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Hogwarts
–Damian Hawthorne–
"Can you push it into the bathroom here?" Harry asked, his wand still trained towards the troll silhouette. His eyebrows rose at that. That was awfully close to them. Practically within swinging distance of that troll's club. Plus, he would have to angle the whole blast and probably discharge two in quick succession to make sure the troll was blasted sufficiently into the bathroom.
Before he could answer his question or comment on the frankly very dangerous plan, Ron butt in, "The hell! Harry, are you crazy? If it reaches the bathroom door, we will all die. Think of something else."
"I don't see any other option, Ron. If the best we can do is push it back somewhat, then just pushing it in that direction is pointless. His relic will run long out of power before the hallway is over. Our only option is pushing it into the bathroom and running out of here." Harry replied, once again, in a calm voice. He wondered if the Golden Boy was taught any mental magics that were being used right now. Curiouser and curioser.
"Why can't we just do what he did?" He felt a light shove on his back from Ron, and a light shove for him must be a hard push from Ron, which was kind of dumb on his part since he was their only way out of here, but he did not fault the scared kid, he was not very bright in the brains department here.
"Won't work," Once again, Harry was the one who answered or began to answer anyway before Hermione interrupted, "It is targeting us, for some reason. It didn't even react when Damian here made a loud noise or even when he ran right past the troll. I don't think it will act the same if we do that. Plus, even in the best case scenario, only one of us can go at a time. We will have to do that four times."
"Also, we don't know what will happen to the last person who tries that strategy," Harry replied solemnly, and he pictured the kids imagining scenarios in their heads about being crushed by troll clubs as three of them simultaneously flinched, a little in the case of Harry and very much full body flinch in the case of Ron.
Poor kids. They didn't know that in the worst case scenario, he will just let his identity go to shreds before taking them out of here. But that was the worst case. He still had cards to play here. Thankfully, he always remembered to keep his wand with him otherwise, it would have been tricky to explain to any teacher why he was walking around without something that was intrinsically linked to every single wizard in Magical Britain.
The wand was not an appropriate option, though, if he wanted to maintain his identity. He was not supposed to know any powerful enough spells to get past that conjuration's defenses, and to be honest, he didn't know. He knew other ways to do that, but none of them were feasible right now.
"Okay," He said out loud, breaking up whatever furious whispered discussion was happening behind him between Ron and Hermione, "Let's do it."
"Are you sure?" Harry was the one who ended up asking him that, as if it was not his own plan. He deadpanned at the kid, "Do we have any other option?"
Harry nodded slowly at that, before turning to the troll in front of them, all the while he furiously cursed all the teachers who were STILL NOT HERE!
Scooching back all the way, all four of them practically stuck to the wall behind them, a wall that was not moving at all despite Hogwarts constantly being able to rearrange the entire castle based on her will, they looked at the advancing troll. He saw the body of the conjuration completely fine, despite taking point black kinetic blasts. He clenched the knife in his hand a tad bit tighter as his other hand reached into his robe to get a hold of his wand.
So far, aside from that one time to get a confirmation, he had not enchanted his wand to do something. The wand felt…incomplte in a way that made him pause any project of enchanting the wand so that he could fake using it properly. No, he had to find the missing pieces, something inside of him told him that he would regret it if he messed with the wand now. Hence, the completely unenchanted wand, being used as just a prop.
He could use it to just use his own brand of enchantment magic, but all that was a flashy endeavour, not to mention extremely familiar to those who had ever seen him in action, ala, Dumbledore. So, Harry's plan was the best one here.
He could literally feel the heart rates of everyone around him rise as the troll advanced. Harry's wand tip trembled the slightest bit as it glowed a bit, likely in preparation to cast the protego charm on them while they ran away. A good strategy, just one that was not going to work in the face of whatever disintegration aura the troll had.
It destroyed the enchantments on those arrows with ease, so he saw no reason why it couldn't do the same for Harry's shield. Doesn't matter, though, he thought to himself as the troll was within the final two steps until it was in the right position.
In that moment, as the troll took another step, a mythical figure flashed through his mind, with the extremely W quote from the man of Might.
Don't worry! Why? Because I am here!
Stray thoughts banished, he raised the knife properly as the troll took its final step towards them, club resting on its shoulder for some reason. He wondered if Tommy boy was seeing this or not. Maybe not, otherwise the troll would have speed run this whole thing long ago.
As the club began rising from the shoulder, he shouted, "NOW!" before jumping towards the side of the troll, aiming at the midsection before blasting the troll with so much kinetic bombardment that even he had to steady himself, and even then, his feet touched the wall of the hallway.
The blast was enough for the troll to take two steps, and only that. His eyes narrowed as he took a split second decision, as the shimmering blue told him that Harry had cast the shield spell and was in the process of running away.
They would not make it. No, the troll was already in the process of stepping forward, its gaze honing in on the Golden Trio, or rather, the Golden Boy, which was bad.
Sighing, he realised that there was no other way and began enchanting the stuff he had on him. His inner clothing had pieces of stone and metal mixed in. Small filings that could be used in case of an emergency, but they also burned through the rest of the material. He was not looking forward to explaining why people could see outlines of burn marks on his uniform.
stepping forward, he forcefully kept the melting slag of pebbles into the rough shape of a knife before creating yet another kinetic bomb, one that was bigger than all the ones he had created before. It worked, it pushed the troll so much, the club slipped from its hands, and it carved grooves in both the tiles and the walls around it.
The sound of tiles shattering made him realise that Harry and the others had escaped the hallway successfully, so he did the same, barely fighting off the urge to get a sample if possible or do some more experimentation on a Unicorn Blood powered Conjuration. Tommy boy must have done some rather extensive enchantment work on it, too, for the disintegration effect on top of the Notice Me Not effect that was powerful enough to work on something as powerful as the Hogwarts ward matrix.
He left the molten slag right there, purposefully letting some of it burn his hand, which was kind of hard as he had to cast magic to heat it up enough, as he ran towards the trio, with Harry's Protego charm still pointed towards the bathroom entrance.
Knowing that the troll was likely going to come after them, he did not stop at all, passing them while shouting, "RUN!"
Ah! Fun Times….
Now, if only the truly responsible people of the castle came and saved a bunch of students. He hated being the responsible one.
"Here!" He skid to a halt in front of a piece of wall that looked completely unremarkable, save for its strategic positioning right next to two different pieces of armoured knights.
Prying open the door disguised as a wall, he pushed the three in before jumping in as well, closing the door on his way, as the three Lumos charms lit up the stairway going straight down.
"Where are we going?" Ron whispered, despite there being no need for that. The sound of the Troll's heavy feet hitting the floor receded as they went down the castle.
"This stair leads directly to the hallway right next to the Great Hall." He helpfully informed them and then rolled his eyes at Ron's response.
"A secret stairway? Wicked!"
Ugh. Children.
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