Wang Yong heard hurried footsteps pounding behind him. He turned and saw Ron and Harry rushing toward him, breathless and wide-eyed.
"You guys came too? The troll should be inside," he said calmly.
A sharp, terrified scream suddenly pierced the air — it came from the girls' bathroom.
"Hermione!" shouted Harry. Without hesitation, he and Ron dashed forward, nearly tripping over their own feet in their panic.
Wang Yong chuckled softly and followed at a steady pace, completely unhurried.
Hermione Granger was cowering against the far wall, pale and shaking, looking like she might faint at any second.
The troll was bearing down on her, each thunderous step shaking the floor. It had already smashed one of the sinks loose from the wall as it advanced.
"Confuse it!" Harry yelled to Ron, taking a wild gamble. He snatched up a faucet and hurled it at the wall with all his strength.
The troll stopped just a few paces from Hermione. It turned its lumpy head awkwardly, blinking its beady eyes in confusion as it tried to locate the source of the noise. When it spotted Harry, it hesitated for a moment—then began lumbering toward him, raising its crude wooden club high in the air.
"Hey, ugly!" Ron shouted from the other side of the room. He hurled a metal pipe at the beast. It struck the troll's shoulder with a clang, but it barely flinched. Still, it heard Ron's voice and turned, nostrils flaring as its grotesque face twisted toward him. Harry took the opportunity to slip behind it.
"Come on! Run!" Harry shouted to Hermione, reaching out to pull her toward the door. But she was frozen in place, pressed against the wall, mouth open in a silent scream.
"Enough," said Wang Yong. His voice wasn't loud, but in the chaos of the bathroom, it rang out clear — calm and steady, like a bell cutting through a storm.
He raised his wand and pointed it directly at the troll's cocoa-bean-shaped head.
"Shadowfang Slash."
A thin, black arc of light flashed through the air.
There was a spray of blood — sharp, sudden. The troll's small head was severed cleanly from its massive shoulders. It didn't even have time to roar. Blood spurted in a wide arc as its huge body gave a final twitch, then collapsed to the floor with a heavy, sickening thud.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood frozen in place, utterly stunned. The floor was quickly becoming slick with blood, which spread toward their feet, staining their shoes red.
Suddenly, the door burst open. Heavy footsteps echoed through the room as everyone looked up.
Professor McGonagall stormed in, followed closely by Snape, and Quirrell bringing up the rear.
Quirrell took one look at the headless troll, let out a pathetic sob, and collapsed onto a toilet seat, clutching his chest.
The room was silent. No one spoke. The professors all stared at the grisly scene, momentarily struck dumb.
"Who did this?" McGonagall asked at last, her voice cold and tight with fury.
"I did," said Wang Yong.
McGonagall knelt beside the body, examining the wound along with Snape. Her expression darkened.
"I came alone," Wang Yong said, keeping his tone casual — even arrogant. "Wanted to see if I could handle a troll by myself. Turns out... it was disappointingly weak."
McGonagall studied him carefully, as though trying to see straight through him.
It was useless. Even if she could perform Legilimency, the presence of Xiao Yi rendered all external probing utterly ineffective.
Snape examined the severed neck, then looked up with a meaningful expression in his eyes. "Wang... if I'm not mistaken, this spell — it's dark magic."
"Dark magic?" The others turned to stare at Wang Yong.
He smiled. "Really? I found it scribbled in the margin of an old Potions textbook. There are plenty of offensive spells in standard magic, aren't there? What makes one dark and the other... not?"
McGonagall frowned. She couldn't detect anything unusual in his demeanor.
"Well, I don't believe any first-year could kill a mountain troll," she said at last. "Fifteen points to Ravenclaw. I'll be informing Professor Dumbledore. You may all go."
Ron, Hermione, and Harry — still pale — were completely ignored.
Wang Yong turned on his heel and left. The matter was over.
He wasn't sure why he'd interfered in the first place. Ron and Harry likely would've managed on their own. So why had he stepped in?
Perhaps because, as the saying goes, returning home in glory is no time to wear plain robes — he'd been studying relentlessly for so long. Maybe it was time to see just how far he'd come.
He'd only walked a few steps when he heard soft, quick footsteps behind him.
"Thank you," came a voice — so quiet it might have been a whisper, yet it reached his ears clearly.
He turned, just in time to see a red-faced figure dash away down the corridor.
A few seconds later, he was nearly bowled over by Ron.
"Yong! That spell just now — that was insane! You've got to teach me that one!" Ron's eyes were wide, filled with a desperate curiosity.
Harry nodded silently beside him. Clearly, he felt the same.
"That was dark magic," Wang Yong warned, half-seriously.
"Who cares! Teach us anyway."
"I'll consider it. Maybe in a couple years. That spell's way too dangerous for kids like you."
"WTF? You're the same age as us!" Ron shouted indignantly.
Laughing, Wang Yong shoved him, and the three of them messed around all the way back to the dorms.
Killing the troll hadn't disturbed Wang Yong in the slightest. In fact, he felt a deep, almost exhilarating satisfaction — as though some cramped corner of his heart had finally stretched itself awake.
Later that Month
As November settled in, the weather turned bitterly cold. The mountains surrounding the school were gray and snow-covered. The lake froze over like quenched steel — hard and unyielding.
The good news was that Hermione had started treating Wang Yong much more kindly. She even warmed up to Ron and Harry, stammering shy greetings whenever she saw Wang Yong.
The big news? Harry Potter — riding a barely-controllable broomstick — had somehow managed to beat the Slytherin team.
Wang Yong was, in truth, rather interested in Quidditch. But for one, he was far too busy, completely immersed in his magical studies. And two, Quidditch's rules made little sense — that ridiculous point bonus for catching the Snitch totally broke the balance. Plus, Wang Yong had no desire to play Seeker. So Quidditch remained low on his priority list.
Learning magic was no simple feat. Hogwarts' library held hundreds of thousands of books, including tens of thousands of rare hand-copied tomes dating back centuries — even millennia. Even if one read a book a day, it would take a lifetime to finish. Many of the texts were written in ancient magical languages, adding yet another layer of difficulty.
Though Wang Yong studied with fanatical dedication, in the face of the wizarding world's vast legacy, he was still a mere drop in the ocean.
But as the saying goes — a thousand books may mislead, but a single phrase of truth illuminates.
The real core texts were few. If he pushed himself, he could probably finish the essential reading during his years at Hogwarts.
Hermione no longer pretended not to see him in the library. Sometimes, she even sat down beside him to ask questions — though it was mostly Wang Yong doing the teaching.