Odds of Survival

"So, if it wasn't Draco who poisoned Neville," Harry asked Milo as they sat down at their Defence Against the Dark Arts desks, "who was it?" Harry had been trying to get Milo to speak throughout their whole History of Magic class, but Hermione kept shushing him (talking in History carried across the whole room, not that the ghost of Binns noticed or apparently cared).

"I don't know, yet," Milo confessed. "But there's one thing I do know."

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"It was someone on your list," Milo said. "Adding a whole new character now who poisoned Neville would ruin any element of mystery. It has to be someone we met in the first two adventures."

"Just once, you're going to use logic based on actual facts," said Hermione primly, "and all the trees on Earth will wither and die."

The class filed in gradually in groups of two or three. Quirrell's course was basically a joke, so punctuality wasn't exactly a top priority for most students—Quirrell hardly ever deducted House Points for tardiness. The Gryffindors were marginally more excited today than usual, because rumour had it that Quirrell had been preparing something special for today, it being Hallowe'en and all.

"I-I-I-I've been p-p-p-preparing s-something sp-sp-special for t-today," Quirrell announced when the last of the students arrived, "it being H-Hallowe'en and all—or, as s-s-some n-now call it, Harry P-P-Potter Day." There was, Milo thought he noticed, a hint of a sneer in Quirrell's voice. Milo had to agree with Quirrell: Harry Potter Day was a pretty silly name, especially compared to something as cool as 'All Hallow's Eve.' Quirrell was standing in front of something massive and mostly rectangular, covered by a sheet of canvas.

Harry muttered something under his breath.

"Sorry, what was that?" Hermione whispered quietly.

"Should be Lily and James Potter Day," Harry answered simply. "I don't even remember it."

"B-b-but before we b-begin," Quirrell said, "I'd l-like to ask y-y-young M-M-Milo something," Milo perked up as he heard his name. "I'd heard th-that you've b-b-been losing a g-great deal of the n-n-noble House G-Gryiffindor's P-P-Points lately," he said across the classroom. There were a few chuckles, and a number of angry looks. "I-I-I was w-w-wondering if y-y-you m-m-might like an opportunity to earn s-s-some b-back?"

Whatever could have possessed a person with a crippling stutter to get a job which required lecturing large groups of people on a daily basis escaped Milo. Milo shrugged.

"Sure," he said. "Anything for the House, after all. Have to win the House Medal and all that."

"Cup," Ron whispered.

"Cup Medal, that is." Milo corrected himself, wondering what Quirrell was getting at.

"Excellent," Quirrell said. "C-c-come see m-me after c-c-class, then."

Milo nervously ran his fingers through his hair. Was there anyone who wasn't going to want to see him this evening? This was something of an opportunity, though—Milo could just go to whatever Quirrell's thing was, then let him deal with the fallout from Snape. If anyone can stand up to Snape, Milo thought, it's Quirrell. I like the cut of his jib.

Quirrell's 'something special' for Hallowe'en turned out to be rather awesome, in the sense that it was something that evoked awe.

"A-and w-w-without further ado," Quirrell stammered excitedly to the class, "allow m-m-me to p-p-present my H-H-Hallowe'en surprise!" With a dramatic flourish, he pulled off the tarp, revealing, as it turned out, a cage of monstrous proportions. The bars were made of thick steel wrapped in unpleasant-looking razor wire. Hanging from the cage was an almost cartoonishly-oversized lock, though Milo was certain that there were likely layers of Abjurations protecting the cage not visible to the naked eye. The cage emanated an entirely non-magical aura of immobility and intimidation. Nothing short of the Tarrasque itself was getting out of that cage. It wasn't the cage, however, that caused the collective gasp of fear from the Gryffindors—the house noted for its bravery—but what lay inside.

"Blimey," said Ron quietly. "It's a Troll."

"A Giant," Milo corrected.

"Right," Ron whispered. "A Giant Troll."

Milo sighed. The brute inside was very clearly a Giant. Trolls, unlike Giants, were green and sort of... weirdly proportioned, with long dangly limbs and spiky black hair. This was obviously some non-core species of Giant—simple enough to prove with a dagger, as only Trolls could regenerate.

"Th-th-this is a T-T-Troll," Quirrell stammered to the class, "The G-Groundskeeper and I c-caught it in the F-F-Forb-Forb... in the Forest. It appears to have b-b-been h-harassing the unicorns."

"Excuse me, Professor," asked a Gryffindor NPC (probably Seamus) "I thought that was werewolves?"

"W-werewolves aren't f-f-fast enough," said Quirrell. And they're only active on full moons, Milo thought irritably. I mean, seriously. What's the one defining characteristic of a werewolf? It turns into a wolf on the full moon.Only the full moon. Sheesh. "And T-T-Trolls, b-believe me, are f-faster than they l-l-look. N-now, there's n-n-no need to w-worry about the T-T-Troll getting out," he continued, "as this c-cage is very n-nearly indestructible. The w-w-wire you see is, in addition to b-b-being very sh-sharp, b-bewitched to entangle a-anyone trying to g-g-get out. A-a-anyone who t-t-touches the lock w-without the k-key—kept in the H-H-Headmaster's Office—will be struck by a F-F-Full Body B-B-Bind and trigger an a-alarm. The b-b-bars themselves are Goblin-made, and c-can withstand anything short of D-D-Dragonfire. There are a f-f-few other s-s-surprises as w-w-well. Q-quite f-f-fortunate we h-had it on h-h-hand, in f-f-fact. N-n-now, who c-c-can tell me w-w-what Trolls eat?"

Quirrell continued into a detailed lecture (in fact, significantly more detailed than his usual lectures, which were generally considered 80-minute long naptimes. Everyone's had at least one teacher like him) about Trolls. He seemed quite enthusiastic on the subject, not unlike a Fighter asked about pointy sticks.

As the class came to a close and three o'clock approached, Quirrell dismissed the rest of the students a little early to enjoy their Hallowe'en evenings.

"M-M-Milo?" Quirrell asked. Right, he wanted me to stay after. Almost forgot about that.

"So," Milo said as he walked towards the alleged Troll. "What can I do you for?"

"Th-this fellow," Quirrell said, pointing to the monstrous humanoid in the cage. "W-we have to m-m-move him t-to the d-d-dungeons until the M-M-Ministry can d-deal with him."

Milo sized up the brute.

"Ah," he said. "Look, I know they say I'm good at Levitating things, but this..."

"Oh, d-d-don't worry," said Quirrel. "The c-cage is S-Self Levitating. H-however, it's e-easiest to p-p-push it from the b-b-back," he said, pointing to a small area on the cage not covered in razor-sharp wire, "but then I c-can't see where I'm g-g-going. So, if you could p-p-push it, I can l-l-lead? H-H-Hagrid helped me b-bring it here, b-but he's b-b-busy now."

"Sounds like a design flaw to me," Milo said. "But sure, I can lend a hand."

Quirrell smiled. There was no warmth whatsoever in his expression. Milo gave the cage a light push, and it drifted in front of him with surprisingly little effort. He was reminded of his brief adventure with Neville that morning, pushing the cage after Quirrell. The Giant inside seemed more perplexed than frightening as Milo guided the cage down the ever-shifting hallways of Hogwarts, only half paying attention to his surroundings. Quirrell was right—it really was impossible to see from behind this brute. Every so often, Quirrell called out a direction to him. Milo wondered briefly why Hogwarts had such a cage—it looked reasonably new, and could likely hold something quite a bit bigger than its current occupant—before remembering who the residents of the Forbidden Forest were.

"So," Milo asked, more to make conversation than anything, "this is who we were looking for in the forest?"

"L-l-looks like," Quirrell said from the other side of the cage. "H-H-Hagrid caught him covered in u-u-unicorn blood. W-w-we'll know f-f-for sure if the u-u-unicorns stop d-d-disappearing."

"Go figure," Milo said. "I sort of thought it would have been one of the Death Eaters, or Snape."

"W-w-why?" asked Quirrell.

"Isn't it obvious? Well, we know You-Know-Who is returning, right? But he's supposed to have died, and you guys don't have Clerics or Wish."

"Clerics? Wish?" Quirrell asked.

"Where I come from, death is pretty cheap. Well, not cheap, exactly, but with enough diamonds and the right spellcaster, pretty much anyone can be brought back from the dead in some form. Clerics are the best at it by far, but a Wizard like me can pull it off, too, with some difficulty." Milo explained.

"You can do this? You can bring back the dead?" Quirrell asked sharply.

"Not yet, but maybe in a few years at this rate. Unlike back home, there's only a few methods available to you people for cheating death that I could find in the Hogwarts Library—Scholar's Touch is so broken!—and those methods were as follows: Flamel's Stone, Unicorn's Blood, and becoming a vampire."

"Go on," Quirrell urged.

"In order of preference, the order is probably the Stone first, then the blood, and lastly becoming a vampire. There wasn't much I could find on any of these subjects—they're probably in the forbidden areas in the library, or books written by authors whose names start with letters after F—but from what I can tell, there's no mention of a cure for Vampirism, so it'd be a last resort. All I could find about the unicorns was that whoever drank their blood would be cursed to living a 'half-life,' which is cryptic as a crypt tick but sounds at least halfway better than total unlife."

"So, why not simply assume he's after the Stone?"

"Oh, he is, of course. Dumbledore's supposedly guarding it, but there's about a million and a half problems with that —he runs a school, and he's chief whatever of the thingamajig, and Supreme Muggle of the other thing. He can't be on guard twenty-four hours a day like an orc in a ten-by-ten room guarding a treasure chest. So in practice, the staff of Hogwarts are defending it, and while Dumbledore is this legendary wizard, you aren't. I mean, you and McGonagall clearly know what you're doing, and while you're a match for his minions, if you could take You-Know-Who, you would have last time. But here's the thing: You-Know-Who is weak right now, or he'd already be Dark Lord of the world already."

"That he would."

" What's more, he's politically crippled—Hells, even the Malfoys have publically renounced him. He can't storm the castle personally, and he doesn't have enough minions to do it for him outright. He probably only has a handful of loyal Death Eaters left, and they're all vying for who's going to be top guy when You-Know-Who returns. He might not even know about their existence."

"Not all of his servants are Death Eaters, boy."

"Really? I thought that was just the catch-all term for it here."

"Interesting. What does this have to do with unicorns?" Quirrell asked. His voice sounded somewhat hoarse.

"You would know more than anyone else, Professor," Milo said. There was a brief silence, and Milo heard a rustling of robes. "Vampires, Professor, vampires! There's only three ways for him to return, and they've all been mentioned in the story. Three ways, a pretty significant number, if you ask me. So, there's likely followers going for the Stone, the Blood, and rounding up friendly vampires as we speak. You're a trained combat wizard, Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at the best school in the country, and pretty clearly high level. And yet, even you got captured by vampires—so, unless they were the vampire of Merlin himself, your captors had to have help from a wizard. A Good wizard wouldn't help vampires, so it had to have been an Evil one—maybe working for You-Know-Who. So, one of his minions has more than likely succeeded in rounding up some poor sucker, no pun intended, to vamp our Dark Lord. That means that another minion, if he wants to top the first one, has to one-up vampires. That means unicorns, because the Stone is too well defended. The dead unicorns would have implied that the second, at least, was successful, and You-Know-Who can return, if he hasn't already, in some sort of limited form. That it was this Giant sort of throws a wrench in my thinking, to be honest. Means we have to be even more careful about Snape getting the Stone."

"Snape?" Quirrell asked, surprised.

"I'm surprised you hadn't put it together. Snape's after the Stone for sure. He's probably one of those minions I was telling you about, and You-Know-Who doesn't even know he exists. Or he does know. Or he is You-Know-Who in disguise. Amounts to the same thing, really. So we have to be on the lookout for Snape."

"Why," Milo heard an unfortunately-familiar voice, "do you have to be on the lookout for me, exactly? Is it because you're skipping detention?"

Ah, nuts.

"Ah, ah, no Professor," Milo stammered. "I was just helping the Professor—the other Professor—with this Giant, and we were going to the dungeon anyways, so I was just going to see you right after."

"Interesting," said Snape. "Because you're heading in completely the wrong direction. This is the third floor—the dungeon is that way." Why has Quirrell become so attached to the boy? Snape thought. He must know what I'm up to, and he's trying to prevent me from having him expelled for Lucius. What's his game? Is he after the Stone?

"The b-b-boy is with m-me, Severus," Quirrell said fiercely. Why has Severus become so attached to the boy? Quirrell thought. He must know what I'm up to, and he's trying to prevent me from feeding the boy to Hagrid's dog. What's his game? Is he after the Stone?

"Is he, now?" Snape asked. "I'm afraid I have prior arrangements with him."

"He c-c-can have his d-detention later. I n-need him now, this is of upmost i-importance," Quirrell maintained.

"Discipline is what's important, Quirinus," Snape pressed. Milo wondered why it was so important to Snape that he get Milo for detention... oh, Milo realized suddenly. He's going to kill me. I'll just ready a Glitterdust—wait, no, that didn't work so well last time. I'll just be on my guard, and not get caught flat-footed. Hopefully Quirrell can get rid of him.

"Th-th-the Troll is what's m-most important. You c-can have him a-afterwards."

"Milo," Snape commanded, "come with me at once. You have detention; this transparent method of escaping it shames your house and our school. Come with me, or I'll see to it that you're expelled."

Quirrell ground his teeth in frustration, but couldn't think of any way to prevent the boy from going with Snape without compromising his cover. Quirrell would pay for this soon, when no-one was around. He'd already failed his master too many times...

"Sorry, Professor Quirrell," Milo said sadly. "I suppose you'll have to manage for yourself—maybe you can find a House Elf to help? I'll... well, I'll see you around." Sweating profusely, Milo followed Snape towards the dungeons, away from his perceived protector. Their every footstep, made by Snape's polished loafers and Milo's worn adventurer's boots, rang through the empty corridors. Even the normally garrulous wall portraits were uncharacteristically reticent. Milo took the opportunity to plan his defence, should Snape make his move.

Opening move, he'll be expecting a surprise round, but I know he's coming, Milo thought. Then it'll be a test of reflexes. If I lose, he draws his wand as a move action and uses the Killing Curse as a Standard. I die. If I open with Glitterdust, and he makes his save, I die. If I open with Glitterdust and he fails his save—or, for that matter, I use Invisibility—but he beats my 50% concealment, I die. If I open with Mirror Image, I have an effective 50%-80% miss chance, meaning I only have a 20%-50% chance of dying. Mirror Image it is, then, followed by an expeditious retreat of a non-magical nature.

Milo licked his lips nervously as they rounded the last corner before Snape's office. He didn't like those odds, and if he did die, his chance of getting a Resurrection seemed slim. These wizards couldn't bring back the dead, and his party members back home wouldn't know he'd died. It was more than likely, he realized, that death here would be permanent.

Gulp.

Snape opened the heavy wooden door to his office and led Milo in.

"I've noticed that you've been falling behind in Potions lessons," Snape said slowly to Milo. "And it seemed to me that you could use some... extra help."

So, Snape was going to kill Milo during a remedial Potions lesson and what, make it look like an accident? Milo wondered why the pretense was even necessary. It wasn't as if there were any witnesses.

"I, ah, just don't seem to have a knack for it," Milo admitted.

"Indeed," Snape grinned slightly. "So, why don't we start with something extremely basic? One that it is quite impossible for anyone with a drop of magical blood to fail at?"

"Sure, sure," Milo said distractedly. He was anxiously examining the room for hidden traps, and felt a brief pang of homesickness. Wellby, their Rogue, never missed a trap—or, more accurately, the traps never missed him. But at least they were always detected, one way or the other.

"So, why don't we begin?" Snape asked, and with a flourish of his wand, a pewter cauldron drifted slowly towards him from the side of the room. So, Milo noticed, Snape has Silent Spell. But why did he show me this? As intimidation? "All you have to do is pour in three ladles of ordinary water, one teaspoon of Flobberworm mucous, and one teaspoon of ordinary glycerol; then stir counterclockwise once. It is, literally, the simplest potion in existence. A newborn could accomplish it. It makes bubbles, and nothing else."

"Okay," Milo said. Maybe Snape's idea is to keep my hands busy measuring so I can't go for my wand? Surely he knows by now that I don't really need it? It will make my Somatic components somewhat more difficult, however, although dropping an item is a free action. I'll play along, for now. Milo carefully measured water out of a glass beaker and poured it into the cauldron, then reached for the Flobberworm mucous.

"Of course," Snape said as Milo worked, "a Muggle attempting to create the potion would experience an... unfortunate side effect."

Milo's hand froze over the vial of mucous.

"R-really?"

o—o—o—o

Sprout sighed as she tried yet another spell to try to disenchant the singing pumpkin. Someone (well, clearly, it was the Weasley Twins, but without proof, they remained an as-yet unidentified "someone") had bewitched all of the decorative pumpkins on the second floor to sing "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round-and-Round," all at different keys and tempos. The consequent cucurbita cacophony was enough to drive even Peeves away.

"Finite Incantatem!" she cast vainly. The vegetables were surprisingly resilient to any attempts at dispelling them. If only those boys used their skills for something productive, she thought, the world would be better for it.

She smelled it well before she saw anything. It wasn't so much that the smell was bad, exactly—though it was that—it was just overpowering. The smell was huge, one could almost say...

...Giant.

There was a roar so loud that when it ended, Sprout couldn't even hear the pumpkins' song.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" she screamed.

o—o—o—o

"I'm beginning to worry about Milo," McGonagall told the Headmaster. "I can't help but wonder if you weren't wrong about his magic being an unusual form of a child's accidental magic."

"So, you think he's telling the truth about being a... different wizard?" Dumbledore asked.

"I... I really don't know. But his development in Transfiguration has been so remarkably stunted that I can't tell if he's improved in any way whatsoever since his first day off the boats," the Deputy Headmistress said. "And I'm not even certain that what he's doing is really Transfiguration at all. He's changing the matchstick's colour, to be certain, but... something seems off about it."

"Not everyone can wrap their head around Transfiguration. Why, Filius says his Hover Charm is worthy of a Seventh Year student, and Quirinus has nothing but praise for him. And you heard Ollivander's report about the what happened when he touched his wand the first time."

"Nevertheless," McGonagall pressed, "I think he may, in fact be... he might be a Squib, Headmaster. Why, I was just speaking to Severus, and he says that the boy is so hopeless at Potions that he actually believes him to be a Muggle, here by accident somehow."

"You mean to say that you and Severus actually agree on something?" Dumbledore asked.

"Perhaps. We'll know this afternoon, I believe, as Severus said he had developed some sort of test, and I for one—"

"Headmaster! There's a Troll loose on the second floor!" a small, cheerful voice said from behind McGonagall's head. The Deputy Headmistress turned around, and saw Sprout's Patronus floating behind her. Dumbledore and McGonagall stared at each other for a moment, then sprang into action.

"I'll start clearing the area of students—" McGonagall said, reaching for her wand.

"—and I'll contact the other Heads of Houses," Dumbledore said, standing up so fast that he knocked his chair over.

o—o—o—o

By the time the smoke cleared, Milo's hearing had mostly returned. His robe was in tatters, and he was covered in soot and dust.

"Wh-wh-what was that?" he asked.

"A Muggle chemist, if a Muggle chemist had ever analyzed Flobberworm mucous, would tell you that it reacts with the glycerol to form nitroglycerin."

Milo blinked blankly.

"Nitroglycerin is a volatile explosive," Snape said.

"And you let newborns do this?"

"No. A wizard's inborn magic prevents the chemical reaction from occurring, as it is superceded by a magical one."

"Then why did it... ah," said Milo. One could practically hear the copper piece drop.

Milo looked at Snape.

Snape looked at Milo.

Not a word was said, until...

"Severus! There's a Troll on the second floor—thought you ought to know," said a translucent silvery Phoenix that Milo could swear hadn't been there a moment before.

"HolycrapghostPhoenix!" a living Phoenix was CR 24, and being a ghost only made it more powerful. Fortunately, they were Good-aligned. A Phoenix's fire could deal up to 40d6 damage, although Milo was pretty sure Phoenixes were generally somewhat larger than a horse—this one was rather a lot smaller. A baby, perhaps?

"Get up, boy, and come with me—now!" said Snape. Milo wasn't about to refuse a direct command from a man who a Phoenix had apparently asked for help, and followed. After leaving his office, Snape broke into a dead run towards the stairs.

"Are we going after the Troll?" asked Milo as they ran up the spiraling staircase. Judging by the dull look in the monster's eyes, Milo was fairly confident its Will save was low enough that it would fail to Glitterdust for certain.

Snape paused for a moment.

"Boy, look at me," he commanded. Milo shrugged and complied. "Now, what were you and Quirrell talking about before I arrived?"

"Troll feeding and grooming," Milo lied blandly. Snape stared at him in the eyes for a moment.

"Very well, we've delayed too long," he said, and started climbing again at a hustle. Well, that was weird, Milo thought.

"Professor," Milo said as they continued climbing the stairs, "we missed the second floor. This is the third floor," but Snape said nothing as they rounded the corner to the forbidden third floor corridor.

Snape stopped at the door and waited, still without an explanation.

"Professor," Milo pressed, "I think I deserve an explanation now. What are we doing in front of the corridor of 'Die a horrible and painful death?'"

"Stop questioning me and be silent," Snape snapped.

"What, do you expect me to be able to simply Detect Thoughts or something? I won't be able to understand what's happening and act appropriately unless you tell me," Milo said, swapping out Invisibility. Detect Thoughts was a 2nd-level Wizard spell that allowed one to listen to the surface thoughts of another. Milo didn't really expect it to beat Snape's Will bonus, but everyone rolls a 1 once in a while. For once, it appeared, it was Milo's turn to be lucky. Snape turned around, catching Milo's eye.

"Five points from Gryffindor, and five more if you don't stop talking," the Professor said.

Fortunately, it appears I got here before Quirrell, Snape thought.

Why is beating Quirrell so important? Milo wondered.

The boy suspects we were racing Quirrell here. Well, it wasn't too hard to figure out, I suppose, Snape thought to himself (or so he thought). When he goes for the Stone, I'll be ready.

Is Quirrell going for the Stone? Milo wondered. That makes no sense at all, unless... Something's going on here I don't know about. Maybe Quirrell is trying to prevent Snape from getting the Stone? Or they're both going for it? Or Snape knows I'm reading his mind and—

The boy is a Legilimens? Snape thought sharply. There was a sudden pain in Milo's temple, and he felt a sudden sense of vertigo that knocked him to his knees.

"H-how did you... what was... what just happened?" Milo asked, clutching his head. His nose had started running, and he brushed it with his sleeve. The Detect Thoughts spell no longer even registered Snape as an intelligent being, it was like he wasn't even there.

"Answer me truthfully;I'll know if you're lying," Snape said imperiously. "Are you a Legilimens?"

"Ah," Milo said, "No?"

Snape frowned. He's telling the truth, Snape thought to himself (and, this time, only to himself), and yet... he must be lying somehow. Could he be an Occlumens as well? At eleven? No. He's not even a wizard. He must have some other powers, similar to Legilimancy in effect, but called something else.

"Can you read minds?"

"Ah. Um. No," Milo lied.

Snape grinned. It faded quickly.

"Tell me," he said oddly, "do you smell something?"

"As a general rule, no," Milo said. "But now that you mention it..."

The silence was only broken by a particularly large spider scurrying across the floor, and then a quick flash of emotion from Mordenkainen. FEAR, DISTRESS, HORROR.

And then the wall exploded.