Disclaimer: See Chapter 1. Additionally, this chapter contains some material quoted or paraphrased from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, chapter 9 (just a tiny bit).
Warnings: Violence, blood, and Dumbledore
Author's Note: At the end of the chapter…
Over the first two weeks of school, Harry divided his time fairly equally between learning and posturing. He very much preferred the former, but he knew that he couldn't neglect the latter. As annoying as he found it, he also found that playing the perfect Gryffindor – the superhuman Child Savior – seemed to be working out quite well. He still drew a lot of attention, but not nearly so much as he could have. People looked at him and they saw what they'd expected to see from the first time they'd ever heard his name. As he'd hoped, a hero was interesting, but not nearly as interesting as a mystery or a scandal.
Based on what he heard people saying about him, he figured his little act was working as well as he could have hoped. Everyone commented on how smart he was with an air of smugness, as they'd clearly known that he would be. They talked in pleased surprise about how nice he was, exchanging stories about what he'd done for them or what they'd seen or heard that he'd done for someone else. It was stupid things, too, that would have never been mentioned were he anyone else. Things like helping to pick up someone's books if they dropped them in the corridors, or helping his partner in class to figure out the lesson that he already knew, or lending a hand to extract a foot from a trick step. Meaningless little things.
He had developed a bit of a reputation for "Ravenclaw tendencies" in response to the copious amounts of time he spent in the library. After a week of learning about the Mind Arts, Harry had spent Saturday getting caught up on his homework. Given that he pretty much knew all the theory that he was supposed to write about in the essays and had to give very little time to looking anything up, he was able to finish the entire week's worth of assignments before dinner. He was very happy to go back to his extracurricular studies, which just seemed much more important at the moment.
With his goal of learning Mind Arts now on hold until he could enter the Restricted Section, Harry turned his attention to figuring out how to get in there without getting caught. He was sure that there must be spells to prevent anyone from just walking in there when no one was looking. So he had to figure out how to first identify those spells and then how to circumvent them. It was a tedious process when he was so impatient, but he refused to risk the image he was so carefully cultivating by cutting corners now.
After spending all of Sunday and what time he could on Monday searching for the means with which to identify the spells, he stumbled across a reference in a warding book that spoke of Magesense. That led him to searching out books explaining Magesense. It was, apparently, a passive magical discipline in which one learned to focus in just such a way to feel magic.
Harry perused several books on the subject before confirming that his ability to sense magic was apparently not something that most people could do without training. He was incredibly smug about that, though of course he didn't tell anyone about it. He'd learned very quickly with the Dursleys that it was best to conceal his talents. By Thursday, Harry had been able to determine that his ability was a natural affinity for Magesense. It was rare, and apparently exclusive to very magically powerful individuals.
So, he was extremely pleased for several reasons as he began delving more deeply into Magesense. His natural affinity basically conquered the first and most difficult part of learning the discipline. Once one was able to feel magic, he had only to learn to control it and to identify different types of magic by feel. With that in mind, he began paying a lot more attention to the sense and what it could tell him. He soon discovered that charms felt different from transfigurations, defensive magic from offensive, and the more he studied it, the finer his understanding became. Soon, he could identify the subschools of magic as well, and he was beginning to be able to differentiate the magical signatures of his classmates and teachers – he could now tell Fred and George apart. With practice, he should be able to learn a lot about them based on those signatures, including their innate magical strength, aptitudes, and the residue left on them when they'd been working certain types of magic recently.
He still wasn't enjoying his Defense class – at all – and had decided that he'd have to do some independent study to really learn anything since he was so distracted in class. Despite still being a long way from finding a way to protect his mind, he was quite pleased with his progress in Magesense, and that was enough to mollify him for the time.
The second week also began flying lessons. Harry couldn't help but be excited to learn to fly. It was flying for God's sake. The annoying part was that the announcement of the upcoming lessons was enough to send every halfblood and pureblood in first year into spontaneous fits of bravado. Apparently, they'd all flown before and were all masters of it by the way they talked. In the four days between the notice being posted and the first class actually taking place, Harry had heard at least two students explain how they'd taken private lessons with an International Quidditch star and out-flown the individual in the very first lesson. There were also a lot of fairly incomprehensible boasts about all the complex maneuvers that everyone evidently knew how to do instinctively.
Harry did his best to ignore the idiots who, he was convinced, would make fools of themselves in their first lessons when they proved that they were full of shit. In Gryffindor, only he and Neville seemed immune to the urge to boast of flying skills. Well, Granger, too. Both of them seemed prone to turning alarmingly white or green at the mere mention of it. For Granger, Harry suspected a fear of heights. For Neville, he was getting the sense that the other boy most feared making a fool of himself as he had absolutely no self-confidence. Personally, Harry preferred to go the route of modesty. Apparently, everyone thought he'd be a natural flyer like his father had evidently been. Surely the Boy-Who-Lived must be good at everything. Harry just tried to look shy and remind everyone that he was muggle raised and therefore had never even been on a broom. He doubted that he'd do that much worse than most of the first-years, and he hoped that they'd all be too busy trying to live up to their own boasts to pay that much attention to him.
At lunch on Thursday, Granger was apparently trying to make up for her fear of flying by pompously regurgitating lists of flying tips that she'd found in books in the library. Privately, Harry cheered her feelings of inadequacy regarding flight. While she was busy memorizing flying tips, he was honing his Magesense – clearly the more important study. He was determined to increase the gap between them in magical skill and knowledge. He wanted top marks in his classes to go with his persona, but he was much more invested in being better as opposed to looking better, so he had no problem with honing skills that he couldn't show off whereas he was pretty sure that the only reason Granger learned anything was for the potential to rub her superiority in the faces of her peers.
Harry had been getting a lot more mail since the start of school than he'd gotten before. Apparently, everyone's interest in him had been renewed by his return to the wizarding world. Luckily, he was never in the Great Hall when the mail arrived, so no one could monitor whether or not he was getting mail and how much he was getting. Sadly, Dumbledore wasn't the only one that he thought might pay attention. Pretty much everyone in the school seemed to care about the minutia of his everyday life.
He'd taken to going through his mail trunk once a day while everyone else was at breakfast so that he could sort it privately. Most of it was meaningless letters from fans and supporters that he merely skimmed through before tossing into a pile to burn in the common room after everyone else went to sleep – he did that once a week. He was very surprised by the number of marriage proposals that he was getting – he was eleven, for God's sake! – and he'd had to devote a little of his study time to figuring out how to properly decline without giving offense. The last thing he needed was more enemies, after all. The fact that almost a quarter of the proposals were from his own gender proved his theory about homosexuality in the wizarding world.
He also received gifts quite often. Most of them were trinkets or gift vouchers for various stores. A lot of the stores themselves sent him gifts, eager to have the famous Boy-Who-Lived seen using their products. He used what was useful and stored the rest in his trunk. Throwing away a perfectly good anything was difficult after so many years of wishing that he had things of his own – pretty much anything of his own. At the very least, he figured that he was unlikely to ever have to worry about buying gifts for his "friends". All he'd have to do is delve into his trunk when it was time for Christmas shopping. He did keep everything carefully labeled with the date received and the sender's information to ensure that he didn't regift anything inappropriately, and he didn't intend to do that with anything that was too unique as to be instantly identifiable.
He did have to spend a few minutes before bed every night writing thank-you notes though, and Athena was getting her exercise delivering them all. And he'd thought he'd have no real use for her when Hagrid had bought her… Well, he could appropriate school owls when necessary, but he much preferred Athena for the more important deliveries. He trusted her to get his letters where they were supposed to go quickly.
At lunch on Thursday, Harry discovered that Neville had received an item called a Remembrall from his grandmother that morning. Apparently, it turned red if the person holding it had forgotten something.
"Can I see it?" Harry asked eagerly. Neville passed it over quickly enough and Harry studied it in fascination, trying to figure out how it knew if you'd forgotten something. It felt of Charms and – he suppressed a shudder – Legilimency. After studying it for a minute, Harry decided that it was some kind of focused Legilimency. It didn't feel very strong, and it didn't give him that skull-prickling sense of invasion that being around Quirrell always gave him, so he doubted that it could do much more than sense something specifically related to having forgotten something. He wondered if there was some sort of specific mental tell inherent to having forgotten something. He couldn't imagine how else such an apparently simple charm could determine that. It certainly wasn't anything as advanced as examining unconscious memories versus conscious awareness and identifying dissimilarities.
After a few minutes, he blinked and gave Neville a sheepish smile for how long he'd been staring at the ball, which did not turn red for him. He wasn't surprised that he hadn't forgotten anything. His mental notes were very carefully organized. He found the object fascinating, but its relative uselessness was made very apparent when Neville complained of not being able to remember what he'd forgotten.
Neville had only just reclaimed possession of the Remembrall when Draco sauntered his way over, flanked by his body guards. He snatched it out of Neville's hand and Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes in exasperation as he diligently followed Ron in leaping to his feet as though he might start a fight in the middle of the Great Hall with all the teachers watching. Snape would take far too much pleasure in punishing him for attacking one of his snakes.
"Give it back, Malfoy," Ron growled in a way that he probably thought was intimidating. Harry, having grown up with Vernon Dursley, highly disagreed.
"Or what, Weasel?" Draco sneered.
"Or you'll regret it, Malfoy," Harry snapped inanely, trying not to cringe and hoping that he sounded suitably Gryffindor.
Draco seemed to think so, judging by the way his sneer grew considerably. "Do you think I'm afraid of you, Potter?" he asked doubtfully.
Harry smiled unpleasantly as he caught a general theme of movement from his peripheral. By the way everyone facing the other direction seemed keen on pretending like they weren't paying attention all of a sudden, Harry was sure their little spat was about to be interrupted. And considering their expressions, he was judging that it was McGonagall – she was feared, but not reviled on this side of the Hall, so it couldn't be Snape.
"Not me," Harry said significantly just a moment before…
"What's going on?" Ah, he'd judged correctly. And Draco looked somewhat unnerved by Harry's apparent ability to see directly behind him. Delightful.
"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor," Neville said timidly.
Draco dropped it back onto the table with a faint scowl just for Harry, which was quickly replaced by casual innocence as he said, "Just looking," and quickly wandered away from the Gryffindor table and the scowling Head of House.
At three-thirty, Harry joined the rest of the Gryffindors in heading out onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. They found the Slytherins already there, so they must have come from a closer class.
"Don't worry, Neville," Harry placated the trembling boy as they approached the brooms lined up on the ground. "You'll do fine." He made sure to position himself next to the nervous boy, and was dismayed when Granger managed to get the broom on his other side. Luckily, she seemed too nervous to be quite as annoying as usual. She was presently listing all of the tips she'd learned under her breath.
Harry distracted himself from his own nerves by studying the magic he could feel from the broom at his feet. Charms, he noticed first. Enchantment subschool, not surprisingly. He couldn't identify the original enchantments on the broom, simply not having had enough experience with such spells to judge. The feel of the magic was… light was the only word that came to mind. Not like "as opposition to dark" but rather "as opposition to heavy".
When Madame Hooch instructed them to pick up the brooms, Harry had only opened his mouth to say up when his broom leapt into his hand. His eyes widened a little at the unexpected responsiveness, but he managed to keep his smug grin to a minimum as he turned his attention to a struggling Neville beside him.
"It doesn't really have anything to do with the word," Harry advised the shy boy. "You just have to be more assertive with it. That's a magical broom," Harry pointed at it, then pointed his finger at Neville, "You're a magical person. That broom was literally made to do what you tell it. So just relax, and let it do what it was made to do."
Neville gave him a look that was far from convinced, but his shoulders did relax slightly.
"Take a deep breath," Harry encouraged. He nodded slowly as Neville did as instructed. "Now, look at the broom, and try again. Don't force it."
Neville glanced nervously from the broom to Harry and back to the broom. Then he gave a small nod, and said, "Up."
And the broom rose smoothly, if somewhat slowly, into his hand.
Harry grinned with satisfaction. "What did I tell you?"
Neville looked completely astounded at his success. He also looked inordinately proud of himself.
Granger, Harry had noticed from the corner of his eye, had been listening to him lecture Neville as well. It took her a few more tries, but she got her broom to rise to her hand as well.
Madame Hooch then had them all mount their brooms. She moved along the line, correcting their grips as necessary. Once Harry was certain that he was doing it right, he set about helping Neville. The other boy's biggest problem was that he seemed to be intent on strangling his broom. Harry suspected he'd have cramps in both hands in less than five minutes.
If possible, Neville paled even further when Madame Hooch began her countdown.
When she got to two, Neville kicked off early.
Harry, having been focused on helping Neville, found himself following the other boy up into the air before he'd even stopped to wonder if he should.
"Come back, boys!" He vaguely heard Madame Hooch shout below them.
Neville was rising fast, twisting and spinning uncontrollably. He was whimpering and clinging to his broom for dear life. It took a bit for Harry to safely close the distance between them. Just when he was getting close enough to put a hand on Neville's broom, the other boy panicked. They must have been thirty feet in the air by now, and Neville's broom took off like a rocket. He managed to hold on for maybe a second, and then the broom was taking off without him and Neville was falling toward the ground.
Harry reacted.
He took off like a shot, diving sharply toward the ground to intercept the falling boy. He got his broom underneath them and yanked up hard. He felt his toes scrape the ground, but the broom didn't crash. Harry slowed it to a stop, and dismounted slowly helping a violently shaking Neville to his feet.
That's when he suddenly became aware of the applause.
He turned slowly to see all of the Gryffindors clapping enthusiastically. The Slytherin's were looking sulky and annoyed. Madame Hooch was rushing over to them, looking merely worried.
Harry was unnerved to think that he'd just performed a truly Gryffindor stunt with absolutely no premeditation, nor even pause to consider his actions. God, he hoped Draco hadn't been right about the Gryffindors rubbing off on him…
Well, at least he did seem to be a natural on a broom. He hadn't even had to think about controlling it. It had felt entirely instinctual.
"Are you boys all right?" Madame Hooch demanded more than asked.
"F-fine, Pro-professor," Neville stammered, then turned wide eyes on Harry. "You… you saved my life…"
Harry mentally grinned as he realized that, yes, he had saved him. Which meant that Neville Longbottom now owed him a Life Debt. He'd read about Life Debts in passing only. He'd have to do some more research into the subject now. A bit of Gryffindor brashness had served him well this time.
"What else could I have done?" Harry shrugged self-deprecatingly.
October 1991
"It's no wonder no one can stand her," Ron's loud, obnoxious voice came from just in front of Harry as they were leaving the Charms classroom. "She's a nightmare, honestly," the annoying boy was complaining to Dean and Seamus.
Harry sent a glare at the back of the idiot's head, and opened his mouth to chastise the other boy. Harry may not like the know-it-all any more than anyone else, but that didn't mean that the Boy-Who-Lived would stand for that kind of bullying. Before he could say anything, the girl he was about to defend shouldered her way through the crowd, her body language hunched with anger, embarrassment, and shame.
"I think she heard you, mate," Dean muttered to the now blushing redhead.
"Well, you weren't exactly being quiet," Harry bit out irritably. "Honestly, Ron, think before you speak."
Despite the redhead's best efforts, Harry and Ron were very far from being friends. Of course, the other boy's chances may have been slightly improved were he not pathologically averse to any and all things related to the library and/or studying. Personally, Harry couldn't stand the boy, but the Boy-Who-Lived was not allowed to hate any Gryffindors. Dislike, sure, but never hate. His hatred must be reserved for Slytherins and other Dark wizards and witches. That was what prevented Harry from allowing anything more than annoyance into his dressing down of his fellow Gryffindor.
With a shake of his head and a sigh, which were carefully calculated to convey disappointment in the other boy's lacking maturity, Harry moved around the other boys and their small audience of classmates to make his way to their next class alone.
Granger didn't turn up for their next class, and she was not seen all afternoon. On the way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Harry overheard Parvati Patil telling her friend Lavender that Granger was crying in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone. Harry frowned irritably at that little nugget of information, and gave a few moments' consideration to what the Boy-Who-Lived would do about it. He supposed, that despite their relatively good-natured competition for top marks, being the preternaturally perfect human being that he was, he really ought to go and try to find her. Make sure she was okay.
It sounded incredibly bothersome, all things considered, but needs must. Maintaining his mask was important. He'd suspected that after his first day in Diagon Alley, but after spending a couple months at Hogwarts, he'd come to understand just how dangerous it would truly be to be seen as a Dark wizard. And he didn't doubt for a moment that these people would decide he was Dark if they got a very close look at his true personality. He still hadn't figured out whether or not he actually was Dark. It seemed to be such common knowledge in the wizarding world, the true definition of a Dark Wizard, that no decent definition actually existed in print. Though, honestly, he was beginning to wonder if there was a real difference between a Dark Wizard and a wizard who was an adversary to a Light Wizard.
Dark Wizards were barely tolerated in Magical Britain unless they happened to be filthy rich, but even then they were loathed in many circles on principle alone, and widely distrusted, always the first to shoulder blame for any wrong done near them. Harry had read about the token trials given to many suspected Death Eaters – read: Dark Wizards arrested on any available charges – and he had no doubt that there were innocent Dark Wizards in Azkaban.
With that in mind, Harry turned around and headed for the girls' bathroom that Parvati had mentioned. On the bright side, at least he would be able to avoid the Great Hall during the most sweet-laden feast of the year. He could always stop by the kitchens for dinner if he didn't make it to the Great Hall in time. One of Slytherin's passages led directly into the kitchens, which is how he'd stumbled upon them a couple of weeks ago in one of his early morning explorations. He'd thought, at first, that he was going to be in a lot of trouble when the teachers heard about his wandering. That fear had been short-lived, however, when the house-elves populating the kitchen had proved to be incredibly accommodating. Judging by the fact that he'd heard nothing about it from Dumbledore or any of the professors, Harry could only conclude that they hadn't told on him. Indeed, they'd seemed thrilled at the opportunity to directly serve a student, and the Boy-Who-Lived in particular.
Harry's ruminations flitted from his mind as he approached the bathroom in which Granger had reportedly sulked all afternoon. He allowed himself just a moment to sneer in distaste at the delicate constitution of the bossy overachiever. It wasn't as though Ron had said anything all that cruel after all. It had been more of the painful honesty sort of thing. Rude, certainly, but fairly mild.
With a stifled sigh, Harry pushed the door open a few centimeters without trying to look inside. "Granger? You in there?" he said loudly, his voice neutral.
There was the sound of a startled sniffle and then her grating voice – slightly less annoying than usual as she spoke through a stuffy nose, "Potter? What are you doing here? Go away!"
"You've already missed lunch and you're about to miss dinner," Harry said reasonably. "You shouldn't let Ron get to you so much. He's thoughtless and boorish and extremely insecure. He dislikes you because you intimidate him, and with good reason. It is really unlikely that he'll ever amount to a fraction of your magical skill and finesse if he continues as he has."
He fell silent and waited for a long moment before she finally spoke, her voice nearer the door. "Are… Are you actually trying to make me feel better?"
"Of course," Harry said with false patience and cheer. "I know that we're competitive in classes, but that doesn't mean that I dislike you."
"You've seemed like it," she responded slowly, her voice laden with equal parts hope and suspicion. It was a tone Harry knew well from his own past. Dudders had liked to pretend that he was going to do something nice for Harry only to cruelly change his tune as soon as Harry began to believe him. Of course, Harry had learned better than that many years ago. Granger had obviously suffered her share of bullying in the past, but she wasn't nearly so jaded as Harry.
"I don't actually know you," Harry pointed out. "It's been a little overwhelming for me so far, trying to keep up with classes and deal with discovering that I'm famous. Everyone thinks that they know me, you know? They don't actually care who I am. They all just want to believe that I'm the child-hero that they've built up in their minds. So far, I've just been trying to…"
"Fit in," she finished quietly when he hesitated.
It took a huge effort to not grin as she went ahead and related to him with hardly any effort on his part. "Except that that's kind of impossible for me," he muttered deprecatingly, but then quickly changed the subject, lightening his tone, "Will you come get something to eat with me? Sitting around in a bathroom can't be that interesting."
She huffed a watery laugh and a moment later, the door was pulled open from the inside. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she'd clearly wiped off all sign of tears. "Okay," she said with a tremulous smile.
Harry gave himself a well-deserved – in his opinion – pat on the back for so quickly manipulating the supposedly brilliant girl. Her willingness to believe the tripe he'd just spouted only highlighted the inherent weakness of hope and the vulnerability in trusting people in general.
They walked in silence for a couple of minutes before Granger – Hermione, he supposed he'd have to get used to after this delightful "bonding" experience – cautiously inquired, "How… How'd you know where to find me?"
Harry bit his lips and tried to look sympathetically embarrassed. "Lavender and Parvati were talking about it on the way to the Great Hall…"
She paled at realizing that that meant that at least all of the first year Gryffindors were aware of the fact that she'd been holed up crying her eyes out. He could well imagine how embarrassing that would be, except that he'd never let himself end up in a situation like that. He'd learned a long time ago that there wasn't any point in crying.
He was trying to figure out what meaningless platitude to use to calm her this time when a highly offensive odor caused him to slow his step.
"Ew! What is that smell?" Granger complained a moment later.
Harry ignored her, his mind flying to assess and dismiss possible explanations. It wasn't the scent of dungbombs, with which he was sadly familiar after two months in the same House as Fred and George Weasley. It wasn't a scent that he'd ever smelled in the castle before and he'd been virtually everywhere during his early morning wanderings.
It was highly unlikely that the smell was anything mundane. It smelled like… excessively strong, musty body odor with hints of rotting meat and morning breath. It was exceedingly unpleasant, but before he could begin to dwell on that fact, another rather substantial clue made itself known in the form of heavy, lumbering footsteps drawing closer to them.
Ogre, giant, orc, troll… went through his head instantly, followed by, too stinky, too small, too large… mountain troll? Cave troll? Marsh troll?
Before he could try to reason any further, the creature appeared from around the next corner, far too close for comfort. Mountain troll, his mind helpfully supplied. He drew his wand with a slightly trembling hand while Granger screamed like the completely worthless girl that she was. Just went to show how pointless all her academic "brilliance" really proved to be.
"Run!" he snapped at the sniveling chit even as his mind assured him that they hadn't the slightest hope of outrunning the troll that had just settled its eyes on them. He started backing up slowly while he mentally sifted through his memory for the nearest passageways that may prove narrow enough to slow down if not hold off the beast now advancing on them much more quickly than he was withdrawing, though it wasn't charging yet, which he was sure that it would do if he tried to run.
Granger hadn't moved at all, apparently frozen in terror. Useless…
There weren't any passages close enough that he would definitely be able to reach them, he decided. If he got very lucky, he might be able to make it to one of the regular secret passages that would definitely be too small for the troll. Maybe if it got hold of Granger, that would slow it down enough that he would have time. Enticing as that idea was, however, a glance at the tittering portraits lining the corridor told him that it would utterly demolish the Boy-Who-Lived persona that he was crafting so very carefully if they were to report that the Great Savior of the Wizarding World had shoved a mudblood in front of the troll and saved himself.
He almost laughed at the thought, but forced himself to remain focused. He'd survived too much to be killed by a creature less intelligent than his owl. Part of him questioned what the bloody hell a troll was doing wandering around unchecked in a school of all places, but the general uselessness of the question had him dismissing it quickly from his mind. He'd worry about it later, when the troll was dead and he was safe.
He quickly reviewed what he knew about trolls. Their strengths were their enormous physical strength and size. They were deceptively quick despite being generally lumbering creatures. Their olfactory sense was extraordinary whilst their vision was quite poor. They also had skin that resisted most magic that contacted it, meaning that Harry's admittedly dismal defense repertoire was virtually useless in any traditional application. Their greatest weakness was their very low intelligence. They were capable of only very basic speech in a language comprised more of grunts and growls than anything.
So, Harry would have to outwit the thing. Running wasn't going to work. Evading it through small passages was going to be a last resort as he wasn't sure he could make it to any of them in time. Attacking it directly would be pointless as nothing that he could cast would have an impact.
The troll was getting distressingly close now, and Granger was still standing there despite Harry's steady retreat. Unwilling to get blamed for her death without at least making a show of trying to save her, he barked out a quick Cheering Charm and flicked it at her back.
It was almost comical the way that her posture instantly relaxed only to tense again an instant later. It did the trick though, and she responded when he snapped, "Run, damnit!"
She backpedaled rapidly several steps, then turned and sprinted right passed him.
Harry didn't have any time to appreciate her finally listening because the troll responded to its prey fleeing. It took a lunging step forward and the club swung toward Harry as Granger was already out of immediate range. His overdeveloped survival instinct took over and he threw himself back far enough to avoid a messy death, the cold, rank gust of air that slapped into him and the floor-cracking impact were enough to drive home just exactly how dead he'd have been had he been hit.
A second later, he was dodging again. Fuck, that thing was fast. His mind flew as he ducked and dove and rolled, fighting for each additional second of life. He knew that he couldn't go on like this. He'd learned to move like a snake to avoid Dudley and his gang or at least minimize the damage they did him. He'd learned to roll with Vernon's blows, which had greatly decreased the number of broken bones he suffered. Unfortunately, this troll was on a completely different realm of danger. It would take only a glancing hit from that club to kill him.
The club! Of course! Trolls were extremely magically resistant, particularly to Light magic, given they were Dark creatures. Its weapon, however, was nothing more than a branch of wood – or likely tree trunk – and was completely susceptible to his admittedly miniscule repertoire of spells. One good part about only knowing a couple handfuls of spells was that it was a swift process to mentally go through them and choose the best.
One more too-close-for-comfort call and his wand snapped up just as the troll was lifting the club for another swing.
Diffindo was a spell they had learned in Charms the first week. It was a slicing charm they'd learned to cut parchment from the roll to the desired length. What they hadn't learned in class, but Harry had picked up through his study into Magesense, was that how much power was put into a spell mattered. Thus far, in classes, they hadn't touched on that, merely casting the spells generically. Harry had found that casting the spells for class was easier if he tried to use less magic – only just as much as was necessary to achieve the desired effect. Most of the time, he hardly even felt the magic move through him. So, if an almost non-existent application of magic could cut through parchment, it stood to reason that he could do a lot more if he tried a lot harder.
With that in mind, he put as much magic as possible into the spell, almost shouting the incantation in his desperation. To his slight surprise, the cut was so swift and efficient that the club didn't even come apart until the troll made to swing forward, at which point the large part of the club simply tumbled to the floor behind the beast.
The troll grunted in surprise when the weight suddenly disappeared from its hand and turned stupid, beady eyes down as it opened its hand, trying to figure out why it was now only holding the "handle" of the weapon.
Harry didn't wait around to see how long it would take it to figure out what was going on. The moment it turned its attention away, Harry turned and sprinted toward the nearest passage that would be small enough to prevent the troll following him.
He had only a moment to think he'd escape before he heard the troll begin to give chase, and he wasn't sure if he'd gotten enough of a head start to make his destination.
For one brief moment, he thought he'd made it. He took a single step into the narrow hall of an ordinary secret passage when he felt an immense weight slam into his side and then wrap around his torso.
Panic screamed through his mind as he comprehended the fact that he was inside the troll's fist. He was one squeeze away from being a red stain on the floor. By some miracle, the troll didn't squeeze, but instead lifted him toward its face as though to examine him more closely – or perhaps to take a bite of him – he didn't wait to find out. His arms were pinned to his sides, but his hand clutching his wand protruded freely next to his thigh. The range of movement was terrible, but his desperation was exceptional as he cast the spell they'd learned in Charms that very day. Ironically, it was the very spell that had brought him here as a result of Ron and Granger quarrelling over the lesson. He couldn't get a full breath, but he wheezed out the incantation as exactly as he could manage.
If he'd been able to spare enough brain power to consider it rationally, he'd not have expected it to work. For all his obsessive studying, he was not that skilled with magic. Oh, with enough concentration and practice he could manage as well as anyone, but it most definitely didn't come easily and this was certainly not an award-winning performance. He didn't have time to think about it though, and it did work.
He wheezed, "Wingardium Leviosa," and a half-arsed swish and flick below the troll's restraining fist. The world was becoming distressingly fuzzy around the edges. His head was pounding in time with his heart, rendering him deaf apart from the rushing of his blood.
A sudden moisture on his face and a sharp pain in his shoulder were his only warning before the grip around him loosened. He tumbled to the floor, barely able to comprehend the fact that he was free before a great weight landed on his leg and his ankle screamed with pain.
Harry hissed a wordless gasp at the new injuries while his head began to clear as he sucked in sweet, fresh air. The troll appeared to be dead, he noted dispassionately, more than a bit surprised that his desperate spell had actually worked. He'd levitated a pike from a suit of armor right into the troll's back, aimed vaguely toward the heart. Happily, it appeared that trolls had their heart in roughly the same place as a human. He'd put a lot of power behind that spell, too. He knew that that spell wasn't actually supposed to be able to move something quite so fast.
A little too much power, he surmised as an attempt at sitting up reminded him about the pain in his shoulder. He was bleeding. The pike had gone all the way through the troll and hit him, though he didn't think it was too deep. He was more concerned about his ankle, which was trapped under the troll's arm. He was pretty sure that it was broken. He pulled at it a bit to try to free it and cringed at the lance of pain that leapt up his leg. Yep. Broken.
It took a few moments of staring at the place the troll was on top of him before the entire incident began to properly sink in. He'd just been attacked by a fully grown mountain troll right in the middle of a Hogwarts corridor. Hogwarts, a school touted in Hogwarts: A History as the most secure building in Britain. More secure, even, than the Ministry of Magic. That could only mean that either the reputation was all hype – like it being the best school of magic when they couldn't even employ a living History professor or keep a decent set of school brooms – or someone had deliberately let the thing into the school. Someone with enough access to the wards to make it possible.
Honestly, he didn't know which was more likely.
Before his paranoia could start with a list of suspects, a small herd of teachers came barreling into the corridor with Granger slinking along in their shadow.
McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell. Two of which would have been on his list of suspects. Quirrell was at the top, though. Anyone who would illegally invade the mind of a student on a daily basis was unlikely to have a problem with endangering their lives. Snape actually seemed to care about his students' survival. Harry honestly couldn't say if Snape would care if he lived or died, but letting in a troll endangered more students than just him. There was, of course, the chance that the troll had nothing to do with him and he'd just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he preferred to focus on worst case scenarios first. That way, if he was wrong, he'd be pleasantly surprised.
"Mr. Potter!" McGonagall gasped, looking somewhere between concerned and annoyed. "Are you all right?"
Harry took a moment to remind himself to stay in character despite the fact that he had a dead troll lying on top of him, and gave his Head of House a shaky smile. "Good evening, Professors." He then looked passed his teachers to his fellow student and adopted a look of concern that was completely fabricated. "Are you okay, Hermione?"
He considered it a success when every one of them gaped at him. Even Snape, though he managed to look furious at the same time.
Severus stared at the infuriating conundrum of a Potter with a vexing combination of rage and effusive relief. When Granger had shown up stuttering about a troll and Potter, shaking head to toe with a complexion to rival one of the ghosts, he was sure his heart had stopped for a moment. Vivid images of Lily's son a broken, lifeless mess had flashed before his eyes and he'd set off toward the sudden commotion, hardly even aware of his fellow professors flanking him or Granger yet trailing along behind.
The continuing crashes, grunts, and roars had spurred him on, culminating in a final, very loud crash just seconds before he rounded the final corner. When he saw the tiny, bloodied form lying partially beneath the troll, there was a moment in which he'd been certain that his worst fears were confirmed. Then the boy had lifted himself up onto his elbow and greeted them like nothing was wrong, expressing fear for Granger, of all people, when he was so obviously wounded.
Paradoxically, Severus wanted nothing more in that moment than to kill the little menace for frightening him so badly.
"Mr. Potter, are you all right?" Minerva gasped into the stunned silence following the boy's idiotic question.
"I think I could do with a trip to the infirmary, Professor," the boy said after a brief pause.
Potter glanced down toward his bleeding shoulder with a faint frown, and Severus felt his first stirrings of unease. That level of calm given the situation was absurd in a child his age. He'd almost attribute it to shock if not for the fact that the boy had demonstrated a similar imperturbable countenance despite Severus' concerted efforts to cause some sort of emotional response. The lack of reaction to such an injury was concerning on more than one level. No matter how much Severus detested the boy – justifiably given the boy's deliberate defiance in his class – no child should respond to pain that way. It was possible that he had a physical condition that prevented him from feeling pain, but given his lack of reaction to fighting a troll, Severus was betting there was more to it than an insensitivity to pain.
Quirrell had stumbled his way to the wall and promptly slid down to the floor, staring at the troll like it might get up and attack him despite the growing pool of blood and still chest that made that extremely unlikely. Severus sent the fool a sneer. He didn't believe that act for a moment. He was convinced that Quirrell had been the one to let the troll into the school and he was very sure that it hadn't been an accident. He'd caught the cretin very close to the third floor corridor before Minerva had recruited their help in searching the upper corridors.
Minerva finally lifted her wand and levitated the troll off Potter's leg. The boy sucked in a sharp breath and his lips went white, but he gave no more reaction to the obvious pain. Once the troll was settled safely away from the brat, Minerva hurried over to him and conjured a stretcher.
"My ankle is broken," Potter said quietly when Minerva turned her wand on him to levitate him onto the stretcher.
Minerva just nodded and took extra care to avoid jostling him.
Severus found it interesting that the boy had said with such surety that it was a break. He'd obviously had broken bones before to be so certain that that was the case now.
When Minerva instructed Quirinus to take care of the troll, Severus sent him a poisonous glare and followed her toward the infirmary. He was sure that Quirrell wouldn't make another try for the Stone tonight. He'd share his suspicions with Albus again tonight but he had little hope that the old man would take them any more seriously now than he had two months ago. Severus couldn't help but wonder if someone would actually have to die before Albus would pay attention. The old fool was so busy being certain that he was always right that he wouldn't consider any other possibility.
In the hospital wing, Severus and Minerva quickly found themselves relegated to waiting at a reasonable distance while Poppy saw to her patient. Minerva was pacing agitatedly, muttering under her breath what seemed to be a series of complaints against the intelligence of Potter, Albus, herself, and anyone else who may have in any way contributed to the current situation. The mutterings were spread liberally with expletives.
Severus, beside taking some amusement from Minerva, spent most of the time watching Potter. He was now more certain than ever that there was something wrong with that boy – not that Albus would listen to his concerns about that either. The boy reacted to danger and pain far too casually. Over the last decade, Severus had seen all manner of child come through Hogwarts. Most of them tended to be weak, naïve, selfish little cretins, convinced by a lifetime of holding their mummy's hand that all things Dark and Dangerous were either fiction or at least far removed – never something that would bother them. Pureblood, halfbloods, or muggleborn made no difference in that regard.
There were some – distressingly few – who had managed to grasp some concept of the real world prior to arriving at Hogwarts. They were generally mildly more tolerable, though Severus had found precious few first years with whom he would willingly spend time.
And then there were those who came to Hogwarts completely devoid of any manner of rose colored glasses. Those who had already sampled the worst of humanity and lived to tell the tale.
As much as he hated – loathed – to admit it, Potter fit into the last category. He was sure of it now as he watched Poppy cast a spell to check for an insensitively to pain, having obviously noticed what he had. No, the boy's ability to sense pain was normal. It was his ability to cope with it that was abnormal, and that only came with experience. A few more quick diagnostics that the boy wouldn't understand and Minerva was too distracted to notice proved that Potter had no medical conditions that could explain his experience with pain.
Poppy glanced over her shoulder and her eyes met his. Yes, she'd come to the same conclusion. Once upon a time, it had been Severus in that bed enduring a similar set of diagnostics. It hadn't been until his third year that he'd been hurt badly enough for her to notice – Potter and Black, of course.
Albus strolled his way into the infirmary just as Poppy was turning back to her patient. "How is he, Poppy?" he asked directly despite knowing how the woman hated to be interrupted while she was working.
"A puncture wound in his shoulder and a broken ankle. I've already healed the wound. The break in the ankle was not clean. I can mend it, but he'll require a small dose of Skelegrow. Also, given the troll blood on the spear that pierced his shoulder, he will need a blood surfactant. He'll certainly spend the night here, but if there are no problems, he'll be able to leave for breakfast in the morning. Now, if you don't mind, Headmaster, perhaps you will allow me to tend to my patient," she bit out irritably without once actually looking at him.
"Of course, Poppy," Albus smiled, his eyes twinkling brightly, as ever appearing completely oblivious to the fact that anyone may find him an infuriating, inferring old codger who'd do better to mind his own ruddy business.
Severus turned his eyes back to the boy only to find the boy staring back at him with those cold green eyes. They were almost a mockery of Lily's eyes, to be so similar and yet so very wrong. He sneered at the brat though it may have had slightly less venom than usual. The fact that Potter had very likely been abused by his muggle relatives did not make him any less detestable, but Severus wasn't quite up to his usual level of loathing at the moment.
Harry had read, briefly, about healing magic, but he hadn't fully comprehended just how amazing it really was until it was used on him. Seconds after being placed before Madam Pomfrey, Harry's pain was entirely gone with what he could only guess was a numbing spell. He couldn't keep up with the spells she was casting or the array of strange words and runes that floated over his bed for a few seconds so that the mediwitch could read them before flicking her wand and sending them to settle onto a blank parchment sitting on the side table. In between those spells, she did some that healed his shoulder with only the smallest scar to remember the incident by and he suspected healed his broken ankle as well.
His thoughts were confirmed when Madam Pomfrey explained Harry's condition and her prognosis to Dumbledore, who just breezed in as though he was out for a casual stroll and inquired about Harry's medical information. Harry made a mental note to do some research into exactly how much authority Dumbledore had over Harry as a student. If it was too much, he'd seriously look into options for transferring schools or even dropping out. He'd do his best to teach himself before he'd give Dumbledore too much power over him. Thinking of that, he really should look into what legal rights he did or did not have as a minor without magical guardians.
"Poppy, do you think I might borrow a few minutes of your patient's time before he goes to sleep?" Dumbledore asked in that overly good-natured way that he had.
Madam Pomfrey didn't look happy about it, but she clearly saw the genial request as a demand as she acquiesced with little more than a look of protest. "Ten minutes, Headmaster. No more. The boy has been through enough for one night. He needs rest, not interrogations."
Dumbledore did a remarkable job of looking taken aback by her insinuation. "There will be no interrogations, my dear," he laughed at the absurdity of it. "I merely wish to speak to the boy."
"Of course," Madam Pomfrey smiled back in what Harry suspected was a parody of the old man's manner. It made him like her a bit. "Ten minutes," she added in a tone that was not at all pleasant.
Harry watched with trepidation as the professors took Granger out and the mediwitch left him alone with one of the most powerful wizards of the time – a man whose dubious attentions had hurt Harry on many levels so far. He did not feel ready for this.
"Harry, my boy," Dumbledore smiled warmly as he settled into a gaudy purple armchair he'd casually conjured. "I've been meaning to talk to you. Though this is not the ideal circumstance, I'm glad that we've finally got the chance."
Harry twitched slightly at the familiar address and forced himself not to squirm as the old man went on. "You've wanted to talk to me?" Harry asked warily. "I haven't done anything wrong, have I, Headmaster?"
"Oh, not to my knowledge, Harry," Dumbledore chuckled jovially. That incessant good cheer was proving to be even more annoying up close than at a distance. "Is there anything you'd like to tell me about?" he asked with a twinkle in his true blue eyes as he tilted his head down to get a better look at Harry over his half-moon spectacles.
"No, sir," Harry assured with a weak smile, trying to keep in mind how the Boy-Who-Lived would react to this situation, but it was hard when he was coming down off the adrenaline of a near-death experience. All he wanted to do was curl up in a ball with Rhast and sleep. When he glanced up at the headmaster again, the twinkle in his eyes had dimmed.
"I imagine you're tired," he almost sighed and Harry spared a moment of paranoia to wonder if the man was somehow reading his mind without him knowing it, but he quickly pushed that thought away, certain that he would feel something, particularly since he'd been honing his Magesense recently. "Well, I imagine Madam Pomfrey will be returning to oust me from her domain soon enough," he chuckled, "so I suppose we should get to it."
Harry did his best not to gulp at the ominous nature of that statement. He turned his face down to help hide his expression, but watched the old man through his lashes, unable to completely look away from the man he considered to be, at the moment, his most dangerous enemy.
"Can you tell me what happened tonight, Harry? Why weren't you at the feast?"
Harry forced his shoulders to loosen slightly. Of course, the man wanted to know about what happened with the troll. It was his school and students had almost died tonight. He'd have to ask questions. Harry told his paranoia to settle down and cleared his throat before speaking. "I heard that Hermione was in the bathroom crying because of something Ron said about her this morning. She'd already missed lunch and some classes, so I thought I should go and see if she was okay. See if I could talk her into coming to the feast. I found her and she did agree to come with me."
"That was very nice of you, Harry," Dumbledore smiled warmly.
Harry just shrugged self-consciously. Acting uncomfortable about receiving praise for his good deeds was something that he was confident he'd gotten down. "We were on our way there when we ran into the troll. We smelled it first," Harry carried on with his explanation, "but then it was right there before we could even realize what was causing it. And, ah… Hermione just froze when we saw it. I yelled at her, but she wouldn't move, so I cast a cheering charm on her, and that kind of snapped her out of it. I told her to run and she did then, but when she started running, then the troll started attacking me."
"Why didn't you run as well, my boy?" Dumbledore interrupted, looking terribly concerned. Harry didn't buy it for a second.
"There was no way I could outrun it," Harry assured him. "As soon as I turned around, it would have had me."
"It was very brave of you to protect Miss Granger like that, Harry," Dumbledore told him as though Harry wasn't aware.
Harry prevented himself from saying something scathing and sarcastic in response to that inane pseudo compliment. "Didn't seem like there was anything else I could do," he admitted, again pretending to be uncomfortable with the praise like any proper hero. He wasn't even lying. Though he'd considered running and leaving Hermione to the troll, he'd ruled out that possibility. Though considering how close he'd come to dying, he made a mental note to have a long talk with himself about self-preservation once he was alone. His image wouldn't do him any good if he was dead.
"Anyway, there wasn't much time to think after that. It kept swinging its club at me and I kept moving out of the way. I'd read about trolls before and I knew that none of my spells would even penetrate its skin, so I didn't bother wasting time with that. Then I realized that there wasn't anything to stop my spell from working on its club, so I cast a diffindo at it and it cut the club apart."
"A diffindo?" Dumbledore smiled, obviously amused at the application of the simple slicing charm. "Very good, Harry, very good."
Harry fought down his irritation again. Why did the old man seem to think that Harry needed affirmation that he'd done well every few seconds? It was like he was… Oh. Of course. The old coot was trying to manipulate him. Congratulating him at every turn for doing what he had to do to survive. Trying to make Harry feel like the whole situation had been a wonderful adventure rather than a horrific nightmare that he never should have had to suffer in a school where he was supposed to be safe.
"The troll got distracted when its club came apart," Harry went on, his tone slightly more curt, though he tried to pretend like he didn't realize what the old bastard was doing. "So I took the opportunity to try to run away, but it caught me right before I could get into a passage that was too small for it. It wrapped its fist around me and lifted me up. I don't know what it was going to do after that, but I didn't think I'd survive it, so I used a wingardium leviosa to levitate a spear that I could see behind it and I stabbed it. I think I used a little too much power because the spear went all the way through and got me, too.
"Then it fell down and the professors showed up. Sir," he pressed on before Dumbledore could interrupt with more inane praise, "why was there a troll in the school? It says in Hogwarts: A History that the wards around this school are the best in Britain, so how did it get in?"
He took quiet pleasure in the fact that Dumbledore looked like he really didn't want to answer that question. "I don't know, my boy," he settled on. Harry gave a moment of thought to reciprocating the old man's familiarity by calling him Albus or something but he decided that he wasn't quite ready to be that aggressive with a wizard that held much more power than him at the moment. "I promise you that I will be investigating that very question. For now, we must simply be grateful that no one was seriously hurt. Thanks to you. In fact, I'm going to see to it that you receive an award for special services to the school for saving your classmate and for stopping the troll before anyone else could be harmed."
Making me a hero rather than a victim, Harry concluded silently. He didn't complain though. It would actually work fantastically toward his image. He could try to use this incident to make Dumbledore look bad if he went to the press or something and tried to make himself out to be the unfortunate victim of Dumbledore's failure to protect his students, but he was not ready to take the old man on just yet. No doubt with him being as loved and respected as he was, Dumbledore would brush the whole thing off with minimal damage and possibly even make Harry look whiny or something in the process. No, Harry would play along for now, but he was definitely going to keep this incident in mind if he needed ammunition against the old man later.
He needed to know a lot more about the wizarding world and its laws and customs before he would be ready to try to take on Dumbledore.
So, instead of pressing the issue, Harry just offered a shaky smile that he hoped looked overwhelmed with gratitude. He didn't think it should be too hard considering that he was already halfway there, feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything.
"Albus." Poppy's rather annoyed voice broke up the moment and Harry tried to prevent himself from sagging with relief that she was there to chase the headmaster away. "That was a very generous ten minutes."
"Of course, Poppy," Dumbledore said with a smile and a conspiratorial wink toward Harry as he stood. "I was just about to leave. Harry, thank you for your time, my boy. I'll leave you to get some rest."
With a final, mysterious smile, the headmaster took his leave.
Harry felt shaky with relief when he was alone with the mediwitch. That conversation had been almost as bad as facing the troll. He may not have been facing his death, but he didn't doubt that Dumbledore would make his life hell if Harry let him. He'd already done it once, after all.
He accepted a pair of potions from Madam Pomfrey and read the labels. Skelegrow, he knew, was for his leg. She'd mentioned it earlier.
"Just one teaspoon of that," she said as she handed him a spoon and reclaimed the bottle. He held it while she poured it out and then grimaced and tried not to gag as he took the spoonful of foul liquid down his throat.
Madam Pomfrey reclaimed the spoon while Harry was inspecting the second bottle. It was the blood surfactant she'd mentioned.
"How does this work?" he asked quietly, partly because he was curious and partly because he needed the distraction from his spiraling thoughts of the threat the headmaster posed to him.
She smiled faintly, "It bonds to any taint of troll blood in your system and neutralizes it."
"What would happen if I didn't have it?" Harry wondered, now more genuinely curious. This kind of danger was one he hadn't even considered.
"I don't think you got that much in your system, so you would most likely be very sick for a few days to a week with vomiting and high fever while your body purged the contaminant."
"But if it had been more it could have even been deadly," Harry gathered.
She nodded briskly, "Yes, Mr. Potter. That holds true for most creature blood, as a matter of fact. Now, drink down that whole bottle."
Harry made a mental note to research that when he had time. Sadly, it wasn't particularly high on his list. With a deep breath, Harry swallowed down another noxious concoction, though happily this one wasn't quite as bad as the Skelegrow. That stuff was seven kinds of foul.
"And one more," she said with an undertone of approval, probably for his lack of complaining.
Harry read the label and frowned at the mediwitch, "A sleeping potion?"
"You've had quite an ordeal, Mr. Potter-"
"And I'm really tired out, Madam Pomfrey. I'm sure I'll sleep fine."
She narrowed her eyes at him and for a moment he thought she was going to insist, but she finally just sighed and accepted the bottle back with a shake of her head. "It's eerie how much you remind me of another student who frequented my care once upon a time," she muttered.
"Who?" Harry asked curiously.
She just gave him a somewhat exasperated look and shook her head, "Get to sleep, Mr. Potter, or we'll discuss the sleeping potion again." She seemed to know that that would be an effective threat because she didn't wait for his reply as she left him, dimming the lights as she headed toward her office.
Harry shuddered slightly at the thought of being drugged unconscious in the middle of an open ward where absolutely anyone in the school could walk in at any time and find him completely helpless. He snuggled down in his blankets and hoped that he'd be able to sleep without Rhast. It would be his first time sleeping without his friend since he was six years old.
His exhaustion proved superior to his unease and drifted into a troubled sleep, only waking twice during the night when he was afraid he'd heard something, but a look around proved that he was still alone. His inability to sense anyone or anything with his Magesense was even more reassuring as he drifted off again. Nevertheless, he promised himself to learn a proper revealing spell as soon as possible.
Author's Note: Okay. Bad news. I'm all out of finished chapters on this one. That does not mean that I'm putting it on hiatus or anything! It does mean that I might start updating once every other week instead though, especially if I'm going to keep the chapter length anywhere close to where it has been. I almost ended this chapter immediately after the demise of the troll, but I felt like there were too many loose ends surrounding the incident and I wanted to get them out of the way. Which is why y'all got a nearly 11,000 word chapter.
Please excuse any typos. I wrote the last scene in Harry's POV just now and only gave it one quick edit. If I find mistakes later, I'll fix 'em and update at some point.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please leave a review on your way out. Just a word or two, or even a smiley face is accepted as valid review currency. Help to sustain my muse and she'll help to keep you entertained. *bats eyelashes hopefully*