Chapter 16
"Troll! In the dungeons!.. Troll, in the dungeons!" Quirinus Quirrell wailed, bursting at a run into the festively decorated Great Hall and instantly drawing everyone's attention. "I… must inform you… there is a troll in the dungeons…"
"And then he fainted. Amateur actor," I swore inwardly, having already relaxed and not expecting a scene I remembered from the films to repeat almost exactly. Most of the holiday feast was already nearing its end—another twenty minutes and we would have been sent back to our dormitories…
Despite Quirrell's absence from his proper seat, I had even started thinking it really was over. Especially since Hermione Granger's messy brown head had been visible at the Gryffindor table, which had calmed me down a lot and given me hope… Yeah. It wasn't pleasant to face such a clear disappointment, especially after you'd already convinced yourself the trouble had passed.
"Hush!" On the other hand, the Headmaster reacted quickly, silencing the hall in an instant and calming the stirred-up students. Most of them, though, didn't really believe the panicked declaration from our Defense professor.
It was too hard to imagine a troll suddenly appearing inside the castle. Where would it even come from? The school was well protected, the Forbidden Forest was regularly checked by Aurors and by collectors of valuable reagents, and trolls themselves… weren't exactly intelligent enough to break into an ancient castle without causing a tremendous commotion. Even I, a first-year raised in the ordinary world, understood that.
And Quirrell himself, honestly, looked strange when he burst into the hall… Like someone had hit him over the head with a sack of potatoes. Or like he'd celebrated the holiday with potions that weren't great for mental health. Maybe he'd even been drinking the night before and was now staggering through a brutal hangover…
It was hard to take his words seriously because of that. The staff and most older students seemed to agree with me, discussing the Defense professor more than the news he'd delivered. Still, that didn't stop the Headmaster and the Heads of House from organizing our evacuation from the Great Hall about ten minutes later.
That was mostly to prevent panic among the younger students and calm down the ones who were getting too worked up. Nobody seemed to be treating the troll threat seriously… Otherwise, why send snakes and badgers down to their common rooms in the dungeons, where the troll was supposedly located? That part made no sense to me.
Either way, I had no desire to get involved in this foul-smelling mess, so I dutifully followed the prefect and tried not to fall behind the other Ravenclaws. Hermione Granger—who in the story I knew could have become the troll's victim—was in her place. All the Slytherins I knew had shown up for the feast. And my own House wasn't missing anyone either. One boy from my year had gotten lost on the road of life and arrived late to the start of the celebration, but he was with us now…
In short, I had no reason to run anywhere and "save" anyone. Which I was glad about, despite the preparations I'd made. I'd considered the worst-case scenario too—some absurd twist of fate where I ended up face-to-face with a wild monster nearly immune to ordinary magic. I had prepared for that possible meeting by studying and practicing certain spell combinations specifically meant for enemies like that.
Fortunately, after my earlier training in controlling childhood surges, learning normal spells wasn't that hard. It's like the difference between rock climbing and hiking. Both are difficult in their own way, but climbing a sheer cliff is still far harder… and not very similar to walking a mountain trail.
Hard to explain, but just as rock climbing and hiking use different muscle groups, my old training was very different from wand casting. The sensations and… the strain on my magic were different. Unlike anything I'd tried before Hogwarts.
But I still didn't have major trouble with it. Even spells normally learned in third or fourth year came to me relatively easily. Theory plus a couple hours of practice—and I could manage quite advanced magic. Transfiguration was the same story. In fact, it came even easier, because I wasn't just memorizing—I was learning to understand the most common transfiguration formulas.
It was like physics, theoretical mechanics, and strength of materials wrapped into one—except it was magic, with completely new formulas unrelated to physics at all… Hard at first, but once you got a grip on it, it became clear and… genuinely magical. Like a strange language that made matter itself obey your will and imagination.
I wouldn't lie if I said transfiguration had become one of my favorite subjects… And yes, it had everything to do with my troll preparation. My original plan to handle that filth was to use transfiguration to buy myself time, at minimum.
In the end, none of that was needed. Despite my worries and ringing alertness, we didn't meet any troll on the way to our tower. Everything was fine, ordinary, and even a little boring. I honestly expected some kind of trap or trouble, but… no. Flitwick simply locked us into the dormitory, and that was the end of Halloween for us.
The next day, there weren't even any clear rumors about a troll. Professors didn't share information, there were no traces of a fierce battle in the castle, no mysteriously missing students… Everything was normal. Very soon everyone decided Quirrell had simply overdone it that night, and there had never been any troll at all.
"But it almost certainly was real. I just avoided the first 'plot quest' my movie counterpart ran into," I rejoiced inwardly, relaxing a little. Maybe this world was connected to the films I remembered in some way, but nobody was grabbing me by the scruff and throwing me into the same disasters my less lucky counterpart faced.
That was encouraging and gave me hope… I just needed to figure out how to dodge canonical trouble when it appeared, and live my life. While still keeping in mind that at some point it might be impossible to avoid everything, but…
"In the end it'll come down to my own effort, my magical talent, and whether I'm ready to face truly unavoidable problems—like the Dark Lord," I thought, looking toward my future with real determination.
The ease with which I avoided Quidditch team membership and the troll incident was empowering. I even rode a small wave of euphoria, and on the next weekend I decided to give myself a few days of actual rest… I'd spent two months training and studying with almost no breaks.
Even Flitwick had started watching me with some worry, afraid that a student so obsessed with magic might burn out at this pace… And yes, I couldn't keep my training hidden from the others. Ravenclaw might not be a House that pries, but a closed, self-contained group of teenagers isn't a joke. Keeping private training secret from that kind of environment is almost impossible.
I realized that quickly and didn't bother pretending. I didn't waste time searching for some mythical "wish room" either. Instead I simply went to a prefect and asked where I could practice privately. Fortunately, the castle had plenty of abandoned and unused spaces—some even started as training grounds and simply weren't used anymore—and early in the school year, not many students pushed themselves with private practice.
So I found myself a place for practicing spells and transfiguration quickly… and got invited to drop by the subject clubs that existed in Ravenclaw. Maintaining the House's "smart and excellent" image isn't easy. Older students, with the silent approval of the Head of House, had organized study clubs by interest. Usually not many people attended… but there were always a couple older students around who could help the younger ones with homework.
Most of the time, older students just did their own assignments at those gatherings and helped others along the way. But many could answer questions beyond the program too—especially if they knew the topic themselves or at least knew where to find the information…
"I'm starting to love my House more and more… The only downside is that the Potions club is active only on weekends, and you have to buy extra ingredients for it," I found my little spoon of bitterness in this barrel of honey. By October I had fully realized that Potions… was a problem for me.
It wasn't that I was completely talentless. I had enough patience to slice ingredients properly and add them to a cauldron in the right order. I wasn't especially squeamish either, so handling some unpleasant components usually wasn't an issue. But after that…
All the stirring one way, then the other, timing things to the second, controlling flame temperature and watching the processes inside the potion, adding new ingredients in time if you'd messed up earlier… It wasn't for me. It simply wasn't. By early November I understood that fully, to the delight of Snape's sarcastic, nitpicky soul. I almost never achieved a perfect result.
Yes. Potions had become the one subject where I couldn't boast real success. That was normal and acceptable, but I still wanted to improve. That was how I ended up in the extra Potions sessions organized by older Ravenclaws.
I finally had a chance to polish what we'd already learned to something close to perfect… But even then, I was mostly catching up to the program rather than fixing my grades. Still useful, and it might eventually shift things until my marks climbed too. But for now it was far off, so I wasn't going to obsess over Potions. I had Charms and Transfiguration—subjects that fit me far better.
Herbology wasn't bad either, by the way. Magical plants could be interesting, even cute. Especially if I fed the soil with my magic before "talking" to them… But that was a skill I'd already developed. Aunt Petunia's flowerbed could confirm it. In short, almost any subject was better for me than those damned potions.
And I wasn't going to forget my old training, either. Wandless magic—even if my version was clumsy and crooked—was still an extremely impressive, borderline legendary ability among wizards. It wasn't something I should abandon, even though once I started learning proper wand casting, magical outbursts stopped happening spontaneously.
Now it was the opposite—I had to put in some effort to trigger the surge of magic I needed. But it wasn't especially difficult, and in many ways it was even convenient. So I was satisfied and ready to keep moving along the path I'd chosen.
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