Roger's wand pointed at the floor beneath the troll's feet, but like Filch's office, the stone there had been specially treated by Hogwarts' ancient magic. The spell shot toward it and was deflected almost instantly, skidding away in a useless flash.
"Ah… ha!" The troll ignored the little wizard's effort completely and swung its club with savage force.
Roger rolled desperately. The club whistled past his head, close enough for the wind of it to sting his scalp, and when he stopped, his back was only three inches from the wall.
Death seemed to have already raised its scythe behind him. If it spoke at that moment, it would probably say something ridiculous and dramatic about severing souls and sending them home.
Seeing that its prey had nowhere left to run, the troll roared with delight. The sound filled the corridor, and the stench of rotten eggs and filthy socks blasted over Roger so violently that he wrinkled his nose. If not for his strong will, he might have been knocked unconscious by the smell alone.
The troll raised its huge wooden club with both hands. It lifted the weapon high overhead, preparing to smash it down on Roger's skull and end the fight in one blow.
Facing certain death, Roger grew calmer instead. His eyes locked onto the massive club, his fingers tightened around his wand, and every scattered thought in his mind vanished.
Like a lone knight on a battlefield, his wand was his only weapon. He trusted it completely, pouring every last bit of magic he had into it, and the unicorn hair within the wand seemed to sense its master's will.
A crimson light flared from the wand. Magic surged back through the sandalwood in a twisting current, becoming a stream of heat that rushed through Roger's body.
On the panel, his magic rapidly climbed from 3.5 back to 15. He felt the sudden flood of power fill his limbs, and his back straightened as he lifted his head to stare at the troll.
"Spongify!"
Roger shouted the incantation and reinforced it with every ounce of will he could gather. A powerful crimson beam shot from the tip of his wand, but its target was not the troll. It struck the club descending toward him at terrifying speed.
To the troll's bafflement, the club in its hands instantly softened into a swollen mass of cotton. The deadly weapon that had been about to crush Roger's head became a pale, fluffy thing in mid-swing.
"Success!" Roger breathed.
The battle was over. He had won.
The troll's monstrous strength could not be stopped so easily, however. The cotton-swollen club continued its downward arc, but the force behind it caused the softened weapon to burst apart in midair.
Cotton fibres exploded everywhere, scattering through the corridor like a blizzard. More importantly, the sudden loss of weight and resistance threw the troll completely off balance.
Its enormous body could no longer stay upright. Its heavy feet slipped, its knees buckled, and it pitched forward with a stunned grunt.
Snap!
The sound was so crisp and dreadful that it made Roger's back teeth ache. The troll's ankle bent at an almost right angle, and before the creature could even process the pain, its massive body slammed into the stone floor.
Bang!
The impact was like a small earthquake. Roger felt the entire corridor tremble beneath his feet while white cotton drifted down around them, light and soft as feathered rain.
For one bizarre moment, the scene was almost beautiful. Pale fluff spun gracefully through the air, settling over broken stone, shattered armour, and the fallen troll.
"Sectumsempra."
Roger showed no mercy to the temporarily unconscious creature. He was not Harry Potter, protected at school by fate, Dumbledore, and a truly unreasonable amount of luck.
The dark spell flew precisely into the troll's eye socket and burst out through the back of its head. Its already tiny brain emptied at once, and the troll's body gave one final twitch before going still.
Roger stepped over the corpse and left the corridor. Behind him, blood soaked into the cotton, staining the white fluff a deep crimson.
Exhausted of both magic and physical strength, he leaned against a broken statue to rest. Footsteps soon sounded from the top of the stairs, and Headmaster Dumbledore arrived with several professors close behind.
"The police always arrive last," Roger joked weakly.
Then, despite his dishevelled state, he straightened and bowed gracefully to the Headmaster and professors. "May magic be with you tonight, on Halloween."
"Roger!"
Hermione cried out and rushed toward him, throwing herself into his arms with such force that he nearly lost his balance.
"Cough, cough." Roger looked at her with a wry smile and forced a teasing tone into his voice. "Hermione, I feel like your strength is about the same as the troll's."
Dumbledore looked past them toward the dead creature. The troll's body was covered in cotton fluff like a strange shroud, while blood still gushed from the hole in its head, flowing over the floor in thick, dark streams.
"Roger, what happened here?" Dumbledore asked, visibly shocked.
He had not expected a first-year student to survive a troll alone, let alone kill one. Even with the evidence lying in front of him, the result was difficult to accept.
"As you can see, Headmaster." Roger shrugged, then gently tugged Hermione up from his arms. "Hermione and I went to the library this afternoon to look up information. We ran into this big oaf on our way back."
"And then?" Professor McGonagall asked sharply. Her face was pale as she looked between the ruined corridor and the troll's corpse. "This is a troll. Couldn't you have asked a teacher for help?"
She kept patting her chest, clearly frightened by what might have happened. If a student had died because of a troll inside Hogwarts, she did not know how she would have forgiven herself.
"Professor, the troll was blocking the way toward the Great Hall," Hermione said quickly. "We couldn't avoid it."
Her voice still trembled, but she forced herself to continue. "Then it came toward us. I only had the chance to find you because Roger led it away."
"Actually, this fellow was quite stupid," Roger said, seeing Hermione's eyes fill with tears again. He tried to lighten the mood with a smile. "As ridiculous as a circus monkey."
Hermione cried harder.
"Really," Roger said helplessly. Then he noticed Dumbledore's thoughtful gaze and added, "At first, I wanted to use Transfiguration to turn the floor into a swamp and trap it, but Hogwarts' floors are too magically resistant. The spell bounced off."
"A Transfiguration spell?" Dumbledore nodded slowly. "A clever idea. And after that?"
"After that, it was simple," Roger said. "I turned the big wooden club in its hand into cotton."
He demonstrated with a small gesture. "It swung like this, and the club exploded in the air."
"I didn't want to kill it, but I had no other choice at the time," Roger continued, sighing with an expression full of regret. "There was a wall behind me, and Death was standing right there."
He glanced toward Snape, his eyes carrying a clear expectation. "Luckily, I had just learned Sectumsempra. Otherwise…"
Roger made a lingeringly fearful expression, as if silently reminding his Head of House that this was where Snape should stand up for his own student.
Snape stepped forward and examined the troll. After a moment, he nodded to Dumbledore. "I taught him the spell."
Dumbledore pondered for a moment. Then he looked at Roger seriously, his voice gentle but heavy. "Taking a life is no easy thing. I understand the situation you faced when you killed the troll."
He paused, and his blue eyes seemed to search Roger's face. "But remember this: we do not become darkness in order to conquer darkness. We protect the light."
Dumbledore could find no obvious flaw in the scene or in Roger's explanation. Even so, something about it still felt wrong, like a note played slightly off-key.
"Roger, you showed strategy under pressure," Dumbledore said at last. "Five points to Slytherin."
He then looked at Hermione. "Hermione, your loyalty to your friend also earns Gryffindor five points."
"Children, may magic be with you tonight, on Halloween," Dumbledore said.
He waved his wand, and the ruined corridor restored itself. Broken stone returned to its place, shattered armour repaired, dust vanished, and the walls became whole again.
The cotton on the troll lost its magic and turned back into sharp wooden splinters. They scattered across the corpse, making the dead creature look less like a fallen monster and more like a gruesome failed experiment.
"Professor, is this troll my trophy?" Roger asked, looking at Snape expectantly.
Snape nodded without speaking.
"Excellent. This troll is almost perfectly intact," Roger said, instantly forgetting how terrifying the creature had been. He began counting on his fingers. "Troll bogeys are potion ingredients, its eyes can be made into specimens, and its hide has strong magical resistance. It's a good research subject. Maybe…"
"That is quite enough," Professor McGonagall interrupted, frowning.
The term had only just begun, and the children were already being led astray by Snape. The fact that a first-year was calmly planning to harvest troll parts in a blood-soaked corridor did not reassure her at all.
Only after she spoke did Roger realize how awful he smelled. He gagged like a cat trying to cough up something unspeakable and nearly retched up bile.
Without Harry and Ron's involvement, the Gryffindor trio had made no progress as a group. However, because of the secret beneath the trapdoor, Harry and Ron frequently broke curfew, forcing Hermione to keep an eye on them for the sake of her House points.
"Ah, if only Hermione were in Slytherin," Roger sighed as he closed his book.
Snape did not spare him even on Sunday. A message arrived ordering him to report to the dungeons, and there was no doubt the old bat intended to send him to gather plants at the bottom of the Black Lake.
"Professor, I wish you a wonderful life," Roger said with a slightly sinister smile.
As revenge, he left a letter for Madam Pince in Snape's name. The prank was petty, dangerous, and deeply satisfying.
"What about today's potion?" Snape asked in a gloomy tone when Roger arrived.
"Ah." Roger froze. "Professor, I think I may have genuinely forgotten to make it."
Seeing Snape's gaze grow steadily more hostile, Roger swallowed hard. He already had to hand in twenty bottles at a time, and if the number increased again, it might actually kill him.
Snape did not continue mocking him. Instead, he swept his cloak aside and set up the cauldron, and Roger immediately focused all his attention on watching. This was one of the few times Snape personally taught him.
.....
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