Luck of Nines

47

     Ding, ding.  "May I have your attention, everyone?" Dumbledore called for the student's attention, his spoon poised to tap against his goblet once more, an amplifying spell obliviously having been applied to it. "Before we begin the feast celebrating Hallows eve,"

     There was quite a bit of grumbling from the Slytherin and some from the Ravenclaw and even Hufflepuff tables about the name. Harry had heard all week complaints about how Dumbledore loved to emphasize the muggle's candy giving, pumpkins, and if pushed mischief night to blot out the traditional Samhain celebrations that he was told many pure bloods and halfbloods preferred to celebrate.

That he had allegedly defeated the Dark Lord on this day, was just something else to shove over their traditions and culture, Bulstrode had complained, before abruptly stopping and, looking slightly guilty, and adding, "Not that it's any of your fault, of course, you were just a baby."

He had prompted her to tell him more about these traditions, he had heard one of the older students talking about hunts and some type of what he assumed was magic in forests when speaking of rituals and the old ways a few weeks back and had been waiting for the chance to hear more.

Dumbledore had to wait for a disgruntled silence fell before going on to speak about the greatness of this day, given the fall of the dark lord, and what a lovely little holiday it was for many muggles. Even some of the muggleborns, Harry noticed, didn't seem to enthused with this bit, he knew the Dursley's didn't celebrate Halloween, Dudley had even been stopped from going out to egg houses with his friends a few times. People were had begun talking over him at this point though. Not bringing in the condescending tone of the speech.

      Ding. Ding. The glass pointedly rang out again when people refused to settle down and the talking only grew with time, Harry doubted most people were even talking about Dumbledore anymore, Harry envied the person rushing to make it to the feast on time a little, they probably would avoid the Halloween speech and just get to eat, "As I was saying, there are many wonderful things to celebrate this day, and now we all have one more; the board has finally agreed to go along with the plan that I have devised in order to sort the remaining of our students into fitting houses for them, so without further-"

       Bang! The doors flung open, "Troll!" Both doors hitting against the walls with a resounding crash, Harry scrunched up his nose, smelling the garlic from his seat "Troollll!" And the defense professor charged in not particularly caring what he was interrupting. "Troll in the dungeons!" He gasped, losing steam, Harry didn't buy it for one second, "Just... just thought you should know..." he collapsed, or rather fake collapsed, Harry could still hear his heart, could still see the tension in the professor's limbs, the baited, waiting, breathe that was poorly attempted to be calmed and disguised.

       The Great Hall erupted into chaos, most of the students shocked that a troll had wandered into Hogwarts- they were apparently notoriously stupid beasts with only their spell resistance and massive build keeping the species alive.

     The most outraged students though came from the fifth table, "You've got to be Bloody kidding me!" One raged above the other sound, impressively even over Dumbledore's initial attempts to restore order.

     "Nooo!" A girl wailed. Harry's head was beginning to spin with all the clamor that rose about him, the Slytherin first years rioted loudly around him.

      "This is gobshite!"

      "SILENCE!"  Harry's already pained ears rung at Dumbledore's roar. His hands had automatically gone up to cover his ears, and he stared down at the plate in front of him. It was silent in the Great Hall aside from a ringing that echoed in the wake of the cry. It seemed odd considering how much Dumbledore loved the sound of his own voice, maybe it was a spell. He could smell blood, and without his ears, he was on edge.

      The prefects rounded them up, and Harry quickly recovered from the sound- at least he hadn't been the only person covering his ears, most of the table had, so it wouldn't be a sign of weakness.  He didn't really know what they were supposed to be doing, but it was easy enough to go with the crowd, as they lined up and marched towards an exit that he hadn't seen be used, Mcgonagall opened it for them, leaving after nodding to the Head boy who held the door open as the Head girl and a prefect led them down the tunnel.

      It was a narrow tunnel lit only by torches, some of the student's heads nearly touched the ceiling. The path winded down for a long while before coming to a halt at a wall with a portrait on it, the top of the frame was tapped and it spun open revealing the Slytherin common room and they were all allowed to pour in.

     The Head girl was saying something, although he wasn't sure how anybody else was understanding it with the spell that was in effect. A small, worrying piece of doubt began to grow in the back of his mind. Theo wasn't listening either, it became less of a comfort as his eyes grew wide and he was staring at him, his mouth moved.

     Harry flinched at the hand that grasped his shoulder and glared a little, suddenly feeling trapped as he made sure his back was to the edge of the crowd.  It was Bulstrode who had grabbed his shoulder, her eyes widened and she screamed. The Head boy immediately descended with some prefects. He reached up to push away one of the grasping hands only to pause as he finally saw the source of the smell, blood covered his hands, how hadn't he noticed that?

     Oh, he was in shock.

      Harry breathed, forcing himself to remain calm with great difficulty, he wasn't going to die from something like this, throwing himself into the maw of a beast in blind panic.

     Pushing away another round of reaching hands he spoke as calmly as he was able, "Everyone else can hear right now, can't they? It isn't some spell?" That explained why everyone was still moving their mouths, he'd marked it off as a human thing, he had seen two or more humans attempting to communicate, speaking in a slow and over exaggerated manner with a shop glass between them canceling any sound, but despite that they still actually spoke too, and loudly.

       The prefects only looked more worried and he could see a few arguing, making gestures as they did so, several of the older students looked annoyingly smug as they whispered back and forth. Harry listened in on people frequently when he was bored, but he didn't use his eyes as much as he used his ears; he had no clue what anyone was saying. What anyone was saying.

     He bit down the panic, they couldn't leave, not into the dungeon where the troll was and not through the now closed passageway; Mcgonagall had opened it, he was fairly certain the prefects could not. He didn't want to risk losing his hearing permanently either. Now that he was paying attention, he could still feel the wet, slimy trickle of blood down the side of his face.

       "Is there a floo," the word felt especially weird without his hearing and he hoped he was saying everything correctly, "Or some other way to communicate with the medical wing?"

        Another quick round of words were thrown over his head, before the head boy rushed off towards where Snape's office was. Someone motioned for him to sit down in one of the chairs, he did so, but waved them away when they continued to hover.  The other students were quickly sent off to their dorms where he could smell food. He forced down the hunger that surfaced at the scent, it would have to wait.

       A moment later a woman was rushing over to him, her wand out, and spells were quickly cast despite his automatic flinch and him dodging two of said spells before realizing they were healing in nature. The woman frowned worriedly about his dodging but didn't say anything or attempt to communicate so he also kept quiet and just tried not to shift his ears to try and get better hearing, a task easier said than done considering how on edge he felt when left with nothing but an eerie and annoying ringing noise. A few moments later he was ushered off and directed to climb into the floo, not having much choice he did so and came out, stumbling and feeling lost all anew, in the healing ward.

I refuse to believe there is not an alternate "safe" route to get to the dormitories from the Great Hall and I'm guessing that the dorms would be fairly safe themselves so yeah. So here's another take on the what happened to the snakes thing.  -T.A.L.A.