"You know, I've been thinking about what happened last night," said Harry the next morning, as he walked towards the first class with Ron and Ben. "And I think Hermione's right."

"About what?" grumbled Ron, clearly not wanting to agree with the girl.

"About that dog guarding something," he clarified, lowering the volume in case someone overheard them. "And I think I know what it might be..."

"What?"

"Whatever Hagrid took from that chamber," he said. "Whatever the witch or wizard who broke into Gringotts was searching for."

"That makes sense," agreed Ben. "Gringotts and Hogwarts are the two safest places you could think of, right?"

"Exacly," nodded Harry.

"But why would they hide it there?" asked Ron. "There's plenty of other places they could have chosen... Such as Dumbledore's office, for example. That'd be pretty safe, and there wouldn't be any risk of getting killed by a three-headed dog."

"Because Dumbledore's office is where everyone would look first if they were trying to find something at Hogwarts," reasoned Harry. "However, if you hide it in a trapdoor, guarded by a huge dog, in a locked room, at the end of a corridor that doesn't look any more special than the others, nobody would imagine it's there."

"But it does look more special than the others, though," commented Ben. Harry frowned. "It's forbidden. And Dumbledore won't tell the students why. That makes people wonder what's in there, it raises curiosity. And that stops it from being a normal corridor."

Harry focused his gaze towards the floor, as the three boys remained silent. They entered the classroom without uttering a single word, their minds filled with questions. A couple of pieces had clicked, but the puzzle was far more complicated than they thought it would be, and there was still a lot they had to find out in order to figure it out.

———————————————

Halloween morning arrived, and Hermione still hadn't spoken a word to Harry, Ron and Ben ever since the dog incident. Ron was quite glad about it and Ben, who didn't really dislike the girl, it was truly a peace of mind to be able to live without being scolded by Hermione every two hours.

Regarding the punch, Ben hadn't heard anything from either his or Malfoy's family, which made him wonder if Draco's father had actually 'heard about this'.

Harry thought Malfoy was probably trying to find a way to get back at him, and Ron decided they had to have something planned in case he tried to do it. Hermione once heard them talking about it, and she let them know she found it childish to turn it into a war.

Harry reminded her she wasn't talking to them, so she got back to it.

During Charms, Professor Flitwick announced that he thought they were ready to start practising some simple spells. He wanted them to start with the very easy levitating charm. He paired Harry with Seamus, Neville and Ben, and, to the redhead's desmain, Ron with Hermione.

Ron got as close to Ben and Neville as he could. But the teacher noticed, and he made Hermione approach Ron too, so the four of them ended up like canned sardines.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practising!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, standing on top of a pile of books so he could seem a bit taller. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick! And saying the magic words properly is very important, too. Don't Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f', and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

"Ben," whispered Ron in his ear.

"Ron," he whispered back.

"What if Malfoy tries to attack you or Harry with this spell?"

Ben froze in his seat, as the rest of the students tried to levitate the feathers they had been given. He watched Draco fail miserably at it, and he assumed it was unlikely he would throw a desk at him.

"That's ridiculous," Hermione butted in. "What is he going to do, attack you with his feather?"

"I wasn't talking to you," growled Ron, ears turning red.

He got back to trying to make the feather lift into the air, and Ben did the same. "Wingardium Leviosa," he said, trying his best to pronounce it as clearly as possible.

But the feather didn't move at all, so he tried again. And again. And once again. He didn't understand. What was he doing wrong? The spell was being pronounced correctly, and he had even tried to copy Professor Flitwick's voice, which had earned a giggle from Neville.

Maybe it was the hand movement that was wrong? He tried to repeat it more carefully this time, but nothing happened.

Ron wasn't having better luck. He was visibly getting stressed, and began waving his long arms like a windmill, and Ben simply couldn't hold back his laughter.

"What are you laughing at, Walker?" he asked, wrinkling his nose, and got ready to shout the spell again. He miraculously didn't hit Ben straight in the face with his wand.

"Stop, stop, stop!" shouted Hermione. "You're going to take someone's eye out! Besides, you're saying it wrong. It's le-vi-o-sa, not le-vio-sa."

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," snarled Ron. "Go on, go on!"

The girl nodded, with her nose in the air, and rolled up her sleeves before saying, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

As she lifted up her wand, the feather followed the path beautifully, hovering above the students' heads. An excited smile was slowly drawn in Hermione's face.

"Oh, well done!" congratulated Professor Flitwick, clapping joyfully. "Everyone look, Miss Granger has done it!"

Ron scowled as he rested his head in his arms on top of a stack of books. A sudden loud explosion was heard from where Harry and Seamus were practising, and everyone turned around to see what had happened.

The sandy-haired boy's feather had been burned, and his face was smeared with soot. Harry looked at Flitwick, "I think we're going to need another feather over here, professor."

Ron was furious by the end of the class.

"It's levioughhsa," he repeated dramatically, as they made their way through the crowd to the next class with Harry, Seamus- whose face was still stained-, Dean and Ben. "Not leviOUUSAAAH!"

To be completely fair, Ron had nailed his imitation of Hermione. But Ben couldn't help but feel guilty as he laughed at it.

"She's a nightmare, honestly! No wonder why she hasn't got any friends."

Hermione rushed past them, hitting Ron's shoulder with her own. She was crying as she held her books tightly, almost hugging them.

"I think she heard you..." commented Harry. Ron looked at them uncomfortably.

"Oh no..." muttered Ben. They all stopped for a moment. "Do you think we should go after her?"

"To do what?"

"To see if she's okay," he answered. "She's crying!"

"Ben, have you forgotten how insufferable she's been these two months?"

He shook his head, and they continued walking. He forced himself to follow them instead of running after Hermione. Harry slowed down to walk beside Ben.

"If you go after her, you'll be late to class," he said.

"I don't care," he replied. "I don't care about getting in trouble."

"Well I do, and I don't want you to be punished for helping someone."

"That's nothing new."

Harry was silent for a second. "Look, let's go to class, and we'll tell Professor Binns that Hermione's feeling sick, so she won't get detention. Then, both of us can go check on her. Is that okay?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Okay."

———————————————

So that was what they did, but Hermione was nowhere to be found. They searched for her at the Common Room, and all over the Gryffindor tower. They even asked Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown to see if she was in the girl's dormitory, but she wasn't there. Ben suggested to go look at the library, and also at some empty classrooms. But it was impossible to find her.

Ben was very worried. She didn't have lunch, or go to any other class. She never skipped her lessons, so it was something worth mentioning. However, he and Harry had to go back to their dormitory to finish some homework Snape had given them.

For the special feast, the whole Great Hall was filled with beautiful Halloween decorations. Thousands of real bats fluttered around the ceiling, as some others swooped over the tables. Decorated pumpkins floated over the students' heads, illuminating everything with the candles inside of them.

But Ben couldn't pay as much attention to the decorations as the rest of the students did. His mind was fixed on Hermione, and he couldn't stop wondering where she was, since she hadn't joined them for dinner.

"I heard Parvati tell Lavender she's been in the girls bathroom, crying, all afternoon, and she wants to be left alone," Neville had told them as they sat at the Gryffindor table.

Ben looked over at Ron. "What?" exclaimed the redhead uncomfortably, taking a chicken wing. "I didn't think she'd take it like this."

Ben wondered how Ron expected she'd take being called insufferable and being made fun of, but remained silent, and glanced over his empty plate.

"Aren't you going to eat?" asked Harry from beside him.

"I'm not hungry."

Harry stared at him in silence. At first, Ben didn't look back at him, but it was beginning to be awkward, so he met his gaze. He found it cool how incredibly bright Harry's eyes were. "What?"

The boy's lips parted, but the doors burst open with a loud noise before he could utter a word. Professor Quirrel sprinted into the hall, his face contorted in fear as he shouted: "Troll- In the dungeons! Troll in the dungeons!" He stopped running. "I thought you ought to know."

And his body collapsed against the floor with a thud.

The Great Hall erupted into screams and shouts of fear as the students got up from their seats, on their way to leave the hall. Professor Dumbledore stood up and yelled,

"Silence!" Everyone immediately stopped in their places, and turned to look at the headmaster. "Everyone will, please, not panic. Now, prefects will lead their House back to the dormitories. Teachers will follow me to the dungeons."

Ben looked around the hall, trying to find his sister in between the crowd of Slytherins. When he finally caught a glimpse of her, her face was contorted in horror. "Isn't the Slytherin common room in the dungeons?" he asked Harry and Ron.

Their eyebrows raised in surprise.

"What if the troll hurts my si- What if it hurts any of them?"

"Dumbledore won't let the troll hurt any of his students," said Percy the Prefect from behind them. He then turned to the door and made his way to lead the students. "Now follow me, stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!"

"How could a troll get in?" asked Harry as they climbed up the stairs.

"Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid," shrugged Ron. "Maybe it was one of Peeve's jokes."

"What a joke, letting a creature like that in a school," grumbled Ben, still worried.

They were walking through a crowd of hufflepuffs, when Harry suddenly grabbed Ben and Ron's arms. They looked at him, confused. "What's wrong?"

"Hermione!" he shrieked. "She doesn't know about the troll!"

Ron bit his lip. "Should we warn her?"

"Of course we should!" exclaimed Ben, checking if Percy was near. He was already out of sight, so it was their chance to leave.

The three of them ran through the students as fast as they could, yet trying not to be seen. When they reached an empty corridor, they hurried off towards the girls bathroom. Someone's steps reached their ears.

"Percy!" hissed Ron, pushing Ben and Harry towards the wall behind a large stone griffin a bit too roughly. Ignoring the pain on their necks, they tried to take a look at the corridor.

To their surprise, it wasn't Percy, but Snape.

"What is he doing here?" whispered Harry. "Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"

"Maybe Dumbledore made him go somewhere else?" suggested Ben.

When Snape's footsteps faded, the boys went back to the corridor. "He's heading for the third floor!"

"What if he's going to the forbidden corridor?"

"We should go after him, I've got a bad feeling about-"

"Hello?" interrupted Ben, waving his hand in greeting in front of their faces to call their attention. "Have you forgotten about why we're here? We're supposed to warn Hermione! Imagine if she gets out of the bathroom and the troll sees her, we can't let that happen."

"You're right."

They ran to the bathroom, until a sickening smell got up their noses. It was like a kind of mixture between old socks, public toilets and dirty pond water.

"You two smell that too, right?" whispered.

And then, at the end of the corridor, a gigantic monster slowly moved towards an open doorway. Its skin was granite grey, his large body bulged like a rock and his small bald head was perched on top like a coconut.

"The troll has left the dungeon..."

"And it's going into the bathroom!"

They rushed after the troll, ready to protect Hermione, even though they had absolutely no clue of what they would do if it attacked them four. A horrified scream was heard after a high breaking sound.

When they arrived, the troll had used a huge wooden bat to break the toilets, in an attempt to hit Hermione, who was lying on the floor under what was left of the toilets.

"Hermione, move!" shouted Harry, and the girl did so. She crawled on the floor like a cat, reaching the area under the sinks.

Meanwhile, Harry, Ron and Ben kept throwing pieces of wood at the troll, though it didn't seem to bother the monster. "It's not going to work!"

The troll noticed where Hermione was now hiding, and began stomping towards her. "Help!" she cried desperately. The monster hit the sinks with its bat, a few inches away from the girl. Water began coming out of the pipes. "Please, help!"

So Ben did something very stupid to try to help Hermione. Before thinking it twice, he jumped over the rubble, sprinting towards the corner of the bathroom.

"Ben!" shouted Harry.

Ben began clapping his hands loudly, calling the troll's attention. "Look at me, you wanker!"

The troll spun around, surprised. He stared at Ben for a couple of seconds. The boy assumed Hermione would take advantage of them. However, she was frozen in fear.

"Hermione!" he yelled. "Come on, move!"

Hermione didn't move.

But the troll did.

It attempted to attack Ben, who quickly ducked, making the bat miss him. It hit the wall so hard that pieces of brick flew at Ben, knocking him down. The impact of his back meeting the jagged rubble sent waves of sharp pain through every fiber of his body. As the seconds ticked by, an unwanted haze blurred the world around him, his surroundings distorted, edges blending together, and the clarity vanished like a wisp of smoke.

"Ben!" he heard a distant voice cry out.

He found himself unable to stand up, or at least not fast enough to escape the monster, his legs trembling uncontrolabily. So, in a desperate attempt to survive, he resorted to crawling across the floor, ignoring the rubble penetrating the skin of his hands and arms, as his heart pounded fiercely in his chest.

Despite his best efforts, with a brutal and powerful swing, the troll's bat collided against his left leg. The chilling crack echoed both all over the bathroom and through his body, while the strength of the blow shattered his bones. Ben wasn't capable of holding back a bone-chilling cry as he fell back down, writhing in excruciating pain.

The sound of the troll's bat being lifted back up into the air reached his ears, his eyes closing firmly as a reflex act. He couldn't find the strength to do anything but simply wait in silence, preparing himself for the pain to course through every nerve of his.

But the pain didn't arrive. He slowly opened his eyes, and a small giggle escaped his lips when he saw Harry sitting on the troll's shoulders before sticking his wand up its nose. The monster was clearly surprised by the sudden action, and he began shaking from side to side, in a desperate attempt to get rid of both the boy and his wand.

Harry held on tightly to the troll as he sneezed, and the wand was yeeted to the floor. But his foot was grabbed by the monster, and he was left hanging upside down.

"Harry!"

"Do something!" shouted Harry, miraculously avoiding the troll's bat.

"What?" asked Ron, looking around the room in search of something to use in order to help his friend. Ben's mind was running and spinning madly, as he tried to come up with some useful idea, but he simply couldn't think properly. He felt his vision becoming blurry, as waves of lightheadedness washed over him. He lowered his head, placing it on the floor, and resisted the desire to close his eyes. He felt as though his friends' voices, and all sounds in general, were distancing themselves from him, and he could hardly tell what was happening.

The world disappeared for a couple of seconds, until he felt people's presence beside him. He heard Harry and Ron say something, but his ears were muffed.

"Are you mental?" shrieked Hermione, kneeling down next to him. "Why did you do that?"

Words were stuck on his throat, so he didn't utter a word.

"Are you alright?" he heard Harry ask calmly, though out of breath, as he crouched down in front of him. He had a couple of small but bleeding wounds on his cheek. Ben nodded, and made an effort to sit up straight. Harry and Ron helped him. "Take it easy..."

"We should take you to the hospital wing," suggested Ron.

"We should take a look at your leg, before that." said Hermione, after being silent for a long time.

"Why?" Ben said in a small voice.

"It's important to see the wound, before trying to move the person who got hurt, to check how serious it is," she explained.

"Have you not seen his face?" said Harry sharply. "He's as white as paper, I'm pretty sure we can see it's serious without having to move his leg."

"If that bat is capable of knocking out a troll of that size by just falling to his head, imagine what it has done to his bones when the troll smacked it against his leg," replied Ron.

"Please don't give so many details," moaned Ben.

"Sorry."

"I still think it's a good idea to check the area before-" began Hermione, but was interrupted by loud footsteps that approached the bathroom, followed by the doors being slammed open.

Professor McGonagall burst into the room, with Snape and Quirrell behind her. They looked around, eyes widening at the sight of the mess they had caused.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" She said with cold fury, looking angrier than ever. Her lips were white, and her eyes were wide open. She then saw Ben lying on the floor, and made her way towards the kid. "What happened to Mr. Walker?"

"The troll," rushed to explain Harry. "He tried to give Hermione some time to escape, but it attacked Ben. We think it broke his leg."

"It for sure did," noted Ron.

McGonagall's tone became slightly more relaxed. "Do you think you will be able to stand up so we can take you to the infirmary?"

"Uh..." he mumbled. He refused to let them think he was weak. With gritted teeth, he collected all the determination and strength in his body, he tried to get up.

He had suffered many wounds throughout his life. Such as that time when he fell off a tree, and all of the small cuts and burns he spent lots of time hiding but still had all over his body. All of a sudden, the thought of having to show Mrs. Pomfrey his leg at the infirmary hit him like a brick, and made him fall back down to the floor.

He closed his eyes tightly, and tried to ignore the painful words his mind was directing to himself.

"Professor Quirrell," called McGonagall. He got up from the toilet he had been sitting on. "Tell Poppy to come here, please." 

A/N: i'm so sorry i haven't been updating as often as i said i would! school's been stressing me a lot, and my mental health's gotten worse, and my boyfriend broke up with me so i haven't had any motivation to write until now. 

anyways i hope you enjoyed :)