Baked Goods and Mountain Trolls
Halloween had snuck up on him that year, although he knew why. Normally, Harry and his parents had been planning their costumes for a month already, but with the constant stream of schoolwork, he hadn’t even thought about how Hogwarts would celebrate the holiday.
He had asked Draco the night before, just out of curiosity, and the other boy had looked at him strangely.
“We don’t dress up for Samhain. We have a feast and honor our dead ancestors, but the latter is usually done in the dorms, because it can be rather personal.”
Harry had felt a bit disappointed at that, because he was really looking forward to seeing what sort of costumes the wizarding world would come up with, but he bit that feeling down, deciding not to voice it.
That morning at breakfast, though, Mephistopheles and Hedwig had swooped down and dropped a large, square package in front of him, wrapped in the same black paper that Fiona always kept under her bed for any sort of gift-giving occasion. The solid thud of the box startled Theo, who was still half asleep, and he shot a glare at the grey owl as he hopped in front of the boy.
“Rude.” He mumbled, reaching out and gently scratched under Meph’s chin, while Hedwig made herself comfortable on Harry’s shoulder, preening his hair affectionately.
“What did your mum send?” Blaise asked after swallowing his bite of eggs.
“No idea.” Harry grinned, grabbing the letter that was tied to the top of the package first and starting to read it.
-
Happy Happy Halloween, Haz!!!
I can’t believe it’s the first holiday since we adopted you that you’re spending away from us, I absolutely hate it, but I know you’re finally starting to enjoy your classes, so I won’t drone on about how much your dad and I miss you.
It’s a lot, by the way.
But! No more sad stuff, because it’s the wonderful spookiest day of the year, and I made special treats for you and your friends! They’re at the top of the box, in that special little stasis container we found at that home goods store in Diagon? Absolutely brilliant little inventions, I love them.
But, underneath is something else a bit special. I wrote to Professor Snape and asked him how many students are in your house, and I made little goodie bags for everyone. Is that weird? I have no idea, and I don’t particularly care.
Anyways, Happy Halloween, or Samhain for your wixen friends! I love you so so so much, and I can’t wait to see you for Christmas!
Love,
Mum
P.S. This is Dad; Mum has been stress baking because she misses you. I’m going to send more of the extra desserts because dear lord, she’s making more than even the customers can buy up. Love you kiddo.
-
“Her and Dad say Happy Samhain, by the way.” He hummed happily, the letter spreading a bit of warmth through his chest. “And she sent everyone treats.”
Draco’s eyes lit up a bit at that, watching as Harry carefully tore open the paper and opened the box, grabbing the stasis tub out and looking down at the sheer number of treat bags at the bottom of the main box. He snorted, covering his mouth.
“Jesus… She wasn’t joking that she made one for the entirety of the house.” He mumbled, shaking his head before he opened the stasis tub, the delicious, sweet scent of the Devonshire Splits wafting up out of the tub. “Okay, looks like there’s one for each of us, and one for Nev.”
Harry smiled, handing each of his friends one of the sweet bread rolls, and they all looked at them in awe for a moment. Once they had begun eating, he got up from his seat and made his way over to the Hufflepuff table, flagging down Neville.
“Hey! Mum sent you a Split.” He chuckled a bit, grabbing the second to last pastry out of the box and handing it to Neville, the other boy’s eyes bulging out of his head.
“Why did she..?” He asked softly, looking up at Harry.
“I wrote about you. She likes to bake things for people, and she’s always been amazing at Devonshire Splits.”
“Well, uhm, tell her thank you for me? Please?”
“Of course, Nev. Fair warning, there’s more where this came from. Dad says that Mum’s stress baking again, and he’s going to be sending me the extras.”
Neville’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head, but he still waved to Harry as he walked back over to the Slytherin table, where he could see Blaise already starting to help pass out his mum’s goodie bags to the rest of their classmates. Many of them looked skeptical at first, especially some of the seventh years, but they eventually began opening the bags, pulling out a carefully wrapped pastry and a few pieces of chocolate, along with a little note.
Out of curiosity, Harry taps one of his classmates, a girl named Daphne Greengrass, on the shoulder.
“Sorry, I’m just curious… What do the notes say?” He asked softly.
Daphne smiled a bit, turning the piece of thick paper towards him, where he could see in Fiona’s familiar loopy handwriting;
Happy Samhain! You are brilliant.
“It looks like your mother sent everyone affirmations.” She replied. “Affirmations, well wishes, and just kind words in general… Do you know why she did this?”
“Nope. But it’s my Mum.” Harry shrugged, smiling brightly. “She’s kind to everyone, no matter who they are. The only time she’s anything close to mean is when someone she cares about is uncomfortable.”
“That’s where you get it from, then.” Daphne nodded a bit, before she turned back to her breakfast, leaving him a bit confused as he sat back in his own seat, seeing that Blaise had passed out all of the bags.
He was confused, but at the same time, pleased, a smile pulling at his lips. He’d just been compared to his mum.
He liked being compared to his mum.
—
Charms had been bloody miserable, and it was all Ron’s fault. Again.
Hermione, the Gryffindor girl who had temporarily been his foster sister years before, had been the first person in their class to get her feather to float, and while Professor Flitwick had been overjoyed and had given her a massive amount of points to celebrate her success, it had apparently pissed off her seatmate, Weasley, who she had corrected on his own spellwork before showing off her skill.
Harry had, very quickly stopped calling him ‘Ron’ in his head, deciding that rude people like him didn’t get to be on first name basis, even in his own thoughts.
But, Weasley had been miffed, pouting his way through the rest of class.
When it had finally ended, Harry walked with his friends, already planning on grabbing a quick lunch before they hustled off to History of Magic so they could work on their Transfiguration essays. After all, Binns never noticed if they weren’t listening to him, so they had just decided to use his class to get whatever homework they still needed to finish done.
But, as they were walking, he heard Weasley’s all too familiar voice.
“It’s no wonder she hasn’t got any friends!” He huffed to his friend, Seamus. “She’s a bloody nightmare!”
Harry frowned, already feeling miffed about the fact that he had insulted the girl just for being better than him, before he felt a body knock into him, and he heard a soft ‘sorry’ before he watched Hermione rush off in tears.
Blaise blinked after her, before he shot a glare at Weasley. “Prick. Insulting a girl like that… You’d think his mother would have raised him better.”
“It doesn’t matter, Blaise.” Draco sighed, “She’s hardly a witch, anyways-”
“Draco.” Theo said, in the now very well known ‘Shut Up’ tone that he and Blaise always used towards their friend. It was typically done right before the other boy was about to spout off something that was going to piss off Harry.
The other boy went quiet immediately, the warning voice working its magic like it always did.
Harry watched the corner that Hermione had disappeared behind with a frown on his face. He knew there was nothing he could do to help her, especially since she likely just wanted to be left alone, but he still hated that she had been hurt like that.
He shook his head, trying to push it out of his mind as they walked to the Great Hall for lunch.
The rest of the day had passed by with minimal incident, thankfully. He hadn’t heard anything else about Hermione, so he honestly just hoped that she had gone to Madam Pomfrey to calm herself down. The medi-witch had calming draughts up in her stores for that exact reason, after all.
For dinner, the Great Hall looked like a Halloween paradise. The candles had all been turned into Jack o’ Lanterns with various faces, and there looked to be bats swooping around in the ceiling, which gave Theo some pause.
“...Is that safe?” He asked, looking at his friends with a raised brow.
“I have no idea.” Draco murmured, eyeing the bats suspiciously.
Harry shrugged a bit, settling down in his seat, a small smile on his lips when he looked at the rest of his housemates. All of them had, after their initial hesitation, enjoyed the small gifts that his mum had sent them, and he had been periodically pulled aside and given small notes of thanks from some of them to send the next morning.
He knew it was going to make her year to get so many sweet notes, so he was excited to send the letter.
Dinner was progressing as normally, even if the feast seemed a bit grander than usual, but there was a lingering feeling of… Dread. Yeah, that was the right word. Dread.
He didn’t know what he was dreading, but he was dreading something.
Harry closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he set his fork down, trying to focus on the feeling and figure out exactly what was causing it. It didn’t take him very long before he found it, a swirling, dark sensation that pooled at the back of his head.
Magic.
Hogwarts’ Magic.
He squeezed his eyes shut even further, barely hearing Draco worriedly ask him if he was alright as he tried to hear what the castle had to say. Before he could fully prepare himself for it, the thoughts slammed into him all at once, fractured sentences filled with panic and terror.
The Wards. The Wards. The Wards. Safety, protect students. Cannot protect. Monster. Monster inside. Students in danger. Nononononono. Get awAY GET AWAY GET AWAY-
Harry gasped, his eyes shooting open and blowing wide, as Professor Quirrell came flying up the middle walkway, his purple turban askew and his already pale features ghostly white.
“Troll-! Troll- In the dungeons-” He managed to gasp out. “...Just thought you should know.”
As Quirrell fainted, his body crumpling to the floor, the entire hall erupted into panic, Harry included.
Instinctively, his hand went to his necklace that he always kept under his shirt, the knife from his dad held firmly in place by the metal chain.
He didn’t think it would do anything to a troll of all things, but it still felt good to have.
Over the sounds of screaming, he could hear Dumbledore call out. “Prefects! Lead your Houses back to their dormitories immediately!”
Castor, one of their prefects, whipped his head towards the Headmaster and shouted back.
“The Slytherin dorms are in the dungeons!”
But his protests fell on deaf ears, and Harry stumbled up, his hands reaching out to grab onto Theo and Blaise, his mind completely blank as the panic settled in. He hadn’t even had a chance to process what had been said to him, much less voice it to anyone else.
He felt himself being pulled forward, likely by Blaise, and his hand gripped even tighter, desperate not to lose his friends in the utter chaos that was erupting around them.
“Slytherins! This way!” He heard a woman call, and looked up to see Professor Sinistra waving them down. Blaise pulled them towards her so they could hear her instructions better. “Head up to the Astronomy tower alongside the Hufflepuffs! It’s not safe to go to the dungeons at this time!”
“Yes, Professor!” Theo nodded firmly, the four of them racing up the stairs as quick as they could. Neville joined them after a moment, his face filled with the same fear that Harry knew his own face was.
The terror didn’t let him go until both houses were safely up in the Astronomy Tower, the cold wind that whipped through it making him shiver. He sat down next to Neville and Theo, the latter wrapping an arm around his shoulders in an attempt to warm him up a bit.
No one said much as they waited. Even when Professor Sinistra came up to do a headcount, not a single person asked any questions, simply waiting for the go ahead to go back to their dorms.
When it finally came, the walk back down was slow going, as pretty much everyone in Slytherin and Hufflepuff were experiencing an adrenaline crash, and they had to make their way to the exact opposite end of the castle to go to bed.
They trudged their way into the common room, Snape doing a quick headcount of his students, his shoulders slumping in relief when he realized that all of them were accounted for.
“Classes have been canceled tomorrow as the breach in the castle’s wards is investigated.” He explained. “Three students were also nearly killed by the mountain troll, which means that the Ministry will be sending a team of investigators as well. It is unlikely they will question any of you, but in the event that they do, it will be done in my office, under my supervision.”
“Yes, Professor.” They all chorused, their voices raspy with exhaustion.
“Go and get some sleep.” Snape nodded a bit, his expression far softer than it usually was. “And ten points to Slytherin, for not being foolhardy enough to run after a fully grown mountain troll.”
And with that, Harry watched as his professor limped down a dark hallway, likely to go and get some rest himself. Draco gently grabbed hold of his arm, leading him up to their dorm and shoving him towards his own bed, which Harry gratefully flopped into, forgoing his usual nighttime routine.
He didn’t think about how a troll had gotten into campus despite the fact that the wards were supposed to prevent anything of the sort from happening.
He didn’t think about how three students had apparently been nearly killed by the very troll that wasn’t supposed to be at the school in the first place.
And he certainly didn’t think about the fact that Quirrell, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who should have been able to take down said troll, had done nothing about it.
No, he wasn’t going to think about any of that.
Except, even as he laid safely in his bed, those were the only thoughts that swirled through his mind.
—
Very rarely was Severus thankful for Ministry involvement in, basically anything, but now? Now he was almost overjoyed at the knowledge that a group of Aurors would be crawling around the school like rats, sniffing out any possible clues or evidence to figure out exactly what had allowed the troll to enter the school grounds.
And the fact that he had spotted Quirrell trying to get past Hagrid’s cerberus while the rest of the teachers were in a flurry, attempting to locate the damned creature and the three Gryffindor students who had apparently gone after the thing, was even worse.
He knew it was Quirrell, but he had no proof. All he had was a massive bite on his leg after one of the damned mutt’s three heads sunk its teeth into his ankle that was likely to get infected.
He needed help, and unfortunately, that meant the Aurors. He just had to hope they sent someone who wasn’t a foolhardy idiot, and would actually listen to him when he expressed his concerns.
Because he was not taking any chances. Not this time.
Not with his student’s safety.