Halloween's Farce

Halloween was just around the corner. Hogwarts didn't give students a holiday for Halloween, but it did hold a Halloween Eve feast. A ghost band would come to perform in the Great Hall, and the Headless Hunt would put on a show that day. Halloween was a lively occasion for both the living and the dead.

The castle was filled with the tempting, sweet smell of roasted pumpkin. The largest pumpkins, grown by Hagrid, were big enough to serve as the body of a pumpkin carriage. With a little magic, the enormous floating pumpkins would suddenly shout, "Boo!" and scare passersby, then drape themselves in ghostly cloaks and fly away with a cackling laugh, only to pop up somewhere else and surprise someone all over again.

By dinnertime, the completely transformed Great Hall was filled with Halloween decorations. Thousands of bats flapped their wings across the ceiling, as if Snape had learned the Shadow Clone Technique. The sight was spectacular: the bats formed a mass of dark clouds, circling above the tables. But they weren't real bats. Professor McGonagall had organized the older students to make them during Transfiguration class that day—in other words, it was a pop quiz.

Pumpkin lanterns cast a warm glow over the merry chatter echoing through the Great Hall. The special drink of the day was a custom-made Pumpkin Juice, and there was also a blood-red pudding cake that Vampires might enjoy. The House-elves' cooking was as good as ever. The food looked a little unusual today, but it still tasted wonderful.

Halfway through the feast, the dining hall doors suddenly burst open, and a staggering figure rushed in. Quirrell, his head wrapped in a huge turban, charged into the room. Two months later, his reputation at Hogwarts had completely fallen apart.

The self-study group Ezio had organized had successfully weeded out most of its members the previous month, leaving fewer than ten. Even Hermione, who hadn't been very enthusiastic at first, had joined after sitting through a few absolutely dreadful Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. At least the group offered hands-on practice with magic; there was far more to learn there than from Quirrell.

Even the older students had organized self-study groups like Ezio's on their own. As upperclassmen, they'd dealt with several terrible teachers before, but even those had some degree of competence compared with a useless wreck like Quirrell, who taught them nothing and spent entire lessons stammering through a book. Even blathering on in class would've been better than reading in a monotone. Did he really think they couldn't read?

As everyone wondered why Quirrell had burst in looking so disheveled, he looked up in terror, wheezing as he staggered over to Dumbledore's chair. He leaned against the table, gasping, and said, "Troll—in the dungeons—I thought you ought to know."

With that, Quirrell toppled onto the floor and passed out.

Dumbledore remained calm at the sight of Quirrell's painfully bad acting, but the dining hall descended into chaos.

The young wizards shrieked and shouted over one another, their uproar nearly threatening to lift the roof.

The Slytherins, however, reacted far less. Ezio continued eating his dinner without a hint of haste. Seeing this, the Slytherin snakes seemed to find their anchor, and one by one they sat back down. There hadn't been many troublemakers to begin with, and most were first-, second-, or third-years—the students least willing to cross Ezio.

After finishing the last bite of his steak, Ezio drew his wand and pointed it at the ceiling. The bats flying overhead suddenly swooped down toward the tables, then transformed into countless hideous ghosts. The young wizards startled by the change let out piercing screams, but the chaos in the dining hall stopped at once.

"Scaring your fellow students isn't good behavior, Ezio," Dumbledore said at just the right moment. With the dining hall so noisy before, he'd had trouble getting a word in. Now that the brief silence had caught everyone's attention, they could hear him.

Ezio put down his knife and fork and stood. He swept the room with a cold gaze that was irritating enough to make everyone want to argue, but also made them keep their mouths shut. He looked at the students from the other three houses as if they were trolls.

"They were hurting my ears. One troll was enough to scare all these idiots witless. Shouldn't they be ashamed?"

"I believe this is all because they haven't mastered the most basic knowledge and abilities expected of a wizard."

"The professors have been too kind. I hope you'll assign more homework to fill these fools' empty heads, so they don't keep shaking them and making that annoying noise. My suggestion is to double it."

"So what if it's a troll? So what if a troll broke into the dining hall?"

"Hundreds of wizards can't deal with one smelly dimwit? Or do you think the professors are all on Quirrell's level?"

The students went pale, and the professors didn't look pleased either. Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and Professor Sprout, the Hufflepuff Head of House responsible for Herbology, were especially mortified. Their students really were lacking some basic knowledge.

Snape was the only one sitting there with a composed expression, but it was easy to see he was in a very good mood.

"You've ruined my enjoyment of the Halloween Feast." Ezio turned his gaze to Snape, who'd been watching the show. "I assume you'll agree, Professor Snape, that we should add some lessons on troll dissection to next week's curriculum?"

A few students gagged. They'd already imagined how horrifying that would be.

In his good mood, Snape's malicious streak surfaced as well.

"Although trolls are filthy and stupid, they do have value as Potions ingredients."

He gave a slight nod, passing sentence on the students that was scarcely better than a death sentence. Quiet groans rose through the dining hall. They could already sense the despair of next week's new lessons.

Ezio rose and left with measured steps. The Great Hall behind him remained quiet, its earlier festive cheer gone.

"Ezio, where are you going?"

Harry, who'd slipped out as well, wiped his mouth. He'd nearly finished eating, so he'd decided to follow and see what was going on.

"Of course I'm going to prepare Professor Snape's teaching materials for next week."

Ezio replied calmly. His main reason, though, was that he knew how to complete the second Hogwarts-exclusive Milestone.

[Phantom Assassin (Complete a frontal assassination while being watched but not noticed. Targets must be humanoid or humanoid-like creatures.)]

This Milestone was a little tricky to unlock, but not too tricky. In the Trial Space, Ezio could complete it easily: he could pick a mission target on the street, walk past as an ordinary passerby, and casually stab them. Hogwarts made things a little more complicated, since he couldn't go after students or professors.

The Milestone required a frontal assassination while being watched but not noticed. In other words, Ezio could be ignored, but he had to be in the target's field of vision before striking, without the target sensing his murderous intent or threat beforehand.

A troll was a stupid creature that counted as humanoid-like, and it was also easy to meet the prerequisites for an assassination.

A troll's shriveled brain couldn't think through much. It was far easier to fool than any other prey.

"You're planning to deal with the troll by yourself?"

"Is that hard?" Ezio asked in return.

"Well... it's a little hard," Harry said, scratching his head. "A troll's skin can resist a lot of magic. It's not as tough as a giant, but even an ordinary wizard would have a hard time dealing with one."

"Then don't use magic. A troll's head is its weak point—not just because it's stupid, but because its skull is fragile too. A heavy blow can knock it unconscious. Compared with its strong body, hitting its head works exceptionally well."

As they spoke, they had already reached the lower levels of Hogwarts. Ezio held his wand flat on his palm, its tip trembling slightly as it pointed in one direction.

Point Me was a highly intuitive spell, often used to explore mazes or complicated terrain. It could help a wizard find what they were looking for, even if they didn't know much about the target. It was one of the mysterious forms of magic that couldn't yet be explained.

"Can you smell that stench?"

Ezio stopped and glanced sideways at Harry.

"Yeah. It's worse than a pair of socks that's been worn for three months and soaked in a cesspit."

Harry waved the air in front of his nose and spoke with a frown.

"So when dealing with a troll, you need to hold your breath or protect your nose with the Bubble-Head Charm."

Ezio pulled up his hood and tapped the tip of his wand against his head. A chill swept down over him, and his body turned transparent. The Disillusionment Charm had taken effect.

"The troll's just around the corner. It'll be here any moment."

"That's the Disillusionment Charm, right? It doesn't seem as effective as the Invisibility Cloak." Harry compared the half-transparent Ezio with his own cloak.

"Of course not. Even the cheapest, shoddiest Invisibility Cloak costs thousands of Galleons, while the Disillusionment Charm is free. Yours is worth at least hundreds of thousands of Galleons. It's the only one in the world."

"Wow." Harry looked surprised. "It's worth that much?" But since the vault he'd inherited already held a mountain of gold, he was only a little surprised.

"But the Disillusionment Charm is enough for me. It'll do."

Ezio said nothing more. He crouched down and slipped into stealth. The Phantom Stealth Milestone he'd unlocked earlier let him enter an unscientific, somewhat magical state of optical invisibility. He didn't need the Disillusionment Charm to drastically reduce his presence and blend into the colors around him. With the Disillusionment Charm adding another layer, he was almost impossible to spot with the naked eye, even without bushes or shrubs to hide him.

It was as if he'd vanished. Harry rubbed his eyes, unable to see where Ezio was.

As heavy footsteps drew closer, the troll came around the corner. It dragged a crude club made from a tree trunk, walking with a dazed air. Its instincts told it that food lay in this direction, but the empty corridor held nothing in sight. Ezio was right in front of it, within its gaze, yet it couldn't see him.

Ezio moved forward without a sound, his right hand gripping the hilt of the Broken Spear. When he was only three meters away from the troll, he suddenly sprang up, leaping at it head-on. The gleaming blade flashed and vanished. The troll froze in place, and a potato-sized head silently slipped off its neck, rolling across the floor.

Its mighty heart hadn't yet realized what had happened. Blood pumped from the smooth cut at its neck, spouting like a tiny fountain.

Only then did Ezio's figure appear again.

[Milestone: Phantom Assassin (Complete)]

[Phantom Assassin: When entering combat, you can perform one forced stealth action. For one second, you completely disappear from your target's senses and field of vision. The available use of forced stealth will recover after you leave combat.]

"Tergeo."

Ezio flicked his wand, then turned and walked toward Harry. "It's over. Let's go back."