As the Great Hall filled with the sound of hundreds of chattering students eagerly anticipating the Halloween feast, two small figures slipped away from the throng. Harry, feeling a quiet gratitude that was so profound it was almost painful, followed Ariana. She moved with her usual silent grace, leading him not towards the dungeons or the upper floors, but down a flight of stairs he'd never noticed before, towards the school's bustling heart.
The entrance to the kitchens was hidden behind a large, unassuming painting of a bowl of fruit. Ariana tickled the pear, and it giggled, squirming before transforming into a green, shimmering doorknob. The sight brought a small, genuine smile to Harry's face.
The kitchens were a stark contrast to the gothic grandeur of the rest of the castle. It was a cavernous, high-ceilinged room, warm and bright, filled with the delicious smells of roasting pumpkin and baking bread. Dozens of house-elves, clad in tea towels stamped with the Hogwarts crest, rushed about, their large, bat-like ears flapping as they tended to pots and pans and carried enormous platters of food up to the Great Hall.
A few of them noticed the two students and immediately scurried over, bowing so low their noses nearly touched the flagstone floor.
"Can we help you, young Master and Miss?" one squeaked, his tennis-ball eyes wide with reverence.
"We won't be attending the feast," Ariana explained, her voice gentle but clear, addressing the elves with a simple respect that made them stand up a little straighter. "We were hoping we might be able to have a small, quiet meal down here instead."
The elves seemed utterly delighted by the request. In moments, they had cleared a small wooden table in a quiet corner and loaded it with a selection of simpler fare—roast chicken, potatoes, a small pumpkin pasty each, and two goblets of pumpkin juice. It was perfect.
They ate in a comfortable silence, the distant roar of the feast above them a muted backdrop. For the first time, Harry felt the oppressive weight of Halloween lift. He wasn't the Boy Who Lived, the symbol of Voldemort's downfall. He was just Harry, sharing a quiet meal with a friend who understood the sorrow beneath the spectacle.
After they had eaten, they began to make their way back up through the castle, intending to go to the Owlery as planned. Ariana chose a route that took them along the second-floor corridor, a path she had mapped in her mind and knew to be close to the site of the original story's confrontation.
It was a necessary detour for her plan to unfold.
As they passed a set of girls' lavatories, a sound pierced the relative quiet of the empty corridor. It was a scream. A high, terrified scream of pure, unadulterated panic. It was Hermione.
Harry froze, his blood running cold. "That was… Hermione! What's going on?"
Before he could even process the thought, a smell hit them—a foul, nauseating stench, like a public toilet that hadn't been cleaned in a year, mixed with something vaguely swampy. And then they heard it. A low, guttural grunt, followed by the sound of splintering wood and shattering porcelain.
Ariana didn't need to see it to know what it was. Her plan was now in motion.
"Stay behind me, Harry," she said, her voice dropping the gentle warmth it had held in the kitchens and taking on the cool, sharp edge of command. Her Elder wand slid from its holster into her hand with a silent flick of her wrist.
She moved towards the source of the noise, not with a panicked rush, but with the swift,
purposeful stride of a soldier advancing on a known target. She rounded the corner and saw the scene. The lavatory had been destroyed. Sinks were torn from the walls, pipes were broken, and water was flooding the floor. And in the center of the devastation stood a twelve-foot mountain troll. Its skin was the colour of dull granite, its body was lumpy and brutish, and it was wielding a massive, gnarled club. It had Hermione cornered, pressed back against the far wall, her face white with terror, too petrified to even scream again.
The troll raised its club, its tiny, dull eyes fixed on its prey.
Ariana acted. Her magic flowed from her, not in a single burst, but in a rapid, precise sequence, a symphony of calculated force.
First, protection. "Harry, the door! Protego!" she commanded, not even looking back. A shield of shimmering, transparent energy erupted from her wand, forming a dome over Hermione just as the troll's club came crashing down. The wood impacted the magical barrier with a deafening CRACK, sending splinters flying but leaving Hermione completely unharmed, albeit shaking uncontrollably.
Second, control the battlefield. "Block its path," Ariana murmured to herself. She aimed her wand at the floor in front of the troll. With a silent, powerful weaving motion, the wet flagstones beneath the creature's feet transmuted, their surface becoming a sheet of impossibly smooth, frictionless ice. The troll, attempting to take another step, let out a grunt of surprise as its huge feet shot out from under it. It windmilled its arms, trying to keep its balance, its club swinging wildly.
Third, disorient the enemy. While it was off-balance, she cast again. "Lumos Maxima!" she incanted, but this was no gentle, coloured light. She poured a raw, concentrated burst of power into the spell. A sphere of brilliant, blinding white light, as intense as a flashbang, exploded directly in the troll's face. The creature roared in pain and confusion, clapping its huge hands over its eyes, completely blinded.
Fourth, disarm. The troll was still flailing, its club a menace even while it was blind. "Wingardium Leviosa," Ariana cast, her wand movement sharp and precise. The massive wooden club was wrenched from the troll's grasp and lifted high into the air, hovering twenty feet above the creature's head.
The troll, now blind, disarmed, and slipping on the magical ice, was a pathetic, floundering thing. It slipped again, its feet flying up, and it crashed onto its back with a tremendous, ground-shaking thud that made the very walls tremble. Its head hit the stone floor hard, and it lay there, dazed and groaning.
Finally, neutralize the threat. With the troll prone and disoriented, Ariana guided the levitating club directly over its face. She then cancelled the charm. The massive weight of the wood, combined with gravity, did the rest. The club fell, not with a swing, but with a straight, brutal drop, impacting the troll's temple with a sickening, wet crunch. The creature's groans ceased. It was out cold.
The entire confrontation had lasted less than fifteen seconds.
Ariana did not relax. "Incarcerous," she stated calmly. Thick, magical ropes erupted from her wand and wrapped themselves tightly around the unconscious troll, binding its limbs securely. The situation was contained.
Just as the ropes finished tightening, the sound of running footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell burst onto the scene, their faces a mixture of alarm and disbelief. They took in the devastation, the unconscious, bound troll, the terrified but shielded
Hermione, the pale-faced Harry by the door, and finally, Ariana, standing calmly in the center of it all, her wand still held in a ready position.
"Explain yourselves!" McGonagall demanded, her voice shaking with rage and relief.
Quirrell, stammering and trembling, looked at the troll. "B-but… it was supposed to be in the ddungeons…"
Snape's black eyes, however, were fixed on Ariana, a flicker of something unreadable—shock? respect? suspicion?—in their depths.
Before Hermione could open her mouth to stammer out the lie she had been formulating in her head, the one where she took the blame to save Harry and Ron, Ariana spoke. Her voice was clear, calm, and carried over the sound of gushing water. It was the voice of someone delivering a simple, factual report.
"Ron Weasley made Hermione cry in Charms class this morning," she began, leaving no room for interruption. "She has been in this lavatory ever since. Harry and I were not at the feast. Today is the anniversary of his parents' death, and we felt it was more appropriate to grieve quietly than to celebrate. We were on our way back from the kitchens when we heard her scream. I shielded her, and then I neutralized the threat."
Her statement was a masterpiece of truth. It was concise, it was accurate, and it preempted any possible narrative Hermione might have invented. It laid the blame for Hermione's presence squarely on Ron's shoulders, it provided an unassailable alibi for herself and Harry, and it presented her own actions not as reckless heroism, but as a logical, necessary response to an immediate danger.
The professors were stunned into silence. McGonagall looked from Ariana's serene, composed face to Hermione's tear-streaked one, then to the unconscious troll, and a dawning understanding spread across her features. Snape's lip curled, but he said nothing, his gaze still fixed on the girl who had single-handedly, and with terrifying efficiency, taken down a fully-grown mountain troll.
Hermione stared at Ariana, her mouth opening and closing silently. She had been ready to lie, to sacrifice her own reputation to protect the boys who had insulted her. And Ariana, with a few simple, true sentences, had rendered it all unnecessary. She had not only saved her life with magic, but she had also protected her with the truth, cutting through the potential tangle of lies and blame with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel.
In that moment, standing amidst the wreckage, Hermione Granger looked at Ariana Dumbledore and saw not a rival, not an aloof prodigy, but a force of nature unlike anything she had ever encountered.