"Oh, Merlin's beard..."
"That's a troll? That's a troll?!"
Several of the professors behind Dumbledore cried out in shock.
That thing was a troll?
It did not look like one at all.
Quirrell was supposed to be the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, yet he could not even recognize a troll properly. How utterly useless.
"Albus, this looks like... the parchment..."
Professor McGonagall glanced at Dumbledore. Seeing the astonishment on his face, she could not help speaking.
"Yes. It looks like one of the troll-kind mentioned in Gandalf's diary, but..."
A sharp light flashed through Dumbledore's wise eyes.
Why had the troll race from Gandalf's account suddenly appeared here? Before this, he had suspected that the magical creatures mentioned by Gandalf were fictional embellishments, yet now one had actually shown up...
But if that was true, why had no one ever seen such a thing before, or even heard of it?
And what role had Quirrell played in all this?
Why had he called it a troll?
"Deal with it first."
Gandalf's diary had said that troll-kind feared sunlight, and that when exposed to it they would turn to stone. But it was night now, and magically produced light was very different from true sunlight.
To keep it from causing further destruction, they had no choice but to act.
"Stupefy!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Reducto!"
Several professors raised their wands and attacked William, but when the spells struck his skin, which was as hard as stone, they shattered at once and did absolutely nothing.
None of the professors' expressions changed much, though, because they had only been testing him to begin with.
With a flick of Dumbledore's wand, a sheet of golden fire came roaring toward William.
William, who had looked utterly unconcerned a moment earlier, saw the flames and hastily retreated several steps, then swung the giant hammer in his hand viciously at Dumbledore.
"Protego!"
Professor McGonagall and the others all moved to help, but the magical shields they formed shattered on contact.
Fortunately, Dumbledore moved quickly enough. Otherwise, he would have been smashed into paste in a single blow.
Boom!
The hammer struck the floor, blasting a huge crater into the corridor, then split apart with a thunderous crash, revealing the first floor below.
Dumbledore and the others all changed expression.
With strength that terrifying, forget taking a direct hit. Even being grazed by that weapon could be fatal.
"The creature is powerful. Do not treat it like an ordinary troll."
Dumbledore gave the warning, and the professors behind him nodded, putting aside any trace of casualness.
And then...
Beams of magic in every color flew from their wands and struck William with perfect precision.
William could swing his hammer to block some of the spells, but plenty of them still landed on him.
Some made his rock-hard skin begin to melt away. Others shattered the bones beneath that skin into powder. Still others blasted enormous wounds open all across his body.
"ROOOAR!!"
William howled in agony, trying to flee this dangerous place.
Watching the scene through the crystal, Altair fell into silence.
"I really can't afford to underestimate the professors of Hogwarts..."
That was what he was thinking when suddenly every hair on his body stood on end.
Snapping back to himself, he saw a flash of white light on Dumbledore's wand. In an instant, a spell that filled him with dread took shape.
The power of that spell was terrifying. Its oppressive force actually passed through the Ithil-stone and reached Altair himself.
The white light struck William and passed straight through him. Altair vaguely saw a ghostly, illusory William dragged out by the light, and then the enormous body stiffened and crashed to the ground with a boom.
Haa...
Altair let out a long breath.
"So this is Dumbledore's strength?"
"And what spell was that just now?"
Altair had never doubted Dumbledore's power. After all, he had defeated Grindelwald and was the only wizard Voldemort truly feared.
Thinking of all this, Altair felt that he needed to stay hidden even more carefully.
To be honest, the professors of Hogwarts had given him a tremendous shock tonight, especially that unknown spell Dumbledore had used.
Watching William's corpse collapse, the professors finally relaxed a little.
"That idiot Quirrell. What exactly did he bring into this school? That is definitely not a troll."
Snape had only just arrived. Looking at the giant corpse sprawled on the ground, his voice was low and grim.
"It looks much more like the troll-kind described in that parchment. Hard to believe such things really exist?"
"Not long ago, we got that parchment diary describing troll-kind. And today, one appears inside the castle. Hah..."
Snape let out a mocking laugh.
The other professors all fell silent, because they could feel it too. It was as if some vast whirlpool was slowly drawing Hogwarts into its depths.
Snape glanced at Dumbledore, then walked over to William's corpse. One hand covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve while the other prodded at the body.
"This hide would make excellent material. Its defensive strength is even greater than an ordinary Shield Charm. The density of its muscles and bones is also extremely high. How intelligent was it?"
"Far more intelligent than a common troll," Dumbledore answered.
"And it possessed rich combat instincts. If every one of these troll-creatures has this level of power, then I think five of them would be enough to wipe out a large troll tribe."
Dumbledore was not exaggerating.
A large troll tribe might contain over a hundred trolls, but with William's strength, crushing one troll with each swing of his hammer would have been easy. Five Williams could absolutely sweep through a hundred trolls.
P.S. The films actually weakened Dumbledore. In the movies, Dumbledore and Voldemort fight more or less evenly, with Dumbledore even seeming slightly disadvantaged at times. But in the original books, Dumbledore consistently suppresses Voldemort. A classic example is the battle at the Ministry of Magic: Dumbledore was protecting Harry while fighting Voldemort at the same time, yet Voldemort could only struggle to defend himself, and even admitted out loud that Dumbledore simply did not want to kill him, not that he could not.