Halloween at Hogwarts was, as Betty discovered on the day itself, a Very Big Deal. In the muggle world, it was a nice excuse to dress up and get free sweets, but nobody she knew really made much of a big deal out of it beyond the little kids. She'd heard of parties that the older kids had, but even those didn't seem to hold much relevance to the holiday itself except for putting on a pair of bunny ears. They didn't even get a day off school.
At Hogwarts, although they still didn't get the day off, there was a huge atmosphere of Halloween. Apparently it was the halfway point between the autumn and winter equinoxes, and had the thinnest veil between spiritual and physical worlds. The ghosts loved it - Nearly Headless Nick would go on for hours if you let him. The best thing, though, was that in the evening they got to have a feast.
Betty wasn't going to lie and say that she'd ever had a bad meal at Hogwarts, the house elves clearly knew what they were doing, but just the word 'feast' sent a tingle down her spine. It sounded so much better than just saying 'meal', even if dinner at Hogwarts was pretty much the same, only with less decor. It just gave it a new, exciting vibe. She asked a second year, and apparently there were four feasts a year: the welcome feast, the Halloween feast, the end-of-year feast, and an optional one at Christmas if you decided to stay at school. Much as she liked the idea of a third feast, Betty had already decided to give that one a pass in favour of going home.
Still, as she they neared the end of potions Betty was literally trembling with anticipation, to the point that Snape sneered and asked if she had overdosed on cheering charms, and took points for her irritating shaking making him lose concentration.
When the bell finally rang, she immediately grabbed Michael's hand as the friend closest to her and bolted as quickly as she could to see the Great Hall. She wasn't disappointed by the sight.
Hundreds of live bats swooped around the room, the walls themselves cloaked by thousands more resting on them so that the only source of light was the ever-floating candles, which cast eerie moving shadows everywhere whenever they were interrupted by one of the bats. It was quite literally the coolest thing she'd ever seen in her life, and she made a mental note to never tell her mum about it, lest concern for hygeine caused her to have a heart attack.
As at the sorting, the tables were lined with gold plates and platters, all empty until the house elves were given the cue to fill them with food. Given the emptiness of the room, Betty figured she would have a couple of minutes before anyone started eating, so she squeezed Michael's hand to get his attention. "Hey, can you save me a seat near the end of the table? I need the loo."
He rolled his eyes as she laughed at his expression, but agreed, and Betty fought her way through the crowds making their way into the Great Hall until she got far enough away that the corridors thinned out again. It really was annoying to be the smallest again, because bigger students were able to shove the younger ones aside. Being at Hogwarts had given her a healthy dose of respect for the kids in reception at her primary school - she had forgotten just how awful it was to be thronged in a crowd she was nowhere near tall enough to see over or strong enough to push through.
Eventually she reached her destination: the girls' bathroom near charms, which happened to be the nicest one in the school. Moaning Myrtle haunted one, one was up way too many flights of stairs, and the others were so overpopulated that they always ended up looking like a mess. This one was usually quiet.
...Usually being the key word.
As soon as she pushed the door open, Betty knew she wasn't alone. There was the Engaged sign on a cubicle door, not to mention the loud breathing of somebody trying to stifle sobs.
Feeling incredibly awkward, Betty looked anywhere other than at the occupied cubicle as she hurriedly went about her business, cringing at the loud noise of urine hitting the water. Thankfully, though, one of the sobs sounded a fraction more like a laugh, so at least the awkwardness was good for something.
She was about to leave when something in her told her to stop. Comforting others had never exactly been her strong suit, and other people's tears generally made her more uncomfortable than sympathetic, but the idea of someone on their own in a bathroom stall crying their eyes out on Halloween when everyone else was having fun feasting nearby was just too pitiful to ignore.
"Hey," she said, unsure of how exactly to start a conversation. Lord, she hoped it wouldn't be an older student - they were always so grouchy about first years talking to them. "Are you... are you alright?"
"Go away," came the muffled voice, and Betty had to stifle a gasp as she recognised it.
"Granger? Are you, like... Do you want me to get a teacher or something?"
Okay, sure the two girls pretty much hated each other and antagonised one another at every given opportunity since their first meeting, but she sounded pretty upset. The girl may be an annoying brat, but Betty wasn't just going to leave her in the toilets. Besides, Granger was hers to hate, and the thought of someone else making her cry made her kind of uneasy.
From underneath the locked door, Betty saw a pair of feet come down to rest on the floor, there being no point in hiding now. Immediately she knew her guess was right - there was no way anyone other than Granger could have left the dorm in such God-awful cloggs.
"No!"
"Then what's wrong?" Betty asked, exasperated.
There was a short pause, but eventually the door opened and Hermione came out. Betty had to try very hard not to cringe at the sight of her; all snot and tears with what looked like pink eye. She had never seen Granger look so distraught before, even when Betty swapped her quiz with Neville Longbottom's so the Gryffindor was beaten by the most useless student in the year.
"I'm a nightmare!" Granger burst out, looking anywhere except at Betty and giving off the impression that she would very much like to implode. "Hogwarts was supposed to be different but nobody still wants to talk to me!"
"That's because you make yourself intolerable, Granger," Betty told her patiently, regretting her words when a fresh flood of tears came. "Maybe if you stopped acting so snooty-"
Although she had been trying to help, Hermione glared at the witch. Explaining why she couldn't make friends may not have been the best idea in the circumstances, but if she knew she could try and tone it down, maybe make a friend or two. Betty had good intentions at least, and it's not like Granger would ever actually let her be too nice to her, because she always thought any hint of friendliness was a joke. Honestly, she was so touchy.
Before she could offend Granger much further, however, she was interrupted by the arrival of something she had never seen before, and hoped to God she never would again. It was a horrible sight - taller than anything she'd ever seen, with skin the colour of a decaying corpse and a head-to-body ratio so ridiculous that she probably would have laughed if she saw it in a picture, but in real life only made its lumbering form more threatening. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.
How it had fit through the door without breaking it, Betty had absolutely no idea, but it must have because behind it the large wooden door closed again and sounded with a click as it locked itself. Which left one eleven and one twelve year old girl trapped alone in a room with a monster straight out of a fairytale. Judging by the power of the scream that bubbled up out of Granger's throat, she had apparently realised this too.
"Granger, move!" Betty shrieked as the sound caught the monster's attention, prompting it to swing its club in the direction of the scream. Hermione, however, was stock still, petrified and showed no inclination to move out of the way. Betty didn't know what she'd have done if she had stayed in the cubicle, but thankfully Granger had come out to complain to her and was close enough for her to grab her hand and yank her out of arm range of the thing.
The monster looked confused when its stick didn't smash anything but tiles, and let out a huge roar. It peered at the two girls as it began a lumbering spin to face them and started stalking towards them. Instinctively, Betty began backing away, forgetting about Granger's hand in hers which caused them both to back up to the far wall, with no way out except past the monster.
She closed her eyes, accepting her impending death, but something made the monster turn around and suddenly there was a boy with them, shaking Hermione and telling them to run. Betty's brain blanked, and although she was distantly aware of her legs stumbling in the direction of the door, her mind was stuck on a loop of a single thought. "This is the girls' toilet," she said numbly, unaware of the second boy, a ginger's face screw up in irritation. "You're not meant to be in here."
As if it was karma for her lack of gratitude for the boys saving her life, the third time she repeated the thought a giant hand came and scooped her up, throwing her against the opposite wall like a tennis ball. Reality set back in, and she screamed like a banshee for half a second, until she made impact. A sickening crack filled the room, and her body crumpled as it fell towards the floor, caught right before it hit it by a levitation charm, which seemed to give the ginger boy an idea. He repeated the charm on the monster's club, which rose into the air before coming back down on its head. It fell like in David and Goliath.
The immediate danger passed, Betty was suddenly aware that she should be in pain - she had head the sound of snapping as she hit the wall, and yet couldn't feel anything except the beating of her heart as she sat on the dirty floor, completely frozen. It was the adrenaline, she surmised, but that would soon pass and she'd-
White-hot pain filled her for a fraction of a second, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted.
She woke up a couple of minutes later in the exact same place, only Madame Pomfrey's face was looming over her with her wand out. "A broken leg," the nurse informed her, smiling slightly. "Easily fixed - it was a clean break. You were lucky."
"That's not how I'd put it," Betty said, bit she had to concede that she could have very easily been seriously injured.
Satisfied that she was okay, Madame Pomfrey helped Betty to stand up, and even cleaned her up with a scrougify - toilet water had spilled all over the floor she'd collapsed on. Before she could thank her, she was quickly side-tracked by an exceptionally irate-looking McGonagall, her lips as thin as parchment.
"Now that we've seen to Miss Taylor's injuries, what on earth were you thinking?" asked the transfiguration teacher with cold fury in her eyes.
Betty had a sudden realisation that she wasn't alone, and looked towards the two boys for an answer, seeing as they were the only ones who attacked the monster, instead of the other way around. At her gaze, they took a step back, allowing McGonagall to continue in her tirade.
"You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"
Nobody seemed particularly inclined to give an answer until a soft voice piped up from the shadows. "Please, Professor McGonagall –the boys were looking for me."
"Miss Granger!"
"I went looking for the troll because I –I thought I could deal with it on my own –you know, because I've read all about them. If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now. Harry stuck his wand up its nose and Ron knocked it out with its own club. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me and Betty off when they arrived."
Why Granger had decided to lie to a professor about why she was attacked by a troll was beyond Betty, but she was no snitch, so she tried not to look incredulous at the rare occurrence.
"And how exactly do you factor into this, Miss Taylor?" said McGonagall, turning to look at Betty with a small glare.
She shrugged. "I just went to the loo before the feast started. A troll showing up wasn't really that anticipated."
"Well –in that case…" said Professor McGonagall, staring at the four of them. "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"
Granger bowed her head and didn't deny it, though Betty could see traces of a smile on her face. Honestly, Hermione Granger lying to a teacher - it was better than Christmas. Next time she got all self-righteous Betty could totally hold this over her head.
"Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this. I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor Tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."
Hermione left hurriedly, leaving just Betty and the two boys. "Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first-years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Five for you too, Miss Taylor, for the sheer act of surviving. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."
Needing no more prompting, the three all but ran out of the bathroom, only stopping when the smell grew less intense. The two boys were about to hurry up a flight of stairs heading to their tower when Betty grabbed them both by the arm. "It's Harry, right? And Ron? We met on the train, I'm Betty. I just wanted to say thank you, for saving my life. I know you were there for Granger but still, if you ever need anything..."
Flushing bright red, she gave them both a quick hug before escaping to the opposite end of the school to partake in her own feast.