening. Willow thanked the heavens that he was interrupted, she really didn't want to have to sit through another one of his lectures or spiels. At the sound of footsteps, the students turned their heads toward the interruption in interest and watched as Snape strode through the door. Willow studied him as he entered the room. He looked about as pale as usual and his face was drawn up into his normal sneer, but his black greasy hair was mussed and he was limping, favoring his right leg. Apparently that troll got more aggressive after she had left.

Or maybe the troll was always that aggressive and you just got lucky. Willow shuddered at that thought. Surviving just based on luck alone was going to get her nowhere, and if she wasn't so lucky… Well she wasn't going to think about that. She could just imagine the troll dancing on her grave right now.

"Alight everyone," it was Snape's voice that sent Willow back to present and away from the macabre thoughts of trolls and graves.

"The troll has been taken care of. However, thanks to Mister Potter, we now have to drag an unconscious troll from the girl's bathroom." She blinked in surprise at the news as sets of eyes turned to her practically in sync. She would've found it funny had she not been reeling from the news. Did he really?

He couldn't have, no eleven year old would be crazy enough to fight a troll. However, the longer she thought, the more likely it seemed.

I'm going to kill him.

"Miss Potter?" Willow snapped out of her thoughts when she heard her name. She really needed to get out of her head. She knew that it wouldn't do her any good if she had her head in the clouds all the time, especially now with the whole Professor Quirrell and Marvolo situation.

"I need to see you in my office. Follow me." Snape met her eyes briefly before he turned on his heel, his robes snapping behind him and he began to walk away. She scrambled to her feet and and followed him out after giving the room a mock salute and winking to her small group of friends.

The journey to Snape's office was agonizingly quiet. He was not a talker, and she was already struggling to keep up with his long strides and she did not want to try to talk through that as well. Willow was pretty certain that huffing and puffing through a conversation wouldn't end well for her, at least with Snape. They had stayed in the dungeon area and stopped at a wooden door, after a brief look around she realized that they were right next to the potions classroom. He unlocked the door and walked in, leaving the door wide open for her. Willow took a moment in the doorway to study the room. The room, just like the potions classroom had jars that were filled with a greenish yellow liquid that seemed to preserve eyes, organs, and other things that she didn't even want to know about. It even had two cauldrons bubbling with some sort of potion. That was all she could make out. The room itself was very dim and only seemed to accentuate Snape's pale complexion as he sat at his desk.

"Stop gawking and sit down Miss Potter." Snape gestured towards the two chairs across from his desk. Willow's eyes snapped back to her surly potions professor as she flushed, embarrassed at the fact that she was being this ridiculous.

"Of course sir, my apologies." Willow crossed the room and sat down. The chair, which was made of wood, and was surprisingly comfortable to sit in, however she would've rather been in her bed. She forced herself to relax slightly but remained attentive, it wouldn't do her any good to look guilty before the conversation had even begun.

"You wanted to speak to me professor?" Willow broke the silence first sounding only slightly intimidated by the professor sitting in front of her.

"Yes," Leaning forward, he folded his hands and looked her in the eye. His dark eyes seemed to bore into her soul for a moment or two before he sat back in his chair.

"Miss Potter, you are one of my… more capable students," he shuffled some things around on his desk, "however, I cannot even begin to fathom why you would run off when there was a troll on the loose. In fact the Headmaster seems to think that your disappearance from the Great Hall and the troll's appearance was not coincidental." Willows eyes widened at his admission, he has to know that she had nothing to do with the troll! She opened her mouth to voice her protests when Snape held his hand up.

"I, on the other hand, don't think you are even close to capable enough to get anywhere close to pulling this off in any capacity. So explain." She was glad that he didn't suspect her but the way that told her that… kind of hurt. It took her a moment to realize that he was right. She was only a first year and she certainly couldn't summon trolls. Willow shook off his comment and tried to think about how best to explain herself without sounding like a complete psycho.

"Well, you see sir," She fidgeted in her seat, green eyes darting from one corner of the room to the other nervously. Taking a deep breath she forced her eyes to look at Professor Snape while she tried to explain everything as clearly and concisely as possible. That was thrown out the window when she noticed that he seemed to be getting impatient, and she panicked on the inside.

"The wind told me!" Willow winced inwardly, that wasn't clear in any way shape or form, in fact it was just plain loud. She sounded crazy. Professor Snape raised a single eyebrow at her confession as if confirming her mental state.

"The…wind told you?" it seemed to physically pain him to say that sentence. Willow nodded, cleared her throat, and attempted to explain it again.

"It was the air." She shook her head, that wasn't it. She realized that the conversation really wasn't going well for her. She took a moment to collect her thoughts and tried again.

"There was something in the air, it was dangerous, it felt like danger. I'm not sure, it was all very confusing. I left the Hall to find out what it was and then I ran into Professor Quirrell." She said that last part very carefully, making sure that she said the professor's name, not the name of the man who's been inhabiting him. Snape's face continued to remain impassive, however there was a glint in his black eyes that held a hint of curiosity within them at the mention of the professor.

"Has this occurrence ever happened to you before?"

Willow thought back, trying to recall the last time she felt it, or if she had ever felt it all before.

"I'm not sure professor," she began hesitantly.

"I didn't even know I had magic until a few months ago, so there was no way for me to know. I'm not really even sure how it happened this time or how it happens at all. Besides, even if I did have this kind of experience before it was clearly much different than how it felt today."

Willow watched as Snape leaned back in his chair,

"Interesting. I think I might know what's going on. But that's a discussion for another time, in the meantime I'll do some more research." Snape's eyes darted to the door. Willow took that as her cue to leave. She stood up, bidding a good night to Snape and heading for the door. She was stopped however when he called out her name.

"Miss Potter," Willow, with her hand on the door handle, tuned her head towards Professor Snape.

"I suggest keeping your distance from Professor Quirrell in the meantime, it would definitely be in your best interest to do so." Snape turned back to the papers he had on his desk and began to cover them with red ink. Willow winced as she left, knowing her paper was probably in that stack.

During her walk back to the dorms, her eyes drifted from painting to painting as her mind was drawn back to Snape's final statement.

Keep my distance from my Defense professor. How is that even possible. She continued to think about the comment, curious as to why Professor Snape would warn her against the twitchy teacher.

Unless… Willow's brain seemed to short-circuit and realization slowly dawned on her. He might know that something's off with Quirrell. Snape might not know exactly what she knew, but he's aware that something isn't right. If Snape was suspicious then she knew she couldn't 'keep her distance' now, she needed to know what was going on.

That being said, the mere thought of trying to figure all of that out was exhausting. Especially whenever she tried to think of a reason why Marvolo took an interest in her. Most of the teachers and students here wanted to get to know her brother "the Boy Who Lived". Even more curious was Marvolo's choice to tell her this huge secret.

Willow entered the dorm as she theorized why she was worth spilling this huge secret. She got past the commons room as fast as she possibly could, ignoring all of the questions that were being thrown at her in favor of getting lost in her thoughts. She made it to her room and practically threw herself onto the bed. Plucking the book she was currently reading off the nightstand Willow read in Parseltongue as Sandor curled up on her chest. She continued to read even after he fell asleep until her world faded into nothingness, her dreams consisting of a pair of red eyes and a boy named Tom.

Willow woke more exhausted and confused than when she went to sleep. Her dreams were plagued by red eyes and flashes of green. And that boy Tom, there was something almost familiar about him, but she couldn't quite place it. She pushed Sandor off of her and sat up. Barely suppressing a pained groan she stood up and managed to make her way to the bathroom. Her entire body was sore and her head was pounding. Today was going to be a long day. Which reminded her… she needed to talk to Harry.

Harry was an idiot if he thought that he could get away with knocking a troll unconscious, and in the girls' bathroom no less. She dressed in her school robes and made her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth and put her hair in a braid as she made a mental checklist of what to grill her twin about. Once her morning routine was taken care of, she went down into the main common room to see if Draco and Theodore were ready to go. To her surprise, however, they were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Flint and another Slytherin, Miles Bletchley, had taken their place. She looked at them both in confusion as they stood from their chairs and turned towards her and all thoughts of confronting Harry flew out the window.

"Hello boys." Her tone was wary, she wasn't sure what to make of the scene that greeted her. "Have you seen Malfoy or Nott?"

"They went to breakfast already." Bletchley said. He was a good bit taller than her to the point where she almost had to crane her neck to look at his face.

"Speaking of breakfast, we should go if we want to get the chance to eat," Flint started walking towards the door. Bletchley motioned for Willow to go before him and he brought up the rear of their little trio, stopping short of forcing the Potter girl to follow his friend.

Willow was extremely suspicious and only grew more so as they left the common room. She slowed down to a stop not far from the entrance of the Slytherin Dungeon. The two boys took two more steps before they realized that she had paused. They turned to look at her and were met with a very skeptical gaze and a guarded stance. Willow stared at both of them before speaking.

"What are you guys doing?" Willow crossed her arms and continued to stare them down.

Bletchley looked confused and Willow watched as his eyes met Flint's. He looked back down to her.

" What do you mean?"

"I mean, this," She gestured wildly at the pair. "You barely speak to any of the first or second years. Yet here you guys are... escorting me like guard dogs? And not just that, you and all of the older Slytherins practically accost me with every little thing every time I enter the Dorm. What am I supposed to think?"

Marcus Flint sighed. "You're right to be suspicious, everyone's been kind of laying it on thick. But I'll explain on our way to breakfast. I am starved. You must be too, you missed dinner."

Willow's stomach rumbled in agreement and she acquiesced. They began to walk down the marbled corridors again with Willow walking in the middle and the boys on either side of her. However the mention of breakfast didn't dissuade her from getting her answers.

"You were going to explain."

"Right, I was," Flint seemed to hesitate after that, in an attempt to gather his thoughts.

"There's a myth within the Slytherin families…" he trailed off and Bletchley continued, his eyes widening in recognition of what Marcus was hinting at.

"Oh, you mean the Heir of Slytherin! Yes, according to my father, who heard it from his father. There was an 'Heir of Slytherin' when my grandfather was in school. It was written a while back that as the Heir of Slytherin lives on, a new Heir will come into their own and they'll rule together… or something like that. Crazy right?" He laughed, but as Willow looked at Flint, she realized that he, and possibly the other Slytherins, didn't find it so crazy.

Flint huffed, a little more than flustered.

"There were certain characteristics that were passed down. But you'll have to ask the other students. Draco will probably know more, his grandfather was rumored to have known who the heir was."

"What does that have to do with me?" Willow was intrigued by the story they were spinning but wasn't exactly sure how it pertained to her.

"Well, the Heir is said to be a Parselmouth, and a Slytherin at that. Not to mention the timing is pretty perfect."

They approached the doors to the Great Hall but before they entered Willow turned to them.

"So, from what I understand, you think I'm the Slytherin Heir?" They nodded. "You do realize that I'm eleven."

"We realize that. Which is why we're doing all of this. You are eleven which is why you need to be taught things that Hogwarts isn't going to teach you, things you'll need to learn sooner rather than later." Flint finished his sentence by pushing open the Great Hall doors and ushered her inside.

Her thoughts were swirling in her mind and she made her way to her usual spot. She couldn't help but feel like Alice falling through the rabbit hole into a completely different world. She sat down and let herself take a quick glance at her Defense professor, watching as his eyes flashed red when the two of them made eye contact.

She sighed.

Curiouser and curiouser.