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It was as Halloween approached that Harry started to become a tad more anxious.
Some could say, to a noticeable degree.
Of course, to notice you'd have to know him pretty well.
"You look a bit off," Tonks said slowly as if wondering if she should say it at all.
Harry lowered his wand from where he'd been practising in his half of the Room of Requirement and gave her a confused look.
Of course, he was anxious, after all, in the original books, Quirrell would let a troll into Hogwarts to distract people as he tested the defences on the Philosopher's Stone. It was the night that Harry, Ron and Hermione became an inseparable trio of troublemakers.
Now, everything was different. Ron was in Gryffindor, Hermione was in Ravenclaw, and Neville was in Hufflepuff.
He had told Neville to perhaps try to befriend the annoying bushy-haired girl since she was feeling alone, but he hadn't gone back to check the progress on that.
So, he didn't know if Hermione would still be absent during the feast, crying in a bathroom. He also didn't even know for sure if Quirrell would let a troll in.
In essence, then, he just had the usual worries of a self-insert who lived in an alternative universe.
Nothing special, really. Weren't all people self-inserts in universes that they didn't know the future of?
The only issue was that it was this complex topic, making him anxious, that he couldn't share with Tonks.
It seemed like he would have to distract the girl somehow, as she had now completely lowered the wand that had been getting used to producing the silver mist of the Patronus, and was looking at him for an answer.
Harry waved his wand in front of him, almost distractedly, summoning his own floating silver raccoon before leaning in to whisper in its spectral air. After a few sentences, the raccoon flew off towards Tonks, where it righted its hind legs and threateningly raised its paws.
Its mouth did not move, but a voice nevertheless came from within.
"You are hereby informed that Master Harry is currently feeling the aftereffects of a too-heavy breakfast." The effect was somewhat ruined because the message came out in Harry's own voice.
However, the intended effect was achieved, and Tonks' eyes sparkled.
"You figured it out!" she screamed excitedly, running over to the younger boy and glomping on him. Then she picked him up and spun him around a few times, screaming incoherently in his ear.
"This is going to be so good for my grade!" she finally managed to shout enthusiastically after she'd dropped him.
Harry wobbled a bit on his feet. "You mean my grade?" he asked, confusedly.
The pink-haired girl simply rolled her eyes. "You're teaching me, obviously," she said as if it was obvious.
Well, it was, but still.
"So how does it work?" she asked before he could answer. "Dumbledore's thing was pretty cryptic."
Harry briefly remembered Dumbledore's words before rolling his eyes.
"I don't know why he phrased it like that either," he muttered, before coughing under Tonks' intense stare. "Anyway, the way I was able to link communication with happiness was with the bridge that humans are social creatures and that our happiness is often created in communication with others. Seeing as language modelling is a rather distinctive ability that we have as a species, the reduction of this concept to the simple 'speaking to others brings me joy' was the natural next step. It worked after I practised inserting the anthropological identity of humanity into the feeling of joy necessary to create a Patronus, on the basis that it is our biological reality which creates the prerequisite for happiness in the first place. At least in its typing, that is," he explained.
He wondered how Dumbledore had figured this out in the first place. Harry had just reproduced it with some prodding. The man had been working blind. He glanced at Tonks only to see that she had spaced out.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Tonks visibly swallowed before nodding and giving him a thumbs up. "You guys speak a different language, but whatever makes the spell work," she eventually said with a note of exasperation in her voice. "Can you dumb it down a bit, though?"
Harry gave her a disparaging glance.
It wasn't that complicated.
"Talking equals social bonds, without social bonds, happiness would be impossible; therefore, talking is an integral part of happiness. It's just formal logic based on emotional realities and imposed on magical principles," he explained calmly.
"Hey Harry," Tonks suddenly started slowly with a far-away look in her eyes. "Want to duel?" she asked. "I suddenly feel the urge to kick your ass."
Harry rolled his shoulders. "You can try, I guess," he teased.
-/-
However, no matter how many interesting and hard-to-learn spell variations Harry mastered, there was nothing that could stop the ever-marching Father Time.
Halloween approached, but with it, thankfully, also came some good news.
Harry finally saw Hermione, Neville and Harley hanging out while out on one of his roamings of the castle. This settled his heart somewhat.
When he confronted Neville in their next duelling session, if he and Hermione were sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, the boy sputtered, ran red in the face, and assured him that they were just friends.
That, of course, had been his plan all along.
In addition to all of this, he had received another chance to advance the cold case of his own existence.
Slughorn, just like last year, was hosting a Halloween party, and despite Harry's near failing in the man's class, he still received an invitation. As did Penny and Tonks this time.
Neville naturally also got one. Now he was not only The Boy Who Lived, but also the son of one of the men with the best chance to become Minister of Magic.
The invitation was important because last year, Severus Snape in all his hook-nosed glory had been present. Unfortunately, the werewolf attack had spoiled Harry's chances of talking to the man, as the students had had to return to their dorms after the patronus carrying the message had arrived.
James Potter had left the party via defenestration.
This year, if Harry saw the sallow-faced potions master again, he wasn't letting him out of his sight.
He was going to corner the man and guilt-trip out of him whatever information he had.
He'd even been practising his puppy dog eyes and his sad orphan face in the mirror. Unfortunately, as he was rapidly approaching adulthood, only five years left!- The look was starting to lose its effect.
-/-
It was when one dreaded something that one became somewhat happy when the day of judgement finally arrived. It at least relieved the stress of waiting, right?
Quirrell had been acting exactly the same in their lessons together, not giving any indication that he was planning something nefarious, but the man was probably just a decent actor.
It wasn't until Harry entered the garishly decorated Great Hall with its thousands of candles and its floating pumpkins and saw the professor sitting at the professor's table idly chatting with Hagrid that he was finally able to relax.
In the original novels, Quirrell had stolen the time to check on the third-floor corridor by pretending to faint in the Great Hall, before presumably getting up in the chaos of evacuation.
Considering that he was here right now, it would be a tad more difficult for him to escape and put forward any machination.
A glance at the Ravenclaw table revealed that Hermione wasn't present for some reason. He gritted his teeth. What the hell was happening? How did this happen twice in a row?
Neville was there at least, chattering away with Harley at the Hufflepuff table, and even Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy were all present.
There wasn't anything Harry could do about Hermione's absence, so he could only sigh and join Tonks where she was sitting.
That was, of course, when Filch, the squib caretaker of the school, ran into the Great Hall dramatically.
"Trolls, trolls in the dungeon!" he screamed with a hoarse voice, looking a bit faint from the run. "Thought you ought to know," he added helpfully before collapsing forward on all fours, having obviously expended most of his energies in the run here.
A moment of silence resounded throughout the Great Hall, and then, chaos ensued.
It was Dumbledore who eventually took control of the situation. Harry already knew that it was likely going to be him, so he'd been keeping an eye out on the old man in his seated position.
Dumbledore didn't look too happy about the troll incursion and stepped up while pulling out his wand and putting it to his throat.
"Silence!" he shouted calmly, filling every corner of the great hall with his voice.
Either because of the authority of the headmaster or his illustrious history as one of the most powerful and wisest wizards alive, the student population immediately calmed themselves.
"Everyone will be escorted to their common rooms by their heads of houses and one additional professor!" he announced with great serenity. "Meanwhile, the rest of us will go look for the troll."
With great efficiency, as if it had been meticulously planned beforehand, the heads of houses went to the front of their respective students.
Hufflepuff was, of course, led by Sprout, and the back-line was made up by the female professor, often voted as the hottest teacher, Professor Sinistra.
Harry tried to keep an eye out for all of the people of interest who were hard to make out in the crowd and managed to therefore see that Neville and Harley were acting erratically, walking up to Sprout, before getting rebuffed and then falling back into line.
It was perhaps because Harry was already looking in his direction that Neville managed to catch his eye through the chaos, which caused him to run towards him.
He arrived in front of Harry quickly and quickly said something a bit concerning. "Hermione! She's practising jinxes in the abandoned etiquette classroom!" he shouted loudly.
The older of the two boys critically looked at the professor, who would likely be unwilling to leave forty students to go look for one student.
"Let's go," Harry said to Neville, deciding to follow the plot for once.
One last glance at the Great Hall confirmed one thing, though.
Quirrell was nowhere to be seen.
-/-
The etiquette classroom was precariously positioned on the second floor, close to the stairways leading to the dungeon. It was because of this that Harry, Harley and Neville ran there with a sense of urgency.
In the chaos of the evacuation, no one seemed to have noticed them escaping the herd. Even if they did, they likely wouldn't chase after them either.
Their leather shoes clacked loudly against the stone as they ran to their destination, fearing that after every corner they'd bump into a shambling monstrosity wielding a large wooden club.
It was because of this that Harry let Neville lead the way. The boy wasn't capable of dying before he met Voldemort, so he was probably at least somewhat immune to troll-induced blunt-force trauma.
They thankfully managed to reach the etiquette classroom without meeting anyone, man or beast.
However, as they rushed into the classroom ready to barricade the door and huddle up, they found it empty.
"What exactly did Hermione say she would do?" Harry asked urgently as Harley and Neville looked around in confusion.
"She said," Neville started to stammer before Harley interrupted him.
"She said that there's no point in sitting at the Ravenclaw table at the feast and that she'd rather practise her spellwork here. We told her we'd meet her hereafter, but where is she?" she said in a panicked, but more coherent voice.
"Did she hear about the troll?" Neville wondered.
Harry shook his head. "How? Dumbledore's voice, no matter how enhanced, won't carry this far…" He trailed off, then grimaced. "If she said she'd wait for you here, I believe her. The only reason she'd leave would go to the bathroom." He looked at Harley, causing the black-haired girl to startle as she paled.
"From this position, there are two girls' bathrooms, both equally far away," she realised in horror.
It was then that Harry remembered an ability that he had recently acquired, which could have already helped them earlier.
Not bothering to explain, he waved his wand. "Expecto Patronum," he incanted and summoned his raccoon spirit guardian.
The animal, seemingly sensing the urgency of the situation, leaned its ear towards Harry.
"Hurry," was what Harry decided to say, before sending the animal off towards Hermione.
"Follow me!" he shouted as the raccoon zoomed right out of the classroom. He didn't bother to check if Harley and Neville were behind him before running off.
His legs ate up the distance as the silver guardian zoomed into the hallway on the left. He was just aware enough as he ran to hear the pitter-patter of two footsteps following close behind.
They ran like that and reached their destination in less than 30 seconds, just in time to see a hulking grey beast dressed in only a loincloth and dragging behind it a huge wooden club entering the bathroom.
Harry's patronus flew straight through the beast to relay its message, before a shrill shriek sounded from the bathroom.
It seemed that Hermione had finally noticed the troll.
Harry didn't have time to think much, or even to consider a plan. He felt that Neville and Harley were behind him and simply ran into the bathroom.
Just in time to see the troll swing its club and destroy all of the toilet compartments, shards of wood flying in the air with a loud crash.
Hermione, meanwhile, was cowering under the sinks with a fearful look on her face.
The troll raised its club again, now aiming for the girl.
Harry, still running, threw himself onto his knees.
The troll had widened its legs for the swinging stance, and Harry slid on the tiled floor right underneath and between. Under the loincloth, not low enough to avoid gently brushing against something hanging in between there. He didn't have time to retch. He came out on the other side right in front of Hermione.
Just in time to clasp his wand in his palm and slam his hands together.
The wooden club hurling towards them stopped in mid-air.
Harry Evans wasn't Ronald Weasley. His telekinesis was powerful, trained for more than a decade and now channelled through the amplifying power of a wand.
Usually, one couldn't affect the personal objects of other beings, but the troll was too dumb to have any resistance from Harry's takeover.
Comparing force? Harry could exert more with his magical might than the troll could with his physical strength.
The club stopped, and the troll kept swinging.
A sickening crack resounded in the bathroom as the troll's right elbow broke at the joint from the halted impact.
Harry saw Neville and Harley arrive at the door to the bathroom, panting, right as he swung his arms apart.
The club flew out of the troll's broken arm and smashed against the wall. Harley sent some sort of sickly yellow spell at the troll's back, but it had no effect.
Neville, seemingly remembering the troll's magic-resistant hide, seemed at a loss for what to do.
Thankfully, he didn't jump on the troll's back to attack its nostrils, because the next moment the club, still under Harry's control, smashed into the troll's disproportionately small head.
In the contest between the club's integrity and Harry's kinetic output against the troll's skull, the skull lost.
There was no cracking or fracturing. The club simply flew through the space where the troll's head was without meeting any resistance.
Blood, brain matter and fragmented shards of cranium splattered wetly against the mirror above the sinks before the club followed and smashed the reflective surfaces into pieces.
The now-beheaded troll stood there for a second before its body caught up with its sudden loss of motor functions. Then it fell forward first on its knees, and then the torso followed.
A large amount of blood squirted out of the now-exposed neck and started spraying onto the floor in a bloody fountain of squirts and squelches.
The bathroom descended into silence, interrupted only by the occasional splatter of liquid and a shard from the now-broken mirror falling to the floor and shattering.
Neville and Harley were both looking at Harry with wide eyes.
Hermione was still whimpering in the corner under the sink.
"That's why you should always wear a helmet," Harry said in a traumatised manner, referring here to two separate instances in which a helmet would have been helpful.
"There was a raccoon," Hermione muttered weakly.
Loud footsteps resounded from the corridor.
"Not taking the L for this, anyone asks I wasn't here," Harry said before tapping himself on the head with his wand and disillusioning himself.
Just in time for McGonagall, Slughorn and Quirrell to burst through the broken door and behold the carnage.
"What is going on here?" the deputy headmistress shouted while Slughorn, fat as he was, had to crutch himself up on his knees as he breathed heavily.
The trio of children shared confused glances with each other.
Harry, for his part, stood there disillusioned and tried not to breathe too loudly.
Hermione suddenly stood up and stepped forward. "It was me, professor, I went to look for the troll. I thought I could capture it. Neville and Har-Harley simply went after me," she admitted guiltily.
Professor McGonagall simply stared at her in incomprehension. "That is by far the most foolish thing I have ever seen a student do. you're lucky you're alive," she said. "15 points from Ravenclaw," she announced. She then looked at the corpse on the floor and frowned. "However, two first-years and a second year doing this to a mountain troll. How would you even," she trailed off confusedly.
"I used Wingardium Leviosa," Neville blurted out. "To take its club and bash it in the head," he said guiltily.
McGonagall likely assumed he was feeling guilty for taking a life, not for lying. "You were simply defending yourself, Mr. Longbottom. The fault lies with whoever led this troll into the castle. Albus will have a field day with this," she muttered in the end.
"Impressive work, Mr. Longbottom," Slughorn managed to wheeze. "Hard to say if I'd have thought of it myself."
"Yes, impressive," Quirrell muttered with a small smirk. His eyes, however, were fixed exactly to the position where Harry was hiding, making the boy's heart pick up its pace.
"5 points each," McGonagall announced. "You shouldn't have come here without a professor, but I shudder to think what would have happened had you not realised Miss Granger was gone." She clapped her hands. "To the dorms now!" she announced, before looking at Slughorn.
"Can you take Miss Granger?" she asked. "I'll escort Mr Longbottom and Miss Black."
Slughorn barely managed a nod and joined a shaky Hermione to go towards the Ravenclaw tower.
McGonagall absconded with the two Hufflepuffs.
Quirrell remained at the doorway, looking at Harry with a weird smirk before glancing again at the dead troll, shaking his head, before turning around and leaving.
Harry was left alone in the bathroom and likely had just a moment to escape before the professors returned to dispose of the corpse.
He promptly used this opportunity to slip away and tackle his next task.
Sneaking into the Hufflepuff dormitories.
Forget the sensation of...
Also, to research how to suppress his magical signature.
Dealing with people such as Voldemort and Dumbledore… He was starting to suspect that the disillusionment charm wouldn't cut it.
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AN: If you liked this chapter considering support me on Patreon to read ahead :) More troll balls smashing into faces in the future. Or not if you didn't like it lmao