On Halloween Eve, Hogwarts Castle was filled with festive cheer. The Great Hall was lavishly decorated, floating jack-o'-lanterns flickered with eerie light, and the air was thick with the sweet scent of roasted pumpkin and candy. The students eagerly made their way toward the Great Hall, ready to enjoy a lavish feast.
Silas drifted along with the crowd lazily, yawning as he went. He felt nothing in particular about the holiday decorations. Out of habit, he glanced around, looking for Hermione so he could complain with her about this "childish" festive atmosphere.
But he did not see the familiar brown-curled figure clutching a stack of books.
"Hm? Where's Hermione?" he wondered. By all rights, a model student like Hermione should not have missed a group event like this.
Then a thought struck him like lightning! He stopped dead in his tracks, and his expression changed instantly.
Fuck! It's Halloween today! The troll! In the original story, Hermione hid in the girls' bathroom crying after Ron said something nasty about her, and then she ran into the troll!
He immediately turned around and forced his way back through the crowd, his sharp gaze searching everywhere. Soon, near the entrance to the Great Hall, he spotted Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, who were about to enter.
Silas strode over and blocked their path, his face dark with terrifying fury. He ignored Harry completely, fixing Ron with an icy stare full of undisguised threat and accusation.
"Weasley!"
Ron was startled by Silas's imposing presence and instinctively took half a step back. "W-what do you want?"
Silas stepped closer, his voice low but heavy with pressure. "You'd better not forget... who pulled you two out of a dog's mouth when you idiots nearly got chewed up as snacks by that three-headed dog in the middle of the night? If Hermione hadn't come looking for me, you and Potter would be fertilizer by now, and that beast would've swallowed even your bone fragments!"
He glared at Ron, his eyes seeming to burn with flames. "Did you say some bullshit to her today?!"
Ron's face went white in an instant. Remembering the cruel things he had said during Transfiguration Class that afternoon—that Hermione had "no friends" and was "a nightmare"—he lowered his head guiltily and stammered, "Uh... well... I..."
Seeing that things were going badly, Harry quickly stepped forward and stood between Ron and Silas, trying to defuse the situation. "Silas! Calm down! Ron... he did say some not-so-nice things, but he didn't mean it! We already know we were wrong!"
Silas looked at Harry, then glanced at Ron, who was hiding behind Harry and did not dare meet his eyes. He took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed his anger, but his right hand instinctively gathered the energy of the Vishanti. A short but sturdy-looking energy baton made of golden light flickered in and out of view in his palm, emitting a faint hum.
When Harry and Ron saw the energy baton, both their faces turned pale.
Looking at their terrified expressions, Silas finally dispersed the energy baton. He irritably raked a hand through his hair, shot Ron one last look of utter disgust, then abruptly turned and ran in the opposite direction from the Great Hall—toward the girls' bathroom.
After running a few steps, he stopped sharply, turned back toward Ron, raised his middle finger without the slightest restraint, and cursed in a voice that could not have been clearer.
"Fuck you!"
Then he charged into the depths of the dim corridor without looking back, leaving Harry and Ron standing there, staring at each other in alarm. They knew Silas was truly furious, and he seemed to have sensed that something terrible was about to happen to Hermione.
Following his memory and the unbearable stench, Silas finally found the right girls' bathroom. He floated directly upward, flew over the troll's head as it swung its club, then vaulted and dove into the bathroom before the troll's sluggish brain could react.
The inside was a complete mess, with the stall doors smashed to pieces. Hermione was curled up trembling in the farthest corner, her face white as paper. The overwhelming terror had nearly robbed her of breath as she watched the enormous, ugly, foul-smelling troll lumber toward her step by step.
"Silas? How did you..." Hermione was startled and delighted to see Silas appear so suddenly, but she was even more terrified.
"No time to explain!" Silas spoke at a rapid pace. He grabbed Hermione by the arm while drawing a portal in the air with his other hand. On the other side was the Gryffindor common room. "Get in!"
Without giving her a choice, he shoved Hermione through, then immediately closed the portal, completely cutting off any possibility of the troll hurting her.
By then, the troll had finally realized that the little speck before it had interrupted its "game." It let out an enraged roar and swung its thick wooden club down at Silas with a howl of wind!
Silas's gaze sharpened as his hands traced an arcane pattern before his chest. "Lord of Hogus!"
A gentle light flashed, and the club, powerful enough to smash stone, turned into a huge cluster of brightly colored floating helium balloons the moment it touched the light! The troll swung at nothing. Looking at the "balloons" in its hand, which had suddenly become light and begun floating upward, its walnut-sized brain completely failed to process what had happened.
"Claws of Denak!" Silas seized the chance to counterattack, hurling a blazing orb of light at the troll.
However, when the light orb struck the troll's thick, rough hide, it merely exploded with a bang, leaving behind a small charred patch. The troll roared in pain, but it did not stop moving at all. Instead, it became even more enraged!
"Damn it!" Silas cursed under his breath. "Now I get why Doctor Strange's move was useless against Thanos too... Its hide is too damn thick!"
As the troll threw away the balloons and charged at him again with another roar, Silas lost patience. A cold glint flashed in his eyes. He stopped using the Vishanti's spells, swiftly pulled out the wand tucked in his robes, pointed it straight at the troll, and spoke the forbidden incantation in a clear, icy voice.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A dazzling green light, the color of death, burst from the tip of his wand and struck the troll squarely in the heart.
The troll's massive body suddenly stiffened, and every movement stopped at once. The cruel gleam in its little eyes went out. Like a collapsing wall, it crashed heavily to the ground with a thunderous boom, splashing water and dust everywhere before falling completely silent.
The troll was dead.
Silas let out a breath, flicked his wand, and muttered, "I should've done that from the start. Why waste time with an idiot like that..."
Just then, two sharp gasps came from the bathroom entrance. Silas turned and saw Harry and Ron standing there, their faces drained of all color, their eyes wide as saucers as they stared fixedly at him—or rather, at the wand that had just fired that green light.
Harry pointed at Silas, his voice trembling so badly that he could barely speak. "Y-you... that spell! That green light! It's exactly the same as what I sometimes see in my dreams!" What he had dreamed of was the scene of his mother's murder.
Silas's heart skipped a beat. Just as he was about to laugh it off, he said, "Probably just a coincidence. Maybe it was some kind of powerful Stunning Spell..."
But before he could finish, he could no longer smile.
At some point, three more people had appeared at the bathroom entrance. Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, and Severus Snape stood there, each wearing a graver expression than the last.
Dumbledore slowly stepped forward and bent down to carefully inspect the troll's corpse. Then he raised his head, his blue eyes peering through his half-moon spectacles as they fixed sharply on Silas. In a calm but unquestionable voice, he said,
"The Killing Curse."
Professor McGonagall covered her mouth and cried out, "Heavens! How is this possible? A first-year student..."
Silas felt his scalp tingle and hurriedly tried to explain. "Professors, please let me explain. It isn't what you think..."
Like a ghost, Snape glided silently in front of Silas and snatched the wand from his hand. Extremely complicated emotions churned in his black eyes—shock, suspicion, and even a trace of... indescribable apprehension?
He did not look at Silas. Instead, he raised the wand toward the air and coldly uttered a single word.
"Priori Incantatem!"
A faint green light emerged from the wand tip. Then, a blurred, translucent phantom of the troll's soul was dragged out struggling. It twisted once in the air before dispersing without a trace.
This phenomenon proved beyond any doubt that the last spell cast from this wand had been Avada Kedavra!
The scene fell deathly silent.
Silas looked at the fading soul phantom, then at the grave expressions of the three professors and the terrified faces of Harry and Ron. He blinked, putting on an exceptionally innocent, even slightly confused expression, and said in a tone that even he did not quite believe,
"Uh... who... who put that spell in my wand?"
Only the troll's corpse and a suffocating silence remained in the bathroom. Silas Cyril seemed to have landed himself in enormous trouble this time.
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