Author's Notes: Hey guys, I'm back! Thanks for showing so much support for the story so far. Especially to those of you who like the duels. Knowing that makes them a little easier to write. Special thanks also to duskrider for easing my fears about Hermione. I was really worried about that for a while.

"How did a Troll get into the Castle?" Harry asked.

"Beats me," Ron said. "Trolls are really stupid."

"It might have been let in," Aussa said.

"What?" Harry asked.

"That is one of the most likely scenarios," the Earth Charmer explained. She was the only spirit with him at the moment. The others had all flown off to parts unknown earlier. "However, I cannot imagine why anyone would choose to do something so reckless."

"The Castle is Warded," Hermione said. "Protected by magical enchantments. There's no way this should have been able to happen."

"Well, it did," Harry said.

"Harry!"

"Wynn?" the Wizard asked. The Wind Charmer flew up to him so fast she almost crashed into him. Harry instinctively stepped back, a move that probably confused Hermione and Ron.

"It's headed to the Girls' Room!"

"What?"

"The Troll! It's headed to the Girls' Room! Oh! And, there's a girl in the Girls' Room!"

"Oh, no!" Harry yelled. Breaking away from the others, he sprinted down the halls towards the ladies' room, ignoring the cries of his friends behind him.

Thud!thud!thud!thud! His feet seemed unnaturally loud against the stone in the empty hall. Harry had never noticed just how much noise filled the Castle until now. There was no army of students, no angry Filch, and the portraits had gone silent as well, the people in them having all disappeared. Even the Ghosts were missing. The quiet didn't last, though. Soon enough, the sound of Harry's steps was overcome by a much louder sound.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Harry stopped as he saw a shadow disappearing around a corner. His first thought was Hagrid, but he knew this wasn't the enormous Groundskeeper. Hagrid was big: both tall and wide, but not imposing. Wynn had said he looked like Father Christmas' younger brother, and Harry thought that was a pretty accurate statement, with Hagrid's size, thick beard, and general jolliness. This shadow belonged to something that wasn't nearly so friendly-looking, and it was bigger than Hagrid. Much bigger.

"Harry!" Eria appeared next to him, along with Hiita. "What are you doing here?"

"Wynn told me the Troll was headed for the Girls' Room!" Harry explained.

"And you decided to run towards it, why?" Hiita asked.

BANG! "Aaaaaaiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeegggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!"

"There's a girl in the Girls' Room!" Harry, and Wynn shouted simultaneously.

"Harry, I must recommend against this course of action!" Aussa insisted.

"Why didn't you tell someone?" Hiita yelled. "You can't beat a Troll on your own!"

Harry ignored them as he raced through the broken rest room door. He almost tripped as he skidded to a stop. The troll was huge! At least ten feet tall, carrying a club that might have been an uprooted tree, the monster barely fit into the room. It was currently swinging its club wildly, smashing stalls and sinks and things as it tried to hit the only other creature in the room, a blond girl. She was dodging and diving avoiding its strikes, but not by much, and she was obviously getting tired.

"Hey!" Harry yelled. When he got no response from the Troll, the young Wizard picked up a piece of rubble.

"No! Harry . . ." Eria begged.

"Don't!" Hiita yelled.

"Aim for the head!" Wynn suggested. He did.

"Urrrhhh . . ." The Troll said as it turned toward him.

"Now what?" the Fire Charmer asked.

"I'm not sure," Harry said. "AH!" he yelled as he dove to the side. The Troll brought its club down on the place he had been, turning the rubble into even more rubble. He scrambled further as the Troll brought its club up for another swing. It was a testament to the creature's stupidity that it didn't think to step on him while he was close to it.

Harry tried to draw his wand.

"That won't help!" Eria shouted. "Trolls are resistant to magical attacks!"

"You'd have better luck throwing more rocks!" Hiita screamed. "Get out of there!"

"Roll right!" Wynn cried. Harry did so and avoided another strike. The Troll seemed momentarily blinded by the dust kicked up by its own attack. Harry used that to crawl further away.

"What were you thinking?" the green-eyed Wizard looked up and saw the girl a few feet in front of him. She was speaking in a harsh whisper, like a snake's hisses. "Why didn't you call the teachers?" While Harry was trying to come up with a response, she pointed behind him, gasping.

"Urrrhhhh . . ." The Troll had heard them, or maybe it was smarter than Harry had thought and had realized he was no longer where he had been. Harry could see its face now, wide-mouthed, big-nosed, and tiny eyes that glared at them with blind fury. It lifted its club above its head, scrapping the ceiling. Harry crawled forward and pushed the girl back, hoping she was too far away to be crushed along with him as the Troll's arm muscles tensed to bring its weapon down for the deathblow . . .

That never came.

"Come on, Harry you didn't think we'd abandon you, did you?" Wynn asked.

What? Harry thought.

"Well done, Aussa," Eria said.

"Thank . . . you . . ." the Earth Charmer replied. Harry looked up and saw the female spirit was pointing her staff at the monster's head. The brown crystals on the end of it were glowing, and Aussa's normally calm face was scrunched up, her eyes focused squarely on the Troll.

"You're controlling it?" Harry asked, awed.

"Affirmatively . . . However, it is . . . very difficult . . ." Aussa replied.

"That probably means you shouldn't talk to her right now," Wynn said.

"It also means you should probably get the girl and MOVE!" Hiita shouted.

"Right," Harry replied. Standing up, he offered the girl his hand. "Come on."

She hesitated for a moment, eyeing the Troll, before letting him help her to her feet. The two preteens slipped around the creature, trying to avoid touching it or slipping on the copious amounts of (thankfully clean) water on the floor.

"Thank you," the girl said. "What . . . how did you stop it?" she asked.

"Well . . ." Harry said, wondering how he was supposed to explain what Aussa had done, especially when he didn't understand himself. "I thought Trolls were resistant to magical attacks," he said.

"Magical attacks to their bodies," Eria explained. "Their minds are more vulnerable. Sorry if I was unclear."

"Yeah, she was only trying to make sure you stayed alive, which—if you'd stayed away from the GIANT TROLL—wouldn't have been an issue," Hiita added. Eria turned to her, but she cut the Water Charmer off before she could even begin. "No, don't say anything." The redhead turned on Harry now. "Harry, you almost got yourself killed, again. You can't keep doing this. Do you know what you dying would have done to us? To . . . your friends," she said, scowling as she said so.

"She means Hermione," Wynn explained, before wilting when her sister glared at her.

"You'd go back to wherever you came from?" Harry guessed. This was followed by a spiritual hand heated by Fire Magic colliding with his cheek. Harry's eyes went wide. He couldn't feel the hand itself, but he felt the heat of her magic, and the mild burn it left. She'd hit him? She'd actually hit him? Eria and Wynn seemed shocked as well.

Hitta "stood" there for a moment, panting with rage. The air around them began to heat up. "You IDIOT! This isn't about us! It's about you! We love you! And you keep trying to KILL YOURSELF! What is wrong with you?"

"That's enough, Hiita," Eria said. The Fire Charmer glared at her for a moment, before backing down in the face of Eria's own frown. Turning to Harry, the blue-haired Charmer raised her hand. Harry closed his eyes, flinching as he awaited the next slap.

Like the Troll's club, it didn't come. Instead, Harry "felt" her cool hand caressing his cheek. Opening his eyes, Harry saw Eria's expression had become much gentler. "Harry," she said, "Hiita went about it the wrong way, but she'd right; you are so very precious to us. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose you, yet you keep putting yourself in these terrible situations without thinking about it."

"But . . ." Harry was reluctant to talk back to her—he'd learned not to from the Durselys. "But she could have been hurt if I didn't do anything."

Eria opened her mouth to speak, but Wynn cut her off. "We know Harry. We know, and it's that kindness you have that made us love you in the first place. You didn't do anything wrong trying to help her." Wynn ignored the looks Eria and Hiita were giving her as she continued. "But, thinking about it, it might be worth remembering that you don't have to do everything alone. We're here now. We can help you. Just like Aussa's doing now." She gestured towards the Earth Charmer who was so absorbed in controlling the Troll she seemed oblivious to their conversation. "And your friends can help you too. Ron and Hermione. In fact, I think I hear them now . . ."

At that moment, everyone heard the clamor of multiple pairs of feet running down the hall towards them.

"I'd say the cavalry has arrived," the blond girl idly noted. Most of her attention, however, seemed to be fixed on Harry, eyeing him the way a cat would a new human. "What?" she asked.

Harry was currently staring at her robes. He hadn't noticed them earlier in all the excitement, but he saw them now. And what he saw was . . . surprising to say the least.

"You're a Slytherin?" he asked, just as Hermione, Professor McGonagall and others burst into the remains of the battered restroom.

Author's Note: Sorry it was so short. That's what happens when I write chapters without duels. Seriously, check the footnote from last chapter, writing duels takes up a LOT of space!

Who is this new girl? What were Dharc and Lyna doing while all this was happening? How will Harry explain what's happened? Find out on the next episode of Digi-

No! No. No. Wrong show. Sorry.