The sun, coming in at a rather high angle.
His Quieter turned all the way up to maximum.
And his mechanical alarm clock was still running, but the alarm was turnedoff.
He'd been allowed to sleep until 9:52 AM, apparently. Despite his bestefforts to synchronize his 26-hour sleep cycle to his arrival at Hogwarts, hehadn't gotten to sleep last night until around 1AM. He'd been planning to wakeup at 7:00AM with the other students, he could stand being a littlesleep-deprived his first day so long as he got some sort of magical fix beforetomorrow. But now he'd missed breakfast. And his very first class at Hogwarts,in Herbology, had started one hour and twenty-two minutes ago.
The anger was slowly, slowly wakening in him. Oh, what a nice littleprank. Turn off his alarm. Turn up the Quieter. And let Mr. Bigshot HarryPotter miss his first class, and be blamed for being a heavy sleeper.
When Harry found out who'd done this...
No, this could only have been done with the cooperation of all twelve other boys in the Ravenclaw dorm. All of them would have seen his sleeping form. All of them had let him sleep through breakfast.
The anger drained away, replaced by confusion and a horribly wounded feeling. They'd liked him. He'd thought. Last night, he'd thought they liked him. Why...
As Harry stepped out of the bed, he saw a piece of paper facing out from his headboard.
The paper said,