AN: Check the first chapter for disclaimers

So, in this chapter I realized that I can't do accents justice. So, I'll be giving them the barest of nods and will ask you, my dear readers, to imagine the rest.

On the topic of accents, Helen speaks the received pronunciation or the 'posh' accent (the modern variation, not the 60s BBC), just in case you were wondering.

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Enjoy the latest Chapter...

September passed into October bringing more rain and less sun. Soon the temperature rapidly plumited. With more rain also came more quidditch practice sessions unfortunately. Hilliard turned out to be a hard drill master and had the team practice even in the heavy rains.

This year all the teams had a new seeker, and because of this there were a lot of scheduling issues as all the teams wanted to get as much practice under their belt as possible. Cedric Diggory had the position over in Hufflepuff, while Slytherin had Terrance Higgs filling in the position. Higgs was chaser last year but the snakes couldn't find anyone better, so he was filling in. Griffindor had chosen another younger student, a 2nd year by the name of Cormac McLaggen.

The first game of the season, Gryffindor vs Slytherin, was scheduled on the first Sunday of November. Ravenclaw's first match was against Hufflepuff a few weeks later and it pitted Helen directly against Cedric for her first match.

By this time everyone and their grandmother knew that Helen was the Ravenclaw seeker and that she was the youngest player in a Hogwarts quidditch team for a hundred years. Hilliard had got a bit of heat from the student body for selecting Helen in the team. Many believed it to be a publicity stunt and there was a prevailing notion that he was a bit desperate. This was compounded when Helen was seen practicing on school brooms. But he stuck to his guns and went on regardless, he knew he had made the right decision especially when he attended Helen's secret practice sessions.

Quidditch practice took quite a lot of free time away from Helen, but she carried on with it because it was important for her to establish herself within the upper hierarchy of Ravenclaw house.

Hilliard had them practicing three days a week. They would start right after the last class of the day and went on until there was no daylight left. Every session would start with a warm-up, followed by individual practices each for their own position and then practising as a team. He would change the drills every few sessions to keep the team on their toes. There were some sessions in which certain players would go against the rest of the team, for example, two chasers versus the rest with Helen acting as an opposing chaser.

As they were told during the tryouts, every Saturday the team had a meeting to discuss strategy. For this purpose one of the year's oval was used while the dorm-mates of that year would spend their mornings after breakfast elsewhere. This year it was the 5th year's oval, because it was tradition for the year with the highest number of players in the team to host it. Fawley took one look at her and bolted without a second thought, which greatly amused Helen. The team analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents, and debated strategies which they would try out during next week's practice session.

Based on an initial assessment, it seemed that Hufflepuff had the strongest team this year. They hadn't won the quidditch cup for decades now and would be thinking that this was their big chance. They had the most experienced line-up of all the teams, with only the seeker being a new addition. Their chasers had been the same trio for two years now and would have great chemistry. Apart from them, only Slytherin had a somewhat experienced chaser trio. Two of their chasers had held the position for at least two years while the third had been a reserve for some time. Griffindor had a relatively new group, with two third year girls and one new second year girl. Ravenclaw was in a similar situation, with Roger only having one year of experience under his belt and Cho being the new addition.

Griffindor probably had the best keeper and beaters, with Slytherin close behind.

Ravenclaw's only trump card was Helen, with her amazing flying talent. Of all the seekers, she was likely the best with Cedric being her closest contender. So, their strategy was also based around that fact. They had to keep the other teams from scoring too many goals and hope that Helen found the snitch quickly.

XXXXX

Helen's group of friends and close acquaintances had grown a bit with the addition of Blaise Zabini; Zabini was a pureblood from Slytherin house. Apparently, the Slytherin first years were already divided into factions. First was the blood purist faction which included all the death eater children with Malfoy their de-facto leader. The second was of the 'neutral' families and consisted of Daphne, Tracey and Blaise. The third wasn't a real faction but just the two remaining girls, Millicent Bulstrode and Lillian Moon. Blaise was a beautiful boy with tanned skin and Italian features. He had unique purple eyes with dark hair and slanted brows. He was the only son of the infamous Adrastia Zabini, the alleged black widow, who had been married seven times, each of her husbands dying mysteriously and leaving her mounds of gold. Needless to say, Helen really wanted to meet this woman.

Blaise seemed to be a likable enough guy, even if he was a bit vain. Daphne and Tracey had brought him along and introduced him to the group. Helen accepted him easily enough and the slytherin girls did a remarkably poor job of hiding their relief at Helen's approval.. They had no real reason to worry, the Zabini's were a powerful name in Italy, especially Lombardia and Helen would never say no to some potential influence in the country. It had nothing to do with him being an eye candy, nothing at all.

He introduced himself in a suave manner, with his lips lingering on her hand longer than necessary while maintaining eye contact. Helen hadn't minded at all.

XXXXX

Helen had tried the library but had found very basic details on Cerberus. It was as if all the detailed creatures books had mysteriously gone missing, what a surprise. Fortunately, the Riddle's memories came to the rescue.

Riddle knew a certain someone during his time at Hogwarts who had a thing for dangerous animals. He even framed the poor sod for the death of that Warren girl. Rubeus Hagrid would certainly know something about the overgrown dog. Now, how to approach the man?

As it turned out, Helen didn't have to lift a finger to make contact. She and her friends were coming out of the greenhouses one day after their latest herbology class and they ran into the half-giant. Upon spotting Helen, he approached them with a wide smile, "Alright there kids?" He asked warmly, with most of them returning the greeting nervously, he turned to Helen, "My, have ya grown up, young lady. The last time I saw ya, I could fit ya in my hand." he beamed at her.

Blushing slightly, while her friends snickered, Helen took the opportunity and asked, "You knew me as a baby?"

Hagrid replied pleasantly, "Yeah, I used ta come ta your place occasionally. Great people your parents were," at that he lost a bit of his cheer. "Anyways, You come ta my place sometime for tea, I'll tell ya about the mischief your father and his friends got into. Now, I've got some delivery for prof. Sprout, so need to get goin'. Have a good day," smiling and waving his huge hand, Hagrid left the group.

As they went into the castle, Helen smirked at her good fortune. She knew that Hagrid knowing her as a baby was a boon, he would likely have a soft spot for her, especially if she played the emotional card right.

The very next day, after flying lessons, she had a quick lunch and went down to Hagrid's hut near the forbidden forest. She knocked on the door and was greeted with loud, excited bark from inside the hut.

Helen distantly heard Hagrid shouting at his dog, "Down Fang! Down you mutt!" Soon the door was opened and she smiled shyly at the man, "Hello, Mr. Hagrid"

The half-giant's face split into a wide smile and he beckoned her inside, "Come on in, come on in. And it's Hagrid, none of this 'Mr.' nonsense." Helen stepped inside the wooden cabin which was full of various knick knacks and huge homey furniture. From the ceiling hung various creature based products like furs, what looked like raw acromantula silk and was that unicorn tail hair? Shaking her head Helen settled into the smallest seat available, which still left her feet dangling above the floor. As soon as she sat down, Hagrid's oversized boarhound dog, Fang, was all over her licking every inch of her face. Helen played with him while Hagrid got the tea ready.

Finally they settled down with huge cups of tea in hand and large cakes made of... something on the table. Hagrid regaled her with tales of her father and his group of friends. She came to know that her father was a prankster, the kind who would put the Weasley twins to shame. He talked about her mother and what a kind and intelligent woman she was. Helen, never having been told about her parents, keenly listened to it all. He even promised to get her a few pictures he had of them. Helen was rather touched.

Soon they moved on to other topics, the night of Voldemort's attack on the Potter's soon came up. Hagrid, visibly upset, told her how her parents were betrayed by their best friend. He told her that he was the first one who arrived at the scene and had found her sleeping in the ruins of the cottage.

After a few moments of silence, Helen changed the subject. "What exactly do you do here? If you don't mind me asking of course." Helen asked innocently.

Waving his hand, he replied, "I'm the gamekeeper and the keeper of the keys and grounds of Hogwarts. I tend to the grounds, take care of the beasts here, and act as the security for Hogwarts. I also do some special tasks for the Headmaster from time to time."

Helen latched on to the opening, "What kind of beasts are here in Hogwarts?"

Hagrid happily answered "There are a lot of beasts in and around Hogwarts. There is a herd of Thestrals here who pull the carriages, lots of smaller animals like Bowtruckles for the CoMC classes, unicorns come in sometimes for the forest, a herd of Hippogryphs and there's also Fluffy."

Helen prodded carefully "Fluffy?"

He continued absently "Oh yeah, he's a Cerberus I've had for sometime now. Likes to cuddle a lot and falls to sleep the minute you start playing soon music," Hagrid added with a chuckle. Suddenly, he stopped chuckling and looked around guiltily.

Knowing that he had realized what he said, Helen again changed topic to avert suspicion and was soon leaving the cabin, after promising more visits. She was going to keep the promise too as she liked hearing about her parents and he might know something about her ancestral home as well. On her way to the castle, she thought of what she had learned. Now that she had a way past 'Fluffy', Helen planned on visiting the corridor again to find out what secret the headmaster had hidden inside. By the way, who named a giant three headed hell hound 'Fluffy'?

XXXXX

Helen had kept up with her physical exercises and magical practice sessions. With her increased magical core she had started practicing wandless magic. One thing that was not generally known about Voldemort was that he was a master in wandless magic. While he never had to resort to that in a combat situation, just because no one could disarm him or match his speed, in his alone time he did most of his magic wandlessly. He had the capability to take on a small army's worth of wizards wandlessly if he had too.

The reason wandless magic was so obscure was twofold. For a start, you needed a huge magical 'core' to support it and the focus required was much more than that required for a wand. This was because the wand streamlined the magic, that is to say, it channeled the spell, removed the risks and reduced the volatility of magic. In wandless magic, there was no such tool to support a witch, she would have to do everything by herself.

It was for this specific reason that Helen had started practicing wandlessly. While doing everything by herself was challenging, it made one appreciate the difficulty of performing, what some called 'real' magic, along with the side effect of making them an expert of the nuances of magic.

Even the simplest of spells performed by wand required a great amount of focus when performed wandlessly. You had to first construct the spell, for which you needed to be sure of the result you desired, the way you wanted the result to come out and for how long the effort had to remain. Next, you had to stabilize the spell which was more difficult than it sounded. For example, for a levitation spell, just the spell sequence for levitation of the object wasn't enough, you had to put in restrictions on its movements or a simple quill could turn into a small projectile ready to poke somebody's eye out. After that came the charging of the spell, this meant supplying the spell with just the right amount of magic. Too little and the construct fails, too much and the spell blows up.

A master of wandless magic could do all that within split seconds and could put in any number of variations in the spell because they had the 'code' of the spell literally in their hands. It was also the reason Voldemort was so bloody fast. If a master could do all that within a blink of an eye without a wand, imagine what his speed would be with one.

So, in order to increase her own understanding and speed she had also started to practice wandlessly. This wasn't something she could just copy from Voldemort's memories, this she had to do herself. And she was happy to do it. So far she had performed the basic charms taught to the first years. Her speed was slow but it was still early days and she was improving daily.

Wandless magic wasn't the only thing she had been practicing. Ever since she was a young girl, even before her 'awakening', she had been fascinated by lightning. Maybe it was because Dudley was afraid of it? But whatever the reason, she liked lightning and wanted to make and control some herself. And that meant elemental magic. Now, lightning was a compound elemental branch of magic, which meant that she had to have expertise in multiple primary elements, namely air, fire and water. Mastering each would be completely necessary, otherwise she wouldn't be able to get even a spark out of her hand.

She had started with her own elemental affinity, fire. Any talented first year could cast bluebell flames or even an 'incendio' spell. But, an elemental didn't need spells for creating or controlling fire, they could just produce it by willing it. The resulting flames weren't so easy to put out either. Helen had started by creating a small flame to appear before her and then she had progressed to adding more around her.

Right now, Helen had managed to get several fist sized flames rotating around her. She had been altering the color and temperature of the flames while keeping them rotating without burning anything. She had managed to get till 10 such flames before her control slipped and the circular parchment boundary she had created beforehand around her went up in the flames.

Sighing in disappointment, the redhead put out the fire with an 'Aguamenti' spell. While her numbers were better than last week's 8, they weren't anything to brag about either. Nonetheless, it was still progress. After putting out the fire, she wished for a shooting range and the room of requirement provided. She started shooting fist sized firebolts at the dummies, making them explode on contact. She continued with the exercise for ten minutes, while trying to add variations in the attacks. She tried altering the temperature of the firebolts, making them more condensed so as to act as a pierce bolt, she tried imparting a bend to the projectiles and tried shooting multiple bolts at a time. She managed to get varying levels of success in her experiments. She couldn't increase their temperature too much but in the rest of her trials she succeeded.

Finished for the day, she sat down in a summoned seat and rested for a while. She had been frustrated and blowing up some dummies had calmed her down somewhat. The reason for Helen's frustration was the next ritual that she had planned. It was a physical enhancement ritual which toughened the body without altering it. The ritual made the body much more resistant to injuries and accelerated the healing process. The problem was the main ingredient, Re'em blood. It was an extremely rare and controlled item, not to mention egregiously expensive. Her Liverpool supplier had replied negativity when she had very casually inquired about it. While she was sure she could get it from the Knockturn Alley, she didn't have the funds to pay the inflated prices of that place and going to Gringotts would inevitably raise suspicion. So, she was stuck without any solution in sight.

Giving up on it for now, she did some aerobics and then went back to Ravenclaw tower to get ready for the rest of her day.

XXXXX

It was in the second weekend of October when Helen decided to check the forbidden corridor. Until now a lot of students had visited the place and all had been scared away by the Cerberus. Quirrell had visited once as well, though he detected the perimeter ward and didn't enter. Helen knew sooner or later he'd find a way past it so she had a small window of opportunity before he made his play.

Last night Helen went to sleep at 9 O'clock, early by her standards. She woke up at three in the morning and got ready for her nightly visit by changing into a dark body hugging tracksuit and sneakers with a robe over the top of them. Before leaving she put some notice-me-not charms over her, tied her hair in a bun and muffled her shoes. Moving quietly but swiftly, using the shortcuts she knew, Helen reached the corridor in five minutes. Once again checking for any detection magic, she proceeded watchfully but didn't find anything new and quickly reached the last door.

She had thought of how to bypass the ward and came up with a simple plan. Instead of removing the ward or the door and possibly alerting Dumbledore, she would remove the door frame itself. So she flicked her wand, transfiguring the stone next to the frame into sand and carefully detached the door frame from the wall. Then she completely removed it and took out a shrunken medieval lute which she had found in the room of requirement out of her pocket. Restoring its size she spelled it to start playing a soft melody.

After that, she removed the frame and placed it by the wall. Helen saw fluffy was already asleep so she carefully entered inside the room and moved the frame back into position. She couldn't have someone coming up and finding something wrong after all. She set the lute on the wall next to the overgrown dog and opened the trapdoor.

Inside was a pitch black pit with nothing visible. Frowning, she conjured a rock and let it drop inside. Helen heard an impact on a soft surface not too far from the opening. She took a guess and sent a fire bolt down next. The effect was immediate as the black mass of a devil's snare immediately receded, showing a stone surface below. Satisfied, Helen jumped in, casting an 'arresto momentum' on herself. Upon landing gently she looked around and found herself in a cramped passage with stone walls, through which trickling water could be heard.

She walked along the passage which ended in a door and heard a strange sound coming from it. Cautiously opening the door, she found the source of the sound. There were hundreds of glittering flying keys inside the chamber. On the opposite end of the chamber from the stone passage was a large, old-fashioned wooden door with a silver lock, which she predicted wouldn't open with any unlocking charm and would require one of those flying keys. She inspected the lock and evaluated that the key had to be long and likely made of silver too. Her sharp seeker eyes quickly found the matching key. After failing to summon it Helen seized a broom and flew up after it. After a bit of chasing through the chamber she managed to grab the key and unlock the door to the next chamber..

The next chamber was dark but it lit up as soon as she stepped in. There was a huge human-sized chess set inside with black on her side and white on the opposite side. She could see a door on the opposite wall and reckoned that she had to win the game to access the door safely. She finished the game in four moves. Apparently, they had never heard of Scholar's mate in the wizarding world.

Helen moved towards the door and suddenly stopped as a horrible reek hit her nose. Helen was troubled as she guessed the source of the smell. It was likely some sort of creature or beast which she would have to fight to get past. Helen was sure she could do it, but it would leave evidence behind that someone was here and she didn't want that. So, she decided to check the creature first and then determine her course of action based on it.

Warily she opened the door an inch and peeped inside. Upon finding a mountain troll, she sighed in relief. She could get past the dumb beast easily. Helen applied a few more stronger notice-me-not charms over her and added a neutral smell charm on top of it. Even though Helen was already muffled, she proceeded inside slowly. She shifted and shuffled along the wall far away from the troll and reached the opposite door in her own good time.

Once beyond the door she found herself in another chamber with a set of potions on a table, as well as a parchment with some text on. As soon as she closed the door behind her, both of the doors were covered with fire, purple flames for entrance and black for exit. After testing the flames she deduced them to be variants of dark fire, an advanced incineration curse. She knew the shields that would work against these curses so she applied them and moved on, ignoring the potions on the table, one of which would probably have a variant of anti-flame potion of each flame.

After exiting the chamber without any difficulty, she couldn't help but crook a smile as she entered yet another chamber. The founders obviously had a strange love for chambers. Inside was nothing but a small table with a pouch on it. After casting detection charms and finding nothing, she approached the table. She again casted the charm on the pouch and found a strange intent based ward on it. One could look inside the pouch but could not take anything out unless they didn't want to use it themselves.

Now highly curious, she carefully looked inside the pouch. What she found inside shocked her beyond belief. It was the fabled Philosopher's stone. The fucking holy grail of alchemy was here in Hogwarts, hidden behind flimsy protections. What were the Flamels thinking, giving their most precious treasure to Dumbledore. And what was Dumbledore thinking by using this as bait for Voldemort, especially with such pathetic defenses.

Then she suddenly realized what this all was about. Dumbledore was being his clever self all over again. He wanted to kill two birds with one 'stone' so to speak. He would have, in the near future, somehow let it slip to her that the stone was here and that someone was after it. He would then suggest that protecting the stone was paramount, and would have judged her desire for following the instructions and working for the 'greater good' despite the dangers.

He wanted to get to know the characters of the prophecized one and install himself as a wise and kind grandfatherly guide. It might have worked too if she had been a stupid heroic Gryffindor, always charging ahead without a thought. Unfortunately for him, she was nothing like that. Unfortunately for her, she would still have to play the role of a good heroin if she didn't want him to watch her every step.

So, having digressed enough, she put her hand inside the pouch and pulled out the stone. It was very simple for her as she didn't want to 'use' the stone, rather she wanted to 'study' it. It was a loophole and the difference was enough to fool the ward. She held the stone at eye level and observed it. It was a mesmerizing piece of magic. It had a ruby red color and seemed to emit a little bit of light and was humming with power in her hand.

Now that she had it, what to do with it? She could never create a fake copy of it as the feeling of it was quite unique and not even Dumbledore could create that in a fake. So, stealing and leaving behind a fake was out of question if she didn't want her adventures discovered. She didn't want to leave empty-handed either, with the ultimate treasure in her hands. She could simply take it, secrecy be damned and hide it in a safe place. She was very tempted to do so but didn't. Leaving behind evidence was not her style. In the end, she came up with a simple solution.

The stone was of an irregular shape, so it would be impossible to know if it was chipped a bit. Even if someone, likely the Flamels, discovered the irregularity, it could be explained away as mishandling of such a precious but brittle artifact. So, she took a careful aim with her wand and cracked a smallest of chips out of it. She collected the chip in a conjured glass vial, stoppered it and put it in her pocket.

Putting the stone back in the pouch reluctantly, she made her way back up. The troll was still ignorant of her presence and the chess board was back to the starting setup. She re-locked the silver lock and made her way under the devil's snare. She conjured a glass jar and a wooden disc. Summoning some bluebells flames, she put them in the jar and stepped on the disc. Then she levitated up holding the lit jack over her head to avoid the devil's snare. Going out into the corridor, she summoned the still playing lute and replaced the door frame back, restoring the transfiguration of stone. Cancelling the music, she shrunk the lute and made her way back to her room having pulled off a perfect crime with none the wiser.

XXXXX

The morning of Halloween found Helen with an air of melancholy around her. She had done her magical and physical workout without much heart in it and was now sitting in the oval waiting for her friends to get ready for the day. On the way to breakfast they tried to cheer her up with various antics to marginal success. They, of course, knew the cause of her mood, this was the day her parents were murdered, the fact that she became famous for it was of no relevance to any of them.

The day went on slowly as well. They had charms first thing in the morning with Gryffindor and professor Flitwick was going to introduce the levitation spell. After explaining the theory behind it he supplied everyone with a feather to work on. Hermione had partnered up with the moron Weasley and was trying to correct his pronunciation of the spell. "You're saying it wrong. It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long." she instructed the boy. Frustrated the boy replied shortly, "You do it, then, if you're so clever," and she did on her first try. Flitwick awarded her with 10 points for her efforts and the moron awarded her with a huff and a cold shoulder.

After the class, as the Ravenclaw were making their way out for a flying lesson, moRon had tossed a hurtful comment at the girl, "It's no wonder no one can stand her. Honestly, she's a nightmare!" which the girl had overheard and ran away tearfully. Helen had wanted to teach the stupid sod a lesson but was late for the class and had to leave.

Later during dinner Padma informed Helen that she had learned from her sister that Hermione had been crying all day in the first floor bathroom. Helen decided to console the girl after dinner, the potential to get a talented young witch on her side was too good to pass up. The fact that she was pretty didn't hurt either.

However, her plan was soon thrown out of the window, as Quirrell rushed into the great hall shrieking about a troll before promptly fainting face first on the floor. As expected, everyone started shouting in panic. Dumbledore caused a huge bang with his wand and calmly dished out instructions, "No need to panic. Prefects are to take their houses to their common rooms in an orderly fashion. Teachers and faculty to the dungeons."

Helen knew that this was likely an attempt made by Quirrell for the stone. She had to admit he did have some commendable acting skills, Helen however, had another issue on her mind. Hermione didn't know about the troll and was still in the first floor toilets. As the students made their way back to their common rooms, Helen gave them the slip and went to the first floor to get Hermione out. As she reached the right corridor she was hit with the stench and knew the situation was bad.

Entering inside the toilets she found a twelve foot tall mountain troll, smashing the cubicles with its club. Underneath them she saw Hermione trying to crawl away from the destruction. However, it was clear that Hermione would soon be flattened if someone didn't intervene. Knowing that the life of a potential disciple was at risk, Helen jumped into action. .

She knew that direct spells would be useless here because of the highly magic resistant skin of the troll. So, Helen transfigured a piece of broken partition into a steel spear and hurled it at its back. Unfortunately, the troll moved at the last second and instead of getting its heart, she pierced its left shoulder. The troll howled in pain and whipped around. Finding the assailant, the troll rushed towards her. Helen transfigured the water on the floor into oil causing the troll to slip on it, the great beast lost its footing and slammed onto the floor with an almighty thud. Helen leapt out of the way to prevent the troll from crushing her and watched with some amusement as her iron spike impaled it further. Thinking quickly, Helen cancelled the transfiguration on the water except for what was sticking to the troll and set it on fire with a simple 'Incendio'.

She knew the troll's obnoxiously resistant skin would make this only a temporary solution so Helen quickly formulated the next stage of her plan. While the troll was distracted with the fire, Helen transfigured some more spears out of wreckage and launched them at the troll with the intention of making it immobile. After her spears immobilised the beast, she levitated its club and battered its head into a pulp. Finally sure that it was dead, Helen let her wand drop and suppressed her exhilaration, she still had work to do.

Checking behind her, Helen saw that Hermione was still inside the last cubicle. Before greeting the girl, Helen quickly conjured a glass vial and summoned some of the troll's blood in it. She hid it in her robes and quickly changed the spears to look like giant needles. Then she vanished all the remaining transfigured oil from the room. After giving the room a quick check, she called Hermione, "You can come out. I don't think the troll can hurt anyone now."

Hermione slowly emerged from the cubicle. Upon seeing the horrible sight. she gasped and averted her eyes. "Are you alright? Did anything hit you?" Helen inquired.

Before Hermionecould answer though, they had company. McGonagall, Snape and Flitwick entered the toilet and were viewing the troll's corpse with shock. Snape had been limping a bit when he entered and was the first one to recover and focus on the girls. He snapped a single command towards them, "Explain."

Hermione opened her mouth to speak but Helen cut her off without a moment's hesitation. "When we started returning to our common rooms I remembered that Hermione was in the bathroom because Weasley had insulted her earlier today. So, I came here to try and warn her but the troll was here as well. So I fought it by transfiguring an object into a large needle and using the levitation charm to throw them at the troll but I didn't manage to kill it! It charged at me and I was so scared, I thought I was going to die, but somehow, at the last second I jumped out of the way and the troll smashed into the wall. It started getting up again so I transfigured some more needles and hit it again. But, it was still moving so I levitated its club and beat its head with it until it stopped moving."

She said the whole thing with a fast and panicked expression, McGonagall looked baffled at the normally calm girl. "I didn't realize I had killed it though," Helen finished weakly glancing at the broken skull of the troll and quickly averting her eyes with a horrified expression on her face. Flitwick and Snape bought her act and chalked her reaction up to Adrenaline, having seen the same multiple times in their lives.

They were right about the Adrenaline and wrong about everything else. The thrill of the fight had it pumping through her veins, yes, but her panicked reaction was a complete facade. Helen being nonchalant about the whole thing wasn't normal behavior of a first year girl, no matter how brave or intelligent.

McGonagall, now also recovered, started speaking agitatedly, "You are either the bravest or the stupidest girl I've taught! You could have informed any of the teachers or prefects instead of charging in here without a thought. What would have happened if you had both been injured or worse..." She visibly forced herself to calm down and continued, "It doesn't mean that I don't appreciate your concern for a friend in trouble, but I hope you come to us before getting into this kind of situation in future."

Helen meekly replied, "Yes, Ma'am." with her head down. McGonagall, satisfied that her message was delivered, continued, "I'll look into Mr. Weasley actions and appropriate punishment will be given if required."

Flitwick interjected here, "I would like to commend Miss Potter for her quick thinking and excellent use of magic. Not many can say that they slew a mountain troll single-handedly, certainly not as a 1st year. This deserves a reward, don't you think, Minerva."

"Yes, it certainly does. Let's see, 30 points to Ravenclaw for excellent use of magic and 10 points for sheer dumb luck," she said with a hint of a smile on her face, "now, off to the hospital for a check-up."

As she was leaving Helen heard Snape speaking softly, "20 points to Ravenclaw for helping a friend." Smirking to herself, Helen left for hospital with Hermione in tow.

As soon as they were away from the corridor, Hermione turned to her and gave a rib-cracking hug, "Thank you for coming to my rescue. I would've surely died there," she said while crying into Helen's shoulder. Helen returned the hug and calmed her down, "I would never let anything happen to you. I'm your friend, no matter what Weasley says, and I truly care for you," she said patting her friend on the back.

After a while, Hermione calmed down and released her and gave her a watery smile, "Thank you."

They continued to the hospital wing. After being reluctantly dismissed by Pomphrey they went upstairs and parted ways on the 7th floor landing after another hug and 'thank you' from Hermione. As Helen entered her common room, she received the shocked looks of her whole house gathered in the room. Apparently, during her visit to the hospital, Flitwick had informed them about what had happened. After answering everyone's questions about the encounter she went to her room, making sure to attach the necessary privacy charms as she entered. She then carefully took out the vial of trolls blood and looked at her prize with a triumphant smile. Helen loved it when things went her way.

Please review. They help me keep motivated :)

So, the first year might end in the next chapter (will be a long one if that happens) and we'll start with the summer break in the one next.

Next update might take a bit longer as I try to wrap up the 1st year in one go.