A/N: (Insert Generic Disclaimer here) Ok, so by now everyone knows the deal that's been on here longer than five minutes; I don't own this and never will, so enjoy. Sorry it took so long to update, but I've been working on the sequel to In Harry We Trust which has the first three chapters already uploaded. Also, I'm working on a cliché one-shot and wanted everyone's opinions on the clichés here in fan fiction that I can incorporate, the more the better. Have fun!
The warmer month of September slowly bled into the frigid pre-winter of October and before too long it was getting closer and closer to Halloween; the one real holiday celebrated while all the students were at Hogwarts. For many of the students it was a time of costumes, candy, and entertainment; while for the professors it was a time of pranks and sleepless nights of undoing student activities throughout the school. For one man in particular, the middle of the month of October brought something interesting in the owl post for that month; nothing.
Albus Dumbledore sat at the Head Table as always calmly watching the owls coming in for the morning post and carrying all manner of letters to their intended targets. He had observed that Harry had taken to a regular correspondence with someone; however all of his inquiries had been met with resistance. Harry himself would not talk about whom he was regularly writing to, his friends either did not know or had found a way to block his mental probes, and even the other teachers had no idea what was going on. The big piece of news, however for the headmaster was not what was in the mail, but what was curiously absent.
Since December of 1981, he had been receiving regular bank statements on the assets and accounts of Harry James Potter. The goblins were always very punctual and each month the statement would arrive on precisely the twelfth; he never questioned why this was, just accepted that the statements would always be there as they should. Last month had had not received one, but figured they were just making sure that everything was in order with the sizable withdrawal for school tuition fees. This month however, the statement was late again, and there was no rational explanation for why it would be late.
Those pesky little monsters need a reminder of just who I am. Dumbledore thought as he surveyed the students just finishing up breakfast. He figured that he would have the time to pop over to the bank just after breakfast was finished and take care of the needed business.
"It's so nice to see young Mister Potter making friends and in different houses as well." The Deputy Headmistress broke off his train of thought and he had to bite back a snapping remark as he smiled the benevolent smile that he always had fixed in place.
"Yes, it would seem that your concern over his placement with his relative was unfounded, Minerva." Inside however he was seething. Those stupid muggles were supposed to keep him beaten down so that he would latch onto the youngest Weasley, now he seems confident and making friends on his own. I might have to make a side trip to them as well.
"Yes, I have to say this is one time I was happy to be proven wrong." The stern woman gave a small smile as she sipped from her goblet. "Although, I do wonder to who he's been writing to since the beginning of the month; the letters just arrived one day and they haven't stopped since."
"Oh, I'm sure that it's just his aunt and uncle wanting to be sure that he's not homesick and settling in just fine." Dumbledore smiled again and shifted in his seat as he made to stand. "Minerva, I will be out on official business for most of the morning, would you take care to deal with anything that crops up?"
"Of course Albus, but I don't remember seeing an official summons from the Ministry."
"No, just some personal business that I must attend to, something that came up suddenly." While his face was smiling he was sneering on the inside. How dare this woman question me, I am Albus Dumbledore. She should be happy to still have her job.
Bidding his colleagues a good day, Dumbledore slid off to the side of the Head Table and made his way out of the Great Hall. He never noticed that a pair of 'killing curse' green eyes followed his movements and then tied a small note onto his snowy white owl. The owl had served him well over the past month and a half and seemed determined not to be caught on any of her special deliveries, and this one was extra special. Dumbledore, for his part, was playing directly into the plans that had already been set up long ago.
The aging headmaster, still fuming on the inside, waved a friendly hello to a few of the older students on his way out onto the grounds of the school. Making his way past the gates and thus the wards of the school he was able to disappear on the spot with little more than a soft pop as a bubble might make releasing its air. He reappeared just outside the main entrance to Diagon Alley and felt even more anger.
Stupid goblins, forcing good people like me to have to come all the way out here just to do business. I should be able to go directly into a private room. Dumbledore huffed indignantly, producing his wand and tapping the bricks to open the entrance.
Diagon Alley had not changed much in the several hundred years since it was first conceived and hidden away in the middle of London. Thus the shops had relatively remained the same, with a few things going out of fashion over the years and being replaced by others. There were not many shoppers on the clear October morning considering most of the populace was still at home enjoying their breakfast, or there was little reason for them to come to the alley seeing as how their children would be safely tucked away at the fortress of Hogwarts.
Giving the required, and expected, wave to a few of his former students as well as a benevolent smile to any younger siblings that might be starting in the next few years, Dumbledore finally made it to the golden doors of the bank of Gringotts. At seeing the small amount of people in the lobby he moved towards a free teller and stopped before the aging creature waiting to be acknowledged. And he waited, and he waited for several minutes before he was about to loose his temper.
"Master Goblin, may I have your ear?" The old man put on his best fake smile as he waited yet again for an answer, all the while inside thinking of all the curses he knew to disembowel the creature before him.
"Ah, Lord Dumbledore, I was unaware of your presence." The goblin sneered slightly, pushing the ledger before him closed with a small thump.
"Understandable, of course considering the bank is always busy with something." Dumbledore held his tongue better than even he thought possible. "I would like to inquire as to why my account statements were not received last month or this month."
The goblin made a big show of scanning through the ledger off to the side of the small teller cubicle. He had already guessed why the old meddler would be here, but wanted to confirm it and embarrass the man even further. "The Dumbledore account summaries were sent out as always on the ninth of the month." The goblin knew for sure that these had been received as their owls had come back satisfied with the delivery.
"It is not the Dumbledore accounts that I am inquiring about. I was to receive monthly statements from the Potter account as well as per the court documents naming myself the magical guardian of the young Potter scion." Dumbledore was getting very close to loosing his temper, but he knew that it would ruin decades of plans if he so much as twitched toward his wand.
"Ah, well then, you should have received notification that the true guardian of Mister Potter had been uncovered." The goblin left it at that and went back to what it had been doing before the old man had arrived.
"True guardian? I was only aware of the traitor Black being named the godfather, and the Wizengamot deemed on December of 1981 that I would be named the only fit guardian for the boy." The old man's voice was starting to get louder, not loud enough to garner attention from those other patrons in the bank, but enough to make him look menacing to the goblin; or at least this is what he thought.
"Mister Potter has been notified as to his assets as well as his guardian. I believe your business here is concluded, Lord Dumbledore, unless you have something of your own accounts to be concerned with." The goblin seemed to be hinting at something, but it went over Dumbledore's head as he stormed away from the teller and back towards the front doors of the bank.
The Dursleys wouldn't have claimed guardianship over the boy that would have required them to come here and make an official notification. If they had learned of the vaults though they might have brought the boy here and forced him to sign something. Dumbledore thought about what he would have to do to salvage the money that he had relied upon for almost ten years. It was a great loss to him and to other "charitable" organizations if the Potter fortune was not in his control.
XoXo
At the same time as Dumbledore was storming away from the bank, lunch had just started being served in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. This in itself was not a stupendous occasion, even if you take into account the wonderful food being produced by the many house elves. The thing that made this lunch different from the one's that came before it was the manner in which a pair of brown eyes watched a fellow student seated near the end of the table just across from her.
The girl pulled back her thick curtain of black hair and pinned it back with an elegant silver catch as she continued to stare at the black haired wizard at the table across from her. She was careful not to be caught staring by the others at her table, or by those at the other table, or so she thought. She was focusing so intently on the young man that she didn't feel her friend sit down next to her and give her a slight nudge in the ribs.
"Why don't you go and talk to him?" The second girl spoke up as she loaded some food onto her plate, catching a glance at the wizard in question.
"You don't just walk up to the Boy-Who-Lived and strike up a conversation. It has to be just the right setting and I have to have just on the right outfit." The girl waved her hand around emphatically as she speared a piece of steak on the end of her fork. "Every girl in Hogwarts wants to be with him."
"That Granger girl and Greengrass seem to hang around him quite a bit." The girl chewed on a piece of a biscuit as she sought out the girl in question. Hermione Granger was seated several places down speaking to an older Ravenclaw female about something and laughing along with the older girl.
"Yes, but he doesn't have any female friends in his own house. Those two don't seem very possessive over him so any girl should be able to make her move on the boy." The first girl stared intently at her query as he laughed along with the pudgy Longbottom boy.
"Girl, you're twelve, what do you know about a real relationship? Aren't we supposed to be more concerned over our hair and studies than boys? They'll be plenty of time in the next six years for you to make your move on the poor boy." The second girl smiled and gave a small wave in Hermione's direction and received a wave in reply and a soft smile.
"Hey, if I don't make my move now, who knows what could happen in the next few years. Granger might turn into some model or Greengrass could develop sooner and start to have eyes for him. No, I need to make my move now. If I don't I could end up with some petty Hufflepuff." The girl shivered at the thought and then groaned.
"Some of them are rather cute, you know." She smiled and gave a wave to the Hufflepuff table only to receive weird looks and slightly confused boys.
"I suppose Diggory isn't too bad looking, but I want to have some kind of future." The first girl sighed and fixed her brown eyes back to the black haired wizard whom was currently getting up to leave for his next class. "I think I should make my move soon, what do you think?"
"Girl, I've told you before that you have plenty of time, but if you really think you need to then you should go quickly." The second girl indicated with her fork to show that both Hermione and Daphne had gotten up from their perspective tables and started heading off to catch up with their friends.
"Shoot, distract them for me." The first girl was busy smoothing down the silk blouse that she was wearing and the normal pleated uniform skirt making sure that she didn't have any stains or crumbs.
"No, do your own dirty work." The two girls watched as the Slytherin princess and the Ravenclaw prodigy disappeared out the Great Hall doors.
"Come on, we might still be able to catch them." The girl grabbed her friend's hand and pulled her to her feet, nearly dragging her out of the doors and into the entrance hall.
The entrance hall was still partially filled with students moving to and from classes and a few just standing around talking to friends from different houses. It didn't seem odd nowadays to see more Gryffindors hanging around Slytherins. It seemed like Harry's friendship with people from other houses had started to spill over into the rest of the school, even though he still didn't have a Hufflepuff friend. This all being said, the two girls came out of the Great Hall into a milling throng of people that seemed to be enjoying the last few vestiges of summer before the true winter chill.
"Where is he?" The black haired girl whined, pulling on strands of her hair and trying very hard not to nibble on them.
"Stop worrying so much. I think I saw him heading up the staircases, towards the seventh floor." The other girl looked slightly out of breath and groaned as her friend took off for said seventh floor.
The castle stairs, being unruly and generally known pranksters in their own right, changed several times on the girls as they made their way up them. If the girls were keen observers they might have seen that every time they got closer to a small figure with black hair, the stairs would push them off into an opposite direction, but they weren't paying any attention to the stairs as they changed and moved around. It took the girls another ten minutes to finally reach the seventh floor, and by then the small figure of Harry Potter had disappeared completely from view.
The long stone hallway stretched for a while in front of them, running along the outermost battlements of the castle. It was completely empty. Not even at the far end where the hallway twisted slightly to the right to follow along the other side of the castle could they see even a hint of black hair or any hair at all. The hallway and indeed the entire floor looked completely deserted. The two girls bent over with their hands on their knees gasping for breath.
"Oh, we lost him! I tell you something weird is going on up here. He should have been right here." The black haired girl swung her arms around trying to prove her point.
Staring at the opposite wall from where they were standing, the other girl thought for sure that she had seen a small hole appear in the stone and then vanish. It seemed like the stone had melted for a moment before reappearing solid as ever. Moving over she ran a hand along the solid stone and groaned, sometimes magic was just too unpredictable for her nature. Turning back to her agitated friend she sighed and grabbed the girl by the arm.
"Come on, we better get back to the common room before our next class. We wouldn't want to make Professor Sprout mad at us this early in the term."
"But what about my hunky boy toy?" The other girl whined like a little two year old that had just lost her favorite stuffed animal.
"You've got six years at Hogwarts with him, there's still time. Leave it alone, girl." Turning back to the staircases she dragged her friend down a few flights and then up along the corridors towards their common room, all the while watching painting move eyeing them and the stairs themselves helping them along. Something was definitely going on at Hogwarts and Harry Potter was at the center of it all.
XoXo
The week leading up to the Halloween feast saw a change in the activities around the castle. Mostly it was the upper years getting ready for the holidays that were a month away now and for the younger years to enjoy the fading weather. Indeed the weather started to take a turn for the worse with hailing thunderstorms sometimes pounding the stones of the thousand year old castle threatening to break it apart. The drafty hallways were often flooded with bundled students huddled together in large packs to keep warm as they moved from one class to the next. One enterprising seventh year had even attempted to enchant every third stone down one particular hallway to emit a warming charm whenever they were touched; it took Professor Flitwick and McGonagall several hours to get rid of the rainforest that had suddenly sprouted due to increased warmth and humidity.
These days also saw a decrease in Harry being with his friends. He would give some excuse and then disappear for a few hours. On more than one occasion he would disappear around one corner only to be seen jogging back coming from the opposite direction. Once, as Daphne was coming out of the dungeons she thought she saw Harry disappear into a nearby girl's bathroom. When talking about it with him at lunch, Neville said that he saw Harry at the exact same time up on the third floor talking to one of the portraits.
The boy in question invariably had some excuse for his disappearances, merely stating that he was in the library doing research on something. He told his friends that he was sorry and then from then on he was seen with him all the time, even if on occasion a few students would comment on something they had never seen him do. It was the day before the great feast was to be held when Harry received a rather large package tied to Hedwig's leg.
"What's that, Harry?" Neville leaned over to look at the note that was attached to the package, but all he could see were a series of circles and weird symbols. They must have meant something to his friend as he started laughing uncontrollably.
The laughter brought the attention of the teachers as well as the students around them. Seeing a possible in with the young Mister Potter, Dumbledore swooped down at the first opportunity and found himself next to the boy in seconds. Harry, for his part, had noticed when the Headmaster started to come over to the table and told Hedwig to take the package up to the windowsill at his dorm room. As the owl disappeared the appropriate twinkling eyes of Dumbledore descended on him.
"Harry my boy; I see that you got a package. Who was it from?" Gently probing his mind, Dumbledore finally seemed to get something off the enigmatic boy, but it was a jumble of images and needed to be sorted out.
"My guardian actually; I had written to him a while back asking some interesting questions and he just got back with me. If you'll excuse me, I think that I'll take my letters upstairs with me." Harry pocketed the envelope with the strange note in it and made to leave, only to be stopped by the imposing figure of the Headmaster.
"I must insist that I see that, Mister Potter. You are quite the celebrity around here and I need to be sure that there is nothing dark about that letter or the accompanying package." He held out his hand, putting on the strongest compulsion charm that he could pull off. It seemed to work as Harry produced the note and put it in the old man's hand.
Albus Dumbledore would have fancied himself a man of the world, knowing many different obscure and sometimes rare languages, not to mention all the reading he had done. As he stared at the boy in question and then down at the note with the odd symbols and circles, he was thoroughly confused for maybe the third time in his life. To him, the symbols looked to be a string of mathematical equations that would lead up to something monumental and mean something profound, but for the life of him he couldn't understand a single variable being represented.
"Albus, I see no reason to disturb young Potter's breakfast. You know as well as I that the wards around the castle prevent anything overtly dark from being brought in without your knowledge." Minerva moved to Dumbledore's elbow and peered down at the strange note.
"Of course, Minerva I was only being concerned about the well being of our students." Dumbledore seethed on the inside at his subordinate questioning his motives for what he was doing. It was his school after all; he should be allowed to do what he pleased.
"That is true, Professor. If anything evil came into the school, would you know about it?" Harry seemed to have taken an interest in the conversation and put his hands behind his back slowly as he concentrated on the two professors before him.
"Of course, Harry. You have nothing to worry about within the walls of this castle." Dumbledore patted the young man on the head and then turned to leave, still clutching the note in his hand. He wanted to analyze it a little more along with the images that he had gotten from the boy's mind.
"Professor, may I have my experimental calculus work back?" Harry held out his hand towards the professor expecting the note that the crafty old man had slid into his pocket by now.
"Experimental Calculus?" Minerva seemed a little unnerved by the prospect of such a thing.
"It is an advanced form of mathematical calculations that include the fourth and fifth dimensional constants. I've been working on it in my spare time." Harry spoke plainly while keeping his eyes on Dumbledore the entire time. The rest of the people around him seemed to have glazed over expressions as he smiled.
Snatching the note out of Dumbledore's hand Harry had to smile and started to move out of the Great Hall towards the first lesson of the day. It would be several full minutes before anyone figured out that he had left and that the note was now gone from Dumbledore's hand. It was at this point that the aging man groaned and turned on his heel to go back up to his office and brood some more; he had gotten into the habit of doing this almost every time he had an encounter with the young Mister Potter.
Harry, after leaving the Great Hall, had headed down towards the dungeons for his potions lesson, pulling the black book bag over his shoulder and giving a soft smile. It was fun to torment with people's minds and to leave them wondering what he was talking about and it seemed to be even easier with some of these people as they had never heard of some of the things that he was talking about. It would soon be time for the Halloween feast and then it would be time for him to make his move, but it would have to be a calculated risk on his part as well.
"Potter, you're late." Professor Snape sneered at his least favorite student as he looked up from gazing at the clock. It was a full ten seconds after the chime had gone, but in essence he was right.
"Professor Dumbledore had something to speak to me about." Harry slid down into a seat next to Neville, ignoring the waving and pathetic whimpering of Ron Weasley near the back of the class.
"Five points from Gryffindor for your arrogance. You would have a note if the Headmaster was speaking with you." Snape swept down from his position at the head of the class to stalk the rows of frightened students, all except Harry for some reason. Harry simply looked bored, but still concentrated on him.
As the Potions Master swept past the small boy he could detect a small hint of something. He felt almost as if there was more to the boy than meets the eye and he noticed Harry fiddling with a gold ring on his right hand before the feeling diminished. Waving off the feeling he moved around the rest of the room stalking between the aisles and glaring down at the incompetent Gryffindor while praising the Slytherin students. Much to his dismay, however, Potter was still able to produce an adequate potion by the end of the lesson leaving him wondering where the boy had been cheating.
XoXo
Halloween day was always one of Harry's most favorite holidays. Of course it was a little morbid to like the day dedicated to death and ghosts, but it was what had happened to him over the years in conjunction with certain holidays that made him this way. He was sad to learn of his birth parents deaths on Halloween and always visited their graves on this specific day no matter when they had ended up, but over the years he had started to appreciate the day more for what it really was. It was truly a day for magic both in the muggle sense and in the magical world.
This time the day itself dawned cold and gloomy. Storm clouds had gathered over the night and were threatening an awful downpour later in the evening. Harry had disappeared early in the morning and then come back to spend the rest of the day with his friends going through classes and the like; the teachers had taken a liking to the holiday as well and would teach interesting spells or potions specific to the holiday. The students learned the levitation charm and used it to move pumpkins around the classroom; a transfiguration spell that made an object glow from within.
The only professor that didn't seem to really enjoy the holiday itself was Professor Snape. He refused to teach anything that he considered "silly dribble worthy of muggles" and instead concentrated on the nearly impossible curriculum that he had outlined at the beginning of the year. To everyone else this seemed callus and even a little underhanded, but Harry knew the truth as to why the professor hated this particular holiday and wasn't about to share it with anyone else.
It was on the day of Halloween itself that something began to really occur. It had started off with the normal classes and Snape scowling down at the rest of the students like he hated them all, but it was something in the air that had sparked conversations as well as a few verbal sparing matches. The least notable of course came from the usual Malfoy/Weasley banter back and forth that had become almost a regular side-show for the rest of the school. The most notable, however, was not between two people, but a large group.
"You're still a freak." The voice of one of the girls rang out through the entrance hall attracting the attention of several people.
The entrance hall was unusually packed full of people and it wasn't any work of divination to figure out why. In the middle of the hall nearest to the dungeons stood a large group of people; two on one side and another four on the other. All of the people were girls and the ones on the majority all wore Slytherin robes and seemed to be facing off with two girls, one a fellow Slytherin and one a Ravenclaw.
"Couldn't find any real friends in our house, had to go out to another?" The tallest girl seemed to be the leader and was standing with her hands on her hips staring down at the two first years. She was around five feet ten inches tall with a mass of black hair that tangled near the top and then moved along her shoulders.
"She's got a friend, that's what matters." The Ravenclaw girl, bushy brown hair, retorted.
"She can't make any real friends, mudblood." Another of the girls jumped into the conversation causing the small first year Slytherin girl to get upset.
"At least I don't have to pay her to like me." Daphne threw back to the group.
"You're just a little blood traitor, I hope that your mudblood mother enjoyed being tortured to death. She's where she belongs now, dead!" The girl shouted for the entire hall to hear.
"You take that back, you bitch!" Daphne showed a rare form of emotion as she started to tear up at the edges of her eyes.
"Aw, is the little traitor going to cry?" The girls all laughed loudly as Daphne pushed through the crowd of people and fled down the hallway towards the nearest bathroom, Hermione chasing after her.
As is usual with things happening around the school, the teachers were only a few seconds too late to intervene on anyone's behalf. "What is going on here?" Snape drawled as he swept into the entrance hall.
"Nothing Professor, we were just dealing with a few blood traitors." The leader of the group sneered at the crowd daring anyone to contradict her.
Since it was close to the time of the feast the rest of the school disappeared back into the Great Hall. Neville and Harry came down from Gryffindor Tower expecting to see their friends waiting for them as they came into the Great Hall looking around for the rest of the foursome that had been created. After a while they didn't see the girls and decided to ask around to try and get an idea as to what might have happened.
"Got into a right row with some Slytherin girls, they did." Seamus Finnigan provided as he stuffed more potatoes and gravy into his mouth.
"Good riddance, I say. Those girls were becoming a bad influence on you two. You should be out playing Quidditch and chess, not studying late in the library." Ron scuffed, even though no one had asked him.
Harry was about to open his mouth to tell Ron just what he thought of his theory of life when Professor Quirrel burst into the hall and ran up the central aisle screaming. "Troll! In the dungeons…" He then proceeded to faint right away.
Now, the student body of Hogwarts, being made up of children between the ages of eleven and seventeen are an easily frightened lot. When they heard that a creature that they had been studying, mostly inadequately, had been found within the castle there was complete chaos. Harry pulled Neville aside as the rest of the school was panicking and slipped out the still open doors to the Great Hall.
"We have to find the girls, I have an idea." Harry whispered as they moved down the hall towards the nearest girl's bathroom. They could already hear the rest of the school moving back towards their dormitories from the Great Hall; it was unlikely that they would be discovered missing for some time.
Stopping at the door to the girl's toilet, Neville pushed it open only a crack and called in. "If there's anyone in there, you need to get out now. Supposedly there's a troll running around in the dungeons and we need to get back to our dormitories." The last few weeks spending time with Harry and the girls had really done wonders for Neville's self esteem, not to mention the magical boost that he had gotten.
The two girls in question, one with flowing black hair and the other with bushy brown hair, both stuck their heads out of the toilet at the same time. Their eyes were puffy red and it seemed like they had been crying on each other's shoulders as there were wet spots on Daphne's right and Hermione's left. They seemed confused for a moment before slipping out of the bathroom and looking at the boys to figure out if what Neville had said was real or not. This of course was proven moot when there was a roar from a few yards down the hallway.
A fully grown mountain troll usually stands at about eighteen feet, hunched over that is. The hallways of Hogwarts were always lavish and grand, owing to the personalities that they housed, and were thus over fifteen feet in height. The mountain troll now staring down at the four eleven year old children was stooping quite heavily to fit in the hallway and seemed to be dragging a large tree trunk behind it. The beady yellow eyes stared at the children for a moment and then bellowed loudly at them again, rumbling the stones of the walls.
The four young magic users stared at the troll for a split second before, as a group, sprinting back up the hallway towards the entrance hall. Without looking behind them, they could hear the thumping stomps of the trolls' footsteps getting closer. They rounded a corner and came to the entrance hall, empty of both professors and students. Taking another corner around the edge of the hall they passed into the other wing of the castle, still hearing the loud thumping of the troll behind them.
A crash behind them sent bricks of stone and mortar flying past their bodies as they continued to run. Up another corridor and down another, twisting and turning through the passageways attempting to loose the large beast, but it still kept after them. As the foursome rounded another corner they came into the main stairwells of Hogwarts, the stairs already twisting out of the way and preventing their movements. Harry could see a lone figure up along one staircase moving towards the third floor corridor.
The figure swept purple and black robes up the stairs and Harry stood transfixed as he watched the older man disappear through a large thick wooden door. He was pulled out of the way just as the large club smashed into the wall above his head. Stumbling slightly he gripped the hand that had saved him and continued running up the next passage and then down another. At the end, however there was a solid stone wall, a dead end.
"Why are there even dead ends in this castle?" Neville searched frantically around the base and the sides to see if the wall was indeed solid.
Spinning around the children could see the troll rounding the last corner and starting to come their way. It was lumbering slower than before owing to the large physical exercise that it had already gotten from chasing the four down, but it was still coming close. The last doorway on the hallway was an unused classroom that the troll had just passed, still twenty feet from them. Harry looked left and right, standing before his friends as he looked over his shoulder at them; giving a heaving sigh he made the decision.
"When I say so, close your eyes and don't open them."
"What?" Hermione and Daphne both screamed at once.
"Just do it, I have a plan." The edges of Harry's eyes started to glow golden and he could feel a strange sensation from deep within him; it felt like the anxiousness of a child waiting Christmas morning mixed with the fierce protectiveness of a mother bear.
The troll continued to come closer to the four friends and raising its club above its head. "Now!" Harry shouted. Without even waiting to see if his friends did what they were told he followed it up with a hissing sound that was barely heard by those around him.
Instantly once the hiss was heard the wall on the left side of the passageway exploded outward spraying the ground with bits of stone and mortar work. A large green blur passed by the friends standing before the troll and slammed into the large grey body threatening the four first years. The green mass forced the grey body of the troll through the next wall and into another corridor before it disappeared through a large hole in the floor that had appeared. Bluish grey blood flew from the body of the troll when it was hit and sprayed the walls of the corridor before it disappeared. The entire incident had happened so fast that the children barely had time to realize what had happened.
"You can open your eyes." Harry groaned.
"Harry, you sound really tired for some reason." Hermione opened her eyes and gasped at the destruction before her. Peeking through the hole in the left wall she couldn't see any remains of the troll left only streaks of blood.
"What the bloody hell did you do!?" Daphne screamed.