"'Cause you'd been cursed and I didn't think it would be—I don't know, right? And Flint said you probably faked the curse so I'd do just that and I said you weren't a Slytherin and anyway that wasn't you and now I'm benched."

"Well, I'm sorry."

And here's Hagrid's hut. Fang greets them as enthusiastically as ever and Hagrid starts preparing tea.

Victor is not sure whether to bring up his suspicions about Professor Quirrell, given their source.

"Why do you think your broom was cursed, though?"

"...It was behaving in ways that I don't think brooms behave by themselves. And -" he glances at the raven on his shoulder.

—he'll ask later.

"Who'd do somethin' like that?"

"I bet it was Snape."

"Snape? Rubbish. Why would he?"

"He doesn't like me very much. But I don't think that's it."

"But it's not just that! When the troll attacked he was going to the third floor corridor, and yesterday he was limping. I bet he tried to get past that three-headed dog."

Hagrid drops the teapot. "How do you know about Fluffy?"

"He could just as well have been trying to protect whatever the dog was guarding," says Victor. "There has to be some reason why there is a giant three-headed dog locked up in a corridor in the middle of a school full of children."

"Victor, I fear you may perhaps have failed to understand what Hagrid just said. He called the huge three-headed dog Fluffy."

"Yeah—he's mine—bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year—I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the—" he cuts himself off.

"- the thing that wasn't stolen from Gringotts, probably," says Victor. "But what's so important that it's worth risking students being eaten by a giant dog?"

"No, don't ask me anymore, that's top secret, that is."

"Well but if it isn't Snape someone's trying to steal it."

"Which stands to reason, if they tried to steal it from Gringotts and managed not to get caught they are probably not scared of Hogwarts—but why would it be here of all places?" he asks Victor.

- he looks unhappily at Hagrid and doesn't say anything.

"They say it's the safest place in Britain. Especially because You-Know-Who was afraid of Dumbledore so not even he could come here."

"Are we trying to protect something from him, then? Isn't he dead?"

"Now, listen ter me—yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that’s between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel—"

"The dog is not very easy to forget," says Victor.