The girls' lavatory was clammy; the stall, colder still.
The stench spread like despair.
Hermione knew her chances were grim. Only now did she realize how foolish she'd been. In the Hope Nook she had so many friends—precious friends—and yet she'd let unimportant people hurt her, locking herself in the girls' loo to cry.
Not far off, the scrape of the troll's huge feet on the floor was unmistakable.
But Sean arrived even faster.
"Don't be afraid, Hermione. Take my hand."
She stared, unbelieving. Sean's figure blocked the shadow beyond the door.
He gently helped Hermione up, then transfigured another stall door into a bench and set her down.
Which meant he was now fully exposed to the troll's view.
"Sean! Watch out!" Hermione cried, strength coming from nowhere as the troll raised its club.
"Stay inside. If you come out, I'll be distracted."
He shut the stall door.
The great club hissed through the air; a vast shadow fell over Sean.
Facing the behemoth, Sean suddenly thought: wasn't Ron's "knock it out with a stick" a bit too fairytale?
At this rate, snatching the club with Levitation would be like uprooting a tree.
Still—
"Flipendo! (Knockback Jinx!)"
[You practiced the Knockback Jinx once at an Expert standard. Proficiency +50]
A bright flash. The troll's club jerked upward as if two huge hands had blocked it.
Sean froze for a heartbeat, thinking at the worst possible time.
Why was my first thought the Knockback Jinx?
Am I… really the Dark Lord?
Seeing the troll move again, Sean flicked his wand. The door of Stall Three morphed into two eagles; with a shrill cry they struck the troll—blinding one eye in an instant.
Breathing a little heavier, he didn't let up. The Knockback Jinx and Levitation tugged and wrenched at the club in the troll's grip.
Soon the club was in Sean's hands.
Thinking quickly, he levitated every stall door except Hermione's over to himself.
By the time the troll shook free of the eagles, it was facing a club three times larger than before.
As expected, it "saw its ancestors."
—If it had any.
Only when the troll's huge body crashed to the floor and its coconut-bald head turned two-dimensional did Sean ease back into the stall.
He heard noise outside the girls' loo. Hermione's tear-streaked face didn't look great, so he passed her some tissues.
Why did that feel so natural…?
He caught himself reflecting again.
Maybe he'd seen too many dead at the orphanage, he thought.
Inside the stall.
At the sight of Sean's face, Hermione lowered her wand. She looked at him for a long moment before noticing the wet in her lashes.
"You're late," she said, voice trembling—trying to stuff all her hurt and worry into a single line.
"Mm. That's on me," Sean said softly, handing her a tissue.
"It isn't! It's my fault! How could I care what those idiots said and forget my real friends!"
She'd thought she had no tears left; seeing Sean risk himself to come to her, she found she still had so much to say.
…
At the door.
A thunderous boom—but the door still wouldn't budge. Justin and Neville were frantic.
"Use Alohomora!" Harry sprinted up, Ron white as a sheet beside him.
"Do you know it? I'll try…" Ron's wand hand shook, but he spoke the charm steadily—as if crisis had tapped some hidden reserve.
The lock clicked, but the door didn't move—something heavy was wedged against it.
Justin's eyes went red. He roared and slammed a fist into the door; Neville, catching his intent, did the same.
Ron howled his way forward—then howled his way in—
Sean opened up. Ron pitched face-first onto the troll's corpse, and Sean blinked, a little stunned.
"Ron!" Harry yelped—the sight wasn't pretty; Ron was nose-to-nose with the troll's flattened head.
"Ugh…" Ron groggily pushed up, saw the two-D skull, screamed, and fainted again.
Six of them stood around the troll, speechless.
"Sean—Hermione—are you two alright?" Justin was first to check them over; seeing no obvious wounds, he let out a long breath. Neville was shaking again, unable to look at the troll at all. Harry shook Ron awake; both boys shot complicated looks at Hermione, then sneaked a glance at Sean.
"We're fine," Sean said with a smile.
Seeing their concern, Hermione felt Ron and Harry's earlier barbs evaporate. They had risked their lives to find her. She frowned at Justin and Neville instead, gently passing them tissues—their knuckles were bleeding from pounding the door.
"Good—that's good… so, the rumor's true?" Justin wiped his hands and ventured, "You soloed a troll—beat a werewolf bare-handed…"
"Merlin—did Professor Snape really give you ten Galleons and cook you two dishes?!" Harry's focus skewed, as always, the moment Snape was mentioned.
At the doorway—
Professor McGonagall's stern face showed a flicker of something odd; Professor Snape's eyes looked fit to kill.
"Harry Potter! Flagrantly breaking school rules! What devilry are you playing at?" He strode in, spearing Harry with a glare, voice thin with suppressed fury. "Even if luck spared you—why weren't you in your dorm? Our grand celebrity—think you can beat a troll?!"
But when he looked down at the troll, his expression changed. His gaze locked onto the wary first-year.
Sean lowered his head. Instinctively, the professors felt scarier than the troll.
Snape's voice rasped out, strangled with rage:
"One hundred points DEDUCTED from Ravenclaw—SEAN GREEN! For daring to hunt down a troll! Do you truly think you are a troll?! Then let me be the unlucky one to inform you—trolls fight each other, too!"