Hermione seemed to almost be getting more insufferable during lessons as time went on, especially in Charms class. If anyone said so much as one syllable wrong in a spell the first time they were trying it, she would rather snobbishly tell them they were saying it completely and utterly wrong and was going to end up hexing someone into the hospital wing if they kept doing what they were doing. Halloween had by far been the worst she had ever been though, in Draco's opinion. Maybe he just thought that because she had snapped at one of his best friends, but still, she had been so confident and delighted to know the answers to Professor Flitwick's questions that if someone else said something wrong she would jump in, without being called on, to correct them. Their Charms teacher didn't seem to have a very big problem with this, though the Ravenclaws, who were usually the ones who knew everything and who were the ones they shared their Charms class with, looked almost more pissed off than the Gryffindors.
They had been learning how to cast a Levitation Charm for the past week and a half, and only then, on Halloween, did Professor Flitwick actually allow them to try and cast the spell with their wands. The entire class had been separated into pairs to practice, and Draco had been paired with a Ravenclaw girl who had short, curly dark brown hair, pale skin, and eyes that didn't seem to know if they were supposed to be grey, green, or blue and were framed with rectangular shaped black glasses. Draco vaguely recognized her from the sorting ceremony, her name was Sammy Moon, or something like that. Harry had been paired with Seamus Finnigan, who as far as Draco could tell, had no patience for this lesson at all. Ron had been put together with Hermione Granger and before they had even started waving their wands and saying spells, Draco already felt bad for his redheaded friend.
All thoughts of his friends however quickly faded into the back of his mind as soon as they were allowed to start attempting to make the feather in front of them float. "Wingardium Leviosa!" He said, swiftly swishing his wand through the air and then flicking its tip in the direction of the plush white feather. It only moved a centimeter to the side, and not even a millimeter up. Draco growled slightly in annoyance, and repeated the action, this time causing the feather to lift up about an inch, before it quickly fluttered back onto the table. How did you make it go higher? And stay up? Professor Flitwick had never shown them that, how were they supposed to know?
The Ravenclaw beside him snickered slightly but quickly stopped when he glared over at her, his silver eyes boring into her. She glanced over at him, her eyes dancing with amusement as she ran her left hand through the longer side of her hair and then picked up her own wand. She did exactly as he had done, though her slight foreign accent ever so slightly changed the way she pronounced the spell, and the feather did exactly the same as his had the first time he tried, only moving to the left instead of the right.
"Oh, well done!" Professor Flitwick's voice cut off Moon's next attempt at the Levitation Charm and Draco's eyes snapped over from where he had been looking at his feather angrily to see who had succeeded in casting the spell. The sight of Hermione grinning triumphantly with an annoyed Ron sitting beside her as a feather identical to his own floated a good few feet above them met him, and he scowled slightly. "Everyone look here, Ms Granger's got it!"
Draco simply rolled his eyes in annoyance and cast the spell himself again, hoping to achieve the same result as the brunette, but once again it just moved quickly to the side, not up into the air. He scowled down at the feather and then once again directed his scowl at the girl who sat at the table across from him. If he had thought her to be a know-it-all before, he certainly did now.
"No wonder nobody likes her!" Ron exclaimed as they left the classroom about ten minutes later, sounding annoyed. "She's a nightmare, honestly." Draco scoffed slightly, both wanting to tell Ron that she probably wouldn't be all too terrible if she weren't so stuck up, and wanting to agree with him because, yeah, she was rather insufferable.
Before Draco could even begin to decide which of those two things to say, someone shoved their way in between him and Harry, causing him to stumble slightly and miss who it was that had run into him. The blond just barely managed to catch himself on a wall before he fell completely onto the floor, and quickly straightened his posture, raising his chin slightly to act like nothing had happened. He was almost tempted to say something like "I meant to do that.", but when he noticed nobody was really looking his way, he decided against it.
"I think she heard you." Harry said to Ron and Draco tilted his head to the side in confusion, looking over in the direction they were walking just in time to see Hermione disappear around a corner, her shoulders visibly shaking as she clutched her books to her chest and kept her head down. He knew that stance, and immediately felt bad for even considering agreeing with Ron on the prospect of her being a nightmare. She may be rather annoying and a know-it-all, but she was still someone with feelings that didn't deserve to be called mean things by someone who didn't really know her.
"So?" Ron said, though Draco could hear the slight hint of guilt lacing his voice. That was the only reason Draco didn't hit Ron upside the head or something, even though he very much so wanted to. "She must've realized herself by now that she doesn't have any friends."
Draco rolled his eyes at this and heaved an annoyed sigh. "I wouldn't have any friends right now if you and Potter hadn't decided to talk to me. Maybe she simply needs the same thing to happen for her." He said and the redhead looked over at him in bewilderment, obviously not having expected the blond of all people to stand up for Hermione. In response to that Draco just raised his eyebrows in a sort of questioning look.
"Who'd want to be friends with her?" Ron asked then, though it sounded like he intended it in a rhetorical way.
"I would if she wasn't so snobby about how smart and good at everything she is." Draco said, and shrugged slightly when both Harry and Ron stared at him in shock that time.
Hermione didn't show up for the rest of the day, it was as if she had disappeared off the face of the earth. By the time dinner came around, Draco began to wonder if maybe someone should go off looking for her to make sure she was okay. He however quickly changed his mind when he heard Parvati Patil not exactly quietly tell Lavender Brown, both of them were girls from Draco's house, that the other girl was sitting in the girls' bathroom, crying, and didn't want to be disturbed. If she had been in the library or somewhere else in the school, like an empty classroom, he likely would have gone off to talk to her because nobody deserved to be insulted and then left to cry alone, that he knew from experience.
Sighing, aware that he couldn't go and help her, Draco turned his attention to the feast in front of him. It wasn't that different from the beginning of the year one, though the food was somewhat more unusual and there were a lot more things with pumpkins than there had been on the first night at Hogwarts. Just as he was about to grab a bread roll and rip a piece off of it to eat, Professor Quirrell sprinted into the Great Hall, his bright purple turban ever so slightly unraveled and his face deathly pale with fright. Everyone, including the teachers, seemed to freeze and a slight hush fell over the hall as hundreds of gazes moved to stare at the terrified Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who was running up towards the teachers' table at the very far end of the Great Hall.
"Troll…" Professor Quirrell gasped for air, leaning forward against the wooden surface of the table right in front of Headmaster Dumbledore. "Troll - In - The - Dungeons… Thought you ought to know." With that said, he slipped to the floor, unconscious.
Draco's eyes widened in terror as the teacher's words registered in his mind, there was a troll in the school, likely causing destruction and chaos wherever it went. The roll in his hand slipped from his grip and fell onto the table in front of him. The second it hit it with a soft thud, the students around him began screaming and jumping to their feet, wanting to escape the danger that was currently in the castle. A loud BANG! from Dumbledore's wand brought everyone to a halt again, and the hall went completely silent besides a few terrified whimpers that came from the younger students.
"Prefects," Dumbledore's voice echoed through the room, making it sound like it was ten times louder than it was in reality. "Take your Houses back to your dormitories immediately!"
Percy Weasley quickly jumped into action after the Headmaster spoke, walking briskly to the end of Gryffindor Table and beginning to yell at all of the students sitting there. "Follow me! Stay together, First Years! There'll be no need to be scared of the troll if you just listen to me and do as I tell you. Stay close to me. Please make room for the first years. Excuse me, I am a Prefect!"
The older redhead led all of the Gryffindors out of the hall, a girl who appeared to be in his year as well standing beside him and occasionally yelling things back at them like Percy. For some reason, the initial fear Draco had felt when he had heard about the troll had disappeared almost instantaneously. Maybe it was because he was surrounded by hundreds of people, many of which were older and could defend themselves and others if it came down to it, or maybe he just really was braver and more stupid than he thought.
"How do you think a troll got into Hogwarts?" Harry asked Draco and Ron in a quiet voice as they followed the rest of the Gryffindors up a staircase leading to the second floor.
"No idea, they're supposed to be really dumb." Ron said, shrugging slightly and not really sounding all too concerned about everything. Normally, Draco probably would have been extremely confused about why the redhead was so calm, but considering he himself didn't feel scared, he didn't question it.
"Maybe Peeves let it in as a sort of Halloween prank. I wouldn't put it past him." Draco suggested, and even though he hadn't really thought a whole bunch about that theory, it made the most sense logically. Unless it's some kind of distraction… Draco thought, but quickly brushed it off. Nobody, unless they were very good with trolls, would ever use one as a distraction, there was too high of a chance that they themselves would get hurt as well.
They passed random groups of students who hadn't been in the Great Hall quite yet as they walked up staircases and down corridors, heading towards Gryffindor Tower. Suddenly, after they had passed a small group of Hufflepuff students who seemed somewhat lost, Harry grabbed hold of Draco and Ron's arms, stopping them in their tracks.
"Hermione, - she doesn't know about the troll." The raven-haired boy clarified when Draco raised an annoyed and confused eyebrow in his direction and the blond almost hit himself for having forgotten all about the girl who was sitting alone in one of the girls' bathrooms, completely unaware of the danger she was in. If that troll happened to stumble across her, she would be completely unprepared and no matter how smart she was, she wouldn't get out of that unscathed.
Ron bit his lip hesitantly beside Draco, looking torn between agreeing with Harry to go find their brunette housemate and following his brother to the safety of their dorms. He looked at their raven-haired friend however and all doubt seemed to slip from his face when he realized whether Ron joined him or not, Harry would go off to find Hermione.
"Fine, but we better make sure Percy doesn't spot us." Ron growled, his voice sounding slightly reluctant and scared despite the determined look on his face.
"You two are going to get yourselves killed!" Draco hissed suddenly and both Ron and Harry looked over at him in surprise. Harry didn't seem to have thought he would think twice about coming with to find Hermione because of what he had said earlier, he definitely didn't seem to have expected that Draco would disagree in any way. Then again, neither had Draco, so maybe it was a fair assumption to have made.
"Then don't come with us if you don't want to. You really don't have to." Harry retorted, a bit of an edge to his usually soft voice and Draco couldn't help but scoff at how the other boy had misunderstood his exclamation.
"No way, someone has to save you idiots' asses, and I highly doubt the mud- muggleborn you were making fun of earlier is going to do that so therefore, yes, I do need to come with you." The blond said matter-of-a-factly, silently scolding himself for nearly doing exactly what he had almost told Ron not to do earlier, insult someone even though you don't really know them, and walked past the two other boys, heading in the direction the Hufflepuffs were going, which was in the opposite direction they had been walking with the Gryffindors. Ron and Harry quickly followed him, running slightly to catch up with him.
Once they had made it far enough away from their house to not be seen, they snuck into an empty corridor and hurried down it. Draco only vaguely remembered where the girls' bathroom was, and he hesitated slightly at the end of the corridor, not sure whether they should turn left or right. "Um…" He bit his lower lip and was about to choose one at random when Harry simply walked past him and headed right, seeming confident in his sense of direction. Hoping his raven-haired friend was correct about where they were going, the blond followed him, only to freeze when he heard quick footsteps behind them.
"Percy!" Ron hissed and grabbed both Harry and Draco's arms, pulling them behind a large stone statue of a griffin that Draco hadn't noticed before. Said boy opened his mouth to protest against being roughly pulled backwards but before he could even get the beginning of a syllable out, the redhead had clamped his hand over his mouth, effectively cutting him off in a way not too unlike what Draco had done to him the night they had snuck out. Remembering what the youngest Weasley boy had done to him that day, Draco almost licked his hand just to pay him back for it. He stopped himself however when Ron lowered his hand again and simply glared at him while putting his right index finger to his lips before leaning slightly around the side of the statue.
Draco and Harry quickly followed suit and the person they saw wasn't Percy Weasley, but the Head of Slytherin House, Severus Snape. He was walking briskly down the corridor, his black robes seeming to billow out behind him like a cape. Draco's eyes widened at the sight of his godfather, who was walking all alone in the opposite direction of the dungeons when that was a) where the troll and all the other teachers were supposed to be, and b) where his office, and house's dormitories were. The Hogwarts Potions Master disappeared around the corner at the end of the corridor and Draco let out a small sigh of relief, though he was still confused about what the man was even doing up there. If he had to choose between getting caught where they weren't supposed to be by Professor Snape, and Percy, he would definitely take the latter, because at least then his parents wouldn't be informed about it.
"What is he doing here?" Harry whispered a few seconds after the older, dark haired wizard disappeared from their sight. His green eyes shone with confusion behind his glasses and his eyebrows were scrunched together in concentration and a bit of suspicion. "Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"
"No idea." Ron said simply, and shrugged as if to emphasize his point. Draco didn't say anything in response to Harry's question, and really, he didn't want to think about any possible answers to it. If his godfather had anything to do with this - no, he wouldn't do something like that. Draco cut his own thoughts off and forced them out of his mind, focusing instead on what they were planning on doing before Severus had showed up.
"Which direction-" The young Malfoy's question didn't get finished however because Harry and Ron had already crept out from behind the statue and were quietly sneaking after their teacher. A small huff of annoyance left him and he quickly followed them, not completely sure why they thought whatever the Potions Master was up to was more interesting than Hermione. The three Gryffindors all snuck down the next hall, following Snape's ever-quieter footsteps like they would lead them to wherever they needed to go to achieve their goal, which didn't seem to be finding Hermione for them anymore.
"He's heading towards the third floor." Harry said suddenly, his eyes widening as he realized this and the moment he said it the idea clicked for Draco too. Except… Why go there? There wasn't anything interesting up there beside the Trophy Room and the forbidden left wing with the three-headed dog. There was no way he was going towards the trophy room, nobody cared about anything in there, so… once again Draco cut himself off, there was no way his godfather would go there, not unless someone had told him to.
"Why would he -" Draco's question was interrupted by Ron, who raised his hand to silence him and whose nose was wrinkled in a look of disgust.
"Do you guys smell something?" Draco immediately sniffed the air around him, only to make a face similar to Ron's as the smell of old, dirty, wet socks and sewage drifted entered his nose. It was terrible, and the blond almost started coughing at the sheer strength of it. How had he not noticed it until Ron had pointed it out?
Suddenly the sound of more footsteps drifted into Draco's ears and for a brief moment he wondered if maybe Severus had heard them and was storming back towards them to throw them all in detention for being away from their house during such a time of danger. Then he heard the grunt and noticed the slight dragging sound that came with each step, and how each step seemed to be too far apart and low for the footsteps to belong to their professor, maybe even to belong to a human.
Draco's eyes widened in fear at the realization and he gulped when Ron nodded his head towards the left, the direction the sounds were coming from and the only visible escape besides the way Severus was going. Something huge was moving at the end of the corridor and as it passed by a tall window, moonlight framing its tall, lumpy figure, Draco knew his assumption about what it was, was correct. Usually the blond loved being right about something, usually it filled him with a small wave of self-confidence, but this time he had really been hoping he'd be wrong.
The troll was at least ten feet tall, if not more, it had grey, lumpy skin like granite, a rather lot of fat that made it look chubby in an even more terrifying way, though its head looked way too small for the rest of the body. Its legs were somewhat short, and almost as big around as tree-trunks, and its bare feet looked like they were at least as long as his lower-arm. The smell grew even stronger and more terrible as it neared and Draco almost gagged on it, only before he could even start coughing Harry grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him into the shadow of a different statue, this time that of a witch brandishing a wand proudly. Just before he was pressed against a wall by Harry to keep him out of sight, Draco saw the huge wooden club the troll was holding in its hand, dragging it along the floor beside him.
The troll lumbered down the corridor they were in and, almost as if it knew where it was going, stopped in front of a door. The big hand that wasn't gripping the club came up and opened the door, stepping inside through it. Draco tilted his head to the side in confusion despite the fact that he was terrified. Why would the troll be going in there? Was there something of importance there? Draco froze however when he realized what the room was, it was the place they had been originally heading towards before they had spotted Severus, the girls' bathroom. How did he know this? Well, there was a sign on the door, which was, fair enough, slightly difficult to see in the dimly lit corridor, and it still didn't seem to have occured to Harry and Ron what it was, judging by the conversation they were having.
"The key's still in the lock!" Harry whispered to the two other first years, somehow having realized that small detail, but missing the more obvious one. "We could lock it in there and get out of here before it broke out."
Ron nodded to this, looking slightly nervous, and was about to say something in response when Draco cut him off. "No, we can't lock the troll in there! Don't you idiots realize what that room is?!" Both Harry and Ron looked over at the blond in shock and confusion, obviously not having a clue about what he meant.
An annoyed, slightly impatient sigh escaped his lips and he rolled his silver eyes, shaking his head ever so slightly. "It's the girls' bathroom! That very same place we were trying to find so we could warn Granger! And now she's in there, alone, with the troll!" His voice rose slightly in volume and he quickly forced it back down to a frantic whisper. "We need to help her, not lock her inside!" Ron and Harry's eyes both widened almost comically, and their faces paled in fear at the revelation.
Draco pushed ahead of the two of them just as a loud, high-pitched scream echoed from inside the bathroom. He broke into a run at that and frantically, with slightly shaking hands, pushed the wooden door open, stumbling inside to find Hermione cowering in a corner against the wall, the troll slowly moving towards her, its club ripping sinks from the wall and shattering them as it went. Draco froze for a moment, livid with fright, his already pale cheeks becoming almost translucent as the blood left his face.
The door flew open again behind him and Harry and Ron came stumbling inside, effectively pulling the blond out of his daze. He looked over at the two of them and saw fear flicker across both of their faces before Harry sprung into action, seeming to know exactly what to do.
"We need to distract it!" He yelled at Ron and Draco, his voice slightly panicked, yet determined as he knelt down and picked up one of the faucets lying on the floor, having been knocked down when a sink had been smashed. The raven-haired boy chucked it as hard as he could at the troll. It hit it in the head and the tall creature froze in place, slowly turning around to face them, blinking in a slightly sluggish way.
Its club swung with it as it turned and instead of smashing sinks this time it smashed the wooden bathroom stalls, sending green-painted wood in every direction as it stalked toward them. All three of them stumbled backwards, Harry and Ron managing to get just far enough away to avoid getting hit by anything more than a few splinters and small pieces. Draco on the other hand tripped over the back hem of his robes in his haste to get away and fell hard backwards onto the marble-tiled floor. Larger pieces of wood showered down on top of him and the blond just barely managed to bring his arms up in front of his face so nothing hit him there. He tightly squeezed his silvery grey eyes shut, whimpering slightly as he felt small and large wood boards and pieces hit him, ripping his sleeves a bit and falling on top of him.
It stopped after a minute or so, but Draco stayed frozen in fright and slight pain, his arms held firmly in front of his face. He could feel a particularly large piece of wood lying over his legs, stopping him from moving around properly. Smaller pieces were balanced on top of his arms and stomach and his hair, which had become all messed up, was full of splinters. Surprisingly nothing really hurt all too bad, it just felt like he was trapped under something really heavy and couldn't get out. Maybe he was just numb from the shock of having just been buried under a pile of wood, but it really didn't seem like that. He could still feel everything, could still feel the strain on his arms that came with holding up so much weight so suddenly, could still feel the dull ache on his back from having fallen down, but he didn't feel any pain caused by the wood itself. Either I'm just really lucky or I did some kind of accidental magic to stop myself from getting hurt. Draco thought and slowly opened his eyes.
The moment he did that, it seemed like his other senses came rushing back. He could smell the troll again, and sawdust, and a lot of water. He could also hear his friends yelling, and the troll grunting.
"Draco!" Harry and Ron's voices seemed to combine and become ten times louder than they would have been had they yelled separately. Huh, Draco thought distantly, a bit dazed, that's the first time Ron's ever called me by my first name. And that's the first time I've ever even thought of him as Ron and not Weasley.
"Yeah?" The blond called back, not sure how he was even capable of speaking in the first place, let alone saying anything beside "Help!". His voice trembled slightly but other than that it didn't sound panicked, despite the fact that in reality Draco was terrified. The troll could smash him beneath the wood with its club any second, and he wouldn't even be able to see it coming.
"Oh thank Merlin!" Ron exclaimed at the same time as Harry yelled: "Are you okay?"
"Bit trapped, but yeah, I'm fine." The blond said, surprised that he still felt no pain and instead found that he actually could move his arms slightly. Squeezing his eyes shut again, just in case smaller pieces fell down on his face as he did so, he moved his arms up and forwards, away from his face. The wood slid off his arms and onto the floor around him, leaving him with a few tiny pieces on his stomach and a large board over his legs, but now able to sit up.
The troll was still standing there, though he had turned back towards Hermione and was slowly heading towards her again. Her face was even more terrified than it had been before, and her gaze was only partially directed at the troll. Every few seconds she would glance over at him with her chocolate brown eyes, as if she was making sure nothing bad had happened.
"Hey, Peabrain!" Ron suddenly yelled, seemingly reassured that Draco was indeed okay and didn't need help, so he decided to do something stupid. He picked up one of the pieces of wood Draco had pushed off of himself and chucked it at the troll himself, in a similar fashion to the way Harry had done it troll turned away from Hermione again and started towards Ron, looking murderous in an almost strangely childish way. Harry, seeming to think the distraction was his chance to sneak past it, sprinted past the looming creature and towards the brunette girl cowering in a corner.
Ron, seeming to realize that he had just diverted the troll's attention from everything else beside him, visibly gulped and clumsily fumbled to get his wand out of his robe pocket. Draco in the meantime had sat up completely, shook a bit of dust and wood out of his hair, and began attempting to push the large board made of green-painted wood off of him. He was rather unsuccessful, it weighed quite a lot and from the position he was lying under it in, lifting it with his full strength was kind of difficult.
Draco glanced up at the others, giving up his feeble attempts to free himself, and saw Harry grabbing Hermione's arms and pulling her up into a standing position. This didn't help much, seeing as the moment she was on her feet she pressed herself firmly against the wall she had previously been curled up against. "Run! Fast, c'mon, we have to run!" Harry yelled but the brunette just continued to stare at the back of the troll in terror, her mouth hanging open slightly.
When she still didn't respond after Harry yelled a second time he seemed to give up slightly, as Draco had, and turned back to face the troll himself. Ron was still having difficulty getting his wand out of his pocket, and the troll was getting closer and closer to the redhead every second. Any moment now it would be able to hit him with its club. Harry's eyes widened in terror and anger, their emerald color seeming to become a darker shade of green as he sprinted forward in a both very brave, and incredibly idiotic, manner. He lept forwards as he ran and launched himself up onto the troll's back, wrapping his arms around its meaty neck to keep himself up. His wand, which the Boy-Who-Lived had been gripping tightly in his hand (when he had taken it out of his robes, Draco didn't know), stabbed up into one of the troll's nostrils, effectively catching its attention.
A scream of pain escaped the troll's mouth and echoed through the room, likely alerting everyone in the bathroom's vicinity that didn't know what was happening of the events taking place there. The troll began to blindly wave its club around itself and Harry, being the reckless Gryffindor he was, just tightened his grip on the troll's neck. Hermione sunk back to the ground, resuming her curled up position against the wall as she stared up at Harry in complete horror. Ron finally managed to get his own wand out of his pocket and waved it through the air frantically yelling the first spell that came to his mind: "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The troll's club slipped out of its hand just before it hit Harry and floated above its head for a brief moment before it seemed to spin of its own accord and came crashing down on the troll's small head. The troll spun in a slow circle, dazed, and then crashed face-first onto the ground, leaving Harry lying on its back. The young wizard clambered shakily to his feet, breathing heavily as he knelt down next to the troll's head to pull his wand out of its nose, immediately jumping backwards away from it.
"Is it… dead?" Hermione's trembling, quiet voice rang out from the corner she was in. The fear had melted mostly from her face, and she shakily rose to her feet, steadying herself against the wall behind her.
"No, don't think so." Harry said, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he wiped his wand off on the pant leg of the troll. "I think he's just unconscious."
Ron, who had been standing, frozen in place with his wand still raised, seemed to rip himself out of his daze and lowered the smooth stick. His blue eyes widened in shock as they registered what he had just accomplished. Not only had he managed to defeat a troll as an eleven year old, he had also managed the spell he had failed at so horribly before.
"Hey, um… a bit of help here might be nice!" Draco called out to them, finding his own voice and waving his arms around himself frantically to get their attention. The three other Gryffindors immediately hurried over, helping him in lifting the wood off of himself. A sigh of relief escaped his lips and just as Harry was pulling him back to his feet, the sound of a door slamming open caused them all to flinch back in fear. Is there another troll we didn't know about? Draco wondered briefly, but that thought flew from his mind when Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and Quirrell all stormed into the bathroom. The Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher whimpered at the sight of the troll and stumbled over to one of the few remaining toilets, sitting heavily on its ceramic lid. Severus went over to the troll and knelt next to it, obviously trying to figure out what exactly had happened to it.
Draco didn't really pay any attention to the two male teachers however, because in that moment his Head of House turned to face Ron, Harry, and him and she looked angrier than the blond had ever seen anyone in his life. Her lips were pressed so tightly together they looked like a white line against her flushed face. Without fully intending to Draco shrunk back slightly as her glare swept over the three of them, taking in their disheveled appearances and Draco's ripped robes with a burning fury in her gaze.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Professor McGonagall growled, the anger from her eyes even clearer in her tone of voice. Harry glanced first at Draco, and then at Ron, who was still gripping his wand tightly in his hand as if he would have to charm another troll's club. "You're all lucky to be alive. Why aren't you in your dormitories like you're supposed to?"
Snape looked up at the three of them, and for the brief second his gaze was directed at Draco, the blond could've sworn he saw a flicker of concern flash through his obsidian eyes. It quickly disappeared however and was replaced with disdain as his gaze reached Harry, who immediately looked down at the ground as if it had become very interesting all of the sudden.
Suddenly the soft, quiet voice of Hermione drifted over from the corner she had crept back into when the door slammed open, "Please, Professor McGonagall, they were looking for me."
The Transfiguration teacher spun around to face the young girl, her eyes widening at the sight of her. She obviously had not noticed her when she came into the bathroom, and didn't seem to have expected Hermione of all people to be mixed in with any of this. Draco too looked over at her, and wondered briefly if she would tell the professor about the insults, and the reason she had been in the bathroom.
"Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall's voice sounded tense, and ever so slightly confused as Hermione stepped out of the shadows, nervously twirling a strand of dark hair around her finger.
"I went after the troll, because I…" She faltered slightly, looking faintly embarrassed, and all of Draco's assumptions about her getting them in trouble disappeared as if they had been blown away by a gust of wind. Hermione was lying to a teacher for them, something that even Draco wasn't sure he would've done in her position. "I thought I could get rid of it on my own. Y'know, because I'd read all about trolls. If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead. Harry, Ron, and Draco defeated it while all I did was cower in a corner. They didn't have time to get a teacher, it was trying to kill me, so they fought it. Ron managed to knock it out with its own club. "
Harry and Ron looked shocked for a brief moment, but then like Draco they quickly recovered and put expressions on their faces that made it seem like they knew exactly what she was talking about.
"Well, if that's how it is…" Professor McGonagall trailed off for a second and looked at all of them with an ever so slightly less angry look in her eyes. "Miss Granger, you stupid girl, how could you have thought you could defeat a mountain-troll all on your own?"
Hermione looked down at the floor with a looked of shame similar to Harry's earlier. She was playing the part rather well, Draco had to admit, for someone who seemed like the last person in the school to break the rules.
"Miss Granger, for that I am taking five points from Gryffindor." Professor McGonagall said stiffly, obviously not enjoying taking points from her own house, but knowing it was necessary. "I am very disappointed in you. If you aren't hurt, you better head back to Gryffindor-Tower. The feast is being finished in the dorms."
Hermione hastily left the room, glancing back at the three boys for a brief moment before she pulled the door shut behind her. The Transfiguration teacher then turned to face Harry, Ron, and Draco, who looked down, expecting to have points taken from them as well for having snuck away from their group. Her next words however surprised the blond, and his gaze snapped up to meet hers.
"Well, I'd still say you were lucky, but not many first years can defeat an adult mountain troll on their own. Each of you will receive five points for Gryffindor. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You can leave now."
The three of them practically ran out of the girls' bathroom, and almost crashed into Hermione, who had lingered just outside the door, clearly waiting for them. She just smiled weakly at them and then turned around, leading the way back to the Tower without saying a word. In fact, none of them really spoke until they were two floors above where the troll had been, the smell of it finally leaving the air around them. Then Hermione stopped and turned to face them, looking a bit guilty. "Thank you." She said simply and the three boys blinked before nodding slightly.
"Are you really okay, Draco?" Hermione asked him then, her gaze quickly sweeping down over his ripped clothes. There was a small concerned frown tugging at her lips and she seemed genuinely worried, something he wasn't very used to.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, Hermione." He said and she nodded slightly, though she looked slightly nervous. Harry and Ron then looked over at him as well, and Harry grimaced when he noticed the mess Draco's platinum blond hair was, and the state his robes were in.
"I don't think you're gonna be able to wear those anymore, mate." Ron said, sounding sympathetic, but Draco just shrugged. He really didn't care all too much about his robes, he had plenty of extras. Though, the thing that was bugging him suddenly seemed impossible to keep in any longer and he let out a huff of annoyance.
"Ten points?! Ten points for saving the whole school from a troll in our first year?! How is that bloody fair?!" Draco demanded abruptly, his voice loud and somewhat angry, while Hermione simply looked over at him with an annoyed glint replacing the concern in her eyes.
"Well, you did sneak out, be glad she didn't take points from you too!" She snapped and the blond threw his hands up in only slightly serious exasperation. In reality he really didn't care anymore, he just had felt the need to let out some pent up anger for no real reason.
"Still, ten points? We should've gotten at least twenty, each." Draco said, and crossed his arms over his chest, ignoring the dull throb of pain in his arms the action caused.
"I have to agree with Draco on this one." Ron piped up and Draco looked over at him in shock. He had expected the first name basis thing had only been because he had been in danger, but hearing him call him that normally caused a small spark of warmth to light up in his chest.
"Thanks, Ron." He said and the redhead looked at him in surprise too. The look quickly morphed into a small smile however, and that seemed to be their queue to continue walking again for whatever reason.
Hermione stayed close to them on the walk back, and continued to do so after that for the rest of their time at Hogwarts, and afterwards. Apparently, fighting a troll and almost dying was one of those things you couldn't go through together without becoming friends.