xxi. the harder they fall
"Hermione?" Harriet said aloud, voice going unheard in the general calamity. "Hermione! Has anyone seen Hermione?"
"Granger?" The girl next to her spoke, a third year she didn't know the name of. Harriet bobbed her head in affirmation. "I saw her in the first floor bathroom crying earlier."
Harriet's heart sunk. Oh, she thought in despair. I'm a shite friend. Perfectly worthless, but she doesn't know about the troll! What if she wanders into the dungeons before it's caught?! I have to tell someone—.
She tried. Kicking and swearing, Harriet elbowed her way to the front of the mass and attempted to get Professor Slytherin's attention, but his focus was on leading the Slytherins as a whole out of the Great Hall, shunting aside a line of terrified Hufflepuffs so the House of Serpents could go ahead of them. Harriet doubled-back toward the High Table and struggled through until she caught a flash of billowing black robes.
"Professor Snape—!"
It was no use. He darted out the side passage the staff used to enter the hall and the other professors were quick to follow, Dumbledore looking particularly menacing before them despite his resplendent purple robes. Harriet spotted Draco between Crabbe and Goyle and grabbed his wrist. His shriek went unremarked.
"Unhand me, Potter! How dare—?!"
"Draco! Draco, Hermione's not here—!"
He slapped her hand and Harriet let go. "I don't care where the Mudblood is," he spat. "I hope she gets flattened by the troll, wretched know-it-all that she is!"
Fury exploded in Harriet's heart like a living thing, surreal in its intensity, and she wanted nothing more than to strike Malfoy—detentions be damned. He must have seen it in her face because he backed away. "What's wrong with you?" she snarled. "Isn't Hermione like your foster sister? How can you be so bloody terrible?!"
Draco said nothing and swiftly disappeared into the crowd.
"Harriet—."
Harriet whipped around to find Elara standing next to her. The taller girl proved a sturdier barrier against the shoving students at their backs, more grounded than Harriet who kept getting shoved about like a trout in a whirlpool. Elara extended her hand. "Let's go get Hermione."
She didn't question it. Their hands came together in a bruising grip and Elara pulled Harriet through the frightened throng, chasing the Slytherins into the entrance hall—then slipping from the group along a side passage that would lead them to the girls' loo on the first floor. Harriet guessed no one had seen them because there wasn't an irate Defense professor breathing down their necks.
"Let's hurry," Harriet babbled, trying to sort through her panic without any luck. "We'll get Hermione and then—what? Should we go back to the dungeons alone? There's a bloody troll! Should we head higher, away from it?"
"We need to get back to the dorms before a head count is taken. We may be too late already." The grimness in Elara's voice caused Harriet's pulse to spike higher.
"What if we went to the library? Pretended we weren't even at the feast?"
"We were seen, Harriet. Besides, the library closed after we left it."
"Shite," Harriet cursed. She was unable to think of any other plans because they had come upon the loo and were barging through the door. No ready sign of Hermione presented itself—but, over the harried rhythm of their breathing, Harriet heard a despondent sniffle, and she dashed to the only locked cubicle. "Hermione! Hermione!" Harriet slapped her palm upon the shut stall door. "Hermione, we need to leave!"
"I told you I wanted to be alone!" came Hermione's tearful reply.
"Yes, but there's a troll on the loose now and we very much need to get to the dormitories!"
A moment passed and Hermione unlocked the cubicle. In Harriet's original rush, she hadn't realized how terrible this loo smelled. Yes, it was a loo, but the stench burned in Harriet's nose, in her throat, cloying as raw sewage and an unwashed body. Harriet, having been barred use of the shower by the Dursleys before, sadly had intimate knowledge of what the latter smelled like.
"A troll?" Hermione said in disbelief—then she, too, pressed a hand to her nose. "What is that smell?"
"I don't know. I don't know how you can stand it—."
"That wasn't here before—."
A sudden lyrical chime emanated from Harriet's shirt and they both jumped. "Misstresss!"
"What in the world was that?!"
The chime came again.
"I don't—."
Suddenly, Elara gasped. With a hand against her own chest, Harriet turned.
The smell, she discovered, oozed from the menacing creature now shouldering its way through the open doorway. It was tall, taller than Hagrid even, its body almost too massive to fit through the entrance, but Harriet's luck proved just as terrible as ever, because the troll—what else could it be?—managed to squeeze in. The lower portion of one leg was bigger than Harriet both in height and in width, one horny foot larger than her entire torso. Its bald head appeared comically small atop its towering, boulder-like frame, flanked in humongous ears that flapped when it faced them.
Harriet would've found it funny had the troll not been dragging a wooden club stained with old blood.
"Mary mother of God," Elara whispered, trembling. Harriet whipped out her wand—and Hermione screamed.
The troll shook its head, grunting when the sound echoed. It flailed and the club came crashing into the first cubicle, collapsing them together like flimsy paper cards. Harriet, Elara, and Hermione dove toward the line of sinks and barely avoided being smashed by the falling stalls. Splinters of wood bounced of Harriet's glasses.
Elara had her wand in hand too. "Flipendo!"
A jet of blue light hit the troll in the chest—and did nothing.
"Trolls have thick hides exceptionally resistant to magic!" Hermione shrieked, the words barely intelligible in her hurry to speak. The troll must have felt something from the spell, however, because it scratched its gray chest and roared. The floor beneath the trio shook. They would never reach the door in time.
"Then what—?!"
The troll lifted its bloody club with surprising speed and brought it down towards them. Elara shouted. Harriet thrust her wand out and yelled, "Protego!"
The club barreled toward their heads and bashed into Harriet's rippling ward—rebounding with incredible force, slamming into the wall, shattering the line of mirrors as the troll stumbled. Bits of glass rained upon them and the troll kicked one of the sinks in frustration. The pipes burst and doused the trio in frigid water.
Something shifted against Harriet's stomach, warmth slicing through the chill of the liquid, then—.
"Livi!"
Six feet of enraged snake flew across the bathroom floor as Livi threw himself toward the troll's wrinkled ankles. With a furious hiss, he sank his teeth into the creature's thick skin and the troll roared again, louder, its agony plain. It tried to smash Livi with the club and again Harriet threw her wand arm out, but she wasn't the only voice to shout this time.
"Protego!"
The club struck the shield powered by all three witches and bounced to the ceiling. It hit the stones with enough momentum to crumble them, cracks spreading through the club and the mortar both, debris raining down on their bowed heads. "Livi!" Harriet cried, arms held out, and serpent surged into her embrace, coils whipping about her sopping body. The troll tipped to one side, dazed, and all three witches ran for the lives.
Out in the corridor, they heard the rapid slap, slap, slap of approaching feet.
"Someone's coming!" Harriet hissed, hoping she spoke in English.
"Here!"
Elara's hand grabbed onto the back of her collar—yanking out no small amount of hair—and jerked Harriet toward a broom cupboard located just across the corridor from the loo. Hermione threw herself in and next came Harriet, squashed quickly between the two others as Elara pressed herself in and shut the rickety doors. The broom cupboard was not big enough for the three of them.
"Ouch! Hermione, you just elbowed me right in the boob—!"
"Where did that snake come from?!" Hermione demanded, not arsed about giving Harriet bruises. "You—you what?! Just walk around with that—that—!"
"He's my familiar!"
"That's not an excuse! You don't see Elara with that owl of hers stuck under her blouse! That owl she hasn't even named yet!"
"Don't blame me for Elara's weird owl. I think Livi's got separation anxiety."
"Snakes do not get separation anxiety!"
"Will you two shut up?" Elara grunted. She had her hands braced on either wall to keep herself from being forcibly ejected out of the cupboard. The troll was trying to follow them now. They could hear it, shuffling about, groaning, every footfall thumping on the floor like a boulder crashing down from a mountaintop. Harriet wriggled until she could press one eye to a crack in-between the wall and the hinges. She could barely see through the scratched, filthy lens of her glasses, but part of the corridor—and the lumbering troll—was visible.
Her leg stung something fierce but Harriet ignored it.
"There it is!" said a voice—a familiar voice.
"Is that Neville?" Hermione whispered. Elara shushed her.
It was indeed Neville; Longbottom and Weasley and Finnigan and Thomas. All four of the Gryffindor boys in their year stood in the corridor just within Harriet's sight, staring at the troll stuck halfway in and halfway out of the bloody loo. Sick burned the back of Harriet's throat when she realized Livi's bite was killing the creature, because its limited faculties were shutting down, beady eyes listless and bloody, lolling tongue fat in its gaping mouth.
"What's wrong with it?" Ron asked aloud. Hermione's arm—had it always been wrapped around Harriet's waist? When did it get there?—tightened.
"Dunno," Longbottom replied, wand held at the ready, his stance firm. "I think it's…sick. None of the trolls I've seen looked like this."
"Was this all for nothing then?" Finnigan asked.
Neville shrugged. "Not totally. At least we found it, even if we didn't need to defeat it."
Snorting, Harriet muttered "Are they serious?" and earned another elbow to the torso.
"If we could defeat it," Dean mumbled.
The troll groaned and thumped a useless arm on the floor.
"I told you, I've learned to deal with them. Merlin, must have spent a whole summer in those stupid, smelly mountains—."
"Look at it, it's huge!" Seamus sputtered.
A new voice spoke. "Yes, fully grown mountain trolls are quite alarming in size, aren't they?"
The three witches stuffed into the cupboard heard the familiar—dangerous—crooning of Professor Slytherin and stiffened.
If he's here, he couldn't have done a head count in the dorms, Harriet's furiously working mind supplied. Really, it hasn't been that long. He only had enough time to drop us off at the common room—we have to get back before he does, before someone realizes we're gone!
Harriet could see that the professors had arrived, their approach covered by the Gryffindors arguing and the haggard breathing of the dying troll. Slytherin's face was as amicable as ever; that is to say, he wore a chilling smile that could strip flesh from bone and terrify men three times his age. Snape stood partly behind him, discreetly kneading his right hand, and behind him came McGonagall. The Transfiguration professor sputtered in disbelief.
"In all my years—I've never—Mr Longbottom!" she thundered. Her brogue thickened. "What on earth were you thinking?!"
"We defeated the troll," he said, throwing his shoulders back. The three shivering, dripping witches in the cupboard sucked in breaths and it was all Harriet could do to keep Hermione from bursting out of there shouting "Like hell!" The bushy-haired girl did not take kindly to others stealing credit for her work.
"Did you now?" Professor Slytherin said as he stepped around the troll to have a better look. The indolent creature grunted, flailed, and did nothing more. "Unless you're carrying around a deadly poison, Mr Longbottom, I highly doubt that."
Neville teetered, wand lowering, and though Harriet couldn't see his face she could hear the uncertainty in his voice. "Poison?"
"Oh, yes. This troll's been poisoned. The water closet's a ruin, and yet…all four of your haven't a spot of dirt on you, aside from the usual first year filth."
"Really, Professor Slytherin," McGonagall said, tone as stiff as her back. "There's no need for that."
Slytherin waved a hand. "It appears, Minerva, your lions are not only reckless but also liars."
Water began to overcome the loo threshold and flood the hall, seeping nearer the trailing edge of Slytherin's robes before he stepped aside. The water wasn't quick enough, however, to wash away the dark splotches of blood smeared across the stones, a speckled trail that led straight to the cupboard.
Snape's head turned as he followed the dots of red—until his gaze rose to stare at the rickety doors.
Harriet held her breath and was fairly certain the others did too.
"I think that'll be twenty points from Gryffindor," Professor Slytherin said. "Each."
The four Gryffindors gawked, pale and furious, McGonagall told Slytherin he was being too harsh—and Snape just stared at the cupboard. Harriet hoped with everything in her that he would look away, that someone would call his attention or the bloody troll would take a swing at him. Anything.
"Ah, it appears you've found our troll."
Dumbledore swept into view, trailed by Professors Sprout and Flitwick, who wrinkled their noses as they looked down at the half-dead mountain troll sprawled in the loo's doorway.
"Yes," Slytherin replied. "Your noble Gryffindors here felt they had the wherewithal to challenge a mountain troll…but it appears someone beat them to it, as it were."
The Headmaster came nearer, water soaking the hem of his purple cloak as he bent over the troll's small head and inspected its bulging eyes. Livi's venom had worked quickly—and painfully. Harriet didn't much care that the creature that had tried to turn them into jelly was dying, but she did regret the suffering it had to endure. "You're right of course, Tom. Most peculiar. What do you make of this, Severus?"
Harriet didn't know whose name that was, but Dumbledore stared at Snape—and Snape stared at the cupboard with a wealth of emotions passing through his eyes like trains roaring in the underground: disbelief and rage, terror and relief.
"Severus?"
"I think we should do a bed check, Headmaster," Snape answered, voice hushed. "Just in case."
Hermione whimpered against Harriet's shoulder.
"An excellent idea!" Dumbledore straightened and turned his back to the cupboard, blocking Snape's sight of it, as well as Professor Slytherin's. "But, first, I believe our young adventurers here need to be returned to their fellows. Courage is an admirable trait, my dear boys, but it must be tempered with wisdom. Your grandmother writes to me quite often about your training abroad, Neville, and while I am most pleased to see you exercising and willing to share the knowledge you've acquired, you must remember that your classmates have not been exposed to the same trials and could have been severely injured. You could have all been severely injured." His voice resonated with intensity and, for a moment, nobody spoke. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, Professor," the four boys mumbled. Harriet felt Elara's arms trembling from exertion. She wouldn't be able to hold herself up much longer.
"Good! I imagine Professor Slytherin has already given a fitting punishment…?"
"Eighty points taken," McGonagall said through clenched teeth. Harriet didn't know who she was more upset with: her Gryffindors or the Defense teacher.
"Well, then. How about we award twenty for good use of deduction? After all, they did find the troll before us!" Dumbledore chuckled and straightened his spangled hat.
Slytherin scoffed. "Ridiculous."
"Minerva, if you would see your charges off…?"
Professor McGonagall departed, ushering the boys before her. They hadn't quite vanished before Harriet heard the professor's sharp, furious brogue chastising her students further.
"Pomona, Filius, I believe you should go on and check your own students." Sprout and Flitwick nodded and left. "Severus, Tom, I do believe we have a certain corridor that needs our attention. I will meet you there, after I secure our mountainous friend here."
"It's dead," Slytherin snapped. His voice became colder, harder, in the absence of other teachers or students. Harriet wasn't the only one to shrink herself in fear. "What's there to secure, Dumbledore?"
"Be that as it may, if you would honor an old man's request, Tom." Like Slytherin, the Headmaster's voice changed too, cool and uncompromising, a barest whisper of power threaded through his words like the silver stitching on his robes. Harriet couldn't believe Professor Slytherin's first name was Tom. It seemed so…so tame.
The Defense instructor seethed but did depart, swinging the hem of his robes out behind him as he stormed away. Not a second had passed after Slytherin's footsteps vanished when Snape darted toward the cupboard and Harriet jumped, terrified, only for Dumbledore to abort the Potions Master's movement with a steady hand and a quick word.
"Severus."
Snape sneered and shook the Headmaster off. He gave the cupboard one final burning glance before saying, "As you wish, Albus." He went after Slytherin, leaving Dumbledore alone with the dead troll and the steady stream of water gushing into the corridor. If only he'd leave too, Harriet desperately thought. If only this stupid night would end.
The Headmaster hummed to himself and stroked his beard, fingers pulling gently at the small tangles caught in the silver hair. The troll no longer drew breath. "Oh dear," Professor Dumbledore said aloud as he tipped his face toward the flat ceiling. "I do believe I am about to suffer from a spontaneous episode of sudden blindness and deafness. Dear me, I do think it will only last for a minute or so, however."
Harriet blinked. He's not—he's not serious, is he? He couldn't be—!
Apparently Elara thought he was, either that or her strength had finally given out, because her arms folded and the doors burst open, spilling three sodden witches and a hissing serpent onto the stone floor. Harriet gasped as her glasses skittered away through the water—then groaned when Hermione kneed her in the kidney in her rush to get up.
"Professor," Hermione said, breathless, seeming very near tears if the blotchy color of her face was any indication of her mood. "Professor, it's all my fault. I wasn't at the feast, and they were just trying to warn me—."
Elara picked bits of porcelain out her hair and glanced at Hermione. "Honestly, he wasn't even being subtle about ignoring us—."
"But it's all my fault!" she wailed.
"The troll was meant to be in the dungeons!" Elara retorted. "Not here! That's what Professor Squirrel said!"
"Where are my glasses?" Harriet patted the flagstones but couldn't discern much beyond the toppled forms of brooms and upturned buckets.
"But you two could have been killed—or expelled! Just because I was upset with Professor Selwyn—."
"I don't think this escape attempt is going well," Dumbledore mused. He bent down to pluck Harriet's glasses off the floor and gently dried them on his sleeve. "Here you are, Harriet." She fumbled to take the spectacles from his hand. "And his name is Professor Quirrell, Miss Black, no matter what the older Slytherins might have told you."
Elara flushed.
Harriet stuffed the glasses onto her face. "Err, Professor?" She smeared wet hair and bits of stone out of her face as she chanced a look toward the Headmaster. Dumbledore wore a kindly expression as he surveyed her, blue eyes bright. Livi coiled himself about her neck like a living scarf, hissing obscenities Harriet had never heard before. Trolls didn't apparently taste very nice. "Can we have another go at that escape attempt?"
"Yes, I believe one more attempt should suffice, don't you?"
The three Slytherin witches didn't need to be told again; Hermione grabbed Harriet's hand, towed her to her feet, twisted her fingers into Elara's sleeve, and they set out at a run while their Headmaster pretended to stare at the ceiling again.
None of them heard Dumbledore's gentle chuckling at their backs.