Chapter 5 - Blood and Weakness

First thing's first, I've removed all mention of wandless magic from earlier chapters. I thought it was a necessary evil, but it isn't necessary, so I'd rather not have it. Second of all, enjoy. 

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There was silence, for a moment, and Hermione could feel herself shake with fear at what the troll was doing within that silence. Was the gigantic, mountainous troll which was at least thrice the height of any normal man, even a tall one, approaching the stall she and Alexander were hiding within? Would it knock down the thin door of the stall in a moment, spraying them with shattered wood and splinters before it ate them? Or…. Hermione's head snapped up looking above the stall, terrified that a looming body with a head far too small would be seen above them. Or worse yet. That she would see a hand reaching down for them.

But the air above was empty.

Then the sound of a great heaving thunk of a club shattering porcelain and a monstrously deep grunt of annoyance broke the silence, and Hermione squeaked despite her best efforts. Alexander's head snapped to look at her, his eyes wide and his already pale face white with terror.

Another grunt and thunk echoed in the bathroom, and Hermione felt the very walls of the room shake as she realized that the troll was hitting the wall. Why though? Why would it- 

A ear piercing screech of metal screamed into the room, before splashing water could be heard, and Hermione finally understood. It was digging through the wall for pipes filled with water. It was thirsty. Which made sense, because Tristan Torenra's Tome of Trolls suggested that some Trolls could sense running water, due how much energy it took to move their great heaving bodies, which didn't leave enough leftover energy after hunting to also wander around aimlessly for water. Which… which wasn't important when the troll was busy drinking, and she was wasting time!

She leaned in to whisper in Alexander's ear, who was still staring into nowhere, trying to figure out the sounds.

"We need to go!" She hissed, "It's drinking, and will probably be drinking for a while, but not for too long. If… if we just run, we might make it?" She could hear the doubt in her own voice as she said it. Trolls were stupid, but not deaf. And they were at the toilet furthest from the entrance. And the troll, if she had to guess from sound alone, was around the middle of the room. With it's long, muscled arms, it would grab them, then squeeze and squeeze until-

Hermione felt a sharp pain in her nose, and her hands snapped up to rub at where Alexander had clearly flicked it, even as she glared at him. Through tears in her eyes. In her defense, he was really good at flicking, apparently.

"You seemed to be starting to panic, and you will not be getting yourself killed today. Now, rather than run in the open, why don't we crawl beneath the stalls?" He whispered, a shaky smile in place even then, as he leaned down, and carefully placed his helmet on the ground near silently. Then he got on his stomach, and began to snake his way towards the entrance. It wasn't a perfect plan. There were only seven stalls in their row, and they would still need to go past the entrance section, which was a big, clear space with nothing to hide behind. But it was far safer than simply running, so Hermione lowered herself to the dirty, moist floor of the toilet, and began to crawl towards the entrance.

The floor was cold beneath her hands and knees as they scraped over the floor and she wormed her way under stall after stall. One passed behind her, and Alexander fell back, looking out at the troll from beneath the stall. Apparently all was well, as he started to follow once again soon enough. Still, Hermione's blood turned to ice at that moment, knowing that a single turn of the troll's head would let it see Alexander's peeking head and doom them, but she did not say a word against him. She said nothing at all, in fact. For silence was her friend and closest ally. 

Hermione moved slower as she came up to what seemed to be a loose tile, staring at it intently as she moved forwards. Would it grind, stone against stone, and kill her? Would she die to a loose tile? Would-

Hermione felt a hand grab her calf, and was torn between screaming, kicking, and fighting to get away, and kicking, screaming, and fighting whatever held her. But then she realized how small the hand on her calf was. Not a troll hand at all. So she forced herself to remain frozen, to do nothing at all until she was calm enough to be quiet, to be rational. She turned her head slowly to look back, but was stopped as her head gently and immediately met the panel of wood which made up the stall. She… she had been so fixated on the tile that she had almost crawled, rather quickly, right into that sharp edge. Which would have forced a small, but maybe noticeable sound out of her. She felt whatever blood had managed to get back to her face drain at the thought, and looked back to quickly nod to Alexander. He nodded back, just as pale.

Then they continued to crawl. There was nothing else.

One more stall passed behind them. They were in the fourth from the entrance. One more stall. Third from the entrance. One- 

Water. Water from the broken pipe covered the tile floor ahead. Should- should she attempt to continue? What other option did she have. She moved slower. She got on her hands and knees inside the stall, to touch less water, and make less sound. She would just go forwards, one hand at a time, and duck low under the edge of the stall before continuing on her hands and knees. One hand at a time. Left. Right. Left. Right. Lef-

A loose tile and the wet floor combined beneath her right hand, just as she lifted her left. She slipped, splashed water and fell face first into the floor with a whimper of pain as her nose met tile, and- and it was over. She was going to die. They were going to die because of her.

She looked back at Alexander, wanting to plead for forgiveness alone with her eyes, but fear roiled inside of her, and she was sure there was a plead for help as well within her gaze whether she liked it or not.

He was looking at her in horror. Then he scowled, nodded to her, and spun around to snake his way back to their beginning stall faster than he had before. It was fair. It was good. Maybe one of them would live. She certainly wouldn't want both of them to die for her. And she wouldn't make it, that was certain. Her nose was bleeding. Trolls smelled blood. They had to. Otherwise, they'd have to drag their lumbering bodies around for far too long out in the wild. Just as Tristan Torenra wrote.

Still, it stung.

Big - far too big - lungs sniffed at the air, as the sounds of massive gulps of water stopped. Hermione was still frozen. A hesitant, slow, glacial creak was heard as the troll straightened it's tree-trunk like legs. Stone and wood ground against each other, as a monstrous club was lifted from the floor.

Hermione didn't want to die. And she didn't want her parents and Professor McGonagall to be the only three people in the world to truly care if she did. The only people who would not move on after a month or three. She- she longed for it, longed for human connection like she never had before. The dull ache within her for bonds, meaningful ones, turned sharp as her own death held everything in sharp relief. Because everything about her life was so clear, at that moment. Contrast made everything clearer, after all. And the prospect of her death made how badly she longed in life so very clear. 

She didn't want to be another Moaning Murtle, haunting a toilet. 

She wanted to laugh, and have friends, and grow up, and learn more too, and- and not die!

She didn't want to be thinking about a book of trolls in some of her final moments, because her list of people who cared was too short to fill even the minute of her death.

But she would die, if she laid still. Her hands shook beneath her, as she got to her hands and knees, then to her feet, and prepared to face a troll. Maybe Alexander would have a better shot at surviving too, if she did.

She fished out her wand, and tried to think of all her spells. She couldn't come up with any. Her mind was blank. She knew no combat spells or curses.

She shook with fear, but held up her wand, pointing it in front of her like a rapier, waiting for her door to slam open, and to cast her final spell before her head was crushed.

And a door did slam open. It just wasn't hers. It hit the far wall of the room, as far from the entrance as possible, with a thunderous clatter as who she had to assume was Alexander stepped out, banging what sounded like a pot with some other piece of metal as he yelled incoherently.

Hermione fell to the ground as fast as she could, and peaked out from beneath the door, only to see Alexander standing at the far wall, his stupid great helm in hand, banging at it with a metal pipe from the wall. 

And… and his chin, lip, and nose were bleeding profusely, and Hermione felt her stomach sink and her heart soar as she realized that he was disguising her, by making it seem that most of the blood, the source, had moved away. 

The troll stood right outside her stall, presumably staring at Alexander. She could only see his feet and hands. Hands as big as her torso, and as long as her legs. One was wound around the heft of a massive club which it dragged behind it. It was monstrous. The size of a young tree.

Then Alexander called out to it, in proper words this time, and spoke with as much determination, steel, and righteous fury in his voice as she had ever heard.

"Yes, that's right, I'm right here you great big monster! I can see you want blood? Well, I have it! Spades of it, really!" He held his arms out to the side like a gladiator, before bringing his bottom lip into his mouth between his teeth, and bringing his hand up to wrench it out, so that he was now bleeding from both sides of his mouth.

"Now," He lifted his helm, and put it on his head, before extending his metal pipe to point at the creature three times his height. "Why aren't you taking it, beast?"

At that moment, he stood, a bit short and thin, with only his off-white, patched shirt and his loose slacks, with an ill-fitting, stupid helmet as the crowning jewel, and only a mere metal pipe in his hand to guard him.

And at that moment Hermione could not help but think that he looked as mighty and brave as any knight in the Hogwarts paintings.

Harry heard - perhaps even felt - an inhuman roar of fury as he and Ron neared the bathrooms, and for a moment, he thought that perhaps Hagrid had stumbled across whatever Alexander was trying to do to Hermione, but he shook off the thought. Even if there was something- something wrong with Alexander, Harry refused to believe that the boy who had once been - and maybe still was - one his dearest friends would do something so horrible that it would have Hagrid roaring like an angered bear.

Harry glanced at Ron both of them panting as they just barely kept jogging towards the toilets, after searching two others before they found what was probably the right one, including one with a sulky ghost.

"Do you know," Harry finally gave up running, and panted with his hands on his knees for a moment before he kept going "Do you know what that is?" He asked.

Ron shook his head, but Harry did not like how pale he was, or how he kept shaking his head. As though halfway panicked already. Still, it didn't matter, and they broke into one final sprint as they entered the strangely doorless toilet, and… and the doors lay just inside the doorway, beaten, splintered, and on the ground.

Harry's head snapped to where he heard a grunt so deep, guteral that even Crabbe and Goyle would take notes, and saw perhaps the strangest and bravest thing he had ever seen anyone do.

Because balancing precariously on top of the toilet stalls at the far end of the room stood Alexander - with a helmet - wavering for a moment, before springing lightly to the side onto the second-to-last stall as a huge, grey, boulderlike creature swung it's giant club over its head with both its hands, and down into and through the stall Alexander had just stood above, crushing it to tinder and broken porcelain. The stall clearly shook, and Alexander teetered, and Harry's heart went into his throat as he was sure Alexander would fall and die, but instead, the other boy was seemingly seized by a moment of madness as he jumped off the stall, and landed with his legs around the troll's proportionally tiny head, holding onto one of it's huge flappy ears with one hand, and a pipe with the other.

Then he let go of the troll completely, wrenched off his helmet to reveal a bloodied face twisted into a furious and resolute snarl and grey eyes wide open and practically shining with what could only be madness as he stuffed his helm onto the head of the troll, and started banging it hard as he could with his pipe.

The sound was loud to Harry and Ron, and he could only imagine what the troll was hearing as it roared - which probably didn't help - and stumbled forwards to lean against the wall, letting go of it's club as it did so.

Harry stared, awestruck, as for a few moments, Alexander rode the troll around as it staggered towards the middle of the room, stumbling and feebly reaching for him, only to have it's fingers smacked away with his pipe as Alexander yelled an ongoing battle cry. Then he saw them, and stopped, for a moment, and yelled to them with an edge of growing panic in his voice.

"Run, Morons! I'll hold it back!"

Which was when Harry noticed that both he, Ron, and Hermione who was also there had been staring, Ron even slack jawed, rather than actually do anything. Not that Harry would leave his friend, but he had to help!

But it was too late. The panic in Alexander's voice had been earned, as the troll was stumbling less and less, and even as Harry ran forwards, ducking down to grab a shard of some sink, even the tiny mind of the troll finally forced itself through the pain and disorientation, and managed to reach up and grab Alexander.

The other boy had his arms free, and managed to grab his helmet and hit the hand of the troll with its hard edge so that he was flung from its grasp to roll over the floor until he came to a stop under some sinks, rather than be squeezed to death. But still, he was in danger. He had been thrown to the far side of the room, after all. And they would not be able to drag him out.

Harry dashed after the troll, desperate to do something, but rage gave it speed, and even if it's bleeding ears made it stagger like a drunken Yank, it still made it over there in time to bring its fists down on where Alexander hid beneath the sinks with horrific strength, Alexander wearing his helmet again as he rolled out of the way just barely in time as a metallic ping and a scream was heard even over the clattering of crushed porcelain.

Then Harry almost faltered for a moment, as even when he faced near certain death, Alexander took off his helmet, and hurled it at the head of the troll with a vicious and spiteful snarl.

And it was just what Harry needed. It staggered the troll, just for a moment, and let Harry get right behind it and drive his long shard of porcelain deep into the back of the trolls knee, causing it to roar into the ceiling in pain.

Then Hermione yelled for him to duck, and he did, and she screamed reparo for some reason Harry didn't quite understand, at least not until all the other shards that once was the sink flew over and tried to reassemble around and inside of the troll's knee, shredding thick skin and muscle, and making Harry sick as blood sprayed on his clothes, and on Alexander's face, before the spell gave up, and the porcelain fell to the ground around Harry feet. Still shattered. Not unlike Harry's hopes.

But it wasn't enough. It only made the troll even angrier, as it stood, breathing heavily and shuttering with pain and anger as it stared around with fury in its gaze at the four humans who dared to cause it so much pain.

Harry stared up at the beast, dread pooling in his stomach as he knew, knew that he and Alexander were dead as could be, while Hermione and Ron only had the slightest chance if the troll was more injured than it seemed by it's leg, rather than just having a painful flesh wound.

Then Harry noticed the club, the troll's huge, monserous club, floating over it's head.

A feint sigh was heard in the deathly, dreadful silence of the room, and then the club fell, landing squarely on the already abused head of the troll. It's eyes rolled into the back of it's head, and Harry ran back, to get out of the way, as it fell forwards with a thump which shook the floor.

Harry stared down at the battered troll, barely even noticing as Ron and Hermione came to stand next to him, to also stare down at it. There seemed to be a slight dent in the troll's head, but it was lumpy to begin with, so it really could be nothing.

"Is… is it dead?" Ron asked, sounding a bit queasy at possibly having killed the troll.

"No… I- I think's only unconscious. Trista-… I read somewhere that trolls have very thick skulls, so they can hit each other with their clubs more," Hermione answered. 

Which was seemingly all he needed to hear for him to snap back into his own body, properly, and suddenly begin to feel the shaking in his hands from both fear and unspent adrenaline. Harry sagged in relief, taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes, before backing a bit away from the, at least to Harry, suddenly stinking troll, and sitting on the floor, not caring that it was wet.

Hermione and Ron sat on either side of him, each fidgeting in one way or another as they still all felt the need to move, to act, to do something more than simply sit around. 

Ron seemed to have the worst of it, never good at sitting still to begin with, and his need for action seemed to be answered as a groan sounded out, and everyone suddenly remembered the last of their group, who had been forgotten in the panic and stress of the aftermath.

Ron was the first to move, springing to his feet like something had bitten him, and dashing over to where Alexander was slowly sitting up.

"Shit, sorry mate, are you alright? Do you need anything? Anything I can do? Uh, water? Want me to grab some food for you, since you left early? Want me to help you get to bed?" Ron asked, hovering around Alexander, and Harry couldn't help but think that if everything that Ron had told Harry about his mother was true, then Ron had taken after her more than he'd like to admit, with how he fretted over Alexander.

Alexander only grunted, before staggering to his feet and swaying for a moment.

"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth, his voice strained into a facsimile of calm. Though, Harry wasn't sure what forced him to speak like that. Maybe just nerves, like the rest of them?

"Just- get me my helmet? Please?" Alexander asked, and Ron though confused, hurried to grab the battered thing as Alexander hobbled his way over to the head of the troll.

Harry wanted to look over Alexander, to figure out what was wrong with him, but he was… transfixed, almost, by his face. Because at that moment, every mask was gone. There was neither the cold, calculating machine of the night, nor the charismatic social butterfly of the day, or any of the ways he acted when he had energy to act and perform. 

There was only a tired, bloodied, and determined face which nonetheless looked over Harry and Hermione for injuries as he walked towards them, and gave them a small, kind smile of relief and joy when he saw they were okay.

Then Ron came up and gave him the helmet and receiving a quick hug in return, before Alexander knelt down next to the head of the troll, his face stoic, lips drawn into a thin line of distaste. Then he placed a long, pointy shard of porcelain against the neck of the troll, right at the jugular, and took deep breaths as he bounced his metal helmet a few times in his hand.

Harry's blood turned to ice as he stared at what Alexander was clearly about to do. He was about to take his so often mentioned vengeance.

"What are you doing, Alexander?" Hermione's voice was nervous and placating as she held up her hands.

Alexander's tone was forcefully calm, with a hint of joviality. His long blonde hair, normally in a bun, had strands hanging down into his face, even if it mostly kept it's shape, causing him to look rugged and weary. The streams of blood running from both corners of his mouth, his chin, his nose, and his left eyebrow didn't help either. His expression was steel, though, and utterly incongruas with his tone. And his eyes? His eyes held only a blank resolve, like he wasn't even properly seeing the living thing he was about to kill.

"I'm performing a coup de grace. Putting down a mad dog. Ending the fight. There are many fun words for it, but no matter what I decide to call it, it has to be done." There was silence for a moment, and Harry couldn't even speak, because there were so many other options. But Alexander continued.

"I recommend you leave. You don't want to see this. I can give you five seconds."

Then he hefted his helmet over his shoulder, ready to strike down with it, and Harry couldn't move, not even the slightest bit, because he was too transfixed by the horrifying but irresistible sight happening in front of him. But then the time was almost up, Alexander was rolling his shoulder, and Harry didn't want to see, but-

"What in the world are you doing, Alexander!" The loud, sharp, and clear voice of professor McGonagall echoed in the toilet, and in a blur of action, all of them were being dragged away to the hallway outside as professor Flitwick, professor Sprout and professor Quirrell stood guard over the troll, leaving Harry, Ron, Hermione, and a now very battered and ruffled Alexander with Snape, professor McGonagall, and the headmaster himself, professor Albus Dumbledore.

Silence reigned the corridor. Snape was looking at them like they were both stupid and prideful, as though he'd already decided that they were somehow at fault, with his lip twisted into a sneer. Although, he had only looked at everyone else for a second. He mostly sneered at Harry. Professor McGonagall was clearly furious with her lips utterly bloodless, she pressed them together so tight, but, well, it was different from the sort of anger adults normally felt towards Harry. Like she was relieved too.

The headmaster was the strangest of them all, however. At first, he had looked over each of them in turn, lingering on Harry for a moment longer, but inspecting all of them. Then, when that was done, and he was sure none of them were in immediate distress, his gaze settled mostly on Alexander, which was fair, given how horrible the other boy looked - quite like he had been wrestling with a troll, in fact - but Harry had the strange feeling that he seemed more concerned about Alexander, rather than for Alexander. But that couldn't be right. Could it?

"What in the name of Merlin were you four doing battling a troll, when I am quite sure everyone was told in no uncertain terms to make their way to their dormitories?" There was a restrained anger in her voice as she spoke, looking down at them. Harry lowered his own gaze in response, shrinking under her anger. Which was how Harry caught sight of Snape's bloody leg and robes. How had he gotten those injuries, if they had clearly fought the troll?

Harry was ripped from his thoughts of Snape at by Professor McGonagall, as she waspishly snapped out a "Well?" clearly not satisfied with how they made her wait.

There was silence for a moment longer. No one wanted to tell on Alexander after he tried to fight a troll for them. Harry felt Hermione take a deep breath next to him, and both dread and resentment welled up in him, because he just knew that her worship of school would win out, and that she would rat out Alexander.

But before she could, Alexander sighed, and started to speak himself.

"It's all on me, I'm afraid." All eyes snapped to Alexander, and Harry was surprised to see even Dumbledor's eyebrows draw together even tighter into a frown as he looked Alexander in the eye, where he stood beside Hermione, at the far right of their little line. Ron shifted to Harry's left, and leaned forwards to stare at Alexander. McGonagall's lips pinched into an even thinner line, somehow.

"Not to say that I convinced them to go troll hunting, mind you. I'm not quite that stupid," Alexander said, a strained and forced grin in place, for reasons Harry wasn't sure about. The rest of them were all openly slumping, exhausted, and relieved to their bones.

"No, you see, I've been bullying Granger here for weeks now, and when I sat down at the feast, it came to my attention how extrodinarily successful I was as a bully. I came here to make amends, you see. Apollogise, and all that. Now, this is mostly guesswork, but I imagine that my lack of clear intentions - when combined with my previous near obsessive animosity towards Granger - caused them to, rather logically, assume that I was off to do something horrible. Then, because they are good people who couldn't ignore what I was doing any longer, they went to stop me. Is that about right?" Alexander asked, leaning forwards to look at Harry and Ron, tilting his hand up and down in the air as he did so in a so-so gesture.

Harry and Ron nodded. Woodenly. And reluctantly. But they did nod, because Alexander had already taught them the importance of not contradicting anything when making statements about anything. Besides, he had to have a plan, right?

Dumbledore, at least, seemed oddly mollified and relieved by what Alexander said… even if Professor McGonagall seemed a lot less relieved, and a lot more furious.

"So…" McGonagall said through gritted teeth, "All that Ms. Granger has told us teachers about your lack of attention in class…?"

"All true. Also, Granger doesn't know this part, but I haven't been to a full lesson of History of Magic since the first week. I show up, stay for the rollcall, then I climb out of the window behind where Granger sits so that she can't tell on me. I try to do the same with astronomy, barely there for a fourth of classes, and I pay attention in only half of all classes I am present for. All in all, I take around a third of the classes I am supposed to. Maybe two fifths, if we're generous."

Harry was gaping. Ron was gaping. Everyone was at the very least baffled by Alexanders sudden confession, and McGonagall was drawing up for what Harry could already tell would be quite the tirade.

But before she could, Dumbledore spoke up, and a hush fell over the room.

"Enough, Minerva. No matter the circumstances, I do believe that young Mr. Alexander has been forthright enough that we may conclude that there will be no continued harassment of Ms. Granger, at least for the moment. And while questions and punishments can wait for as long as they may need to, rest cannot. Especially not when our students have so recently gone through something so harrowing. I think it only right that we allow them to seek the comfort of their beds for now, and continue this talk some other time, when there is more sun to be happy for, and less of a stench," Dumbledore spoke, his voice calm and grandfatherly as he gave them a relieved smile and nodded for them to leave.

Harry sagged even further in relief, and started to walk away down the corridor, barely noticing that Ron and Hermione were at his sides, and that Alexander also hobbled after them after a moment of hesitation.

"Oh, but I do have one last curiosity, if you might humour an old man his questions, Mr. Alexander?"

Their little group paused, turning back to look curiously at Dumbledore.

"While I don't doubt that it was quite nifty to have during your clash with the troll, I do wonder why you had a helmet with you in the first place?" Dumbledore asked, still genial, as he looked at Alexander.

"Hm? Oh, right, I used it as a prop in my little opening bit to break the ice with Granger. She was a bit wary of me, which was earned, so I said I wore the helmet due to concerns that she would throw something at me. Which she did, after I took it off," He said, giving a smile that was believable to anyone who did not know him well, but which Harry found to be… off, somehow.

"And you're right, it was indeed very useful during the fight. See this little scratch in the metal here?" He pointed to a small, but noticeable white mark which went through the slit of the eye. "That's where a piece of porcelain would have taken my eye, or even killed me, if I didn't have this" He patted the helmet fondly, even as the hallway took on a very different atmosphere at the physical proof of how near disaster they had been.

Alexander simply kept going. "It happened when the troll smashed through the sink I was hiding under, and, well, I suppose I can't say if it would have killed me for certain, but it got me in the calf pretty good, and I think eyes are softer than legs, though to be honest I'm not sure," Then he pulled up his pant leg as he spoke, and it hit Harry why Alexander had been hobbling around when he saw the deep puncture wound in Alexander's calf. And why the other boy's mannerisms had been so strained.

The corridor was deathly still, as everyone stared at either the nonchalant Alexander, or his injured leg, or the notched helmet. Or they were switching between the three focal points. Both professors McGonagall and Dumbledore were noticeably paler than they were mere moments ago as there was suddenly very physical proof that a fluke of how Alexander approached his apology was all that had prevented the death of a first-year student. Even Snape had stopped sneering and was scowling at the bathroom instead. 

Harry couldn't tell if he was pale. He just stared at Alexander, who could have been dead.

Moments passed like that, before Dumbledore spoke.

"Ms. Granger, please escort Mr. Alexander to the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey will have a look at your nose as well, when you get there. Mrs. Potter and Weasley, continue to your common room, even if I doubt you will head to your beds before your friends return." Dumbledore's voice was morose, and he only managed a weak smile at the end to comfort them. But even that helped, as Harry and Ron made their way in silence to the common room. 

Neither spoke, and while Harry didn't know what Ron was thinking of, he did know one thing. He knew that as he replayed their fight over and over, it only became more clear that they had gotten extraordinarily lucky to not die.

Hermione was dazed as she walked with Alexander. So dazed, in fact, that only after she had walked four turns did she notice that Alexander hadn't been with her since the third turn. She spun on her heel, and ran back, afraid that the other boy had wandered off to do something stupid, but she found him rather quickly, sitting alone on a stone bench, wiping a bit at his eyes, even as he squeezed the thigh of his injured leg tightly. 

"What…" Hermione paused, unsure. She had never seen Alexander be anything other than Happy, angry, or determined, after all. "What's wrong?"

He looked up at her, where she stood nervously, holding out her hands like she wanted to do something, but couldn't quite figure out what.

"Nothing, I just-" He looked down for a moment, contemplating. Then up at her with a fragile smile, as he said in a weaker voice than she had ever heard from him. 

"I'm just… very happy I didn't have to kill that troll." He said, laughing, though she wasn't sure what he was laughing over. Perhaps simple stress and relief, which he finally let himself feel?

"Then- then why would you try to kill it in the first place? Why didn't you just get us to run away?" Hermione asked, her tone almost whining in her helpless confusion.

Alexander turned grim, then, as he spoke.

"Because it had to be done. Men sometimes wake up mere seconds after being knocked unconscious, never mind what trolls are capable of. Even if we ran, it would smell my blood. It had to be done." 

He held her gaze then, his grey eyes more steely than she had ever seen as he spoke, "and I won't show weakness in doing something which has to be done. Or at all, for that matter. The only reason I'm showing weakness in front of you right now is because I owe you that much," Alexander said, before pausing for a moment to contemplate, and then grinning at her with self-aware mirth. 

"That, and maybe due to me being far more ruffled by all of that business with the troll then I'd like to admit, and my leg hurting far more than I'd prefer."

Hermione stared at Alexander, as he climbed to his feet, and continued to hobble towards the infirmary.

Did… did he honestly believe that not wanting to kill a troll, and admitting that a deep leg puncture, in fact, hurt counted as showing weakness? That was… wrong. On so many levels.

"Are you coming, Granger?" Alexander called, and Hermione shook her head to get out of her stupor.

She would talk with him about that. Later. When he wasn't injured.

But, for now, she would be healed, and then, they would all seek refuge in their beds. Tomorrow was a new day. And Hermione found herself thinking that maybe, just maybe, she would wake up with new friends.

After all, there had to be some things you couldn't share without becoming friends, right? Because if there were, then Hermione was sure that facing troll together had to be one of them.