If Things Were Different: The Sorcerer's Stone
Chapter Thirteen: Blood, Boogers, and Brains
Summary:What if Harry left the Dursley's behind? What if he grew up far from Privet Drive?What if he wasn't a Gryffindor? What if he had different friends? What if he wasn't the golden boy that they wanted him to be? AU first year. NOT slash. R/R
A/N: here you go. you may enjoy it.
Harry had never liked Halloween, no point in denying it. They never seemed to turn out right for him, and as he made his way toward the Great Hall with Draco and Blaise he wasn't too confident that this one would be any different.
Upon entering the Great Hall, Harry's mood lightened to an extent. The Hall - which was always a sight in itself without any additional work put into it - was elaborately decorated with Halloween pumpkins, flying bats, and floating candles, all topped off with the gold platters that had been absent sense the start of term feast. The set was topped off with bright orange table cloths which blended well with the students' black robes, and gave an overall eery, yet oddly cheerful, mood to the Great Hall.
"Come on, lets sit down towards the end. Pansy's in the middle and we should steer clear of her." Draco said, a look of disgust on his face as he attempted to evade his, for lack of a better word, stalker.
"Come on Draco, shouldn't you call her 'Pansy-Pumpkins?'"
"You're pushing it Potter, sit down." Harry and Blaise cracked up. Their friend was overly sensitive to being teased when it came to Pansy. They were some of the last ones seated in the Hall, and shortly after they had become comfortable the food appeared on the golden trays.
"Time to dig in!" Blaise muttered to himself, an eager look on his face as he skipped the main courses and headed straight for a pumpkin pie.
"Better eat you're veggies Zabini, wouldn't want to see your growth stunted." Harry joked, making fun of Audrey who had now taken to scolding everyone whose diet wasn't top notch. It really wasn't that annoying, Harry decided, just humorous. While he was pondering this, he reached across the table and helped himself to a baked potato.
However, Harry didn't have the opportunity to enjoy said potato before the doors to the hall burst open, only to reveal one of Harry's least favorite, and definitely least trusted, teachers. Yes, none other than Quivering Quirrell, also known as "The Babbling Garlic Man of Hogsmeade." Only now the man who usually couldn't hold a single students attention was the main focus of the entire Great Hall. Everyone was simply wondering "What the hell is he doing?" as he ran towards the Headmaster, a terrorized look fixed across his face.
Finally he made his way to Dumbledore, tripping and stumbling down on his knees as he reached the Headmaster. "Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know."
Then he fainted.
Then the Hall erupted in chaos.
After emitting several 'bangs!' from his wand, Dumbledore was able to gain semi-attention of the students. You could tell he was in his element. "Prefects, lead you're Houses back to your common rooms.." He called out, adding "AT ONCE!" when everyone failed to jump into action.
"Hey guys, wait up." Harry grabbed hold of Blaise and Draco, catching Audrey's eye in the process and signaling for her to join them. "Ok guys, think about it. We want to know more about that thing on the 3rd floor, right?" They nodded, uneasy looks coming across their faces. "Well then, think about it. Everyone else is distracted with the dumb troll, so now would be an excellent time to investigate."
"Oh come on Harry, our Prefect would notice that four of his first years were absent in half a second." Audrey said, attempting to find fault in Harry's plan.
"That's where you come in.. distract him." Harry said, glancing down at the female member of their group. She opened her mouth to protest, but The Boy Who Lived and Disappeared (Only to Reappear) cut her off, "Oh come on, it won't be hard. Are you a witch or not?...now get going, our time is limited." With one last look of reluctance Audrey hurried off.
"Ok, lets hit this." Harry said, motioning to Blaise and Draco before ducking easily out of the Great Hall amongst the confusion.
They had not made it around the first corner in the corridor when they heard the Great Hall doors burst open. "Duck, come on now." Harry said, leaping behind a suit of armor, pulling his two friends with him. They scrunched down on the floor between the suit of armor and the wall just in time as...
"What's Snape doing?" Draco wondered aloud, releasing his breath after their greasy haired head of house went trotting past.
"I don't know, but he's heading towards the third floor by the looks of it. The only thing that's down this corridor is the staircases." The ever observant Blaise pointed out.
"We should detour, there's another set of stairs over by the bathrooms. They're the bloody moving ones, but we'll have to cope." Harry said, leaving the hiding place and, after a few paces, he cut of down a side corridor which led towards the first floor restrooms.
They had almost reached the girl's loo when Draco doubled up and held his nose. "Oi, what's so rank?"
Then they heard it, a very disgusting grunt and shuffling of large feet. "Sound's like Hagrid got sick." Blaise said, then turning up his nose he continued "Smells like it too."
"Look." Harry whispered, pulling his friends up close to the wall with him to evade the troll's gaze. Because there it was, just down the corridor from them, and what a disgusting sight it was. It was every bit of 12 feet tall with large dull grey eyes, hardly distinguishable from its thick coat of dull grey skin. If that wasn't enough to freak you out, it's long arms were also dragging a large spiked club behind it, which gave it an even more gruesome appearance.
"We should lock it in!" Draco exclaimed in a whisper as the troll turned and sauntered into the girls bathroom.
"Good idea." Harry said, and just as the troll entered the room the three boys hurried toward the door and slammed it shut, locking it in the process. They turned to hurry on towards the third floor, but not before a loud ear-splitting screech was emitted from behind the door.
"Don't tell me..."
"Granger! Son of a bitch, we got to save her." Harry said, a furious look across his face as they all realized their blunder. Blaise reached for the door reluctantly. "Wait, before we go in lets plan this a little. I read up on trolls a little over the summer, spells won't work on them. Draco, distract the thing.. Blaise, get Granger. I'll get the troll, I got an idea.." And with that they flung the door open.
To an outsiders' eye, chaos ensured. But to the three Slytherins, everything worked just as planned. When the door flew open the troll was startled, and slowly turned around. "Oi, pinhead, take this." Draco called out, tossing a roll of toilet paper at the thing's face. It grunted, and Draco reached for another roll.
Meanwhile, both Blaise and Harry had taken off at a run, both diving between the monster's legs without it being any the wiser. Blaise rolled on towards the shrieking Granger, grabbing hold of her and covering her mouth with his hand when he reached her. There was no need for them to catch the troll's attention, especially not sense the toilet-paper-tossing Draco was doing such an excellent job distracting it.
After Harry had dived between its legs he reached over and grabbed a hold of the troll's greasy shirt. Year's of fending for himself atop of weeks of Quidditch practice gave Harry both the strength and agility to hoist himself up on the troll's back. It didn't even notice, as it was too busy swatting at roll's of toilet paper. Harry climbed up on its shoulders, which finally caught the thing's attention and it reached up to swat at him, but it was too late for the grey monster. With well trained reflexives Harry dodged its hand and, in one quick motion, reached into his robes and extraced two long, sharp knives. In one more fast movement he shoved each knife up the troll's nostrils.
The trick was done. Blood, boogers, and brains spewed out of the troll's large nose, and it began to teeter about. Harry slid down off of it's back just in time, as the smelly creature went toppling to the ground.
Granger was still screeching, Blaise was still trying to shut her up, and Harry was still trying to clean up his knives when they arrived. The teachers, that is. McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell.
Snape bent down over the troll for a second, only to raise up. "It's dead." He said, a look of.. was that satisfaction...across his face. Quirrell on the other hand looked almost, could it be, disappointed. McGonagall on the other hand, she was...
"Dead. Dead! Well, better it than you! You foolish, stupid, rash...what were you thinking!"
Yes, she was furious.
"Please, Professor. They were here to save me." Granger was the last person Harry ever expected to stick up for him, besides Ron perhaps. "I...I went looking for it myself. Thought I could handle it myself, I did. They must have seen me sneak out of the Great Hall and followed to help me out."
Harry didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think. Was Granger actually... helping them? Even more surprisingly... was she really lying to a teacher, her own Head of House at that?
McGonagall didn't know what to say either, as her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Finally she pulled herself together. "Very well then, Granger you were very foolish. For that I must take 15 points from Gryffindor. You three, on the other hand..." She turned towards the Slytherins, who were hardly containing their smirks, it wasn't everyday that you saw Granger lose points after all, "Not only did you fail to tell a teacher what Granger was up to, you also disobeyed strict orders from the Headmaster. And that's the least of it! Perhaps you didn't know, but I shall enlighten you on the fact, that trolls are an endangered magical creature! And you killed one! This should be reported to the Ministry at once, however..." She took a deep breath, "They do tend to meddle too much in our buisness as it is. I will have to settle with giving each of you a months worth of detentions. Also, 20 points must be taken from Slytherin."
Harry was furious. He held his head high and glared at McGonagall. "Each." She continued. Each! Harry couldn't believe it. She gave them each a month's worth of detention and took a whole 60 points from Slytherin! That would place them in dead last, even behind Hufflepuff. "Come on now." McGonagall swooped out of the room and Hermione and Quirrell followed quickly after her.
Snape hung back, motioning Harry, Blaise, and Draco to do the same.
"I am impressed." He said in an unemotional voice. "It usually takes at least three full grown wizards to do away with a troll, and yet you three did it without help. Unlike McGonagall, I am under the impression that we would be better off if all the troll's were eliminated from this world. And so, for ridding the world of one more nuisance, yet more importantly," he shot Harry a very pointed look here, "for helping to thrawt the...enemy.. I grant Slytherin 25 points a piece. Now make yourselves scarce before your classmates notice your absence."
With that the three of them headed back towards the Slytherin dorms, not considering continuing their initial goal of investigating the three-headed beast.
"You know Harry, I can't figure out if Snape loves you or hates you." Draco said, shaking his head as they began their descent towards the dungeons.
"I know, but..." Harry started, but he was cut off by Blaise.
"But did you hear Granger. I mean, she still owes us one for saving her... but did you hear her stick up for us." Blaise shook his head in disbelief, his eyes glazed over.
"I know, but..." Harry tried again.
"But Snape made up for the points we lost saving her. So Granger definitely owes us one for saving her."
"I know, but..."
"But did you hear her. It was almost like she wanted to help us." Blaise said in awe.
"But, but, BUT! Would you guys get over it for a second and listen to what I have to say!" Harry had become quite annoyed at being cut off every time he tried to talk.
"Oh come on, Harry..."
"I said shut up, Draco!" Finally Harry seemed to have their attention, just as they reached the entrance to the Slytherin common rooms. Harry held out his hand so they didn't enter just yet. "Now listen up, did either of you see Snape's leg?" When neither friend replied Harry continued, "Well, it was a bloody fucking mess. Looks like he had an encounter with our three-headed furry friend. Just something to think about, you know." With that Harry turned to the slimy wall, called out "Blugslyth" and entered the Slytherin Common room as discretely as possible.
"Guys! Did you find anything out?" Audrey had been waiting for them by the door.
"Nope, just killed a troll and earned a future favor from a mudblood." Draco said, plopping down on a green comforter. Audrey raised an eyebrow and flipped her hair out of her face.
"Long story, we'll fill you in tomorrow. Did anyone notice we were gone?"
Audrey smirked. "Nope, I had to take some drastic measures though. Good thing I learned the Confusion Curse a few years earlier than I was supposed to." She said, nodding towards a sixth year prefect who was standing in the corner, a bewildered look in his face as he stood facing the wall singing "Ode To My Quidditch Love" quite loudly.
"I thought Harry said distract him, not Confund him." Blaise muttered, shaking his head.
"Well, that's my type of girl." Harry smirked. "G'night fellas."
A/N: thats all for now.. more when i write it.