POV of Bella Black

The floor shook, and it grew stronger, as if something was approaching. As I couldn't explain the loud thumping, which sounded very much like something extremely heavy stomping along the corridors and occasionally banging against the walls, I remained rooted to the spot by the sink. Had I not been too worried about the story the sink might tell me, I would have held onto it for support. Instead, I simply waited to see what would happen next. To my discomfort, whatever was stomping through the corridors seemed to be getting closer. When IT, judging by the noise level, had reached about the level of the girls' lavatory door, I instinctively crept as far away from the door as possible. Suddenly, the sounds ceased and the door began to open, causing me to stop breathing for a moment out of fright. Spellbound, I stared at the door, in which a huge creature with pale gray skin and a head far too small for its body now appeared. I suspected it was a mountain troll, as I had once heard that the other species were usually smaller than this specimen, which I estimated to be nearly 4 meters tall.

The troll had a huge wooden club in one hand, with which it now smashed the sink I had just been standing at. It fell to the floor in pieces with a loud clatter, whereupon the troll paused and eyed the other sinks with interest. While it was otherwise quiet, I began to perceive rapid footsteps outside in the corridor approaching the bathroom. I briefly weighed my options and decided that screaming would be a good alternative to 'waiting silently', as although the troll would then notice me, I would at least get help, without which I probably wouldn't get out of here alive anyway. 'HELP!' I screamed at the top of my lungs, which prompted the person in the corridor to run in my direction. 'Bella? Is that you?' I heard a familiar voice from near the door before it opened and Zane appeared. He froze in his movement as the troll, which had been staring at me before, slowly turned to him. I frantically pondered how we could take out the troll, and at the last moment, as it was already raising its wooden club to strike at Zane, I had a brainwave: I raised my wand and muttered, pointing at the club: 'Wingardium Leviosa'.

With that, I wrested the weapon from the troll and now made it float higher and higher towards the ceiling, before I let it thunder down, straight towards its head. I was lucky that trolls are not among the most intelligent beings and that its reaction time was very slow.

As the troll toppled forward, Zane had to leap backwards to avoid being buried alive beneath it. 'Thanks for distracting the troll?' I began, smiling. 'Erm... You're welcome?' he replied a little confused, but then smiled too. Again I heard rapid footsteps, but also voices in the corridor, which briefly fell silent as Zane, who was still standing in the corridor because the troll largely blocked the door, was discovered. It quickly turned out that these were Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell, who all eyed the three of us in confusion. 'What are you doing here? You were given explicit instructions to go to your common rooms,' McGonagall began in her usual stern tone. 'I had left the hall early to wash my hands. I didn't know about the troll. If Zane hadn't looked for me, then... I probably wouldn't have gotten out of here unscathed,' I explained, admittedly a bit confusedly, what had happened. Snape and McGonagall examined us scrutinizingly for a few seconds before Snape announced: '10 points... for each of you, for taking out the troll for us.' As he said this, he cast a suspicious sideways glance at Quirrell, who was looking at the troll with a fearful expression. I noticed that Snape's robe was a little torn at the bottom, which surprised me very much, as the teachers always paid close attention to their appearance and didn't wear torn robes.

On the way to the common room, Zane asked me why I had been in such a hurry at dinner earlier. As that reminded me of Parvati, my mood immediately plummeted. I had been in such good spirits since I had disabled the troll... But I could hardly blame him for asking, as I had only been present at the feast for about 2 minutes. 'I had a row with Parvati…' I answered his question without looking at him. 'It's probably none of my business what it was about, is it? But it'll be alright.' he tried to cheer me up. 'Shall I help you find your gloves?' he changed the subject after a while, as he seemed to notice that I really didn't want to talk about it.

I gladly accepted the offer, as I was slowly starting to panic about what would happen if I still hadn't found them by tomorrow when classes resumed. 'Okay, when did you last consciously see them? Where did you last have them?' Zane asked me when we arrived in the common room. 'Hmm... I definitely still had them after Transfiguration…' I began to think. 'After that, I sat here,' I pointed to an armchair near the fireplace. 'But when I saw you earlier and asked if you were coming to the Great Hall, you weren't wearing them anymore. Did you go anywhere else?' Zane interjected, but still looked around near the armchair. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Pansy and Millicent, who were sitting on a couch a few meters away from us, kept looking in our direction and giving me particularly nasty looks.

After a while, Zane started asking people in the room if they had seen gloves lying around anywhere. When he got to Millicent and Pansy, the two suddenly giggled. Although I couldn't hear Millicent answer him, I could guess from his reaction: 'Have you completely lost your minds?' he shouted at them angrily. 'This isn't a game, damn it. You're behaving like little children!' he added when the two looked at him with feigned innocence.

I never would have expected to hear Zane shout at someone, as he was usually very calm and thoughtful. With my purple gloves in hand, Zane returned to me, still visibly upset. 'I can't believe it…' he said to me after he had calmed down somewhat. 'I mean, stealing your gloves is going too far... And I thought you were getting along reasonably well by now…'

'I thought so too…' I assured him, 'Why did they do that?'

'You're not the only one with prejudices, you know? Just as you didn't give Veatrix a chance to prove herself nice, they're not giving you a chance either. We all need to pull ourselves together if we don't want to start an internal house war. Please think about it.'

With these words, he left me standing there confused and joined Draco and Blaise, who both eyed him critically. As he sat there with a serious expression, talking to the two, I wondered why he was helping me at all. I knew by now that he had known all the other Slytherins and Veatrix before we came to Hogwarts. So why was he still going against them, and thereby siding with me? None of this made any sense, especially his appeal not to have prejudices against Veatrix... I just couldn't ignore who her mother was. I had seen her in pictures and Veatrix looked damn similar to her. But right now, when I would be distancing myself from the Gryffindors, I couldn't afford to mess things up with Zane, because then I would have no one left. It was bloody hard that Pansy and Millicent seemingly couldn't stand me at all. Of course, they weren't the sort of people I'd befriend anyway, but that didn't mean they had to hate me. But what could I do, the name 'Black' just wasn't one of the most respected in Slytherin. Unfortunately, I didn't get on well with Tracey and Daphne either, as they always hung out just the two of them and didn't give me any opportunity to join them. One thing was clear at least: This wasn't going to be an easy time for me.