Motioning Hermione to stay back, I ran out after the boys. Seamus had already yelled, "Oy! Granger! Ya in there?"

That she yelled, "No, I'm back here!" from behind me certainly distracted the boys, and caught the attention of the troll. All four turned down the hall toward us, and Seamus didn't notice as the troll wound up to casually splatter him with the giant slab of wood it was wielding as a club.

Not having much time to think, I yelled, "Carpe retractum!" while jerking my staff back like a fishing pole. A beam of light briefly connected the end of the staff and the Irish boy, pulling him rapidly toward me just in time to dodge the beast's swing. It cracked loudly against the stone wall, and large chunks of brick clattered to the floor.

As Seamus's momentum made him baseball slide down the corridor from where I released the spell, Ron and Neville had a little more situational awareness and turned back to the troll, trying to spread out and get out of range of its club. Unfortunately, while the ceiling was too low for an overhead smash, the hallway was a main thoroughfare and just wide enough for multiple children to walk to class at once. That meant the troll had room to swing but we didn't have much room to get around it, and that they were backing up toward me and in the way of anything major I tried to do.

Having a nagging worry, I yelled, "Stupefy!" and tossed off a stunner, which would have trouble missing. Unfortunately, as expected, the red light splashed harmlessly off of it. How magic resistant was its skin, anyway? With two boys still in the way, I didn't want to risk grabbing my blasting rod and trying to hit its limits. The troll was easily keeping pace with the backpedaling boys, so I tried shouting, "Ventus!" and sending a blast of wind along the top of the corridor.

While the wind did more than the stunner, the troll was quite heavy and was only a bit distracted. I had slowed my initial sprint when I had to save Seamus, but I'd still been slowly moving forward, and I finally got ahead of the boys at about the point of another suit of armor eternally guarding the hallway. The two miniature Gryffindors took the opportunity to actually turn and run once they realized I could block it. Now I just had to figure out how I was actually going to block it.

I'm not the most agile human being on the planet, as I have a lot of arm and leg to manage, but the troll heavily telegraphed its swing and I was able to duck and cover my head as its swing instead connected with the suit of armor. All the plates scattered around the hallway, with a couple of chunks painfully bouncing off of one of my ribs. While the club was committed, I scrambled past the troll down the hallway, hoping it didn't realize it could just kick me while its club was going the wrong way.

Successfully turning the troll around, I could see that the four first-years had stopped to watch not far enough down the hallway. "Hey ugly!" I said, trying to get its attention. It tossed a look my way, but took a sniff of the air, threw Hermione's presumed sweater to the other side of the hall, and started to move toward the girl. Annoyed, the scattered suit of armor gave me an idea. "Oppugno!" I cast, making the junk, as well as the fragments of shattered wall, swirl up and pelt into the troll.

That at least got its attention, and I hadn't really accounted for how fast it could move when it was annoyed or what I was going to do next. I managed to scramble back fast enough to miss one swing, then another, and even a third, but now the troll was going at a run. I had just enough time to crouch down and put up a shield before the club caught me.

Now, my shield is not a spells-only defense. Through a lot of hard work, it's good against physical impacts as well. Unfortunately, the worst I'd ever really tested it on was magically-accelerated baseballs. It was not quite as effective against the better part of a tree trunk. It popped my shield, and if the backlash hadn't stunned me, being hit by the club would have. Fortunately, I'd slowed it by a lot. Unfortunately, it still had plenty of inertia. Rather than pulping me in place, it worked more like a lacrosse stick, scooping me up and flinging me into the wall. My staff clattered away from me as I slumped to the floor, dazed and worrying about what I'd broken.

I wasn't sure I would be able to do anything in time to stop the backswing from finishing me off, but the brave tiny Gryffindors decided to distract the beast. Three of them were shooting off whatever beginner's hexes they'd learned so far, while Seamus had run up and grabbed some of the detritus of the armor and wall to throw. None of it made any real difference to the troll, but it was reminded there were other threats and turned to face them.

From my stupor on the ground, I tried to collect myself but could only watch the kids fight the looming troll. Ron suddenly had an idea and cast, "Wingardium leviosa!" I'd find out later that Hermione was very impressed that he got it right, since it had apparently been the lesson he'd blown earlier that started the fight between the kids. And he cast it on the club, which I should have thought of. Unfortunately, while that might have worked if the monster had a loose grip, it was more than capable of hanging onto the club against a first-year's spell, though it had to work at it for a moment.

I started to groggily try to get to my staff, but my arms didn't really seem to want to obey my commands. And maybe my eyes were going weird, because I could have sworn Hermione was charging at the troll. With a mighty smash it brought down its club on the hallway floor, but the little girl had managed to duck and run between its legs. It seemed inclined to deal with her, but the boys started back up with their assault.

Hermione checked to make sure I was moving, seemed to realize I wasn't going to help in the next few seconds, and picked up my staff. The focus was almost twice her height, but she managed to get a decent grip on it, muttered a couple of incantations to get a feel for the difference to her wand, and planted her feet. As the troll was dangerously close to taking out all three boys with a single hall-wide swing, the muggleborn girl shouted, "Wingardium leviosa!"

My staff was primarily built to handle magic involving motion, and the levitation charm certainly qualified. With that much surface area with which to work, I'd been able to make it more or less idiot-proof, since I'm the biggest idiot I know. And Hermione had been a very attentive student in my class, even though she was perfectly competent with a wand. Unlike her wand, whose magical capacity would grow as she did, the staff could focus a lot more of her magic toward that spell, and it was enough to rip the club out of the troll's hands. Awkwardly swinging the staff around in front of her, the club followed her movements, buffeting into the troll repeatedly and then finally making a very solid couple of hits into its face. With a grunt of confusion, the troll fell, unconscious, to the floor.

I could tell I'd managed to shake most of the cobwebs out of my head because I did not say the joke that had come to mind about Hermione grabbing my staff without asking.

Of course, barely ten seconds later, the professors finally came running up, having heard the commotion. McGonagall and Flitwick saw the boys first, and she clearly took in the situation and realized how close five students had been to getting killed. Fear for her charges turned into anger, and she started lighting into the boys, who were apparently supposed to be in their dormitory.

"Excuse me? Professor?" Hermione interrupted, having dropped my staff and started wringing her hands at the worry she was going to get in trouble. She sounded a little tired from focusing so much of her magic at once, but still managed a classic run-on sentence, explaining, "Only Harry's hurt and probably needs to get to the hospital wing, because he was escorting me down to dinner late when the boys came to warn us about the troll and unfortunately, it found us all first."

I could see the boys perk up that Hermione had not turned them in for rushing at a troll that wasn't actually threatening us at all. McGonagall hadn't seemed to realize that I wasn't just sitting down to relax, turned white, and ran over. "Can you move, Harry?" she asked. I chuckled that she was worried enough to use my first name.

"I think I'll be okay," I insisted, possibly a little slurred. "Should've put cushioning charms on the walls," I mumbled, mostly to myself, thinking about how I could have done better.

"Did you defeat the troll?" she asked.

She sounded so impressed, I hated to disabuse her, but I couldn't steal the credit. "Just distracted it. Hermione got it." I looked over to Flitwick and told him, "Didn't they just learn the levitation charm today, professor? Hermione and Ron both did it perfectly."

McGonagall was going to levitate me to the hospital wing, but I grabbed my staff and insisted on limping there with her as my escort. We left the kids giving an edited version of the story as Flitwick wanted to hear details before awarding points. The boys were already embellishing it in excited voices. All McGonagall said on the way to the hospital wing was scoffing, "Gryffindors."

I could tell there was tremendous pride hidden in her complaint.