Happy Hallowe'en
“Nocturne? Are you alright? What happened to you?” Hermione Granger’s tentative voice filled the bathroom, not before she had unashamedly checked to make sure that there was no-one else in any of the stalls. Catallena hardly paid any mind at how scared the other one was of being seen with the weird Nocturne girl. She was too busy scrubbing her dead cat to care.
Hermione approached the sinks and fully took in the situation. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth set in a frown at the sight of the drenched girl. Water splashed at Hermione and she swiftly stepped to the side to avoid it.
Catallena didn’t answer, though her face told Hermione of the situation. Hermione reached over and shut off the water, gently prying the cat out of Catallena’s trembling hands with some difficulty. Her nose scrunched with barely contained disgust at the dripping wet and dishevelled cat. Despite the unfortunate state of the creature, Hermione was swayed by sorrowful sniffles to try and save it.
The cat was placed onto the floor and Hermione took a few steps back. She pulled a dark brown wand from her sleeve and after a few moments’ hesitation, she waved it and cast a spell. Much like the spell from yesterday’s Astronomy class, this one produced a gust of wind that dried the kitty’s fur and removed all traces of pumpkin.
Before the relieved Catallena could sweep Kisa up in her arms, the same spell was cast on her, cleaning her face, hair and clothes. It even ironed some of the worse wrinkles that were on her robes. Catallena no longer smelled of pumpkin and walnuts and maple syrup, and the disgusting sticky feeling was gone.
The cat was scooped up into a hug and Hermione seemed very pleased with herself. The girls’ looked at each other very briefly, both finding comradery in the other’s puffy and red eyes. They wondered what had made the other so upset, but no words were exchanged as nothing really needed to be said. They were suddenly thankful for each other, sitting on the bathroom floor, deep in thought. Catallena was thankful for the help and Hermione for the company.
They sat like that for a while, both of them sniffling from time to time.
Spooked, Hermione turned to look at the movement she had seen from the edge of her field of vision. For a frightening moment, she thought that they weren’t alone in the bathroom after all, but when the movement turned out to be rippling water on the floor instead, she relaxed again.
…Until more ripples disturbed the puddle. Hermione squinted and looked closer and, sure enough, the ringlets appeared again after only a second. Now they both felt it – the shaking ground that caused the ripples. Like an oncoming earthquake, the shaking got stronger. The girls leapt to their feet. They could hear it now, too – something approached the door of the girl’s bathroom with heavy thuds and deep groans.
Hermione was the first to act. She took Catallena’s hand and dragged her to the last stall at the back of the bathroom, closed the green door behind them and locked it. They held their breath and waited, not knowing what else to do.
Catallena wondered if they would now be the victims of another one of those practical jokes she had seen on her way to the lavatory. Though, instead of giggling students making their way over to this bathroom to magically turn it into a bounce house, it seemed like the approaching sounds would be better explained as an army of gnomes. The groaning and whining sounds, however, were foreign to her. Gnomes simply wouldn’t explain it.
Hopefully, they wouldn’t soon find themselves face to face with a swarm of more… unsavory… guests. The girl thought of creatures like Erklings and what she had read about them. Catallena didn’t think any student would be dumb enough to conjure such creatures to a school filled with children, as Erklings would’ve undoubtedly eaten half the population.
The tension grew as did the noises. Catallena fumbled her robes’ pockets in search of her wand which she now remembered had been left on the windowsill of her dorm room. Not that she could perform any magic, feeling as good as dead after the previous night’s events.
And before the girls could prepare themselves for the worst, the worst happened.
Hermione shrieked when a loud crash flung open the door to the bathroom and immediately their senses were taken over by the most putrid smell one could imagine. They both clamped their hands over their noses and mouths, because the air was so thick with the stench that they could taste it. Hermione fought to hold herself back from emptying her stomach right then and there, but the scary rumbling noises of the invader worked to quiet her.
Very carefully, the girls bent down to peek under the door to see what exactly had crawled from the smelly pits of hell to torment them. Two huge and greenish feet thumped their way toward the sinks near the back of the room where the two students were cowering. Uncut toenails scraped the floor and Hermione couldn’t help the dry heave that sounded from her mouth. Her wide eyes were filled with panic and the both of them scrambled to escape the corner they had been backed into when the giant feet bounded their way, having heard the noise.
They crawled underneath the wall that separated them from the next stall and hastily made their way from one stall to the other. Splintered pieces of wood flew onto them and Hermione screamed when the separating walls behind them got smashed to pieces with a club the horrible being was wielding.
“Troll!” Hermione squeaked, pale.
They were now crawling with all their might, ducking whenever another crash was heard. Catallena, having noticed something, pointed at the open door that led to the dungeons corridor, away from the beast. It was still several stalls away and there was no way they would make it to the door alive with the destructive troll on their tail, unless they made it to the very last stall.
Water sprayed high up in the air behind them from a broken toilet as they made their way on the slippery tiles.
Just when they had made it to the last stall and just before they had made a break for the door, it suddenly slammed shut. Hermione was frozen with disbelief and Catallena gave up on an escape. She sat up against one of the remaining walls and hugged Kisa once more, painting a vastly different picture from the hyperventilating Hermione who was still sprawled on the floor, staring at the closed wooden door.
The troll was gaining on them. It had heard the closing of the door and approached quickly. Without thinking, Hermione made a break for the door before it, not wanting to give up so easily. She slipped under the stall wall and ran to the door, hit it with her fist, rammed her shoulder into it, dug around for her wand that had evidently been lost in their escape, and then screamed a high pitched scream when the troll’s club came flying toward her head.
Catallena managed to pull the girl with her to hide underneath the row of sinks on the other side of the room before the fatal blow could crack the girl’s skull open. Hermione kept screaming as she was pushed along under the sinks that were actively being disintegrated behind them. The bathroom was a mess and they were running out of places to hide.
They were now under the last sink, watching the troll near them and break porcelain sinks as if they were made of cardboard. Hermione was tucked away in the corner, covering her eyes and Catallena situated herself so that the other girl was covered. She didn’t mind shielding Hermione. She had been ready for death for two months now.
“HEY YOU!” A good-sized chunk of porcelain hit the troll’s arm.
The troll turned its ugly head in the door’s direction, where in the open doorway stood Harry and Ron.
“Now what, idiot?” Ron asked Harry, wearing a terrified expression.
The troll stopped breaking the sinks and instead dragged its feet their way. Hermione peeked from behind Catallena and watched with horror how the two boys dodged blows and how Harry ended up clinging onto the troll’s thick neck. He was flung around as the troll tried to get him off its back.
“WELL DON’T JUST SIT THERE! HELP HIM!” Ron bellowed at the girls, quite literally ‘just sitting there’ himself. Clearly, no-one in the room had ever fought a fully grown mountain troll before.
His words did have an effect on Hermione though, who now sprang up from her position and set off to search for her wand. Catallena ended up helping Hermione in her search. They ducked under flailing troll limbs and flying rubble while they swept the rubble-covered floor for the wand.
While she searched, Catallena finally got a good look at the troll. Harry was pulling on one of its big ears. Its vacant eyes had a vague anger in them, and it bared its black teeth menacingly. When the troll couldn’t hit Harry with the club, the expression turned more impatient and furious, which made Catallena hurry.
“Please just-” (Harry dodged a hit from the club) “-just do something! Anything!” He was still firmly attached to the troll’s neck and actually managed to sink his wand up the creature’s nostril with a sickening squelch.
“I can’t! I’ve lost my wand!” Ron, you do something!”
“What? You do know who you’re talking to, right? I can’t even do the Wingardium spell correctly!”
“Yes you can!” Hermione yelled, getting excited at the recollection of the spell. “Just say it very carefully, remember? Levi-O-sa!”
Ron raised his wand with an unsure expression but after witnessing his friend almost fall off the troll’s back once more, he said decidedly: “Wingardium Leviosa!”
Just as the troll got ready to swing at Harry once more with the club, it suddenly got stuck midair, where it hovered over the beast’s head for a few silent seconds. Then, as if in slow motion, it descended on its wielder’s own head. On impact, the troll swayed from side to side and then fell forward onto the ground with its eyes rolled to the back of its very bald head.
Catallena managed to pull Harry out from under right before the massive thing could fall on top of him and crush him. She clutched him, breathless, and he clutched back, recovering from his near-death experience.
Nobody said anything for a few long moments. They were too busy counting their body parts, making sure they had lost none. When Harry recovered, he awkwardly untangled himself from his saviour, unfisting the hands that held onto impossibly white hair and (once again dirty) school robes.
“Thanks,” he muttered, not looking anyone in the eyes. He did, even still, extend a hand over to Catallena who was still sitting on the floor. He meant to help her up, which is why a dumbfounded look crossed his features when Catallena stared at the open palm for a moment and then reached over herself, to mistakenly participate in a handshake.
Harry looked at her in surprise and was even more surprised and perhaps a little disturbed to see her this close. Her eyes, though beautiful, were very frightening. They looked like cloudy glass and paired with her gaunt face, they made her look very sick and far away.
Nonetheless, Harry almost wanted to laugh from the slight ridiculousness of the situation, but saw no indication whatsoever that she was shaking his hand to be funny. In fact, the wary yet almost hopeful look she was wearing was familiar to him, who still had trouble getting accustomed to this new life of popularity and magic that he had. Harry himself kept messing up in classes for not having known something that was apparently general knowledge among his peers, so in the end he decided there was nothing laughable about not being able to tell apart a handshake from a helping hand.
Harry knew of the rumours that floated around the school about the girl and he knew that she had no friends here. Maybe, much like he struggled with magic and the wizarding world, she had difficulty making friends.
So he gladly shook her hand back and then pulled her up before Ron could recover enough to notice what had happened. His friend had a habit of not letting people forget about the embarrassing things they’ve done. He did this to be nice, yes, but also because the girl had quite literally saved his life just moments ago and he had a feeling that she was someone one should like to be friends with.
Hermione was about to nag Harry about climbing onto the troll and how dangerous that was, Ron was about to argue that Harry did it to save the girls, and that would most definitely have made Harry confess that the girls only needed saving, because Ron and him unpurposefully closed the door and trapped the troll in the bathroom with them. Catallena would undoubtedly stay silent, as arguments made her very nervous. Before the floodgates could open, though, the door to the bathroom did.
The children jumped at the arrival of Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirrell and Professor Snape. The three of them burst in, wands at the ready, trying to take in the scene before them.
The bathroom was blown up. A troll laid on its stomach in the middle of the room. A sizable bump was slowly forming on its head. Four children stood over the remains of the room, under the steady spray and flow of water. Guilty looks all around.
“My goodness…” McGonagall stuttered, eyes blown wide. Her eyes honed in on Harry first and she became almost angry looking.
“Mr Potter! What is the meaning of this? I’m certain the instructions were to go to your common room, immediately! This- this troll! You could’ve died!”
Harry looked down at his feet, shame weighing his shoulders toward the ground. Now he had done it. He would be sent back home.
“And Miss Granger! You of all people-”
“I can explain, Professor! I- It was all me. Because I had read a lot about trolls, I thought that I knew how to properly get rid of it before anyone got hurt. The others, they tried to stop me from coming here. It wasn’t their fault! They had to save me!”
Harry and Ron exchanged unbelieving looks. Hermione Granger – The girl who’s against any and all rule breaking and who would be sent into a coma at the slightest reprimand from a teacher was lying to defend them. The girl was admittedly shaking like a leaf and it was clear that the words that left her mouth stung like nothing else. Even then, she looked Professor McGonagall in the eyes and stood her ground.
It almost seemed like the teachers didn‘t fully believe the girl’s words either, but Professor McGonagall accepted them anyway. She looked at the little girl with squinted eyes and spoke very slowly:
“Well that was very foolish of you, Miss Granger. Simply being knowledgeable, though a great weapon, isn’t always enough to win a fight. Thankfully, you had friends like Potter and Weasley and…” (she said it as if she couldn’t really believe who she was seeing)”... Nocturne… to help you in your moment of stupidity. I hope you all realise how lucky you are. Not a lot of wizards could take down a fully grown mountain troll.”
McGonagall sighed deeply and made Professor Quirrell lower his wand. The teacher was still holding the wand pointed at the children, as if he was in a trance. Professor Snape kept looking at Catallena between hateful glances at the Gryffindors. The furrow between his brow had once again deepened. During one sweep of the children’s faces, he caught Potter looking at his leg. Only then did the professor realise that standing on that leg hurt and that the boy had fixed his eyes on the bleeding shin. Snape pulled the long black robe over the leg and puffed out, ready to take points from the red house for the boy’s gall.
“Five points will be taken from Gryffindor for Miss Granger’s reckless behaviour,” McGonagall announced, before Snape had the opportunity. Hermione’s face fell and it was clear that she was fighting with herself. Curly hair covered her face as she trembled away.
“And five points each will be given to the friends that helped Miss Granger today. Now, you’d all best run along to your common rooms unless you want all your points retracted.”
The children were suddenly rushing out of the door, slight smiles on their faces. Catallena went to the far corner of the room where Princess Kisa sat unharmed, though dusty and splashed with a bit of water. With the cat under her arm, she followed the others out of the door, leaving behind the professors.
McGonagall almost called after her, asking why she had to befriend the troublemakers of all people, but found herself feeling glad that the girl at least had someone now. She raised a brow when she watched the girl hobble away, but getting rid of the troll was top priority at that moment.
Catallena’s Hallowe’en ended with her curled up in the astronomy tower, snuggling Princess Kisa and reading a book about trolls. Exhausted from the day, she felt nothing. Not even the awful pictures in the book nor the lovely rain outside the window could elicit any kind of reaction from her.
She shivered under her blanket and fought off sleep until it eventually pulled her into a dreamless slumber. But before she could finally nod off, she thought about Fred and George, then of Hermione, Harry and Ron and lastly about her Mother and Death.
The very last thought she had was of the Prophecy Death had talked about. She could hear the whispering voices talking about a greater purpose and of the Day, At Last.
Kisa purred underneath her petting hand, her fur once more cleaned and feeling like fine silk.