Disclaimer: I own no rights to the Harry Potter franchise.

It feels like it's been so long since I was writing for this when it's actually only been a few days. Then again college is now back in full effect and I may or may not have written a side-story chapter unrelated to this series after a burst of inspiration so it feels good to be back with this. Really appreciate all the support I've been getting for this story so far, it's an amazing motivator to keep going so thanks to everyone who takes the time just to read it.

I'm experimenting with different ways to show a change in setting as all the methods I've been using so far don't seem to be working so please bear with me on that, it's proving problematic.

Anyway, enjoy!

"No, no, no, Mister Longbottom! Swish and flick, not flick and swish… oh dear."

Harry had been enjoying Charms class when they had been simply pushing and pulling coins across the desk, but now that they were learning to make things levitate their lessons suddenly felt much harder. Even a feather was proving difficult to lift.

Seamus Finnigan, sat beside Harry, seemed to have given up altogether and was swinging his wand in all manner of directions and saying "wingardium leviosa!" at random intervals.

Harry spied Hermione sat with Ron across the room, Ron seeming to have the same mentality as Seamus. Hermione was trying her best to correct Ron but he was getting more and more flustered with each try.

"It's not that easy, Hermione!" he argued, "You do it if it's that simple!"

Hermione sighed, turned to her own feather and correctly made it levitate straight to the classroom's ceiling. Ron was both in awe and annoyed at being outdone, especially when Professor Flitwick praised Hermione so highly for her "perfect example of how the charm should be done."

It wasn't much later that Flitwick called an end to the class and dismissed them. The desks formed a rather narrow passage to the door so Harry found himself beside Ron as they left. They finally opened into a wider corridor and Harry felt like he could breathe again. Ron scoffed.

"It's Levi-O-sa," Ron mimicked Hermione rather pitifully, "what's her problem? Does she think she's better than me because I'm a Hufflepuff or something?"

"No, if she thinks she's better than you, it's because she is. She's better than all of us. You should be happy for her," Harry said but Ron wasn't having it.

"Whatever, all I'm saying is there's a reason she's got no friends," Ron said and Harry was about to argue this when someone barged into Ron's shoulder and sped away. Harry recognised Hermione's curly hair anywhere, but she was walking so fats Harry couldn't get to her. He gave Ron a foul look.

"She's got me," he said and nipped his way through the throng of students, trying to catch up to Hermione. He reached an opening and was disheartened to see that Hermione has disappeared. Ron eventually caught up, lazily walking along as he usually did.

"You know you can be a right prat, Ron," Harry jabbed but Ron didn't seem to care, or even notice.

"Are you coming to get some lunch or not? Just gotta make sure I leave room for the Halloween feast tonight." Ron said as he continued walking down the corridor, Harry begrudgingly following him.

Hermione didn't turn up to their Potions lesson that afternoon, something not unnoticed by Snape. Ron seemed to have realised too but was more focussed on not messing up his Cure for Boils. Midway through the lesson, Snape came over to the desk Harry usually shared with Hermione and checked his potion.

"No Miss Granger today, Potter?" Snape asked, dabbing a splint into the potion.

"No sir," Harry said, "she overheard someone say something earlier and she seems to have taken it to heart."

"Hmm," Snape mumbled as he made a note of the potion's colour, "no doubt she's just taking some time to recompose herself. Nevertheless I'll assign one of my prefects to keep an eye out for her."

"Thank you, sir," Harry said and he could've sworn he saw Snape smile as he walked away. Harry was well aware that he could have named Ron as the "someone" but he knew that would only be petty of him. He had already berated Ron anyway so outing him wouldn't have changed much.

Snape soon called for a halt to the brewing and began to assess each one. He soon reached Ron's desk and was particularly harsh with him, pointing out both his major and minor flaws with the potion, and advised him to "actually read the instructions next time." For most others he would simply nod or mutter a simple remark until he reached Malfoy's table, which he shared with Goyle.

"Mister Malfoy, would you care to tell me why your Cure for Boils, which should be blue… is green?"

"I don't know, sir," Malfoy sneered, "clearly the instructions are wrong."

"Clearly you are in need of some extra lessons, Draco. Your potion is superior only to that of Goyle's, who appears to have completely reversed the effects of his Cure for Boils potion and melted the bottom of his cauldron. Should I need to schedule extra lessons, which I not would be a first in the history of my classes, the two of you shall be first on my list," Snape said and the class laughed loudly, which Malfoy clearly wasn't a fan of as he sulked. Ron clearly found this very amusing as he was one of the loudest laughers in the room. Snape slowly turned to face him once more, "I wouldn't be laughing if I were you, Weasley; you'd be third."

Ron's laughter stopped and the class' attention was now on him as Snape made his way over to Harry's desk. He eyed Harry's potion for a few moments.

"Very good, Potter. The temperature of your flame may be a little high but it would have little effect on the quality of the potion. An excellent brew," Snape said and moved on to the next student.

The laughter had died down by the time Snape had finished his assessment and dismissed the class. It had been a long day and Harry was ready for a good, warm meal.

"Potter!"

The voice carried down the corridor to where Harry and Ron were walking. He had convinced Ron into accompanying him on a detour to store his books in his trunk, so they were already late for dinner and were eager to get to the Great Hall. They turned and saw the Slytherin Prefect from the train, Marcus Creekshead, walking down the corridor towards him. Harry almost expected to have points deducted for not being at dinner.

"Just thought you'd like to know: I've found Miss Granger. She's currently in the Girl's Bathroom, rather upset about something but that's not for me to know. I'm on my way to inform professor Snape that she's safe and-"

"TROLL!"

Marcus whipped around and withdrew his wand as Professor Quirrell came barrelling down the corridor towards them.

"TROLL! DUNGEON!"

He ran right past them and around the corner in the direction of the Great Hall, no doubt to warn Dumbledore and the others too. Marcus was still staring after Quirrell but Harry only thought of one thing.

"Hermione," he gasped and took off in the opposite direction.

"Potter! Wait!" Marcus called and chased after him. Harry didn't care if he had points taken off him for this; Hermione needed to be warned about the troll. Harry sprinted until he reached the corridor by the girl's bathroom and Marcus caught up with him. He practically picked up Harry and pulled him behind a pillar.

"What are you doing?" Harry snapped, irritated at being stopped, but Marcus shushed him.

"Don't make a sound," he warned and Harry obeyed. Then he felt the vibration in the floor, noticed the flames flickering in their stands. The troll was with them. Marcus peeked his head around the corner of the pillar and gasped, hiding it once again. "It hasn't seen us… yet."

Harry remained silent and waited for Marcus to give him the go-ahead. After a few seconds the footsteps moved on and Marcus let Harry go.

"We have to go and alert the Professors that the troll has moved," Marcus said, "come on, Potter."

"You do that if you want, I'm going in there," Harry said and moved to follow the troll.

"Are you mad?!"

"Maybe, but I don't suppose you noticed what room the troll just went into?"

Marcus looked confused until a scream cried down the corridor that sounded a lot like Hermione. Marcus cursed in realisation and followed Harry into the girl's bathroom.

Harry and Marcus burst through the door to find the troll had already destroyed the toilet stalls. Harry was relieved to see that Hermione was alive and unharmed at the other end of the bathroom but that quickly changed when the troll's club swung down right next to her. Harry took out his wand but had no idea what to do; he didn't know any real combat spells yet and he had no idea the kind of spells that would work against a troll anyway.

"Stupefy!" Marcus called and a red bolt shot out of his wand and hit the troll in the back of the head. This didn't seem to hurt the troll at all though, and it turned to look at Marcus, who just managed to say "oh no," before the troll swung his arm and the back of his hand slammed straight into Marcus, propelling him across the room and against the opposite wall with a thud. Harry was petrified for a moment until Marcus groaned and rubbed his head, practically out of action but alive.

Harry turned back to the troll, who had brought its attention back to Hermione. Hermione dodged one swing of the club and then another, but the third caught her off-guard and her balance failed. She fell against a sink and had no time to regain herself as the troll raised its arm for another swing. Fear took hold of Harry and his wand seemed to act for him. He raised his arm and, without muttering a word, a powerful, purple light shot out of Harry's wand. This caught the attention of the troll and it turned to look at the new light, unaware that it was shooting directly at its face. The bolt made contact and the troll's face instantly seemed to sag, its eyes drooping. It dropped its club and fell to the ground so hard Harry thought the entire castle had felt it.

"W… what did you do to it?" Hermione asked, her voice breaking.

"I dunno," Harry admitted, "it just… happened."

Not a second later the door burst open and in rushed Professor Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall and Quirrell.

"Oh my word!" McGonagall gasped.

"You alright, Creekshead?" Snape asked Marcus, who groaned in reply, "Quirrell, kindly see Mr Creekshead to the Hospital Wing."

Quirrell whimpered at the sight of the troll and nervously made his way over to Creekshead. Snape's glare didn't leave him until he had walked out the door. Once he had left, Snape knelt beside the troll's head and began to examine it. Dumbledore hadn't said a word the whole time.

"Would you two care to explain yourselves?" McGonagall said rather shrilly, her lips more pursed than Harry had ever seen them. Harry and Hermione jumbled their words when they were interrupted by Snape.

"I believe I can help there, Minerva. As Miss Granger has already perfected the Cure for Boils potion we were concocting in lesson today, I gave Miss Granger leave from my lesson to focus on other studies so long as someone knew where she would be at all times. Clearly she chose to keep Harry informed and as she was unaware of the troll in the castle, Potter rushed to make sure she was safe. Creekshead no doubt heard the commotion on his rounds of the castle, came to investigate, was faced with a troll and had to act. I believe that all parties are in need of some house points, for their bravery and-"

"Sheer dumb luck!" McGonagall said, with an even higher pitched voice. Harry and Hermione said nothing.

"Exactly," Snape continued, "shall we say… ten points to Gryffindor and ten to Slytherin? Very good. Now I believe Mister Potter and Miss Granger are in need of some food and rest, if you'd both kindly make your way up to Gryffindor Tower. The Houses are finishing the Halloween feast in their dorms."

Harry and Hermione looked from Snape to McGonagall and back to Snape, who made a slight head movement towards the door, gesturing them to leave. They did so and rushed out of the bathroom, away from the Professors.

"Severus," McGonagall spoke slowly, clearly affronted, "I would appreciate it if you would leave the discipline of my students to me, as their Head of House."

"My apologies, Minerva, but I needed to get them out of the way," Snape turned to Professor Dumbledore, "Headmaster, is it possible that after living with his mother's family, Potter has learnt to not be scared by most things?"

"It's entirely possible," Dumbledore answered, "I'd say it's even very likely. Harry probably learned from a young age not to be scared by his relatives and hence hasn't been scared by anything since. Why do you ask?"

"Well, young witches and wizards tend to show bursts of their magic before their eleventh birthday as it's out of control, usually when they're angry or scared. But if Potter hasn't been scared since he was a young child, all of that magical energy has been bottled up. And now, upon seeing his closest friend about to be hurt, or even killed, some of that magical energy burst out."

"What makes you think that?" Minerva asked.

"Because there's no spell that I know of that can turn a troll's brain to mush," Snape said and stepped aside to show blood trickling from the troll's nose. McGonagall gagged and Dumbledore hummed as he thought.

"We may need to keep an eye on young Mister Potter."

Harry and Hermione finally arrived back at Gryffindor Tower and nobody seemed to notice that they had been gone, as they were all so caught up in finishing the feast. They made their way up to the First Year's Floor, where Harry was about to go and grab some foo when Hermione tugged his arm. He turned to face her.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Umm… thank you… for coming to get me," Hermione said, looking at the floor.

Harry was about to say something when Hermione kissed his cheek and disappeared into her dorm room. Harry was very grateful that the other First Years were too busy eating to see him blush. His stomach growled so Harry gladly grabbed a slice of pumpkin pie and sat talking with Dean and Seamus as he ate. It wasn't long before Harry felt very tired, the food and the night's antics wearing him out, so he bid goodnight to his classmates and headed off to bed.

This was a Halloween to remember.

*Adds this chapter to the "Written at 5am" Collection* Well that was a fun chapter to write, even if it has kept me up all night again. Part of the reason this one took so long is because I rewrote it multiple times trying to find the best path to use.

Also, remember that other story I mentioned I was writing earlier? Well for reading all the way to the end I'll give you a few details on it; it's a single-chapter story following Ollivander, starting when he gives a certain witch and a certain wizard their *cough* *cough* "first wands". The best part is, it's practically finished! Just a few errors to fix and fact-checking to do and it'll be ready to upload. I would've uploaded it before this chapter went out but I didn't want it to seem like I'd abandoned this series so, now that this chapter is published, I can add some finishing touches to the Ollivander story and get that uploaded for you.

Let me know if you like the new "-" style of separating segments of the story (or even if it works) because this is the method I plan to use for the future unless a better one presents itself. Also let me know what you think of the chapter and your opinions on how the story's going as a whole, every review counts and is appreciated.

Thanks for reading, next chapter will be up as soon as I have it ready, as always. Now I'm off to bed.