Chapter 9

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Enjoy the chapter

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Aludra,

You're quite lucky I convinced your father not to send another howler! What on earth were you thinking, trying to defeat a mountain troll? You could have died, or ended up crippled! Intelligent as you are, do not let your smarts go to your head, or else you might end up without one.

I am very disappointed in you, and so is your father and godfather. You know better than to go looking for trouble. If those friends of yours hadn't saved your life, I would call them a bad influence on you.

If I hear of one more incident, I will pull you out of Hogwarts and send you to Durmstrang, and I'm sure you don't want to go there.

Mother

"What does it say? Are they going to pull you out of school?" Hermione asked fearfully. Aludra folded up the letter and put it into her pocket.

"No, but Mummy threatened to put me into Durmstrang if I don't behave," Aludra said.

"But doesn't she know that Durmstrang is well known for their use of Dark Magic?" Hermione asked, alarmed.

"Exactly why she's threatening to send me there. I don't think we should get into any more trouble..." Aludra frowned. Neville nodded eagerly, a tired look on his chubby face.

"Agreed. No more three-headed dogs and certainly no more mountain trolls," he said, before shoveling eggs into his mouth.

"Has anyone ever thought about why there was a troll in the dungeons?" Harry inquired, and everyone stopped eating to think about it.

"Just don't question it," Ron concluded, and the children continued to eat.

The more time Aludra spent with Neville, the more she realized that she truly liked him. Flustered and clumsy as he was, Neville was actually very interesting. Aludra loved hearing his funny stories about his grandmother and Great-Uncle Algie, like the time his uncle attempted to make frog leg soup out of Trevor, only stopped Neville repeatedly told him that Trevor was a toad and not a frog.

Hermione, Harry and Ron were hanging out a lot more, and that made Aludra happy. There were no more arguments, name calling or hurt feelings; Hermione was definitely being nicer after the whole troll incident. She even helped them with their homework and allowed Harry to borrow her copy of Quidditch Through the Ages, even though it was soon confiscated by Snape for taking it out of the school.

October turned to November, bringing a blanket of frost to the school grounds. Hagrid, the gamekeeper, could often be seen from the Gryffindor Tower windows tending to the vegetable garden and throwing hunks of meat into thin air by the Forbidden Forest, only for them to suddenly turn invisible. Aludra thought to tag along the next time Harry went to visit him and ask what that was all about.

One evening, Harry came running into the common room and went straight to Hermione and Ron, waving over Aludra and Neville as he passed them. He was out of breath and his glasses askew.

"What happened? Did you get the book back?" Ron asked.

"No, I didn't. But I think I know why Snape has been limping around." Harry said. Aludra had indeed noticed his limp when he walked around the school, but did not question him on it. He was a very private man with a very important job, as her mother said. Snape was bound to get injured from potions spills, wasn't he? Harry disagreed. "He was talking to Filch, saying that he couldn't keep an eye no all three heads at once. He was showing him his leg, and it was all bandaged and bloody,"

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