CH 10
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
The return of Miss Granger was uncelebrated, since the other Gryffindors had been upset when they found out that she cost them one hundred and twenty points by acting in such a non-Gryffindor fashion. Many of them were wishing that she'd chosen to remain unsorted like the rest of the first years, but as it was, the Gryffindors had permitted the second year girls to exact House vengeance on the poor girl.
Her overly large front teeth had provided them with the inspiration of charming the girls ears to look like that of a rabbit's. They were not the cute floppy kind, but the pointed up and get banged by low flying post, delivering Owls kind. The owls at the Gryffindor table had sensed their owner's irritation and had reacted in kind too by letting loose their bowels on the girl's wild and bushy looking hair.
Professor McGonagall had sent notes to the Prefects stating that she would tolerate any further harassment other than what had already been done. She then had them post a list of the girl's punishment on the Common Room bulletin and many of the students agreed that the girl was getting what she deserved in punishment.
Professor Snape had been the one to come up with the majority of the girl's tasks, which McGonagall agreed with. The good Potions Master had decided that the girl should have detentions that reflected an old muggle song called, 'Let the Punishment Fit the Crime'.
So upon her return to school she had to four types of detentions: clean the potions class, fertilize the greenhouses, polish the telescopes and sort the historical references in the Library by date and by hand. Plus she had a lot of catch up work to do, since she went home without any books to study from.
Snape was quite inventive, toothbrush for desks, potions prep of the foulest smelling ingredients without use of tools so as to not damage the purity of the ingredient. There were a lot of cauldron scrubbing session, of course and then a thorough store room cleaning twice. The second was because someone had accidentally knocked over an ingredient jar that contained dried dung beetle carcasses. The smell of them was invasive should they ever be stepped on and in this case, they had been.
The Astronomy teacher too was quite upset on behalf of her good student, Draco, and the girl soon learned that polishing a telescope once was not enough and the students aided the poor girl by adding weird oil products to their hands when they handled the instruments. As long as none of the telescopes were damaged the Professor allowed that bit of revenge to take place, but only for a short time.
Fertilizing the Greenhouses took place on the Sunday detentions and the Saturday detentions were a mixed bag. One hour in Snape's class, among other detentionees for line writing, one in the Library putting away books by catalogue or card file number and the final cleaning the telescope lenses in soapy water.
By the time that Halloween came around, she'd only been back for a day and was stuck with the dreaded bunny ears. She was due to meet Professor Snape for her detention with him that evening, but all students ignored her presence between the classes. She was alone unless assigned to practice a spell or charm with a fellow student.
Halloween day she'd been paired with her fellow Gryffindor, Ron Weasley, who wasn't predisposed to listen to her advice on how to properly cast the levitation charm. "Pronunciation is important," she told him, as he huffed and refused to listen. "Come on you can do this."
"Why don't you do it then if you're so smart," Ron said. "Go on then, show us poor, ignorant slobs how to pronounce the words."
"Fine," she said. She pulled out her wand and she the words correctly. The feather on her desk floated up in a guided direction.
"Well done Miss Granger," Professor Flitwick said. "Three points to Gryffindor. Now remember everyone the nice easy motions of the wand. It's Swish and Flick, and don't forget to use the proper tones." The poor professor was then startled by a small exploding sound nearby and he looked over.
"I think we're going to need a new feather over here Professor," Theodore Nott said, as Seamus' feather had flared up with a popping sound and left the two of them with soot on their faces. The Irishman had no eyebrows left again.
The students walked out of that class and Ron had been complaining loudly about Hermione, who had heard him. She'd been having a difficult time getting to know her fellow students, since her attitude grated on many of the other students' nerves. They didn't care about what she read or memorized for class, they didn't like that she felt the need to prove to them all that she knew best.
However being an emotional eleven year old girl, the words were harsh to hear especially after her petulant revenge against those that had done better that her in some classes. She rushed passed the same crowd and knocked a few of them on the arms. This knocked down some of the books they had been carrying.
Harry sighed and thought, 'How predictable. Making sure that everyone knew she was upset, but it really was her own fault. She should have known how Ron would react, since that's how he reacts whenever anybody else had been assigned to sit with him in that class and does better than him.'
The evening meal came and with it the odd picture of the stuttering Professor Quirrell running into the Great Hall with a fearful and trembling voice he said, before fainting. "Troll...in the dungeon...thought you ought to know!"
The Boy-Who-Lived didn't even panic. He just shook his head and continued to eat his meal, as those around him panicked at the thought of a monster in the school. The General Dorm students didn't have Prefects so when those were ordered to guide the members of their Houses back to their common rooms. The first years followed his lead and soon there were only twenty-five first year students and no Professors, other than the fainted Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at their feet, in the Great Hall.
"Not very organized are they," Theodore Nott observed.
"This is probably the safest location at the moment," Draco commented. "They were stupid to move the students through the corridors while that thing was supposedly on the loose."
"Hermione wouldn't know about it," Parvati Patil said to the others. "She was still in the bathroom crying when everyone was ordered to leave the Great Hall."
"Well then I guess we should wake the Professor here, so he can go and help her," Harry said. They looked at him like he was deranged. "What, shouldn't the Defense Professor know how to Defend himself against something as basic as Troll?"
The first years agreed and then watched as Harry dumped a pitcher of ice-cold water onto the man's face in order to shock him into reviving. "Hey Professor," he said loudly, while battering the man mentally to get him to wake up. "Wakey, wakey sir," he said. "Maybe I should slap him? That's what muggles do to people who pass out."
At this Professor Quirrell, had to give up pretending his was still unconscious, since it was obvious that more than one child was looking at him. It was also clear that they hadn't followed the Houses out of the Great Hall. "What," he said. "What is going..."
"Hallo there Professor," Harry said cheerfully. "Glad to see that you're back with us. You know fainting like that does not instill much confidence in us to trust your teachings. However you have a student that doesn't know about the Troll and you need to do something about it."
"Whh...w...what," the man in the purple turban said. "Wh..wh...why m..m..mee?"
The collected first years on the Great Hall all looked at him expectantly. "You're the adult," Blaise said. "You should know what to."
"Get someone to look for her, at least," Lavendar Brown said. "She's in danger, if..."
Then they all heard a very loud screeching scream from the corridor.
Harry ran to the Great Hall doors. He looked and saw the girl running towards the doors. "In here, quickly," he yelled. "Everyone to the head table, flip them to form a barricade and make a line behind it," he ordered. He dragged the girl by the arm with him, as he caught her before she ran past a point of getting decent help.
"Ready any kind of damaging spell you know that you can cast successfully, don't argue just do it." He'd run by his Professor and kicked him in the back of the head, saying in an authoritative tone, "Get up off your arse Sir and join us, you should know some kind of spell to stun or kill this thing."
The Troll by this time had noticed that the prey it had been chasing was no longer in front of him. It was then that it noticed the large set of doors with light coming from the opening and the smell of food. It wandered into the Great Hall.
"Aim your wands," Harry ordered the students. Some had listened to him and others were huddled further away from the barricade, but were fully hidden though. He held out his wand and said, "Any spell...steady your aim." His voice and manner calmed them enough that nearly all students were now facing the creature. He shouted, "NOW!"
The poor creature didn't know what hit him, but things certainly did. There were a lot of successfully executed levitation charms that called the schools tableware to rise and attack the beast. Many knives and forks were imbedded into the creature, who truly didn't like that. There were at least three cast spells that were above first year level.
One tripped the troll because it was a spell that used of several benches, rolling them like logs from behind it. Another was something called a 'Reducto', which some first years knew what it might do based on a Latin translation. The final spell was an old one called 'Invisio Guilloti', which was basically an invisible guillotine spell. That spell ensured that the Troll was dead.
The Troll's head rolled into the general corridor and that's when some of the Professors and Headmaster re-appeared. They'd arrived just in time to see the head rolling. They'd been shocked to hear from several of the corridor Portraits that the Troll had left the Dungeons and had found its way to the Great Hall.
"Oh my," Professor McGonagall said when she looked into the Great Hall. The barricade of their supper table was the first thing she saw. The next was the row of nearly all the first years, along with Professor Quirrell sitting with his head in his hands at one of the students' House tables.
"Quirinus," the Headmaster said. "What's going on here?"
Draco spoke up for the first years. "You left us here," he said petulantly. "We don't have prefects and you didn't get the Head Boy or Head Girl to escort us to our dorms. We stayed together and Granger here didn't know about the Troll until she met it in the corridors."
"Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall turned to look at the girl with puffy eyes.
"I was in the bathroom and didn't know," the girl in rabbit ears told her. "I came out and was two corridors away when I heard something behind me. I looked behind me, saw that, screamed and ran in this direction. Potter pulled me into the Great Hall."
"H...he then ordered th...the students t...to turn the head table into a barricade," Quirrell continued.
"He also told us to ready any spell that we knew we could cast successfully," Neville said. "Most of us did the levitation charm and used the tableware."
Some of the Professors blanched and turned green at the thought of eating food with the forks and knives that had skewered the Troll. Although they knew that such things are replaced on a near yearly basis due to extenuating circumstances.
"Mr. Potter," the Headmaster turned to the boy and asked. "Where did you learn such a strategy?"
"History of Magic class," Harry answered truthfully. "Bolduc the Brave and his troops were surrounded by enemies in 1078. I can't tell if they'd stupidly or strategically retreated into 'Deadman's Tower' located on the 'Plains of Ishtal'. (...i...) During the first wave of attackers, I'd say it was strategic, since they were able to take out several giants by gathering together and casting their spells at the same time. Greater the number of spells cast at the same time, the more successful the chance that they'd be able to take out their enemy."
"But they didn't last," Blaise told him. "They were overwhelmed by their third wave of attackers."
"I know," Harry said. "That's because there was no escape route for them, but we had one, which is why I made you create a barricade at this end of the Hall." He pointed to the three doors at the back of the Hall which would have allowed them to escape. "I was only thinking about the first part of that battle when they killed that first giant and since Professor Quirrell told everyone that there was 'A' troll, I knew we'd only be dealing with only one, if there were more then he'd have said 'Trolls'... well I should hope he would have anyway."
After that the boy only shrugged and didn't say anything else. The Professors all stared at the children as though they couldn't believe that some would be thinking of battles like this, until their attention was diverted by a question from one of the first year girls.
"Headmaster," Padma Patil asked with dried tears down her face. "Could we go back to our dorms now?"
"Of course, my dear," the Headmaster said. He came out of his momentary shock and said, "Professor Snape could you please see them to their dorm entrance?"
"Yes," Snape said and he turned to motion to the children. "All right come along," the Potions Master said, as he waved at them to move. The first years all joined and followed him to the entrance shield of their dorms. "Food will be delivered to your common room. I suggest that you refreshed yourselves before eating it. We still expect you to show up on time for classes. Miss Granger, follow me," since she was the only student that did not belong to the General Dorms.
"Thank you and good evening Professor Snape," Harry said, as he was the last through the door way.
"Good evening, Mr. Potter," Snape said in a neutral tone. He walked away, as bunny-eared Hermione glanced back in time to see the shield door shut. It made her wish that she'd never been sorted.
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
TBC...
(...i...) Completely made up names of tower and location, any resemblance in name to any real or game location is purely coincidental and not intended as duplication or to be considered as originating from this author.