At the common-room entrance, I had to repeat the password.
I’d said it too quietly the first time.
Only on the second attempt did the stone wall slide aside, revealing firelight and far more people than I wanted to see.
Everyone was talking.
About the troll in the dungeons.
The troll on the stairs.
Two trolls, one of which had supposedly been spotted near the kitchens.
I stopped just inside.
One had been quite enough for me.
The prefect near the door noticed me immediately.
“Peverell.”
I raised my head.
“Professor Snape knows where I was.”
“I know. He told me to check you’d arrived.”
I moved aside to let someone past behind me.
The prefect studied me more closely.
“And to make sure you don’t leave again tonight.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
This time, obeying required no effort at all.
***
Malfoy sat by the fire.
He noticed me before I could get past the sofa.
“Where were you?”
“Upstairs.”
“I worked that much out. The prefect asked twice whether anyone had seen you.”
Blaise closed the book on his knees.
I doubted he’d read much in this noise.
“Did you lose us?”
For a moment, I considered an answer that would let me go straight to the dormitory.
“I left the group.”
Malfoy raised his eyebrows.
“During an alarm?”
“I’m starting to notice everyone has a problem with that.”
“Perhaps because they announced a troll, not a sale.”
Normally, I might have laughed.
Now I just rested a hand on the back of the sofa.
Crabbe leaned around Malfoy.
“Did you see it?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
That was enough.
“Really?” Blaise asked.
“Yes.”
Several people nearby stopped talking.
I regretted not going straight to bed.
“What was it like?” Goyle asked.
I looked at him.
“Big.”
Crabbe snorted.
“We know that.”
“And it smelled.”
“Did it do anything?”
I remembered the sink shattering under the blow.
“Broke a few things. The teachers have immobilised it.”
I hoped that would end the conversation.
Of course it didn’t.
“They say Potter was there too,” Malfoy said.
“He was.”
“Weasley?”
“Him too.”
Draco studied me for a moment.
“Did you go with them?”
“No. We got there separately.”
At least that required no explanation about my eyes.
***
Blaise frowned.
“You’ve got something by your eye.”
I touched my cheek before I could stop myself.
A dark mark came away on my fingers.
I hadn’t wiped everything off in the corridor.
Malfoy straightened a little.
“Is that blood?”
“A bit.”
“Did the troll hit you?”
“No.”
“Did you hit something?”
I increasingly wanted to sit down.
Or lie on the floor, if the questions were going to last much longer.
“I’m not sure. I need to wash.”
Blaise moved his legs to let me through.
Malfoy was still looking at my face.
“You look awful.”
“I’ve been practising all evening.”
Crabbe laughed.
Good.
Laughter, at least, didn’t require an answer.
I headed for the bedroom before anyone could think of another question.
***
The dormitory was empty.
I closed the door and stood for a moment with my hand on the handle.
The quiet helped more than I’d expected.
I went to the sink.
In the mirror, I saw a pale face, dishevelled hair and a streak of blood running from my left eye.
Pale dust covered my sleeve.
The fabric was slightly torn near the elbow.
I touched the tear.
That must have been where the stone fragment hit.
A small scratch lay beneath it.
That, at least, I knew how to deal with.
I washed my hands, then carefully washed my face.
The dried blood wouldn’t come off at once.
I had to hold a wet handkerchief against my skin and wait, instead of rubbing harder.
When I finally pulled it away, I looked a little better.
The eye was still red.
I checked whether I could see normally through it.
Cupboard.
Towel.
A crack near the mirror’s lower edge.
Everything in place.
Only the light bothered me more than usual.
I turned away from the lamp.
I’d had enough of checking.
***
I took off my robe and sat on the bed.
Only then did my hip make itself known.
I lifted my shirt.
A bruise was beginning to form where I’d hit the sink.
Wonderful.
I’d been so occupied with my eye that the rest of my body had apparently been waiting its turn.
I lay down carefully.
For a few seconds, it was fine.
Then I closed my eyes and saw the club rising.
I opened them again.
Canopy.
Greenish light.
No troll.
I knew that.
Even so, I spent the next moment staring upwards.
Footsteps came from the corridor.
Someone pressed the handle, and Blaise and Malfoy entered.
I pretended to adjust my pillow.
Blaise looked over.
“Better?”
“A bit.”
Malfoy threw something onto his own bed.
“Flint says the troll was about three metres tall.”
“I didn’t measure it.”
“But you saw it.”
“Draco, if it turns out tomorrow that it was four, I won’t lodge an appeal.”
He looked at me, then shrugged.
“I was only asking.”
“I know.”
He searched his trunk for a while.
Then they both returned to the common room.
I was alone again.
This time, quiet wasn’t enough.
***
I didn’t feel sleepy.
I was tired.
So tired that taking off my shoes had taken longer than it should.
But whenever I closed my eyes, fragments returned.
The troll’s fingers around its club.
Harry running along the wall.
The solid weight of the sink beneath my hand.
I tried to reconstruct the order, but everything began to blur together.
I couldn’t remember whether Ron had spoken before the club fell or just afterwards. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
Stopping the creature itself, though, I remembered perfectly.
I sat up.
Reached for my notebook.
I wasn’t going to practise anything tonight.
But I could write down what remained in my head instead of spending half the night piecing the same scene together.
I put the date on a blank page.
Beneath it, I wrote:
**Troll.**
I stared at the word for a moment.
Then added:
**Knockback Jinx — little effect.**
**Pressure — stopped its movement.
Then it backed away.**
I paused with my quill.
That last part seemed important.
The rod in the Room of Requirement sank when I disrupted the levitation.
The troll had retreated, as though it wanted more distance.
Had I frightened it?
It didn’t look like a creature easily frightened.
But I had no better explanation.
I wrote down the question, leaving space beside it.
Then added:
**Strong resistance.
Pain.
Bleeding only after leaving.**
I put down the quill.
I could have added more.
How quickly the pressure had appeared.
How hard it had been to maintain when the creature turned its head.
How little any of it resembled quiet attempts at a desk.
Instead, I closed the notebook.
I didn’t have to solve everything tonight.
I only wanted to stop holding all of it in my head at once.
***
By the time the others returned, I’d almost fallen asleep.
Almost.
Goyle tripped over something beside his bed and swore so loudly that I sat up before I understood what had happened.
My heart hammered as though I’d been running.
Laughter came from behind the curtain.
“That’s your shoe,” Malfoy said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you standing on it?”
I sank back onto the pillow.
For a while, I listened to them changing and moving things around.
Ordinary sounds.
Someone searched for pyjamas.
Someone shut a trunk.
Blaise reminded them that we still had lessons tomorrow, even if tonight’s dinner had ended with a troll.
That struck me as exceptionally unfair.
Not long afterwards, I fell asleep.
***
I woke before the others.
Not from a nightmare.
I simply opened my eyes and knew I wouldn’t sleep again.
For a while, I lay still.
My eye stung.
My hip hurt when I rolled onto my left side.
My throat was dry.
I reached for water, then went to wash.
There was no fresh blood.
The redness remained, but was fainter.
I studied my reflection.
I looked like someone who needed several more hours of sleep.
That was accurate enough.
I skipped my morning exercises.
Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed and checked my timetable.
Potions.
I sighed.
Snape already had plenty of reasons to be displeased with my existence today.
I wasn’t going to add lateness.
***
By breakfast, the troll had grown.
Apparently, it had barely fitted in the corridor, destroyed half a floor and required four teachers to stop it.
Someone claimed Quirrell had tried to fight it before running to the Great Hall.
That was new.
I sat at our table and poured tea.
Blaise arrived shortly afterwards.
“Apparently, Potter jumped on its head.”
I looked up.
“Whose?”
“The troll’s.”
For a moment, I had a very strange feeling.
That was what was supposed to have happened.
Only I hadn’t seen it.
“Not while I was there,” I replied.
Blaise reached for toast.
“I don’t know what to believe any more.”
“Believe in the smaller troll.”
He smiled and began serving himself.
I tried my tea.
Too hot.
I put the cup down and waited.
***
The Great Hall bothered me more than usual that morning.
Not the noise itself.
I’d grown used to that.
The light reflecting off dishes was worse.
Bright wisps around floating jugs.
Movement that kept pulling my gaze from my plate.
I tried not to focus on the magic.
Most of the time, I managed.
Then someone at the staff table sneezed.
I looked up automatically.
Quirrell sat near Snape.
Pain stabbed my left eye.
I turned away so quickly that Blaise looked up from his plate.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
It didn’t sound convincing.
I sipped my tea.
This time, it was the right temperature, but the tension near my temple didn’t disappear immediately.
I hadn’t been trying to study the professor.
I hadn’t looked for anything beneath his turban at all.
I’d seen him and felt pain.
Perhaps my eye was still oversensitive after last night.
I’d have gladly accepted that explanation.
Except the reflection from a silver jug didn’t give me the same feeling.
I moved my plate, giving my hands something ordinary to do.
Malfoy sat opposite.
He looked at me, then my cup.
“Didn’t you sleep?”
“I did.”
“Not very well, then.”
“I’ll try harder next time.”
He helped himself to eggs.
At least he didn’t ask about the troll’s size again.
***
I ate less than I’d intended.
I was hungry, but halfway through breakfast, I wanted to leave and sit somewhere nothing reflected light straight into my eyes.
I put my timetable in my bag and stood.
At the doors, I heard my name.
“Oliver.”
I turned.
Harry was coming towards me, with Ron and Hermione behind him.
They looked better than the previous evening.
Harry moved his arm freely.
Hermione was no longer pressing her hands against her robe, though she held her books as tightly as if they might escape.
I waited for them.
“Hi.”
Harry stopped in front of me.
“We wanted to catch you before class.”
I looked at all three.
That explained why they’d left the table together.
***
For a moment, nobody knew how to begin.
At last, Harry adjusted his bag strap.
“Thanks. For last night.”
I nodded.
“No problem.”
Ron opened his mouth.
I looked at him.
“All right,” I added.
Harry smiled briefly.
Ron scratched the back of his neck.
“And for pulling me out of the way,” he said.
“I didn’t see it lifting the club.”
“I noticed.”
“I was looking at who’d come in.”
“Yes. At me.”
For a moment, he looked ready to defend himself.
Then he glanced at Harry and let it go.
“Fine. Next time, I’ll watch the troll.”
“I’d rather there wasn’t a next time.”
We agreed on that without argument.
Hermione looked at my face.
“How are you feeling?”
“Not very well rested.”
“It shows.”
“You’re agreeing with Malfoy an unusual amount today.”
Ron grimaced automatically.
Harry studied me more closely.
“What about your eye?”
I touched my cheek beneath the eyelid.
“Irritated.”
“From the dust?” he asked.
I hesitated.
“Possibly that too.”
Hermione noticed the last word.
Of course she did.
***
We moved against the wall to let students leaving the hall pass.
Harry lowered his voice.
“What did you actually do?”
I adjusted my bag strap.
“Cast a Knockback Jinx. Snape already asked.”
“I saw that. I meant afterwards.”
“The troll dropped its club.”
Ron exhaled through his nose.
“We saw that much too.”
Apparently, they weren’t going to settle for the short version.
I looked towards the stairs.
Several students were already heading for the dungeons, but there was still too much time before class to make a convincing escape on the grounds of being late.
Unfortunately.
“I was backed against a sink, trying not to get my head smashed in,” I said.
“I didn’t have the best view.”
“You were looking straight at it,” Hermione observed.
“It was hard to look anywhere else.”
Harry glanced at her, then back at me.
“It just looked as though it stopped in front of you.”
I gave a small shrug.
“I didn’t check why. I was glad it had stopped swinging the club.”
That was entirely true.
Ron frowned.
“But—”
“Ron, you just said you didn’t see it raising the club. I could have missed something too.”
He opened his mouth, then looked at Harry.
I didn’t want to sound as though I was accusing him of not paying attention.
It was enough to make him wonder for a moment.
***
Hermione didn’t look convinced.
“I didn’t hear a second spell.”
“I could barely hear anything for a while after it hit the sink.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I shifted my bag to my other shoulder.
Standing still was beginning to bother my hip.
“I told the teachers what I remembered. If they want to ask more questions, I’m sure they’ll find me.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
I was.
Far more than I wanted her to see.
“Right now, I’m mostly wondering whether Snape will question us on the last lesson.”
Ron grimaced instinctively.
“He’s bound to be in a wonderful mood.”
“Then you understand my interest.”
Harry smiled briefly, but Hermione was still studying me.
“You changed the subject.”
I looked at her.
“I’d hoped a little less obviously.”
Ron snorted.
Harry lowered his head to hide a smile.
Hermione only pressed her lips together.
She wasn’t stupid.
I didn’t expect her to believe every word.
It was enough to end the conversation without establishing anything new.
“All right,” Harry said.
“We don’t have to talk about it now.”
I was happy to accept that ‘now’.
***
Harry touched his sleeve where the fragment had struck him the previous evening.
“Did McGonagall check on you afterwards?”
I shook my head.
“She told me to go back to the dungeons.”
“She said she’d speak to us again too.”
Ron sighed.
“As though standing in front of a troll wasn’t enough.”
“We went there ourselves,” Hermione reminded him.
“For you.”
“I know.”
She said it more quietly.
Ron looked at her and, this time, added nothing.
For a moment, I felt like someone who’d accidentally walked into the middle of a conversation that had begun much earlier.
I didn’t know what had happened between them after I’d left.
I only knew the book.
Increasingly, that wasn’t enough.
***
A bell sounded in the corridor.
Ron looked towards the stairs.
“Potions.”
“I know,” Harry said.
“Snape definitely won’t accept the troll as an excuse.”
“Especially today,” I muttered.
Harry looked at me.
“Are you in for a talk too?”
“I left the group. He noticed.”
Ron winced.
“Good luck.”
For the first time that morning, he sounded so sincere that I didn’t want to answer with something sarcastic.
“Thanks.”
We headed towards the stairs.
After a few steps, Hermione drew level with me.
“Does your eye still hurt?”
“Stings a bit.”
“You should show Madam Pomfrey.”
“There was dust everywhere last night. Something probably got into it.”
“And if it didn’t?”
I looked at her.
She hadn’t let a single question go.
“I’d rather you didn’t give me more possibilities to worry about before breakfast.”
“We’ve had breakfast.”
“Before Potions, then.”
She didn’t smile, but stopped studying me quite so closely.
“If it doesn’t improve, go to the hospital wing.”
I nodded.
That much I could give her.
Harry called to her from a few paces ahead.
She followed him, adjusting the books in her arms.
***
I slowed at the stairs to let a group of older students pass.
The three of them moved further ahead, still talking.
They were done thanking me.
Probably not done asking questions.
Hermione glanced back once.
I pretended to check the fastening on my bag.
I wasn’t going to invent a spell someone might later ask me to demonstrate.
Or tell them about my eyes simply because the troll’s behaviour was hard to explain.
The bathroom had been chaotic.
We’d all been trying to avoid a club.
We could remember different things.
For now, that would have to do.
My eye still ached dully.
With any luck, Potions today would mostly involve reading instructions and watching a cauldron.
I ought to manage that.
I headed for the dungeons.
Apparently, stopping a troll didn’t excuse you from bringing your homework.