The Halloween banquet featured not only sweet, pumpkin-themed delicacies but also a lively performance.
Leonard wasn't quite sure what was going on with the banshees howling in front of the Great Hall. From what the pure-blood wizards around him said, they were apparently a famous band in the wizarding world, quite popular among witches and wizards alike. Judging by the excitement on their faces, they probably weren't lying.
Still, Leonard could hardly stand the near-wailing sound of their performance. He forced himself to endure it while trying to get through an overly sweet dinner.
The Halloween feast itself was strange—dominated by desserts, mostly pumpkin-based dishes.
Pumpkin cakes, pumpkin pies, pumpkin puddings, pumpkin juice, stewed pumpkin, and all kinds of enchanted candies. For those with a sweet tooth, it was a dream come true. But for Leonard, it was more of a test of endurance.
He liked sweets, sure—but not as a full meal. Fortunately, there were still some meats and vegetables on the table. Otherwise, he suspected he'd be plotting his next move on an empty stomach tonight.
The atmosphere was cheerful enough, but Leonard couldn't help noticing that Quirrell's seat at the professors' table was empty, while Snape beside it looked unusually uneasy.
Snape kept gesturing toward Dumbledore, who didn't even spare him a glance.
Given the amount of trust Dumbledore placed in Snape, this indifference was strange. Even if a regular professor kept expressing suspicion about someone, the headmaster wouldn't normally ignore it so completely—unless he already knew the truth and had his own reasons for staying silent.
Leonard soon looked away, watching his fellow Hufflepuffs devour their food with enthusiasm and twitching the corner of his mouth.
If it weren't for the house-elves providing an endless supply of dishes at Hogwarts feasts, Leonard might have genuinely worried about going hungry.
As the night wore on and the feast reached its liveliest point, the doors to the Great Hall burst open with a loud crash. Quirrell stumbled in from outside, reeking of something foul and looking utterly panicked.
Leonard, who had just been about to take a bite of his steak, froze mid-motion. He wasn't the only one—every student in Quirrell's path stopped what they were doing, and some even gagged.
The smell rolling off Quirrell was unbearable—a nauseating mix of faint rot and heavy spices, like pickled meat left too long to spoil, laced with a sharp, sickening stench.
It was the kind of smell that made you think that spoiled meat had rolled around in a toilet—and a full one, at that.
Having faced a troll before, Leonard instantly recognized the odor. His eyes narrowed as he studied Quirrell's terrified expression, which looked more and more unnatural by the second.
This man was clearly no actor. His panicked face seemed like a stiff mask glued on without conviction.
Still, it didn't really matter how bad the acting was—what mattered was that the news was dramatic enough to grab everyone's attention. Quirrell's frantic entrance could only mean one thing...
"There's a troll! A troll in the dungeon!" Quirrell's terrified scream echoed through the Great Hall. It seemed Professor Quirrell had personally brought Hogwarts a Halloween surprise.
A far more thrilling surprise, in fact, than the shrieking banshee songs earlier.
At the word "troll," chaos erupted. The once cheerful Great Hall filled with shrieks of terror. Students dropped their food and scattered like headless flies, though in their panic they only managed to block each other's way, barely moving a few feet.
The hall could easily hold over a thousand people, and with proper order, everyone could have been evacuated in ten minutes. But as everyone stood and shoved at once, the exits quickly became jammed.
The prefects shouted for the students to calm down and follow directions, but their voices were drowned out by the panic.
Even the Hufflepuffs joined the chaos—though, in their own way. Leonard noticed that several of them, when pushed against the long tables, instinctively grabbed a few portable desserts and stuffed them into their robes before fleeing.
As for Quirrell, the cause of all the commotion, he had rolled his eyes and dramatically fainted right after shouting his infamous warning.
The commotion sparked another round of shrill screams. Some "brilliant" student even shouted out whether Quirrell had been killed by the troll, which only fueled the panic further.
No one could figure out how the troll—supposedly in the basement—had managed to knock Quirrell unconscious from afar. Still, his behavior was suspicious enough to make anyone doubt him.
Leonard, eyeing Quirrell's crumpled form on the floor, felt a mischievous impulse rise. He slowly made his way toward him, blending in with the crowd, and deliberately stepped on him a few times as others pushed past.
With all the chaos, a little trampling was bound to happen, right? A few extra steps could count as compensation for tonight's mental distress.
Quirrell endured the students' trampling without a sound, only letting out a few muffled groans when Leonard's foot pressed down especially hard.
Whose foot was that? How could someone step that heavily? Was it on purpose? Quirrell cursed silently in his mind.
As the confusion in the Great Hall threatened to spiral out of control, Dumbledore rose to his feet.
"Silence!" His deep, commanding voice rang through the hall, instantly overpowering the students' shouts and screams.
The sound alone seemed to restore order, and the panicked students gradually calmed down, turning their eyes toward their headmaster.
Only then did they remember—this was Dumbledore, the greatest wizard alive. How could a mere troll possibly threaten him?
"Prefects, lead your houses back to your common rooms. Professors, come with me to escort the Slytherin and Hufflepuff students," Dumbledore instructed calmly. His gaze flicked briefly to Quirrell, who lay unconscious on the floor, his face imprinted with several muddy shoe marks—nearly trampled flat—before he looked away without a word.
Since Quirrell had said the troll was in the dungeons, the students of the two houses with basement dormitories were in the most danger, and they would need to be escorted back safely.
With the professors' help, the prefects struggled to restore order, shouting over the noise as they herded the students out of the Great Hall.
In the midst of the movement, Leonard's sharp eyes caught sight of Snape slipping quietly out through a side door.
Clearly, the professor intended to intercept Quirrell before he could reach the Philosopher's Stone.
At the same time, Leonard's gaze swept through the crowd until he spotted Malfoy and his two ever-present cronies.
"Let's hope those two idiots don't fall behind again. Otherwise, next time, I'll deal with them first."
He withdrew his gaze, feigning nonchalance as he drifted closer to the Slytherin group. Once Malfoy and his lackeys noticed him, Leonard subtly broke away from the line and disappeared into the moving crowd.
...
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