Too Scary

The castle seemed to have emergencies of one sort or another quite often, so the school responded almost immediately.

Dumbledore nearly at once ordered the prefects to lead the students back to their common rooms, and the prefects swiftly began calling for the inexperienced first-years to stay close to them.

"Andrew isn't here, he should have gone to the Library!"

His roommates reported it to the prefect almost immediately.

"Oh, damn... is he in any clubs?"

"Yes."

His roommates immediately named Andrew's club.

"That's good, there are people in that club who can fight..." The prefect let out a breath. "Go to the fifth-years and find Hande. Have them organize some students to search around the Library. I'll report this to the Head of House."

Andrew had no idea what was happening in the Great Hall.

He was still feeling proud of having finished his work, while also wondering whether he should eat first and then find time to visit the Owlery, or take advantage of the lack of people now to secretly finish what he needed to do there before eating.

"What's that smell?"

A wave of foul stench suddenly hit him, and Andrew frowned.

It was normal for underground classrooms to smell bad, but never anything as horrifying as an exploded public toilet.

After a brief assessment, he immediately retreated several steps and confirmed that the strange odor was coming from ahead.

"Damn... Peeves's new prank?"

Unsure, he tapped his backpack with his wand. A rope crawled out of the bag—if his Transfiguration had been proper, it should have been a snake right now, but his skills were limited, so this was all he could manage.

The rope began slithering along the base of the wall until it made a huge racket at the corner—if Peeves was smashing something, it should draw him over.

But what reached Andrew's ears was not the sound of something hitting the floor, but incredibly heavy footsteps, as though someone had brought an elephant into the castle.

"Damn... what kind of new prank is this?"

He backed away several more steps and used the Levitation Charm to stick a sheet of parchment to the wall. He turned it into a mirror and made sure there were no prankster ghosts or goblins behind him.

But the stench grew even worse.

"Did Moaning Myrtle blow up a toilet?"

Andrew gripped his wand tightly and even cracked a joke. At the same time, he turned another piece of parchment into a mask and used his wand to put it on.

"Oh... what the hell is that?"

He had retreated to a good spot. A gigantic thing, more than ten feet tall, stood in the shadows. The poor lighting made its face impossible to see, but its sheer size was enough to inspire terror. Not to mention the enormous club dragging along the ground in its right hand.

"Damn... didn't I come here to study?"

Andrew silently rolled his eyes—then, without the slightest hesitation, he waved his wand at the ground.

Crack—splat!

As Andrew cast the spell, the Troll had already begun accelerating into a clumsy jog toward him. Unfortunately, the solid floor turned into a swamp beneath its huge feet the moment it stepped down. It stumbled at once, only to discover that its foot had sunk into a hole barely larger than itself.

With a chilling sound, it easily yanked its foot free, its vicious eyes locking completely onto Andrew.

The Transfiguration isn't strong enough...

Andrew waved his wand again. The rope that had scouted ahead began climbing directly up the Troll's body. It easily crawled up to the Troll's neck through the huge hand trying to scratch at it, then wrapped itself around its eyes.

The next instant, the rope transformed into a thorny vine, fastening itself firmly over the Troll's eyes.

"Roar!!!"

A tremendous roar rang out. The Troll screamed in agony, raising the club it had been dragging along the floor high into the air, trying to smash it down toward Andrew. But before it could even raise it halfway, it stretched and stretched, turning into the roots of a huge tree.

The fairly spacious passageway was almost instantly filled, and the dispersed force kept the Transfiguration from fading.

Andrew began his next spell without hesitation. The thorns tangled around the Troll's eyes rapidly grew, and the Troll's miserable howls echoed throughout the underground corridor.

But before half a minute had passed, it was all over.

At least, in Andrew's understanding, no living creature could survive such an assault. Still, he waved his wand. The mirror stuck to the wall turned back into parchment, then transformed into a sharp spike that lodged itself firmly around where the Troll's heart should have been.

He waved his wand again, turning the tree back into a club. Under Andrew's control, it struck the spike like a hammer again and again, eventually driving the entire spike into the Troll's body.

"If you're still not dead after this, I'll admit defeat."

Only then did Andrew let out a breath and cautiously walk forward—words were one thing, but what if it moved again?

But the Troll was undoubtedly dead as dead could be.

"It really was terrifying-looking... good thing I trained so hard in Transfiguration..."

He casually tested several spells he knew and found that they could not even pierce the skin of the dead giant.

"But how could there be a Troll inside a perfectly normal school? Something feels wrong, but I can't remember what."

Shaking his head, he had no idea whether the creature had any economic value or useful materials—though even if it did, it was not worth the risk.

After retrieving the parchment and rope, Andrew roughly erased the traces around him. Once he made sure nothing could be linked to him, he casually changed his hair color and hairstyle, added a few inches to the soles of his shoes, and hurried away.

There was clearly some kind of conspiracy at work, and he had only just become capable of killing a Troll. How could he dare get involved?

Taking another step back, if something had gone wrong inside the school, how could it not be Professor Quirrell's fault? That did not even require evidence!

With that mindset, he avoided several areas with portraits and headed straight for the Library on the second floor. He only needed to wander around the bookshelves and dispel the magic. He frequented the Library anyway, so there was no need to worry about anyone becoming suspicious.

"Here to find Granger?"

"Why don't you say Granger was looking for the two of you?"

"Honestly... one group sneaks out to kill a Troll without leaving their names and thinks I wouldn't know it was them, while another group of younger students thinks they can handle a Troll!!!"

"Five points from Gryffindor, five points each!!!"

"Professor, they really did come looking for me, because I... I thought I could handle a Troll too..."

Professor McGonagall looked at Hermione, who was obviously lying, then at the other two, who looked like quails.

"All right, you lose five points too, Miss Granger. Now, you may go."

The two of them were immensely relieved, but the walk afterward was unbearably awkward.

"Forget it, I've decided to forgive you."

Granger said this before entering the common room first.