Madam Pomphrey had held Draco in a hospital bed for half a week, the arrow had flown straight through his bones and left burned tissue all the way through that had luckily prevented any serious blood loss. But he'd still walked with a constant expression of pain and agony on his face for two days straight.
A pained expression that would only stop at the Halloween breakfast, when an owl carrying a large cylindrical package had arrived at the Slytherin table. After clumsily tearing of the wrapping and bragging to all his friends about how it had to be the broomstick he'd tried to nag his father into getting him, he'd only been further humiliated when the paper fell off to reveal an ornate cane.
Harry had been kind of distracted in his charms class, his first feather had levitated towards the ceiling with such force that it had quickly found itself flying into the chandelier and burned itself on a candle. Given a spare feather he'd spent a little while learning how to tone down his spells to a more manageable effect, before Flitwick had told him he could use the leftover time in class to read a book or something.
Which was what he'd been doing, he'd grabbed his bookbag and had been about a quarter through a well-worn collection of Purana, when he'd gotten distracted by an anecdote told by Flitwick about the dangers of mispronouncing a spell and the dire effects thereof.
Which had sparked his current train of thought, and obsessive study.
The Bhagavatam, and the brothers Kumbhakarna and Ravana. The latter of whom was described as a "demon king" who'd sought to overthrow the gods. Was it possible that those 9 siblings, where his siblings as well?
This train of thought was quickly ended when he had to attend his next class. Only to find Hermione missing, when ten minutes passed without her presence he grew worried, "Miss McGonigal, May I use the restroom?"
He'd quickly excused himself and after leaving the classroom sent out his hounds to track her down, before returning into the classroom.
Hermione was crying in the bathroom stall when she heard a scratching sound at the door, carefully opening it she immediately found herself on her behind. Assaulted by a black blur that forced her on the ground. Shocked she threw her assailant off her blindly, only to be overcome with horror when she recognised her assailant.
It was a black furred dog, one of the groundskeeper's many pets. She hoped she hadn't hurt it too much.
As the black Labrador rose from where it landed and calmly approached her, nuzzling her leg as if to comfort her, she saw a pendant hanging from its neck. "Laelaps?"
An excited bark and wagging tail answered her.
"So what are you doing here inside? Shouldn't you be outside with your master?"
A nuzzle and whine, followed by a tongue licking at her tear-stained face.
And that was how Hermione found herself curled up with a black Labrador, facing off a giant troll.
Ron was sitting in the great table on his own, the know-it-all had failed to show up for dinner. Which meant Harry had quickly taken it upon himself to pack up some meat, potatoes and a pumpkin-flavoured pastry in a brown paper bag, and left the great hall as soon as he'd finished his own meal.
So when Quirrell came barging in babbling about a troll in the dungeon, he'd snuck away from his fellow Gryffindors to warn his best friend and Granger about the dangerous beast.
Running through corridors left and right, almost getting caught by Snape he'd been come rushing towards a loud crash of wood followed by a growling noise and a girlish scream.
Turning a corner in a hurry, he saw Hermione standing behind an attacking troll, a black blur leaping at the beast's club as Harry turned into a giant swan and flew on top of the troll before turning into a pale silver-white bear, using his massive weight to pull the lumbering creature down onto the floor.
"Hermione, Run now while Harry's holding it down!" Ron screamed, seconds before realising that he'd even opened his mouth.
Hermione quickly ran past the lumbering hulk, followed at the heel by a large dog carrying a wooden club. Just in time to avoid the troll as it rose back up, and the silver ursine charged it into and through the walls of the school, the both of them falling down the outside of the girl's bathroom.
"HARRY!" they both turned, worrying about their friend who was currently falling down alongside the lumbering beast. Ron brandished his wand towards the silver blur currently in freefall "Wingardium Leviosa", the spell didn't seem to work though, Harry continued his descent towards the grassy fields.
Until he transformed, again, revealing yet a FOURTH animagus form? Wings, beak and hooves revealing themselves out of the formerly silver shape.
Weren't people only supposed to have one of those? And now that Ron though about it, weren't they supposed to be normal, muggle animals, not magical creatures like a merlin-be-darned griffin?
Because that was what was flying outside, an actual Griffin. Charging hooves out towards the lumbering troll, which reached out with it's giant palm and grabbed it by the hooves, lurching it in through the air, swinging side to side like one of those muggle musical time-pieces his dad had brought in from work once. He thought they were called "metro-gnomes", though he didn't know what a swinging stick had to do with the gnomes in his mom's yard.
A cracking sound reverbed through the plain as their friends griffin-shape collided head first with a stray rock, it's neck bent at an unnatural angle. Hermione and the dog running towards the hole, leaping out in an attempt to save their saviour.
And they were falling, the girl and the dog. And unlike Harry they probably couldn't fly.
So Ron once again brandished his wand, "Wingardium leviosa", Hoping against hope that this time he'd pronounced the spell correctly.
Harry was in pain, the Griffin might've been the wrong choice for this fight. It's strength had always lain in its speed agility and aerial manoeuvrability, not in defence like the boar or bear. And he was currently paying the price for it. His four knees hurt, bent at seemingly impossible angles and his right wing was crushed beneath the weight of his own body.
But he'd endure, he'd just have to take on a new form and he could survive easily, but the figure he saw over the Troll's shoulder had no such abilities. Hermione and Laelaps were currently jumping out the hole his ursine shape had left in the Hogwarts masonry, and descending towards the floor with NOTHING Harry was going to be able to do about it.
He could already see it happen in his minds eye, the girl he'd fought to protect pancaking against the grass leaving nothing but a blood-stained body on the ground. Powerless to do anything to stop her fall towards the ground, the distance between her and him to great and the time it took for him to transform too significant to reach her in time.
Wait? When did Ron get here? Hadn't he been at the feast with the rest of the school?
Well Harry wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, if Ron managed to slow down Hermione's descent then he might be able to reach her in time.
So he turned into a golden stag, agile and quickly and around the lumbering troll hoping to reach his friend in time springing steps charging across the grassy plain and reaching her just in time to catch her on his back.
Carefully he returned to human form, and put Hermione on the floor before turning into his largest form. At its biggest the Caledonian boar could grow larger then Hogwarts itself, towering over its towers, But in doing so he'd cause needless collateral damage, a single footstep would cause tremors, topple trees and drop torches from their sconces inside the school, causing chaos and destruction reaching all the way out to Hogsmeade.
So he merely grew to match his foe, growing larger than the troll he faced and charging at it tusks ahead. The troll bracing itself for the charging beast, it's footing upset by the tremoring footfalls as it attempted to grapple it by the tusks to slow down its charge.
The charge stopped, leaving a 2 metre long track of feet braced in the mud before the boar stopped in its tracks achieving a stalemate between the two giant forces.
A stalemate broken by a torrent of blue fire in the troll's face as Hermione stood wand extended,
The burning flames scorched it's face, disrupting its concentration. Harry lurched his giant tusks upwards the troll flying skyward 10 metres into the grey sky before crashing down under gravity.
Right in the way for Harry's resuming charge, his left tusk lurching and tearing through sinew and flesh, impaling the troll right through the centre of its body.
Blood leaked over the tusk, the troll collapsed. Harry turned back into a human form, only to fall onto the ground tackled in an embrace by Hermione, Laelaps and Ron, who'd managed to find his way safely down during the preceding fight.
"Mate, That was amazing. When did you learn that? Why didn't you use that against Malfoy?"
And as the excitement of the rush of battle settled down in Harry, he couldn't help but wonder.
How was it that these two could see Laelaps, when Dumbledore hadn't been able to. It made sense for Hagrid to, his inhuman giant bloodline giving him a resistance to magic that might have inhibited the blindness somehow, it might've even been that his giant ancestor was itself a divinity that might've mitigated the curse.
But as far as he knew, no such factors were in play here.
So how come Hermione and Ron were both petting Laelaps?
If anyone wonders why it took so long for people to remark on Harry's animals, he doesn't usually summon them inside buildings because they prefer the open air, Hermione and Ron don't see them much, and the few times they've seen them with Harry, he's hanging around with Hagrid and they assumed they belonged to the groundskeeper.
It should be noticed that Hagrid, and other individuals of giant heritage. Have a significant degree of magical resistance, that allows them a certain degree of resistance to the curse of blindness. Which is why he's capable of seeing and interacting with Harry's familiars.
I know that the CANON troll would've died to the bear, but HP-trolls are kind of boring and I REALLY wanted to have a more interesting fight scene, if every fight ends up just "use authority, instant victory" it'd be so boring. So I made the troll a BIT more durable and a tiny bit more intelligent. Harry could've crushed it simply by STEPPING on it as the boar, but Harry believes in fair play and wont do that type of stuff unless absolutely necessary.
The Caledonian boar is VERRY similar to Godou's in that it's a motherflippin KAJIU at its full potential. It is just a bit more controllable.
I hope that last line came out right? It's meant to be a bit of a "guiding question", a key that might help answer questions on the nature of the blindness. And a lead on how to solve the problem's it poses. But I feel I might've mangled it a bit somehow.
Its been a real learning experience, this writing project. I've stopped writing this chapter half-way through because while doing research on one of the chosen antagonists, I just had this bout of inspiration and for a way in which I can integrate post-Hogwarts Harry into Campione a little, get him to influence the plot. So I had to take a long break to write out and research an additional god.
I keep realising that there's stuff that I should've thought of ahead of time, like for example: Book 3 involves timetravel, should I keep that? Should I plan ahead for that? Am I a good enough writer to handle timetravel without it becoming total BS?
So I ended up stopping this chapter half-way through writing, to pre-script the timeline to include timetravel, and re-read that timeline like a dozen times to be 100% certain I hadn't created a plothole in the timetravel.
Reviews are appreciated, though details are preferred.