Chapter Nineteen: Slytherin-Style Heroics

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

It stopped suddenly and made a sharp left into the room next to it.

"They key's in the lock," Daphne pointed out. "We could lock it in."

"That, Daphne, would entirely defeat the purpose," Draco told her. "That's the boys bathroom."

"BLOODY HELL!" Blaise's startled voice confirmed for them.

"So…what do we do?" Pansy asked.

"It just wouldn't be right to leave Blaise to be murdered while we stand here and watch," Harry opined.

"Well if we're not going to help then obviously we wouldn't just be standing around," Theodore pointed out. "We'd be running like hell."

"I really don't want to play the Gryffindor," Draco told them.

"IS SOMEBODY OUT THERE?" Blaise shouted out. "I THINK I HEAR VOICES. IF YOU ARE OUT THERE THEN HURRY UP AND COME SAVE ME OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL TURN INTO A GHOST AND HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. JUST TRY TO GET LUCKY WITH ME AROUND."

"He doesn't have to be such a prat about it," Draco grumbled, acting for all the world as if they hadn't been debating just leaving him there, as he headed for the door.

"You would think, with the troll in there with him, he'd have more pressing worries than thinking up creative threats," Harry remarked.

Theodore beamed with pride. "Not Blaise. He's a professional."

Blaise Zabini, his comb clenched tightly in his fist, was backed up against the opposite wall. His wand was shaking slightly as he held it out in front of him. "For the record, I am not cowering."

"And we are not being Gryffindors," Pansy countered.

"Why don't you shoot off a spell or something?" Daphne demanded.

"I would love to but I don't know what to do," Blaise admitted. "Aren't trolls immune to most magic?"

Predictably, the troll turned towards the noise and decided to go after them again.

"Oh, that's just brilliant," Draco complained. "Now he's after us."

"Just because you're the only one who didn't happen to say anything doesn't mean you need to start acting superior," Daphne told him crossly as she started to back up from the troll.

Harry then did something that was either very brave or very stupid (and either way not very befitting of a Slytherin). He whipped out his wand and cast a silent 'Obliviate' on the advancing troll. He didn't know if memory charms worked on trolls (did anyone? When would someone have the desire and the opportunity to test this?) but it was the only idea he had. Even if it worked, unless he managed to do so much damage that the troll was rendered unable to move – unlikely – then it would still come after him and he had just made himself a target.

But someone had to do something.

Fortunately, he hadn't done something even stupider like do the spell out loud and lead to all sorts of questions like why he even knew that spell or was so familiar with it that it was the first thing he thought to use.

The spell appeared to work as the troll stopped short and stood blinking for a few, precious seconds.

Pansy took advantage of the troll's hesitation to take out her wand, point at the troll's club, and cry out, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The club rose slowly out of the troll's hand and hit him on the head. Pansy cast this again and again and again.

"Not for nothing, Pansy," Draco remarked, staring down at the bloody mess the troll's head had turned into. "But I think you got him."

"Huh?" Pansy looked startled. "Oh. Right."

"Somebody's got deep-seated anger issues," Theodore muttered.

Pansy glared at him and he held up his hands in mock-surrender.

"Is it dead?" Blaise inquired, moving over to the one remaining sink and beginning to wash his hands.

Harry poked it with his toe. "Yeah, I think it is."

"Congratulations, Pansy, you just killed a troll," Daphne said, looking at her with an expression that was almost awed.

"That's not a Gryffindor thing to do, is it?" Pansy asked worriedly.

Harry shook his head. "Nah. That was just too incredible to be given to them."

"You are probably the only person in this school to ever kill a troll, never mind the only first year," Draco said, impressed. "That is just…amazing."

Pansy's ears reddened. "Thanks."

"But I'm still really concerned about what this says about you," Theodore said, apparently deciding not to quit while he was ahead. "I mean, he was clearly down after the first blow and yet you just kept going at him."

"Theodore, do you really want two people out to kill you?" Harry asked, looking pointedly at Daphne.

"Well…" Theodore trailed off.

"Why are you washing your hands?" Daphne asked Blaise. "You didn't get any of the troll blood on you, did you?"

"No," Blaise conceded. "But I have this thing about blood. Even just looking at it seems highly unhygienic."

"Because that's not strange at all," Draco muttered.

Blaise responded by flicking water at Draco.

A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made them all turn towards the door.

"So now people decide to show up and lend us a hand," Pansy said, annoyed. "After we already took care of the problem ourselves. They better not try to steal the credit for this."

"Aren't you worried we'll get in trouble?" Harry asked. He felt uncomfortably like some sort of teacher's pet (though certainly not Snape's) but it had to be asked.

"No," Pansy replied promptly. "If we get detentions then we're blessed by a head of house who doesn't hate us and any flak we get for losing points will be offset by the fact that I killed a troll."

"You mean we killed a troll," Blaise corrected.

"Actually, at most Harry contributed by doing something to stun it," Pansy disagreed.

"What about me?" Blaise demanded.

"You were kind of just standing there," Theodore reminded him.

Blaise shot him an irritated look. "Not helping."

"I just tell it like it is," Theodore said unrepentantly.

"I was the one who made you all come in when you were dithering outside," Blaise pointed out.

"Who was dithering?" Draco challenged. "Certainly not us. We were on our way to help you the minute we found out where the troll was."

"So basically it was all me," Pansy concluded.

Professor McGonagall burst into the room then, followed closely by Snape, who bent down to examine the troll, and Quirrell, who took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart.

Draco threw Theodore a skeptical look at the sight and Theodore just rolled his eyes, apparently not convinced but this latest proof of Quirrell's pathetic-ness.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" demanded McGonagall, cold fury in her voice. Harry had never seen her look this angry. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

Everyone turned to look expectantly at Harry. It would seem that he had somehow been elected the spokesman. He stepped forward. "Well, Professor, our dormitories are in the dungeon and that's where we were told the troll was going to be. We didn't think it was very safe."

"That doesn't explain why you are up here instead," she said frigidly.

"We weren't about to go risking our lives trying to return to our dormitories and we remembered that Blaise was up here and didn't know about the troll so we went to go warn him in case he encountered the troll on his way back," Harry explained.

"Attending meals, even feasts, isn't compulsory. I checked," Blaise added.

"And the reason it took five of you to do this?" McGonagall pressed.

"Safety in numbers, Professor," Harry said innocently.

"This troll is dead," Snape announced, having evidently finished his examination of the troll. "Who killed him? Draco, was it you? Or was Potter showing off?"

"Actually, Professor," Pansy spoke up, looking nervous but proud, "I did it. Harry managed to stun it somehow and then I managed to levitate its club and hit it over the head."

"More than once, by the look of it," Snape said, giving her a swift, piercing look.

"I wanted to be thorough," Pansy claimed.

"And thorough you most certainly were," Snape agreed. "Not many first-years could take on a full-grown mountain troll and while it shouldn't have happened tonight, I do understand. Twenty points to Slytherin for Miss Parkinson and ten points for the rest."

"Seventy points?" McGonagall asked incredulously.

"I believe that they've earned it," Snape replied simply. Harry thought that he probably wouldn't have been so generous if they hadn't been Slytherins but he wasn't about to complain.

"Very well," Professor McGonagall said reluctantly. Harry wondered what they would have been given if it had been up to her. Being notoriously fair, their being in Slytherin wouldn't have made any difference. Would they have gotten any points at all? Or would they have gotten into trouble? Still, it wasn't up to her as Snape was their head of house and he had spoken first. "Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go. I believe the students are finishing the feast in their common room."

"Excellent," Theodore said brightly as they filed into the hallway and began to make their way back to the dungeons. "Because I completely forgot to bring Blaise anything."

"I knew you'd forget," Blaise said, annoyed.

"Hey, in my defense we were busy saving you," Theodore insisted.

"You didn't know I'd need to be saved," Blaise countered.

"Would you really want to eat food that had been in a room with blood, even if it hadn't touched it?" Theodore tried.

"You didn't know that that would happen when you left," Blaise pointed out.

"I could be psychic."

"Are you?" Blaise challenged.

"There was a troll on the loose!" Theodore exclaimed.

"So? You lot clearly didn't panic," Blaise replied.

Theodore rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Apology accepted," Blaise said smoothly. "If only because I won't be going hungry after all."

"If you knew I'd forget you should have asked somebody else," Theodore told him.

"I can't believe that Snape actually gave you points," Draco marveled, shaking his head.

"Yes, because the rest of this is just so perfectly normal," Harry deadpanned.

"Well yeah, that's weird, too," Draco agreed. "But compared to you getting points…I have priorities."

"Well, I am a Slytherin," Harry pointed out. "House pride trumps everything."

"So what now?" Daphne asked sardonically. "Are we all bonded by trauma?"

"Please," Pansy sniffed. "Slytherins do not get traumatized."

"What?" Harry asked amused. "There are some things you can't share without ending up friends and killing a troll is one of them?"

"I killed it," Pansy corrected.

Daphne shuddered. "That level of mushiness would make me ill."

They stopped in front of a bit of bare, damp stone wall.

"Is this the right place?" Draco asked. "I can never remember."

"Well try the password and see if it works," Harry advised.

"Gryffindor," Draco said, opening up the stone door. "Is it just me or do we have some really odd passwords?"

"Well nobody will ever guess," Harry said reasonably. "Although I'm not entirely sure why we have to have our Commons Rooms hidden from each other anyway."

Theodore looked up from the semi-argument he was having with Blaise long enough to contribute his own bizarre theory. "Clearly it's because everyone thinks that we all hate each other so much we'd kill each other in our sleep if we had the opportunity to."

"Then why wouldn't we do it while we were awake?" Daphne challenged.

"Obviously because only the Gryffindors would want the confrontation," Theodore said as if it were obvious. "They really should stop promoting house rivalries if they already don't trust us…"

Predictably, Pansy was being hailed as a hero to not only the Slytherins but the other three houses. Though this praise was reluctant on the part of the non-Slytherins, her achievement was just so cool that it could not be ignored. Part of the reluctance certainly stemmed from anti-Slytherin prejudice and but Harry rather thought that most of it was the seventy points they had netted for it.

With the extensive training Harry had had, he made sure to quickly attach his name to the story and so now everyone knew how Pansy had only managed her daring deed because Harry had stunned the troll first. That stunners weren't actually very effective against the magic-resistant trolls were beside the point because clearly he had done something to stop it.

At breakfast that morning, Harry had actually gotten a note from Gilderoy requesting that he meet him in his classroom after breakfast. Now, since Gilderoy was perfectly capable of actually coming up to him and telling him to meet him or just telling him whatever it was that he wanted to tell him, Harry could only assume this meant that the discussion was supposed to be private.

He slipped out a couple of minutes before breakfast ended and headed to the classroom. He was waiting for no more than five minutes before Gilderoy joined him.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Gilderoy apologized. "I just didn't want anybody to notice us leaving together."

"Did you fail to inform me we were in a spy novel now?" Harry asked sarcastically.

"Nothing so fancy," Gilderoy replied. "Just basic privacy-preserving measures. I wanted to talk about last night."

Harry waited. It was probably a good idea to let Gilderoy go first.

"So…you helped kill a troll," Gilderoy said finally.

"I was essential," Harry corrected.

"While I applaud the way you've managed to work your way into the story, I really do have to ask what in the world were you thinking chasing after a troll?" Gilderoy demanded. "Trolls are known to kill grown men, let alone first years! You could have been killed."

"We weren't looking for the troll," Harry protested. "We were looking for Blaise, who the troll happened to have found. And what were we supposed to do? Go to the dungeons like Dumbledore said?"

"Well…no," Gilderoy conceded. "But you shouldn't have faced down that troll. If you were looking for a reputation boost, even seeing it and living to tell the tale would have been sufficient."

"Blaise was trapped in the bathroom with it," Harry explained. "And he seemed quite insistent on us coming in to save him."

"These things always seem to happen at Hogwarts," Gilderoy said, shaking his head. "Particularly to your biological father and his friends. Of course, there might have been some truth to the rumors that they went looking for trouble."

"I can't very well tell people about this, of course, but I actually owe it to you that I was able to play my part in defeating the troll," Harry admitted. "And if I hadn't been able to stop it then Pansy wouldn't have been able to kill it."

"I'm a little worried for that girl," Gilderoy confided. "Snape estimated that the troll's head had been smashed at least a half a dozen times, probably more."

"Yes, well," Harry said awkwardly. He cleared his throat. "So I have never been in such a dangerous situation and I sort of panicked. The first spell that came to me was 'Obliviate' so I cast that one."

Gilderoy's eyes narrowed. "Not out loud, certainly."

"No," Harry confirmed. "Don't worry. You've certainly beaten it into my head by now that doing it out loud is never a good idea."

"It really isn't," Gilderoy reiterated. "I had a close call once when you were only seven or so. I had just verbally Obliviated someone and their wife came home in time to hear it. I had to Obliviate her as well, though silently this time so I wouldn't have to re-Obliviate the husband." He paused. "How did an Obliviate work on a troll, anyway?"

Harry shrugged. "It dazed him for a few seconds. I don't know how much longer he would have been like that because that's when Pansy took the club and started going at him. So…verdict?" He looked up at his father anxiously. Unplanned and unnecessarily dangerous though it had been, it had been the first bit of big publicity he had actively done and not just found out about after the fact like with his parents' deaths.

"You weren't the big hero of this story but had a solid role in it and you're only starting out so establishing yourself before you really get going is a good move," Gilderoy declared. "And to tell you the truth, I'm a little relieved you weren't the one to take down that troll."

"Because it was dangerous?" Harry inquired.

"Because I am seriously wondering about that girl now," Gilderoy corrected. "She's got to have some pretty serious issues."

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