CHAPTER 9: THE TROLL

"The troll, yes, I fought a troll during my first year of studying at Hogwarts, that was quite fun."

-Edgart Aldrich on the Halloween accident.

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It was the 31st of October 1991, the atmosphere was surprisingly normal, just a bit of decoration here and there, but apart from that, everyone acted normal. It was morning, Ed is doing his routine, circling the lake, and practising spells, after that he sent a letter to Roger and Anna and gave them some wizards snacks for Halloween, and went to eat breakfast, which was quite interesting, the dish was all based on pumpkins, a lot of people hate it, but he quite enjoyed it.

He then walked to the first class this Halloween, which is Charms class, Professor Flitwick announced to the class that they will practice the levitation charm today, and everyone was excited for it.

"Okay students, remember the movements, swish and flick." The professor squeaked. "And don't forget the incantation as well, Wingardium Leviosa."

Flitwick then demonstrated it, the class enthusiastically followed him, and the professor squeaked once again, praising everyone for their movements and incantations.

"Wonderful, now, let's get to the actual spell. Everyone got their feathers?"

Everyone nodded and started to practise the spell. Now however, it was quite chaotic, the previous practice was useless, students just waved their wands randomly, said the incantations wrong, some even cast the wrong spell. Ed then sighed internally, he looked at his feather, which was shared with Neville, he pointed his wand to it, did the movement, and said the incantation.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The feather then floated several inches from the table, following the direction the wand was pointing.

"Wonderful Mr. Aldrich! Beautiful execution! First try as well, you're a talented wizard Mr. Aldrich, five points to Gryffindor." Professor Flitwick squealed happily. It's not really a first try, Ed already practised it countless times in the suitcase.

Looking at Ed, the others tried as well, but the result wasn't satisfactory, Seamus blew up his feather, and Ron was scolded by Hermione using her Know-It-All tone, making him grumbled in dissatisfaction.

After a few more tries, only Hermione succeeded, the rest didn't succeed, making them discouraged. Seeing this, Professor Flitwick dismissed the class and told them to practice the spell. When Ed was at the door towards the corridor, Professor Flitwick called him.

"Mr. Aldrich, can I have a quick chat with you for a moment? I want to ask you something." The Professor squeaked; he seemed happy about something.

'Shit, Hermione will run off now.' He grimaced, then forcefully answered with a smile. "Um, Okay Professor." He walked to the small man and sat in front of his desk.

"Is there anything I can do for you sir?" he asked, hoping that the talk would be brief.

"Yes, I believe you can, Mr. Aldrich, you see, I'm hoping to talk to you about this." He said, while handing a flyer. The paper showed a publication about a world tournament, an under-seventeen duelling tournament to be exact.

"You see, we noticed that you're talented in the field of charms and transfiguration, probably the best we've ever had in the last ten years." Flitwick said while Ed was reading the details on the tournament.

"And we want you to enter it, it will take place at the end of your third year, but to make sure you win, we will train you this year." Professor Flitwick continued; an expression of excitement can be seen on his face.

"But how will I train Professor?" Ed asked, curious about this tournament, it doesn't exist in the books, or at least it didn't get mentioned.

"Oh, no worries, we will arrange it later, for now we only ask you if you agree or not."

"You kept saying 'we' Professor, so this is the school's decision? Not yourself?"

"Of course! In fact, Dumbledore was the one who recommended you, we were going to pick someone from the later years but ultimately, we chose you."

"The Headmaster recommended me?" he asked to himself, and thought, 'What does he want to do now…'

Ed pondered awhile, thinking that it wasn't a bad thing, he could learn a lot from a professional dueller like Flitwick, and maybe the other contestants as well.

"Okay Professor, I agree." He said while nodding.

"Wonderful!" Flitwick squealed happily, "Truly wonderful! Now, while we're at it, why don't we start the training now, it will only be the etiquettes and rules, so next time, we will go straight into practice."

"R-Right now? You said you will arrange the time?" Ed was surprised at the Professor's enthusiasm.

"Well yes, do you have somewhere to go?" Flitwick asked, a bit calm this time.

"I-I got to go to Transfiguration class Professor." He was a bit worried that he wouldn't have time to drag Hermione out of the girl's bathroom, he wanted to avoid the troll incident, so Hermione needs to go to the hall, and maybe fix his friendship with her along the way.

"Oh, it's all right, I will send a message to Minerva that you will be with me throughout the day."

"The day?"

"Yes, we will learn until the Halloween feast is about to begin, there's a lot of etiquettes and rules to go through so it will be long."

"What about lunch?"

"A house elf will bring it to us, now let's get started shall we?"

Ed just nodded weakly, he sighed and thought, 'So much for changing the outcome.'

After that, Flitwick taught the duelling etiquettes and rules of the tournament to Ed, the etiquettes were quite fun, Flitwick demonstrated things like bowing and stances, but the tournament rules were dreadfully dull and boring, Flitwick just told Ed to sit down, and he read a thick book out loud and told Ed to write it down and memorize it, it was torture, the rest of the lesson, from afternoon to evening were all about rules, and Ed was dying to get out of the class, he was worried about Hermione, he may not care about Harry's troubles, but the troll incident is just too much, it almost got a girl killed, just because there was some foul-mouthed boy that talked behind her back and she heard him, and he wanted to avoid it.

After a couple of hours, the lesson is finally finished, Flitwick dismissed him and told Ed to go to the Great Hall for the feast, Ed said excused himself out of the class and bolted to the Great Hall, he wanted to confirm the location from Parvati Patil, her roommate, because he might change something before that made Hermione change her crying location, if it changed, perhaps he won't search for her, because the troll might not be where Hermione is.

He arrived at the Great Hall, it was full with students waiting for the feast, he walked to the Gryffindor long table, he saw Parvati sitting with her fellow roommate Lavender Brown and came over to her.

"Hey, Parvati right? Have you seen Hermione? I haven't seen her since Charms." He asked, trying to quicken the pace.

"Um, yeah, I saw her in the girls' bathroom crying, she said she wants to be alone for the moment." She said groggily, not expecting that Ed would talk to her. 'So, it didn't change, shit.' Ed thought.

"Do you know what happened to her?" Ed asked Parvati, while also eying Ron who avoided his gaze guiltily.

"I don't really know, but I guess she heard someone talking about her behind her back." She answered, a bit guilty because she didn't know her friend's troubles.

"Okay, thank you Parvati." He thanked Parvati and went out of the Great Hall. He walked along the corridors, trying to find the girls' bathroom and also watch out for the troll, he brings out his wand, quickening his walking pace, his silver eyes glowed on the darkness of the corridor, and finally he arrived at the girls' bathroom, he entered it and sure enough, he heard a sobbing sound in one of the stalls. He walked closer to the stall and knocked on the stall.

"Hermione, is that you?" he asked quietly, hoping that the troll wouldn't come until he got Hermione out of the bathroom.

"Who's there!" she shouted; her voice is cracking.

"It's me, Ed, you all right Hermione?"

"Leave me alone Ed…" she mumbled, loud enough so Ed could hear it.

Ed sighed, 'this is going to be harder than I thought.', he then asked her, "Why are you crying Hermione? Did someone talk behind your back?"

She went silent for a minute, 'Come on Hermione, the troll's going to pop up any second.' He thought impatiently. Then she suddenly said, "Why are you still here Ed, I thought you said that I'm annoying."

'Oh, come on, she's still on about that!' he shook his head annoyedly, and said again, "I said that, so this kind of thing won't happen, which you clearly didn't listen to my advice. I didn't mean to insult you Hermione, I'm just a bit worried about you at that time, your attitude can bring people to hate you."

She went silent for a minute, but Ed can hear a bit of sobbing, 'did I say something wrong again? Fucking Hell this is hard.' He massaged his forehead.

"Now, can you open the door Hermione? The feast is about to begin, we need to go, if you don't want to go to the Hall, I'll escort you to the dorm, but you can't stay here Hermione, if you stayed here until curfew, you're going to get detention." Ed said softly and patiently.

After that, she opened the door, Ed could see her hair looked messier than usual, her face were red, her eyes are bloodshot and puffed from all the crying, she looked at Ed for a second, then looked at her feet, she bit her lip, her fingers fidgeting, then she said, "I'm sorry…" she mumbled weakly, "For avoiding you, what you said to me back then makes sense, but your wording is a bit-"

"Rough, I know, I'm sorry too, but I thought that it had to be done, otherwise you won't treat it seriously." He said softly.

She then got out of the stall and hugged Ed and continued to cry on his shoulder.

"It's okay now, it's okay." Ed comforted her, patting her back.

She pulled away and wiped her tears, then Ed said, "Come on, let's go, do you want to go to the common room or the Hall?"

"C-Common room…" She answered weakly, still sobbing a bit.

"Okay then, let's go." Ed said, while leading Hermione to exit the bathroom. But before they arrived at the entrance, Ed smelled a horrible stench near him, 'Shit, Too late!' Ed thought.

"Hermione, on second thought, you should hide, quick!" Ed shouted, pushing Hermione gently to the direction of the stalls.

"W-What? Why?" she stuttered, looking confused at Ed's indecisiveness.

"No time to explain, quick, and don't make any sound." He answered, he pulled out his wand and aimed at the door, but before that he cast a disillusionment charm on Hermione, so the troll wouldn't target her for a while.

Then it came, every time the troll took a step, the ground lightly shook, the troll looked ugly, greed liquids coming out of its nose, it wore a ragged shirt, bald, and blue-skinned, and a giant club in his hand. Ed instantly became more alert, after all even if he has a diverse range of spells he can cast, he has no experience whatsoever on battling monsters or humans, so he panicked a little in his heart. He has himself and a girl to protect behind him, he planned for this encounter just in case, but he can't help feeling nervous.

The troll saw him, he looked at Ed for a couple of seconds, then it roared at him, the smell was horrible, Ed almost threw up when he smelled it. The troll then tried to crush Ed with his club, it brought up his club to the top of his head, preparing to drop it at the boy, and Ed, who noticed what the troll was going to do instantly casted a spell.

"Aegis!"

An invisible shield suddenly appeared, the shield maybe invisible, but it distorted the light surrounding it, making it a little bit noticeable.

The troll moved, the club dropped down, but instead of crushing the boy like the troll hoped, it bounced off like it hit a rubber shield, the troll staggered and stepped back a few, a look of confusion can be seen on its horrible face.

"Damn that went better than I expected." Ed muttered to himself, looking surprised at his own handiwork.

The troll became angrier, he roared once again, but this roar made Hermione squeal out of fear which the troll heard. The ugly beast then looked at the direction of the squeal and saw no one, he got closer to the source of the sound which made Hermione and Ed panicked, Ed instantly bolted and blocked the path. The troll looked at Ed, raised its club and tried to slam Ed again, but the boy cast the Aegis spell once again and the troll staggered.

Before the troll could react, a shout was heard from the entrance of the bathroom.

"Hermione!" two voices said.

The voices belonged to Harry and Ron, they looked haggard, possibly because they were worried about the girl behind him and guilty about what they said.

"Finally!" Ed shouted with joy, "Quick, distract the troll! I'll hit it with a spell!"

The two boys were dazed by Ed's command, but quickly nodded,

"Hey, you big ugly brute! Come here!" shouted Ron, trying to divert the troll's attention.

The troll looked at Ron, and instantly chased him, Harry on the other hand, gathered up some of his Gryffindor courage, and jumped at the back of the troll, he stabbed the troll's right ear with his wand, earning a scream from the troll, then the troll threw Harry from its shoulder, and made Harry hit a wall, howling in pain. The troll tried to pull out the wand with his big hand, so it stood still, earning a clear shot from Ed.

"Okay, move away." Ed shouted, he remembered the lesson about lightning magic, so he tried to use it in this situation.

He aimed at the eye, did the wand movement, and shouted,

"Fulmens!"

A shot of a blue lightning bolt suddenly appeared from the tip of his wand, the sound of thunder can be heard throughout the corridor, and it hit right on the eye. The troll froze, its small brain fried, the troll didn't even have time to scream. After a few seconds of standing, the troll fell to the front like a tree being cut down, and the ground shook because of the weight.

The bathroom went silent for a minute, only the sound of water dripping from the sinks could be heard, then Ed suddenly said.

"Well, that went well."

Everyone looked at him for a second and Ron suddenly shouted excitedly.

"Well? That was bloody brilliant!"

Ed just chuckled at Ron's behaviour then came to Hermione who was still disillusioned and undo it, he saw her cowering, looking terrified, her hands were trembling, and her hair was even messier than before because of the troll.

"You all right?" Ed asked Hermione softly while stretching his hand for Hermione to pull so that she could stand up.

Hermione just nodded, she took Ed's hand and stood up, her legs were weak, but she persevered. Looking at Hermione, Ed just smiled sadly and turned around to the other two boys.

"You guys alright? Especially you Harry, you okay? You slammed to the wall." He said two the two boys and looked at Harry, scanning for injuries.

"I'm okay." Harry said, "A bit of pain in the back, but manageable.", he walked to the troll corpse and said, "Is it dead?"

"Should be, I fried his brain I think." Ed just answered casually.

Harry just nodded and got closer to the corpse, he looked at his wand in the troll's ear and pulled it, the wand was dirty with earwax from the troll, Ron saw this and almost threw up.

"Ugh, troll earwax." Grimaced Harry while wiping his wand to the troll's ragged clothes.

While Harry was wiping the earwax out of his wand, Professor McGonagall suddenly burst into the bathroom along with Professor Snape and Quirrell, McGonagall looked at the scene in front of her and was horrified, Snape walked closer to the troll to inspect it, and Quirrell almost fainted at the sight of the troll.

"All of you! What are you doing here?" McGonagall spiked with fury on her face and tone. "You're lucky you're not dead right now.", the group just stood still, looking at the ground, 'If only I was faster, bloody tournament rules lesson.' Ed thought.

Snape seemed to find something on the troll's head. He scanned the four Gryffindors with a solemn face and stopped at Ed.

"Is this your doing Aldrich?" he said with his usual flat tone.

Surprised by Snape's accusation, which is correct, Ed answered,

"Yes professor." Ed said with a poker face, he turned his Occlumency to the max because he was facing Snape, a master Legilimens.

"Do you get a diary or a book containing your father's spells? Because electricity fried this troll's brain, and I seem to remember that your father's specialty was lightning spells." Snape curiously asked, while moving his gaze to McGonagall, which she noticed, her face turned a bit soft, and just nodded at him.

'The hell is going on?' Ed thought, looking weirdly at the two professors' interaction. He then answered Snape's question with a nod, "You can say that."

Hermione, who read the situation wrong, thinking that Ed will be punished because he used a lightning spell, which is a dark magic, suddenly spoke up.

"It's my fault professor." She said weakly. "I went looking for the troll, I wanted to see it in person, and I thought I was prepared because I've read all about trolls in textbooks and I thought I could take it by myself." She continued while acting guilty, although it's not a good act, Ed can see the lie in her body language.

Professor McGonagall looked disappointed at Hermione, while the others looked surprised at Hermione's lie, but before McGonagall could reprimand her Ed exposed her lies.

"It's a lie, Professor." While chuckling at Hermione's behaviour, "She was crying in the bathroom, in the evening I came to the great hall after Professor Flitwick's private lesson, and I didn't see Hermione at the long table, so I ask one of her roommates and they said that she was crying in the girls' bathroom, so I came here to calm her down and bring her back to the Great Hall or escort her to the common room, but before we could go back the troll attack, and these two arrived." He pointed at Harry and Ron.

"After that I told the two to distract the troll while I aimed at the troll's eye and cast the lightning spell." He continued while shrugging.

She looked at Ed suspiciously, "I see," she said, moving her gaze to Hermione," Miss Granger, is this true? Did you lie to me just now?"

Hermione looked down to the ground in shame and nodded, she planned to cover for the three of them but her lies were quickly exposed by Ed.

"I'm disappointed, Miss Granger, ten points from Gryffindor for lying to me." She said looking at Hermione with disbelief.

McGonagall then turned to the other three and continued, "as for the three of you, twenty points for Mr. Aldrich for checking up on your friend and fighting a troll and win, and five points to Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley for assisting your friend."

She turned to Hermione once again and asked sternly, "Miss Granger, why are you crying in the girls' bathroom? You didn't even go to my class this afternoon."

She looked at Ron and Harry, she thought about what she's going to say but ultimately, she chose to dismiss it, "It's nothing Professor, I just heard someone talk bad about me behind my back."

McGonagall once again looked at the group suspiciously, but she clearly noticed that Hermione didn't want to talk about it, and she just said, "Very well, all of you except Mr. Aldrich here go to back to the Dorm, while Mr. Aldrich will follow me to the headmaster office."

Hermione panicked at the mention of the headmaster office and thought Ed was going to be expelled because he used a dark magic like lightning spell, but Ed quickly reassured her by smiling at her, the two boys were worried as well, but they were quickly pushed by McGonagall to the dormitories.

After that Professor McGonagall and Ed were walking through the corridors to the headmaster's office. The journey was mostly silent, Ed can only hear the sounds of his and McGonagall's footsteps and the occasional wind from the castle windows, in front of the entrance of the headmaster office Ed asked McGonagall,

"I'm not going to get expelled, right professor?"

She looked at Ed for a second and answered, "No, you're not, the headmaster will just talk to you about the use of dark magic that you just used."

Ed just nodded weakly, McGonagall then said the password, which is 'Sherbet lemon', the statue then moved to open the entrance, and she walked into it, and ed thought in his mind,

'Let's ask some questions, shall we?'