The rest of the day passes, and my night’s sleep is… restless. I barely get a wink, and the next few days drift by in a haze. I manage to make it through a week, but the lack of sleep and general feeling of intense, almost crippling dysphoria, is starting to show. In the brief flashes of my reflection that I catch as I pass by windows and mirrors, I can see the dark bags under my eyes, and the wan, pale shade of my skin. I look… well, like a ghost, wandering from classroom to classroom, my familiar trotting at my heels, performing adequately enough that I don’t get myself or others into trouble.

As the31st of October rolls around Harry’s excitedly talking to Ron, I, and a couple of others about his Quidditch training with Oliver Wood, the brawny, enthusiastic Keeper for the Gryffindor team, but I’m not really paying attention. Ron gets narky about Hermione outperforming him in Charms, which backfires on him. At the back of the group, beside me, Hermione passes by in a flurry of robes and bushy hair, and Ron looks vaguely guilty as Harry clears his throat. “I… think she heard you, Ron.”

That night, it’s the Halloween feast, with ghosts joining the merriment, and the magical ‘sky’ of the Great Hall roiling with dark clouds and thunderheads, lightning flickering across the ceiling in threads, as the cheers and hubbub of students casting off their weariness and embracing the freedom of the approaching weekend, eating, drinking, and laughing.

I sit, barely touching my food, Mini on the table as she gnaws on a chicken drumstick as Harry and Ron clank their goblets together, pumpkin juice sloshing over the brims and onto the table as they share a joke. There’s someone missing though; Hermione. According to one of the other girls, she’s been holed up in the girls’ bathroom since classes ended, crying her eyes out.

The doors to the Great Hall swing open, and Professor Quirrel sprints in, eyes wide, panic writ plain across his features. He bellows, at a volume he’s never been known to use before, “TROLLS! IN THE DUNGEON!” then, more quietly, “Trolls in the dungeon… thought you ought to know.” He then collapses in a heap, unconscious. Silence falls, but only for a moment. As the news settles on everyone, the screaming starts, alarm turning to terror, dread, and fear. Professor Dumbledore stands, and roars, “EVERYONE! STAY CALM!”

As his voice booms out over the crowded hall, people stop going to pieces, looking to the ancient wizard for guidance and reassurance. He continues, “Prefects, escort your houses to their common rooms. Teachers, make your way to the dungeons, post-haste.” As we file out, Percy Weasley barking orders, I spot Harry and Ron lagging behind, before they dart off to one side. I blink, then realise. They’re going to rescue Hermione!

Shrugging off my malaise, I dart after them, Mini clinging to my shoulder, catching up within a minute. “Wait, you guys. I’m coming too! You’re going to save Hermione, right? I wanna help!” they start, and then grin at me. I continue, “I can at least distract one of the trolls for a bit, I’ll buy you as much time as I can, okay?”

The pair of boys nod, and I duck into a cupola, tugging them with me as a massive, lumbering shadow moves down the hall towards the girl’s bathroom, a second one lurking further away. I turn to face the boys. “Right, make or break time. I’ll keep that one busy, while you two go save the girl. Move!”

While the boys go after the first troll, I step into the hallway, drawing my wand. The best I can do is start out with something to disorient the massive beast. As I hear the others moving, I aim my wand and scream, “HEY! TROLL!”

As it turns dopily Mini darts in front of me, her whole body puffing up as she yowls and screams ferociously, defending me, I shout, “LUMOS!” a brilliant flash of light bursts from my wand, causing the troll to lurch back, clutching at its face, blinded for a brief window. As it stumbles back, it crashes into a statue, shattering it. I gesture with my wand, using a swift, precise swish-and-flick, yelling, “WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!”

A dozen fist-sized shards of broken statue float into the air, and I gesture, sending them slamming into the troll’s head and neck, causing it to roar in pain and fury. It blinks blearily, fat tears rolling from its light-struck eyes. I dash past it, ducking under a slow, dustbin-sized fist, as it twists round to pursue.  Juking down another corridor, I cast the Levitation Charm again, pelting the troll with another barrage of stone fragments, making sure it’s definitely after me. 

As another massive fist crashes towards me, I roll to one side. YEP! It’s unquestionably, categorically, positively irate.  I sprint across the courtyard, Mini hot on my heels, as the troll lumbers after me. Taking cover behind another statue and picking the Fennec fox up to keep her from harm, I grab a pebble and hurl it towards the far side of the court yard.

The monster careens over, snuffing and snorfling through its bulbous nose as it hunts for me, pounding its fist into the flagstone floor of the courtyard. I duck around to the door I’d come from, before performing the Wingardium Leviosa spell again, targeting one of the massive stone vases, carefully manoeuvring the heavy pot over the creature’s domed skull.

 Before I can release it, a bolt of red light rockets across the quad, slamming into the troll’s chest. Several more spells of varying colours strafe the troll, causing it to reel back.  I adjust my aim, and release, the giant stone pot slamming down and smashing into pieces over the troll’s cranium.

With a deafening roar, the troll crumples to its knees, as Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and Madam Hooch swarm the troll, firing spells and curses, until, finally, the troll collapses, lying still. Professor Flitwick brushes his hands down his front. “Well, Minerva, excellent use of levitation.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I did not use that spell, Filius. I thought it was you!” Madam Hooch furrows her brow. “It wasn’t me, either. So… who did it?” as I step out from behind the fountain, they turn, wands in hands. Raising my wand, I stammer, “u-um… I did it….” The three of them stare, and then sigh. Professor Flitwick claps his hands a couple of times.

“Well, I don’t know what would possess you to attempt to defeat a troll! Explain yourself, if you please?” he asks, deliberately keeping calm. I nod. “Um, I was worried about my friend, Hermione. She was in the girls’ bathroom and I think the other troll went after her. I… I wanted to help...”

McGonagall blanches, then turns as another group of teachers approaches, Snape among them. His beady, dark eyes fixed on me. Flitwick reaches up, patting my hand. “Well, despite your actions being very risky, your behaviour befits your house’s nature. Ten points to Gryffindor!”

As the Transfiguration teacher explains what happened, Snape nods, and stalks off, heading away from the group on some unknowable purpose. Flitwick and Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, work on restraining the troll before it awakes. Professor McGonagall and Professor Quirrel head for the bathroom, as I sit one of the benches, my heart hammering away in my chest as I realise what I’d just done. That was the craziest, most dangerous thing I’d ever gotten myself involved in, and I can’t quite believe it.

Shortly, I’m been given permission to go to bed, with a slip of paper explaining what had happened. Handing it to Percy, I trudge up to bed, flopping myself down on top of my covers and sighing. Mini scrabbles up onto my chest and curls up, her tail floofing up and brushing under my nose. Harry and Ron return about half an hour later, looking very grubby, covered in masonry dust and water. As they change into fresh clothes, I keep my face buried in my pillows. Once I hear their bedsheets rustle and wrinkle, I turn over. “Hey guys… That was crazy…”

“Yeah… but hey, we did it! Looks like you got through unscathed, right, mate?” Ron yawns, turning over to look at me. I nod shyly, running my fingers along the rich, dark red wood of my wand, laying it on my nightstand and curling up, Mini in my arms as she runs her rough little tongue against my cheek, her warm little body snuggled up to my heart.

Ron mumbles, “Yeah, Hogwarts is wild… like, that giant three-headed dog. That was mad!” Harry hisses a warning, but I’m not really paying attention. He clears his throat, and then calls my name. Sighing, I roll over to look at the two boys. “What? Is Mini’s purring too loud?” I ask, running my fingers gently down the tiny fox’s spine, smoothing her soft fur.

Sharing a meaningful look, Harry leans forward. “Look, we need to know you can keep a secret. I know you helped us with the trolls, but this is big. Even bigger than that. This could get us in huge trouble if you go blabbing about it. Can we trust you, Max?”

A few minutes pass, before I nod. I’m a little curious as to what this is all about, but, if there’s some mystery going on here, I want to be in the know. “You can trust me. I’m a Gryffindor, after all!”

Ron grins, “Well said, mate! So yeah, remember Dumbledore said not to go up to the third floor’s right-hand corridor? Well, me, Harry an’ Hermione ended up in there when a staircase changed a few weeks back. There was a locked door, with this massive three-headed dog behind it. Harry thinks it’s guarding something, and Hermione said she saw a trapdoor under its feet.”

I process this for a minute. “If it’s guarding something… what is it? A three-headed hound isn’t the kind of protection one employs to guard the fridge.”

Harry looks a bit frustrated. “I think I know what it’s guarding, but not exactly. When we met at Gringotts, Hagrid took something from one of the vaults, on Dumbledore’s orders. I don’t know what it IS, but I’d bet ten Galleons that that thing is what the dog’s protecting.”

Silent, I keep stroking Mini’s fluffy ears and tail, before speaking up. “So... What do we do about this? Should we just… leave the situation as it is? I don’t really think we should take any unnecessary risks, especially if we’ll end up on the wrong side of this dog…”

Ron nods, his face pale. “Yeah, that thing was huge! Like, it could easily swallow you whole!”  I flinch a little at the thought of a creature so massive. What could be so important that THIS was a requirement??? I mean, if there’s one layer of security, who’s to say there isn’t something even nastier involved?

Slowly, I hear the two boys drift off to sleep, Neville and Seamus, the kid who exploded his feather in Charms, making their way up to the boys’ dorms and getting ready for bed as I feel  Mini’s gentle, purring breaths vibrating through my body as my head sinks deeper into the pillow. The events of the evening flow slowly through my mind.

The trolls, and the risk I’d taken with intercepting one of them… how had they gotten in? I’m pretty sure a pair of big, lumbering retrograde buffoons like those wouldn’t just randomly show up out of nowhere… so, just HOW did they get into the school without being caught immediately? The last thought that drifts through my exhausted mind is that, despite all logic and sense, they’d done just that. But, if trolls are as stupid as everyone claims, they must have had… help…