Chapter 26 — The Weight of a Club

I dropped before I turned. The club passed over my head and broke through the bathroom door, throwing splinters across the tiles. Harry hit the floor beside me. Ron landed on his hands and scrambled after us while the troll dragged its weapon out of the wreckage.

It filled the opening, enormous shoulders almost hiding the small head above them. The smell caught in my throat, but the gap beside its body mattered much more. There wasn’t room to reach the corridor without passing close enough for it to hit us. I told everyone to spread out before it chose where to swing next.

Harry and Ron went towards the basins. I moved the other way, just as Hermione backed into my path. Her heel struck my shoe and stopped us together. The troll turned towards the two targets who had conveniently become one, lifting the club as though the choice required no further thought.

I caught her arm and pulled her down. The blow smashed through the stalls behind us, sending broken boards into the wall. Hermione crouched on the floor staring at the wreckage while a door swung from its remaining hinge above my shoulder. I hauled her up and kept her moving before the troll could bring its weapon round again.

Old experience helped me recognise the shift of weight before a swing. It didn’t make my legs longer or give us much space to use. I moved along the wall, changing direction when the troll’s shoulders turned, and pulled Hermione after me. Each time, the club reached the place we had just left with enough force to make the next escape seem less certain.

A piece of wood struck its back. Harry had picked it up from the floor, and Ron threw another while shouting for its attention. The troll grunted but kept coming. I ducked behind a damaged partition with Hermione, then had to move again when the next blow reduced it to boards. A splinter caught my cheek as I turned.

‘Your wands!’ I shouted at the boys. ‘Use your wands!’

Harry dropped the wood and cast the Leg-Locker Curse. It struck the troll, dragging one foot for half a step before the creature forced it forward again. Harry tried another. Ron fumbled the formula and began correcting himself, but his wand hand shook badly enough to strike a basin. I had seen him manage the same spell in the courtyard; remembering that didn’t make this room any less frightening.

Hermione cried out that a troll’s skin resisted spells. She had found her voice, which gave me some hope of getting her towards the door without pulling her every step. Before we could move that way, Harry’s repeated attacks finally drew the creature round. It turned towards the basins and left us a moment to breathe.

The boys backed along the wall until there was nowhere farther to go. Water dripped from a cracked pipe. Ron looked towards the exit, but reaching it meant crossing the space in front of the club. I found a prepared curse by its paper sleeve and moved into a clear line towards the troll’s legs.

‘Locomotor Mortis!’ I threw. The talisman released more firmly than Harry’s attempt, drawing the creature’s knees together and making it lurch. Then it snorted and forced its feet apart. The piece was gone, and the troll remained upright.

I took another. The same throw and spoken curse tangled its next step, sending the club into a basin instead of Harry. Porcelain cracked, splashing water over its arm. I shouted for the boys to move, and Harry dragged Ron clear of the wall while the troll struggled to turn after them.

My third talisman crossed the gap with another ‘Locomotor Mortis!’ The stumble gave them enough time to get past. I had bought seconds with three pieces of Runebark, and I couldn’t keep paying for a route the troll could block again simply by moving. Hermione pointed towards the doorway just as it shifted sideways across the boys’ escape.

Its free hand slapped the wall. Dust fell from the stonework, and the movement brought the club round where I could see its grip. Water ran over the knuckles. Hitting the basin had loosened its fingers, and now it was adjusting the weight while trying to watch Harry and Ron. Whatever protected its skin, it hadn’t made the wooden weapon part of its body.

I took two talismans from different pockets and told Hermione to move back. The troll raised the club. I stepped where I could aim at the hand holding it, aware of how little room remained if the first part of the idea failed.

‘Expelliarmus!’ The first piece flashed towards the loosened grip. The club jerked free, and I threw the second before the heavy end could fall. ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’

The weight caught at the edge of my control. I moved too sharply, tilting the club towards the basins, then checked myself and steadied it. Its heavy end dipped before rising above the troll’s shoulder. The stool had been much easier, and remembering that helped me stop treating the weapon as if it ought to follow the same small correction.

The troll looked at its empty hand, then up at the club. I raised my arm slowly, guiding it higher while the creature reached after it. Its fingers brushed the end. I pulled beyond them, keeping my attention on the weight and the space above its head rather than the arm stretching dangerously close to me.

Both of its hands went up. For a moment it had forgotten us in favour of the object it wanted back. I brought the heavy end over its forehead and guided it down. The impact made a deep crack, followed by a sway through the troll’s whole body.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I released the charm and jumped back as its knees folded. It struck the floor hard enough to shake water from the broken basin. The club rolled into a fallen door and stopped. I watched its hands while my own breathing filled the room, unwilling to treat a creature that large as finished merely because it had fallen over.

Harry sank against the wall. Ron bent forward with a hand on his knee, and Hermione stood by the ruined stalls as though another warning might still be needed. When Harry asked whether the troll was dead, I watched its chest rise. A rough snore followed, answering the question more reliably than I could have done by guessing how hard the club had struck.

‘It’s breathing,’ I said. ‘We’re moving away from it now.’

I helped Harry stand, and we picked our way towards the doorway with as much space as we could leave around the troll’s arms. My legs began shaking once they no longer needed to do anything clever. Hermione looked at the three of us and said we had come to find her. Ron reminded her that he had promised an apology, although neither looked ready to discuss the morning while standing beside the wreckage.

Footsteps reached us before we left. McGonagall appeared at the broken door, looked at the troll and counted us with a quick movement of her head. She ordered all four of us back, then raised her wand and moved between us and the creature as other professors arrived. Snape stood at the frame, examining the club and shattered basins.

Once the teachers had the troll surrounded, McGonagall demanded an explanation. I drew breath, but Hermione spoke first. She said she had gone looking for the creature because she had read about trolls and thought she could manage one. Harry and Ron stared at her beside me.

‘They came after me,’ she continued. ‘If they hadn’t found me, I might have died.’

That part was close enough to the truth to make the rest harder to interrupt. McGonagall told her that knowing a book’s description did not make her capable of confronting the animal, especially at risk to three other students. She deducted five points from Gryffindor while Hermione kept her head lowered. Ron looked as though the punishment had landed somewhere much closer to him.

I nearly corrected the story. Hermione looked at me, and I took it as a request to leave the explanation alone, although she hadn’t told me why. Her account kept the morning’s quarrel out of it and made our search sound less like three boys slipping away from Percy. I let her accept blame for a decision she hadn’t made.

McGonagall asked me about the club. I explained the disarming and levitation, along with the failure of the curses to hold the troll for long. Her eyes moved to the pouch, where an empty paper sleeve protruded beneath the fastening. When she asked about the others, I told her Harry had drawn the creature away from us and Ron had stayed with him. They had both come for Hermione.

‘Next time someone is missing, you tell your prefect and let a teacher find them,’ she said. ‘You do not conduct a search yourselves.’

I had asked Lavender to pass on a message, but we hadn’t waited to find out whether anyone in charge knew where we were going. I couldn’t offer that as a satisfactory answer while looking at the door the troll had broken over our heads. We agreed to the instruction, and McGonagall let the silence last long enough for the point to settle.

‘Five points each for remaining with someone in danger,’ she continued. Ron looked up sharply, and McGonagall held his gaze. ‘That recognises what you did once you were here. It is not permission to put yourselves in this situation again.’

I agreed before relief could supply anything less sensible to say. Beside me, Harry nodded, and Ron managed to look pleased without attempting to argue about which part of the evening had earned the points.

She checked my scratched cheek and asked each of us where we hurt. We had bruises, wet clothes and small cuts, with none of the injuries I had imagined during the fight. The teachers sent us towards Gryffindor Tower with instructions to report any worsening pain. As Snape moved to let us pass, Harry glanced down and quickly looked away. I was too occupied with keeping my own feet steady to ask what he had noticed.

Percy met us in the crowded common room, furious enough with relief that he began asking questions before we stopped. I told him Hermione was safe and McGonagall had already spoken to us. Lavender said we had found her, drawing more eyes towards the group. For once I wanted no audience and was glad when we reached a quieter corner.

Ron sat facing Hermione with his elbows on his knees. ‘I didn’t mean you haven’t got friends,’ he said. ‘I was angry because I couldn’t do it. That wasn’t your fault.’

‘You could have asked me to stop.’ She picked a splinter from her sleeve, then looked up at him. ‘And I shouldn’t have looked at you like that when the feather worked.’

Neither apology made them suddenly comfortable. Ron still struggled to meet her eyes, and Hermione kept trying to straighten a torn cuff. But when Harry brought water, she made room beside her, and Ron stayed rather than finding a reason to go upstairs.

I waited until they had settled before going to the dormitory. Neville was asleep. Harry and Ron followed later, speaking quietly while I began arranging the empty paper sleeves from the pouch. ‘Snape’s leg was hurt,’ Harry said, watching me across the room. ‘What if he let the troll in?’

He had seen blood and torn robes in the bathroom, he explained. We had also seen the professor going upstairs instead of towards the dungeons. Ron added a rumour that he had once been a Death Eater, then another about being Malfoy’s godfather. When I asked where he had heard them, he could offer only other people.

I agreed that Snape had gone in a different direction. That didn’t tell us what he had been doing. Ron suggested that his dislike of Harry supplied a reason, but I pointed out that he couldn’t have known we would leave the group to find Hermione. He hadn’t arranged the argument that morning, either. Sending a troll after Harry would have been a strange plan if it depended on all of that happening first.

Ron stopped to consider it. I wanted to dismiss the accusation more completely, with Snape’s useful notebook beside my bed and Dumbledore trusting him to teach here. Neither fact explained a wounded leg, though. I told Harry we should find out what had happened before deciding why, and he agreed with considerably less enthusiasm than I would have preferred.

They went to bed while I finished laying out the five empty sleeves: three Leg-Lockers, a Disarming Charm and Levitation. The pieces they had held had been spent in the bathroom; I couldn’t retrieve their usefulness by wishing I had packed more. I placed fresh Runebark beside the sleeves before putting out the light. Replacing what had kept us alive would come before another experiment.