~ Halloween ~
Malfoy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the next day that Harry and Ron were still at Hogwarts, tired but in a good mood.
In fact, the two of them thought their meeting with the three-headed dog was a great adventure and were eager for a new one.
Meanwhile, Harry told Ron about the package that had apparently been brought to Hogwarts from Gringotts.
Harry finished the story when he saw Lucy and Stella coming through the door into the great hall.
And when Lucy sat down with them at breakfast ( Louisa and Ophelia had long since finished), the three racked their brains over what had to be protected with so much effort.
"It's either very valuable or really dangerous," said Ron.
"Or both," said Harry.
"I guess it's both," Lucy said, eating some of her muesli.
But because all they knew about the mysterious thing was that it was a good two inches long, they didn't have much of a chance of guessing what was in the package without more clues.
Neither Neville nor Hermione showed the slightest interest in what might lay beneath the dog and the trapdoor.
Neville only cared about one thing, and that was never to go near the dog again.
Hermione refused to speak to Harry and Ron from then on, but she was such a pushy know-it-all that the two took it as an extra point.
Lucy, on the other hand, wasn't too enthusiastic about it.
She felt that the two boys would get along well with her.
What they really wanted now was an opportunity to get back at Malfoy, and much to their delight, it came with the post a week later.
That morning, as always, the owls flew in a long stream through the Great Hall, but this time everyone looked at the long, narrow package carried by six large barn owls.
Harry was just as curious as everyone else about what might be in that big package and was speechless when the owls swooped down and dropped it in front of his nose, sending his bacon spilling off the table.
They had barely fluttered out of the way when another owl threw a letter at the package.
Harry tore open the letter first, which was lucky because it said:
DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE.
It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don’t want everybody knowing you’ve got a
broomstick or they’ll all want one. Oliver Wood will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o’clock for your first training session.
Professor McGonagall
Harry found it hard to hide his delight as he gave the letter to Ron, his sister, and Stella to read.
"A Nimbus Two Thousand," Ron said enviously. "I've never even touched one."
The four of them hurried out of the great hall to unpack the broomstick before the first period, but in the entrance hall they saw that Crabbe and Goyle were blocking their way at the stairs.
Malfoy snatched the package from Harry's hands and felt it.
"That’s a broomstick," he said, throwing it back to Harry with a mixture of jealousy and spite on
his face. "You’ll be in for it this time, Potter, first years aren’t allowed them."
Ron couldn't resist it.
"It's not any old broomstick," he said, "it's a Nimbus Two Thousand."
"What did you say you’ve got at home, Malfoy, a Comet Two Sixty?" Lucy added with a grin.
Ron grinned at the Slytherin boys, too.
"Comets look flashy, but they’re not in the same league as the Nimbus."
"What would you know about it, Weasley, you couldn’t afford half the handle," Malfoy snapped back. "I suppose you and your brothers have to save up twig by twig."
Before Ron could reply, Professor Flitwick appeared at Malfoy's side.
"Not arguing, I hope?" he squeaked.
"Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor," Malfoy said quickly.
Lucy couldn't help but grin. It was amusing that he was still trying to get Harry in trouble.
"Yes, yes, that’s right," said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Harry. "Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?"
"A Nimbus Two Thousand, it is," said Harry, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on
Malfoy’s face.
Stella didn't care and laughed out loud at Malfoy's expression. Professor Flitwick glared at Stella, and she stopped.
"And it’s really thanks to Malfoy here that I’ve got it," he added.
With half-stifled laughter at Malfoy's undisguised anger and dismay, Harry and Ron mounted the marble staircase.
Followed by Lucy and Stella who were giggling.
"Well, it’s true," Harry chortled as they reached the top of the marble staircase, "If he hadn’t
stolen Neville’s Remembrall I wouldn’t be on the team…"
"So, I suppose you think that’s a reward for breaking rules?" came an angry voice from just behind them. Hermione was stomping up the stairs, looking disapprovingly at the package in Harry’s hand.
"I thought you weren’t speaking to us?" said Harry.
"Yes, don’t stop now," said Ron, "it’s doing us so much good."
Hermione marched away with her nose in the air.
Lucy was sitting in the library studying Charms one afternoon when she suddenly realized that she had been at Hogwarts for two months.
She felt more at home in the castle than she had ever felt in Privet Drive.
And she was sure Harry felt the same way.
The lessons also became more and more interesting now that they had mastered the basics.
When they woke up on Halloween morning, the delicious smell of baked pumpkins wafted through the corridors.
And it got even better:
Professor Flitwick announced in magic class that they were now ready to fly objects, and that's what they'd all been craving ever since they saw him make Neville's toad buzz around the classroom.
For the exercises, Professor Flitwick paired the students up.
Lucy worked with Ophelia.
Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan (which he was glad of, as Neville had already looked over at him).
However, Ron was supposed to be working with Hermione Granger.
It was hard to say which of the two was grumpier because of this.
She hadn't spoken to them since Harry's broom came.
"So, don't forget that quick wrist motion we practiced!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, standing on his stack of books as usual.
"Now, don’t forget that nice wrist movement we’ve been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too — never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said ‘s’ instead of ‘f’ and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."
It was pretty difficult.
Lucy and Ophelia tried several times, but all that happened was that the feather hovered a few centimeters above the desk before flying back onto the desk after a few seconds.
Professor Flitwick saw it and gave them a smile.
Harry and Seamus swished and snapped, but the quill they were supposed to send heavenward just stayed on the table.
Seamus got so impatient that he prodded her with his wand and she caught fire- Harry had to smother the fire with his hat.
Ron, at the next table, wasn't faring much better.
"You're saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione snap. "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.
Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The quill rose from the table and hovered a good three feet above their heads.
"Oh, well done!" Professor Flitwick exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Everyone see there, Miss Granger's done it!"
By the end of the lesson, Ron was in a miserable mood.
"No wonder no one can stand her," he said to Harry as they pushed out into the busy corridor, "she's a nightmare, honestly."
"Ron," Lucy hissed at him.
At the same time someone nudged Harry in passing.
It was Hermione.
For a moment he saw her face - and was surprised that she was crying.
"I think she heard you."
"So?" said Ron, looking a little uncomfortable though.
Lucy was about to say 'look what you've done' but bit back the comment.
"She must've noticed that she has no friends."
Lucy heard Ophelia start to say something but didn't catch the words as she was running after Hermione. However, she disappeared behind a group of older students and by the time Lucy had passed them, Hermione had already disappeared completely.
Hermione didn't show up for the next class and was gone all afternoon.
~~~~
On their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast Lucy and Stella overheard Parvati Patil telling her friend Lavender that Hermione was crying in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone.
They entered the Great Hall, decorated for Halloween.
A thousand real bats fluttered on the walls and ceiling, and another thousand swept across the tables in long black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins flicker.
In one fell swoop, just like the start-of-term banquet, the gold plates were filled with the feast.
But Lucy couldn't eat anything because she was still thinking about poor Hermione.
"Excuse me," Lucy said. "I'm looking for Hermione."
Stella nodded and asked, if Lucy want her to join, but the black-haired witch shook her head.
The others were too busy eating to notice that Hattys Sister got up and left the great hall– not that the other Slytherins would care anyway.
Hermione stepped out of one of the stalls as Lucy entered the toilet.
"Hermione?" Lucy addressed her.
"Lucy, go away. Leave me alone!" Hermione said and wanted to walk past Lucy.
"Are you really taking what Ron said that seriously?" Lucy asked.
"Well… I– He's right somehow."
Lucy looked at Hermione in surprise and shook her head.
"Ron's got the emotional range of a teaspoon. Just ignore him."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes, of course. You're just smart and most people don't understand you. Especially the boys our age."
Hermione wiped the last tears from her face and hugged Lucy.
"Thanks."
At the same moment the door was opened.
"Whoever you are, we are having an emotional moment right now, so fuck off," Lucy said, turning around.
In front of them was a huge, fat troll.
"Hey buddy, I didn't mean that in a bad way," she said, and the troll swung back.
No sooner had Lucy left the hall a few minutes earlier than Professor Quirrell ran into the hall, his turban in disarray and his face contorted with fear.
Dumbledor sent everyone back to the common rooms.
As they made their way through a group of confused Hufflepuffs, Harry suddenly grabbed Ron's arm.
"I’ve just thought - Hermione."
"What about her?"
"She doesn’t know about the troll."
Ron bit his lip.
Harry glanced at the others so as not to lose sight of them.
His breath caught.
Without thinking much, they ducked their heads in the crowd and followed the Hufflepuffs heading the other way, then scurried down a deserted corridor and kept running toward the girls' bathrooms.
They had just turned the corner when they heard rapid footsteps behind them.
"Percy!" Ron hissed, pulling Harry behind a large stone griffin.
Peering around the corner, they didn't see Percy, they saw Snape.
He walked down the corridor and disappeared.
"What’s he doing?" Harry whispered. "Why isn’t he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"
As carefully as possible, they crept down the next corridor, following Snape's fading footsteps.
"He's heading for the third floor" Harry said, but Ron held up his hand.
"Can you smell something?"
Harry sniffed, and a foul smell hit his nostrils, a mixture between worn socks and the kind of public toilet that nobody ever seems to clean.
And then they heard it - a low grunt and the drag of gigantic feet.
Ron pointed to the left from the end of a hallway, something huge was moving towards them.
They pushed into the darkness of the shadows and saw the something take shape in a patch of moonlight.
It was a terrifying sight.
Over ten feet tall, skin a sallow granite gray, tall, ungainly body like a boulder on which a small, bald, coconut-like head had been set.
The creature had short legs, thick as tree trunks, with flat, calloused feet.
The stench it emitted took your breath away.
It held a huge wooden club in its hand, which, because of its long arms, dragged along the ground.
The troll stopped at a door, opened it a crack, and peered inside.
He wiggled his long ears, then made up his mind in his little brain and shuffled leisurely into the room.
"The keys in the lock," Harry muttered. "We could lock it in."
"Good idea," said Ron nervously.
They crept along the wall to the open door, mouth dry, praying the troll wouldn't come right back out.
Harry jumped and managed to grab the handle, slamming the door and locking it.
"Yes!"
Faces flushed with victory, they ran down the aisle, but as they reached the corner, they heard something that made their hearts stand still - two high-pitched, panicked screams - coming from the room they had just locked.
Harry recognised both screams right away– it was Hermione and... Lucy?
Was was his Sister doing here?
"Oh no," said Ron, pale as the Bloody Baron.
"It's the girls' bathroom!" Harry gasped.
"Hermione! Lucy!" They gasped in unison.
It was the last thing they wanted to do, but did they have a choice?
They turned on their heels, ran back to the door, turned the key, trembling with panic- Harry pushed the door open and they tumbled inside.
Hermione and Lucy stood pressed against the wall, their knees shaking, looking like they were going to faint.
The troll knocked the sinks off the walls and slowly walked toward them.
"We need to distract him!" Harry said desperately to Ron, grabbing a faucet that was lying on the floor and throwing it against the wall with all his might.
The troll stopped a meter from the girls.
He turned awkwardly and blinked dumbly to see what was making the noise.
The evil little eyes caught sight of Harry.
He hesitated briefly and then, mace raised, lunged at Harry.
"Oy, pea-brain!" Ron yelled from across the room, throwing a metal pipe at him
The troll didn't even seem to take notice of the pipe hitting his shoulder, but he heard the scream and stopped again, now turning his ugly snout towards Ron, giving Harry time to run around him.
"Come on, run, run!" Harry shouted at Hermione, trying to pull her towards the door but she couldn't move.
She was still flat against the wall, her mouth wide open in terror.
The screams and their echoes seemed to infuriate the troll.
With a muffled roar, he lunged at Ron, who was closest to him with no way out.
Harry then did something that was very brave and very stupid at the same time:
With a mighty leap, he jumped onto the troll's back and threw his arms around his neck.
"Harry!" screamed Lucy. She was shocked that he had just jumped onto the back of a troll.
The troll didn't feel Harry hanging on his back, but even a troll can tell if you stick a long piece of wood up his nose.
Harry had still had his wand in hand when he jumped - it had slipped easily into one of the troll's nostrils.
The troll howled in pain, jerked and flailed its club, and Harry was still clinging to his back; the troll would soon tear him down or give him a terrible blow with his club.
Hermione had fallen to the ground in fear.
Lucy squatted down next to her and put her hand on Hermione's shoulder.
Now Ron pulled out his own wand- he didn't know what he was doing but heard him chant the first spell that came to mind: "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The club suddenly flew out of the troll's hand, soared high, high in the air, slowly turned over and crashed onto its owner's head with a hideous splinter.
The troll lurched in a circle, then fell flat on its muzzle with a thud that shook the room.
Harry was shaking and catching his breath.
Ron was still standing there, wand raised, staring at what he had done.
Lucy sat on the floor next to Hermione, her back against the wall
Hermione was the first to speak.
"Is it - dead?"
"I don't think so," said Harry. "I think it's just been knocked out."
He bent down and pulled the wand out of the troll's nose.
It was smeared with what appeared to be globs of grey glue.
"Urgh - troll boogers."
He wiped it on the troll's pants. Then he looked at his sister to check, if she was hurt.
"I'm fine, Harry. Are you ok?" Lucy asked and Harry nodded. The black-haired boy put his now-wiped wand back into his robe pocket.
A sudden slamming of the door and loud footsteps made the four sit up and take notice.
They hadn't realized what a racket they'd been making, but of course someone downstairs must have heard the troll's roar and the crash.
A moment later, Professor McGonagall burst in, followed closely by Snape, with Quirrell bringing up the rear.
Quirrell took one look at the troll, gave a faint whimper, clutched his heart, and quickly sat down on one of the toilet seats.
Snape bent over the troll.
Professor McGonagall looked at Ron and Harry.
Lucy had never seen her so angry as at this moment.
Her lips were white.
And Harry's hopes of winning fifty points for Gryffindor quickly faded.
"What on earth were you thinking of?" said Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice. Harry looked at Ron, who was still standing with his wand in the air.
"You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Why aren’t you in your dormitory?"
Snape gave Harry a quick but piercing look.
Lucy looked down silently. She didn't know why Harry and Ron were here so suddenly.
Then a small voice came from the shadows.
"Please, Professor McGonagall - they were looking for me."
"Miss Granger!"
Hermione finally managed to get to her feet.
"I went looking for the troll because I - I thought I could deal with it on my own - you know, because I’ve read all about them."
Lucy now looked totally perplexed at the brown-haired girl next to her. Hermione Granger told her teacher an outright lie.
"If they hadn’t found me, I’d be dead now. Harry stuck his wand up its nose and Ron knocked it out with its own club. They didn’t have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."
Why did she do that?
She only went to the toilet at dinner. It wasn't a crime.
The twins tried to look like they weren't new to this story.
"Well - in that case…" said Professor McGonagall, staring at the four of them, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"
Hermione hung her head.
Harry was speechless.
Hermione was the last person to do anything that was against the rules, and she stood up and claimed she was just that, just to bail him and Ron out.
It was like Snape suddenly handing out candy.
"Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this," said Professor McGonagall. "I’m very disappointed in you. If you’re not hurt at all, you’d better get off to Gryffindor tower and the dungeons. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."
Hermione walked out.
Professor McGonagall turned to Ron, Harry and Lucy.
"Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win five points for you house. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."
They walked out quickly and didn't say a word until they were two floors up.
They were glad, apart from anything else, to be rid of the troll's stench.
"We should have gotten more than ten points," Ron grumbled.
“Five, you mean, once she’s taken off Hermione’s.”
"Good of her to get us out of trouble like that," Ron admitted. "Mind you, we did save her."
"She might not have needed saving if we hadn’t locked the thing in with her and my sister,” Harry reminded him.
They had reached the fat lady's portrait.
"Pig's snout," they said, and entered.
The common room was crowded and noisy.
All were about to eat the food that had been brought up to them.
Hermione, however, was standing alone by the door, waiting for them.
There was a very awkward pause.
Then, without looking at each other, they all said, 'thank you' and rushed off to get plates.
But from that moment Hermione Granger was her friend.
There are things you can't experience together without making friends and slaying a four-meter-tall mountain troll is certainly one of them.