Pride

The first week of school was a trial in some interesting ways. The other students clustered in hallways to get a glimpse of the Boy-Who-Lived. Whispers and eyes followed Neville everywhere, and the few times Ron had occasion to look at him, he saw Neville bore it with a genial mask. 

The castle itself sang with memories, seeped into its very stones by centuries of students and teachers, haunted with ghosts of those long passed, hidden in the shadowed corners of the library, or one of the secret staircases Ron and Harry often traveled, not quite knowing how they had found them. 

That was one thing that set them apart from their yearmates. They never got lost. From the off the two boys navigated their way from Ravenclaw Tower down to the Great Hall, taking a direct route through the castle. Neither could explain it, besides somehow having memorized the route that first night. They decided to make a map together, putting what they knew on parchment.

“Do you think we could put people on here too?” Harry had asked, making a mark to indicate a missing step on one of the hundred and forty-two staircases. “There must be spells for everything, or almost everything. Finding people, tracking people. How do the magical police do it?”

“Aurors,” Ron said. “I don’t know, I could ask dad. I think Neville’s parents were both aurors, he could have stories about them.”

Harry grimaced. “I don’t want to ask him about his dead parents. I’d hate for people to ask me about my dad, or my mum. I never knew them. And she’s…”

Ron took Harry’s wrist lightly. “Sorry, I should have thought of that.”

Harry shook his head. “That’s okay. Have you noticed that statue of the one-eyed witch? She looks like she’s hiding something.”

Some of their classmates came from muggle families, or mixed families. None of them had really practiced magic before, even the ones from purely magical families. For the most part, they were all on equal footing, equally overawed by all the new things they were learning. 

That wasn’t so for Ron or Harry. They had spent those last weeks of summer trying all the spells they could, and their wands moved with familiarity whenever a class got through a lecture and began practical work. Charms, Transfiguration, Defense. Flitwick was particularly thrilled to have two students in his house that performed magic with such natural ease. He’d boasted in their first class that they had clearly been properly sorted. 

Herbology too was more relaxing than challenging. Ron was used to doing chores in the garden, or the hills and woods surrounding the Burrow. Harry had done more than his fair share of laboring over the Dursleys’ garden, albeit with more mundane flora. Neville, they heard, was some kind of Herbology prodigy. Both boys guessed that someone as elevated as the Boy-Who-Lived needed a way to unwind, and gardening was perfectly suited to that task. 

Harry, Ron noticed, loved Astronomy. He easily picked out stars and constellations. Canis Major, Orion, Leo. Ron joked that perhaps Harry had found the highly sought after Ptolemy Chocolate Frog card. While respected, Ptolemy’s geocentrism had been long since replaced by the Pythagorean philosophers’ heliocentrism, and they wouldn’t have anything to do with that lot until third year and Arithmancy. Still, Harry’s fascination with celestial movements made the exhausting Friday class enjoyable, even at midnight. The hour wasn't objectionable for kids used to much earlier bedtimes, happy to have permission to stay up late. 

It was lucky they hadn’t been sorted into Slytherin, or Gryffindor; those houses had Astronomy on Wednesdays, and History of Magic first thing the next day.

There were issues, of course, as there often were when one went to a new place and needed time to adjust. Mr. Filch and his cat Mrs. Norris stalked the corridors and secret passageways, eager to apprehend misbehaving students. Fred and George had already got points taken off for some prank involving exploding toilets. They blamed their mum for the idea. 

One night, before curfew, Ron and Harry had ventured to the third floor corridor and its shut door, drawn by its mystery. Mrs. Norris had sniffed them out, and Filch had accused them of trying to break in. They were saved by a passing Professor Quirrell.

Defense, a class that had looked good on their schedules, was a disappointment. Harry always left with a terrible headache, and everyone complained about the overwhelming smell of garlic, and the undefinable stench that lingered around Quirrell's turban. The twins thought it was more garlic. Ron and Harry thought it was something else. Something worse. Both avoided eye contact with the stuttering teacher.

Transfiguration had its own surprises. The cat that had waited patiently for them to be seated turned into their professor. McGonagall's ability to become a cat made the two boys nervous about other animals secretly being people, though McGonagall had assured them there were only seven registered animagi that century, and it was a very difficult skill to master. They did lighten up when she turned her desk into an oinking pig.

Next to Defense, Potions was probably the worst class. Despite Penelope’s assurances, neither Ron nor Harry expected Snape to treat them fairly. Indeed, Snape asked Harry questions about potions they weren’t even going to be covering that year, though Harry did know where to find a bezoar, and that aconite and wolfsbane were the same plant. Reading ahead had been a fantastic idea. Snape just stared at Harry for getting the answers right, and didn’t give them any points. 

“At least he didn’t take any,” Ron whispered to Harry, crushing the snake fangs into a fine powder. 

Harry was intensely focused on making a perfect Potion to Cure Boils, and it looked exactly like the instructions had said it ought to, but Snape barely looked at their flask when they handed it in.

They had sent Hedwig to Ron’s parents carrying news of their sorting. She returned Friday morning with a note from Hagrid, asking to have tea after their Herbology lesson. 

Ron and Harry walked from the greenhouse to Hagrid’s wooden hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A humongous boarhound attempted to slobber over them, and Harry cringed away. Hagrid managed to get the dog settled down, and they entered the single room of his house. Luckily, it was very large on the inside, so the various meats hanging from the rafters weren’t an obstacle. 

Fang the boarhound turned out to be friendly, if easily excited, and they snuck him the rock cakes that threatened to break their teeth. 

Harry spotted an article on the Gringotts break-in that had happened on his birthday. Bill had told them about it the day after. They hadn’t spent that much time working out how it had happened. They didn’t know enough about Gringotts. The most interesting thing was that the vault had been emptied that same day. 

“That’s a strange coincidence,” Harry said, glancing at Hagrid. “You emptied a vault the same day an empty vault was broken into.”

Hagrid hastily got up to make more tea, and Ron and Harry exchanged glances. Soon after they were sent back to the castle for lunch, politely refusing additional rock cakes as they didn’t want to spoil their appetites.

With the second week came flying lessons. Neither Ron nor Harry needed them.

Madam Hooch put them on rickety school brooms, hovering with their toes dragging through the grass, doing lazy circles around the quidditch pitch. It had been a quiet affair for the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. The same couldn’t be said about the Gryffindors and Slytherins. Neville and Malfoy had got into a dust-up about a stolen Remembrall. Neville had stopped it from sailing through an open window. 

“What are the twins doing?” Harry asked during dinner, watching as Fred and George flanked Neville and grinned conspiratorially. 

“No idea,” Ron said, pushing more potatoes onto Harry’s plate. It looked like Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had also gone to talk to Neville. Seamus was standing up, but eventually sat back down, looking satisfied. Hermione tried to get Neville’s attention, but he waved her off, saying something that made Seamus laugh.

“Wonder what that was all about?” Harry asked, looking down at the veritable mountain of potatoes on his plate. “Ron!”

Ron listened as Michael, Terry, and Anthony fell asleep. He looked over to Harry, who was wide awake. 

“Can’t sleep?” Ron whispered. 

Harry shook his head. “Want to go explore?”

They snuck out of Ravenclaw Tower in their dressing gowns, pressed shoulder to shoulder as they checked under tapestries and suits of armor, ducked past sleeping portraits and discreetly checked for any hidden tunnels behind them. They took notes on their map as they explored. Even two weeks in it was getting out of hand, since they had separate pages for each floor. The other Ravenclaws had given them step-by-step instructions for getting to all the important places, but a list of directions couldn’t tell you when someone was lurking about a corner. Harry thought the right sort of map could. 

"It feels like home," Harry said, brushing his hand over a bannister. "Like coming home. I don't remember ever feeling like that before. Except at the Burrow."

"Yeah," Ron said. "Sort of like when you think you're home alone, but then you walk into the kitchen and mum's been there the whole time."

They got to the next floor and passed a room with an open door. Before they peeked inside, a voice spoke, making them jump.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."

The two boys looked at each other in horror. It was Filch, with Mrs. Norris.

Ron and Harry hurried into another room to hide, nearly crashing into four other students. 

“What are you two doing here?” Hermione hissed. 

“Who cares?” Harry said. “We need to go!”

Neville and Seamus both looked frustrated, and Dean looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, but they all crept down the long gallery, past shields and trophies and weapons with gleaming, sharp edges.

“They’re in here somewhere,” Filch muttered, “probably hiding.”

Just then, Seamus stepped on Neville’s dressing gown, and the two crashed into a suit of armor.

“Run!” Harry shouted, and they sprinted out of the trophy hall, Harry and Ron taking the lead as they raced headlong through corridors, through one of the tapestries hiding a secret passage, and ended up in the Charms corridor. They stopped, out of breath, wheezing and spluttering and clutching their sides. 

“What were you lot even doing?” Ron asked, leaning against a wall.

“I told you,” Hermione said, straightening her pink dressing gown. “I told you!”

“Malfoy challenged Nev to a duel,” Seamus said. “The slimy git never showed up!”

“Neville said he might not,” Dean said. “And Hermione did tell you.”

“I already knew he might not,” Neville said, wiping sweat off his brow and standing up straight. “But we’re Gryffindors. We’re meant to be brave and honorable.”

“And Slytherins aren’t?” Harry whispered to Ron, who snorted. Merlin was a Slytherin, and everyone knew his tales of heroism. 

“Malfoy must have told Filch,” Hermione said. 

Ron shook his head. “Well, we got away.”

“What’s your excuse for being out of bed?” Hermione asked, frowning at the two Ravenclaws. 

“You’re not a prefect yet,” Ron said. “It’s not your job to discipline us!”

“We were out for a walk,” Harry said, elbowing Ron in the side. 

“Let’s just go,” Neville said. 

As they turned to go their separate ways, a doorknob rattled, and Peeves burst out of a room. He saw the six first-years and squealed in delight, eyes sparkling with this discovery.

“Be quiet!”

“Shut up, Peeves!”

“Wandering around at midnight, ickle firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you’ll get caughty!”

“Get out of the way,” Seamus said, taking a swing at the poltergeist.

Ron hid his face in his hands. “You have to bribe him, you idiots!”

“Students out of bed!” Peeves bellowed. “Students out of bed down the Charms corridors!”

All six ran under Peeves, to the end of the corridor, desperate for another escape route. They slammed against a locked down.

“It’s just one thing after another,” Ron grumbled, pulling out his wand and tapping the lock. “Alohomora.”

The door swung open, and they piled in, quickly shutting it behind them. 

Moments later they heard Peeves and Filch arguing just outside, Peeves taking as much delight in teasing Filch as he had with them. Oddly, Filch never tried the door. They heard him walking away, Mrs. Norris’ irritated mewling growing fainter. 

Ron found himself getting crushed against the door. “What are you all doing?” he snapped.

“We’re in the forbidden corridor,” Harry whispered, pointing up to a slavering, three headed dog, who was looking pleased at having two students per head. 

“Lumosmaxima!” Harry shouted, blinding everyone, including the dog. Ron wrenched the door open again, and they fell out. Neville pulled it shut behind them. 

The four Gryffindors picked themselves off and ran away, leaving Ron and Harry to stare at the door. 

“Did you see what it was standing on?” Ron asked, blinking stars out of his eyes.

“A trap door,” Harry replied. “It’s guarding something. Probably that package Hagrid got from Gringotts. Think the dog is Hagrid’s too?”

“Must be,” Ron said as they made their way back to Ravenclaw Tower.

“He’s the only one big enough to handle it,” Harry said. 

“I bet he named it something stupid like Fluffy,” Ron said, making Harry laugh. 

“I’ll put that on the map. Maybe tomorrow we can find all the teacher’s offices. Where do you think they sleep?”

The incident with the three headed dog was relegated to yet another curiosity of Hogwarts.

The only other bright spot in September was at breakfast a week later. Six owls flew in carrying a suspiciously long package that landed in front of Neville. He tore the note off, reading it in a somewhat detached way. Seamus took it from him eagerly, smiling as he read. They hurried out of the Great Hall with Dean trailing behind. Malfoy got up to follow, along with Crabbe and Goyle.

"Want to see what's going on?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged, but stood up as well.

They stepped into the entrance hall just as Malfoy seized the package from Neville, who grabbed it back.

"You’ll be for it this time, Longbottom, first-years aren’t allowed broomsticks."

Seamus rocked back and forth, ready for a fight. "It's not just any old broomstick! It's a Nimbus 2000!"

"I think Malfoy's got a Comet 260," Ron said to Harry. "Flashy, but Comets don't handle as well as Nimbuses."

Harry nodded. "I liked the Silver Arrow your family's got."

Ron snorted. "You would. Those were built with speed in mind, but the Nimbus had better maneuverability."

"What would you know about brooms, Weasley?" Malfoy said snootily. "You couldn’t afford half the handle of a Comet!"

"I could," Harry said, glancing at Ron. "That doesn't mean I know anything about brooms, though. I'd take Ron's advice, he loves quidditch."

Malfoy scoffed at them. "I bet Weasley and his brothers have to save up twig by twig."

"I've got a sister too," Ron pointed out.

"Not arguing, I hope, boys?"

They all started, finally noticing Professor Flitwick coming down the stairs.

“Don’t you two have Herbology?” Flitwick asked Ron and Harry. 

“Yes, professor,” Harry said, taking Ron’s arm and bundling him away. 

They left the castle for the grounds, hearing Flitwick’s voice as he said, “Yes, yes, Mr. Malfoy. Professor McGonagall has told me all about it. What model is it, Mr. Longbottom?”

They hurried to the greenhouse, and were conscripted by Professor Sprout to help set up the stations as they were the first to arrive. 

“Why do you think Longbottom’s got a broom?” Ron asked as they carefully levitated bags of dragon dung compost. 

“He must have got on the quidditch team somehow,” Harry said, frowning. “Bit odd, him playing quidditch, isn’t it?”

“We can try out next year,” Ron said. “They’ll have no choice but to make you seeker.”

“You think?” Harry asked. “What about you? Keeper?”

“Maybe chaser,” Ron said. “Fred and George always make me play keeper.”

The initial excitement of being ahead of their classmates quickly wore off, and Ron and Harry were starting to get bored. By the end of October Ron was convincing Harry they didn’t need to put quite so much effort into their assignments. 

“There’s no point, really,” Ron said as they worked on a Charms essay about levitation charms. “It’s your O.W.L.s that really matter.”

“It’s only half a foot,” Harry said, unnecessarily paging through a massive reference tome. “And how are we supposed to do well on O.W.L.s if we don’t learn the theory now? We’ve got essays on those, yeah?”

Ron sighed and inked his quill. “I don’t feel like I’m learning anything. More like I’m reminding myself of something I’ve forgotten.”

Harry looked up at him. “And? That just makes it easier, even if it is boring. We get points for doing well, people like us for that, or at least don’t complain. It doesn’t take that long.”

Ron cast a drying charm at his parchment once he was finished. “What kind of job do you want when you grow up?”

Harry looked at him quizzically. “We’re eleven.”

“I always thought I wanted to be famous,” Ron said, ignoring him. “But it looks pretty awful, having all those people stare at you all the time, talking about you.”

Harry wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, no thanks. You know muggles have professional chess players? You could do that. Or something with quidditch?”

“Maybe,” Ron said, finding a spare piece of parchment to draw on. “I could be a team manager, or design plays. I’m just good at looking ahead and predicting what the other side will do.”

“Like divination?” Harry asked. “Do Seers have jobs where they only do that? Muggles have psychics, but they’re usually frauds. Would it break the Statute of Secrecy if a real Seer did that?”

Ron shrugged. “Maybe. Sounds more useful in the muggle world, at least.”

“I think I’d like to help people somehow,” Harry said after a moment. 

“Like an auror?”

Harry grimaced. “No, I don’t like the thought of hurting anyone to make money. I was thinking…well, my mum’s in hospital. I could be a healer. It sounds dangerous, though, using magic to fix someone’s body. What if you get it wrong?”

Ron smiled at him. “Better start learning now.”

On Halloween neither Ron nor Harry felt up for the festivities of the day. The thousands of live bats, the grinning jack-o-lanterns, skeletons Flitwick had charmed to shamble around. Neville looked paler than usual during breakfast, and by lunch they noticed Hermione was entirely absent.

"It's the day his parents died," Harry confided to Ron. "My dad, too. Hagrid told me Voldemort launched an attack on both our families."

"The day you both almost died," Ron said, remembering the story Harry had told him.

Harry nodded, and they didn't speak much for the rest of the day. 

After classes, they retreated to their common room, where their fellow Ravenclaws had uncharacteristically abandoned studying to talk about the upcoming feast. As dinner time approached, the common room gradually emptied until it was just Ron and Harry, playing a game of chess.

"Check," Ron said. 

Harry glared at his pieces, which shouted conflicting advice to him. As he was about to order his king, coldness swept over them.

"Good evening, children," a ghost said. She was a stately young woman, wearing a beautiful floor length gown, with dark, intelligent eyes and waves of dark hair falling to her waist. She had a regal air, a grace the other ghosts of the castle lacked.

Ron looked up, surprised. "You're the Grey Lady."

"Helena Ravenclaw," Harry corrected. "Good evening, miss."

Lady Helena smiled faintly at them, and held out a transparent letter. "I was sent with an invitation. Sir Nicholas cordially invites you to his 499th Deathday party."

The boys looked at each other. "Why us?" Ron asked.

"Are living people normally invited?" Harry asked.

"Not normally, no," Lady Helena said. "But you two aren't normal children, are you?"

Ron looked at Harry. "Could be fun."

Harry shrugged. "It's the tenth anniversary of my dad's death. I wish I could visit his grave…"

"Follow me, children," LadyHelena said, drifting towards the door. "Bring your chess set. Sir Nicholas and the Baron would enjoy a few rounds."

Ron packed up his set, and they followed Lady Helena down the spiral staircase of their tower, through the castle, all the way into the dark and chilly dungeons.

"Could've picked a more central location," Ron muttered.

"It mustn't matter much to ghosts," Harry whispered back. "They can go straight through walls. What's that sound?"

They had entered a passageway filled with floating black candles with blue flames, the temperature dropping with each step. The boys huddled together.

Around the next turn they spotted Sir Nicholas, wearing a doublet and an enormous ruff which concealed his botched beheading. He hovered in front of a doorway draped in black velvet.

"Good evening! Welcome, welcome!" Sir Nicholas gave an exaggerated bow, sweeping his wide-brimmed, plumed hat off his grey curls. "I see you've collected our living guests, my Lady?"

Sir Nicholas seemed inordinately pleased by the two boys accompanying Lady Helena. She spread her skirts and gave Sir Nicholas a brief curtsy, and the boys attempted awkward bows.

"Happy Deathday?" Harry said uncertainly.

Sir Nicholas beamed at him. "Thank you, dear boy! Please, come in!"

"Just a moment," Lady Helena said. "I need to discuss some finer points of ghost courtesy with them."

She turned to regard the two boys, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Have you heard of the Bubble Head charm?"

Ron and Harry nodded. "The sixth-years were talking about it this week," Ron said.

"The incantation is ventum in sinum. Use your wands to encircle your heads while casting."

"You want us to try now?" Harry asked. "Isn't it hard?"

"Even a partial success will suffice," Lady Helena said seriously.

The boys looked at each other, but did as she had instructed. Sir Nicholas politely ignored them, greeting a group of ghostly nuns who had arrived.

After a few tries, Ron and Harry both had ephemeral bubbles over their heads. Once they were inside the room, they understood why.

The dungeon room was packed with hundreds of ghosts, all shining like pearls in the blue candlelight. An enormous chandelier had been hung over a dance floor where ghosts waltzed to a grating orchestra of musical saws. Ron spotted a table covered in trays of food, but when they reached it they saw it was all rotten.

"Not very accommodating of living guests," Harry said, shivering. "I suppose they must not feel much."

The Fat Friar, the ghost of Hufflepuff, was trying to waft steam from a boiling cauldron of something awful toward himself. Ron and Harry helped fan for a moment.

"Thank you, misters…"

"Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter," Ron said.

The Fat Friar smiled. "Ah, yes, Lady Helena did mention you two. You've caused quite a stir!"

Ron looked around, seeing they had garnered some attention. Even among the hundreds of ghosts, they stood out for being solid and colorful.

"Fancy a game of chess?" Ron asked.

"Oh, no," the Fat Friar said, "but I'm sure the Baron would love one! It is so hard finding people to move the pieces…"

He drifted through the moldy buffet, leaving the two boys alone. 

"I think I saw the Baron near a wall," Harry said, grabbing Ron's hand as he reached to check his bubble. 

"She could have taught us a warming charm too," Ron muttered as they weaved through the other guests. Many showed signs of violent deaths. Arrows sticking out of heads, veins turned black from poison, nooses hung around their necks. However, none were so bloodstained as the Bloody Baron. He looked the most morose of all the ghosts present, his black eyes staring vacantly out of a gaunt face, robes coated in silvery blood, carrying a thick chain that wrapped around his body and sank through the floor beneath him.

"Excuse us, sir," Harry, the braver of the two, said. "Lady Helena says you like to play chess?"

It took a moment for the Baron to notice them. "The two Ravenclaw boys," he said in a deep, mournful voice. “You are a thousand years too early to challenge one such as myself. I was a strategist in my day.”

“Is that how—” Ron cut himself off. “But you’re Slytherin’s ghost?”

The Baron nodded solemnly. “Indeed, I was one of the first to be sorted into Slytherin house.”

“So you knew him?” Harry asked. 

“I did, child,” the Baron said. “I do not wish to discuss Salazar.”

“Right,” Ron said, shifting awkwardly. 

“Ron’s really good at chess,” Harry said. “I can move the pieces for you.”

The Baron sighed. “Very well.”

Chess, as it turned out, was a popular attraction. Sir Nicholas came over to play a vigorous game with the Baron, and even Lady Helena consented to a round. Ron soaked in the different strategies the various ghosts had developed over the centuries. Harry was also intensely focused as he made the moves his ghost players instructed him to. The bubbles over their heads popped away, but it was so cold they could barely smell anything, and they had intentionally sat far away from the food.

Both boys were starting to get hungry when suddenly all of the Hogwarts ghosts froze. The musical saws stopped playing, and conversations died out.

“We are being summoned,” Lady Helena said. “We must go.”

Sir Nicholas flew around frantically, apologizing to his guests and escorting them out. Lady Helena had vanished, only to reappear moments later. 

“There is a troll in the dungeons,” she said seriously. “The students are being taken to their common rooms. You two must leave the dungeons, it is no longer safe for you. You recall the route we took?”

They nodded, eyes wide as ghosts began fleeing. 

“Run, as quick as you can,” Lady Helena said, before disappearing again. 

Ron swept his chess set clear and folded it up. “How the bloody hell did a troll get in? Bit hard to miss that!”

“Who knows,” Harry said, joining him as they swiftly left the party hall. 

The dungeons were silent as they made their way out, peering carefully around corners, wands held in front of them. They heard footsteps and shouting in the distance, in another part of the dungeons. 

“Must be the Slytherins,” Harry whispered. 

They found a secret passage that took them out of the dungeon without having to go all the way to the entrance hall. They emerged from behind a large stone griffin. Harry started out when Ron grabbed him. 

“Listen!” Ron hissed. 

Hurried footsteps were approaching them. They looked out from behind the griffin and saw Snape crossing the corridor. 

“Where is he going?” Harry said, staring at where Snape had disappeared. 

“I think that goes to the third floor,” Ron said. He took a breath and gagged. “Do you smell that?”

Both boys spun around to the sound of something heavy being dragged. At the other end of the corridor, a large figure emerged from around a dark corner. 

“Bloody hell,” Ron whispered. “She said it was in the dungeons!”

The troll lurched past them, dragging a massive club behind himself. He was several feet taller than Hagrid, his small, lumpy head nearly brushing the ceiling. His skin was a dull, granite grey. Each step of his shook the corridor, and he was horribly quick despite his great size. Ron and Harry held their breaths as the troll walked by, as much due to the stench as not wanting to alert the troll to their presence, wands shaking in their hands. 

The troll paused in front of an open doorway, his long ears twitching, then crouched to force himself into the room. 

“We could lock it in,” Harry suggested, “then find a teacher. I can’t believe Snape just walked by!”

Ron nodded, but before they could move Neville, Seamus, and Dean came running down the corridor. Then someone began to scream. 

“Hermione!” Neville shouted.

“I just saw it go in,” Seamus said. 

The three boys ran into the room. Something heavy crashed inside, accompanied by another scream. 

“We should help,” Harry said, frowning. They could hear Hermione still screaming and the Gryffindor boys shouting. 

“Alright,” Ron said. 

They left the cover of the stone griffin and ran into the room. Harry had a look of fierce determination on his face, confidently pointing his wand at the troll as he swung his club at a cowering Hermione. 

A red light blasted the troll, and the club flew out of his hand. It flew right at Harry. Terrified, Ron swished his wand through the air, catching the club and sending it back at the troll. It spun through the air and hit the troll’s head with a sickening crack. The troll fell forward, crashing face first into the wall next to Hermione. 

Dean turned to look at them, holding a metal pipe that had been torn from the wall. Neville ran forward to pull Hermione away from the crushed stalls. Seamus gawked at the now dead troll. The club had caved his head in, and blood trickled down his back, dripping onto the floor. 

Footsteps pounded towards them. Ron and Harry shrank against one of the walls, putting their wands away. Ron held his chessboard protectively. Broken pipes fountained water onto the floor, and blood from the dead troll was leaching into it. 

Professor McGonagall burst into the room, followed by Snape and Quirrell. She stalked towards the Gryffindors, furious. Quirrell whimpered and sat bonelessly in a puddle, clutching his chest. 

Harry nudged Ron, then looked to the door. They began sidling out of the room as McGonagall berated her students. 

“What on earth were you thinking of?” she demanded. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Why aren’t you in your dormitory?”

Neville blanched, but braced himself. Seamus hunched his shoulders, and Dean looked unnerved. Hermione cleared her throat, her face still streaked with tears.

“Please, Professor McGonagall! They were looking for me. If it wasn’t for them, I would be dead right now.”

Ron and Harry froze in the doorway. Hermione was pointing right at them. 

“Mr. Potter? Mr. Weasley? What do you think you’re doing?” McGonagall asked sternly. 

“Going to our dormitory?” Ron said. Snape was glaring at Harry, as if he were responsible for the troll getting in. 

Harry spoke up. “We were at Sir Nicholas’ Deathday party when the ghosts told us about the troll. We almost ran into it, then saw it come in here. Longbottom and the rest went in after it.”

“I…I went looking for the troll,” Hermione said, lifting her chin. 

“No, you were already in the bathroom when the troll came in,” Ron said, frowning. He didn’t understand why she was lying. 

“We were coming to warn her about it,” Dean said, voice quivering. “She wasn’t at dinner.”

“And why weren’t you at dinner, Miss Granger?” McGonagall asked. 

“I didn’t feel well,” Hermione said quickly. 

“It seems,” Snape said, still looking at Harry, “that this was merely an unfortunate coincidence. If they are telling the truth…”

“We are,” Ron said, annoyed. “You can ask Lady Helena, she was the one who told us about the troll!”

McGonagall turned to look at them, Hermione having finished explaining what happened. “Not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. Five points each for Ravenclaw. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go.”

Ron and Harry hurried out, but could hear McGonagall still talking to the Gryffindors. 

When they got back to Ravenclaw Tower, they were swarmed by the other first-years and some prefects, and were handed plates of food that had been sent up.

“We told Professor Flitwick you two were missing. He's out looking for you,” Padma said. “Where were you?”

“Did you see the troll?” Michael asked eagerly. 

“Did you smell the troll?” Lisa asked, holding her nose.

Ron and Harry glanced at each other, then sat down to tell their story.