Nearly back on track with updates and next chapter is actually going to be early, for once. Yay us!

This was a fun one to write for us and we hope that you enjoy it as much as we did. The Hufflepuff Hooligans versus a cocking great troll. I wonder who's going to win?

Big love to the mighty Tenzo51 without whom this story wouldn't have even happened, let alone be anywhere near as good as it is. Co-conspirator and Beta extroadinaire.

Another reading recommendation for you lovely people today (I'm thinking of making this a regular thing now). Normally I would push you towards something fun but woefully under-supported but this one is pretty well known anyway.

Iris Potter and the Goblet's Surprise by Autumn Souls. - If you like snarky, fun and powerful femHarry then this fic is a 'must read' and one of my personal favourites. Quite a serious piece for all that but really, really good.

I'm not JKR and I don't make any money from this. Which is a bit of a shame.

DtR xx.

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The Excellent Adventure of a Wolf, a Loony and a Very Bored Heroine.

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9. Troll Bait.

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Shelley Potter had an odd relationship with the festival of Halloween.

On the one hand it was the day when she had been orphaned, her birth parents being murdered by the violent egomaniac and all around Dark wizard, Lord Voldemort. On the other hand, Daddy Vernon, Aunt 'Tunie and Dudders had always gone out of their way to ensure that they gave Shelley whatever she needed to be happy on All Hallows e'en. Whether it was comfort and reassurance or space to be on her own with her thoughts or simply a bucket full of chocolate, the Dursleys had always let their little 'princess' decide for herself.

It was lovely ... but it wasn't love ... at least, not on her part, anyway.

They were simply useful to her. The Dursley family, of which she was considered a full and important part, granted Shelley an air of normalcy. An appearance of being civilised and conventional, despite her strange mannerisms, behaviour and oddly bright clothing choices.

She would admit to being pleased when they did something particularly nice (or helpful) for her but was equally annoyed when they became overly affectionate towards her. Shelley's Housemates were, as professor Sprout had suggested they would be, almost exactly like her family in that regard, in that she found them just as sweet and occasionally just as frustrating.

Speaking of frustrations, she had more than a few of those at the moment. The seven weeks or so since she had verbally bitch slapped old, grandpa Gandalf had passed with none of her 'suggestions' being acted upon. Not one. The pompous, self-righteous, old git had totally ignored her brilliantly, reasoned arguments and extremely helpful advice. Honestly, it was like he didn't want to be gifted with such gems from her awesome and towering intellect.

History was still fairly interesting (to her at least) but the twosome of terrible teachers remained in place and completely unrestrained in their practices of either butchering their subject (Quirrell), or harassing and belittling their students (Snape). In fact, if anything, they had got worse. In DADA the turbaned idiot had seemed to realise that he was on Shelley's ever growing 'shit list', she really wasn't good at suffering fools, and was now avoiding looking at her entirely. Snape, on the other hand, while clearly also being aware of her feelings towards him and his classroom methods, was actually going out of his way to antagonise her even further.

This had turned out to be a very silly mistake on his part.

Shelley and her 'magnificent seven' of Hufflepuff Hooligans had made his life an absolute, living hell since she realised that he wasn't going to change. In the last six weeks all of Snape's precious, private, potions ingredients had either been mysteriously mis-placed or mis-labelled themselves with some spectacularly funny and dangerous results. It was also not uncommon for him to be seen stalking, grim-faced, through the halls and passageways in bright pink robes or with his hair somehow molded and stuck up into various amusing punk or overly feminine styles. The perm was the students' favourite to date.

Indeed, they were so creatively vindictive in their 'pranking' that they found themselves being congratulated (privately of course) by the twins of terror themselves. Fred and George Weasley had found themselves unexpectedly impressed with the little Badgers. Impressed enough to make an offer of alliance and share products and ideas with the girls, and so revealing their intelligence to Shelley by not wishing to risk getting involved in a prank war with someone like her.

They may have been less impressed if they had known that she didn't really enjoy pranking like they did. Shelley deemed it necessary to enact vengeance upon Snape and so she attacked the things that he cared about most, his gloomy, grave demeanour and his reputation as a brilliant potioneer. The more that they messed with him, the angrier he got and the angrier he got the more focus he lost when concocting his brews. That was when explosive burns began to appear on his face and hands as well.

It didn't give her any pleasure (Well not much pleasure anyway) to do these things to her professor but he had broken the sacred trust that should exist between teacher and pupil so he had to be punished. She would correct his poor behaviour if it killed ... well him actually. Shelley didn't really enjoy doing it and in fact the necessity of doing so annoyed her no end since she could have been focusing her considerable talents on far more important things.

There were other things that had caused her slight annoyance, of course. Like her continuing failure to either open the ancient, black, book (that she had correctly guessed was a grimoire) that Shelley had picked up from her trust vault or to create her, dearly wished for, zombie cat. She did not take failure well and many of her House-mates saw the true face of the 'girl-who-lived' for the first time. Word got around pretty quickly after one of her temper tantrums put a hapless, sixth year, prefect in the infirmary overnight and all effort was made to either keep her happy or avoid her like the plague.

The only one who hadn't been causing her any problems so far was Artemis Amarok. The two of them had formed an almost instantaneous bond and become so close that they were now almost never seen apart from one another. Which meant that Hannah Abbott was, likewise, always nearby. Not that she begrudged her new and best friend that closeness.

They were awfully cute together. Their total and utter cluelessness just made it all the more so. Shelley had never smiled so much as she had in the last two months. A good part of those smiles were to do with her plans for ... enhancing Hannah's small teddy bear, Mister Fuzzles, that the girl carried around in her book bag, but still, she was smiling.

Quidditch had helped too, with the rest of the team accepting her and Arte' quickly and completely. Especially after seeing their skill and enthusiasm on their borrowed brooms at the first of the year's practice sessions. A practice session that had also been attended by the woman who had lent them those brooms and spent every Sunday morning giving them tea and toast and sharing her Astronomy expertise and experience with them. Aurora Sinistra had become a 'family favourite' with the whole team and indeed, the entire House.

And then, last night, Luna Lovegood had exploded into her life and it looked like genuine smiles were going to become a regular thing for Shelley Potter.

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Shelley had awoken suddenly and in something of a panic on the morning after her extremely brilliant and ultimately victorious performance in her first quidditch match. This was because she was being held in the vise-like grip as someone clamped onto her like a small, human limpet. A very naked someone. A very naked someone who was now propped up on her elbows and staring at her with those overly large, expressive and slightly protruding, grey eyes.

"Good morning Shelley Potter."

Ah yes, Luna Lovegood. The girl who was obsessed with her. So much so that she had managed to evade all attempts to set her up in her own bed and, grinning happily, jumped in with the surprised Shelley.

"Good morning Luna." In her most controlled voice Shelley asked. "May I inquire as to why you're not wearing the pajamas I gave you?"

"You don't wear clothes to bed, silly."

"You mean you don't wear clothes to bed."

"Nor should you Shelley Potter, it's very unhealthy and it attracts all kinds of nasties like pootlefuffs and beleshans."

Bed-bugs she had heard of but pootlefuffs and beleshans?

"You think I'm crazy, don't you? That's okay everybody does."

The smallest touch of almost un-noticeable sadness in the other girl's voice as she spoke whilst beaming a blinding and entirely fake smile, woke something very protective in Shelley. Where normally she wouldn't have responded to such a situation, a disturbingly unfamiliar and emotional response popped into her head and out of her mouth before she had even realised that it had happened.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret Luna Lovegood. All of the best people are crazy."

And that was all it took. The deceptively cute, dirty blonde, mistress of mayhem was unleashed upon the world in general and Shelley Potter in particular as she chased her brilliant coven mate all over the girls' section of the dorms with tickle fingers extended and a mad gleam in her eye.

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The Hufflepuff first years awoke to the very different and disturbing sight of Shelley Potter giggling while being seemingly assaulted by a dirty blonde in a far too large bathrobe (that had been thrown over her by one of the more awake prefects as she ran past, hot the heels of her all too apparent girl-crush). The Shelley that they knew was always cool and composed, always had a tight hold on her emotions and she certainly didn't ... giggle. Well not unless she was planning one of her night-time 'outings' which inevitably ended in humiliation of those who continued to bully the younger students.

Knowing how controlled and together the scary Miss Potter was, they were, frankly, astonished that such behaviour was being allowed ... and, what appeared to be ... encouraged. Disturbing as it was, thankfully, that didn't make it any less funny or cute and smiles soon followed. Especially when the black haired prodigy was taken to the floor and incapacitated by her even smaller assailant.

"Say you're my Belly."

"Get off me, you spaz."

"Not until you say it."

It was probably a mistake to do it but, judging by the firm set of Luna's jaw, Shelley really didn't have much of a choice right now. Not if she wanted to be allowed up so that they could get some food anyway. It turned out that Luna Lovegood, for such a tiny little thing, was freakishly strong. She gave in with a resigned sigh.

"I'm your Belly."

"Damn skippy you are." The diminutive, blonde, lunatic jumped off of her captive and patted her non-existent stomach, that had chosen this particular moment to growl. "What's for breakfast, Belly-Boo?"

Shelley's head dropped to her chest as she considered her new nick-name. Yep, definitely a mistake.

Things didn't improve any at breakfast when the students were informed that they would be having a day free from classes in honour of the Halloween festivities taking place that night. Oh, everyone else thought that it was great, especially those who would be missing their weekly torture session with Slimy Snape, but Shelley Potter was not like everyone else. She was disappointed that a day that could have been spent in acquiring knowledge from professors, however crap they might be, was going to be wasted in lazing about and frivolous pursuits.

These thoughts persisted until Artemis pointed out that the only other person looking like somebody had just burst their favourite balloon was Hermione Granger at the Gryffindor table. Not wanting to be associated, in any way, with the girl that they had rather unkindly dubbed 'Captain Cavegirl' due to her prodigiously bushy hair and a tendency to grunt at any interruptions to her reading, Shelley straightened up and smiled. A little too quickly and in a way that most of her House-mates cringe slightly, but it was a start.

The suggestion from professor Sprout that she could hold one of her special 'talks' in the common room improved her mood much more effectively, although it did produce a bit of groaning from some of the boys. And those, like Cedric, who had been looking forward to watching some more of those interesting and informative (and fun) televisual shows that the muggles made about vampire slayers and quirky, beautiful, redheaded witches.

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A short hour later, the decidedly black haired witch who had caused all of this comment was sat in a comfortable looking, wing backed chair in the common room, surrounded by her House-mates. Most of them were from the first three grades although there were many from the upper years too, all hanging on her every word as she gave one of her impromptu lectures on the theory of magic.

Their House Head looked on from her office, the door to which she had left strategically open.

It was only when you saw her like this that you realised just how special Shelley Potter really was.

"Magic, as we know it, is made up of three component parts, the first two of which are 'power' and 'control', or if you prefer, intent and understanding."

Pomona had, following Miss Potter's dressing down of the headmaster, gone over the syllabus for the school at which she taught and was rather embarrassed to discover that the girl was right. They dumped these children into the deep end of the wizarding world to sink or swim and didn't seem to care which one they did. An 'introduction' to Wizarding Britain seemed to be the very least that should be offered at Europe's so called premier educational institution.

That they didn't was, frankly, scandalous. It was now uncomfortably obvious that Hogwarts school was actually more than a small part responsible for the continuation of the hostility between the purebloods and the muggle born and raised. That was why Shelley's tutoring sessions in the Hufflepuff common room were so well attended and so vitally important.

She didn't care who your parents were, how much money they did or didn't have or how much you already knew. If you wanted to learn and showed up at one of her 'classes' then she would teach you what she knew. Which was a lot.

"The intent is easy enough to explain, it is simply your will to make whatever spell you are attempting, happen. The stronger your will, the more you want it, the more chance you have of success and the stronger it will be. In other words ..."

"Power."

"Good Hannah, yes. Then you need to understand the spell that you're attempting to perform, even if it's only at the most basic level of memorising the wand movements and the incantation. It would be better if you could have a good grasp of the arithmantic principles that built the spell, of course, but I understand that not everyone has the capacity to do that."

"So the intent is the power and the understanding is the control?"

"Exactly Neville. It's like using a hammer."

Shelley looked at the confused faces of the purebloods in the audience and decided that further explanation was necessary.

"If I grip the hammer at the very end, I can drive a nail in one hit ... or I can miss completely and break my thumb instead ... and if I hold it near the head I guarantee that I hit it without incident or injury ... but it takes more strikes. Power and control. You see?"

"So which is best?"

"Neither. You need to find the third component. Balance."

"Huh?"

"What she's saying is that you can have all the intent in the world but if you don't understand the spell you're casting then it will be weaker than another person's attempt. If that other person doesn't believe in it as strongly as you but has a significantly better understanding of the spell they will more than likely be more effective with it. They have achieved a better balance ... and, therefore, their spell will be stronger."

Everyone in the room was staring at Luna Lovegood with confusion. Even on their brief acquaintance with her, virtually the entire House of the Badgers were of the firm belief that she was even more insane than Shelley Potter but without her vast and devious reserves of intelligence. Hearing such a clever, well thought out summation of Shelley's impromptu 'lesson' without any of her usual references to impossible creatures, therefore, had them blinking hard and starting to reconsider her talents.

Even Shelley was looking at her strangely but she was more thinking that this situation was clearly not something that Luna wanted. She appeared to want to be thought of as the cute and weird odd-ball of Hufflepuff for whatever passed in the blonde's somewhat erratic brain as reasons. To her impressed delight, the girl in question then proceeded to dis-arm them all with the consummate ease of the gifted and well practised arch manipulator that she so clearly was.

"And having more Nargles helps, obviously."

The darkly, devious smile that lit up Shelley's face at her final assertion was in stark contrast to the rest of her House-mates good natured chuckling and eye rolling. Luna Lovegood basked in it's chilly glow with a spaced out, dreamy look on her angelic face.

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That evening's highly enjoyable Halloween celebrations were cut abruptly short by the appearance their hated and much ridiculed DADA teacher, Quirinus Quirrell, and his frightened, stammered out statement.

"Tr ... toll in the dungeons. Just th ... thought you sh ... should know."

And with that the worst professor currently at Hogwarts did a comedy faint that was so transparently fake that it provoked more eye rolling than concern. Especially from amongst a certain group of Hufflepuff first years. One of whom actually snorted back a laugh. Another decided to start jumping about and squealing.

"Ooh, I want to see the troll." Luna gazed manically up at the 'girl-who-lived' with shining eyes as she tried out the cute manipulations that worked so well on her father. "Can we Belly ... please. can we, can we, can we?"

"We should probably go and find Granger anyway. I haven't seen her around today and you just know that she's unlucky enough to end up getting trapped by a rampaging troll. That way Lu' gets to see her troll and we keep Captain Cavegirl safe ... and maybe even in our debt."

Artemis made a fair point, she supposed. Over the last two months the Gryffindor library queen had always seemed to be sporting some kind of injury, many (but not all) of which were self inflicted due to the girl's own carelessness. Walking around a castle filled to the brim with hard and sharp objects with your head buried in some book or other wasn't really conducive to staying healthy and bruise free. Especially if you didn't have anyone who cared enough about you to prevent you from walking in to them.

"She'll be fine. She's probably just fallen asleep in the library again."

Shelley didn't believe that for a moment. If anyone was going to get cornered and battered by the castle's unexpected visitor, it was the totally friendless and unfortunate Granger. Not that she cared overly much since the girl was as annoying as shit and she didn't have any qualms about leaving her to her fate but her friends weren't as free from those pesky moral concerns as she was. A fact which they now clearly demonstrated.

"You're really going to let her get beaten into a bloody smear by a hulking, great troll?"

Hannah turned those big, wet, blue eyes that seemed to reduce her true wolf friend to an uncharacteristic puddle of mush onto Shelley and she too felt her resistance start to crumble. That girl was an absolute menace. Still, at least she was their menace that could hopefully be let loose on those who wouldn't be cowed by her and Arte's more blunt and forceful approach to problems. The hard cases always faltered in the presence of such unabashedly, adorable cuteness. She should know.

It took them a while but through some incredibly unfair and under-handed means, which she was secretly very proud of them for employing, even if it was against her, Shelley finally capitulated to their pleading. Threats she was powerful enough to ignore, reason she could argue against but tears were her Kryptonite. And unfortunately for her, all three of these girls had figured that out in very short order.

"Fi-i-ine."

After a long, drawn out and overly dramatic sigh, Shelley trudged resignedly after her 'crew' as they slipped away from their House-mates and headed stealthily away, unseen and unheard for the main doors. Sometimes this having friends business just really sucked, she thought as they followed the true wolf's super sensitive nose up the grand staircase on into the depths of the ancient castle.

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Three girls and a partially transformed wolf stood in the doorway to one of the first floor, communal bathrooms looking up in awe at possibly the ugliest being that any of them had ever seen. Granger didn't seem to be overly struck on his looks either if the way that she was curled up crying against the back wall was anything to go by. None of them would blame her for that though. That loincloth that the twelve foot tall, mountain troll was nearly wearing hardly covered a thing.

No matter how much they might wish that it did.

Artemis was her usual articulate self when faced with such a sight.

"It looks like someone's stuck a bunch of Hagrid's rock cakes together with dog shit and then thrown up all over it."

"Smells like it too."

Hannah's hand was clamped firmly over her mouth and nose muffling her response to the point of almost incomprehensible nonsense. None of them really blamed her for it though and they all got what she meant. The stench was truly terrible.

The troll turned and stared at the newly arrived interlopers stupidly. Very stupidly. Higher brain function and rational thinking were clearly not things that intruded into the massive creature's very small brain. His motivation seemed to be more; 'See ... club ... kill', than anything more conciliatory or peaceful when it registered a threat. However small and insignificant that threat might appear to be.

Not that these three girls and their wolf weren't a threat, of course but it must have been quite confusing for the intellectually challenged beast. Three small girls and sort of half wolf thing of inconsequential size and stature were not normally considered threatening beings to a fully grown, mountain troll but he was actually correct to be suspicious of them this time. For possibly the first and definitely the last time in his life, he was right in his thinking.

With this in what constituted his mind, the troll's expression went swiftly from confused and stupid to angry and he roared at the intruders, covering them in bad breath and spittle as he pulled his huge club clear from the big, ragged hole in the wall. A hole that was less than a foot from the, still frozen, and hysterically screaming Hermione Granger. All of the Hufflepuff Hooligans could see the terror written large in their annoying year-mate's face which seemed to have brought all of her, admittedly fairly impressive, cognitive thought processes to a screeching halt.

Shelley sighed again and gestured to the girl that others laughingly referred to as her rival.

"Han, could you and wolfy kindly retrieve Captain Cavegirl while we distract the big boy please."

Shelley drew her wand from her hair and hit him in the knee with the same dark, piercing hex that she had used on those Slytherin thugs at the beginning of term, expecting similarly debilitating results. Instead, nothing happened. Well, other than her spell pinging off of the troll's knee at a rather acute angle and just missing the trio of witches (two of whom were now glaring at her) on the other side of the bathroom, that is.

How interesting.

It appeared that troll's hide was magically resistant. With a whoop of glee Shelley let loose on the beast with a barrage of carefully selected spells targetting different body parts to see if it had any weak points. It didn't. And this only resulted in Hannah and Artemis glaring again at their friend who was now grinning happily and muttering about 'experimentation' while they tried to move the spasmodically twitching Granger out of the danger zone. Which now included the entire bathroom.

Once she was mostly out of harm's way behind Shelley, who was getting increasingly inventive with her spells and switching between her wand and staff to vary their power, the other girls lined up alongside their leader. While Luna put up a strange, shimmering, violet shield they let loose with a barrage of stunners that drove their enormous, stinky foe backwards due to the sheer weight of magic that was now being thrown against him. He slipped, staggered and fell hard on his backside making Shelley grin as she aimed at his eye and started to rasp out the incantation for her piercing hex.

Only to be interrupted by the odd witch beside her.

"Oh no, don't kill him, he's cute."

All eyes (including the very confused troll's) flicked immediately to the youngest person in the ruined bathroom. Not for long, however, since the dull-witted but instinctive beast used the hesitation to clamber to his knees and swing that great, gnarled club at them with all the force that he could muster. Which was considerable.

Time seemed to slow for Artemis at the end of their line closest to the swinging club as she accessed her heritage to lunge sideways at the absolute upper limit of her speed, knocking her three companions off of their feet and out of it's path. The tree trunk sized piece of hardened wood whistled inches over their heads, close enough to disturb a few strands of blonde hair and close enough to take Shelley's hat clean off of her head, the sweep taking it smashing into the opposite wall.

"Nooooo. Not the hat!"

Luna's wail of anguish at the damage to her favourite ever piece of headwear tailed off as her silver eyes hardened and the corner of the left one began to twitch in righteous fury.

"Alright Belly, now you can kill him."

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Shelley's grin at being let off the leash lasted for about three seconds until she caught sight of her ruined hat lying forlornly on the broken tiles several feet away. Then it turned into a grimace which was quickly replaced with snarl of rage. That useless, great lump of mouth breathing, dragon dung had broken her treasured top hat before she had even got a chance to start enchanting it. How very dare he. The 'girl-who-lived's prodigious and terrifying temper finally overcame her desire to continue her unexpected and fun new project of experimenting on the troll.

She was ending this now.

Her friends seemed to be just as upset and their carefully held defensive line broke apart as they regained their feet, growled out their displeasure and joined their friend's assault.

"Oi, Shrek!"

The troll, not sensing his imminent, oncoming demise, opened it's mouth and roared a new challenge, spittle flying at them from it's gaping maw and causing three very disgusted 'eeuwws' from some of the other occupants of the bathroom. Of the two remaining, one was still frozen in fear, curled up in her corner, mewling and the other was too busy transforming her wand back into it's staff form and preparing a spell she had only read about before.

The trebuchet, or siege engine, curse had been invented back in the middle ages when armies still employed war wizards in their ranks and didn't want to lug bloody great contraptions all over whatever country they were busy plundering. Less wood, rope and stone to cart about meant more room for gold and slaves so these mages and their powerful spells were highly prized individuals back before the statute of secrecy was introduced.

Shelley took a moment to silently thank the dull as ditch water but very informative professor Binns for unintentionally leading her to this, suddenly very useful, item in the warmages repertoire. Then she gathered her power, thrust her staff forward and fired. It was just as awesome and spectacular as she had hoped it would be.

"Coracis!"

When this spell, designed to bring down castle walls, was applied from Shelley's staff and with her prodigious talent at all types of magic and her enormous reserves, and hit an organic target the results were always going to be ... messy. The results of her little experiment in the application of even more power to an already over-powered piece of magic exceeded even her expectations.

She had decided to wait until the softest place that her adversary had was exposed before launching it and had been assisted in making this happen by Artemis slicing great, bloody rents in it's legs. The troll's hide may be magically resistant but the true wolf's claws were not magical. Just really, really sharp. Shelley took full advantage of the situation and fired her curse. It entered the troll's open mouth and impacted with his soft palate before initiating it's fabled, explosive power. With an enormous, muffled, crumping sound, that even the professors approaching from the other end of the corridor heard, the entire bathroom went a very pretty shade of pink and everyone in it got even wetter and very sticky.

"Boom, you hat bashing bitch."

The approaching quartet of professors heard Shelley's victory cry, roared with quite out of character enthusiasm and looked at each other worriedly before proceeding to it's source. Albeit more carefully and with a great deal more trepidation at what the hell kind of scene might now greet them upon their arrival.

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The ringing of tinnitus in Artemis' ears caused her to shake her head and morph all the way back into her human form. Even in this guise her senses of sight, hearing and smell were much enhanced but when she had any of those organs transformed they were incredibly sensitive. Which made the force of the explosion that had just taken place in the bathroom, blessed as it was with near perfect acoustics, extremely painful for her. And more than a little sickening.

Others did not agree with her, apparently.

"That. Was. Awesome!"

Surprisingly it was Hannah who, with puffed out cheeks and bulging eyes, had made this excited exclamation. Which was then instantly continued and, indeed, improved upon by the more predictable lunacy of the delightfully quirky (to them at least) Miss Lovegood.

"Did you see his head explode? It was like ... whump ... and then ... pthffthh."

Luna was skipping around, covered with blood and bits of brain matter and gesticulating wildly as she re-ran the moment when her coven mate blew up a troll. These wild gesticulations, however, had the unfortunate effect of sending some of the blood and bits of the aforementioned troll all over the people nearest to her. Including the bushy haired Gryffindor with the thousand yard stare who looked at the pinkish grey lump now sliding down her forearm with renewed horror.

At this newest indignity, Hermione Granger then did what she had been holding back on for the last ten minutes or so and vomited copiously onto the floor.

Pomona Sprout, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore arrived on the scene as Luna's excited exclamation was echoing in the bathroom and just in time to witness Miss Granger's multi-coloured yawn. Stunned silence reigned. Even the Potions Master's mouth was open in shock as they surveyed the devastated and almost entirely red bathroom. It took a moment for him to regain his voice but when he did it was with a wholly predictable response to the scene before him.

"Potter! What did you do?"

"She blew up a troll. Isn't it cool?"

Snape gave the still giggling, blonde, weirdo a very hard stare which completely failed to intimidate her in the slightest.

"Fifty points from Huflepuff for your inexcusable stupidity and recklessness."

"And twenty points to Hufflepuff for bravely helping out a fellow student in trouble."

McGonagall stepped in, since poor old Pomona was still dumb-struck and staring at the blood drenched first years in horror, and turned their loss into a gain with a smirk at her sneering, hook nosed colleague. Even in circumstances such as this she couldn't quite resist getting in a dig or two at the horrible man. Speaking of which.

"Each."

The headmaster merely leaned in the doorway and smiled his familiar, twinkly eyed smile as he watched them all.

He was very pleased at this outcome as he believed that it demonstrated Miss Potter's innate goodness and in-built 'heroine' complex. Obviously, he hadn't over-heard her friends in the great hall earlier spending a good ten minutes trying to convince her to care about what happened to the mouthy, little Gryffindor bookworm. It also gave him hope that she would be going after the philosopher's stone that was secretly hidden (not very secretly or very well) behind his (mostly ineffectual) traps on the east wing of the third floor of the castle.

It never once occurred to him that she was already well aware of the possible challenge there, what with her network of yellow robed, gossip mongers, but had decided to hold off for a while yet. She was going to need something to do next term since she had already polished off most of her first year work and was spending most of her time on her 'homework for cash' business and other ... projects.

One of which she was going to have to start again from scratch after that hulking great knob jockey had destroyed her beautiful hat just as she had been about to start the process of enchanting it. Shelley was engaged in a glaring contest with the steaming great git, which she was winning since it was dead and all, when her House Head finally managed to rouse herself and drag them all off to the infirmary.

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Okay, so the Coracis, trebuchet spell isn't ours but we've both seen it used too many times before to remember where it originated from. If it was you or you know who it was then we convey our very great appreciation for coming up with it and apologise for not asking permission first.

Reviews are our cookies and you wouldn't want us starve now would you. Seriously though the feedback would be very helpful on this one guys so do let us know how we're doing with it, and I promise that I will try and answer all of your questions. Of which I am sure there will be many.

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DtR xx.