Half Evans

The Halloween feast is the largest and grandest event Harry and Dudley have ever been to in their lives.

The floating candles that always float above their heads in the Great Hall now cast flickering shadows on the jack o’lanterns that bob overhead, and large, black bats swoop around them, weaving between the lanterns and candles. The ghosts, which Dudley has still not adjusted to (especially Slytherin’s ghost) are in peak ghost form, drifting morosely up and down the aisles, moaning and groaning in typical ghost fashion. Even Nearly Headless Nick, who’s usually the more spritely of the phantoms seems to be feeling particularly gruesome, letting his head dangle off his neck, stretching the last strands of flesh that were never severed taut.

And then the food.

Oh.

There were hollowed out pumpkins overflowing with piles of candy and giant black cauldrons filled with every manner of sweet you could imagine. The large, golden goblets were filled to the brim with delicious pumpkin juice that refilled every time you took a sip.

They’d never seen such a spread.

“Mm! Dud, did you try the candied apple?”

“Pumpkin pasties, Theo. Here, have a bite!”

“Oi! Pass down another slice of pie!”

Harry, who had been more or less accepted by the Slytherins as an extension of Dudley, passed down a heavily whip creamed slice of pie to Draco, who was shoveling both a turkey leg and pudding into his mouth.

“S’not even the best part,” He said through mouthfuls of food. “Father told me there’s always some sort of show or something after the food. Real scary.” Dudley shivers.

He doesn’t particularly enjoy scary.

He opens his mouth to respond, when all of the sudden the doors to the Great Hall burst open and quivering, shaking Professor Quirrell runs down the centre aisle.

“TROLL!!” He bellows. “TROLL IN THE DUNGEON! Just thought you should know.”

And he promptly faints.

Dudley manages one glance at Harry’s stricken face before the Great Hall erupts into pandemonium. Students scream, benches are knocked over, tears are shed.

“SILENCE!” Dumbledore’s booming voice shakes the walls, and the room falls silent. “Prefects will escort their students back to their houses. Staff will follow me.”

Prefects immediately snap into action. Harry shoots Dudley an apologetic look as Percy snaps at him to get with the rest of Gryffindor. Dudley stands with the rest of the Slytherins as Gerald and Verity line them up, doing a quick head count, when a sudden, horrific thought pops into his head:

Slytherins go to the dungeons.

The troll is in the dungeon.

“We can’t go!” He cries. Draco looks at him with a look of disdain.

“Would you rather stay here and wait for the troll to get you?”

“Our dorms are in the dungeon you idiot!” He says in an uncharacteristically harsh tone. “Where the troll is!” Draco’s face blanches as the realization dawns on him.

“We can’t go to the dungeons!” He yells frantically. “Hey! Oi! Gerald! Verity!” Gerald finally turns.

“Shut your mouth Malfoy and move!” He snaps, but Dudley steps in front.

“The troll is in the dungeon, Gerald!” He says, begging the elder boy to understand. He nearly sags in relief when Gerald’s eyes widen.

“Oh for – PROFESSOR!!” Gerald bellows across the hall, and Professor Snape turns, his eyes narrowed.

“There is a situation –“

“Our dorms are in the dungeon with the troll!” A myriad of emotions flit across Snape’s face; confusion, dawning, irritation.

“To Gryffindor, then!” Professor McGonagall interjects. Percy Weasley’s head whips at this.

“I’m sorry?” He spits.

“Did I stutter, Weasley?” McGonagall snaps.

“But, but Professor!”

“Now, Weasley!” She barks, and turns on her heel, Snape following closely behind. Gerald rounds on the rest of the Slytherins, who are watching with gaping mouths.

“You heard the professor!” He snaps, and marches them closely behind the Gryffindors.

The Gryffindor common room is quite garish, Dudley thinks, especially in comparison to his own, which is decorated quite tastefully with only splashes of brilliant emerald green. The Gryffindor one, however, is decorated almost entirely in shades of red and gold.

Dudley wanders over to where Harry has flopped onto a couch, his legs thrown haphazardly over the arm of the seat in a way that his mother would’ve never allowed.

“You guys do anything for fun in here?” He asks as he takes a seat next to him.

“Ron’s pretty great at wizard’s chess. Dunno if you’ve ever played but I can probably get him to grab his set.” Harry says.

“That might be fun! Theo’s played with us a few times. I’m not great but Hermione’s brilliant. I’ll grab her!” He stands up and scans the room.

The Gryffindors and Slytherins had pretty much kept to their own sides of the common room, taking to glowering at one another between stilted, hushed conversations. Dudley searches for her big, black curls amongst the Slytherins, but doesn’t see her. He turns to the Gryffindor side.

Nothing.

“Hey,” He says as he approaches the corner where Draco, Vince, Greg and Theo are congegrating. “Have any of you seen Hermione?”

“Why would I know where your freaky little friend is?” Draco asks. Dudley grimaces.

“Don’t be cruel, Draco. I can’t find her.”

“Maybe check with Pansy and Millicent. Last I saw she was lecturing them on broom safety.” Dudley wanders over to the girls.

“Not here,” Pansy says sharply. “Thank Merlin. Honestly, I don’t know what you see in her. She’s insufferable.” Millicent nods in agreement.

“She’s not that bad,” He mutters as he walks away.

He does another scan of the common room and comes up empty.

“Harry, I can’t find her!” He says as he makes his way back to the couch Harry is lounging on. Harry sits up and furrows his brow.

“Lemme ask Ron.” He says. “They were partnered together in potions, maybe she said something to him?” Dudley follows Harry as he finds Ron in the crowd and asks him if he’s seen her.

“No!” Ron explodes. “And it’s a bloody good thing too! I could’ve dumped that cauldron right over her ugly head. Honestly! It’s no wonder she’s off hiding somewhere, it’s not like she’s got any friends. Burst into tears and took off running when I told her that too. Always so bloody dramatic she is.” Dudley stares at him, horrorstruck.

“You made her cry?” He exclaims. Ron looks up for the first time and has the decency to look somewhat abashed.

“Well,” He says after a moment. “I didn’t really mean to. I just..”

“Where did she go?” Harry interrupts, irritation laced in his voice. “When she took off, where did she go?” Ron’s cheeks redden and he shrugs his shoulders.

“I dunno,” He said. “Up the stairs, I guess? Towards the bathroom!” Harry claps a hand over his face.

“Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom!” He exclaims.

“Who?”

“Moaning Myrtle. The ghost that haunts the girl’s toilet.” Dudley is plagued by questions about the haunted toilet, but he swallows them, grabbing Harry by the arm instead.

“We’ve got to go get her!” He says. Harry yanks his arm back, staring at Dudley.

“We can’t go out there!” He says. “There’s a troll on the loose. A troll, Dud!”

“Yeah! And she doesn’t know!”

“In the dungeon, Dud. That’s nowhere near the toilet!” Dudley fixes Harry with a Petunia-esque stare and Harry groans. “FINE! But how’re we going to get out of here?”

“I’ll take care of that.” Dudley turns to Ron, who he’d entirely forgotten about. He’s about to ask what he’s grand plan is when Ron marches away, stalking up to Blaise Zabini who’s standing in the corner by himself.

“Oi!” Ron shouts. “Meathead!” Blaise looks up just in time to be sucker punched by Ron, and all hell breaks loose.

Percy and Gerald run to the corner as Blaise tackles Ron to the ground, and it is all the invitation both houses need to start pummeling one another. Dudley narrowly misses being knocked over by Pansy Parkinson, who has grabbed a young Gryffindor girl by her curly blonde hair and seems to be attempting to yank it out of her head.

They’ve just about reached the portrait when someone grabs a fistful of Dudley’s robe, yanking him backwards.

“Where the bloody hell do you think you’re going?” Draco hisses.

“Hermione’s missing!” He whispers desperately. “We have to find her!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Dursley! There’s a troll –“

“Already tried that.” Harry interrupts.

“Draco!” Dudley exclaims. “She is a Slytherin! I know you may not like her very much –“

“No one does.” Harry interrupts.

“But she’s still a Slytherin. And we watch out for our own.” He can see Draco wrestling with this, torn between a sense of duty and a desire to dive into the Gryffindor v. Slytherin brawl. But finally, he groans and rolls his eyes.

“Ugh, fine! Nott, Crabbe!” Theo and Vince look up from the floor, where they are pummeling poor Neville. “Rescue mission. Granger’s gone.” Neither boy  hesitates, instead dropping Neville and jumping out of the portrait hole and into the empty corridor.

“So maybe our fearless leaders here can tell us what exactly they plan to do about the troll when we get there?”

“Shut up, Malfoy! You wanna get caught?”

“Who’s gonna catch us?” Draco exclaims, his voice echoing through the empty corridor. “The teachers are all off fighting a bloody troll. S’not like Snape’s off doing nightly rounds while everyone else is troll hunting.”

“The troll is in the dungeon, Draco.” Dudley says. “There’s no reason we should ever come into contact with it.”

They round the corner and begin the ascent up the stairs towards the second floor.

“See?” Dudley says. “Absolutely silent. We’ll just grab Hermione and –“

A deafening roar stops them all in their tracks. Dudley looks at Harry, who’s gone white as a ghost.

“What was that?” He whispers.

“I don’t think the troll’s in the dungeon.”

As if on cue, a piercing scream shatters the silence and the group takes off towards the bathroom.

The first thing Dudley notices is the smell. The smell is assaulting, making him physically recoil and his stomach do an odd flip.

The second thing he notices is the club that is clutched in the troll’s hand. It’s a large, gnarled piece of wood with jagged pieces of stone sticking out of it and he is sure that one hit will kill any one of them.

The third thing he notices is a thick mass of black curls hiding underneath a sink in the corner.

Hermione.

It has zeroed in on her now, presumably because of the scream, and is lumbering towards her with its club raised.

“It’s going to kill her!” He gasps. “We need to do something!”

“What would you have us do?” Theo demands. “It wasn’t supposed to be here?”

Dudley thinks. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s not good in these situations.

Hermione screams.

“OI! PEABRAIN!”

Dudley gapes as Harry picks up a broken piece of pipe and hurls it at the troll, hitting it square on the shoulder.

The troll stops.

It turns.

And it locks eyes on the group of boys in the doorway.

“Now you’ve done it, Potter.” Draco snarls.

“RUN!” Vince yells, and they all scatter as it swings its club.

Harry and Vince dive into separate cubicles.

Theo flattens himself against a wall.

And Draco and Dudley crawl under the sinks opposite Hermione.

“Now what, genius?” Draco snaps. They both flinch as a deafening crash takes out a cubicle.

“We need to get Hermione!” Dudley says.

“We need to get everyone!”

Another crash.

“That bloody beast is going to pulverize Crabbe and Potter!” Draco yells. “DO SOMETHING!”

But Dudley can’t.

Hermione screams again as the troll smashes yet another cubicle and Harry falls to the floor, unconscious.

Dudley blanches.

Harry.

“DURSLEY WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”

But Dudley isn’t thinking. He isn’t thinking anything at all. Not about the troll, not about the danger he’s putting himself in.

He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he’s standing in front of the troll with his wand extended.

Blood is seeping onto the tile floor from underneath Harry’s head.

Dudley inhales.

No.

This will not be the day Harry Potter dies.

He exhales.

And the room goes dark.

Dudley is floating. He is floating in a great void. No, not a void, an ocean. A beautiful, blue ocean, as brilliantly blue as Theo’s eyes when the sun hits his face just right. Dudley loves that shade of blue. He loves the ocean. He loves floating in it, loves the way the salt air smells..

Except it doesn’t smell particularly salty. It smells more like.. garbage. And sweat. And coppery.

And the water feels sticky, and thick and warm and not at all refreshing like the ocean usually does.

And there’s a sound that is not seagulls or crashing waves. More like.. retching. Vomiting. Someone is vomiting. And someone is screaming.. why are they screaming? What kind of vacation is this?

“DURSLEY!!”

“Oh, thank fucking Merlin, I thought he was dead.”

“I know, Theo! You only said it a hundred times.”

“What.. what’s going on?”

Dudley looks around. Theo and Draco are sitting on either side of them, each wearing identical expressions of fear. And they’re covered in.. covered in..

“What’s all over you?” He asks, reaching up and touching Draco’s cheek. “Is that..?”

“Troll blood.” Draco says.

“And troll meat. And troll.. I don’t even know what else actually.” Theo adds.

“Why are you covered in bits of troll?” Dudley asks as he sits up. Draco furrows his brow, which Dudley now notices is caked in a thick, tar-like liquid.

“Because you fucking exploded it!” He says. Dudley blinks. Shakes his head. Feels like he might vomit. He reaches up and touches his head, and a chunk of troll flesh falls out of his hair and onto his lap.

He retches onto his legs.

He’s still heaving when he notices a commotion at the door.

“Oh my – what on – are you – is that –“ Professor McGonagall staggers against a wall, and is followed by equally stunned Professors Snape, Dumbledore, Quirrell, and Flitwick.

“Get Poppy.” Snape hisses to Flitwick, who rushes back out the door, presumably to the hospital wing.

“I don’t, I don’t understand!” McGonagall finally says, seemingly able to gather her wits somewhat. “What on earth are we looking at here?”

None of the boys answer. No on seems capable.

“Minerva, Severus. I think the boys may be in some degree of shock. Minerva, if you would attend to Harry please until Poppy arrives, and Professor Quirrell, if you would please escort these boys to the hospital wing. Poppy will look them over once young Harry is dealt with and they’ll be able to get themselves cleaned up.”

“With all due respect,” Professor Snape begins. “I think figuring out what exactly happened tonight –“

“I blew it up.”

They all stop as Dudley’s soft voice cuts through the air.

“I beg your pardon?” Quirrell asks. Dudley flinches under his penetrating gaze.

“I think, Professor, that you may have been quite correct in your directive. These boys are quite addled, no doubt by the extreme trauma they’ve –“

“What do you mean you blew it up?” Quirrell interrupts, and Snape slowly turns in his direction, glaring at him.

“This was no doubt a traumatizing experience,” Snape continues in a slow voice, piercing Quirrell with his gaze as he speaks. “I believe they all could use some rest before regaling us with what I’m sure will be a thrilling tale.” His gaze drifts to Dumbledore, who is staring at Dudley with the same hungry expression as Quirrell.

“Yes,” Dumbledore says slowly. “I believe a rest is in order. Professor Quirrell –“

“I would like to escort the boys, if I may, Professor. They are, after all, members of Slytherin house.” That seems to shake Dumbledore out of whatever thoughtful trance he was in, and he smiles blandly at Snape.

“Of course, Professor. That does make the most sense.” Snape gestures to the boys, and Theo and Draco stand, pulling Dudley along with them. Dudley inhales shakily as he tries to ignore the steady dripping of troll blood and God knows what else hitting the floor with every shaky movement. They hobble past the group of Professors, following Snape’s slow, steady gait out into the corridor.

Dudley glances back.

Dumbledore is crouched down beside Harry with Professor McGonagall, murmuring softly. But Quirrell..

Quirrell is watching Dudley.