How to Ruin a Halloween Party in Five Minutes
At the Halloween feast, all the students were eating and celebrating while watching the living decorations move around the Great Hall. The atmosphere was completely festive; enchanted banners floated over the tables, glowing pumpkins followed the students, and tiny artificial bats fluttered through the air leaving a trail of orange sparks.
The students chatted peacefully during dinner; however, the exception was the area where Harry and the others were sitting. They kept sending judgmental looks at Ron, who was trying to hide under all the food piled up on his plate, which was filled to the brim.
Well… it was mostly Harry and Percy looking at him like that.
"Can you stop doing that already?" Ron said, unable to endure it any longer.
"Sir Luther would never approve you as a knight" Percy commented with a slightly mocking glance.
A few moments ago, both had overheard Parvati Patil speaking with Lavender Brown. The two girls seemed to have heard that Hermione Granger was crying in the girls' bathroom on the first floor. They mentioned it while sitting not far from Harry and Percy, who heard everything and immediately turned their eyes toward Ron, whom they considered guilty for his unkind words toward a girl.
"I'm not a knight, I'm a friend" Ron snapped, though that didn't make him feel any less guilty.
Harry and Percy had been raised with the same teaching: protect and care for women. Especially because their mother and their aunt Mor were the most powerful people they knew, and they wanted to become real knights—strong enough to protect them. That was why the teachings of Luther and Arthur, whatever those men were trying to instill in them, had influenced them so much.
"You'd better apologize" Harry said, letting out a sigh and finally stopping the judgmental stare. His tone was gentle; not to force Ron, but to make him understand that he really had been the one in the wrong. Even if Hermione annoyed him, his behavior hadn't been the best.
It was true that Hermione Granger seemed nosy and sometimes irritating; even so, she never actually said anything bad about them. She mostly tried to stop them from getting into trouble and losing points for the house—points she worked so hard to earn, thanks to the Weasley twins, who caused chaos since day one and constantly made Gryffindor lose points.
And every time Harry or Percy crossed paths with Snape, they also lost points… apparently just for existing.
Ron wanted to refuse irritably, but when he saw Percy and Harry staring at him, he simply nodded with annoyance before returning to eat.
"A troll in the dungeons!" A sudden cry echoed from the entrance of the hall. The doors burst open with a loud thud.
The students froze when they saw that the one shouting was the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
"A troll in the dungeons!" Quirrell repeated, staring at Dumbledore with a face full of panic. "I thought… you should know" he managed to say before fainting so suddenly that he collapsed to the floor. Silence lasted only a second as everyone processed the words.
Then chaos erupted.
Screams came from everywhere; students panicked as they understood what the professor had said. Many stood like they were about to sprint for their lives.
"Silence!" Dumbledore's voice thundered across the Great Hall, making the windows vibrate lightly. Even the fake bats were stunned mid-air by the power of the shout, clearly enhanced by Sonorus.
"Everyone calm down and return to your rooms with your prefects. The professors and I will take care of the troll" Dumbledore said calmly, as if his voice itself were a charm meant to soothe the panic. And it worked.
The prefects reacted immediately. Once they heard their duty, they moved at once.
The eldest Weasley brother stood up and cleared his throat. "Alright, you heard the Headmaster. I'm the prefect and I'll take you to the common room safely" he said quickly.
Meanwhile, Harry and Percy exchanged a look.
Ron, stuttering, murmured, "A troll? What's a troll doing in the castle?" He stood, ready to follow the others toward Gryffindor Tower.
"Wait," Harry said, stopping him. "Hermione! She has no idea about the troll."
Ron's eyes widened. "So what do we do?" he asked quickly, now truly worried. If she ended up in danger, it would absolutely be his fault.
"We have to warn her" Percy said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Neville was really scared; however, he didn't want to abandon them either. So the four of them ran toward the first-floor bathroom.
"Maybe Peeves tried to make a joke and helped a troll get inside" Ron said, trying to find some explanation. Neville, running behind them, looked around nervously but didn't fall behind.
"Do you smell that?" Neville asked suddenly, noticing an odor similar to rotten cheese and sweaty socks after heavy exercise. It was terribly disgusting. The four of them had to cover their noses as the stench hit them.
"Hey," Percy said, looking ahead.
There they saw the troll barging in through one of the corridor doors.
It was enormous—ugly—with a ridiculously small head and a disproportionate body. In its hand it held a huge club made from a tree trunk, and its footsteps made the hallway tremble. It stood between three and four meters tall, and the awful smell clearly came from it.
When Ron saw it enter, an idea struck him instantly.
"We have to close it in. It'll be trapped and we'll have time to fetch a professor" he said quickly.
Without hesitation, the four of them ran to the door, slammed it shut and secured the lock.
Percy was about to turn around and tell Neville to run and warn the professors when Harry realized something.
"Wait!" he shouted, looking up and noticing the sign indicating where they were. "It's the girls' bathroom… Hermione is in here!" he yelled before hurriedly opening the door.
A scream echoed at that moment: it was Hermione. The girl was frozen in terror, sitting on the floor with her back pressed against the wall after dragging herself away from the enormous troll that was destroying the bathroom with its club. The sinks were shattered; water shot out in wild streams, falling onto the floor like uncontrolled rain.
Hermione trembled; her eyes, filled with tears, seemed paralyzed by fear. Her gaze met Harry's for a brief instant.
Percy was the first to react.
"Harry!" he shouted while running into the bathroom, straight toward the troll. He tapped his necklace twice, and his sword materialized, growing instantly in his hand.
Harry reacted barely a second later, quickly pulling out his wand and his magic tome.
Percy's shout caught the troll's attention, and it turned its head to look at him. Its expression was dumb, almost empty, but its presence was truly dangerous.
Percy sprinted toward it without stopping, and the troll, seeing him approach, raised its club with the clear intention of crushing him.
"Copies!" Harry yelled from behind, holding the tome in one hand and his wand in the other.
As soon as he spoke the spell, Percy—who was charging straight toward the troll—saw the club coming down toward him… and in that instant he split into five completely identical Percys, each moving in different directions.
The club hit one of them, but it dissolved into a cloud of mist and vanished.
Two more Percys ran toward the giant's sides and slashed at its legs. The troll stumbled back, surprised; however, the swords passed through it without causing any harm, revealing they were illusions as well.
The last two Percys suddenly leapt toward the troll's chest, aiming their swords at it as if they were going to stab it from both sides at once.
The troll raised an arm to protect itself on instinct, blocking only one of them… the illusion. The remaining Percy was the real one.
Percy stabbed the troll's chest with force. However, the moment the blade touched its skin, Percy realized something: the skin was incredibly tough. The sword went in only a little and got stuck there.
Without hesitation, Percy released the hilt, pushed off the troll's chest with one foot, flipped in the air backward, and landed, sliding across the floor until he stopped beside Harry.
Ron's mouth was wide open; he couldn't believe what he had just seen. Hermione, though still in shock because of the troll, also stared in astonishment. Everything had happened in just a few seconds.
"Tsk. Its skin is tougher than I thought" Percy said, tapping his pendant twice. The sword stuck in the troll's chest trembled for a moment and shot back directly toward the necklace, where it disappeared. Percy summoned it again immediately.
The troll roared, now visibly enraged by the pain.
Then it swung its club toward the group. Ron pushed Neville to the side, and both fell onto the floor. But Harry and Percy didn't move.
"Guys!" Neville shouted when he saw neither of them reacting.
"I think I soaked him enough" Percy said with a confident smile as he watched the giant. And yes: while fighting, he had used the water from the broken sinks to soak the troll without it noticing.
Harry didn't reply. He simply lifted his wand toward the troll.
"Frozen" he pronounced firmly.
His tome snapped open, flipping through pages until it found a specific spell, activating it instantly.
Suddenly, all the water in the bathroom froze; the floor, the wet walls, and the water soaking the troll became trapped in a layer of ice. Even the troll's club stopped just inches above Harry and Percy, unable to complete its swing.
Percy saw the club frozen right above them, but he also noticed the troll's eyes still moving beneath the layer of ice, which was already starting to crack.
He didn't waste a second.
He jumped with surprising agility, reaching the troll's head height. For a moment, it was clear he had used the unfrozen water to propel himself, rising even higher.
"I want to cut. I want to cut. I want to cut," Percy repeated mid-air like a mantra, completely focused. His sword only cut what he wanted it to cut; if he lost focus, it wouldn't cut even butter. And the tougher the target, the greater the concentration required. Maybe hard for someone with ADHD, but Percy could do it. After all, he was saving someone.
Percy slashed at the troll's neck with force, speed, and precision as he hung in the air.
The sword passed through easily; so easily that the sensation was similar to when he lost focus and his sword became intangible. It sliced through the neck with no resistance.
Percy landed, cushioning the fall by bending his knees.
A second later, the troll's head fell to the side of its frozen body.
Percy tapped the necklace twice; the sword vanished into it again. A slightly proud smile crossed his face.
Harry used his magic again to freeze the blood that began spilling.
"Well… that was easier than I thought" Harry said while closing his magic tome with a loud snap that startled Ron, Neville, and Hermione, who remained in shock after everything they had witnessed.
At that moment, hurried footsteps echoed in the hallway. Professor McGonagall rushed into the bathroom and froze completely at what she saw.
She placed a hand on her chest as she stared at the half-frozen, decapitated troll, the severed head lying on the floor beside Percy, and Percy, Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Ron standing around the scene.
"You… what… how… when?" she murmured. Thousands of questions seemed to form in her mind at the sight of an adult troll defeated and several students from her own house standing right next to it.