After less than a second of silence, Kane understood. Hermione could not possibly be in here. She might have learned the Swamp Spell slowly, but she was smart enough not to stay and become an English Hermione meatball for a troll.
As for the troll, Hagrid should be able to handle it. And the damage it caused? Hogwarts had money. The people hanging from the streetlamps might be stingy about funding Muggle-born students' new robes, but surely they would not make their young wizards attend class in a condemned building.
Just as Kane was about to leave, the troll, which had been throwing a tantrum inside the bathroom, seemed to tire. It stopped moving to rest.
Once the chaotic noise fell silent, Kane heard a faint, terribly out-of-place sound of crying.
Mm. Perhaps he had not underestimated Hermione's intelligence, but he had underestimated her speed. A Hermione hiding in the bathroom to shed a few tears would be as stunned by a troll smashing through the door as a battle-hardened capitalist soldier would be by Pavel Korchagin. Failing to run was understandable.
Kane doubled back and called into the bathroom, "Hermione? Can you get out on your own?"
The troll glanced toward Kane at the doorway, and Hermione's voice answered at the same time.
"Do you really think I have a chance?"
"Maybe try a three-to-one split."
Kane made a quip only he could understand, trying to lighten the mood. Then he pulled out his wand and pointed it sharply at the troll.
The troll was already swinging its huge club at him. But when the club came within two feet of Kane, it could not move another inch.
Purple tentacles covered in barbs had wrapped around the troll's indistinct limbs. They were pulling it backward toward a bizarre three-dimensional cocoon of swamp.
The troll's absurd evolutionary path had put every one of its stat points into its body and none into its brain. For a moment, even the swamp tentacles could not drag it in.
Kane pursed his lips helplessly. Then the bathroom's ceiling light swung, casting the troll's shadow clearly onto the floor.
The shadow struggled and clumsily rose from the ground. Bang! With one punch, it drove the entire troll into the three-dimensional swamp.
"Ugh. Now my swamp and tentacles are filthy," Kane complained.
He walked around the swamp and found Hermione in the innermost stall, sobbing while hugging herself.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Kane shook his head. "Poor Hermione. The troll scared you so badly you can't stop sobbing."
Hermione did not mind Kane's poorly timed teasing. Frightened out of her wits, she desperately needed to hug someone.
She steeled herself, shut her eyes, yelled, and threw herself forward.
At least, when Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, and a whole group of professors arrived, that was the scene they found.
Hermione was sobbing her heart out while hugging a copy of her own shadow. The shadow thoughtfully stroked her hair, perhaps chanting an ancient incantation such as, *There, there, you're safe now.*
Meanwhile, Kane was bent over, picking up chunks of purple meat from the floor and stuffing them into his pockets.
The ridiculous, bizarre, and absurd sight left every professor stunned for a moment.
Professor McGonagall spoke first. "Mr. Heath, Miss Granger, stop hugging the shadow Mr. Heath created. Can either of you tell us where the troll went? And are you injured?"
Hearing Professor McGonagall, Hermione could scarcely believe what she had heard.
She had been hugging...?
What did she mean, a shadow Kane had created?
Hermione immediately opened her eyes and looked at the person she had been hugging for a full two minutes, the person she had thought was Kane.
It really was a shadow. Worse, judging by its outline, it was her own shadow.
Hermione evolved from merely embarrassed to overheated. Her entire face turned an unnatural purplish red. She had never felt so mortified, especially with all these professors and students watching.
She would rather the troll had killed her with its club and ended it all.
Professor McGonagall quickly cut off that embarrassment.
"Please answer my question, you two. Where did the troll go? There is a troll in Hogwarts Castle. Every young wizard is in unimaginable danger."
Kane pointed at the Monster Meat he had not finished collecting.
"These are it."
The entire bathroom, inside and out, fell silent.
Well, everyone except Dumbledore, Snape, and Hermione wore an expression of suspicion and disbelief.
The first two had absolute confidence in Kane's ability to cause chaos, while Hermione had seen the troll get sliced into small chunks of meat by the tentacles.
Seeing the distrust on most of the professors' faces, Hermione felt that she needed to speak up for Kane. She drew a breath and timidly raised her hand.
She did not raise her hand as crisply as she did in class, but her voice remained as firm as ever.
"I can confirm it. Kane really did defeat the troll."
Professor McGonagall sounded as if she were holding back her anger. To her, these two young wizards appeared to be treating the lives and safety of Hogwarts's other students as nothing but their own pride and whim.
Fortunately, before she could erupt, Dumbledore stepped forward with a smile.
"Relax, Minerva. We should trust Mr. Heath. Of course, I understand your concern. We can simply have Mr. Heath show us how he defeated the troll. What do you say?"
Before McGonagall could agree, Dumbledore drew the Elder Wand and used Transfiguration to create an exact, full-sized replica of a troll. Even the foul stench of a rotting corpse was perfectly reproduced.
McGonagall immediately drew her wand, ready to protect every young wizard present from the troll Dumbledore had created. Then she turned back toward him, frustration and anger mingling in her expression.
"Albus, I do not think this is the time for you to search for gifted young wizards..."
McGonagall suddenly could not continue. She felt a bizarre aura that violated every principle of magical common sense.
She turned instinctively and saw a sinister, absurd gray-purple cocoon, like a child's crude drawing, standing in the center of the wrecked bathroom.
Barbed tentacles emerged from it one after another and seized the troll's limbs and torso. At first, the troll could hold its ground against the cocoon for a little while.
Then something else happened that challenged McGonagall's magical instincts.
The troll's shadow struggled up from beneath its feet and climbed from two dimensions into the real world. With one blow, it knocked the troll completely into the swamp cocoon.
"Just like that."
Kane waved his wand, making the cocoon vanish. The troll's shadow dissolved into black smoke, leaving everyone in a deep and endless silence.