By the time Harry stepped off the troll - careful not to bump any of the boils and risk waking it - Professor Snape had gotten a hold of himself enough to begin asking questions, being the first to do so. "Mr. Potter," he asked, calmly yet firmly. "What, exactly, is going on here?"

Harry carefully wiped the tip of his wand clean. "Umm...there's a lot to that..." he offered uncertainly.

"Start at the beginning, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall instructed firmly. "Why aren't you with the rest of your House?"

"We needed to warn Hermione about the troll," Harry explained calmly, standing a bit straighter. "She wasn't in the Great Hall when Professor Quirrel arrived, and didn't hear about it or know we were sent to the common rooms."

"And why wasn't she?" Professor Flitwick asked curiously, glancing over to where Hermione was still carefully checking Ron over.

"It's m' fault, Professor..." Ron mumbled, speaking as articulately as he could. "In Charms, when she lectured me and showed me up...I said somethin' I shouldn't have and it...it was way out of line and hurt her. But with her sounding like Mum, and having to live up to my brothers..." He blinked owlishly, his eyes glazing briefly before he seemed to focus back in on the moment. "'m sorry, Hermione. I...I shouldn'ta said that..."

"It's...it's okay," Hermione allowed apologetically. "I...guess I was kind of out of line myself with lecturing..." She scratched uncertainly at her ear as she realized she was suddenly the center of attention, before turning to look away.

"I suppose that explains why Miss Granger is here," Professor Sprout observed with a knowing smirk. Seeing the startled look on Hermione's face, the head of Hufflepuff chuckled. "You're far from the first student to use the bathrooms to hide, dear."

"And why didn't you inform one of us?" Professor Dumbledore asked gently. "Or a Prefect?"

"Parvati Patil said she'd let Percy know," Harry pointed out, doing his best not to let his nervousness over that slight stretching of the truth show on his face. "But we couldn't tell him ourselves because he was so focused on getting the rest of the House to the common room." Harry frowned as a thought crossed his mind. "Speaking of, why did you send everyone to the common rooms?"

"It's standard protocol in the event of any sort of incursion at Hogwarts," Dumbledore explained with a benign smile. "The common rooms can be magically disconnected from the rest of the school in the event of an emergency, making them the safest locations in the entire school."

"Okay, but why not the Great Hall?" Harry pointed out uncertainly. As Kevin whispered in his ear his own thoughts, he continued with more confidence. "I mean, the troll plainly wasn't in the dungeons anymore, and you didn't know how long ago Professor Quirrel saw it there...but the Great Hall was the one place you knew the troll wasn't, and almost everyone was there for the Feast." He glanced uncertainly towards Hermione. Plainly, not everyone had been there...but it would have been reasonable to assume no one would miss a Hogwarts Feast.

Professor Dumbledore raised his hand, one finger extended as he opened his mouth to reply...then hesitated. Closing his mouth, he stroked his chin. "...an excellent point, Mr. Potter," he allowed apologetically. "I suppose in this particular case, having everyone hole up in the Great Hall and assigning staff to guard the entrances would have been the wiser course." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I suppose I - like the students - was so startled by the announcement that I fell back on protocol to gain control of myself as much as the student body. To be fair, the protocols are written with the assumption that the first warning of such an incursion comes from the school wards detecting the threat and alerting the staff..." He rubbed his chin as he frowned thoughtfully. "...which makes this event more concerning than it first appears, if the troll somehow circumvented the wards in that way. Either it stumbled through a previously unknown hole in the defenses, or someone let it in. Neither a pleasant thought..."

"But a thought for another time, perhaps," Professor McGonagall interrupted gently, giving Dumbledore a significant look. Seeing the look, Dumbledore glanced towards Harry and the others before nodding in reply. Apparently, this wasn't a conversation they wanted to have in front of students. "While I don't approve of first years putting themselves in harms way like this...I will admit that your reasoning for your actions is...commendable, if foolish." She frowned in distaste. "I've said that to students of mine far too often for my comfort..." she muttered under her breath. "Now that we've established how you all got here..." She gestured from Ron to the troll. "What, exactly, happened?"

Taking a calming breath - glad that, apparently, they weren't in trouble out of hand just yet - Harry took up the narrative. "When we got here, the troll was standing over Hermione and about to hit her with its club. Ron conjured his Dematio, a wolf, but...I think something went wrong."

"Oh?" Professor Flitwick inquired in surprise. "What happened?"

"His wand started smoking in his hand, and then he was blasted backwards as the Dematio charged in," Harry explained worriedly as he glanced towards Ron. As he spoke, Professor Flitwick ambled over to examine both Ron and the still sparking and smoking wand. "The Dematio shouldered aside the club, grabbed Hermione, and pulled her back to Ron before dissolving into dust. That's not how a Dematio normally disappears..."

"No it is not," Flitwick agreed in concern as he carefully lifted the wand. "Though this wand looks near the end of its life. Is this really your wand, Mr. Weasley? I can't imagine Ollivander would sell one in this condition."

"Charlie's old wand..." Ron managed to say, still plainly groggy.

Flitwick's eyes widened in surprise. "Ah, that would explain it!" he declared in surprise. "I hadn't considered it before, but the Dematio - like the Patronus - would be exceptionally difficult to cast with an unmatched wand! While most spells can be cast with some difficulty using any wand, spells that rely on the emotional state of the caster tend not to work properly if the wand isn't properly attuned, as the wand will not read the user's emotional state properly." He examined the wand carefully. "I would say it is still usable, but I would strongly recommend not trying to cast the Dematio with it again. If I'm reading it right, it took all the wand had to not explode from the Dematio being forced through it, likely due to its loyalty to your brother and a desire not to cause you harm." He ran his hands over the wand carefully before tapping it a few times with his own wand, and the sparking and smoking ceased. He then set the wand down next to Ron. "Though I wish I'd been informed that you are using an unmatched wand. That adds a degree of difficulty on the practical side of lessons, and I'm not the only Professor who takes that into account with both lessons and grades." Seeing Hermione's startled look and Ron's attempt at one, Flitwick chuckled. "The only reason a new student wouldn't be using a matched wand would be due to the cost, and it would be unfair to penalize their grades for their financial situation, wouldn't you say?"

"So that is why Mr. Weasley is in his current state," Professor McGonagall observed dourly. "Which suggests you handled the troll...by yourself, Mr. Potter?" She looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow, her tone somewhere between pride and disbelief. "How? And..." She gestured to the boils covering the troll's body.

Walking past the troll, Harry picked up the jar lid, the porcupine quill now visibly sticking out the inside. "During my first Potions class, I stopped Neville from putting his porcupine quills into his boil removal potion before taking the cauldron off the fire," Harry explained, noticing how that got Professor Snape's immediate attention as he looked over the boils covering the troll with a new light. "I found myself wondering what would happen if you did that, but given how Professor Snape talked about it, I figured it would be dangerous to use my own cauldron. So I asked Fred and George Weasley if they could figure out a way to test it out without being in danger." He managed an uncertain smile. "They seemed to think I meant to prank someone with it, and were happy to do it."

"What, exactly, did those two do?" Professor Snape demanded, his eyes narrowed.

"They brewed the potion up to that point, then used a jar with a stasis spell on it to scoop some up," Harry explained, holding up the lid. "This kept the potion at the state of boil. They placed a porcupine quill in the cap, such that depressing the cap would insert the quill into the potion. Depressing the cap was also the trigger to disable the stasis spell." He gestured to the troll. "When I did so before throwing the jar, it...dissolved, and the liquid splashed over the troll, causing the boils. After that, I was able to put it to sleep with Somnorus."

Professor Snape snorted in amusement. "By any chance, Mr. Potter, have you been considering a change to your surname?" He seemed amused when the other teachers looked at him in confusion.

Harry was rather confused himself. "...what to?" he asked uncertainly.

"Macgyver, perhaps?" Professor Snape allowed, an amused twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his lips. Hermione let out a startled snort and giggle before she smothered it.

While the other Professors looked at Snape in confusion, Professor McGonagall cleared her throat. "Well, while not something I approve of happening in general, I cannot fault your accomplishments this night," she stated calmly. "Mr. Weasley, 50 points for using your successful casting of the Dematio to save a fellow student's life. And Mr. Potter..." Her face twisted up in displeasure. "Much as I want to punish you for putting yourself in danger...80 points for successfully taking down a hostile troll. But don't think it will always be this easy. This one's barely half-grown-"

"They get bigger?" Harry yelped in surprise and fear as he backed away from the unconscious beast in a hurry...much to Kevin's amusement.

"I think you'd be more used to the idea of large magical beasts after seeing me full sized," the serpent observed quietly with a hissing chuckle.

McGonagall seemed pleased by Harry's reaction. "For now, I will escort the three of you to the Hospital Wing. Mr. Weasley needs treatment for thaumatic backfire, and the two of you need a once over to make sure nothing's been missed in the heat of the moment. After that, it's straight to bed to the three of you."

"But Hermione's not eaten yet..." Ron managed to say, wincing as he tried to pick up his wand with his wand-hand. He instead picked it up with his other hand.

"And I imagine you will be rather hungry after the treatment," McGonagall pointed out tolerantly. "I'll see to it food is brought to all three of you while under Madam Pomfrey's care."