The second-floor corridor was choked with the heavy, suffocating stench of a stagnant swamp and rotting meat. Harry and Ron sprinted past the suits of armor, their dragon-hide boots skidding on the stone floor.
Because they were only first-years, they hadn't actually gone through the intense, practical simulation inside the enchanted pavilion with the older students. They hadn't felt the vertigo of the acoustic isolation firsthand, nor had they practiced the physical execution of the movements under pressure. All they had to rely on were the theoretical notes Hermione had frantically scribbled down from the retelling by Fred and George.
"We need a localized perimeter the moment we look inside," Ron panted, his hand gripped tightly around his taped ash wand. "No blind charges. Remember what he said about predator blind spots."
"Right," Harry said, his heart hammering against his ribs. "If it's a mountain troll, its hide is dense and resistant to Magic. Standard hexes will just bounce."
They rounded the final corner just as a piercing, terrified scream echoed from the girls' bathroom. The heavy oak door had already been splintered into kindling, shattered by a massive, gnarled wooden club.
Sprinting through the threshold, they were met with a sight of absolute devastation. Sinks had been torn from the stone walls, spraying arcs of pressurized water across the floor, and chunks of ancient masonry lay shattered in the puddles. Slumped beneath a row of cracked mirrors, her face entirely white and her eyes wide with terror, was Hermione Granger.
Towering over her was the mountain troll. It stood over twelve feet tall, a colossal mass of dull, granite-grey flesh. It raised its club high, preparing to bring it down on the fragile timber hiding her.
"Hey! Pea-brain!" Ron roared.
Attempting to stall the Troll, Ron cast Flippendo on the Troll's Club. But without the rigorous practical training, his aim was off.
The Flippendo charm sliced through the misty air with a sharp thwip, but instead of striking the troll's club, it hit the one of broken pipes causing it to cause even louder commotion which succeeded in drawing the beast's attention away from Hermione.
"Hermione, move!" Harry yelled.
As the troll spun its massive torso toward them, its tiny, dull eyes glistening with rage, Harry knew they had to anchor the beast's immense momentum. Leaning into his stance, he tried to deploy the modified Impediment Curse, whipping his wand downward in a sharp crescent motion toward the wet flagstones beneath the troll's feet.
"Impedimenta!" Harry shouted.
Because he lacked the muscle memory for localised anchoring, Harry's spell casting was half a second too slow. The silver stasis bolt saturated the stone floor, but it missed the center of the troll's footing, only catching the outer edge of its left heel. The localized stasis field locked that small patch of stone into absolute immobility. When the troll attempted to take a massive step forward, its heel caught on the artificial stasis boundary.
It wasn't a perfect anchor, but the clumsily placed spell was enough to disrupt the troll. The troll stumbled violently over the unexpected friction, its immense forward momentum causing its massive body to tilt dangerously to the side as it fought to regain its balance.
From the shattered stalls, Hermione's analytical mind broke through her shock. She had spent the last twenty-four hours agonizing over the notes she had taken on Schlag-Magie and the properties of localized atmospheric transfiguration. Scrambling to her feet, her wand held in a rigid stance, she looked at the heavy wooden club the stumbling troll had momentarily lowered.
Ron seemed to catch Hermione looking at the Club, and something in him clicked as well.
Ron, desperate to make up for his missed charm, pointed his broken wand at the gnarled wood of the club. He attempted the corrected Levitation Charm.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" he yelled.
The wand didn't just levitate the club smoothly; it exploded with a violent burst. The kinetic force shot the heavy wooden club upward with an erratic, spinning velocity, sending it rocketing toward the ceiling like a loose cannon.
High above the beast, Hermione tried to intercept the chaotic, spinning target. Attempting the short, rapid shoulder lunge of the Durmstrang graduates, she thrust her wand forward to throw her magical energy into the spell. Without proper training, the lunging movement threw her slightly off balance, her boots slipping on the wet floor.
"Vera Verto!" she cried, her voice strained as she forced the incantation.
The spell connected with the spinning club just as it scraped the ceiling. The transfiguration was frantic and uneven; the wood rippled violently, shifting into a massive, jagged, poorly formed block of high-density iron that retained a bizarre, lopsided shape.
The lopsided iron block, now weighing over half a ton, plummeted straight down through the twilight of the bathroom.
The troll looked up just in time for the descending weight to clip it heavily on the side of its lumpy, misshapen skull. A sickening, metallic thud echoed through the corridor. The sheer, uneven mass of the iron block was enough to finish what the clumsy stasis field had started. The massive beast's eyes rolled back into its head, its knees buckling completely.
With a deafening crash, the twelve-foot monster collapsed face-forward into the shattered masonry, completely unconscious.
The room fell into an abrupt, ringing silence, broken only by the steady hiss of a broken water pipe. Harry and Ron lowered their wands, their chests heaving, their robes soaked, their adrenaline fading as they realized just how close their unpolished execution had come to failing.
Hermione stared at the fallen giant, then looked up at the two boys. The tears from the night before were gone, replaced by a profound, trembling look of awe. "You... you actually tried to use the Gallowglass counter."
"We tried," Ron said, a sudden, breathless grin breaking across his freckled face as he wiped a spray of water from his eyes and looked at his smoking wand. "It was bloody clumsy, but it worked. Your transfiguration... blimey, Hermione, that was the needle transfiguration but on a huge club."
Harry smiled, stepping over a shattered sink to help her up. "Are you alright?"
Hermione nodded, wiping her face as she clutched her wand tightly. "I am now. Let's get out of here before the rest of the staff shows up to ask questions we shouldn't answer."