Quirrell was a stuttering, garlic-smelling annoyance for Aaric during DADA classes. So Aaric would just bring his own books into class and read from them, ignoring the man—and never once did Quirrell chide him for it or even seem to notice.

Daphne would also just sit with Aaric and study the books she copied from the Room of Requirement and even practised a spell in class once, distracting the class. But after a moment, Quirrell just continued his lecture.

On Halloween night, Quirrell stumbled inside, his turban askew, face pale and drenched in sweat.

He staggered toward the staff table, clutching the edge for support.

“T-T-Troll!” he gasped. “In the d-dungeon! T-troll in the dungeon!”

A ripple of gasps and shrieks went through the students.

Then Quirrell added, almost fainting, “Thought you ought to know…”

And with that, he collapsed in a dead faint on the stone floor.

Aaric’s eyes widened and a thought came to his mind—Hermione. He chastised himself for his carelessness and sneaked out from the commotion, running toward the girls’ bathroom.

He heard a commotion in a girls’ bathroom and ran towards it. Hermione was about to be clubbed to death when Harry jumped at the troll and Ron distracted it.

Aaric sent a small stunner at the beast to get its attention as Harry and Ron were pushed to the side. Aaric looked at the troll defiantly and raised his wand as the troll charged toward him, but Harry got hurt trying to stop the troll, hoping to help Aaric escape.

Seeing this, Aaric got angry and sent a powerful Severing Charm at the troll. Even with its resistance, it had a major wound on its chest as it roared in pain and swung its club at Aaric. Aaric sent another Severing Charm at the troll’s wrist, took the club in both hands, and swung it at the brute’s head—breaking its neck and killing it.

What the fuck was I doing? There were a million ways I could have defeated it with ease and Harry wouldn’t have been hurt, thought Aaric.

That was the moment the professors entered the hall.

“What happened here?” McGonagall inquired.

Aaric explained how he saw Ron and Harry slipping past the crowd and came to inquire about the situation.

“And then I killed the troll,” concluded Aaric.

The teachers were surprised. Before they could question him further, Dumbledore intervened and asked Snape to tend to the wounds of the boys.

“I will collect someone to remove the troll’s body. And I have a question,” he said to Dumbledore.

“Certainly, my boy,” he replied.

“Why did you ask the students to return to their dorms when the Great Hall is the most protected place for the students—and the Slytherin dorms are in the dungeons where the troll was supposed to be? Ignoring the fact that Professor Quirrell is the person who is supposed to teach us how to defend against such threats and is the same person who came running into the hall scared and on the verge of fainting?”

Snape looked up from tending Harry’s wounds. He realized his house was the one most endangered in this situation. McGonagall had a horrified expression too. Dumbledore seemed to be contemplating.

“You are right, young Aaric. This situation was handled in the worst way by me, and I apologize for putting you in harm’s way,” the old man said, and even apologized to the trio.

They were not interrogated further, as that would be just cruel, and they were just kids who needed rest.

In Dumbledore’s office, there sat three people: the Headmaster, Snape, and McGonagall.

“Albus, Mr. Hawthorne was right in his deduction. We have failed the students,” McGonagall said.

Even Snape agreed. Dumbledore raised his hand.

“Please do not blame yourselves. The fault lies solely on my shoulders.”

“Aaric is a young prodigy to have defeated the troll. It seems this year’s batch is truly exceptional,” McGonagall said.

Dumbledore and even Snape agreed.

“The boy’s arrogance knows no bounds, but he made the right deductions. We should keep an eye on him,” Snape sneered.

After some more talking, the professors left.

Dumbledore was left in the office to contemplate. He sighed and thought,

How foolish was I to have narrowed my view toward only one student and disregard the rest… He hung his head in sadness.

Aaric was the talk of the school for some time. One day, he was walking through the corridors when Draco approached him.

“Hi, mate. How did you manage to kill a troll?”

Aaric chuckled and said,

“All the time I told you to train with me—if you had agreed, you would have been able to do it too.”

Draco scoffed and did not ask many questions, choosing instead to just chat with Aaric and catch up with his friend.

Daphne and the trio joined them. Ron and Draco chose to ignore each other for the time being, as it would only sour the atmosphere.

Classes and days went by as Aaric, on the second floor, entered Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom when no one was looking. He was discreet and cautious as he looked around. He did not see the ghost but did hear a faint sound of sobbing—he knew who it was but did not inquire.

He then approached the sink and, after casting a silent Silencing Charm around himself, spoke:

“Open,” in Parseltongue.

The sink came apart and opened into a giant hole.

“Stairs,” he muttered in Parseltongue again—and stairs appeared.

As he entered the great hall underground, he saw a room at the back. He entered to see an area resembling a ritual site. At the center was a huge snake. The runes around it were green in color and glowing faintly.

There must be a life-sustaining and absorbing artifact in the core of this ritual circle that would take the energy from the insects and small animals in the area and feed them to the Basilisk.

Aaric brought out some of his blood in a vial and a vial of moonblood resin, and created another ritual circle around the previous one.

He dropped his blood on the Basilisk’s forehead and the moonblood resin vial on the ritual circle as it was absorbed into it. He then placed some crocodile eyes on the ritual circle—he had asked Nibbin to procure them from a potion ingredient shop for him.

He then gave energy to the ritual as the Basilisk glowed. This ritual had the effect of curing the Basilisk’s sanity, granting it a pair of nictitating membranes over its eyes—allowing it to choose the targets of its petrification and enhance the powers of the beast.

The snake awoke after some time.

“Thank you,” it spoke to Aaric, nuzzling up to the boy and getting some head rubs.

The Basilisk had a retractable membrane covering its eyes and the intelligence of an almost thousand-year-old beast.

“Nibbin,” Aaric called out to his loyal house elf.

As he appeared, electricity crackled around him. Nibbin was ready to defend Aaric from the Basilisk—but then assessed the situation and did as he was told.

Aaric inspected the core of the previous ritual site and found a flower growing at its center.Vitalis Bloom, he thought, recognizing it instantly.

This was an extremely rare flower, known to grow only where a unicorn had died, and only if the burial site had been watched over by other unicorns for decades. It was a treasure of unimaginable value—an embodiment of pure life energy.

Kneeling beside it, Aaric took out his Celestial Gourd and carefully poured some of its essence onto the flower to nourish it.

“It will be a great gift for Mom,” thought the boy, a small smile tugging at his lips.

Before leaving Nibbin has also given Aaric some homemade cookies, which he shared with his friends in the coming days.

A/N: Thank you for all the suggestions and comments over the days. I truly appreciate them, and I am surprised to see comments that want me to help the trio—as from early reactions, the impression I got was I would get some people calling the MC names for helping people.

Anyhoo, enjoy the story and give me stones.

Oh! And I realized the poll I did for the FMC was shit, so here is a new one:

Daphne Greengrass

Luna Lovegood

Hermione Jean Granger

Fleur

Others

I would appreciate your votes and also suggestions!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep