Following Quirrell's absolutely award winning, not-at-all problematic acting and Dumbledore's near immediate "oh, let's send half the kids to their death!" announcement, Harry wasted no time in practically leaping to where Percy was beginning to corral the first years.

"Percy! Aren't the Hufflepuff and Slytherin dorms in the dungeon?" He yelled.

Percy blinked at him, then looked around to find both the Hufflepuff and Slytherin prefects looking decidedly confused and worried as they shepherded their houses into lines. "I... yes. Follow Mindy, okay?" He said, referring to his partner prefect before dashing off.

Harry itched to wait—he wanted to make sure everyone was out of danger—but at the end of the day there was little he could do that the professors couldn't. For all he knew the troll would pick a completely different random direction to wander off this time, and given the average troll's level of intelligence it wasn't a bad guess. Not only that, but he knew Hermione and the rest of those he could immediately recognize had been in the Great Hall.

He hesitated a moment more—he felt compelled to do something, though he had no idea what—when the professors began calling everybody back into the hall and Dumbledore's voice rang out again.

"My previous command was perhaps a bit premature, and students shall remain in the Great Hall until we return. I implore the prefects to do a head count and report any missing students to professor Vector, who will be staying behind, and the ghosts to scout out the entirety of the school to attempt to find any wandering students as well as the troll itself. You have my sincerest apologies for forcing you to get up from your delicious meals, and I assure you that you can get back to them at this time."

Well.

That was a better response than last time, and on top of that his question of what to do had been handily solved too.

He sat.

All the professor but Vector (who stood in the center of the hall and tried to restore order as much as was possible), Filch (who had grabbed up his cat and moved to the corner of the room furthest away from the doors and students) and professor Trelawny (who was screaming out about omens in the corner of the room and ignoring Filch' and Vector's glares), had gone in search of the troll, and that left little else to do.

Which was... good.

Really.

Its just that he wasn't quite used to sitting back and doing nothing when something had to be done.

Of course, every time he'd jumped in despite being told it wasn't his business it tended to end in a situation that was better off than if he'd done nothing. Sirius's death was really the sole exception to that, and even that was more due to the actions of Kreacher and Snape than him—he'd done what had historically been best given the information he was provided, and Sirius had died because Snape in particular couldn't be bothered to see Harry as anything other than a worthless carbon copy of his father.

Anyway, the point was that Harry was anxious.

Very anxious.

Very, very, very anxious.

"Would you stop jiggling your knee?" Hermione snapped from her seat across from him. "It's really annoying."

"Oh." Harry said. He looked down to find out that yes, in fact, his knee had been bumping up and down and even jarring the table a bit. "Sorry, it's just—I'm worried, you know. The troll and all that."

"That's all well and good," Hermione said, "but you really must think about people other than yourself. Your actions are making the rest of us more nervous too."

"Sorry." Harry repeated, unwilling to get into an argument for all that he felt her assessment of the situation was a bit unsympathetic.

"It's fine, Harry." Ron said. "We're all freaking out."

"Yeah." Joshua agreed. "Hermione's just being snitty."

Hermione huffed. "Well, you were making me more nervous, anyway."

"Leave off him!" Ron snapped.

"Mind your own business." Seamus added. "It's what the rest of us were doing."

"It's fine." Harry said. "I mean, Hermione wasn't being particularly nice about it, but I didn't even know my leg was jiggling—it wasn't any problem for me to stop it once I was told."

"She was still rude about it." Ron muttered.

Hermione looked nearly mutinous, now. "Telling others to follow common decency is never rude!"

"Common decency," Harry said, "would probably also include not making light of others' feelings—like you did mine—just as I stopped jiggling my knee as an acknowledgement that doing that made you more anxious."

Hermione opened her mouth to respond—how, Harry didn't know—but before she could Neville spoke up.

"I... I don't feel so good." He said, looking sickly-pale.

"You don't look so good either." Dean said. Lavender leaned across him and held the back of her hand against Neville's forehead.

"He's not hot, but he's really clammy."

"Which professor should we call over?" Seamus asked.

"Vector." They all replied as one. They'd never spoken to the Arithmancy teacher, of course, but then Filch was Filch and everyone knew Professor Trelawny's reputation, so that really only left on option.

"I'll get her." Joshua said, climbing over the bench to get to the Great Hall doors where Professor Vector and Filch were talking.

"Do you want to put your head down?" Hermione said, her anger forgotten. "I think that's supposed to help."

"Can't hurt." Harry said. "Here, drink something first though."

Neville gratefully accepted the glass of water, then put his head down as recommended. As he did so Joshua and Professor Vector began making their way over.

"—probably just nerves," the Professor was saying, "but you were right to get me anyway, in case it's something more serious."

Then she caught sight of Neville.

"...or not. Neville, are you okay?"

They were beginning to draw attention, now. People were looking at them and snickering, snickering like they had when Draco had made fun of him for fainting following his first (and second) meeting with the dementors.

He had to stop this, had to do something to make sure what happened to him didn't happen to Neville or any other child, any other person too young to easily cope with the humiliation, and anger, and hopelessness of the kind of bullying he had been exposed to.

"I don't think it's just the troll." Harry told her, making sure to have his voice carry more than he usually bothered with. "I mean, he was worried but fine just a few minutes ago."

Professor Vector frowned. "Do any of you have some parchment? I need to contact Healer Pomphrey."

"Here." Percy said, handing a piece of parchment over to her. She quickly conjured a quill and some ink and scratched out a note, after which she sent a spell at one of the windows to open it and sent the newly created paper airplane through.

"Keep your head down, okay Neville? Healer Pomphrey will be here soon. What other symptoms do you have?" She asked.

"...stomachache." Neville forced out. "Getting worse."

The Professor muttered something under her breath, but Harry couldn't hear what.

"Alright, well, just stay calm, okay?" She said. It was clear to all that she was worried, and the looks of those around them had finally changed from mildly amused to anxious.

"Professor! Professor!" Someone shouted from the Hufflepuff table. She shot up, turning to a group of girls crowded around a sickly looking third year, but before she could even take a step in the right direction someone else shouted for her from the Ravenclaw table, then Slytherin, then a Gryffindor girl leapt out of her chair to curl in a ball on the floor.

Professor Vector looked around wildly, seeming to be about as lost as Harry felt.

"Okay," she said, "if you are next to someone who is sick I want you to raise your hands."

Nearly everyone's hands rose. Those that didn't, after a few seconds, began to rise in small clusters too.

This time Professor Vector didn't even bother lowering her voice—instead she cursed audibly.

Then the Great Hall doors banged open.

"We have successfully—" Dumbledore started.

Then he paused.

"Oh dear."

Seconds later Healer Pomphrey was shoving her way through the newly arrived cluster of professors, shouting as she did so. "Make way! Make way! Get out of my way!"

Professor Vector snapped to attention. "We've got dozens of kids sick already. I don't think it's just nervousness from the troll. Neville here's the first one to get sick—he has a stomachache."

Healer Pomphrey wasted no time in all but attacking Neville with spells, one after the other flashing out of her wand as weird symbols began to appear above the queasy boy.

"Get him to my office, now. Every other sick child too. And you, Headmaster." She whipped around, staring at the man with two gimlet eyes. "I told you this would happen. I'll be taking no instructions from you, sir, until you personally apologize to me and to every other child who you've needlessly endangered. Get me some help from St. Mungo's immediately."

Shooting Neville with one last spell—levitation, it seemed—she marched out of the Hall, a pale looking Neville floating quietly behind.

As one, the entire room turned to the Headmaster.

"I think," he said, "it is time for all of you to get some rest after this most wearying day. If you are feeling ill then you should, of course, make your way to our lovely Healer's office. If not I hope to see you bright and early for classes tomorrow. Dismissed."

Harry frowned, then clenched his fists as around him the other students, however reluctant, began to follow the man's instructions and blatantly ignore the comments made by Pomphrey.

What was wrong with this world? That—that—that wasn't something you just ignored! It was something you poked and prodded and picked at until Dumbledore finally admitted what he had done wrong. It was something that you personally determined whether or not you were okay with, whether or not it was forgiveable, and what should be done about it going forward.

This wasn't even rug-sweeping! This was just plain ignoring, refusing to acknowledge what had happened—what had happened—before everyone's very eyes.

He grit his teeth, trying to think of what to do as Seamus and Joshua yanked him from the table and forced him in line with them, apparently getting the message that he wasn't entirely in the mood to chat.

But what could he do?

Unlike with the troll, where he could sit back because other people were on it and could do it much more safely than he, this time it was clear that no one else (at least in the immediate) was going to bother, and if he tried to make trouble about it he really couldn't see any good way it would end.

But it wasn't exactly like there was anything else—

Harry's hands unclenched.

Oh.

Well, you know what they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and Harry had just the enemy in mind.

Harry grinned. It was always nice to have a plan.

Troll! Troll in the Dungeons! Goal Completed (keep the troll from endangering anyone) (750 XP awarded)

You have leveled up!

Congratulations, you are now level 19.25.

That was nice too.