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"Wood said we have three practices a week." |
"Well, if you want to get in any more than that, I'm always up for a fly," he offered, a bit nervously. |
Harry looked levelly at him. All he really knew about Ron was that he was a Boy Who Lived fan and that at least three of his brothers had been on the Gryffindor team. He was probably offering so that he could get on friendly terms with his hero—and in return, he would probably be able to help improve Harry's Quidditch ... |
And Harry could probably use the help. He had jumped at the offer to join the team not only because it offered a chance to fly frequently—something that he definitely enjoyed—but also because it could make him more popular in the House. Harry had been watching, and though he knew that everyone would have liked the Weas... |
Of course, being on the team would only be a benefit if he played well, and he'd long since learned that you only acquired a skill with practice. He would need a lot of it. |
And it'd be helpful to be on better terms with the boy who slept two beds away from him. |
"Thanks," he told Ron. "I might take you up on that." |
In the next few weeks, Harry grew very busy. Between homework, Quidditch practices, extra flying with Ron Weasley (both of them on the new school brooms), and practicing with his throwing knives, his free time was shrinking rapidly. He also made a point of partnering with Neville in Potions, where he served as a lightn... |
A couple weeks after he joined the team, a whole parliament of owls carried in an odd, oblong package and set it in front of Harry. There was a note attached, which thankfully Harry read before opening the package. It seemed Professor McGonagall had wrangled an exception so Harry could get a more competitive broom. |
Harry quickly passed the note around to Hermione, Neville, and Ron. |
"A Nimbus Two Thousand!" Ron moaned, a little loud for Harry's tastes. "I've never even touched one!" |
"I'll let you try it out next time we fly," Harry promised. The three boys decided to run the package up to Gryffindor Tower, but Hermione simply frowned and told them to go on without her. |
They quickly ran into a jealous Draco Malfoy, who tried to snatch away the package, but Harry was quicker, and whacked him across the hands with the still-wrapped handle. Malfoy tried to complain to Flitwick—both about the hit and the package—but Flitwick had seen the entire incident and already knew the broom was comi... |
The three boys ran the broom up to Gryffindor Tower, where Harry carefully unwrapped it and put it in his trunk, then they headed to Transfiguration. |
As September turned into October and October lurched towards November, Hermione grew snappy. Harry tried to ask about it a couple of times, but the resulting conversations were less than productive. |
The best of them was the time she simply denied anything had changed. The worst was when she suddenly started questioning him about where he kept sneaking off to. It was a question he couldn't afford to answer—Hermione, Harry had noticed, idolized the teachers; even when she hadn't been so moody, he doubted their frien... |
Eventually, as Halloween approached, Harry resigned himself to the idea that whatever was bothering her, Hermione would have to come to him if she wanted help. |
Her continuous conflicts with Ron Weasley probably didn't make things any better. The two were polar opposites—Ron thought she was barmy for studying so hard; Hermione thought he was empty-headed for not reading more than he had to. Once Ron even called Hermione a know-it-all, but a sharp glare from Harry silenced any ... |
It all came to a head on Halloween. Everyone was excited to try the Hover Charm for the first time; Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Harry ended up with Seamus Finnigan, but Hermione ended up with Ron. It was hard to tell which of them was more annoyed by this. They'd rowed just this morning abo... |
"It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the "gar" nice and long." |
"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled. |
She did, of course. Harry smiled at her, but she seemed distracted by Ron's growl. |
Ron held back his rant until they left class. "It's no wonder no one can stand her—she's a nightmare, honestly." |
Someone pushed back Harry. It was Hermione—and she was in tears. Harry called after her, but she kept running. |
Harry grabbed the front of Ron's robes and pulled him into the next corridor, ignoring his yelp, and stood eye to eye with him. He regarded him for a long moment. |
"You know, Ron, I like you," Harry said. "You're a decent bloke most of the time, you're fun to spend time with, and you're teaching me all sorts of useful stuff about Quidditch." |
"Er, thanks, Harry," Ron said bemusedly. |
Harry shoved him against the stone wall. Ron's eyes widened. "You're also a tremendous git to my best friend. You make fun of her, you pick fights with her, you belittle her when she's only trying to help you." |
Harry's eyes narrowed and he stepped a little closer, his knuckles cracking around the fistful of Ron's robe. Ron gulped audibly. |
"I don't like that, Ron. I don't like it when people are nasty to my friends. You're not going to do that anymore, are you?" |
"N-no," Ron said. |
Harry gave him a glare that rivaled Professor Snape. "And you're going to apologize to Hermione before Transfiguration, aren't you?" Harry asked. |
"Ye-ye-yes, sir," Ron gibbered. |
"See that you do," Harry growled. He released Ron's robes, and walked off. "Come on," Harry tossed airily over his shoulder, "we don't want to be late to Transfiguration." |
But Hermione wasn't at Transfiguration. Nor was she seen all afternoon, nor even at the Halloween Feast. When Harry overheard Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown say she was crying in a girl's bathroom, he glared at Ron again. Ron cringed and sat between Seamus and Dean. |
The decorations were splendid, but whenever Harry looked at them, all he could think of was Hermione sobbing in a little wooden cubicle. Still, he needed to eat; he'd just save something for her in a napkin, he decided. But he'd barely had time to grab a jacket potato before Professor Quirrell burst through the doors. |
"Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know." |
Pandemonium broke out before he hit the floor. Dumbledore swiftly controlled the panic and ordered the prefects to lead the students back to their dormitories. |
But not all the students, Harry realized. Not Hermione. |
It wasn't hard to find his target. "Percy, there's a prob—" |
"Nothing to worry about," Percy interrupted. "Just stick with the other first years and follow me!" |
"Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me—" |
Harry groaned. He couldn't see any teachers either through the masses of students streaming towards the doors of the Great Hall. He'd have to wait for the Hall to clear so he could talk to the teachers. |
Quickly, he adopted relatively relaxed body language—just another worried but not panicked student, he tried to say, nothing to see here. He stayed with the group of first years, but drifted towards the back, towards the Gryffindor table's benches. It wasn't difficult—everyone else was trying to get out, to stay near P... |
Unfortunately, that included the teachers, save the unconscious Professor Quirrell. |
"—keep an eye on the stone." It was Dumbledore's voice, echoing faintly from the Entrance Hall. Harry hustled in that direction, but Gryffindor was furthest from the door. |
"Yes, Headmaster," Snape's voice said. Then Harry heard the sound of feet on stairs. |
By the time he reached the Entrance Hall, though, the other teachers were already gone, and Harry had no idea which direction. Only Snape was visible, climbing the grand staircase to the first floor, wand in hand. |
Harry briefly considered telling Snape—but Snape would be even less likely to listen to him than Percy. He'd have to get Hermione himself. |
Harry ran toward the staircase, confident in the Invisibility Cloak's stealth, but Snape turned at the noise of Harry's steps. Harry stopped short and held his breath. He'd never used the Cloak in a quiet place before—only in noisy, relatively crowded spaces like Diagon Alley. He hadn't even thought about the sounds he... |
After a moment, Snape seemed to decide that he'd heard an echo and began climbing again. Harry followed him, twenty paces behind, making an effort to move more slowly and quietly. |
Snape kept going up, but Harry finally reached Hermione's floor, so he took a right and, the moment he felt he was far enough from Snape, stuffed the Cloak back into his mokeskin pouch. He palmed a throwing knife in each hand and started running. |
He smelled it first: a mixture of old socks and raw sewage. Then he heard its footfalls. |
Then he heard Hermione's scream. |
Harry ran flat-out, skidding to a halt in a ruin. |
The cubicles had all been knocked flat, and half the sinks were broken; water was fountaining from the end of a pipe. Hermione was huddled in a corner, staring up with wide eyes. And the troll—it was twelve feet tall, with legs thick as tree trunks, gray, lumpy skin, and a tiny head with a bulbous nose. Harry had never... |
Even as his lizard brain screamed a warning, though, he didn't let himself hesitate. Information he had read many times, studied over and over so that it would be ready in his mind when he needed it, came to him: |
Heart. 3.5 inches below the skin. Loss of consciousness instantaneous, death in three seconds. Thrust well in with the point, taking care when attacking from behind not to go too high or you will strike the shoulder blade. |
With a practiced flick, he slipped the knife blade between his fingers and flung it at the troll, wanting it to hit where the book's diagram had shown him. The knife spun in midair before sinking into the troll's back to the hilt with a wet thwack. |
The troll bellowed. Blood flowed around the wound, but not nearly enough. It whirled around, swinging its club down towards Harry. His eyes widened and he hastily sidestepped it. |
Hermione screamed, and the troll turned again to face her. It took two steps toward her. Harry lightly tossed the second throwing knife from his left hand to his right. |
The book was old, the diagram was small, maybe I was a little low... |
He flung the blade again, willing it to hit a rib or two above the other, and as always, it struck true—but to no more effect than before. The troll roared, turning back to Harry, and swung its club down toward him again. Harry jumped aside to dodge it. |
It should have worked! The throwing knives were four inches long, and the heart wasn't that deep... |
In a human, Harry realized with not a small amount of internal swearing. The troll was twice the size of a human—and who knew what else was different about its anatomy? |
Harry now found himself against a wall, the troll looming over him. Terror welled up in him, and he barely wrestled it down. Between the troll's legs, he could see Hermione, her eyes wide as the troll raised its club for another blow... |
"Distract it! Scream again!" he yelled to Hermione. |
She needed little prompting to scream bloody murder. Once again, the troll whirled around, taking a few steps toward her. |
Harry reached back into his pocket, this time withdrawing a much larger blade: his F-S Fighting Knife. He gripped it between his teeth, then took a running leap onto the troll's back. |
The troll roared again and twisted its shoulders back and forth, trying to fling Harry off itself. Harry was barely holding on by one hand around its neck. He felt wildly with his other hand and feet, trying to find some purchase, and his left foot landed on top of the knives already in the troll's back. He pushed up—t... |
The instructions came to him. |
Carotid artery. 1.5 inches below the skin. Knife in right hand, edges parallel to the ground— |
He grabbed the knife in his right hand, holding the blade flat, next to the side of the troll's neck. |
—seize opponent around the neck from behind with your left arm, pulling his head to the left. |
Harry grabbed the troll's bulbous nose, wrenching its head to the left. |
Thrust point well in— |
Harry stabbed the dagger deep into the troll's neck. It let out a pained whimper. |
—then cut sideways. |
Harry cut. The blood didn't just gush over the blade and his hand and the leg he'd slung over its shoulder, it actually sprayed over the wreckage of the toilet cubicles. |
Loss of consciousness in five seconds— |
Harry slipped down off the troll's shoulders, hitting the ground lightly as it sank to its knees. Then the troll fell forward, its face hitting the splintered remains of a cubicle door. |
—death in twelve seconds. |
The troll didn't get up again. |
Harry looked to Hermione. "Are you okay?" |
She flung herself at him, holding him like she would never let go. |
Harry dropped the bloody dagger and wrapped his arms around her tightly, stroking her hair as she sobbed into his shoulder. Soon, though, he began to shake and his legs turned to jelly; he sank to his knees in the pink-tinged water that was beginning to flood the bathroom. |
"T-that'll be adrenaline withdrawal," Hermione said tearfully, rubbing his back. "It's a totally normal response to a life or d-d-death situation." |
Harry nodded mutely; his head was pounding. The two of them clung to each other tightly. |
Distantly, Harry heard something slamming and loud footsteps. A moment later, Professor McGonagall burst into the room, closely followed by Snape and Quirrell. The Defense Professor gasped and stared around the room with wide eyes, leaning back against the wall. |
"What on earth were you thinking of?" said Professor McGonagall furiously. |
Harry cut her off, climbing to his feet, an arm still around Hermione. "What on earth were you thinking of? The teachers ordered the students out of the Great Hall without doing a head count. None of you knew that Hermione wasn't at the feast!" |
McGonagall was shocked. |
"I came here to warn her, but the troll got here first. I had no choice—I had to kill it." |
"And how did you do that?" McGonagall asked. |
"I believe I can answer that question," Snape said. Floating before him was Harry's bloody dagger. |
McGonagall stared at Harry for a long time. Finally, she asked, "And where did that come from?" |
"I always carry weapons," Harry said, rubbing his aching head. |
"Why?" McGonagall asked. |
"Because it keeps my uncle and aunt from trying to beat the magic out of me," Harry snapped. Hermione gasped; Quirrell sank to the floor with a splash; McGonagall went very still. |
There was a long silence. A silence that spiraled horribly. He had not meant to say that—not in front of stern Professor McGonagall, not in front of Hermione, never in front of an enemy like— |
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