lomonaaeren

Professor Snape wasn’t in his office.

Harry skidded to a stop outside it, whispering curses under his breath. He leaned back and looked around the corridors, but he couldn’t see a sign of the professor. Maybe he was at the feast, or he was already gone hunting the troll.

Harry spun around, ready to go find someone else, and nearly smacked into Daphne.

“Daphne? What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t at the feast, and no one seemed to know where you were. I got worried.”

Harry half-smiled at the fact that Blaise had kept his secret, but then the smile fell off his face again as he remembered what he’d seen. “There’s a troll loose in the school.”

“What? How can there possibly be? The wards would keep it from getting inside!”

“I don’t know! But I saw it, and then stupid Carrow tried to stop me and duel me, and I got rid of him, and I came to get Professor Snape, but I don’t know where he is, and I can’t find him, and—”

“Okay, Harry, calm down.” Daphne reached out and let her hand hover above his shoulder instead of touching. That might be because Hedwig was also hovering above his shoulder, hissing. “I used a charm to track you. I can do the same thing with Professor Snape, or one of the other professors, if you want. We can find them and tell them.”

Harry took a huge breath. He’d run like crazy to get here, and it was hard to calm down his heartbeat and breathing, but he made an effort. “Okay.”

Daphne nodded encouragingly to him. “After Professor Snape, Professor Flitwick is probably the best fighter in the school. Do you want to go and find him?”

“Yes,” Harry said, after a long hesitation that he saw Daphne watching. He wasn’t sure they needed a fighter, just someone to dump the problem on, but on the other hand, maybe the professor they found would have to confront the troll.

“All right,” Daphne said, and held out her wand. There was a look of intense concentration on her face, and Harry found himself leaning forwards, watching.

Daphne waved the wand and whispered, “Loco, domo,” which was at least shorter than some of the other incantations Harry had worked on in class. She gasped as her wand spun and kept on spinning, then abruptly stopped and pointed down the corridor, away from Snape’s office.

“Come on!” she said, and started running. Harry ran alongside her.

*

Severus was beyond annoyed, which meant that no one else could tell, because he had sunk all emotion in the still waters of his Occlumency.

But first it was Halloween, the anniversary of Lily’s death. Then he had noticed that Har—Potter wasn’t at the feast. And then Quirinus had come bursting into the Great Hall with news of a troll, and then Albus had tried to send Severus’s Slytherins back to the dungeons.

And Potter’s absence took on new, horrific dimensions.

Severus glided silently out of the Great Hall as soon as he could, using one of the back doors that the professors usually employed to reach the head table on the night of the Sorting. He threaded his way quickly through passages and around corners and up hidden staircases, emerging at last near the third floor.

If Albus and the other professors who had helped set up traps for this gauntlet believed that the troll was not a distraction so that someone (Quirinus) could go after the Stone, then they were fools.

Severus cast a charm of his own devising that would make him look like the bits of one’s surroundings one most expected to see—in this case, stone walls and floor. He believed it superior to the Disillusionment Charm, which only turned someone transparent. Movement or standing against a dark background was too liable to reveal a person, in the cases of that spell.

Then he waited.

There was a long silence when the only sounds Severus could clearly discern were those of his heartbeat, measured and calm as always. He hadn’t learned control of his mind without being able to control his body also.

Then, shuffling steps.

Severus smiled without moving his lips. There was a sharp pleasure in being proven right, no matter how irritating other consequences of that rectitude might be.

Quirinus came around the corner, walking fast. He looked nothing like the man who covered away from simple interactions with other professors and babbled tales about vampires hunting him at the least provocation. He was gliding, now, and his wand was held in his hand with an assurance that wasn’t his own.

Severus’s suspicions coalesced. This wasn’t merely Quirinus putting on a front and acting at someone else’s direction, or, for that matter, being subject to the Imperius Curse. This was Quirinus under the control of someone else.

Possession.

Severus had doubts about how much of the Dark Lord had survived his confrontation with Lily and Potter, but there was no reason that he couldn’t have been left a wraith still strong enough to control the willing.

Severus waited until Quirinus had his hand almost on the knob of the door hiding the three-headed dog (Fluffy) and the entrance to the underground gauntlet of traps. Then he cast another spell that imitated the sound of brisk footsteps approaching from another direction.

He had originally planned on simply confronting Quirinus, but that wouldn’t be an option if he intended to keep up his cover around the Dark Lord.

Quirinus jerked towards the sound, a remnant of his original personality asserting itself for a second. Then he turned back to the door.

Severus added a snatch of Minerva’s voice. “…don’t really think anyone would come all this way to steal the Stone…” She would be upset if she knew that Severus could use his magic to imitate her, but there was no reason for her to find out.

Quirinus turned and ran.

Severus waited, still, for long moments. Then he set out in search of Potter. He didn’t think the boy could have encountered the troll, because there was no one shouting for him, no shrieks of anger or pain or loss.

But he did intend to ask the boy exactly what he’d been thinking, staying away from the feast and endangering himself.

*

“Professor Flitwick! Professor Flitwick!”

Ahead of Harry and Daphne, Professor Flitwick whipped around with one hand on his wand. He looked relieved and disappointed to see them at the same time. “Mr. Potter, Miss Greengrass!” he said. “What are you doing running around the corridors? Don’t you know there’s a troll around?”

“We know,” Harry said, stopping to breathe. Professor Flitwick had been a lot further away than he’d thought, on the third floor up from the dungeons. “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about. We wanted someone to stop it.”

“Well, we know about it. Professor Quirrell burst into the Great Hall and informed everyone. He said the troll was in the dungeons.”

“Not when I saw it!”

“But our common room is in the dungeons,” Daphne said at the same time, wrinkling her face up so that she looked like Dudley. Not that Harry intended to tell her that. “How can we possibly be safe going in that direction?”

“Honestly, I believe most of the Slytherins stayed in the Great Hall. You should get back there as soon as possible.”

Harry nodded, relieved that at least one professor knew about the troll. And then he heard the cracking and crashing and screaming from down the corridor.

Harry didn’t know why he recognized the voice, since he hadn’t spent that much time with her, but he did. It was Hermione.

“Hermione!”

Daphne grabbed his hand when he tried to run off. Professor Flitwick was already ahead of them, a lot faster than Harry had thought the small man could move. “Harry! What are you doing? We need to stay here so that we don’t get in the way. There’s nothing we could do to stop the troll!”

“But Hermione could get hurt!”

“Yes, she might. And that means, among other things, that we should go and find more professors to tell them where the troll is. Not interfere.”

Harry glanced backwards at where Flitwick had gone. Then he looked at Hedwig, who was hovering near his shoulder. Now that he was really paying attention to her, he heard what she’d probably been urgently hissing for a while.

“I am a messenger. Use me that way.”

Harry nearly slumped in relief. “You’re right. Hedwig, please go and find Professor Snape. Lead him here. If you find any other professors, could you use your wings and tail to point them down the corridor?” Harry didn’t know for sure that the other professors would be worse fighters than Professor Snape and Professor Flitwick, but he felt that way.

“Yes, of course.”

Hedwig flapped away from him and sailed around the corner. Harry quickly told Daphne what was going on, and she smiled a little. “Well, of course, that’s the best way that you could use her. She used to be a post-owl, after all—”

A long, despairing scream came around the corner, cut off in mid-note.

This time, Daphne couldn’t stop Harry from running towards it.

*

Hermione lay at the foot of the wall with what she knew was a broken leg. It hurt too much to be anything else.

She knew, too, that she was going to die.

It made hot tears fill her eyes. She was going to die without any friends and because stupid Ron Weasley had said something to her that made her run away and hole up in a bathroom for most of the day. And she hadn’t known there was a troll walking around the castle because she hadn’t been at the feast.

It was a stupid way to die.

That was the thing that bothered her more than just the dying itself.

She pulled herself up so that she was leaning against the wall, and watched as Professor Flitwick hurled broken shards of glass and pipe and porcelain at the troll from where it had smashed up some of the sinks and loos. He was distracting it, but not really injuring it. Its skin was too thick.

And Professor Flitwick was good with small, precise spells that perfectly ended a duel or caused a wound just on the edge of debilitating, anyway. Hermione had looked up his record of victorious duels. It was exactly the wrong kind of magic for bringing down a troll.

And now I’m not only going to die in a stupid way, I’m going to die thinking about a stupid thing.

Hermione blinked her eyes and sniffled.

Then she wondered if she had lost more blood than she thought she had from her few scratches and was seeing things, because the door slid open behind Professor Flitwick and Harry Potter tumbled into the room. Behind him was a blonde Slytherin girl Hermione thought was called Greengrass, yanking futilely on Harry’s arm.

What is happening?

Hermione decided that she might as well watch this happen. It was slightly less stupid than what she might have seen otherwise, which she thought would be the troll’s club coming at her fast.

Harry drew his wand and waved it at the troll. Professor Flitwick immediately raised a shield in front of Harry and yelled at him. Hermione couldn’t make out the words under the sound of the troll’s grunting and slapping away the animated things flying at it, but she thought it was almost certainly an attempt to get him out of here.

“Run away, Harry!” Hermione yelled. No need for him to die, too.

But Harry didn’t hear her or was determined to ignore her, just like he was going to ignore the Greengrass girl at his back. He faced the troll again and opened his mouth. Hermione tried to read his lips, but he didn’t seem to be saying any spell they had learned in class.

However, something long and green rose from Harry’s wand and arced over the edge of Professor Flitwick’s shield. Hermione stared openmouthed as a huge green snake slithered over to the troll and bit its ankle.

What is happening?

The troll roared, probably more in surprise than pain, and reached down to snatch the snake from the floor. The snake writhed and hissed until the troll brought its hand up to squint at the serpent with beady little eyes. Then the snake suddenly lashed out and wrapped around both the troll’s arm and its throat.

But I thought snakes were only venomous or constrictors, not both, Hermione’s book knowledge babbled in the back of her head.

The troll couldn’t see with the snake wrapped around its arm and its arm positioned in front of its face. It started staggering around and randomly smashing its fist at the snake and the wall. Hermione whimpered. She was probably still going to die.

“Miss Granger!”

From the sound of his voice, Professor Flitwick had been shouting for a little while. Hermione turned towards him, blinking tears from her eyes, and saw him gesturing furiously towards himself.

“My leg’s broken, Professor,” she yelled, making her voice as loud as she could. She doubted the troll would pay more attention to her, anyway.

Professor Flitwick shot his arm forwards this time, and a huge invisible force grabbed Hermione and yanked her along the floor. She whimpered again, then screamed, as she bumped over jagged pieces of everything in the bathroom. Professor Flitwick bent down near her, sweating, and conjured a floating stretcher in front of her.

“My apologies, Miss Granger, this isn’t going to be gentle. Mobilicorpus!”

“Filius! Miss Granger! Mr. Potter!”

Hermione could barely hear the voices as she got floated and then lowered into the stretcher. It still bumped her leg, and she nearly fainted from the pain.

But she did turn her head in time to see Professor McGonagall run into the bathroom, followed by Professors Sprout and Snape.

Oh, good, the cavalry’s here, Hermione thought absurdly, and then passed out.

*

“What did you think you were doing, Mr. Potter.”

Harry folded his hands in front of him. Professor Snape was scarier than Mr. Malfoy when he was angry, even though Mr. Malfoy could send Harry back to live with the Dursleys if he wanted. He puffed and said sly things and thought he could control Harry with his disappointment in him.

Snape just leaned forwards and made Harry feel the stupidest he’d ever felt.

“She—she screamed, Professor. I thought the troll was going to kill her.”

“Even though you also knew that Professor Flitwick was there and defending Miss Granger? Did you not think that you could get in his way if you went into the bathroom and tried to face the troll?”

Harry took a long, slow, deep breath. He couldn’t get upset. That would just lead to him yelling, and Professor Snape getting colder, and probably detentions. He didn’t want detentions just for themselves, let alone the fact that that would upset the Malfoys.

“I thought that if he’d been able to bring down the troll, sir,” Harry said quietly, “he would have done it already.”

“And no one except you could help?”

“There was no else there except me and Daphne, sir.”

Snape bent towards him. Harry held himself immobile. He wanted to flinch and run away, but that wouldn’t solve anything. And he reckoned he needed to listen to what Professor Snape had to say in case a situation like this ever happened again.

(Harry didn’t want it to happen again. But he wouldn’t just leave a friend of his in a situation where they might have died, either).

“You could have waited,” Professor Snape whispered. “Professor Flitwick was holding the troll back from Miss Granger. Things might have been fine. She might have survived.”

“I don’t think might is good enough, sir.”

“Because you always know better than people older and wiser and more experienced with magic than you?”

Professor Snape’s voice was honey-soft. Again, Harry forced down the urge to flee, although it was bigger this time. He couldn’t hide from the anger or the scolding. He would have to accept it and do his best to explain his actions so that Snape could understand them, even if he was going to punish Harry for them.

“I didn’t know if she would survive,” Harry repeated. “All I could do was go in there and cast a spell I hoped might help.”

“You have not been taught how to conjure snakes, Mr. Potter!”

“I cast the spell in Parseltongue, sir.”

And Harry had been casting a simple Knockback Jinx, just hoping that casting it in Parseltongue would make it more powerful. He’d been as surprised as anybody when the giant snake had appeared and, it turned out, strangled the troll.

Professor Snape’s eyes widened a little bit. Then he said slowly, “I think that your adrenaline rush might be altering your memory of the night a bit, Mr. Potter. I think it was instead, an extremely powerful burst of accidental magic that conjured the snake. Something that happened, doubtless, because of your Parseltongue and the affinity you share with serpents.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You agree, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m glad that we could have this chat,” Professor Snape said. “I don’t think detention is necessary. I do think, however, that you’ll be ready a very dense book on magical theory and how one’s expertise and strength increase with age. And then you’ll be writing me a very long essay on why it was reckless of you to go running into such a situation.”

“Yes, sir.”

Professor Snape paused, staring at him for a long, intense moment. Harry looked back as calmly as he could. He didn’t know what the professor was thinking, really. He had expected more scolding and storming and refusal to listen to his perspective at all. It was nice, but bewildering, to realize he wouldn’t be getting that.

“Do not do this again,” Professor Snape finally said, his voice a thunderclap.

“Yes, sir.”

Professor Snape shook his head and let Harry go.

*

All the scolding and storming that Harry could possibly “want” was waiting for him just outside the common room.

“If you do anything like that ever again, I am going to kill you,” Draco announced in a high-pitched voice. He was shaking, and he glared at Harry as if he thought that Harry would curl up and roll on the floor in a fetal ball just from the glare.

“How would you do that?”

More glaring.

“Poison?” Harry asked, a little hysterical. He thought of Carrow then, but Professor Snape hadn’t mentioned him, and Harry didn’t know what had happened. Harry’s voice went on, rising a little higher with each moment that passed. “Strangling me in my sleep? Casting a spell that—”

He broke off, because Draco had punched him in the shoulder. Harry stared at him blankly. Hedwig, who had found him just before he’d got to Professor Snape’s office after the fight with the troll, hissed warningly and coiled herself to strike at Draco if necessary.

“I hate you!” Draco snapped. “I would be really upset if you died! If you do that again, I’m going to punch you in the face! How can you my brother if you’re dead?” And he grabbed Harry’s wrist and dragged him into the common room.

Harry went with him, fairly bewildered. He saw Daphne sitting on a couch. She stood up and came over to tell him much the same thing Draco had (although without the punching). Then she stalked away, and Harry went up to his bedroom and another scolding from Blaise.

At least this one had fewer words.

When he was lying in bed behind his shut curtains, Harry asked Hedwig, “Why are all of them so upset with me when they’re my friends?’

“Because they like you, and they do not want you to die,” Hedwig said simply, arranging herself on the pillow next to him and curling up so that her wings were fanned along her sides.

That probably made a lot of sense, Harry thought, and drifted off to sleep with warmth gathering in the center of his chest.