Harry was at the very back of the group when the three massive heads lunged.
For a second he simply froze.
The stench hit him full in the face—hot, wet, and thick with the reek of rotting meat.
His stomach turned.
Despair had just started to climb up his throat when Ivan’s voice cut through the panic.
“Impedimenta!” Invisible barriers slammed into place, catching the snarling heads mid-air.
One second later a set of yellowed fangs tore straight through the constructs.
The barriers shattered.
That single second was enough.
Harry scrambled sideways and barely kept his head.
Ron’s only contribution was a strangled “Run!” before he threw himself at the door and yanked the handle.
It didn’t move.
“Which bastard locked the door?!” Ivan, still firing Stunning Spells and Body-Binds to keep the dog occupied, couldn’t help rolling his eyes.
You locked it yourself.
Ron was already past rational thought, certain they were about to die.
Hermione shoved him aside, pressed her wand to the lock, and barked, “Alohomora!” The lock gave with a sharp crack.
All five of them piled through the doorway at once.
The moment the last person cleared the threshold they slammed the door shut again, just as Fluffy’s bulk hit the other side.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
They kept running until the crashes and the furious roaring faded into the distance.
Only then did anyone dare stop and breathe.
Ivan, who had been dragged into the mess without warning, exhaled the longest.
While he had been stalling the three-headed dog he had felt the limits of his magic with brutal clarity.
Stunning Spells only made the creature hesitate.
Body-Binds barely slowed it.
In a space that tight there was nowhere to dodge.
If Hermione had taken even a few seconds longer with the lock, he would already be dead.
The lesson landed hard.
Against a first-year like Malfoy he could still look competent.
Against something genuinely dangerous he had no room to struggle at all.
Ron glanced back at the still-shuddering door.
“That thing isn’t going to smash its way out, is it?” “No.
The door’s reinforced.
Otherwise it would already be splinters.” Harry still looked pale.
“Why would Professor Dumbledore keep a monster like that inside the castle?” Hermione’s voice came out sharper than usual, residual terror stripping away her usual careful tone.
“I think you all remember the start-of-term notices.
Dumbledore told us the third-floor corridor was off-limits.
If we hadn’t broken the rules and sneaked out at midnight we never would have ended up here.” Harry and Ron exchanged the look of people who knew a lecture was coming.
Neville looked close to tears.
Hermione finished venting and, to everyone’s surprise, did not announce that she was going straight to Professor McGonagall.
Instead she quietly mentioned the trapdoor she had glimpsed beneath the dog’s paws, and her suspicion that the creature was guarding something.
Before they parted she added one final warning: whatever was under that trapdoor was none of their business.
It was Professor Dumbledore’s problem to solve.
The sudden restraint left Harry and the others off-balance, but the important part was clear—Hermione was not going to report them.
Back in the dormitory Ron was still simmering.
“I can’t believe Malfoy is that underhanded.
He must have told Filch we were in the trophy room.
Tomorrow I’m going to punch him.” Harry looked uncomfortable.
“Ivan… we should have listened to you.” Ivan waved it off.
He had never expected the two of them to stay quietly in bed once a duel had been offered.
Running into them in the corridor had simply been bad luck on his part.
“By the way,” Harry asked, “why were you out in the halls?” “Looking for you lot,” Ivan said without missing a beat.
Explaining that he had been in the Restricted Section was not an option.
The guilt on their faces deepened for about thirty seconds, then evaporated as the conversation swung back to the trapdoor and what might be underneath it.
Harry eventually mentioned the mysterious package he and Hagrid had collected from Gringotts the day before term started.
Ivan stayed out of it.
The newly activated challenge quest was already enough of a headache.
He had zero interest in poking at whatever arrangement Dumbledore had set up.
The only bright spot was the calendar.
Halloween—and the troll that traditionally appeared with it—was still weeks away.
He had time to prepare.
For the next fortnight Ivan divided every free hour between grinding his spell levels and tearing through the library for anything related to trolls.
A Detailed Guide to Common Magical Creatures.
A Guide to Taming Dangerous Monsters.
On the Possibility of Hybridizing Giants and Trolls.
He even dug up Walking with Trolls.
Yes—the one written by Gilderoy Lockhart, the same fraud who would replace Quirrell as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor the following year.
Ivan knew perfectly well that Lockhart’s real talent was Memory Charms, but the library would not have kept the book if the practical details inside were complete nonsense.
He still hated opening it.
Lockhart’s gleaming white smile on the cover made his teeth ache.
The other titles, however, were even less useful.
Common Magical Creatures helpfully noted that trolls had no medicinal value and that every part of them, from brain to haunch, tasted terrible.
Taming Dangerous Monsters advised that a wizard could usually subdue a troll by applying superior force.
Useless.
The hybridisation treatise was an illustrated academic nightmare that made him want to scrub his eyes.
Walking with Trolls, for all its author, actually contained usable information.
Written in the style of a travel memoir, it laid out habits and weaknesses with surprising clarity.
Trolls were not intelligent.
They were constantly hungry and would eat almost anything, which made bait an effective opening move—there was a high chance they would swallow whatever was offered.
Their heads were comically small for their bulk, leaving them poorly balanced.
A strong enough spell aimed at the legs could topple one, buying a few extra seconds to run before it recovered and ate you.
And the head itself was a genuine weak point.
Compared to the rest of the body it was fragile.
A solid impact could knock the creature unconscious.
Ivan closed the book, already planning how to turn those three facts into something that might keep him alive.