Hermione instinctively took a step back and slowly lifted her head, staring up at the towering monster in front of her—twelve feet tall, and weighing well over a ton.
The troll's hulking body was like a small hill. Its shadow completely engulfed Hermione. Its rough, grey-black skin was cracked and dry, reeking of rot, and every swing of its massive arms dragged up a gust of wind cold enough to chill the bone.
Hermione swallowed, her voice trembling without her meaning it to. "Harry, don't joke around. There's no way I can do this!"
Harry patted her shoulder, layering Current Reinforcement onto her, and encouraged her: "Don't be afraid, I'm right here. This is a great chance for real combat—there won't be any danger. Do you remember the spells you've learned? As long as you time your casting right, you can do it!"
With Harry's encouragement, Hermione finally forced herself to face reality and raised her wand to point at the troll.
But even though she'd plucked up her courage, she genuinely had no idea how she was supposed to defeat this colossal creature.
Trolls had magic-resistant hides; ordinary spells simply couldn't hurt them.
Was she supposed to use the Levitation Charm to wrench the club out of its hand and then let gravity do the work so that it dropped onto the troll's head and knocked it out?
How was that supposed to work?
Even Harry's powerful blow from just now hadn't done any real damage to the troll, let alone a falling club.
Then maybe another method—rush up onto the troll's head, jab her wand into its nostril, and stab straight through into its brain?
That wouldn't work either. Never mind how she was supposed to climb onto the troll's head— even if the troll just stood there and let her poke away, she still wouldn't be able to hurt it in the slightest.
Hermione's little brain spun, and she quickly came up with a plan.
She cast quickly: "Petrificus Totalus!"
The Full Body-Bind hit the troll, and it only managed to freeze its body for a brief moment—but that fleeting instant was exactly what Hermione was aiming for.
She immediately followed up with another rapid incantation: "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The Levitation Charm struck the club in the troll's hand with pinpoint accuracy. Thanks to the Body-Bind, the troll's body had gone rigid for the moment, and the club slipped free of its grip with ease, floated up to the ceiling of the bathroom, and then came crashing down.
The troll stared dumbly at its hand, baffled as to where its club had gone.
A heartbeat later, the club dropped from above and smacked squarely into the top of its head.
The troll staggered, swaying on its feet and barely holding its balance—only for Hermione to hit it with another perfectly timed Body-Bind.
The second Petrificus Totalus landed right after the club, and this time the troll completely lost its balance and crashed heavily to the floor.
Hermione's eyes lit up. She shouted, "Incendio!"
Blazing flames roared from the tip of her wand and engulfed the troll.
The troll squealed in agony as the fire consumed it. The air filled with a thick, acrid stench of burning, mingled with the creature's own foul odor, enough to make anyone retch.
The flames crackled and spat as they burned. The troll's skin began to slough away, and grease seeped out from beneath that granite-like hide, sizzling loudly as it was roasted by the inferno.
Hermione let out a breath of relief. She thought the troll would just stay there and burn to death—but to her surprise, once it recovered a little, it suddenly lurched to its feet again. Driven mad by pain, it became even more violent, snatching up its burning club and swinging it down at her with a savage roar!
Even with her body strengthened by Current Reinforcement, her lack of real combat experience showed. The little otter clearly froze in fright, and the flaming club was about to slam into her.
At that critical instant, Harry raised his wand and incanted, "Avada Gnaw-a-Melon!"
A brilliant emerald light flashed out, carrying the chill of death and an overwhelming sense of dread. It streaked through the air faster than lightning and slammed straight into the troll.
At the point where the green light struck, it was as though time and space themselves warped. A powerful magical shockwave spread outward at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The troll's body looked as if an invisible giant hand had seized it and torn it apart. From the point of contact with the light, it rapidly began to disintegrate and collapse. Muscles, bones, hair…
Every part of its body was reduced, under that eerie, terrifying power, to countless fine motes of dust that drifted gently away on a faint breeze.
If not for the traces left behind to show that the troll had once been standing there, the students might have thought they'd imagined the whole thing—that the troll had never appeared at all.
Professor McGonagall and the other teachers rushed over. The moment they stepped into the public bathroom, their eyes fell upon a scene as horrifying as it was surreal:
The air was still heavy with thick, charred stench. The floor was littered with the marks of battle, chunks of stone and dust scattered everywhere.
The grotesque, disgusting troll was, beneath a shaft of green light that radiated pure terror, slowly and eerily coming apart.
Its thick limbs and twisted face, under that emerald glow, were crumbling away bit by bit into dust and disappearing into the air.
That blinding green light instantly clawed at the professors' memories, mirroring, with startling similarity, a certain notorious curse imprinted forever in their minds.
Although the effect before them differed in some small ways from the Killing Curse they remembered, their instincts screamed that this was an even more evil, even more forbidden and horrifying spell than the Killing Curse itself.
For a long moment, the professors stood frozen where they were, eyes full of fear and utter disbelief.
Their lips trembled, but no sound came out.
What they could not accept was that the one who had cast this spell was the very savior they had pinned their hopes on.
Merlin's pants, ten years unwashed! Was this some kind of hallucination?
How could the savior possibly have learned a Killing Curse in his first year?
And where had he learned it?
Never mind the savior—even the Dark Lord hadn't mastered the three Unforgivable Curses in his first year!
So who was the Dark Lord, and who was the savior?
They honestly didn't know anymore. They really, really didn't know aaaaaat all!
The whole room fell silent. Only a few embers still crackled quietly as they burned.
At that moment, Quirrell was staring fixedly at the spot where the troll had vanished, and suddenly he let out a weak sob.
He was sitting on one of the toilets, clutching his chest in a rictus of pain.
All at once, he yanked out his wand. His expression twisted into something vicious, his eyes bulging as he glared at Harry with pure hatred and disbelief, as if he were looking at some monstrous criminal.
He bellowed at the top of his lungs, voice raw and ragged, "Harry Potter, you actually cast an Unforgivable Curse at Hogwarts! You'll lose your status as the savior, be reviled by every witch and wizard, and face the Ministry of Magic's most severe punishment!"
Quirrell's roar was like a bomb thrown into a still pond, sending waves of shock crashing in every direction.
Apart from Hermione, Ron, Pansy and a mere handful of others, the students all instinctively backed away, staring at Harry in terrified disbelief.
Even Professor McGonagall, at some point, had drawn her wand and taken up a guarded stance against him.
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