Harry Potter: A Real Tale(AU, SI)

As the Puffs and Ravens waited for the next house, Slytherins entered the great hall and slowly marched towards their seats.

Their table was made of various bubbling colorful liquids, but the Slytherins didn't even hesitate for a second before they sat down.

"It isn't fair, how come the pumpkin didn't scare them," Hannah muttered, shaking her twin tails.

Then it was Gryffindors turn, Rose entered the hall followed by Hermoine and Ron.

The remaining Gryffindors trickled after the trio and gaped at the great hall.

The pumpkin greeted them with its jumpscare.

Ron rolled on the ground to dodge, and Rose tried to punch it while Hermione and Neville shrieked.

"Bloody Hell! Fred and George could have given us a heads up." The Gryffindors gathered themselves and slowly moved towards their table, their eyes swiveling in their sockets, taking in the magical great hall.

The Gryffindor's table was normal and stood out from the magical tables of other houses.

"Why isn't our table enchanted?" Hermoine muttered, staring at the other three tables with interest.

Just when Rose looked like she was going to walk towards the badger's table, smoke clouds puffed into existence around the heads and waists of the lions.

The smoke quickly dissipated, leaving behind orange-colored ears and tails of a cat on each Gryffindor.

The cat parts were littered with scars, and some had missing pieces like they were in fights.

As Gryffindors marveled at their new body parts, older students slowly trickled into the great hall.

"Enjoying your first Halloween feast, firsties" Tonks grinned, looking at the girls and Leon.

"It's awesome."

Leon was still admiring the details that went into the decorations.

They showed off their fangs and shuffled their wings, their posture screaming that they would jump down for blood any second.

The pumpkins grew closer to the students when no one was looking at them, an eerie smile plastered across their faces.

The Ravens dived now and then, scaring the Ravenclaws, they burst into smoke after hitting a student if Ravenclaws didn't dodge.

'I wonder how much time it took for the professors to do all this.'

"I bet Mr. Talented here screamed like a baby," Tonks said jostling Leon out of his thoughts.

He just scoffed at her.

"I need more than these to be afraid. After seeing the smoke curtain at the entrance, I knew we were in for a treat, and it's not like professors tried hard to scare people, they just created an awesome spooky environment. If they really wanted to scare someone, I think you would also scream like a baby, Tonks."

Hannah sniffled at the thought of personalized scaring tactics while Tonks reached out her hand to ruffle Leon's head.

"You little!"

Leon tried to duck, but the metamorph magus's hand elongated and reached its destination. 

His humiliation was postponed as Dumbledore rose from his seat, tapping his drink.

"Ah! It always brings me joy to see the wonder and joy on the faces of the first years after they enter the great hall." He smiled mischievously, his glasses glinting. "Let's give a round of applause for your professors, they took time out of their busy schedule to make it a memorable Halloween for everyone, just like always."

The Gryffindor table hooted and hollered the loudest followed by Hufflepuff where Leon too was shouting his best to show his appreciation while clapping.

Dumbledore let the students tire out before he tapped his glass again.

"Your thanks reached your professors, and some of you were very enthusiastic, keep it up." He smiled at the Gryffindors and Hufflepuff tables.

"Now without further ado. Let's start the Halloween feast," Dumbledore announced and waved his hand.

Lighting crackled in the windows as the two pumpkin giants somehow got their hands on a bell and rang them.

Like the bells were summoning calls, giant spectral visages of each house crashed into the students, appearing from nowhere.

The mascots were made of pure white bones, each the size of a double-decker bus.

Flames burned in their eyes, illuminating their sockets in their house colors.

Leon swooned so hard he nearly fell out of his seat as his eyes tracked the giant skeletal badger circling his table.

An applause rose without anyone prompting at the appearance of the house mascots. With ghostly cries, the mascots disappeared.

Various mouth-watering dishes appeared on the tables, tantalizing students and professors alike with their smells.

Leon hurriedly enjoyed the feast but even though he was not full, he excused himself lying that he was going to his room to try out a new spell idea, patting his stomach.

Susan looked suspicious but nodded.

'Man, I feel guilty lying to them,' Leon thought remembering Hannah wishing him luck.

'Anyway, I don't need luck, for I am prepared,' Leon snorted at the red flag before wearing the modified unseen streaker he stashed in an abandoned classroom.

With a quick swish of his hand, the floor turned into a trampoline.

And with a jump, Leon was stuck to the roof like a spider.

Camouflaged under a charm, he was ready to stalk the hell out of the troll.

'The Troll better be a pretty memorable sight. I am leaving behind magical food to see it.'

Taking a small stick attached to his device, he started to row himself forward, like one would row a boat.

Leon quickly zipped across Hogwarts, invisible and quick.

'Man, I am awesome.' However, the feeling didn't last long when he entered the abandoned wing of Hogwarts, as rat-sized spiders greeted him.

'Where are these spiders even coming from? I didn't see a single cobweb,' he wondered flicking away another spider from his path.

As he reached the nearest girls' bathroom from the Charms class, he quickly stopped and listened to see if anyone was in.

A quick peek let him know the washroom was empty. So, Leon made some distance and waited for the Troll to show up.

'I wonder how friction works in the case of my device, the unseen streaker,' he quickly discarded the thought, deciding it was not the time, and patted himself on the back for his awesome naming sense.

Then he waited, straining his ears to listen for any sound a Troll would make.

And he waited.

'Am I at the wrong bathroom?'

'This is the girl's bathroom on the same floor as the charms class. This supposed to be it.' Leon frowned. 'It would have been easier to confirm if Hermoine was in there crying, instead of sitting beside Rose in the great hall, getting her transfigured tail plucked by the Potter.'

As Leon was considering touring other bathrooms, he heard it….no, no he felt it.

Followed by loud thumping- like someone was battering a log on a rocky wall- a 12ft troll lumbered into the corridor Leon was in.

Heavy intent-ridden magic rolled off the Troll.

It was so heavy that Leon felt it even before he saw it.

The Troll exuded unbridled strength and primal savagery. Its surroundings bristled with the raw power the multiple-ton muscled monster packed.

It examined the corridor before lumbering towards the bathroom.

The Troll didn't even look up, let alone examine the roof for stalkers- rookie mistake. It seems the troll only recently gained its celeb status and wasn't on the lookout for stalkers like him.

After examining the bathroom, the troll beelined towards Leon.

Thump! Thump!

His heartbeat slowly sped up as the Troll neared him.

'Damn! It's 1000 times better than shark cage diving,' Leon thought as his heart pulsed erratically.

The Troll reached Leon and passed him without even stopping.

After it gained some distance, Leon slowly started to follow it, always maintaining a 30-foot distance.

The awe of seeing a 12-foot monster dragging a log twice the size of his waist quickly got replaced by exasperation.

Simply put, the Troll was dumb.

It acted like a toddler. It would have been cute, if not for its size, smell, and filthiness, i.e., it would have been cute if the troll was not a… troll.

It took three minutes for it to cover a hundred feet as it stopped to dumbly stare at the portraits. It even bellows at its reflection in the armors that littered Hogwarts corridor.

Sometimes it deeply stares at the armors for a couple of seconds like it is waiting for them to move while other times it won't even look at them.

'Enough for now, I guess. I should leave,' Leon thought as he watched the Troll poke at an armor in the middle of the corridor.

It was still in the girl's bathroom hallway.

As he was about to leave the Troll to its antics, his curiosity satisfied and interest waned, he heard a shriek.

'What now?' He thought and quickly located the source.

'Hermoine and Rose.'

Rose quickly covered Hermoine's mouth and tried to drag her into another corridor, but it was too late, the Troll saw them.

For a second, both sides dumbly looked at each other.

To not let the Troll think about what it wants to do with the squishy-looking humans, Leon quickly waved his wand. A large orb of light moved towards the Troll and hovered in front of its face, filling its sight with light.

Hermoine's legs gave away as the gaze of the slobbering muscular monstrosity vanished off her.

'At least, Rose isn't on the floor with her friend,' Leon consoled himself watching Rose literally drag her friend away.

The troll dropped its club, letting it crash onto the ground with a heavy thud, and began clawing at its face.

'What do you think you are Rock Lee or something? You are still dumb even if you toss the weight aside,' Leon snickered.

He had done his research. Only a little part of the orb was magical, and the remaining part of its body was just light. So, unless the Troll suddenly grows a brain and clutches the orb tightly in its magically resistant fists, the orb is going nowhere.

'Very good for my first Hogwarts adventure, following a Troll, saving two damsels in distress. I am awesome.' Leon nodded and was about to turn around when a spell zipped towards the Troll.

'Oh! Come on,' Leon exclaimed as the Gryffindors started to pepper the Troll with spells.

And to add fuel to the fire, the Troll suddenly grew a brain, or it was just pure luck, as it used both hands and clapped in front of its face.

The orb of light nearly dissipated as the log like arms of the troll grazed the magical core of the orb.

Leon produced another orb as the first one flickered dangerously and zipped toward the stupid girls, leaving the second orb near the Troll.

"What are you doing, run?" He yelled.

"What, who is that?" Hermoine stuttered out. The girls wildly swung their heads, trying to spot him and failing as he was camouflaged.

"Your father! Run! Run right now!" Leon yelled.

The duo gave one last glance at the ceiling where Leon was obscured by the darkness and booked it.

'Thank god, I was going to curse their seven generations if they asked one more question.'

But Leon really couldn't fault them. They were brave for coming to help someone who cast that spell. After all, they didn't know that someone was safely tucked away at great distance from the Troll.

Brave but stupid.

Leon turned around just in time to see his first orb of light disappear, making him quickly stick the second one onto its face.

Ignoring the surprised grunt of the Troll, Leon wondered about the ways he could defeat it.

'I am not overpowered like some of fanfic mc's where I can stupefy the magic-resistant troll that can shrug off multiple Stupefy's from adult wizards.'

Leon wasn't arrogant enough to think his less than 1 month's experience in using magic trumps an average auror or even a seventh-year student. So, direct confrontation was a no-go.

Leon's gaze drifted towards the club that nearly cracked the Hogwarts floor when it was dropped.

'I don't know if I can lift that like Ron who supposedly learned Parseltongue because Harry hisses in his sleep.' Leon didn't want to know how he cross-checked the hisses to English words.

But one of his past life's friends' running, sarcastic, theory was that Harry was attracted to snakes and always sweetly hisses at them to 'open' in his dreams, using both Parseltongue and English.

Leon decided to try and cast a spell at the club, shaking off the thoughts that said that either Harry liked snakes a little too much or Ron was hiding a big secret.

 The club easily rose into the air.

'What? how? It did produce a loud noise when it crashed onto the floor….. Is that a rune?'

It makes sense that a captured Troll's club is enchanted to be weightless to wizards.

Makes defending or stopping the club easy.

'But isn't it supposed to guard against Voldy?'

Slowly dropping the club back onto the ground, he readied more orbs to halt the Troll for some more time.

CLAP!

'Damn! It learned.'

Leon hovered multiple orbs over the Troll's head, just in case.

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

'That's fast! Is it top percentage Troll or something?'

Leon started to retreat, deciding it was more than enough head start for the Gryffindors.

He tossed the club away from the Troll for good measure.

Leon doubled down and turned around a corner, hoping the Troll would stay confused a little longer.

'And professors will be here any minute now, they will take care of the Troll.'

With some hurried rows he reached the magical staircases.

Leon shot a Spongify spell onto the floor and undid the sticky charms which took a couple of seconds.

He stood on the floor, waiting for the moving staircase with the unseen streaker still strapped onto his back.

The enchanted staircases were one of the reasons Leon thought learning Spongify spells was the right choice.

A giant hole in the Hogwarts castle- that was how you describe the moving staircases.

There were 3 such holes in the magical school, situated in the middle and two opposite corners for ease of travel. The staircase points resembled a hive, you can see a part of each floor while on a staircase.

With Hogwarts' single-floor height nearly equal to that of two standard storeys buildings, the ingenious design of the moving staircases makes travel throughout the castle effortless.

But somehow the ingenious design was messing with Leon today.

'Come on! Come on! Where are you?' The staircases were quick, they were supposed not to take longer than a couple of seconds to arrive.

'Wait, are they overworked because every student is returning to their towers and dungeons.'

 As he waited impatiently, Leon suddenly heard a grunt behind him.

The Troll was dumbly staring at him.

'Oh! Come on. I thought I wouldn't have to use any of my escape plans.'

The Troll bellowed, rattling the portraits and armor in the hallway with the sheer force of its roar.

Then it started to bulldoze its way toward him, sending armors flying like they were made of paper.

.............................

Next chapter, same time tomorrow.