kbinnz - Harry's New Home

"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, but then Peeves tricked us and now we're тАУ " 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 тАУ"

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 by 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 тАУ 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 тАУ"

"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 тАУ 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 тАУ 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 cried out 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.