When Quirrell raised the alarm, Ron had nearly panicked. A troll, loose in the castle? But how? He checked the time and saw that it was close to when Harry and Hermione had said they’d head back to the Tower so as to already be there when people started drifting up from the Feast. If they started back and encountered the troll… For all practical purposes, both were Muggleborns, knowing nothing about such creatures. He had to warn them!

Ron pelted through the halls and skidded into the library, surprising Harry and Hermione as they approached the door. “TROLL!” he yelled. For once, he would have been delighted to have Madame Pince loom up and start berating him, but no one so much as tutted.

“What are you screaming about?” Hermione asked in surprise. “We’re all alone here, but that doesn’t mean you should just –“

“There’s a troll loose in the castle!” Ron exclaimed, panting for air. “Quirrell saw it and came to the feast to warn everyone!”

“What’s a troll?” Harry asked.

“You mean something that lives under a bridge and argues with goats?” Hermione asked blankly.

“No!” Ron rolled his eyes. Muggleborns! He went over to the Magical Creatures atlas that was by the librarian’s desk and flipped to the correct page. “Look,” he ordered, letting them see the entry. A moment later:

“Oh.” Harry gulped.

“Oh my.” Hermione looked pale.

“We’ve got to get back to the dormitory,” Ron said. “That’s where the Headmaster said everyone should go ‘cause they’re the safest, most warded parts of the castle.”

“And if we don’t get there soon, they’ll figure out we weren’t at the feast!” Harry added, biting his lip nervously.

“Oh, no!” Hermione moaned. “We might get detention! This could go on our permanent records!”

“Quick!” Grabbing their book bags, the trio ran for the stairs. They were more than halfway to the tower, when Hermione sniffed. “Do you smell something awful?”

An instant later, Peeves came rocketing around the corner just ahead. “RUN!” he bawled. “TROLL COMING!”

They screamed and fled back the way they came, only to be stopped by his cackling laughter. “Ha hahahahaha! Stupid ickle firsties! Made you wet your knickers!”

They slowed to a halt, furious. “Peeves, you sodding old arse!” Ron yelled, shaking a fist in fury.

“Nyah, nyah!” Peeves danced above their heads.

“I’m telling Professor McGonagall on you!” Hermione shouted.

“Peeves, do you know where the troll really is?” Harry tried a more conciliatory approach.

Peeves stopped laughing. “Be-behind you!”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. Ha ha, Peeves. You're such a git.”

Just then, Nearly Headless Nick floated up through the floor. “There you are, you young fools! What are you doing, wandering the castle when there’s a troll about and you’re supposed to be in your Tower? In my day, you’d have all been thrashed good and proper for such shenanigans!”

“Nick, do you know where the troll is?” Harry asked, hoping to calm the furious specter down. “We’re trying to get to the Tower, we really are.”

“Yes, please, Nick,” Hermione pleaded. “We’re going as fast as we can, and then Peeves tricked us and now we’re – “ she broke off. “Doesn’t anyone else smell that?”

Peeves was now down at the children’s level and trying to tug on Ron’s arm. “Troll! Troll! Behind you! Troll!”

“Yeah, ha ha, Peeves,” Ron ignored the icy fingers clutching at him and hurried up to the other ghost. “Nick, can you tell Peeves to stop yelling about the troll being behind us and –“

At Ron’s approach, the other ghost stopped scolding Harry and Hermione and raised his eyes to the redhead. As much as a ghost could pale, Nick did. “Children! Run! Run fast!”

“Nick, that’s not funny,” Harry said uncertainly, but Hermione had already whipped her head around.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” she screamed as she caught sight of the troll at the end of the corridor. The sound catapulted all three children forward, and they fled as fast as they could, while Nick and Peeves flew at the troll, bellowing and (in Peeves’ case) spitting ectoplasm.

The troll was unimpressed by the ghosts’ efforts to frighten it, but very intrigued at the tasty odor of human flesh coming from the noisy creatures running away from it. “Food!” it exclaimed, and hurried after the children.

The Gryffindors dashed around the corner and kept running, but it was clear from the heavy pounding of footsteps behind them that the troll was catching up. “Wait a second!” Harry gasped as they skidded around another corner. “Help me with this!”

He dragged at a pikestaff that was attached to a nearby suit of armor. “Quick!”

With the others’ help, he soon had the long, heavy pikestaff loose. “Harry, what are you thinking? We can barely hold this up, let alone fight with it,” Ron panted.

“No, put it down – right here.” Harry laid the weapon down in the middle of the corridor. “Wingardium leviosa!” The pikestaff didn’t even twitch. “Wingardium leviosa!”

“What are you doing?” Hermione gasped.

“If I can levitate it, it might trip him,” Harry explained. “Wingardium leviosa!” This time it wiggled a bit, then lifted an inch.

“Wingardium leviosa!” Hermione added her spell to Harry’s, and in another moment so did Ron.

“No, no, Ron,” Hermione corrected. “Latin isn’t accented on the first syllable; it’s win-gar-dee-um –“

“Not now, Hermione!” Harry yelled in frustration.

The three shouted the spell together, and the pikestaff slowly rose into the air and hovered at roughly the height of the troll’s shins.

“Great,” Harry gasped. “Now RUN!”

They pelted down the hall and were about thirty feet away when the troll lumbered around the corner after them. It collided with the floating pikestaff and fell sprawling with a hoarse howl of distress. Unfortunately, what Harry hadn’t factored into his plan was the troll’s considerable forward momentum combined with the slick, slippery stone floors. The troll fell flat, but continued moving forward, this time in the horizontal plane. He plowed into the three children, knocking them up and over onto his back.

Harry managed to squirm upright first, then pulled Ron and Hermione into a seated position on the troll’s back. The troll felt their presence and shouted in frustration but was unable to reach them. The children continued riding the troll as if he were a toboggan on snowy roads.

“Phew – he stinks!” Ron held onto the troll’s ragged mane with one hand and his nose with the other.

“What do we do now?” Hermione wondered as the hallway walls flashed past them.

Harry, sitting up front, gaped in horror at what lay ahead. “Hang on,” he shouted over his shoulder. “We’re at the stairs!” And then they were down them.

Their troll toboggan barreled down the staircase, with the children screaming as loudly as the troll. At the bottom, the troll cannoned into the opposite wall, the impact knocking the smaller humans flying.

“Oh, ow, ugh,” Harry groaned, clambering to his feet. He’d landed hard on the stone floor, but nothing seemed to be broken, only bruised.

“Owwwww,” Ron complained, holding his bum. “That hurt!” He reached beneath his robe and fumbled in his back pocket, only to emit an even higher pitched howl of anguish. “MY WAND!” He held up his battered wand, now snapped in half. “It was in my back pocket,” he wept, “and when I fell on my arse, it broke.”

“Oh, no.” Hermione’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears, though the way she was cradling her wrist suggested she had additional reason to weep. “Maybe it can be fixed?”

“No, it’s ruined,” Ron looked devastated. “And we can’t afford a new one.”

Harry darted a nervous glance at the troll who was beginning to groan and move around. “Um, Ron, I’m really sorry about your wand, but I think we need to run again.”

“But Harry, it’s my – oh bloody hell!” As the troll rose behind Harry, Ron threw the remains of his wand down, grabbed Hermione with one hand, Harry with the other, and sprinted down the hall, dragging the shorter two with him. Portraits on both sides of the hallway shouted encouragement and advice as the children fled. “He’s gaining! He’s gaining! Run faster!”

At the next corner, Harry pulled free. “Go! I’ll try to slow him down.”

“Are you crazy?” Hermione screamed. “Don’t stop!”

“You’re hurt and Ron’s got no wand! Run for help! At least I’ve had some extra training in Defense!” The troll turned the corner, and the time for argument was past.

Hermione snatched out her wand. “Run, Ronald! You go for help!”

“I’m not leaving the two of you!” Ron declared indignantly. He dashed to the nearest suit of armor and grabbed a shield. “I can help!”

The troll’s eyes lit up. “Urrrrr! Food!” It stumbled forward, lifting its club.

“GREAT MERLIN!” Behind the students, McGonagall and Sprout appeared, wands drawn and robes flying. The portraits shouted in acclaim as the Deputy Headmistress shouted a spell and a bright blue light shot out and enveloped the troll. An instant later, an enormous purple and white panda stood in the hallway where the troll had been.

“Urrr?” The panda looked confused and slowly sank onto its bottom, where it looked around in a puzzled fashion.

Sprout, not to be outdone by the Gryffindor Head of House, cast a spell of her own and a thick ring of bamboo shot from the floor to encircle the panda. The bear’s eyes lit up and it reached out a lazy paw for one of the bamboo shoots. It stuck the end into its mouth and lay back, blissfully chewing.

“Good spellwork, that!”

“Well done, that witch!”

“Living plants from stone – y’don’t see that every day, y’know.”

“She was one of my students, I’ll have you know.” The portraits were loud in their praise for the two witches, who stared first at the troll then at each other, before heaving twin sighs of relief and turning to the children.

“What were you thinking?” Minerva began angrily, only to have two children burst into tears and cling to her robes. She sputtered to a halt, nonplused, as Hermione sobbed that her wrist hurt, and Ron wailed about his broken wand. Harry stood to the side, feeling sick and shaky, until Sprout put an arm around his shoulder. Then he gave into the shock and began to cry as well.

“There, there,” Sprout soothed. “It’s all right now. The big mean troll is just a silly old panda bear now.”

That was the point at which Hagrid and Snape charged up, closely followed by Dumbledore and Flitwick. Like Minerva and Pomona, they had been summoned by a combination of hysterical portraits and frantic ghosts.

“Harry!” Snape’s heart nearly stopped as he saw the sobbing boy. Hurt! Injured! Maybe dying!

The instant he heard his professor’s voice, Harry pulled away from Sprout and threw himself at the tall man. Snape snatched him up and held him close, even as he tried to work his wand free to see where the boy was hurt.

“Professor, my wand got snapped!” Ron wailed, turning to Sprout while McGonagall fussed over Hermione’s arm.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” the gentle Hufflepuff patted his shoulder gently even as she accio’d the remains. “I’m afraid it’s too badly damaged to be repaired,” she admitted sadly, then hugged the boy as he began to bawl. “There, there, love.”

“Ooooh, ye’re a fine lookin’ beastie,” Hagrid said admiringly, peering through the thicket at the purple panda, who gazed uninterestedly back while chewing on his bamboo.

Meanwhile Dumbledore was quietly moving among the children, casting diagnostic spells. “There now, it’s all over,” he said soothingly.

“Albus! Why are you just standing there?” Snape demanded furiously, as a sniffling Harry hiccupped into his neck. “Summon Poppy immediately! There are injured children here!”

“Now, my boy, amazingly as it appears, none of the children are seriously injured; they are just badly frightened. Miss Granger has a sprained wrist and Mr Weasley sustained a cut on his – erm – hip when his wand was broken, but that’s all, apart from a few bumps and bruises.”

“But Harry is –“

“Uninjured, my boy.”

“WHAT?” Snape shouted – snatching the boy out to arms’ length. “Are you unhurt?”

Harry sniffled and nodded. “It was just really scary.”

“For the love of Merlin,” Snape gritted his teeth. “You nearly scared the life out of me, you miserable little wretch. I thought the troll had broken you into pieces!”

Harry smiled through his tears. Professor Snape always said the nicest things. The Dursleys would never have been worried that the troll had hurt him. “He would’ve,” he assured the professor, “if Professors McGonagall and Sprout hadn’t arrived just when they did an’ turned him into a panda.”

“A panda?” Snape raised an eyebrow at Minerva.

“I needed a quick transfiguration, Severus. Animate to animate is easiest, especially with noncombatants in the line of fire, and the biggest, calmest creature I could think of on the spur of the moment was a panda bear!” she retorted with some asperity.

“And the color?” he pressed.

She looked a little awkward. “Perhaps I have been spending too much time with the Headmaster.” Dumbledore twinkled at her.

“Now, children,” Albus said kindly, “perhaps you could explain how you came to be in such danger?”

“Put another way,” Snape said, fixing Harry with a gimlet eye, “why exactly were you not where you were supposed to be?”

“Erm…” Harry looked very guilty. Oh, Professor Snape was going to be furious with him!

“I’m waiting,” Snape told him dangerously.

“What ho, Headmaster! You’ve found our sledging party!” Nick floated around the corner and up to the Headmaster. “These three rode that troll down the stairs as if he were a sledge down a mountainside! Sheer brilliance, my children! True Gryffindors, the lot of you!”

Harry noticed that the ghost’s praise didn’t make Professor Snape seem any happier, even if it did distract the Headmaster and their Head of House. “What do you mean?” Albus asked blankly.

So they had to explain and show the adults where everything had happened, and put the shield and pikestaff back where they belonged and explain how Ron had come running to warn them just as Harry and Hermione were about to leave the library. “An’ we were trying to get to the Tower, Professor,” Harry blurted. “We were going as fast as we could, until we met Peeves and he tricked us –“

“But then he did try to help Nick distract the troll so we could get away,” Hermione reminded him, her wrist now immobilized in a conjured splint.

“Well, it seems that, as usual, the castle’s portraits and ghosts have proved their devotion to the school and its students,” Albus smiled.

“And Gryffindors have proven their brainless inability to follow the simplest commands,” Snape said nastily. “Why were you in the library when you were supposed to be at the Feast?”

Hermione glanced at Harry, who was staring at the floor. “Erm, well, Professor, I didn’t really want to go to the Feast. There’s so many sugary treats, and my parents are dentists…” She hoped that the “D-word” might make Snape back off, but he was unfazed.

“Indeed. And did you ask permission to be absent from the feast?”

“N-no, sir.”

“And why, precisely, did Mr Weasley inform me that Mr Potter was in the loo when I inquired as to your whereabouts?”

Ron gulped and unconsciously covered his already-sore bum. “Erm…”

“I told him to pretend we were around,” Harry confessed unhappily.

“And why did you do that if you were merely studying quietly – if illicitly – in the library?” Snape asked suspiciously.

“We were, Professor!” Hermione protested, correctly interpreting Snape’s expression of extreme skepticism. “I swear. We were just working on homework and things.”

Snape stepped away from the children for a moment and asked Minerva quietly, “Any signs that someone was on the third floor?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Fluffy was fast asleep and the trap door was undisturbed. If they meant it as a distraction, it failed.”

He gave her a look of poorly hidden concern. “And you were not harmed by that beast?”

McGonagall hid her smirk. Severus was such a mother hen! “I only had to glance in, Severus. What kind of clumsy oaf would be injured doing so simple a task? Besides, why – Merlin! You don’t think the children were trying…?”

“I am learning not to underestimate the idiocy of Gryffindors,” he retorted snarkily. “Particularly first years.” He ignored her glare and returned to the children.

“If I find out that you were anywhere but the library, Mr Potter,” Snape said very quietly and silkily, “you will be a very sorry Potter. Do you understand me?”

“I wasn’t!” Harry protested. “I swear. We just didn’t want to go to the Feast, and I didn’t want to bother anybody, but we weren’t doing anything bad. Honest!”

“If you are lying, your punishment will be doubled,” Snape warned chillingly.

“You can triple it,” Harry offered. “Or use the belt. I promise I’m not lying.”

Snape scowled at him. “There is no reason to bring up ridiculous punishments that you are well aware I have no intention of using. It is as absurd to offer to allow me to turn you into a flobberworm or use your digits for potion ingredients as it is to offer to allow me to use a belt on you. You are well aware that I would never do any such thing, so therefore such statements are meaningless,” he scolded, “and do nothing but waste everyone’s time.”

Harry couldn’t hide his smile. The professor was so hopeless at making stern threats. Here he had just promised not to do anything really awful to Harry, no matter what.

Snape glowered as the brat merely grinned cheekily at him. All right. It was time to use one of the Big Punishments. “Mr Potter, you will march yourself down to our quarters, where we will continue this talk. I am very disappointed in you.”

Harry lost his smile and nearly his lunch. Snape’s words had hit like a slap in the face. “Very disappointed”? No! That’s what he had wanted to avoid. Harry’s face crumpled, and he prepared to make his way down to the dungeons. “I don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” he mumbled unhappily as he brushed by his professor.

Snape caught him by the shoulder. “Do not mutter to yourself in that disrespectful fashion,” he reprimanded. “If you have something to say, say it.”

“I don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” Harry repeated loudly, his eyes shiny with tears. “It’s not my fault a troll got into the castle. You should be mad at the Headmaster.”

The adults’ faces showed their shock. “Me, Harry?” Dumbledore repeated incredulously.

“Yeah,” Harry stuck by his guns, though he did inch closer to Snape. He hadn’t forgotten who had sent him to the Dursleys in the first place. “Isn’t it your job to make sure the school is a safe place? How’d the troll even get into Hogwarts?”

“Where do trolls come from?” Hermione asked suddenly. “I mean, is there a troll colony somewhere nearby, or did one wander in looking for food?”

“She’s right,” Ron chimed in. “I thought that it was really rare for trolls to approach large buildings or gatherings of humans. Didn’t the book say they mostly try to pick off single travelers who stumble into their territory?”

“An’ besides,” Harry continued, “if Professor Quirrell saw the troll and warned you all about him, then why didn’t he fight it? Isn’t he supposed to be good at fighting trolls and werewolves and stuff like that?”

The professors exchanged guarded looks. “That is none of your concern, young man,” Snape finally scolded. “We are not here to discuss the Headmaster’s shortcomings, nor Professor Quirrell’s, nor even why a troll was able to get inside the castle – though you may rest assured that I plan to address all of these topics eventually,” he added with a pointed look at Dumbledore. “However, here and now the issue is your misbehavior, including why you were not where you were supposed to be, why you saw fit to lie about your whereabouts, and why when you were informed that a troll was wandering the halls, you did not stay in the library and wait to be rescued!” Of course, if the troll were not intended as a distraction to allow someone to try to access the Stone, then could it have been sent after Harry? If that were the case, and the troll were tracking the boy, then hiding in the library wouldn’t have done any good… Snape was more determined than ever to have a confrontation with Quirrell in the very near term, no matter what Albus might say.

“We just thought we should get to the Tower like the Headmaster said everyone should do,” Harry protested. “Why are you mad that we did what we were told?”

Snape folded his arms. “Very well, Mr Potter, if you are telling me that you and your friends actually had a plan and did not merely race down troll-infested corridors, heading to the Gryffindor dormitory like a bunch of mindless ninnies, then I will waive your punishment.”

There was a moment of silence, then Harry sighed and, with drooping shoulders, headed for the dungeon. “I thought not,” Snape said with satisfaction and started after his ward, only to be yanked back by a fist tightly gripping his robes.

“Me too,” Ron argued, looking from his Head of House to Professor Snape and back again. “I’m ‘sposed to get punished by Professor Snape.”

Snape opened his mouth to set the little fiend straight, but Professor McGonagall beat him to it. “Oh, yes, Mr Weasley, I got the note from your mother. Very well, then, off you go with your uncle,” she smiled sweetly at Severus, “and we’ll see you back at the tower tomorrow.”

Ron grinned and ran to catch up with Harry. Flitwick was trying to hide his snickers behind a large handkerchief while Sprout politely pretended to have gone deaf, but Dumbledore had no such compunctions. He twinkled madly at Snape. “You didn’t tell me you were an honorary uncle, my boy.”

Snape was fully prepared to say something most unflattering to Minerva, but he caught a glint in her eye and recalled the mouth soaping spell she had used on him in the second year. Instead: “I’m appalled to see you find the near obliteration of three of your students so amusing,” he said tartly. “Perhaps the duties of Deputy Headmistress are too onerous to combine with those of Head of House?”

Minerva went white with outrage, and he smirked at her, “I’m speaking as a concerned parent, of course.” Ha! Being in charge of a Gryffindor might be rather amusing after all. He turned in a swirl of robes and stalked away before McGonagall could come up with an effective riposte.

“Erm, would you like me to take Miss Granger to the Infirmary?” Dumbledore asked meekly, as Minerva stared furiously after Snape’s departing form.

“Are you suggesting I cannot fulfill my duties as Gryffindor Head of House?” She spun on him like one of the furies.

“No, no, no!” he said hastily, raising both hands in surrender. “Merely wondering if you would care to assist in the relocation of the panda. If so, I would be happy to take Miss Granger to see Poppy.” The girl was watching all this with wide eyes, but she had proved her intelligence by remaining silent through it all.

“I will leave that to you and the rest of the staff,” Minerva replied sharply. “I have an injured child to look after!” She turned with a snap of her robes and ushering Hermione in front of her, she marched off, her back radiating stiff disapproval.

Albus sighed. He hadn’t reached his advanced age by not recognizing the danger signals, and he wondered how much effort it was going to take to bring two of his Heads back from the brink of open war. The next day’s Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match would only add more fuel to the fire.