Halloween

It was already Thursday and the Hallow's Eve festivities had stricken Hogwarts in full force. Candles that usually adorned the great hall's air space were replaced with Jack-O-Lanterns adding to the Halloween spirit.

The week had started just like any other week; the only difference was that on Monday and Wednesday both days that he usually had potions he now had his extra curricular work in place of his fourth period breaks. Along with his extra potions work he also had extra charms on his Tuesday fourth period break.

Today was the second day that the Gryffindor and Slytherin students had charms together just this week, and since it was Halloween the charms master thought it'd be fun for the students to learn a new spell.

The short professor climbed up onto his stack of books which allowed him to see over his podium like he did every class, an action that had the students wondering why he didn't just get a smaller podium, before he got the classes attention, "Morning class!"

After a few short tired replies or in some cases mumbles of, "Morning professor," due to the students Astronomy class the students were more tired than usual, the charms professor continued on with his lesson.

"Today we will be learning a new spell," With a flick of his wand his chalkboard revealed a diagram of the wand movements along with it's incantation. "This is the Levitation Charm, with it you can make things, well… levitate, just as the charm describes." The diminutive teacher then proceeded make use of the spell he had just described to levitate a feather onto each of the student's desk.

"The wand movement is almost like an S-shape once you've done that, to complete the spell use the incantation Wingardium Leviosa. Well let's all give it a try now. Don't be shy." The students excitedly began waving their wands in an attempt to mimic their professor.

Harry himself didn't rush straight into the wand waving fest, but with his «Wingardium Leviosa» skill at level 12 there wasn't a doubt on whether he knew it or not. However he did silently and discreetly floated his feather back onto the charms master's desk.

Flitwick noticed the feather that now occupied the space on his desk and looked to the student that he knew it belonged to. He raised his hand at the black haired boy and showed his five fingers indicating that he got five points for Slytherin. After several weeks of announcing to the class that Harry had earned a certain amount of points got old very fast, since Harry normally first to complete almost everything. Thus hand gestures were an efficient way to allocate the points without the class getting distracted. While Harry rather not get any points for being able to do magicks that were easy to him, however the points helped the house and Slytherin had won the house cup six years running.

Harry turned his attention to his seatmate for the class, and saw that the dark-skinned boy hadn't made an attempt at levitating his feather yet. And instead he was merely examining the class as they made their attempts while jotting down a few notes onto a piece of parchment. Curious to what the Slytherin was doing Harry inquired on his action, "Might I ask what you are doing?"

Blaise looked up from his parchment to look at his questioning seatmate, "I am taking notes on the best way to preform the spell before I try it."

'Sounds meticulous.' Harry continued examining Blaise who was examining the class for quite a bit. After a while Blaise finally pulled out his wand and cast the spell, the feather flew about half an inch above the desk for several seconds before it fell back down.

"Just about what I expected." Blaise wrote onto his parchment once more before giving the feather another go, this time it flew another half inch more.

"So how's it going?"

"Pretty well so far, it seems that the smoother the curves on the wand motions the better the results."

Harry nodded, when he examined the other students the ones that had more jagged wand motions got less satisfactory results. Case in point when Seamus had somehow set his feather ablaze requiring another feather from the professor. Only that he could use the spell with any wand motions or in the case of wandless magic with none at all. 'Maybe it depends on INT level?' As INT both dictated his magical damage and how much MP he had. Or possibly WIS, which as he learned accounted for his reading and comprehension as proven now that his WIS increased to 26 from his cumulative reading.

As the dark-skinned Slytherin continued his experimentations, improving after each altered attempt, Harry's attention fell on the red haired Gryffindor who seemed to have extreme difficulty preforming the levitation charm.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron grumbled when his wand failed to have any effect on his supplied feather.

With his «Examine» skill Harry saw that the wand that the Weasley was using had no durability left. Which for a wizard that only knows how to use magic with a wand, seems to hinder the user. But when Harry looked at the wand he realized that he probably didn't need to use his «Examine» to see that the wand was past its prime, chips of wood missing from its exterior and the unicorn hair core exposed to the elements.

However it didn't look like the boy cared about the condition of his wand and continued his futile attempts at the spell using his faulty wand. "Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa! Stupid feather why won't you float?" As his number of attempts grew so did his frustration, which could be seen from the redness that crept up his face.

The redhead was about to attempt the spell once more, when the bushy haired girl beside him interrupted him, "You're saying it wrong. It's pronounced Wing-GAR-dee-um Levi-O-sa, you have to make the 'GAR' nice and long." While the advice was completely accurate and helpful, the manner in which she delivered the advice sounded condescending. It was only made worst when she demonstrated the 'proper' way to preform the spell. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The moment the incantation left her mouth, her feather flew up several feet gaining the attention of the while class and floated in place where her wand was pointed. "See just like that."

"Good work, Miss Granger five points to Gryffindor for your excellent charms work."

The Weasley's ears grew red from being shown up by a girl, especially when she had effortlessly done the spell that he had so much trouble with. Causing him to hide in his seat with his head ducked down in embarrassment.

"Thank you Professor."

The class ended only a few minutes later, with Slytherin earning twenty more points for completing the spell by Draco, Blaise, Tracey and Daphne.

The Slytherins waited until the Gryffindors finished exiting the room, so that the traffic wouldn't be so great, before they too left the classroom. As the students made their way to the next class they overheard the conversation of the Weasley and two other Gryffindors.

"It's no wonder no one ever wants to be her partner. She's an absolute nightmare!" The boys chuckled at the redhead declaration. "Seriously 'it's not Wingardium Leviosa. It's Wing-GAR-dee-um Levi-O-sa' what a know-it-all!" At this the boys only laughed harder, with several other Gryffindors joining in as well.

The busy-haired girl that they were mocking overheard their mocking, not that they were being quiet about it, and run down the hall gaining the attention of the Gryffindors and Slytherins in the hall. "That wasn't very nice Ron, you probably hurt her feelings." A blonde girl in red and gold robes went up to the taller boy.

"So? She's probably already sad that she hasn't got any friends." The boys begun to laugh once more and even most of the Slytherins laughed as well. Taking the chance to enjoy the misfortune of a mudblood, except for Harry and Tracey both of whom were half-bloods and a muggle home in Harry's case and a half muggle home in Tracey's.

Harry ignored the laughter; slightly upset at the bullying because he knew the feeling of being ostracized and headed to the Transfigurations class.

Transfigurations and Herbology had finished exceptionally fast the only mishap was when the Transfigurations professor had gone through the roll call, the Granger girl was not present. Nor was she present for the Herbology class, apparently from the story that Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had told the Transfiguration and Herbology professors that the Granger was crying in the bathroom. When they were asked why the girl was crying in the bathroom, they told the professors that it was most likely Ron's fault for mocking her after charms. This loss Gryffindor ten points from each professor, who were upset that the bullying had occurred.

After Herbology Harry would have extra transfigurations work during fourth period, while his fellow Slytherins had a free period. However they would head to the Great Hall after he finished with his extra work. Only that Harry didn't feel like celebrating Halloween, as it was the day his parents were killed. So Harry headed to the dungeons after informing Draco that he would be studying in his dorm during the feast, as well as his reason for not attending the feast so that their Head of House wouldn't deduct points for his attendance.

The Halloween Feast was already in full force once Draco had entered the Great Hall after meeting with Harry. The first thing he did after entering the room was head to the professor's table to inform their Head of House on Harry's whereabouts. "Professor?"

Snape acknowledged his godson with the slightest hint of a warmer voice, "Yes Draco."

"Harry wanted me to inform you that he will be missing the feast tonight."

"And did he explain why?" Snape was ready to deduct points from the black-haired boy as soon as he heard an unsatisfactory answer.

"Well he said he would be grieving the loss of his parents, sir."

Snape was surprised to hear that, for a moment sadness could be seen in the professor's dark black eyes. Sadness caused from the death of the women that he truly loved. And while he hated James Potter with all of his being once he was reminded that the man was dead his hatred dissipated. "Tha… That's fine. Now go and sit down for the feast."

"Yes, sir." Draco hurriedly walked to his seat and sat amongst the Slytherins. Where they questioned him his late appearance.

"Where have you been?"

"I went to meet up with Harry before the feast."

Interested in the two boys conversation Daphne added her two cents, "And where is he?"

"Harry went to his room to study."

"Why isn't he coming to the feast?"

"Because Tracey, he's grieving his parents death you dolt."

"Oh." Tracey looked a bit down after hearing that, as well as Blaise and Daphne both of whom have loss a parent. In Blaise's case a few fathers but the only one that affected him was his biological father and Daphne's case she had loss her mother a few years after his little sister's birth.

Just as the more compassionate Slytherins had started to feel down about the remembrance of the death of the Potters the doors to the Great Hall burst open and the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor dashed into the hall.

"Tr… Trolls! In the dungeons!" The professor's eyes rolled to the back of his head, before he collapsed face first onto the ground. The moment the professor landed on the ground the students began to scream and panic.

"Quiet!" The headmaster's voice rang out amplified through the use of magic. At the headmaster's command the students calmed down immediately, "The perfects will bring all the students to their respective dorms and the professors will come with me to dungeons."

As the professors began to leave the room, Snape was stopped by his godson. "Professor! Wait!"

Snape turned to face the blonde Slytherin, "What is it? This had better be important!"

Draco whispered so that no one other head of house Slytherin could hear, "The Slytherin dorms are in the dungeon."

The potions master's eyes grew wide and he ran over to the headmaster who had continued walking and had almost made to the doors before he was stopped. "The Slytherin dorms are in the dungeons we can't send them to their dorms."

The headmaster was also in shock after remembering such an important fact. "McGonagall tell the students to stay here Snape, Flitwick and I will go find the troll." The mentioned professor left with the headmaster leaving McGonagall and Pomona to watch over the students along with professors Vector, Sinistra, Trelawney, Babbling, and

Burbage.

"All students will stay here until further notice, the troll may have wandered elsewhere in the castle and as such it would be safest to stay here."

Back at the Slytherin table Daphne posed a question to her fellow friends, "Isn't Harry in the dungeons?" The group then went to inform the deputy headmaster that Harry was in the dungeons. With a patronus McGonagall informed the headmaster about the danger Harry could be in and hoped that the boy hadn't run into the troll.

Harry had just started to make his way to the dungeons where his room was located, and although he had said that he was going to his room he took a scenic route. Which had given him time to think about his parents and their premature demise. As he walked down the hall to the dungeons he smelled a terrible smell, one similar to rotten food only far more pungent.

As he continued walking the smell got worse, curious to what was emitting such a foul odor he walked towards where he felt it smelled the worst. At first he had thought the smell might have been coming from the twin tricksters, however the smell led him to a girl's bathroom. This made him rethink about the possible causes of the smell; he highly doubted it could come from a person since he was able to smell it from half a hallway down. But he was apprehensive about entering a girl's bathroom. There was a word for men who enter the girl's bathroom over the age of six and that word would be pervert.

His thoughts were interrupted however when a piercing scream came from the other side of the bathroom door. Sighing Harry opened the door, "Excuse me, is everything alright… in here?" Harry's voice trailed off as he spoke shocked to see that a large troll was in the bathroom. On the other side of the bathroom was the Gryffindor girl that had apparently hidden in a bathroom all day and was currently frozen in fear of the troll. "Hey! Try to find someplace to hide!"

The girl had only just registered that Harry enter the room, she nodded at him and began to move towards one of the stalls to hide in, when the troll let out a primal roar and smashed the closest stall into smithereens frightening the girl so much that it caused the Gryffindor to faint on the spot. The troll began to walk towards its fallen prey, club in hand fully intent on make her its next meal.

Harry quickly fired off several fireballs at the troll, each one causing a red 40 to flash as the fireballs struck the creature's back. The troll turned around ignoring its current prey to deal with the one that was attacking it.

Now that he had the monster's attention Harry took his time to examine his foe. «Troll Lv. 20 HP: 1,299/ 1,439 MP: 0/0 Description: Troll's have their high attack and thick skin that reduces magic and physical damage by 30%»

With one salvo of fireballs reduced the troll's HP by quite a bit, less damage than how much MP he used but still a fair amount. Since he hadn't ever trained against a live target before Harry decided that now would be a good chance to test his abilities.

Materializing his bow he immediately shot an arrow activating one of his new skills «Quickdraw» it allowed him to shoot an arrow at lightning fast speeds at the cost of only dealing half damage. The single arrow struck the troll on the chest dealing 2 points damage.

The troll roared and charged at Harry as he continued to fire arrows at the monster as it charged, however this time he aimed at the creature's left knee. In the time it took the troll to reach half the distance of the bathroom Harry had fired fourteen arrows into its knee or around the surrounding area forcing the troll to collapse. With «Quickshot» Harry had actually shot twenty-seven arrows but only about half had hit, and even though it only did a mere 28 points of damage causing damage wasn't what Harry was aiming for.

«Troll's movement has decreased to 0»

Although the attack was weak it served to immobilize his enemy and with the size of the monster it would need both legs in order to move, let alone stand which is the reason that it had collapse halfway through its charge.

With his target unable to move Harry began to lay into the beast with his favorite «Fireball» skill and after thirty-two fireballs the troll was nothing more than a burning husk. Several seconds after it's HP reached 0 it burst into a million white pixels.

«Troll defeated. 2,093 EXP gained»

«Your level has increased by 2»

«Obtained metal scraps x17»

«Obtained 10G»

«Recovered steel arrows x27»

Harry walked over to the unconscious Gryffindor and used his «Cure» to remove the «Unconsciousness» effect on the girl. "Are you okay?"

Hermione quickly sat up from her position on the ground and looked around the bathroom. "Where's the troll?"

"It's gone."

Hermione looked confused at the answer, "What do you mean it's gone?"

Harry sighed and held out his hand to help the girl up off the floor.

She took the offer hand and stood up with Harry's assistance. "Thank you, but you still haven't answer my question."

"Gone means gone, surely you know that."

An indignant look appeared on the Gryffindor's face, "Yes I know what gone means, it means no longer present or… departed... but surely you couldn't have?"

"Well anyways I have to get going, said I would be studying in the dorms, and I'd rather not be caught in the girl's bathroom of all place. Have a nice night Granger." Harry left the Gryffindor where she stood and made his way to his dorm where it was assumed he currently was at.

While walking down the hall Harry opened up his stats menu to see his increased stats,

«Lv. 18 HP: 450 MP: 930 STR: 19 VIT: 15 DEX: 21 INT: 44 WIS: 28 LUK: 42 Stat Points: 54»

Harry hadn't used his stat points just in case something came up and his current stat points weren't enough to bypass it. Only that after seeing how much damage his «Fireball» did he wasn't very impressed even though the troll had a 30% defense bonus against magic and physical attacks, Harry had a 30% bonus using fire attacks so his magic only did 40 damage at full power against the troll. With this knowledge it wasn't any wonder that only adults could take on a troll, as the younger the students were the less INT they had and consequentially the less damage they could inflict.

Even though the troll was easily defeated without any risks by attacking its weak point and restricting it movements if the troll had armored kneecaps Harry's strategy would have failed. And Harry didn't want any chance of failure, call it paranoid, but Harry wanted to be prepared for any situation. He didn't have any choice; his parents were murdered when he was one, then he had to survive through the torment of the Dursleys for most of his life, and fight the darkness that lurked within him. He didn't know when or where a creature strong enough to kill him would lurk. Within the castle alone were apparently trolls and a Cerberus could be found, while just outside the castle the Forbidden Forest held even more dark creatures.

As Harry neared the dungeons he thought on what stat would be the most useful for him. STR would be good for close ranged fighting or increasing his bow damage. But DEX would allow him to avoid direct combat. INT was something that he would definitely increase as it was his specialty. WIS however seemed to not need any extra boost as it would increase just by learning more.

After deciding on how to allocate his points he tapped the stats on his status menu. 30 points went to INT bring it up to 74 and 24 went to DEX bringing it up to 45. Assuming that with his INT almost doubled his magical damage would be almost doubled as well putting it somewhere in the 70 to 80 damage range. Checking his MP he saw it had grown to a frightening 1,710 nearly double from what his original MP just was. With this amount of MP Harry felt that he didn't have to worry about running out anytime soon or feeling magical exhaustion even if he pushed himself to the most extremes.

As he was going through his various status and skills menus a few glowing words caught Harry's eye. In particular his «Diffindo» «Fireball» and «Incendio» each were written on his menus with a golden glow. When he clicked on one of the glowing skills a new menu prompted.

«Increased INT allows Fireball skill to branch to Fireball II [INT req. 50] and Fire Djinn's Arrow [INT req. 60]»

From each of the skills description both had their benefits. «Fireball II» would give more damage at the cost of using more MP, while «Fire Djinn's Arrow» had the ability to lock-on to a target with three fire arrows at the same cost of the original «Fireball» and did the nearly the same damage as the original as well.

Accepting to learn the new skill and upgrade the old skill, Harry moved onto the other skills. «Diffindo» branched to «Diffindo II» and «Sectumsempra» both of which were stronger than the original skill while «Sectumsempra» was double the upgraded «Diffindo II» at the same MP cost.

Lastly his «Incendio» only upgraded the next level «Incendio II» the only requirement was that he need an INT of 45.

After he had gotten into his room and gotten settled down ready to study for a bit, he was interrupted by a furious knocking at his door. Harry got up to answer it, only for it to burst open and several professors rushed into his room undeterred by his wards.

"Um, good evening professors?"

"Harry you are alright!" The aged headmaster seemed to be relieved.

Harry seemed confused at the elder wizard, "Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"

"There is a troll loose in the castle, you wouldn't happened to have seen one around here would you?"

Harry's brain made the connection between the professor's worry and that they were looking for a troll. They were worried that the troll would have killed him he assumed, since they didn't know that he had easily defeated the troll. "No sir, I haven't seen one around here," The professors let out a breath of relief before Harry continued, "But I did find one down the hall, I believe the Gryffindor girl might still be over there," The professor rushed out of the dorms and down the hall before Harry could continue on what he was saying. "But I killed the troll on my way here." The last of Harry's sentence was ignored, as there was no one in the room other than himself, seeing that he had said he was going to be studying he went to his desk and pulled out his textbooks from his inventory.

The professors reached the end of the hall where Harry had said he encountered the troll. The Gryffindor that Harry informed them about had just left the girl's bathroom and entered the hall, as she entered the hall the professors confronted her about the troll issue. "Miss Granger, have you seen a troll?"

Hermione's face became a pale after the professor mentioned the troll but forced herself to answer, "Yes sir."

"Do you know where it had went?"

Hermione shook her head, "Harry said it was gone."

"Gone? Which way?" The headmaster was glad that the troll hadn't harmed either of the two students but he still needed to find the troll least it cause trouble elsewhere.

"It's gone sir."

"Dead? How could this be Albus?" The tiny professor could easily take on a troll, but he doubted either Harry or Hermione could.

"Did Harry kill it, Miss Granger?"

"I'm not sure, I… I um fainted sir."

"Is the body in there?"

"No sir, other than the smashed stall there's no other trace of the troll."

"Thank you Miss Granger, professor Flitwick will escort you to your dorm. Severus I want you to tell Minerva that the troll is gone and the students are safe to return to their respective dorms."

"And what about you Albus?"

"I will check up on Harry once more."

Harry was studying his potions textbook in preparation for double potions tomorrow, when the headmaster interrupted him.

"Harry, I was wondering if you could tell me more about the troll you encountered."

"Of course sir," Harry thought for a bit, "It had an unpleasant smell to it, and it was very large I would assume fifteen feet in height and about six feet wide."

"Yes that would describe a troll perfectly, however I'm asking if you fought this troll."

"Yes, and I killed it." Harry didn't hesitate in his answer.

"But there is no trace of the troll where you had fought it."

"It disappeared once it died."

Albus stroked his beard as he thought, "And do you feel any remorse killing the troll?

"No sir, it had threatened the life of another student and attempted to attack me surely you would have done the same professor."

Albus smiled at Harry, "Perhaps I would have, the protection of the students is my priority as headmaster. Well good night Harry."

"And you too professor."

AN: For those that noticed that the schedule was different from the one in chapter 4, I did change it to be almost identical to the actual one in order to write the story easier. I also changed the previous chapters to make the schedule more consistent with the time schedules.

Btw I have been looking for a Beta reader, but haven't had much luck. If anyone is interested go ahead and PM me.