Chapter Seven

Draco walked by Harry, Ron, and I at breakfast the next morning, looking surprised that we had all returned in one piece (even though we had the slight hint of eyebags under our eyes.) 

“Thanks for that,” I muttered. His eyes filled with genuine remorse, but I couldn’t trust that anymore—plus, it wasn’t remorse for doing what he did to me and Harry and Ron. It was remorse because I ended up suffering because of his actions. “Didn’t think that you hated me, too.”

“I—I’m sorry, Carina, really, I am,” Draco said, sputtering his words out as though they were evading him.

“Go away, Malfoy,” Ron snarled.

Still turning to me, Draco ignored Ron. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, I really didn’t,” he said, his voice quivering in a way I’d never heard before. “Here. My mum sent me some desserts this morning. Pumpkin Pasties. You like those, right?”

“I don’t want anything from you right now.”

“C’mon, I tried to get you out of it. Remember? Plus, you agreed to it. It would’ve been fine if—”

“I said, leave me ALONE!”

With that final word, I banged my fist on the table, though it didn’t quite have the effect that I thought it would—it was worse. I felt a column of air from behind me rush forward and blast Draco, along with all the food and plates and glasses near him, straight into the wall. I stood straight upwards, then stared at my hands, then looked at all the people around me. What had I done?

“Got what he deserved,” Ron muttered behind me. Harry got up, too, and ran over to Draco, who seemed to be out cold. The entirety of the Great Hall was now staring at us. 

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. What had I done? 

“Malfoy was just trying to apologize to you, and you respond with this?” Pansy Parkinson snapped. “You’re a monster, Aberforth!”

She wasn’t wrong. The whispers from the students around me seemed to go in one ear and out the other as I took out my wand, trying in vain to heal all the scrapes and bruises on his body—his clothes were stained with food, his cheeks and lips cut by shards of glass that were blasted onto him. “Episkey… Episkey…” My body wracked with regret, I held him and sobbed. Everything he had done that morning and the night before seemed to dissolve.

Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.

His POV

Draco had the greatest dream he had in a while—he dreamed he was on a hospital bed, and Carina Aberforth was sitting in a chair next to him, dozing off. Except his eyes were open, and it wasn’t a dream. He really was in a hospital bed, and the most beautiful girl he had ever seen really was by his side, her head in her arms, which were resting on the edge of the bed. 

He recalled the events that brought him there. They were a bit hazy—one minute, he was apologizing to the love of his life, and the next, he went flying. He thought he felt the warmth of her body on his, hugging him in a way she never had before. He thought he felt warm tears dropping on his face and sliding down his cheeks. He thought they belonged to her. But he had convinced himself it was all a dream.

Now, he knew, it probably wasn’t.

“Carina,” he said, shifting in his bed. He regretted it instantly—he had accidentally put pressure on some bruises on his arm. “Ouch.”

Carina jolted awake upon hearing his voice. “Oh my goodness, Draco, you’re okay.”

“Of course I am,” he teased. It surprised him how much everything in his body hurt. “You know I’m invinci—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because all of a sudden, her arms were wrapped around him. It hurt, but he didn’t want her to let go. 

“I was so worried,” she said, sobbing into his shoulder. “I’m so, so, so sorry, it was my fault, you know, but I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I had no idea what happened, one minute I was so angry and the next you went flying—”

“I guess now we’re even.” He decided this hug was even better than he dreamed. “How long have you been here?”

“Oh… I don’t remember,” Carina said, finally letting go of him, rubbing her eyes and yawning. “I came as soon as Madam Pomfrey would let me, and I’ve been here ever since.”

Suddenly, Madam Pomfrey pulled back the curtains and gave a stern look at Carina. “Ms. Aberforth, I told you not to disturb Mr. Malfoy’s rest! You ought to be somewhere else, anyway, isn’t it dinner time?”

“But Madam Pomfrey, I was already awake!” Draco tried to protest, but Madam Pomfrey shook her head and directed Carina out of Draco’s booth. He sighed with frustration and pulled his sheets over him. It was just his luck that the one person who healed him the most had just been escorted out of his hospital room.

Upon finding out that Draco was okay, I felt as though a huge burden were lifted off my shoulders. My mind could finally go towards other things, like the most recent lesson I had with Professor Quirrell, or the fact that Gryffindor had lost ten points that morning because I had accidentally hurt Draco. I really didn’t want to go into the Great Hall for dinner—I could already imagine the stares of fear and trepidation. When’s the next time that Carina’s going to go berserk  and hurt me?

I sulked a little bit in the girls’ bathroom, and when I walked just down the hall, who else would I meet but Gramps?

“Hello, Carina,” he said, as I gave him a big hug and buried my head in his robes, crying a little bit. All the events of the morning had weighed down on my mind. “I had a hunch you’d be with Draco.”

“Oh, Madam Pomfrey kicked me out,” I said, wiping my tears. “But he’s fine, Gramps, and I feel so much better now.”

“Good on you for staying with him,” he said kindly, the familiar half-moon glasses glinting in the light. “You’re a very good friend.”

“Given that I was the one who did that to him, I don’t really feel like it.” I gave him another hug. “Aren’t you mad at me, Gramps? I destroyed everything.”

“Oh, no, Carina, I know you well enough to know that it was not intentional.”

“Then what do you think that was, Gramps? All of a sudden I felt this horribly strong wind current behind me. I had no control over it. It was such a blur.”

He paused. “Why don’t we walk together to my office, Carina?”

He put his hand on my shoulder, and we walked together, on that familiar path towards my childhood bedroom. The path I hadn’t tread for months even though I passed by it all the time—realizing that, I thought it felt weird. 

In the office, Gramps poured me a cup of tea and made me dinner—I hadn’t realized that the mental state I was in had taken a toll on my energy. I was infinitely grateful that tonight, I didn’t have to go into the Great Hall to eat.

“You have a exceptional ability to do elemental magic,” he said, sitting down at the table like always. “You are aware of that, yes?”

I nodded, a little slowly. I thought about the pestis tempestua spell I had done with Professor Quirrell just a few days prior.

“Your lessons with Professor Quirrell serve to help you learn about your powers,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “But if you’d like to truly control your powers, you must first learn to control your own mind. And more importantly, your emotions.”

I sighed. “I know, I know, Gramps, this time it was just a one-time thing. I didn’t know what came over me.”

“Exactly,” he said. Gramps always knows, I suppose. “You weren’t aware of yourself when it happened. Where you are now, this can happen at any time. Any kind of influence from others can cause you to become unbalanced. And you might hurt more people.”

“What are you suggesting? Muggle meditation?”

“Something similar.”

“Are you going to send me to the mountains to study with wizard monks?”

“Colder. No, Carina, I’d like you to volunteer at St. Mungo’s.”

“What?!” I looked at him incredulously, and he stared back at me as though he’d said the most normal thing on a regular Tuesday. “What in the world does that have to do with controlling my emotions?”

“It’s more than that,” Gramps said calmly. “If things like this continue to happen, you may inflict far worse injuries on someone else. You need to know how to heal them. St. Mungo’s will teach you.”

I said nothing. He was right as usual.

“I will arrange for a meeting between you and Head Doctor Bonham after your winter break this semester. I do hope you enjoy it, Doctor Bonham is one of the nicest people you could ever meet…”

He went on with a smile on his face, muttering to himself before asking me questions about my new school life.

“How is your relationship with that Fred Weasley?” Gramps asked nonchalantly, pouring himself some tea.

My cheeks went pink. “It’s—great. We’re just friends!”

“I mean, I didn’t even know that St. Mungos had volunteers from Hogwarts,” I said to Harry and Ron that night in the Gryffindor Common Room. 

“Heard most of them are weird Hufflepuffs,” Ron said. “But if Dumbledore’s said it, it’s probably worth listening to.”

I huffed. One thing that ticked me off sometimes was how everybody seemed to think of my Gramps as a sage who knew everything. And what ticked me off more was that that was usually true, whether I liked it or not.

“Anyway, you missed a lot today,” said Ron. “Show her, Harry!”

I looked over with great interest as Harry ran up to his and Ron’s room and, in almost no time at all, came back with a brand-new broom in tow. I looked at it in awe as Harry set it down on the table as Ron comically tried to hide it from view of the other Gryffindors in the room, who were staring at us weirdly. I winced internally as I remembered the incident from earlier that day.

“It’s a Nimbus Two Thousand,” Harry said proudly. “I had my first practice with Wood today.”

“Fred and George have been going on and on forever about how the Quidditch cup’ll have our name on it this year because of Harry,” Ron said with a hint of envy in his voice. 

“He said I might turn out better than Charlie Weasley, who could’ve played for England,” Harry boasted.

“Blimey, Harry, you’re really a natural at Quidditch,” I said. “I’ll definitely expect a lot from you this year when I come to my first Quidditch game.”

Two months whizzed by. I didn’t think my heart could become more filled by my life at Hogwarts, but it was. After the entire smacking-Draco-into-the-wall debacle, I thought the whole school would’ve hated me, but the strange looks from people only lasted for about a week before they all moved on.

And as for my relationship with Draco, I thought it was actually strengthened by the accident. He eventually realized that with me, there were boundaries he could not cross, and he’d even dropped the snobbish attitude towards Harry and Ron for a good while. Patchy, my eagle owl, had dropped off a note from Draco’s parents apologizing for his behavior.

“Almost got a Howler from my parents,” he muttered, folding his own letter at the Slytherin dining table. I had picked up the habit of occasionally sitting with him there, and over time the Slytherins had gotten used to my presence, even though Harry and Ron said it’d make the Gryffindors look bad.

“Wasn’t she worried that you were hurt?”

“My mum was, but it seems like my dad cares more that you’re still my friend.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

Gramps also spent chunks of time away from Hogwarts, and when he did, he always sent quaint letters from where he was visiting. My most recent one was from Reyjavik, Iceland. Patchy was having an easy time delivering my things until one morning when I received a mysterious present. 

“Bloody hell, Carina!” Ron exclaimed after dodging the falling wooden basket over breakfast at the Gryffindor table. It made a huge thud, scaring many people and causing the plates and glasses of everyone around me to clatter. “Did someone send you a stinking boulder?”

I peered inside, and sure enough, the basket was packed to the brim with chocolate, which was covered by the signature gold and purple Honeyduke’s labels. The words “Premium Chocolate” shimmered on the wrapper, almost as though they were made of glitter.

“I think so,” I said, puzzled. Attached to the basket was a letter addressed to me, which I opened first before ripping the plastic off. I had to swat away Ron’s and Harry’s greedy hands as they reached towards the chocolate.

It read:

Dear Carina,

I do hope you’ve been doing well! We all miss you and Draco dearly at Malfoy Manor. Are you doing well in your studies? Draco tells me you’re accelerated by three years. We’re very impressed!

Speaking of Draco, he talks about you all the time in his letters to us, and he may have mentioned that you like Honeyduke’s chocolate. So I went there just yesterday to buy a few Galleons’ worth of its finest chocolate and assembled this basket myself—I hope you enjoy.

Love,

Narcissa

“Is this why you’re still friends with Draco?” Harry jabbed, looking enviously at the mountains of chocolate in the large basket. This was way more than a few Galleons—I had always known from brief conversations with others that Draco was rich, but I had no idea he was that rich.

“Oh, don’t say that, I had no idea how much money he has,” I snapped. That was a lie—Draco and I never talked about money directly, but even aside from his occasional mentions of vacations around the world or his family’s manor, I knew that his aristocratic nature seeped into everything he said and did. 

I let Ron and Harry have some of the chocolate as I took a bite of my own. It was creamy, but not too rich, and it filled my mouth with sugary milk chocolate flavor. The candy melted as soon as it touched my tongue. It really was the best chocolate from Honeyduke’s. 

“I’ve never had anything this good!” Ron said in awe as he continued to stuff his face. None of us had class right after breakfast, so we stayed at the Great Hall the entire time as we snacked on the candy.

“I had no idea that the Malfoys had that much money,” I said, examining the chocolate wrappers. Narcissa had clearly used magic to remove the price tags, but it felt like I could taste them anyway.

“They live in a huge estate, I’ve heard,” Ron said. “They’re about as rich as wizarding folks come. At least that’s what my dad said.”

After I had written back to Narcissa saying that I loved the chocolate, I began getting the baskets twice a week, and Ron, Harry, and I found ourselves becoming very popular with the other Gryffindors who always sat by us in the Great Hall. I heard some people gossiping that I was only friends with Draco for his money, but they didn’t know I was the granddaughter of Albus Dumbledore, who had more money than he ever needed or used. Plus, I never saw any of Draco’s other friends getting gifts. 

When it came to making friends with anyone other than Draco and Ron and Harry, I didn’t have all too much luck. Perhaps it was because I spent more time with them than anyone else, and I didn’t feel like I really needed more friends. Sometimes Hermione and I would study together in our room—for as much as a know-it-all I thought she was, I had to admit she was very studious—and I made a sort of alliance with Cedric Diggory, a popular Hufflepuff fourth-year who was in my accelerated classes with me. He was the only one who had made any effort to talk to me in any of my accelerated classes, probably because the fourth-years didn’t want to talk to a first-year. Sometimes we’d study together and make small talk, and I’d ask him about anything I didn’t understand.

I tried to make friends with some of Draco’s friends, but I didn’t have much success. My relationships with Crabbe and Goyle were neutral at best—I could tell they only put up with me because they worshipped Draco. Pansy Parkinson, on the other hand… well, I knew from the first week of school that she hated my guts. Since the beginning of the school year, she was one of the people making fun of me for accidentally taking Draco’s hand on the way to the boats. Except she never accused me of having a crush on him. She accused me of being a scaredy-cat, which was her new favorite nickname for me, like Draco calling Harry “Scarhead” or Ron calling Draco “Stuck-Up Pretentious Twat.” Except she’d never call me Scaredy-Cat when Draco was around—she knew he’d never stand for it. When Draco and I had study sessions and Pansy invited herself, she resorted to just giving me a cold stink-eye. Most times, it made me so uncomfortable that I chose to leave, much to Draco’s dismay.

Academically, things were a lot of work, and more nights than not, I found myself getting less sleep than I should’ve because I was studying. And aside from Potions, which was a nightmare because Snape hated everyone at Harry’s table, I loved all my classes. In Herbology, Professor Sprout had told me I was the best plant-handler she had seen in years, and in Astronomy, Professor Sinistra said I had a proclivity for looking at the stars. I’d even managed to scrape some good exam scores in History of Magic.

And sometimes, in between classes or during free periods, I’d visit Fluffy in the confines of his little room, and I’d bring him some treats—like a large piece of steak or dog treats. There never seemed to be enough food for the poor dog. At first, since I didn’t want to get caught wandering the forbidden area of the third floor, my visits were pretty infrequent, but as time went on, I found myself going from once every few weeks to every week, sometimes twice a week. All along I was trying to hatch a plan in my mind to free him, but everything I came up with seemed to be too implausible due to his size.

The semester was passing by so quickly, in fact, that I probably wouldn’t have noticed that it was Halloween if it weren’t for the smell of delicious baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors of the school. After the three of us finished classes for the day, Ron complained about my roommate, Hermione Granger, who he had to pair up with for their Charms class. I giggled as he recounted how Hermione corrected his Levitation Charm: “It’s levi-o-sa, not levio-sa.”

“She’s a nightmare, really,” Ron said angrily as the three of us pushed through crowds of students to get back to the Gryffindor Common Room. “It’s no wonder no one can stand her.”

While I didn’t disagree that Hermione’s know-it-all-ness was often downright annoying, I cringed a little as I saw Hermione, who was behind Ron the whole time, knock into him and scurry away. 

“I think she heard you,” Harry said, uncomfortable. For the split second I saw her face, I noticed that she had tears in her eyes.

“Must’ve noticed she’s got no friends,” Ron muttered, though I could see regret flash across his eyes.

When I got back to my room a few hours of studying later, Hermione was nowhere to be found. Parvati Patil, one of her friends, was telling Lavender Brown that she found Hermione in the girls’ bathroom. Apparently, she’d been there all day, distraught—it made me feel horrible, so I told Ron and Harry to go down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast by themselves, and that I’d join them later. As bad as Hermione sometimes was, I owed her for all those Potions notes. Plus, she didn’t have very many close friends, and if I wasn’t going to go comfort her, who would?

So I walked over towards the dungeons and headed into the girls’ bathroom. I could hear loud sniffles in the furthest stall.

“Hermione?” I called nervously. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get mad at me for giggling when Ron made fun of her earlier that day.

“I’m fine,” she said in between sobs.

“You don’t sound very fine.”

“Really, I’m fine, you should go to the Great Hall and have dinner.”

“Can I come in, Hermione?”

She didn’t answer, but the door to her stall swung open, so I took that as a yes. She was sitting on the toilet seat with a mountain of tissues strewn about on the floor.

“Oh, Hermione…” I started, unsure of what to say.

“It’s alright. I know you hate me, too.”

“No. No. How can I hate a roommate who always leaves the floors tidy and bewitches our books to organize themselves by alphabetical order?”

She laughed a little, but I could tell she was still heartbroken. “But you heard what Ron said. No one can stand me, and he’s right. I don’t belong in this school. I should’ve just gone to Muggle middle school or whatever.”

“Hermione,” I said, looking at her earnestly. “Hermione, did you know I’ve lived in Hogwarts castle for my entire life?”

She nodded. She knew a little bit about my life story.

“Did you know I’ve gone around the school for all those years and watched the students here? I’ve walked in on so many classes, so many conversations, so many events, under an invisibility cloak that my grandfather, Dumbledore, gave me?”

“What’s your point?”

“Well. I haven’t seen any student, not one in thousands, that’s been as amazing as you, Hermione,” I said. I meant it. “Sure, there have been prodigies, there have been people who are smart and book-ish, but I’ve never seen anyone who can excel at everything—and I mean, every single subject—as well as you do, Hermione.”

Her eyes widened.

“And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that you definitely would’ve succeeded at Muggle school, but it would’ve been such a waste, if you hadn’t come here. Because you’re so, so talented. And everyone knows it. Ron, too.”

As I was speaking, I noticed that her eyes had started getting red again, and now, tears were streaming down her face. She leapt up from the toilet and wrapped me in a hug.

Her words haphazardly spilled out of her mouth. “Oh, did you mean it? Thank you, thank you, Carina, a million times thank you, you have no idea how hard it’s been because everything here is so new, I didn’t know anyone coming here, and I’ve been trying my best but it just feels like nobody wants to be my friend, but what you said really helped my spirits—”

Hugging her back, I said, “Don’t mention it, Hermione. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay? You should probably wash your face, your nose is pretty runny.”

She nodded and we walked together to the sink with renewed strength. 

“I can’t wait to go to the Halloween feast. It stinks in here anyway,” she said, wiping off all the snot and tears from earlier. As she mentioned it, I couldn’t help but notice that the bathroom, for some reason, smelled way worse than it did when I walked in. But the smell wasn’t coming from inside the bathroom. It was coming from—

A troll. In the halls. Right outside the girls’ bathroom.

I wordlessly grabbed Hermione’s hand as we ran towards the back of the bathroom. The troll, upon spotting us, turned around stupidly, and with a grunt, swung its giant wooden club, breaking down the door to the room. I could tell the only thought in its brain was its desire to destroy me and Hermione.

We tried to hide under the sinks, but it was futile. The troll was clearly trying to break everything in sight, causing glass to fly everywhere. We had to keep moving, but the bathroom was only so big. Water had begun to flood the floors, spilling from every pipe. My shoes were starting to get wet.

Water… that was it! A singular spell popped into my mind. There wasn’t nearly as much water here as there was in the Black Lake, but hopefully it would make for a distraction. 

“PESTIS TEMPESTUA!” I shouted, and immediately, I could see the water all around me start to move and form a living thing. The more water came from the pipes, the more it took form. The troll, with its IQ of probably 5, looked incredibly confused. It tried to swing at my spell, but it was futile—the troll’s club sliced through the water and it kept re-forming. Eventually, a bird—the same one I created from the water of the Black Lake—took form and charged at the troll, over and over again. 

Behind the troll, at the broken entrance to the girls’ bathroom, I could see Harry and Ron, who were watching with their mouths agape. They had probably come searching for me and Hermione after hearing about the troll.

Unfortunately, the thing about water is that you’ll need a lot of it to cause any real damage to something as big as a troll, and as much as the pipes leaked, it wasn’t enough to kill the troll or even knock it out. But I’d sure done a lot to tire it out as it kept swinging at the monster of my creation. 

 When the bird created by my spell finally broke apart back into a million water particles and droplets, the troll, tired out, dropped to its knees, its club falling out of its hands. It was weak.

“Do it, Ron!” I shouted. For some reason, in that split second, it felt as though we were perfectly in sync.

“Wingardium leviosa!” He yelled. The troll’s club promptly began levitating high in the air, and the troll only noticed at the last second when it fell back down onto its head. With a horrifying crack, the club had knocked it out cold.

For a few seconds, the only sounds in the bathroom were heavy breathing from all four of us.

Hermione spoke first. “Is it… dead?”

Harry said, “I don’t think so—I think it’s just been knocked out.”

“Thanks for coming to find us,” I said. “We probably would’ve been toast if you weren’t there to help.”

“No way,” Ron shrugged it off. “You had that troll. We just dealt the last blow.”

With all the ruckus we were making, I should’ve known that the professors, or Filch, or both, would notice what was going on in the bathroom. And indeed they did. We heard a loud shuffling of footsteps as Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and Professor Quirrell approached the bathroom, totally out of breath. I would’ve expected the trio of professors to be more worried for us than angry, but I was quickly proven wrong with one look at Professor McGonagall’s face. Her lips were pursed, and I’d never seen her more enraged. It was even worse than the Horntail incident.

“What on earth were you thinking?” said Professor McGonagall. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Why aren’t you in your dormitory?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but then Professor Snape shot me the most piercing look I’d ever seen, and I suddenly didn’t want to look at any of them anymore. Each second of silence felt more like a year.

Then from behind me, Hermione finally said something. “Please, Professor McGonagall—they were looking for me.”

“Miss Granger?” Professor McGonagall said, shocked. I was just as confused.

“I went looking for the troll because I—I thought I could deal with it on my own. You know, because I've read all about them.”

I tried to hide my puzzlement. Hermione Granger, lying to a teacher? What universe were we living in? “They saved me, Professor. Carina conjured a water monster to weaken it and Ron used the Levitation Charm to knock it out with its own club. I’d be finished if Carina and Ron and Harry hadn’t found me.”

“Well—in that case…” Professor McGonagall seemed to reconsider, staring at us. “Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?”

Hermione hung her head. “I’m sorry, Professor. I won’t do it again.”

“I should hope so!” exclaimed Professor McGonagall. “Five points from Gryffindor, Ms. Granger. I’m very disappointed in you. If you’re not hurt at all, you’d better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses.”

Hermione looked at me, made a small smile, and left.

Professor McGonagall turned to us next. I winced internally—what kind of word-whopping would we get?

“I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go.”

Still reeling, Harry, Ron, and I said nothing about the incident until we were two floors up.

“Fifteen points is way too low for what we did,” Ron grumbled.

“Ten, once you’ve taken off Hermione’s,” Harry corrected. 

“I’ve never seen her act like that,” I said. “I mean, lie to a teacher? That’s unbelievable for her.”

“Yeah, it was nice of her to get us out of trouble like that,” Ron admitted. “I mean, she did owe us one for saving her.”

“I owe you one, too,” I chided gently, knowing that if I had been the only one in the bathroom, Ron probably wouldn’t have said that. 

Finally, we got to the common room. It was completely packed with all the Gryffindors. The food from the Halloween feast had been sent up, and everyone was enjoying it there. The first person we noticed, though, was Hermione, who was standing awkwardly by the door. When she saw me, she gave me a relieved hug. Her expression became a little more nervous when she saw Ron and Harry.

“Thank you,” she said. They were nervous to make eye contact, but Ron and Harry said thanks too, and that was clearly enough for them all. After the awkward encounter, all of us split up to get food. 

I didn’t know if it was the same for Ron and Harry, but after that, my opinion of Hermione Granger, the girl whose hand always shot up at every question in class, had changed drastically. Yes, she was a know-it-all and sometimes an annoying stickler for rules, but she had showed me then that even she knew there was something more important than the rules. Sticking up for your friends.

Plus, there are some things that you can’t do together without becoming friends afterwards, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.