"SILENCE!" Dumbledore shouted with a 'Sonorus' charm, projecting his voice loudly into everyone's ears when every student started loudly discussing the situation.
I had even heard the Weasley twins sitting close to me at the table next to ours, opening a betting pool on who would slay the most trolls during this quest. Michael Corner and Ron Weasley had loudly betted on themselves right before Dumbledore's outburst, and I was sad not to see those two boasting morons get flattened by a club.
"Prefects! Guide your students to the dorms while the professors and I investigate," the headmaster ordered in a solemn voice, and he was instantly interrupted by me as I started laughing rather loudly.
"Talion! This is serious! Show some decorum," Flitwick sternly reprimanded me as he got up from his chair to look at me with a frown. "Five points from Ravenclaw!"
"Sorry, professors," I said as I earned myself the attention of every single student. "I just didn't know the headmaster disliked house Slytherin as much as the rest of us."
A few gasps rang among the students, and Flitwick turned visibly angry at my apparent lack of respect. Yet before he could chastise me some more, Sprout chimed in with a small frown and asked, "What makes you say that young Talion?"
"Well, didn't Professor Quirrell say all the trolls are in the dungeon?" I innocently asked with a shake of my head and a few Slytherin students and a few more quick-witted professors caught on. "I wasn't there yet myself, but isn't that exactly where the Slytherin dorms are?"
A few seconds of silence later, the Weasley twins started booing me, which immediately stopped any other kind of reaction.
"His scheme was perfect! Why'd you have to stop them from leaving, Macnair!"
"Could have gotten rid of the worst of them, I reckon. Real bad job, little claw!"
By that point, several students started laughing while all the Slytherins looked around with seething expressions. Not that I would have suspected it, but nobody looked at me with gratitude either from that table.
"Follow me, Talion," Flitwick ordered as he passed the table to go out to hunt for trolls. I noticed that he was no longer angry at me, and his face looked like whatever followed would be a teaching moment. The half-goblin clearly was in no mood to attend whatever Dumbledore had planned next after I made him look like a fool.
After I stood up admidst the chaos of the interrupted feast, Dumbledore once more silenced everyone with a loud boom sound snapping out of his wand and commanded, "Everyone stay in the hall. Minerva, guard the door to the entrance hall!"
Just as the professor and I were leaving, someone started screeching at the top of his lungs.
'YES!!!' I inwardly celebrated and kept moving forward with Flitwick, who didn't run back. The headmaster was there to sort it all out and though I kinda wished to see it happen or possibly help Harry out if people started accusing him of murder, I didn't mind testing my mettle versus some magic resistant trolls.
"Trolls have almost unending stamina and a high level of regeneration. They can withstand burns, and most magical attacks are ineffective if they hit their hides. If you want to deal with a troll permanently, use a physical object propelled by magic and aim for soft spots. Every orifice, even the unpleasant ones, are excellent targets. Though their proportionally small heads and especially their eyes are the ideal targets," Flitwick instructed as he ran in front of me with a savage grin.
"This is exactly the opportunity I was hoping to get for you in future survival club lessons, but since it appears to be two versus many, you can go all out without getting questioned. It's perfect. Get out your sword. I know you're carrying it with you."
I did as he asked. The running and multitasking were not taking anything out of me after over a month of continued, potion-aided practice. The Kopis short-sword in one hand and my wand in the other, I looked ready to inflict some damage.
"Up ahead. You can smell them," Flitwick cautioned as he lifted a hand to indicate for me to stop.
He waved his wand while I concentrated on my eye ability, that, I recently learned, could see through walls if certain conditions were met. It couldn't be too many walls, it couldn't be heavily enchanted walls, and most importantly, the target of the ability will need to have a red or golden outline.
And just like I suspected, the trolls were red. And Quirrel was not joshing around either. He freed 7 from what I could see and that even got a frown out of Flitwick.
"I count 7, and they are erratic. Even for trolls," my charms professor described with a heavy voice that lost his earlier enthusiasm.
"I'll try to lure one over and distract the rest. I trust you can deal with it. Remember to make use of the sword."
And with that, my diminutive dueling instructor shot forth and left me alone.
What came next was a pale green giant with a physique slightly longer than Hagrid with stubby little feet and a tree club dragging behind it lunging over with a speed I hadn't thought possible with those fat, short legs.
"Think quick, don't engage it in melee range if you don't have to," Flitwick's voice rang in my head, but I never saw the man again.
As the troll got me in its sights, it didn't dumbly stare at me, thinking about what I was. It was actively roaring bloody murder and marched toward me with glaring red eyes. I immediately judged that this troll was not the cute oaf that Ron knocked out by floating its club above its head but a likely unwilling, agitated murder machine ready to bring down some walls.
Five steps away from me, the troll cocked back both hands in a grip on the log it carried and wound up a devastating swing to annihilate me, the walls to the left and right of me and maybe the floor a little if it was feeling extra naughty. I quickly calculated that I didn't want to be a part of the abstract painting it was trying to create with my exploded body parts, silently made the Kopis float next to me with a Leviosa-family charm, alligned the point of the sword with the trajectory of its head and banished the sword with as much power as I could muster.
... and I miscalculated heavily. Yes, the sword hit exactly where I wanted it to and hit the troll right in its left eye. It managed to penetrate its thick skull, too. But sadly it also shot out of the back of its head just as fast as it came in and I lost the sword after it chipped a bit off of the ceiling and continued clattering down the long hallway for several seconds, leaving even my enhanced eye sight.
""ROoooar!""
Immediately after my brilliant first kill, several trolls let out a warcry and with my ocular ability I counted three trolls moving toward me from the group of six that Flitwick had rounded up to give me space for me to fight the lone troll.
I didn't panic, however, and calmly took out a few throwing knives I had also nabbed from the family vault and made three of them float in front of me.
"Engorgio," I whispered thrice and enlarged the floating ones while keeping the others I had in reserve hidden. Trolls weren't known to be amazing tacticians, but I still wanted to have something they couldn't see lest they had some crazy battle instincts in their clearly enchanted minds.
After the three trolls cleared another corner and came into my view, I cast the banishing charm three more times in succession after aiming the enlarged knives just right. The first one hit just like it did with my first kill, but since I used a little less force, the knife was kept sticking out of its head.
The second knife hit the troll at the side of its neck because it lifted its head to get it out of the way of the trajectory which seemed almost impossible in this deemly lit corridor, but if that was impossible, I wouldn't be able to judge the third outcome.
The third troll actively raised its club weapon to parry the knife away and made it inflict no damage whatsoever. I quickly enlarged another two of the hidden knives and banished them simultaneously as the two living trolls kept barrelling towards me.
The bleeding troll wasn't as lucky this time, and the knife was now stuck in its windpipe. The mountain of flesh immediately dropped its club to touch its neck and it tried to pry out the knife that was stuck in it, but it was sunken in so deep, its stubby little fingers were failing to get a proper grip to pull it out. The third troll I was starting to dub parry-master in my mind or just Parry the troll did exactly as my nickname for it would suggest.
It managed to once again deflect the oncoming weapon.
With a quick breath, I readied another four knifes, ditched my robes to the side, and prepared for what was to come. Time seemed to slow down as this uncharacteristically smart troll feinted a stab only to sweep low with its massive log in a one-handed back hand swing.
The move would have caught anyone offguard who was trying to dodge the attack, but I instead used an 'Arresto Momentum' empowered foothold in mid-air to gain some height and take advantage of the fact that the feint might have been smart, but also left the troll wide open for retaliation.
I enlarged one of the knives in my hand and tried to leverage a second foothold into enough power for me to ram the knife into the troll's eye after gaining the needed height, but the troll managed to raise up its free hand to block the blow.
The knife barely cut into it, and it merely slapped me away with an angry roar. Thanks to my increased reflexes and decent training from Flitwick, I landed somewhat stably on my feet and immediately shot a 'Lumos Maxima', the floating light ball variant of the 'Lumos' spell toward the troll.
I cast another spell, the 'Funicula Spinus' jinx that was a mix between charm and conjuration and sent a rope filled with barbed hooks forward that managed to bind the trolls feet. The light ball managed to blind the angry behemoth and it raised both hands to shield its eyes, which made me cast another 'Funicula Spinus' to try and bind its arm in place above its shoulders where it would have a hard time getting them back down.
The troll was screaming its lungs out, filling the corridor with its foul breath that made me want to gag even more than its unpleasant body odor did. The troll was also straining against my feeble conjured bindings that I realised wouldn't hold much longer, so I got ready and cast 'Engorgio' on three more knives.
One was levitated toward its backside, one towards its neck, and the third was above its head, the blade pointing down to the ground like a guillotine.
I then banished the knives in that exact order: first, the one to its backside that made the troll arch its back backwards. Second was the knife to its throat that was now more exposed. The troll immediately snapped its head downward in protection of its neck, which made the third knife I controlled to fall downward cut deeply into its exposed spinal cord, severing it.
The troll fell limply to the side immediately when the third knife cut, and I breathed deeply through a cloth I had prepared for this day. It was enchanted to smell nice and worked great in herbology when you were working with fertilizer and I nabbed one and gifted one to Sprout during the herbology job experience arrangement I had going on together with Neville and a few other seniors.
Sprout thanked me for it, though I doubted she didn't already own one. I, however, thanked myself deeply for bringing this thing over because trolls really weren't described properly in canon. Or Voldemort did something to them that made them smell even worse in a group because these four trolls I fought smelled like death. And rotten corpses. And a moutain of smelly gym socks washed in the spit of hobos that didn't brush their teeth in years. And, no, that was pretty much it.
As I caught my breath and took note of the knives I used and the exhaustion I felt at using so many spells in quick succession, I heard a rumble behind me and looked back in horror.
The fourth troll, the one that had a knife stuck in its windpipe, had snuck up behind me because apparently its feet were enchanted to make no sounds, unlike the others. And if it wasn't for Flitwick standing at the back of the corridor with his wand pointing forward, I would have had to rely on my reflexes after hearing the wind after that troll started swinging its club.
"3 out of 5 points, Talion," Flitwick shouted over as I looked down toward the now dead troll. A massive, cone shaped icicle had impaled its head with a gruesome yet surprisingly bloodless wound.
"Whoever allowed these trolls in enchanted their minds and made this one have silent steps. Who could have known?" I refuted with a petulant tone in my voice.
"Nobody. But you could have made sure of your kill. Never turn your back toward a downed enemy and relax," Flitwick countered with a solemn expression as he walked over, making me understand that I should take this matter seriously.
"I thought I told you not to engage in a melee if necessary," the professor chided, this time in a softer voice.
I got out a second rag with the fresh air enchantment for the professor and answered, "Sorry, that third kill of mine has the name Parry the Troll. I should have mixed it up with other spells or something other than enlarged knives, but it closed the distance before I thought of something else that could stop someone with this body mass... and I wanted to see my reflexes after I saw the first swing of the troll."
"What if whoever let them in had enchanted its speed, and it was just trying to give you a false sense of security?" Flitwick asked with a slightly disappointed look.
I took a few moments to shudder at the prospect and weakly nodded toward my mentor.
"Fair point, professor. I should have paid more attention to your warning."
"You should have valued your life more."
"... another fair point," I agreed and hung my head low, the feat of killing three, almost four trolls no longer felt worth celebrating.
"I still give you three points because that last one was a fine kill. Never mind that the second was lucky and the first was a joke, because you showed your skill and talent while fighting that third one. I know I told you it wasn't a wise choice, but the prowess you showed was still adequate. Great movements, tremendous power," Flitwick eventually praised after he saw I took his advice to heart.
A few silent moments later, the two of us heard some footsteps.
Professor Snape walked over with a deep scowl while Dumbledore had a sad but otherwise unreadable expression.
"Filius. What is the status with the trolls?" The headmaster asked in a quiet voice.
"Seven in total, four dead, three incapacitated. All seven of them had their minds enchanted to be even more feral than originally, while at least four of them were given additional abilities and boosts through a wizard's magics. The three incapacitated ones are put in a suspended sleep one floor down from here."
'He managed to put magically resistant monsters with Voldemort's buffs to sleep? Man, whenever I think Flitwick is already badass, he does stuff like this,' I thought as deep respect was seen in my eyes looking at my head of house.
"I see. Most concerning," Dumbledore said as he looked to me instead of the trolls. I merely prepared the memory of me slaying the first troll in my mind if he wanted to use legilimency and kept everything else blank.
Since Flitwick wasn't telling him I killed all of these, I wouldn't make it known either. But it turned out the headmaster didn't even want to read my mind, which was most concerning until Snape spoke up.
"The dark lord must have prepared these to cause enough chaos for him to break into the traps we erected to get to the stone," the potion professor said with a troubled yet still disdainful look as he looked me up and down.
"The dark lord?" Flitwick asked with a lifted brow.
"Ah, indeed so, my friend," Dumbledore said with a shake of his head. "It seems that he possessed our dear friend Quirinus as a sort of parasitic specter. He was exposed the minute you left the Great Hall with your... student?"
'Heh, like Dumbledore doesn't know the arrangement between Flitwick and I,' I inwardly scoffed.
"Indeed. I plan to make Talion my successor in the dueling circuit," Flitwick said with a wave of his hand. "What about Quirinus? What... exposed him?"
"Ah, I still cannot be certain. I suspect it was the magics of Lily Potter that still protects her son to this day after her loving sacrifice, but I cannot be certain," Dumbledore said as he appraised me rather than look as sad as that message should have made him look.
"If anyone could have done it, it was Lily," Flitwick muttered with a low voice, and he looked more downcast than I had ever seen him.
'Yeah, only the muggleborn witch with access to a millenia old library and the balls to cast a sacrificial blood ritual. If one touch of Harry could kill a possessed person, that pretty much confirms that the protection of Harry is dark in nature. Had it just reflected the killing curse in that freak accident over a decade ago, I would buy Dumbledore's bullshit that this protection works through nothing but love.'