The Slytherin Magus

'What the hell was going on?'

The group of students actively chasing down the Troll finally trapped it and brought it down with vicious stunning spells.

It had grabbed a young student who looked to be in his first year. The poor boy had gone white with fright when the Troll had immediately tried to eat him.

Within seconds after we showed up, the Troll was out cold on the ground while the injured students were helping each other out.

'Just how many Trolls were there?'

There was less destruction here even though the Troll had gone berserk because of the open space.

There were cracks in the walls here and there though and chunks of the flooring had been dug out, no doubt by the Troll's menacing club.

We hurried forward, finding Mathias among the group of students that had managed to stun the Troll.

Mathias was a sixth-year Slytherin like me but he was the appointed Prefect for our year.

"Matt, what's going on?" I asked him, trapping the Troll in a bubble as well, to make sure that it didn't for some reason, wake up and cause a ruckus.

"No idea." Matt panted, helping up another student who was bleeding down her leg. "I was just coming down for Potion when I saw people running up from the dungeons going on about a Troll, then next thing we knew, an actual Troll was right in front of us."

I frowned at his explanation, it was just like with the Troll in the dungeon, it just showed up out of thin air.

"There was a Troll in the dungeon." Witter said in his inflectionless voice.

Matt looked us all over, noting that we had no injuries. "What happened to it?" He asked curiously.

"Defeated, of course." Hazel reassured him, thinking that he was worried about the Troll in the dungeons coming up for them.

Matt's eyes dimmed and he looked down. "Of course, if you'll excuse me, I have to help the injured get to the Hospital Wing."

I held my tongue, relieved that Witter did the same. 

It was already bad enough that he thought that the four of us were able to effortlessly bring down one Troll without sustaining injuries when it took almost fifteen of them to sufficiently subdue one and even then they still had casualties.

"Do you know if there are more Trolls?" Roxana asked him just before he left.

He seemed to straighten up when she addressed him, squaring his shoulders. "No idea, Rox."

I noticed that Roxana's expression soured when he called her that, if I remembered clearly from the first time we met, she didn't like being called that.

"Let's find out for ourselves then." I cut in, taking Roxana's hand to hurry out to the first floor.

Hazel and Witter followed closely behind me but we were soon separated when a Troll seemed to drop from the ceiling.

Fortunately, I was still holding onto Roxana's hand so it was easy to haul her to safety.

She ended up on me, her weight taking the wind out of me but there was no time to pay attention to that, the Troll should be gunning for us right about now, the Troll should…

I looked over to find the Troll flat on the ground in between us and Hazel, and Witter.

Hazel was the first to break free of the spell that the Troll seemed to put us under.

"It's a fake." She kicked it to the side to come over to me and Roxana. "Are you okay?"

I wasn't sure who her question was directed to or if she meant it to both of us. "We're fine, just a little shaken up." I replied vaguely to dispel the awkwardness.

Roxana got up and offered her hand to me to help me up but Hazel was already doing the same.

I stared at both their hands before deciding to play the pacifist and let them both help me up.

The loud sound of something popping dragged my attention to the Troll that had been the trigger for my current situation.

Witter had viciously stomped its head in, and it popped, the rest of the Troll deflating as air rushed out.

"It's a fake?" I repeated, stunned by this outcome.

Witter kicked it to the side, a little too savagely. "It just popped like a balloon, are you hoping for some other answer?"

I ignored his snarky response and walked forward to investigate the Troll, it was an impressive mimicry of an actual Troll.

The people behind the attacks were quite smart. Amid the chaos, it would be difficult to tell apart which Troll was real and which Troll was fake.

Unlike us who planned to fight back against any Troll we came across, most students would run from a Troll.

"They want to make the Trolls seem more than they actually are, huh?" Hazel drifted closer to also inspect the blow-up Troll.

Witter scoffed. "We ran into two Trolls before seeing a fake, that means we'll be twice as likely to see a real Troll."

"Or we just happened to be in a place with a high concentration of real Trolls." Roxana calmly countered. "Your hypothesis only works if the real Trolls and fakes are scattered in a measured manner across the castle."

Silence fell after Roxana spoke, all three of us staring at her in disbelief.

"What?" She threw us a look. "Just because I'm popular doesn't mean I'm dumb."

I recovered first. "Yeah, sorry." I waived the matter. "We have to keep moving."

Roxana was right through, there was no guarantee that the fakes weren't more than the real Trolls but in the same vein, the real Trolls could be the ones with the higher number.

"We just have to be prepared for anything, we still don't know how the Trolls come about…"

The bell rang. "Students are to please seek safety in their dormitories, your House Head will be at the dorms to provide guidance."

We all stared at each other and then kept moving. 

I knew that Hazel and Witter were still moving around because they wanted to but I worried that Roxana was doing it because of me.

It was quite the selfish thing to think, Roxana was clearly a level-headed person and I would rather hug a Troll than bring it up with her.

And so we were on the move again, it seemed like Roxana was right with her predictions and we were just the unlucky ones in the dungeons and the Viaduct Entrance.

We didn't bump into another Troll except for a fake that Witter was all too happy to stomp to a quick death.

Just as we were about to make it to the second floor, fresh shouts started from behind us.

"Troll!"

"There's one behind you…"

"Run for it…"

We barely shared a look before we were running down the corridor to the source of the shouts.

I took the lead, seeing the pissed-off Troll just ahead. I prepared to cast another containment spell to entrap the Troll but before I could, another Troll appeared from thin air.

It was directly above me, I barely jumped out the way in time, smacking into the wall rather hard. It felt like my skull cracked against it and I could swear that I was seeing stars.

"Audric!" 

I couldn't tell who called my name, it could have been Roxana or Hazel, or both.

I could hear a telltale popping sound as I tried to sit up, so the one that had ambushed me was a fake?

Most of the students had emptied out as our appearance distracted the Troll, giving them the chance to freely escape.

Roxana rushed over to me to check me over, while Hazel pointed her wand at the real Troll who impressively flew back and crashed against a pillar.

This infuriated the creature who was back on its feet in the next moment, charging for us.

Witter however cast the entrapment jinx that I'd been using all these while and planned to use again before I got disrupted.

Hazel's sigh of relief was loud, her shoulders drooped from the force of it.

Roxana helped me up to my feet and the muddiness in my thoughts was starting to clear up.

"Audric? Are you okay?" Hazel asked in concern, hurrying over to me as well.

Witter remained in place, a shuttered expression on his face as he looked on.

Behind him, the Troll was still putting up a fight, struggling to break free from the magical bubble.

And it did.

It seemed to happen in slow motion, the Troll managed to break through Witter's spell, grunting loudly as it did to show its displeasure.

There was no time to react, as soon as it was free, it swung its club at Witter who was directly in front of him.

The spiked club caught Witter on his side, the force throwing him against a far wall.