As the weeks dragged on, with Harry taking more and more detentions, the professors decided something had to be done. Harry was undermining the entire discipline system.
“Something has to be done.” Snape said bitingly. “We are supervising his detentions every night, and this is just the third week!” He ignored the fact that he was the source of the detentions in the first place.
“I've had him scrubbing cauldrons that have collected gunk for decades. He finished last night. We have nothing else for him to do that's sufficient punishment.”
“Where can we send him next though? If he finished your cauldrons the normal detention of cleaning the trophy room would not seem bad at all. He might actually prefer it” mused Professor Vector.
As the meeting dragged on every member threw ideas out onto the table ranging from cleaning the flooded bathroom on the second floor where Moaning Myrtle had died fifty years before, to scrubbing every window in Hogwarts. One by one they were all dismissed as either to blatantly unfair, which could raise the ire of the school board or worse the media. If the Daily Prophet caught on that they were subjecting the Boy Who Lived to such punishment, a nightmare would only just begin to describe the situation they would find themselves in.
However that still left them without a viable option of what to do. Harry needed to be taught a lesson, however there was nothing in Hogwarts they could reasonably expect him to do and still give him a true taste of their displeasure.
“I don't see why we don't just send him into the Forbidden Forest. Something in there is BOUND to scare him straight” Filch growled. To tell the truth he was still scared of Harry. Seeing him pick up the trophy case a couple days before had scared him badly.
As one the Professors slowly turned towards the sour man, sinister smiles beginning to form on their faces. The man was right. The Forbidden Forest had hundreds of creatures in there, from the Centaurs to Bogart's. Their were Unicorns and even, if you believed the rumors, a pack of were-wolves running through the forest. Something in their would scare Potter straight.
Harry carried his books back from charm class where Professor Flitwick had been teaching them the correct way to preform a levitation charm. It had taken Harry a couple of tries to get to the point where he could confidently move the feather around. The first time he had tried the spell his desk had shaken for a second and he had hastily cut the power to the spell. He had no desire to find him in his desk floating above the heads of the other students.
Harry tried to ignore Ron's ranting as the boy raved on about Hermione Granger and her stuck up nature as they headed towards the Great Hall for lunch. The feeling of pleasure that seemed to flow over his senses as Ron got more and more worked up about the girl's showing off was truly filling in some odd way.
Finally they made their way over to the huge Gryffindor table piled high with every kind of food imaginable.
As Harry sat down opposite Ron he piled his plate up with a mixture of foods and dug in, though he was not really hungry. He was nearly finished when Professor McGonagall came to a stop behind Ron.
“Mr Potter, your detention tonight will be served with Hagrid. You will meet him in the entrance chamber at precisely seven this evening. Is that understood?” She waited for his confirmation before sweeping towards the head table. Once there she leaned over and whispered something in Professor Dubledores's ear before loading up her own lunch.
Harry sighed with resignation. Tonight was Halloween, and some of the older students had been regaling their younger classmates with stories of the decoration and food that was being prepared for the feast. Instead he would be serving detention. With a mental shrug he went back to finishing his lunch, absently noting that Hermione Granger was not at the table.
Harry walked down the corridor towards the entrance hall just before dinner was meant to start. He had nearly half an hour to make it to the entrance hall and was trying to make the best of it. Almost absently he jumped over the loose tile that marked the top of the staircase that would take somebody to the ground floor. Hogwarts shifting dimensions and strange patterns of movement had at first seemed troubling but now they felt easy to navigate, as though he could go anywhere in the castle he wanted. He had noticed the same thing in some of his other classmates such as Hermione. Others, such as Neville, seemed to fight a never ending battle to find their way to class on time.
As he turned the corner Harry frowned in thought. He could faintly hear a distant thumping noise from up ahead. Whatever it was seemed to be making quite a racket. Harry sped up, hoping to find out what was causing the noise. Usually Hogwarts was quite at this time, most of the students in the Great Hall preparing for dinner, while the Ghosts disappeared to who knows where.
Finally Harry, after weaving his way through the corridors, found the source of the noise. There was a giant grey-green thing stomping its way down the corridor. Its loincloth was stained horribly while a stink more horrid than anything he had ever smelt reached his senses. The creature dragged a rough wooden club behind it, the dark stains that littered it giving silent testament to its use.
Harry was not really sure what to do. He knew he was strong, however he had no idea if he was stronger than the creature before him who was almost absently crushing the doors it passed with the almost accidental swinging of the club as it was dragged behind it. However he felt no fear at all as he stared at the creature. His hands gripped the wand in his hand tightly, though he knew no spell that could help him in this situation. He watched curiously as the Troll stopped in front of one particular door, a girls lavatory if he was not mistaken. The troll slowly turned towards it, its huge club swinging backwards as it focused on the flimsy door.
CRASH
The club flew forward, moving through the door as though it was not their at all. There was silence for a second, only the grunting breaths of the troll filled the corridor. Then a sound, a terrified scream of a young girl.
Almost without meaning to Harry began to move forward, the feeling of contentment that he could feel from within the bathroom was the most exquisite sensation he had ever felt in his life.
The feeling was still there when the Troll swung its arm backwards, the shards of the broken cubicles flying in every direction as Harry found himself in front of the troll. With a single punch Harry buried his fist in the troll's side. There was a horrible crunching sound as the Troll staggered backwards, its grotesque head looking in shock at Harry. Harry did not wait for it to recover before throwing a second punch towards the creatures head.
The creature roared in rage, its horrible breath flowing over Harry like some kind of breath weapon he had once seen in Dudley's television shows. The Creature took the blow, though over than a couple of stumbling steps backwards it did not seem to be particularly hurt.
The creature finally found its balance and before Harry could recover from the overly exaggerated punch he had just thrown the creature caught him with one might swing of its club. Almost sailing across the bathroom Harry had a second to meet the eyes of a terrified Hermione Granger as he flew through the remaining cubicle walls and smashed into the unforgiving hard stone on the other side of the bathroom.
Any normal human should have been crippled for life if not dead from a hit like that. Harry was no normal human. He was a Mazuko, dreams made flesh. No physical strike, no matter how powerful, could hope to hurt a creature who actually existed on the astral plane. Harry staggered a bit but reached out and steadied himself, dragging himself to his feet with help from the nearly completely destroyed sink while water leaked wildly into the bathroom.
A deep anger began to gather itself in Harry's chest. This creature had struck him, punched him through the cubicles and into the wall like so much garbage. Growling like the wolf he would someday become Harry shot forward, his feet finding no-existent purchase on the water-slicked stone before his fist shot forward, striking the hideous creature straight in its chest.
There was a moment of silence as the Troll tried to focus its eyes on Harry before it shot backwards as if some huge hand had reached forward and shoved it. Slowly at first and then with increasing speed droplets of dark purple blood began to fall from the creatures mouth.
Looking down at his fist Harry smiled when he noticed there was none of the broken bones he had expected to be there when he had punched it. He must have gotten of lucky.
“Is... Is it dead?” a timid voice finally broke the sound of the pipe spewing forth a torrent of water that was steadily falling down the drain in the middle of the tile-covered bathroom.
“I believe so” Harry finally answered after taking a closer look at the creature. He had barely stopped speaking when a brown blur engulfed him in a crushing embrace. The warm feeling that give him a sense of home had vanished. In its place was a horribly nauseating sensation as Hermione Granger tried to thank him for saving her life. He finally managed to escape her grasp by explaining he had detention.
After saying goodbye he headed out the door again and then resumed his journey towards the entrance hall. If he was right he would arrive only minutes before he needed to be there.
Hermione Granger was not sure what to think at the moment. Earlier today she had mastered the levitation spell before Potter, which was a feat in itself. There was something unnatural in the way that boy picked up magic as easy as sucks learned to swim. However her satisfaction had come to a halt when she tried to help Ron Weasley with his pronunciation of the spell.
After he had said those cruel but oh so terribly accurate words, she had run of to the bathroom to be alone.
Then came that moment when she heard the the thumps outside the door. She had opened the stall she was sitting in only to stare in horrible fascination as the mountain troll burst through the door. The scream she had let loose must have been the loudest sound a human had ever made. All she could do was sit there staring in horrible fascination as the face of the beast had focused on her, that huge club winding backwards for a second swing.
She had barely been able to persuade her body to duck. The feel of displaced air as the club rushed past her head, only inches above it, would stay in her nightmares for the rest of her life. Then she saw Potter walking towards the beast. There was something wrong with that boy, Hermione thought, as the boy PUNCHED the mountain troll. To her shock the strike forced the mountain to stop, the horrible crunch that rang out through the room brought a wince to her face. No normal human could hurt a mountain troll in that way. Their magically hardened skin could shrug of even most magical creatures.
However as Potter wound up and threw a overly exaggerated punch that forced the beast to take a couple of steps backwards Hermione had a hard time believing it.
As the Troll charged back towards potter, its huge club striking force impossibly quickly Hermione could only watch as the boy went sailing over head, through the remainder of the cubicle dividers. She met his startling green eyes for a second but he was already smashing into the wall with an enormous crash.
She stared in dismay at Potter. She did not like him, his fragment disrespect of the point system, and his disdain for the authority figures she respected so much grated against her every nerve. However she had not wanted to see Potter die.
Then he twitched. Hermione watched in shock as Potter reached up and used the broken sink to steady himself. Then there was a black blur as Potter moved, faster than anything she had ever seen apart from some of the school brooms, to bury his fist into the chest of the Troll.
As Potter withdrew his hand one thought rebounded through her head.
What was he...
As Harry walked down the corridor towards the entrance hall he could hear the stampede of many feet approaching him. He stuck his hand into his pocket as the group of Professors rounded the corner, every one of them holding their wands tightly in their hands.
“Mr Potter!” McGonagall shouted. “Why are you not in your common room!” Her face was glowing red with rage.
“But Professor, you said to meet Hagrid in the entrance hall in ten minutes. I've been making my way there.” Harry threw out a token argument. He knew that fairness and her own instructions would not sway the hypocritical McGonagall
He saw her flush a even deeper shade of red, this time with embarrassment. “Very well. Make your way to the common room immediately, we have a troll on the loose. You will serve your detention with Hagrid Tomorrow” Before he could even get a chance to say anything the group of Professors swept past him.
Once they were out of sight Harry withdrew his hand from his pocket, looking at the purple blood that covered it. With a last look he headed back towards the common room.
Hermione was still staring at the corpse after Harry had left when the Professors entered through the thoroughly destroyed entrance.
“Good Heavens. What happened here?” Professor Flitwick exclaimed.
“Miss Granger. Did you do this?” McGonagall demanded sternly. However a second look at the dead troll, with the deep hole in its chest took the shock out of her system. No first year, no matter how skilled, could have killed a full grown mountain troll. Even grown wizards sometimes had trouble without resorting to the darker curses.
Professor Dumbledore pushed his way to the forefront. “Ms Granger. I wonder if you would not mind explaining what happened here?” He asked. As Hermione raised her eyes and began to talk she felt a slight prickly behind her eyes, as the gleaming twinkle in Professor Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have expanded to cover both his eyes.
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(Posted Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:00)
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