Chapter 40: A Close Encounter (Edited)

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Hermione hurried to apologize, and also looked up at the person she collided with, and when she saw the face, her eyes widened in surprise: the person in front of her was Tom, the one she had been looking for so long!

"Tom! What are you doing here?" Hermione's mood was a bit complicated at the moment, she couldn't tell if she was happy or angry, maybe even a little relieved, after all, the hallway was decorated in such a gloomy style that it was too creepy to walk alone.

"Uh, why is the school hospital on the First Floor?" Tom was a little confused by the question, why was he here? because of diarrhea! After a cup of milk tea, his stomach didn't feel very well during the afternoon Transfiguration class, and when he went to the bathroom, first it was "a big pearl falling into a jade tray", then it gradually became "a stream of water falling three thousand feet", and finally "the sound of the empty valley, mourning for a long time", a mournful Tom was so overwhelmed that he went to the school hospital on the First Floor, hoping Madam Pomfrey could solve his problem.

Madam Pomfrey was a famous doctor and was able to cure Tom with just a spell and a bowl of magic potion. Madam Pomfrey gave Tom another magic potion to feed him and dismissed him.

It was at the corner of the hallway where Tom ran into Hermione.

"Never mind, a Troll has snuck into Hogwarts! Let's go back to the Common Room!". Hermione remembered that this was no place to catch up and grabbed Tom to pull him out.

Tom twitched his nose and caught a strange smell: a mixture of smelly socks and years of public toilets.

"What's that smell?" Hermione smelled it too and held her nose in disgust, and the next moment there was a low growl, accompanied by the sound of something heavy scraping the floor. Hermione's suspicions were soon answered: a large creature, bathed in moonlight, appeared at the end of the corridor.

It was at least ten feet tall, its skin was as opaque as granite, its entire body was bloated and fat, but under the rough, dirty skin was a faint hint of muscle, don't think that being fat doesn't make you a wrestler, sumo wrestlers are heavy too! The most powerful creatures are usually those that are muscular, but are covered in a thick layer of fat, like the grizzly bear.

The troll in front of us is such a creature, the mud on his skin and the fat underneath are excellent defenses, and besides, he is not only a beast, but he knows how to use tools: he carries a thick wooden stick in his hand, the sound of friction at this moment was the sound of the stick dragging on the ground.

The Troll is not only tough, but its skin is also resistant to spells, so there is a Troll in the Philosopher's Stone defense level. In a confined space, a creature like a Troll is a real obstacle for a frail wizard. Even the strongest Dumbledore would have his nose broken if it punched him in the face.

The Troll looked towards Tom, and it was clear that its tiny eyes had spotted the two of them, and it sped towards them, Hermione let out a high-pitched scream and pulled Tom towards the stairs. But the Troll burst out with a speed that belied its size, and took off in pursuit.

The distance between them was rapidly shrinking and, with a little mathematical substitution, Tom deduced that he would catch them before they reached the fourth floor.

So he stopped and shouted, "Hermione, you go first!".

Then he touched the ring on his hand, and as his finger traced the side of the three-headed dog, he felt his whole body heat up, and his nose became more sensitive to smell, and the next instant....

"Roar-" Tom turned into a filthy three-headed dog, and Hermione didn't stop, yelling, "No, I'm going to fight you," Hermione sped upstairs without looking back. She knew it was not her place to intervene in a fight of that magnitude, and that she should go to the professor to settle it.

The bad thing about being a three-headed dog was that she could smell the troll's stench even more clearly: it stank worse than shit! But there was one advantage,

The ten-foot-tall Troll seemed less intimidating, as the three-headed dog is about the same height and, in terms of size, a bit bigger.

The only advantage is that the primate can use tools, but Tom is not a dumb dog, he is a man in dog's skin.

The Troll wonders: How did those two little tidbits suddenly turn into this thing? With other species, this fight made no sense, because it was about hunting, not a territorial fight. Territorial fighting is a life-and-death struggle, and hunting is about avoiding injury. The three-headed dog that Tom became is a good lookout, a good deterrent, and normally the other animals would have retreated, but trolls are different.

Trolls are stupid! Trolls, with their thick skin and thick flesh, are used to dominating nature, they don't know how to back down, their rule is one word: Do it!

In the eyes of this Troll, the three-headed dog that appeared out of nowhere was here to steal his food, so he got angry: "Beggar, have you come to the stone house to steal food?" Across the hall, there was the food! For his food, the Troll decided to fight the dog.

The Troll waved a wooden stick in his hand, roared and charged, the stick cut the air with a whining sound, a horrible scene, and Tom gritted his teeth and rushed forward.

Bang!

The Troll's stick hit the head of Tom's left dog, but Tom did not react: as long as he was not aware of the dog's head, it was no different from a flesh tumor, and there was no pain after being hit, no ill effects such as stunning.

With a swing of the bat, the Troll's chest was left unprotected, and Tom took the opportunity to sink his claws into its shoulder, and then, with foot-long teeth bared, bit into the Troll's neck and tore it apart.

A huge chunk of muscle was ripped straight off, along with a large blood vessel in the Troll's neck, and hot, foul-smelling blood gushed out, almost to the ceiling, and the Troll was instantly incapacitated.

The Troll tried to cover the wound on his neck, but it was useless, blood splattered everywhere, and the loss of blood took all the strength out of the Troll's body. The whole hallway was soaked with his blood, and it was hard to imagine that he had so much of it.

Tom also regained his human form, and with a thud, his left shoulder twisted into a strange shape, the result of the Troll's blow. And footsteps were heard from the floor above.