Chapter 10 – Hallowe'en

It was Hallowe'en morning and Emma had been putting off leaving the common room because all of the corridors outside were filled with an awful smell. Others were lavishing in it though, which was apparently pumpkin. Emma didn't like it one bit, it made her nauseous. Grudgingly, she eventually had to leave and make her way to Charms.

It was in this lesson that Emma, and the rest of the Gryffindor class, received a nice surprise. Professor Flitwick had announced that they were finally ready to try the levitation charm they'd been practising. Professor Flitwick chose to put the class into pairs. Emma wanted to be paired with Hermione, someone she was sure would out-shine her. Hermione ended up being paired with Ron, which made all three of them very unhappy. Harry was paired with Seamus, and Emma was paired with Neville.

'Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practising!' squeaked Professor Flitwick. 'Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too.'

'Would you like to try first, Neville?' asked Emma, pointing at the feather they were meant to be levitating.

'No, no.' stammered Neville. 'You first.'

'Okay.' said Emma, poising her wand.

'Wingardium Leviosa.' she incanted, while performing the swish and flick that Professor Flitwick had described.

Emma knew she'd gotten it right immediately. She didn't move her wand at all and the feather stayed where it was, twitching slightly. Emma, now very pleased with herself, broke eye contact with the feather and pretended to be upset.

'Your turn.' she said, leaning back and frowning.

Neville insisted that they keep taking turns, even though he hadn't managed to move the feather at all, so Emma kept purposefully doing the wand movement wrong in order to not levitate the feather. They'd only swapped turns a few times before Emma heard Hermione and Ron have an argument. It seemed that Hermione was trying to help Ron by telling him how he was doing it wrong, but he lost his temper.

'You do it, then, if you're so clever.' snarled Ron.

With an expectant smile, Emma watched Hermione roll up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand precisely and said the incantation perfectly. Her feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

'Oh, well done!' cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. 'Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!'

Emma knew Hermione would out-shine her. She tried to catch Hermione's eye and gave her a thumbs up. Hermione smiled back and then tilted her head to the side, as if to ask 'And you?'. Emma nodded and saw Hermione smile again before Neville interrupted to say it was Emma's turn.

Ron was in a very bad temper by the end of the class.

Emma and Hermione were just walking into the crowded corridor when they both heard Ron complain very loudly in front of them with no attempt at discretion.

'It's no wonder no one can stand her,' he said to Harry. 'She's a nightmare, honestly.'

Hermione didn't take that well at all. She was already quite upset and had started to tear up. Emma tried to comfort her, but Hermione rushed off, barging past Harry.

'I think she heard you.' said Harry.

'So?' said Ron. 'She must've noticed she's got no friends.'

As if Emma wasn't angry enough at Ron. She purposefully barged into him, nearly knocking him over as she passed. She could have done much worse, but she thought she'd made her point.

Hermione didn't turn up for Transfiguration and while Emma looked around all afternoon, she couldn't find Hermione anywhere. She was just about to head to the common room to look again when she passed Parvati telling Lavender that Hermione was crying in the girl's toilets and wanted to be left alone. Emma assumed this meant the ones on the sixth floor nearest the common room, since that's where Parvati and Lavender were coming from, but Hermione wasn't in there.

Emma made her way down from the sixth floor, going from one girl's bathroom to the next to find Hermione but there was no sign of her. It wasn't until Emma was nearing the first-floor girl's bathroom that Emma knew she was in the right place. She was just rounding the corner into the corridor where the bathroom was when, firstly, she saw Harry and Ron running away and secondly, she heard a high, petrified scream, coming from the bathroom. Emma didn't even check what Harry and Ron were doing, she just knew she had to get into that room because whatever it was, Hermione was more scared of it than she was of vampire Emma, and that meant something dangerous.

Emma saw the door to the bathroom was locked, the key still in it. She didn't have time for this. She ran at the door, getting her wand ready and thought really hard about opening the door. She pointed her wand at the keyhole and suddenly the lock and the hinges all exploded. The door flew straight into the bathroom. Not having time to even think about what she'd just done she ran into the bathroom and stopped suddenly.

In front of her was a troll. A gigantic, 12 foot troll, and it wasn't happy. Emma only had time to process the scene in front of her. Hermione was up against the far wall, the troll had evidently been about to attack her. The troll on the other hand, who was standing in-between Hermione and Emma had been distracted by Emma's explosion and had instinctively turned to attack.

Emma knew it was all over now. She could only watch as the troll's club swung closer and closer. She knew she couldn't duck or even raise her hands in time to defend herself. There was a loud thump followed very shortly by a lot of crunching and snapping. It was so sudden that she didn't even feel it at first. The club had hit her squarely on her left shoulder and hit her with enough force to crush most of the bones in her upper body. Now nothing more than a rag-doll, Emma was thrown clean off her feet, straight into a sink on the wall.

Emma was still conscious when she'd hit the sink and fallen to the floor, though that wasn't going to last much longer. The pain that was absent before was coming now and it was far too much to bear. The only thing besides the agonising pain that Emma could think about before she lost consciousness was that she'd saved Hermione.

Harry and Ron, having also heard the scream, turned just in time to see Emma run in. They quickly followed, but not quickly enough. They heard the thud from the club hitting Emma, and the smashes that followed as Emma hit the wall and fell to the floor, but they didn't see it.

'Emma!' screamed Hermione, hysterically.

When Harry and Ron entered, they saw the troll standing in the middle of the room, now turning to Hermione. They saw the pile of robes with bits of body hanging out at grotesque angles by the wall opposite them, and they saw Hermione still in hysterics, on the far end of the room behind the troll.

The troll advanced on Hermione, knocking sinks off the walls as it went.

'Confuse it!' said Harry desperately to Ron, and seizing a tap, he threw it as hard as he could against the wall.

The troll stopped a few feet from Hermione. It lumbered around, blinking stupidly, to see what had made the noise. Its mean little eyes saw Harry. It hesitated, then made for him instead, lifting it's club as it went.

'Oy, pea-brain!' yelled Ron from the other side of the chamber, and he threw a metal pipe at it. The troll didn't even seem to notice the pipe hitting it's shoulder, but it heard the yell and paused again, turning it's ugly snout towards Ron instead, giving Harry time to run around it.

'Come on, run, run!' Harry yelled at Hermione, trying to pull her towards the door, but she wouldn't move, she was still staring at Emma's body in hysterics.

The shouting and the echoes seemed to be driving the troll even more berserk. It roared again and started towards Ron, who was nearest and had no way to escape.

Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid. He took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll's neck from behind. The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice when you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wand had still been in his hand when he'd jumped. It had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.

Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club with Harry clinging on for dear life. Any second, the troll was going to rip him off or catch him a terrible blow with the club.

Hermione had sunk to the floor in grief. Ron pulled out his wand, not knowing what he was going to do, he heard himself cry the first spell that came into his head.

'Wingardium Leviosa!'

The club flew suddenly out of the troll's hand, rose high up into the air, turned slowly over and dropped. With a sickening crack, it landed right on top of the trolls head. The troll swayed on the spot and then fell flat on it's face, with a thud that made the whole room tremble.

Harry got to his feet. He was shaking and out of breath. Ron was standing there with his wand still raised, staring at what he had done.

It was Hermione who acted first. She ran right over to Emma's body to see if she was still alive. There was no pulse and Hermione lowered her head and started crying again. Harry and Ron came and leaned down on either side of Hermione, trying to comfort her.

With a gasp and a shudder Emma threw herself awake, making the three others all jump out of their skins. Her head was filled with a deafening ringing and her body was in the most pain she had ever felt. She couldn't feel anything except pain. She couldn't move her legs or her arms. Only her head seemed to be responding.

'I thought you were dead!' screamed Hermione.

'I... feel like... I... still am.' choked Emma, in severe pain.

She looked over the others in front of her and tried to turn her head to see the troll.

'Is it dead?' asked Emma.

Harry and Ron got up and looked over the troll.

'I don't think so.' said Harry. 'I think it's just been knocked out.'

Emma turned her head again, which was becoming easier, to look Hermione in the eye.

'It's... like my nose... all over again.' she whispered.

'You're healing, already?' gasped Hermione looking hopeful.

'Slowly, yeah.'

Harry had just bent down to pull his wand out of the troll's nose when they all heard loud footsteps coming toward them. The noise had obviously attracted attention. Moments later, Professor McGonagall burst into the room, closely followed by Snape and Quirrel.

Snape bent over the troll while McGonagall stared at Ron and Harry with the angriest expression they'd ever seen her with.

'What on earth were you thinking of?' said Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice.

Harry and Ron just stared at each other.

'You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?'

'Please, Professor McGonagall – they were looking for me.' said Hermione in a small voice leaning around.

'And me.' added Emma, raising her hand, trying not to show how painful it was.

'Miss Granger! Miss Pearson!'

Hermione got to her feet, pulling Emma with her. It hurt Emma so badly she thought she'd black out again, but she knew she had to act fine otherwise they'd be in far more trouble than they already were, so she grit her teeth. Emma nodded to Hermione.

'We went looking for the troll because we – we thought we could deal with it on our own – you know, because we've read all about them.'

Emma noticed Ron drop his wand. Emma could tell what he was thinking. Hermione Granger was the last person you'd expect to break school rules, let alone lie directly to a teacher. They were in a lot of trouble now though and they had to be very tactful with their excuses.

'If they hadn't found us, we'd be dead now.' added Emma.

'Harry stuck his wand up its nose and Ron knocked it out with its own club. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone.' said Hermione.

'It was about to finish me off when they arrived.' winced Emma, remembering the crunching sound of her shoulder caving in.

Harry and Ron were doing their best to not look dumbfounded. Emma didn't think they were trying hard enough. Couldn't they see how much trouble they were in?

'Well, in that case...' said Professor McGonagall, staring at all four of them. 'Miss Granger, Miss Pearson, you foolish girls. How could you think of tackling a mountain troll by yourselves?'

Emma and Hermione both just hung their heads.

'Miss Granger, Miss Pearson, five points will be taken from Gryffindor, each, for this.' said Professor McGonagall. 'I'm very disappointed in the both of you. You'd better get off to Gryffindor Tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses.'

Hermione left the room, with Emma closely behind trying desperately to walk normally despite the pain so as to not draw attention to her injuries.

Once they'd gone up a floor and were a safe distance away to not be seen, Hermione leaned under Emma's left arm and half-carried, half-supported her up to the common room.

They'd only gotten about half way when Emma had to stop, she couldn't go on. Even though she was healing, it wasn't as fast any more. Her bones seemed to have fixed themselves, but she was still in a lot of pain. She sat down on the stairs and Hermione sat down next to her.

'Thank you, for saving me, Emma.' said Hermione, exhausted.

'Well, I didn't exactly do much to help though, did I?' replied Emma. 'Though I guess it makes up for the time I tried to kill you.' laughed Emma, wincing when her ribs hurt.

They both started laughing but were cut short when they heard footsteps coming from below. It was just Harry and Ron catching up. They all just looked at one another.

'Thanks.' they all said, in unison.

'Why are you sitting here?' asked Ron.

'Emma can't walk any further.' replied Hermione.

'Should we go to the hospital wing?' suggested Harry.

'No!' said Emma, a bit more aggressively than she'd intended. 'That would only get us in more trouble.'

'Let's get you to the dormitory then.' said Hermione.

Harry and Ron took one of Emma's arms each and carried her back up to the dormitory with Hermione leading the way.

'Pig snout.' Emma heard Hermione say up ahead. They'd reached the dormitory.

They helped her through the portrait hole.

The common room was packed with everyone scoffing the food that had been sent up from the Hallowe'en feast. As if Emma didn't feel bad enough.

Harry and Ron both went to get plates before Emma could thank them for carrying her up the stairs, but Hermione stayed.

'You should lie down.' said Hermione, bossily, half-carrying Emma again.

They went up to the bedroom and Emma fell onto her bed but she was in so much pain she hardly noticed.

'Do you want me to stay?' asked Hermione, not sure what to do now.

'It's okay, Hermione. Go, get something to eat. You must be starving. I'll be fine, I just need rest.'

'Alright.' replied Hermione tentatively. 'I'll check on you in a bit.'

Emma lay on the bed, unmoving, thinking that Hallowe'en had been a very mixed bag, all things considered. Whatever happened though, Emma was sure that her friendship with Hermione, and even Ron and Harry now, was stronger than ever.