Reborn As Harry Potter - 18 Troll Battle

Harry was very edgy the whole day as Halloween Feast came closer and closer. Harry was not worried about the Philosopher’s Stone as Snape would chase off Quirrell. Besides, he could not do anything yet as he was not strong enough to face Quirrell yet.

Ron, Hermione and Daphne had noticed Harry’s strange mood and asked him what was wrong. He just brushed them off saying he was having a bad day.

In the Great Hall, everyone was busily enjoying themselves with the feast. Harry was sitting with Ron and Hermione in the Gryffindor table. He did not have an appetite and he had an agitated look on his face. Under his robes, he kept flexing his developing muscles as he started tapping his index finger on the dinner table.

“Harry, what’s wrong?” asked Hermione with a worries face.

“Yeah mate, what’s wrong?” asked Ron, holding a chicken wing in each hand. “Your face looks flushed. Are you coming down with a cold?”

“I don’t know,” said Harry, through gritted teeth.

“You have been training extra hard lately,” said Hermione. “Could it be that the stress is getting to you?”

“I don’t know,” said Harry again, trying to stabilise his breathing.

He closed his eyes and started meditating while he was trying to make sense of what was happening to him. He noticed that his Mana Reserves were glowing brightly and trying to expand. Over the last two months of training, Harry’s Mana Network had grown exponentially, causing it to grow thicker and stronger, causing a great rise in his Mana Reserve.

“This is strange,” thought Harry as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. “My Mana Network is trying to forcefully expand. What is this? My body is absorbing the Mana Particles in the air at a faster pace? This is bad!”

“I need to see Dumbledore,” said Harry as he suddenly stood up. Without waiting for a response, Harry immediately stood up and made his way towards the teachers table.

“Professor Dumbledore, a moment please?” said Harry looking at Dumbledore, who was enjoying his food.

“Something wrong, Harry?” asked Dumbledore, looking up from his food.

“There -!”

Just as he was about to respond to Dumbledore, Harry’s Sharingan activated and his body started shaking. He quickly shut his eyes so that others would not notice the change in his eyes. However, Dumbledore noticed the change and a frown appeared in his face. He got up and quickly lead Harry to a corner and looked at him in concern.

“Harry, is someone invading your mind?” asked Dumbledore in a hushed voice.

“No, there’s something wrong with my body,” said Harry, slightly breathless.

“Harry, what’s wrong? You’re shaking!” said Dumbledore, his voice filled with worry.

“I feel like my magic is growing out of control! My body can’t handle it! I need a point of release! Otherwise, I feel like I might explode!”

Bang!

The Great Hall’s oak double door was flung wide open and in came Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached teacher’s table and looked for Dumbledore. He looked around to find him standing in the corner with Harry. Quirrell slumped against the table, and gasped, “Troll — in the dungeons — thought you ought to know.”

Quirrell the slumped down on the ground and fainted.

It took a few seconds for the news to register in everyone’s minds before the entire Great Hall was engulfed in an uproar.

“SILENCE!” roared Dumbledore as his voice was magically magnified. “Prefects, lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately.”

The prefects sprung into action. They all gathered their Houses together as they started heading towards their dormitories.

“Harry, I’ll leave you to Madam Pomfry,” said Dumbledore, returning his attention back to the trembling Harry. “She’s very capable.”

“Professor, no!” snapped Harry, his teeth grotted. “Take me to the troll! If I fight with the troll and reduce the amount of magic in my body, I’ll recover!”

“Harry, no! A troll is not a creature a first year can handle!”

“Professor, trust me! I know what I’m doing!”

“Harry, facing a troll is dangerous!”

“Leaving me like this is even more dangerous!”

“Madam Pomfrey and I can help you! You don’t need to face the troll!”

“Can you safely expel the magic that is building up in my body safely within the next ten minutes?”

Dumbledore kept silent.

“I didn’t think so! You will be there with me! I just need to release my magic against a target and who better than a strong troll?” said Harry, shaking more violently.

“Fine!” relented Dumbledore. “But you better tell me about this after!”

“Or you’re going to let me exploded?” asked Harry, jokingly.

“This is not a joke, Harry!” said Dumbledore sternly, leading Harry towards the dungeons.

“Come on, Professor,” said Harry. “Neither of us are at the age to be so serious. You’re too old and I’m too young!”

“You’re more like your father than you think, Harry,” said Dumbledore with a smirk. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No, you’re the first,” replied Harry.

“He once said that exact same thing to me,” said Dumbledore.

“Old man, this is no time for nostalgia!” said Harry, his irritation worsening. “But if we’re going to reminisce, tell me about his friends.”

“Why his friends?” asked Dumbledore, curious.

“You tend to know a person better from knowing who he befriends,” said Harry wisely. “A person is the average of the five people the spend the most time with.”

“That’s a very wise thing to say,” said Dumbledore, clearly impressed.

“I know, right? I heard a motivational speaker once say that! A great man, he was!” say Harry, his shaking getting worse.

As they were talking, Harry and Dumbledore reached the dungeons and a waft of foul stench reached their nose. The stench was instantly followed by a low grunting and shuffling footfalls of giant feet. Harry and Dumbledore moved towards the noise and a ridiculous sight came into view. The twelve foot tall, lump of body with dull, granite gray skin of a troll with a small bald head perched between its shoulders came into sight.

“The movie did not depict this troll the right way,” thought Harry as he cringed. “They should have highlighted it’s ugliness more.”

The troll stopped beside a doorway and slouched into the room.

“It didn’t see us,” said Harry, following after the troll.

“It’s alright, but how do you want to deal with it?” asked Dumbledore, following after Harry. “That’s a fully grown mountain troll, I’ll have you know.”

Before Harry could answer, a loud scream reach their ears.

“KYAAAAA! Someone HELP!”

“That’s Daphne!” exclaimed Harry in shock.

Harry quickly ran inside the room to find Daphne crouching against the wall in full terror. Her face was drained of it’s colour as the troll was knocking off the sinks of the bathroom as it advanced towards her.

“Daphne! What on earth are you doing here?” asked Harry in an angry tone.

“Harry! Help! I came to the bathroom and I was about to leave when this troll came!” cried Daphne when she saw the troll.

“Shit! Of all the toilets, she had to come to this one!” cursed Harry as he jumped at the troll.

“Harry, move aside!” ordered Dumbledore when he the crouching Daphne.

“Old man! I told you I need to do this!” said Harry, activating his Sharingan.

Harry aimed a flying kick infused with his mana at the back of the troll’s kneecap, causing it to become unbalanced.

This was the fourth phase of the training he had come up with, Mana Infusion. The training plan he had come up with currently had four phases. Phase One: Mana Detection, Phase Two: Mana Absorption & Circulation, Phase Three: Mana Absorption & Circulation with Movement, and Phase Four: Mana Infusion. In Phase One, one would detect the Mana Particles through meditation. In Phase Two, one would absorb the Mana Particles and circulate it around their Mana Network to replenish their Mana Reserve. In Phase Three, one would simply need to repeat Phase Two while physically moving around instead of being in a meditative state. By far, this was the hardest phase to master. Phase Four was a combination of all the previous three phases with one added step: infusion the Mana in the body with a certain body part and use it in hand-to-hand combat to amplify the force of the strike, creating a brand new style of combat.

This was what Harry had just done when he kicked the troll. After staggering a little, the troll looked around to see Harry preparing for another kick. It swung its club around and aimed at Harry. Harry quickly ducked and took out his wand aimed at the troll, shouting: “Stupify!”

A jet of red light shot out of Harry’s and hit the troll directly in the chin. However, Harry noticed that the spell did very little on the big troll as he shouted: “Petrificus Totalus!”

“Daphne, quickly! Move out of there!” screamed Harry. “The troll will be free soon!”

Following Harry’s instructions, Daphne quickly shot out of the room and stood behind Dumbledore who was looking at Harry with a weird look on his face. He had already taken out his wand and was ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

Harry put away his wand. He slightly bent knees and put his hands forward vertically, palm open, with his left hand in from of his left hand. He hands aligned with their respective shoulders.

“What is he doing?” thought Dumbledore, frowning.

“ROARED!” The troll had now broken out of the Full Body-Bind Curse as it roared.

Harry took a deep breath, steadying his irregular breathing. He coated his legs and arms with his mana that causing them to glow brightly. He also spread a thin veil of his mana to cover the room.

Harry had discovered last week that upon spreading out his mana like a thin veil outwards with him as the centre, he was able to detected anyone and anything that entered his veil’s range. The most he had been able to cover with his veil had been a one meter radius. However, with the spike in his Mana Capacity today, his range had increase to five meters radius.

With his Sharingan fully activated, Harry dodged the troll’s attempts to turn him into a meat paste and constantly striked at the troll’s knees. Each and every strike was infused with his Mana and allowed the small amount of damage to accumulate with each strike.

It had to be noted that an ordinary person’s physical strength was no match for the toughness of a troll’s skin. That added with their natural regenerative abilities, most of the damage Harry caused healed almost completely before he could damage the troll again. After dodging and striking for a solid five minutes, Harry noticed this.

He frowned as he looked at the troll. He was starting to get out of breath, however, after circulating his Mana throughout his body, his fatigue had disappeared.

During the five minute exchange between Harry and the troll, Harry noticed his Mana Network was starting to stabilise. He got happy and charged at the troll. Harry sidestepped to dodge the troll’s club before sending a karate chop at the side of the troll’s knee causing it to howl in pain.

Harry had been constantly thinking on how to increase the damage dealt to the troll. He had been slowly changing the shape of his Mana that coated his hands, making it sharper and sharper with every strike. Finally, after countless attempts, Harry’s Mana coated hands had the sharpness of a knife.

Harry looked excitedly at the troll’s knee that he had just injured. There was inch long cut at the side of the troll’s knee. However, his excitement instantly changed into a frown at what he saw. The small cut was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“The would was to shallow,” thought Harry, just barely dodging the troll’s club. “I need to make a deeper cut! But how … ah, that could work!”

Harry was lucky that trolls weren’t fast or he would have long found himself turned into meat-paste long ago.

Harry closed in on the troll again and aimed for the latter’s knee again. He stepped in to the troll’s left as the club blocked his way to the right. Harry instantly striked, showing no hesitation at all. Just as his strike landed, Harry send a wave of his Mana in the shape of a sharp blade into the newly caused.

The troll howled in pain as it launched a punch at Harry with its left first. Harry didn’t have enough time to dodge as he had sent another Mana wave at the injury. He quickly lifted his arms to block the punch.

Not being able to withstand the power behind the blow, Harry’s body shot back, crushing into the wall.

“Harry!” screamed Dumbledore and Daphne in unison.

“I’m fine! Stay back!” said Harry quickly through gritted teeth as he was fighting against the pain.

Harry had a bright white glow covering his entire body. At the last second, he had managed to infuse Mana in his entire body, cushioning the impact against the wall. However, the force of the troll’s punch had managed to crush both his arms and even cracked his three of his ribs. He was lucky that his Mana infused arms had absorbed some of the force from the troll’s punch. Oherwise his chest would have caves in, crushing him to death.

“Dammit, the system wasn’t kidding when it said I’ve lost the Plot Armour protection,” thought Harry, smiling bitterly.

Harry looked at the troll that had fallen on his knees as it glared at him, growling. Harry stared straight at its angry eyes as his Sharingan glowed.

Thud! A second later, the troll slumped to the ground with a grunt.

Seeing the fight was over, Dumbledore and Daphne ran over to Harry’s side accompanied with McGonagall and Snape.

“Harry, are you alright?” asked Daphne, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Albus, that was a very dangerous move you pulled allowing Potter to face the troll alone,” said McGonagall with a pale face.

“That was something young Harry needed to do, right?” said Dumbledore with a relieved smile, looking straight at Harry’s blue eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve calmed down now,” said Harry, smiling weakly. He had already deactivated his Sharingan as soon as he had placed the troll under an illusion. “Daphne, I’m alright. Stop crying. It’s some cracked ribs and broken arms.”

“Only? You call that only?” shrieked Daphne, fighting the urge to hug Harry. “You could have died, Harry!”

“But I didn’t, that’s what matters,” said Harry, trying to comfort the blonde girl.

“Like father like son, Potter,” said Snape with a strange look on his face. “Truly headstrong and reckless.”

“I’ll take that as a complement,” said Harry, looking at Snape.

“Potter, why are you glowing?” asked McGonagall.

“I’ll explain at another time, but for now I owe the infirmary a visit, no?” said Harry, the Mana in his body depleted and the glow that covered his body fading. “Aaah … I’m so tired.”