Time passed very quickly for Procus at the towers. In fact, Procus hadn't realized it, but his little adventure with the dragon occurred on the night of the thirtieth of October.
Kyae couldn't believe her eyes when she saw Procus, Adi and Vignesh still in Angsanian Towers the next morning, looking a bit tired and weary but otherwise perfectly cheery. In fact, they had agreed that the previous night's happenings had all added up to a brilliant adventure, and they were quite eager to have another one. The trio spent some time before lessons speculating what the dragon was guarding.
"It's probably really important," Adi said.
"Or dangerous," Vignesh replied.
"Or both," Procus finished.
Neither Alen nor Patricia showed the least interest in what the dragon was guarding. Patricia was rather irritable after the night's adventure and wouldn't talk to the three of them. Alen didn't care what it was that the dragon was guarding; the only thing he cared about was never going near that dragon ever again in his life. Procus, Adi and Vignesh soon gave up on the two of them and headed to Enchantment.
***
Enchantment was normally the best lesson to start a private discussion as the room was usually full of cries of spells. Today, however, Professor Bhim told the class that the time was ripe for another attempt at the Levitation Enchantment. After a disastrous first attempt (in which only Procus had been successful; Adi had somehow managed to turn his feather into a pin; Vignesh had levitated Professor Bhim instead of the feather and Edbert had managed to blow up his feather) Professor Bhim had abandoned the Flying Enchantment and worked instead on things like the Silencing Enchantment. Once again, he put the class into pairs to practice, pulling aside Procus and teaching him the SoulSpirit Enchantment, an extremely complicated Enchantment to defeat creatures of the Night. But we won't go into that now. He wasn't having much success, so his attention began to wander to the rest of the class.
Adi had been paired up with Patricia. It was hard to say who was angrier at this; so, we'll just throw it to floor
"Sursum Volant! Sursum Volant!" Adi shouted, once again waving his arms around in all directions. The feather obstinately stayed put.
"It's the way you're saying it, it's not 'Sur-sum Vol-ant, it's 'S-ur-sum Vol-a-nt,' make the 'ur' nice and long. Also, you are not a windmill, Adi," Patricia snapped at him irritably.
"You try it then if you're so smart," Adi snarled at her.
"Gladly," Patricia replied.
"Sursum Volant!" she incanted, and sure enough, the feather began to levitate and go wherever Patria deigned it to. She gave Adi an annoyingly smug, who shot a sulky look back. Just then, there was a loud boom and Vignesh and Edbert's table was covered in cough-inducing smoke. Once he had recovered from his coughing fit, Procus looked up to see that Edbert had blown up his feather again, except this time, he had burnt away some of his eyebrow-hair.
"Professor, I think that we're going to need another feather over here," Vignesh said in a small voice. Procus was torn between a desire to laugh and to keep shut. Deciding to do the latter, he turned back and continued to (unsuccessfully) cast the SoulSpirit Enchantment.
***
"Absolute nightmare, she is," Adi said to Procus and Vignesh as they jostled their way through the throng of students to get to the next lesson. Imitating Patricia's voice he continued, "'It's 'S-ur-sum Vol-a-nt.' It's no wonder no one can stand her,"
Just then, Patricia bumped into Procus as she ran past. As she did, Procus caught a glimpse of her face. She was crying.
"I think that you hurt her feelings," Procus said quietly to Adi as they continued jostling, or rather, getting jostled.
"So?" Adi said, but he looked a bit uncomfortable all the same.
Patricia didn't turn up for lessons at all for the rest of the day. After lessons, as he walked down to the Main Hall with Adi (Vignesh hanging back for a bit of a talk with Professor Jane about how the aim of the day's lesson was to Change the needle, not his other classmates), they overheard Kelly saying to her friend, Dawn, that Patricia was hiding in the girls' toilet and wanted to be left alone. Adi looked only more uncomfortable on hearing this piece of news, but a moment later, they entered the Main Hall and all thought of Patricia was forced out of their minds at the sight of the Halloween decorations in the Main Hall.
A thousand live bats fluttered down from the ceiling and yet more were swooping around the house tables in a great, black mass while jack-o-lanterns hung with no visible means of support in mid-air. Each time one of them floated near a student, it would let out an ear-splitting howl. The four house tables were covered in orange and black and lined with small, floating ghosts which Procus was pretty sure were real. Food instantly filled the golden plates, as it had at the Opening Feast.
Procus was just about to help himself to a roast potato when Professor Bhim came sprinting into Main Hall, turban askew and looking terrified.
"Troll – in – the school – thought – you ought to know" he managed to pant out to Professor Foong before sinking to the ground in a dead faint. There was silence for a fraction of a second before there was uproar.
It took several loud bangs, each louder than the last, issuing from Professor Foong's wand to restore a rudimentary form of order.
"Head Prefects lead your houses back to their respective dormitories whilst the teachers take care of the troll," Foong rumbled.
Adi's eldest brother, Jack, was in his element.
"Follow me now, no need to fear the troll if you stick close to me, first-years!" He called to the whey-faced first-years.
Procus and Adi had just joined the line when a thought occurred to Procus.
"Patricia. She doesn't know about the troll," Procus said, wheeling around suddenly to face Adi.
Adi bit his lip.
"Oh, all right, but Jack had better not see us," He said finally.
Cautiously, the two sneaked away from the rest of the Evgenises and joined the mass of Lows moving the other way. Halfway through, they moved away from the line and moved stealthily towards the bathrooms. They heard the rustling of a cloak from behind a corner. Alarm bells blared in Procus' head as the two of them darted behind a stone pillar to their left.
"Jack!" Adi hissed at Procus.
But the person who rounded the corner was not Jack but Kiew, his wand aloft and lit. For a second, he looked about suspiciously but then moved on. Procus and Adi hid behind the pillar a till the corridor that they were in was quite empty.
"What's Kiew doing here when all the other teach –" Procus began, but Adi held his hand up for him to stop, his nostrils dilating.
"Do you smell that?"
Procus sniffed and gagged as a putrid smell reached his nostrils, a mixture of age-old cheese, old socks and the kind of public toilet that nobody cleans or flushes.
Then they heard it – a low grunting sound and the footfalls of gigantic feet. Adi pointed: at the far end of the corridor to the left, something humongous was moving. They shrank into the corner as it moved into a patch of light.
It was a sight that many would have happily forgone. Nearly fifteen feet in length, with dark-blue skin, the troll resembled a few huge boulders stacked on top of each other with a coconut-sized head resting on top, with one, yellow and blue blinking eye that took up most the head, and no hair. It stopped for a moment and grunted, making up its tiny mind and then moving through a door to their left.
Procus and Adi rushed towards the door and, thinking fast, slammed it shut and locked it with their wands.
"Yes!"
Flushed in their success, the duo began moving off when a sound reached their ears and made them stop, stone-dead, in their tracks.
A petrified scream rang out from behind the door that they had just locked. It was the door to the girls' toilet.
"Patricia!" They both shouted in unison.
It was the last thing that they wanted to do, but what choice did they have? Wheeling around, they ran towards the door, unlocked it, and dashed in.
Patricia was backed up against the wall, with the troll leering down on her. It seemed to be trying to figure out whether Patricia was edible or not. Its long arms dragged behind it, one of which was carrying a spiked, metal club.
"Confuse it!" Procus yelled desperately, but Adi seemed rooted to the ground. Seeing Adi's disability, Procus ran towards the troll, stopping some three feet away so that he wouldn't faint of the terrible smell. Drawing his wand, he shouted, "Rigescunt Indutae!"
The spell streamed harmlessly off the troll's skin, but the yell caught its attention. It lumbered to face Procus, its single eye blinking confusedly. Drawing his wand, Procus began shooting every spell that he could think off at the troll.
"Funiculous! Percutiens! Ambustum! Repulsicus!"
Spell after spell shot from his wand, yet all streamed harmlessly off the troll's skin. Even the ropes that he had summoned simply slid off. Getting desperate now, Procus continued his spell onslaught, calling forth powers he never knew he had.
"Exploud! Percius! Vinculas! Impetus! Tentatio!"
Nothing worked. The chains that he had conjured up simply shattered. Bolts of fire were extinguished in the blink of an eye. Repelled blasts hit the bathroom walls and tiles; soon most were cracked and reduced to powder and debris.
Summoning all his remaining strength, Procus played his final, desperate card.
"Spellhurlers' Maxu – oomph!"
His last spell, which could have stopped the troll, was cut short because the troll's massive foot had slammed right into his stomach and he was hurled straight towards the other end of the bathroom, all wind knocked out of him. Twisting in mid-air, Procus managed to point at where he would land and gasp, "Culcita!"
The spell worked. Instead of landing on hard stone and crumpling as he should have done, Procus hit what seemed to be an invisible pillow and found himself crouching under a sink near Patricia, who was shooting spells at the troll, each as, if not more, ineffective as Procus' ones. They did, however, distract it, though this could have been because Adi was throwing debris at it. The troll, confused, lunged at Procus again, but this time he managed to fend it off, with a powerful shielding spell, which left him drained. Patricia had given up on shooting useless spells at it and was cowering under the remnants of the sink. Adi continued throwing anything and everything that he could find at the troll, which blinked its eye confusedly.
Procus then did something extremely foolish and at the same time, extremely brave. It was more of foolish, but best not to focus on that bit. Yelling a battle-cry as he did, Procus sprinted towards the troll and, leaping on to its back, began clawing his way up to the head.
Now, usually, a troll is so oblivious to everything that it wouldn't even notice if you leaped on to its back, threw rocks at it or tried to stick a sword into its thick skin. But even the most dim-witted troll would notice if you stuck an eleven-inch long stick into its left nostril, and that's exactly what Procus did. Reluctantly, he lunged towards the troll's nostril with his wand. It went straight up the troll's nostril and stayed there.
Letting out a roar of pure fury and pain, the troll began to try to shake Procus off. Procus, on his part, realizing that he had made a mistake, looked despairingly at his wand and started tugging as though his life depended on it, which it probably did.
He heard Patricia screaming, Adi shouting things like, "Oy, pea-brain! Over here!" and the troll roaring like an enraged lion.
"Come… on… please!" Procus nearly cried in desperation, still pointlessly yanking his wand, which seemed determined to stay put in the troll's nostril.
The troll shook its head violently, unsuccessfully trying to shake him off. Adi was desperately trying to Disarm it to drop Procus but to no avail. The spell just bounced off like the previously used spells. The troll then seemed to realize that it could use its club to get rid of Procus. It raised its club and Adi, in desperation, cried, "Sursum Volant!" as Procus braced himself, consigned to the fact that it was his end, for the blow.
He waited, but none came. He waited some more, and, when still no blow came, he looked up. The troll was staring at the hand where its club had been, except that it wasn't. Hardly daring to believe it, Procus inclined his head towards the ceiling of the bathroom.
The troll's dull-gray spiked club was levitating, with no visible means of support, some five feet above the troll's head, nearly brushing the ceiling. It was spinning around and around horizontally and crazily. An astonished Adi was pointing his wand at the levitating club, which had now finally become static. Taking advantage of the troll's momentary disability, Patricia tried to shoot a spell into the troll's one eye. The spell, which missed, nearly decapitated Procus instead, who howled, "This thing's already trying to kill me, now you too?"
Procus gave his wand another, desperate, stupendous heave and, to his relief, he felt it loosen slightly. A shoot of hope burgeoned in his chest but was almost at once strangled by a fresh wave of panic at what happened next.
One of the troll's flailing arms hit Adi square in the stomach. He flew to the other end of the bathroom and crumpled against the solid stone wall. But the club was now released from the spell.
For a split-second, the club hung suspended in mid-air; then began to fall right on course for Procus. In fear, he cried, "Exploud!"
With the force of an atomic bomb blast, Procus was thrown from the back of the troll's head, spinning crazily. At the same time as his spell hit the troll's inner nostril, its club hit it square on the head and there was an ear-splitting bang.
The troll toppled like a felled tree. Procus, who had hit the wall before he could he could perform another Cushioning Enchantment, watched, slumped in pain, in horror as the troll fell, its body making a beautiful arc, right on top of Adi. Still slightly dazed, Procus pointed his wand at the troll and cried, "Rigescunt Indutae!"
The troll's body began to fall in slow motion. Knowing that he only had moments before the troll killed him, he screamed at Adi, who was watching the troll falling, his expression one of mingled incredulity and fear, "Come on, move!"
Seemingly reawakened by Procus' cry, Adi ran from under the troll's body. Seeing that Adi was safe, he breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, his concentration was broken, as was the spell he had cast.
With a crash that was heard all the way up in Sherazee Tower, the troll's fifteen-foot bulk hit the ground. Panting, Procus looked at his wand and saw that it was covered with hard, dry, charred-looking, rock-like things.
"Urgh. Burnt troll bogies," he said, grabbing a fistful of the troll's pants and wiping it off while Patricia cautiously crawled out from under the sink and stood beside Procus and Adi.
"Is it… dead?" she asked apprehensively.
"No, just stunned, I think," Adi answered, looking down fearfully at the troll.
Just then, the door to the bathroom burst open and Professors Jane, Pascal and Kiew burst in. Pascal took one look at the troll and turned pale, whimpering and quivering. Professor Jane, however, took one quick glance at the troll, then turned back to the trio, cold fury etched in each line of her face.
"Why," she began, in a voice as cold as ice and quaking with suppressed rage, "why, did you come and try to take on a fifteen-foot one-eyed Asian troll instead of heading up to your common-room and dormitory? You are lucky that you're still alive!"
Procus was feeling hot around the ears and looked down instead of at Professor Jane. He wished that Adi would drop the burnt bogey. Just as Jane opened her mouth again, another voice cut across.
"Please, Professor, they were looking for me," Patricia said in a small voice from behind them. Procus and Adi couldn't believe their ears. Patricia Jiao, telling an outright lie to a teacher?
"I thought that I could handle the troll since I've read all about them. I was wrong. It cornered me and was about to finish me off when Procus and Adi stopped it. Procus stuck his wand up its nose and cast a spell while Adi knocked it out with its own club," she finished. Procus and Adi tried to look like the story wasn't new to them.
"Well in that case…" Professor Jane said, looking from Patricia to Procus and Adi, "Miss Jiao, you foolish girl! What were you thinking, trying to handle an Asian troll all on your own? Five points from Evgenis! Now, if you're not hurt at all, I suggest that you head back up to Evgenis Tower and join the rest of your house. The feast is being continued there," Patricia hung her head and left the vicinity, but Procus' eyes were on Kiew, who had drawn up the leg of his robe in all the confusion to examine a burn that was somehow coated In both icicles and rocks but Kiew seemed to notice his look and hastily covered his wound again. Could it be that…
"Well, you two are certainly lucky," came Professor Jane's voice, shaking him out of his reverie, "not many first-years could have tackled a one-eyed Asian troll on their own. You both win Evgenis house five points apiece. Professor Foong shall also be notified of this,"
***
"We should've gotten more than ten points," Adi grumbled later as they headed for Evgenis Tower.
"Five, you mean, once she's taken off Patricia's," Procus said, slipping into the trick step halfway up the stairs. "Relasius," he muttered, pointing at his stuck leg, which extracted itself with an odd, squelching noise, then turning back to Adi, who had remembered to jump the step, to continue their conversation.
"Yeah… turns out that she was grateful after all. Mind you, we did save her," Adi replied, climbing the stairwell to Evgenis Tower now.
"She may not have needed saving if we hadn't locked the thing in with her in the first place," Procus reminded him as they entered the common room, which was a riot of noise. Vignesh immediately rushed up to them, babbling at top speed.
"Where were you? What happened? Jane was absolutely furious when she found out that you were missing! Everyone keeps saying something about a troll being in the dungeons, but Patricia says that you two fought it off and –"
"Long story. Don't ask," Procus told him, grinning slightly. They left the bemused Vignesh standing there, mouth slightly open. They then pushed their way to the table that was laden with food, where Patricia was waiting. Not looking at each other, they all muttered, "Thanks" and grabbed plates that they soon piled with food.
But from that day on, Patricia Jiao was their friend. There are some things that you just can't share without ending up the best of friends; and knocking out a fifteen-foot tall troll using its own club while blowing up half its bogies is just one of them. In fact, I'm sure that all good friendships start like that.