Chapter 12: The Troll with Two Heads

Artemis winced as Harry hit the wall with a loud "Thud!", and he stared at Harry's dented ribcage with morbid fascination.

He was shaken out of his stupor as the troll roared again. Without looking back, he ran as fast as he could out of the surveillance room. 'I need to find Butler.'

But before he could move further, a small voice in his head said, 'By that time, Harry could be dead.'

The cynic responded, 'Harry will be fine. He has magic, remember? He can just heal himself and go a few rounds with the troll?'

'After being smashed into paste? I doubt it,' the idealist argued back, gaining steam. 'Arty, if you leave him behind, you're a murderer. We Fowls may be thieves, but we aren't murderers. We do have some honor.'

Artemis gritted his teeth in frustration. 'If I'm supposed to go back and save him, what can I do?'

A desperate and stupid plan came to mind almost immediately. Artemis withdrew the Neutrino that he had pocketed earlier from his weapons room, turned, and fired at the troll, which was preparing to pound Harry's prone body once again.

As Harry had so astutely pointed out earlier, Artemis was a horrible shot. In this case though, accuracy didn't matter since the shot hit one of Artemis' surveillance cameras ('over a thousand euros and several filters from the fairy team's helmets,' Artemis mourned), and the resultant shower of sparks sufficiently distracted the troll from Harry.

With another roar, the troll began charging Artemis.

'Well, step one - distract the troll - has been accomplished. Now, I just need to stay alive.'

Artemis ran as fast as he could (promising to himself that he would devote more time to physical activity in the future if he somehow survived this) from the troll. His heart was beating as fast as a rabbit's as the troll gained on him, its lumbering steps getting louder and louder every second.

He stumbled. Artemis couldn't help it. He was afraid and running for his life, both of which were decidedly outside his areas of expertise. Scientifically, he understood that his brain was releasing adrenaline to induce a "fight-or-flight" response, which explained the rush of blood to his head and the way things seemed to be slowing down. But mentally, Artemis just hadn't experienced anything like this in his short life, so he was absolutely, utterly unprepared and terrified. And don't forget exhausted - 'I really need to take some physical education courses with Butler in the near future,' a distant portion of his brain observed.

The troll opened its mouth, revealing its rotting teeth, and let out a roar of victory. It had finally subdued its prey and now, as it always did upon catching its prey, would pound it to dust before eating it. Its plans were put on hold though as two bullets burst through the air and embedded themselves firmly in its skull.

"Artemis, run!" Butler's voice cried out. Artemis did not need to be told twice, and he promptly retreated up the nearby staircase.

Holly followed up Butler's shots with blasts from her Neutrino. Unfortunately, for the pair, this was a different species of troll; where they had previously been dealing with a bull troll, this was a mountain troll, which lacked the bull troll's tusks but in turn didn't have any fleshy vulnerabilities at all on the outside. So, the bullets and Neutrino blasts were mere irritants more than anything; they further angered the troll but caused minimal damage.

"AHHHH," the troll grunted, and in a burst of insight, it decided to throw its large club at the figures in front of it. Butler and Holly ducked just in time as a large club sailed over their heads and demolished the wall behind them. But before they could react further, the troll rushed them like an American football player after scrimmage.

"GARRARRG!"

Butler and Holly barely managed to leap out of the rampaging troll's way. "Captain, any suggestions?" Butler queried.

Holly shook her head. "I've never seen a troll like this one. It must be a wizarding variety, so your guess is as good as mine."

Any further conversation was cut off as they swerved away from the troll, which had been lumbering confusedly after its first pass had failed but had finally found them once again.

Artemis hated feeling helpless. Given his genius-level intellect, he was certain that he could do something to help Harry, Holly, and Butler in this situation, if only because the latter two couldn't hold the troll off forever, at which point he would be back on its menu.

'Think, boy, think! Use those famed neurons to figure a way out of this mess.'

Normally, Artemis would sit back and enter a tranquil, meditative state that helped him organize his observations and puzzle out solutions. But given the chaos surrounding him, he doubted that he would be able to do that. 'The only missing player at this moment is Harry, and frankly,' - Artemis winced at the memory - 'I think he's out for a while, regardless of whatever my sense of self-preservation was telling me earlier.'

But an idea sprouted in Artemis' mind. 'Harry was able to compel me easily because my thoughts were already swirling around a particular set of topics. Magical spells are fundamentally manipulations of energy, so if I were to focus my thoughts on bringing down the troll...'

So, Artemis closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and focused his might on smiting the troll. 'No, that's stupid. I don't have magic myself, so no amount of wishing for death upon the troll will achieve that goal. But there is a magic user in the house, who could do that - what if I focus my thoughts on healing him instead? He picked up on my thoughts earlier, and he could draw energy from my thoughts now.'

Artemis took a deep breath and directed his scattered thoughts towards a single idea - 'Harry must recover, Harry must recover, Harry must...'

He heard a crack of lightning below him. Artemis opened his eyes and saw that the troll had been thrown backwards through the demolished wall. Harry stood, looking considerably more hale and healthy than a few minutes ago, with his palms outstretched and smoking and his green eyes glinting dangerously.

'What do you know? It appears that those crackpot theories on the power of group meditation might have some basis in truth after all...'

Harry panted from the exertion of having fired lightning at the troll that had been threatening Holly and Butler. His bones HURT, his muscles ached, but he was still alive.

When the troll had pounded him against the wall earlier, Harry had been thrown into a world of pain. But pain was an old friend - Harry still remembered it from the days that Vernon had beaten him bloody and left him for dead in the cupboard beneath the stairs. Already, his magic was repairing the broken bones and limiting blood loss. It also helped that a dark-haired figure - Artemis - distracted the troll away from him before it could do any more damage.

But even with his magic, healing usually took hours, especially for injuries of this magnitude. Harry had practically counted himself out of this fight when he suddenly sensed a growing mass of positive energy nearby. To simplify matters, Harry could see tendrils from that energy mass actively seeking him out, so it was just a matter of being open to it and accepting it. Harry welcomed the tendrils and used them to reel the mass towards him. As he bathed in it, he could feel the healing accelerate until his bone breaks had been fixed, and he was reasonably fit for fighting again.

Harry shook his head to clear off the drowsiness as Holly fussed over him and shot blue sparks at his ribs. "Harry, what in Frond's name happened to you? You were nearly dead just a few minutes ago - I saw your body on the floor and was trying to get to you, but"- she scowled - "the blasted troll kept getting in our way.

"My magic helped. Well, that and -" Harry glanced upwards in the direction that the energy mass originated in and saw a white-faced Artemis looking down at them all. He nodded once in acknowledgement, and Artemis bobbed his head in response.

"I received help from an unexpected source," Harry continued clearing his throat.

Holly looked confused and was about to ask him to elucidate further when a furious mountain troll reentered the arena.

"No time, Holly," Harry cut her off. "What's the plan?"

"The plan?" she echoed. "The plan is that you either join Artemis upstairs, or better, GET OUT OF HERE! Butler and I have got this under control; we already dealt with one troll, so this bugger is just a minor inconvenience."

Harry snorted. "No deal. I heard you earlier, you know. This guy's different from the one you fought earlier. My magic seemed to have some effect on it, unlike your weapons. Face it, you need my help."

Holly scowled as she and Harry dodged one of the troll's wild swings; Butler was currently attempting to stab its back but to no avail. "Listen, kid," she growled. "Be sensible, and get yourself to safety. This thing nearly killed you earlier, and you just went through a major healing. You need time to recover. Besides, you're a kid - leave the fighting to the adults."

Harry laughed. "I haven't been a kid since I was six, Holly. Since I realized that my relatives hated my guts just because I had magic. They called me a 'freak,' you know. They were right - I was a freak. But now, at long last, I have someone and something to use those powers for, besides my own survival. I am freak with a friend, with a purpose now."

He cut off further arguments. "We've had each other's backs for the last few weeks. I wasn't going to leave you behind earlier when you wanted to go back in and help these guys against the trolls. I'm not leaving you behind now, partner, not when you're fighting for your life."

"Sentiment aside," Butler interjected drily, "I would greatly appreciate any suggestions on defeating this creature because I am not sure how much longer I can just poke it fruitlessly with this lance. At some point, the lance will break, and I will tire."

Back to the battle then...

Harry turned his attention back to the furious troll. It was shaking its head to clear off the aftereffects of Harry's lightning blast from earlier. While the lightning hadn't actually penetrated the troll's skin, the light had been painful - trolls, no matter what species, HATED light and loud noises.

Harry seemed to realize this as he saw the troll rubbing its eyes blearily. 'We could try drawing it outside the manor, but it's still dark outside, so that's no use.'

He came to a decision. "Artemis," he shouted upwards, "throw your Neutrino down to Butler. Butler, Holly, shoot your Neutrinos at the troll. I'm going to amplify the brightness of the shots to blind the troll."

The trio complied. As Butler and Holly fired their Neutrinos at the troll, Harry created a bridge from his magical core to the flashes ejected from the Neutrino. Harry's perception of time slowed down to a crawl, and he could see the Neutrino flashes inch forward incrementally towards the troll, much like the progress bar on a website. His core steadily extended threads to the flashes, and once they were connected, Harry pushed his feelings, his intent along the bridge: BECOME BIGGER AND BRIGHTER, BRIGHTER, BRIGHTER.

In the blink of an eye, time sped back up to normal, and Harry barely managed to wrench his eyes shut before two big balls of light hit the troll head-on. The troll roared in pain as the balls exploded; as it was, they were significantly brighter than the previous shots, so it had tried to cover its eyes with its arms. But the balls were too fast; the troll had only managed to raise its arms halfway when the balls collided with its head and exploded into a shower of bright sparks. The troll clawed at its eyes until they bled, hoping to somehow escape the light and pain. (Or for Lord-of-the-Ring fans, "The light! It burnssss us.")

The three combatants (and one participant who was literally perched precariously over the staircase) sighed in relief as the second troll finally collapsed to the ground in a quivering heap.

Quirrell had been observing the fight from the shadows, disillusioned. The Dark Lord had sent in his Death Eater strike team after the bull troll but before the mountain troll in the hopes that they would manage to take out Potter without necessitating his intervention. Obviously, that had been too much to hope for given the fact that the strike team never returned, so Quirrell had coaxed the mountain troll in to the manor and induced it to consequently wreak havoc in the upper floors.

When Quirrell had tried to argue for having the mountain troll help the bull troll beat the Mudman and the half-breed, his Lord had been most displeased and dished out a swift correction. 'No, you fool. Harry Potter is upstairs, and my foolish servants clearly have not managed to kill him. Take this troll upstairs now, so that we can finish the job and get out of here.' Quirrell had (grudgingly) complied - sometimes, he wasn't sure why he had struck a deal with the devil in the first place. Yes, he had been promised power and glory beyond his wildest dreams, but was that really worth the abuse and constant agony? 'The possession is ruining my good looks. And I have to wear this ridiculous turban! Soon, he will have me drinking unicorn blood, and my very existence itself will become a cursed one, much like his own.'

Unfortunately, today was just not Quirrell's day. As Harry and company defeated the mountain troll, Quirrell's secret frustrations boiled out for a split second, which was long enough for his dark master to pick upon. That second proved to be fatal to Quirinus Quirrell.

"You have failed me for the last time, Quirinus," Voldemort's voice rasped; he crushed Quirrell's feeble defensive shields, drained him dry of magic, and flew out of his withered husk towards the nearest powerful body - the downed troll's. 'I will get you yet, Harry Potter,' Lord Voldemort vowed as he settled into his new body. 'This day shall be mine.'

"Butler, is it safe to come down now," Artemis called out, his voice still high-pitched from the anxiety and fear induced by the entire experience.

Butler was about to respond in the affirmative when dark waves suddenly shot out of the shadows and entered the troll's body, which promptly began spasming and writhing. Butler and Holly took a step back from the troll.

Harry was about to do the same when his scar burst into fire. He sank to his knees in agony, clutching his forehead, as Holly rushed to him in concern.

"Harry, speak to me. What's going on?"

Gritting his teeth as the pain escalated, Harry tried to make out a response but was interrupted by a rasping chuckle from the troll.

"Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, my supposed vanquisher. We meet at last."

The trio looked at the troll in alarm. The last that they had checked, trolls didn't speak in clear English. They weren't supposed to be that intelligent. They also weren't supposed to laugh so creepily - just point, grunt, and roar.

As usual, Artemis was the first to realize what was happening. Safe in his perch at the top floor, he called out, "Lord Voldemort, I presume."

The troll turned around, and the four saw a head protruding from the troll's head. As the moments passed, it was gaining clarity and definition. The red eyes, snake-like pupils, the slits for a nose - even if he hadn't been adjoined to a troll's head, Voldemort still would have looked like a monster from one's worst nightmares.

"Silence, Muggle filth. You have no right to speak in this conversation between superior beings like myself and Harry Potter," Voldemort sneered.

"You know, Tom, your arrogance seems to have only grown over the years," Harry ground out. This was the creature from his nightmares. Somehow, seeing Tom in person calmed Harry; there had always been a part of Harry that had wondered whether Tom and the related nightmares were just products of his freakish imagination, some evil corner of himself, but Harry saw the truth now.

"Do not call me by that name, Potter!" Voldemort roared. 'How does the brat know that name?' he thought fearfully.

"After killing that Muggle filth that sired me, I was reborn. I cast aside my old pathetic identity and became Lord Voldemort, the greatest wizard ever!"

Harry laughed. "Greatest wizard, my boot," he said mockingly. "So great that you went around raping and killing people who had no idea who you were and had no way to defend themselves from you? Killing grandmothers, families, and babies? Yeah, you're great all right - great at being a coward."

"How dare you call me a coward, Harry Potter! You filthy Mudblood, you aren't even fit to lick my boots," Voldemort seethed. He paused suddenly before adopting a cruel smile. "Did you know how your parents begged me to spare you? It was delicious - frankly, I truly enjoyed obliterating the life out of them."

Harry stared at him frozen. "You killed my parents?" his voice sounded out shrilly. "But my parents died in a car crash. What are you talking about?"

Voldemort stared Harry in the eyes. Harry felt a tickling sensation in his brain for a moment; it vanished as quickly as he had felt it, and Voldemort broke out into a laugh.

"You don't know. You honestly have no idea of who you are!"

"What are you talking about?" Harry retorted, annoyed. He knew that Tom was an evil Dark Lord and styled himself as a Dark Lord. He didn't understand what was so personal about this fight though. But he was starting to get an inkling.

Artemis hastened the process. He called out to Harry, "He's telling the truth. He killed your parents when you were one, but when he tried to kill you with the same curse that he used against them, it failed for some reason. If you reviewed the surveillance feeds, you would have noticed that Dumbledore referred to you as the Boy-Who-Lived - that's because you were the only one to have survived his unblockable Killing Curse."

"For once, a Muggle speaks some sense," Voldemort sneered.

Harry stared at Voldemort blankly. 'This shite killed my parents,' he thought with mounting anger. 'He's the reason that I got stuck with the Dursleys and have been alone for all my life.'

"I'll kill you," Harry roared as he shot his hands forward and launched a series of lightning bolts at Troll-mort. With grace that he wouldn't have imagined was possible for a creature as big as the troll, Troll-mort dodged the bolts. Summoning a wand from the shadows, Troll-mort waved it over the passing bolts and gestured at Harry. The bolts promptly changed direction and sped back towards their caster. Only Harry's quick ducking saved him from being incinerated.

"You have some skill, boy, I give you that. But you can't hope to stand against me, the greatest -"

"Oh, shut up!" Holly grumbled as she and Butler fired their Neutrinos in a coordinated fashion at the troll. Troll-mort captured the blasts with the tip of its wand and sent them flying upwards towards Artemis, who fortunately had the sense to duck as they burned a hole in the wall.

Troll-mort charged.

Harry concentrated, and a gold shield sprang into existence in front of Holly and Butler. Troll-mort almost managed to rip through the shield but stopped in shock at the last second.

"Where did you learn to erect this shield, boy?" Voldemort's voice rasped fearfully from the back of the troll's head. He had personally designed this shield before his fall; Dumbledore mistakenly thought that he specialized in offensive arts alone, so he was planning to pull out this shield in one of their duels to pull one over the old goat.

Harry didn't even bother responding. He had made a mistake earlier by charging Troll-mort. Getting angry got you killed, sentimentality was a weakness. This was like a street fight - he had to think coolly and rationally. And the troll was just another big bully on the streets.

He pointed a finger at Butler's lance, which promptly caught on fire. Butler was startled for a minute, but since the flames weren't hurting him, he ignored them and resumed stabbing the troll, this time to great effect as the flames were transferred onto the troll.

Like before, Harry exploded the brightness of Holly's subsequent Neutrino blasts to blind the troll. Once again, Voldemort used his wand to redirect the blasts.

"Your pathetic Muggle weapons are no match for my power, you filthy creature. Let me show you."

Voldemort traced a series of shapes in the air, and they flew towards Holly. Thanking the stars that Mulch had brought a pair of wings with him, Holly quickly activated them and evaded the shapes, which gained a demonic red glow and continued to follow her.

Meanwhile, Butler recaptured Troll-mort's attention with another series of jabs with his lance. "Enough, Muggle," Voldemort roared. But before he could do anything, Harry directed the flames on Troll-mort's body to bind it to that spot. They wrapped him in a tight embrace and rushed downwards to the Earth, seeking purchase and a constant source of power. 'From what Holly told me, Earth is a good power source for magic once it has been manifested in a specific form outside the body. She never mentioned how hard it is to control the flames though.'

Harry's body was pouring in sweat, but he refused to give up. 'We WILL survive this.'

Troll-mort roared and struggled, but between Butler and Harry, he couldn't do much more. It didn't help that Voldemort had already exhausted himself greatly through the process of transferring his consciousness from Quirrell to the troll. So, he stared helplessly and furiously at the figures in front of him.

"Butler, grab his wand NOW!" Harry yelled. Voldemort tried to jerk the troll's hand out of the way, but Butler's speedy reflexes proved true - he snatched the wand out of the troll's hands and snapped it in two for good measure.

"Incoming!" came Holly's voice from behind them, and the two ducked. Harry inadvertently released his flame spell, and Voldemort let out a roar of triumph. The roar quickly transformed into a howl of pain as the hex that he had sent after Holly hit him head-on. Troll-mort frantically scratched at its skin as it erupted into boils; as the boils exploded, blood flowed freely out of the troll's body, pooling onto the ground beneath it. Voldemort knew that his host was soon going to expire, so he played his final card...

Harry was on his knees as Holly and Butler examined him for injuries.

"I'm fine," his slurred voice managed to make out.

"Harry, you just put your entire magical core into freezing a Troll with flame ropes. Without a wand. While it was struggling with its whole might against said ropes. After you had just recovered from the pounding that it had given you. Last time I checked, you'd need a doctor after just one of those," Holly said sharply.

Butler didn't know what to think. He was feeling a bit out of depth with the onslaught of trolls, evil wizards possessing trolls, and all. 'This is not what I signed up for when I swore to protect Master Artemis.' But he felt intense gratitude for the boy in front of him.

Artemis came down the stairs quietly and traded glances with Butler. He could tell from that glance alone that Butler was feeling grateful and extremely guilty - for a man of honor like Butler, it grated that these two had come back to save them even though they had been treated so badly at their hands. Artemis had always counted on Butler's loyalty, but he knew that he would be pushing it too far if he asked him to return their two allies back to captivity.

As Artemis cleared his throat, he suddenly noticed Harry topple fowards out of his chair, pushing Holly back with his flailing hands. The three stared at Harry in concern as the boy groaned and began standing up, seemingly against his will. Then, he raised his face to them.

"You didn't really think that I was going to give up so easily, did you?" Voldemort's voice hissed out of Harry's mouth. Volde-Harry swept his palm outwards, and the humans were blown backwards off their feet.

Holly spun with the blast and landed in a crouched position. "Harry, fight this monster. Drive him out of your mind!"

Volde-Harry closed his eyes and clutched his head.

Harry was fighting tooth-and-claw to regain control of his body.

When he opened his eyes again, he noticed that he and Voldemort were in a stone room. The room seemed as dank and dark as the dungeons that he escaped just a few hours ago.

"I am not one of your pawns, Tom," he proclaimed boldly to Voldemort.

Voldemort merely laughed. "You are nothing, Harry Potter. Just a little boy who was abandoned by Dumbledore and the rest of the Wizarding World at the doorsteps of the Dursleys to suffer for a decade."

Voldemort relished Harry's shock at that revelation.

"Oh yes. Did it not occur to you already that it must have been a wizard who dropped you off at the Dursleys? And where do you think they will return you to now after they regain custody? You are such a naive child, thinking that once you enter the Wizarding World, everything will be golden and happy. No, boy, they will return you to the Dursleys. You know how powerful Dumbledore is - his word is law."

Harry felt a rising sense of panic, and his control began slipping. 'I don't want to return to the Dursleys. They'll kill me within a day.'

Voldemort continued to goad it onwards. "Or maybe that idiotic Minister of Magic will assign you to Lucius or one of my other lackeys. He's practically in their pocket as it is. You will NEVER be free, boy."

It was a testament to the horrifying scenes that Harry had seen in his nightmares that he would have much rather preferred the Dursleys over a Death Eater as prospective guardians.

Voldemort's stentorian tones dropped to a seductive whisper. "But you still have a chance to acquire the freedom that you so desperately crave. You remind me of myself, you know. Both orphans, both desperately seeking control over their own fates at a young age. Let me take control of this body. Together, we can destroy these pathetic Muggles who captured you. Then, we can proceed to the Wizarding World and bring it under our control. We can rule together, boy, and you certainly have the potential to become the greatest wizard. This potential will become a reality if you join me, Harry Potter."

But Harry didn't care about ruling the Wizarding World or getting revenge. All he wanted was to be free to choose his own path in life. And if he let Voldemort take over his body now, that would never happen - like the dead wizard in the shadows or the troll, he would always have a master and would be used up till his death. "I am my own master. I am the captain of my fate, the master of my soul. I am not letting you harm Holly. Now, GET OUT!"

"Think, boy, think! I am the greatest wizard in the world! I can show you magics that you will never find in any of your tomes or in Hogwarts' halls. I could even bring back your parents..."

Harry stared at Voldemort, and Voldemort's breath hitched in anticipation. He had him now.

But Harry was made of far sterner stuff. He shook his head. "My parents wouldn't want to come back if it meant that I had to join you. They died stopping you, and I am going to respect that decision. Now, for the last time, GET OUT!"

The doors to the room flew open, and waves of magic filtered through. Voldemort didn't even have a chance to react as they slammed against his body and pushed him out with the force of a raging river. "No, NOOOOOOO!" he screamed out before he started to drown in the magic. He couldn't breath, he was suffocating, how could magic, his beloved, hurt so much?!

With his final shred of energy, Voldemort directed the magic around him into a vortex and used the swirling to eject himself out of the body, full-force.

Outside Harry's mind, Holly, Butler, and Artemis were staring at Harry's shaking body on the ground.

A few days ago, both Artemis and Butler would have just shot Harry to eliminate the threat as soon as possible.

'But he had to go ahead and save our lives,' Artemis thought bitterly. 'And my newfound conscience, which has Mother's voice of all things, just won't let me kill him after what we just went though.'

'He saved your Mother, too, you know,' his conscience whispered. 'I'm pretty sure that Troll-mort would have steamrolled you, Butler, and Holly since only magical attacks worked against him. Then where would Mother be?'

Butler stared at Harry's body stoically, thinking along the same lines. 'Had it not been for Harry, that troll and dark wizard would have pulverized Artemis and ripped through the rest of the house by now. And I wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for Holly.'

Holly kept a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Come on, Harry, you can do this," she muttered. Against her better judgement, she had grown quite fond of the little boy that had been kidnapped alongside her. Her mother had been a whale researcher, and after she had succumbed to a cancerous tumor which had been brought about by human whalers' pollution, Holly had harbored some resentment against Mudmen as a whole. Artemis certainly vindicated that resentment, but Harry had opened her eyes - not all Mudmen were alike. And now she was loath to let go of her friend, especially after all that they'd been through - from captivity to learning new types of magic together to fighting trolls and dark wizards.

Her faith was rewarded as a wailing mass of shadows flew out of Harry's body, smashing through a nearby window and fleeing the house.

Harry opened his viridian eyes, gasping for breath. He had won.