CHAPTER 35: CATCHING FIRE
Oakstaff's eyes kept hovering all around, making sure his team were all there. Rigid and Supple were quite easy to spot, standing out from the crowd like two gorillas. There! That was Cedric with Jose and Mary. That was everyone accounted for...No! Where was little Sparhawk, the newest addition to their team and arguably the most important one. It was going to be a chore to spot him among all the children.
The burlypuff flattened himself against the wall, allowing the Hufflepuffs to pass by him as he searched desperately for Sparhawk. Where was that boy?
The last of the stragglers moved past him and Oakstaff got a sinking feeling in his gut as his brain informed him that not only had he not spotted wee Sparhawk, but he'd not seen his little posse too.
Sparhawk had abandoned all attempts at stealth in favor of speed. In no time at all, he had outdistanced his less well-conditioned peers and was moving towards what was unarguably the sounds of conflict. More accurately, it sounded like an ominous mixture of animal bellows and terrified screaming.
When he deemed himself to be close enough, he slowed down, sparing a quick glance behind to see his friends huffing and puffing. Very Hufflepuff of them. The noise seemed to be coming to a head around a bend in the corridor. Holding up a hand, beckoning Neville and the gang to wait, he slipped his hat into his hand and concentrated hard. Whispering the spell, he watched in satisfaction as the cloth stretched and change to become a rudimentary spear. Well, a child-sized version anyhow. Ignoring the astonished look of his friends, he peeked around the corner.
Gemma Farley was having what one might consider a very bad day. It had started off innocuous enough, what with the usual Halloween cheer and it had gone steadily downhill from there. It had started somewhere around lunch, when she'd noticed Johannes Bravos, who she'd had a crush on, being all kinds of sweet with that bi...okay, she was a pretty nice girl. That pretty okay girl Femma Fatalie. That had put her in a bit of a rut. But she was a strong Slytherin, and she decided to let bygones be bygones and enjoy the Halloween food, except that right when she sat down, she began feeling odd, a very familiar kind of odd. She'd frowned, remembering that it wasn't time just yet, and that was when the cramps had hit. She'd grimaced and tried to push through, but when she felt a suspicious wetness, she'd decided to go see Madam Pomfrey for a little potion. But just as she was getting up to excuse herself, Quirrel, their thrice damned Defense teacher burst into the great hall screaming about some troll.
And here she was, barely twenty minutes later, desperately throwing spell after spell at an enlarged troll which seemed to shake them off like water. Her eyes widened as it raised its club and she backpedaled, shooting a flock of birds at its face. That managed to momentarily distract it.
Cursing the rather roomy passages of Hogwarts, she glanced back to where she'd banished fellow prefect and all-around heartbreaker Johannes Bravos. His arms were bent at an odd angle from when the troll had decided to flatten him between a wall and his shield and only some quick and explosive thinking on her part had managed to save his skin. Although throwing him a good ten feet with two broken arms did not seem to have curried her any favor.
Marcus, bless his soul, had snagged Bravos and was legging it for the dorms. She snapped her attention back to the troll and nearly pissed her pants. In a stroke of luck, the big fellow was swinging his club straight at her. Gemma Farley's life flashed before her eyes, an instant before she felt a yanking on her robes and she flew back, the descending club missing her by inches. She landed limbs akimbo and scrabbled to her feet, coming face to face with a determined-looking Fatalie. Oh, she was a very nice girl indeed.
The two girls nodded at each other, hearts hammering, and spread out, wands raised. The troll had finished with the birds and was turning to them with jaundiced eyes. Just as it drew in breath for a great bellow, it stumbled and whirled around. They gaped in astonishment at the tiny shaft barely sticking in its back.
The same thought shot through both their heads. 'Help?"
And then they noticed the figure on the other end of the passage and groaned.
A Hufflepuff firstie.
Kra'argh was having a very bad day. First, he'd been knocked out and kidnapped to God knows where by Heaven knew who. And now, as he'd roamed the passages of wherever he'd been taken, trying to find a way out, he'd run smack into some wizards who very doing a very annoying and rather pathetic job of trying to murder him.
And just when he'd been about to get some action, crushing the annoying female, something had hit his back and was sticking in. Like some sort of annoying bee. He whirled around to find a human child pointing his wand at him. He gaped incredulously at the audacity of the little brat. Or he would have thought all of these if he'd not been confounded into a murderous rage to kill. As it was, he just swung his club hoping to turn anything he encountered into a paste. As he had been doing for some time now.
Sparhawk, not really expecting the spear to do anything, swore and dived, the troll's club missing him by inches as he rolled bringing himself up in front of the two Slytherin girls. There really were benefits to being younger. That little manoeuvre would have been murder on his joints back in the day. The two girls gaped at him as he rounded on the troll, hoping to God his friends had enough sense to stay out of the way. Thankfully, no more children came sprinting around the corner.
Now, time to slay a troll.
Gemma Farley stared in dumbfounded astonishment as the ickle firstie ducked the troll's wild swing and came up rolling on their side. Then the little idiot stood up facing the beast, wand out.
Oh, Good Lord! The brat was going to kill himself if she didn't act soon. Desperation sent her mind into overdrive and her eyes fixed on the troll's massive meaty club. Praying to the four founders that it worked, she pointed her wand at it and all but screamed "Wingardium Leviosa!"
Kra'argh turned around murder in his eyes, just as the female screamed something and he felt his club jerked (upright. Har har har) out of the easy battle grip he preferred. He gaped, his tiny troll mind (okay, maybe that was just being racist) incomprehensive as his weapon floated a good foot above him in the air.
It hovered for a moment, like a hanging scythe, before it rose higher and began to fall in a fast arc.
Sparhawk watched bemused as the troll caught its club's downward swing one-handed and yanked it out of the air, the girl behind him screaming as her wand jerked down, ripping itself out of her hand. What sort of brain-addled move was that?
The other girl though, seemed to still have her wits about her, as she pointed her wand at the troll and shouted "Incendio!" Fear fuelled her magic and a huge stream of fire flew out of her wand and struck the troll smack on the chest.
Which was all well and good but for the fact that trolls were incredibly resistant to magic.
Now Sparhawk had done a fair bit of research on trolls with the help of Hermione and he, like the other girl knew that trolls were weak to fire. He also knew trolls were rather magic resistant owing to the deadening oils their skin secreted helped along by the fact that the Trollish community had not discovered the word 'bath' yet. Hence the non-effect of the magical fire.
But you see, those same oils, as oils are wont to be, were also pretty good fuel, if you took a light to them. Which was why trolls were really weak to fire. And so, Sparhawk whispered wingardium leviosa, directing his spell not at the club, but at the oil lanterns that lined the walls. In short order, the troll was soaked and not very appreciative of it. He bellowed in anger.
Sparhawk grinned and pointed his wand at one of the lit lanterns.
Oakstaff sprinted down the corridor, leaving Hermione, Warrick, and the teachers behind him. Benefits of being a Quidditch captain and all. His prize seeker had just done the stupidest thing possible and had gone to confront a troll on his own and he'd be damned if he was going to lose this season. All of a sudden, he heard ear-splitting, absolutely terrifying roars, screams, you name it coming from up ahead. He put down his head and put on the speed.
Suddenly, he spotted Neville and Cullinan running towards him at great speed, their eyes absolutely wild. Fearing the worst, he rounded a corner and his jaw dropped.
Before him stood the apparent source of the ungodly noise, entirely ablaze and flailing its arms wildly. Tearing his eyes off it, he saw Sparhawk staring grimly at the carnage. "Wee Sparhawk!" he screamed, and in an incredible feat of agility, dived under the troll's wild swings, grabbing Sparhawk and scooping him up.
"What are you doing?" Sparhawk asked, entirely unamused.
"Saving you!" he exclaimed, just now noticing the two girls behind Sparhawk. Gemma Farley and Femma what's her name? The looks they sent him were entirely incredulous. Then they turned and began to run.
There was another roar behind him. He glanced back to see the pain-maddened, fire-blind troll run straight at him. Holding his prize seeker under one of his burly arms, he decided to follow the example of the two girls and scarper.
A/N: And that's that. Sorry for the recently erratic posting schedule. Read and Review.
