The Relativity of Trolls

Draco Malfoy had never really given much thought to trolls in his life. As far as he was concerned they were stupid lumbering creatures and wizards of his family had been avid participators in troll hunting. This was all before Ginny Weasley had waltzed into his life though, and brought with her all kinds of oddities and in particular a rather strange Muggle game called ‘Dungeons and Dragons’.

Some months ago, he had become persuaded to join in the campaign Colin Creevey was running. By the end, after ultimately becoming an epic level character, screwing over his party, enslaving or killing other party members and pretty much taking over the world they were playing in, he had been suspended from playing. Having been a skill monkey character, the Rogue, he’d beaten all the other players and the Dungeon Master down to shear skill ranks that even rolling a twenty-sided die was pointless and he’d pick-pocketed enough magical item loot to counteract anything thrown at him – except a Players’ Handbook thrown at him physically by Ginny.

In any case, he’d thought that his brief spell with this Muggle game was just that, brief. But fate, it seemed, had other ideas. Wizards of the Coast, the makers of the game, had brought out Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. Creevey, like most Gryffindors, was incredibly mild tempered and seemed to think that everyone deserved a second chance. It was because of this that Draco found himself once again in the Gobstones Club society room with a character sheet and a pile of dice next to him – in appropriate Slytherin green and silver colours of course – and Creevey explaining the revisions to the system they were playing and explaining in no uncertain terms that Player versus Player was ‘Not An Option Or Else’. You could almost hear the capitalisation in his speech.

The campaign they were playing had muddled along fairly well for some sessions, with only a few brief mishaps involving the Dungeon Master using rulings of ‘a rock falls on your head, take five points of damage’ in cases where Draco started reverting back to potential PvP inducing actions and continuing to drop these metaphysical rocks on Draco’s character until Draco in real life stopped what he was doing, including smart remarks. It was a long, slow, gruelling process which resulted in Draco’s character being reduced to negative hit points three times and having to make saving throws to remain ‘alive’ until Draco learned to stop making the comments. Because it took so long, Creevey had had time to construct several signs – similar to what Muggles called ‘post-it notes’ as Draco understood from Ginny’s Muggle Studies notes – and hold them up or pass them to Ginny to stick them to Draco’s forehead with her Seeker position training reflexes before Draco had time to bat away her hand. These signs said things along the lines of ‘Do you really want to continue that sentence?’ ‘Close your mouth before sound comes out of it’ and ‘Rock, five damage, shut up.’

Soon the party had reached level eight and were fighting monsters with titles like ‘solo’ and ‘elite’, signalling higher difficulty settings. It happened upon one dungeon crawl, which they came across a Cave Troll.

Draco had come across trolls in textbooks, such as in his second year when Gilderoy Lockhart had been the Defence Against Dark Arts teacher and proved utterly useless as such, in ‘Travels with Trolls’. He’d also experienced the ‘security troll’ at Hogwarts in third year, when the Fat Lady’s portrait had been attacked and he’d been sneaking around the castle late at night. They seemed to have vague intelligence but all they seemed to be interested in was comparing clubs and giving students dirty looks. He’d heard of the wholly unintelligent mountain troll too, but the Wizards of the Coast’s troll were nothing like either.

It would appear that the average cave troll had only claws and not clubs to deal damage to adventurers and could improvise by grabbing the unsuspecting adventurer and use them as a weapon, dealing damage to adventurers, grabbed and un-grabbed alike. In this new edition of the game, being a skill monkey rogue wasn’t so useful for getting in and out of grabbed situations. In addition, having armour restrictions meant he looked comparatively weak in comparison to other characters, Draco found his character being targeted for such attacks more often. He swore that Creevey was showing favouritism to other players and it shouldn’t be allowed. Upon the second grabbing incident, Draco had had enough.

“That’s it! Why am I the human-club?” Draco said, exasperated.

“Because you are wearing the lowest base armour class,” Colin sighed, propping his head in one hand, explaining for what seemed the hundredth time that it didn’t matter whether it was magical armour, it was still a leather base and the rest of the party were wearing a higher base.

“And that makes me look weaker, does it?” Draco narrowed his eyes at the other boy.

“Yes. Can we continue now, please?”

“I want my reflex roll save.” Draco folded his arms, sulkily.

“I do believe there’s a pout forming on the Princess’ lips,” Blaise observed, from across the table.

“Malfoy’s do not pout,” Draco quipped back. “Now, Creevey, I want my save.”

“I did it, you failed.” Creevey gave Draco a measured look, fingers poised for one of the post-it notes. “Now, might we continue?”

Draco waved a hand, graciously, “Continue.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and relaxed somewhat. She was seated next to Draco, as usual, and had her foot raised ready to stamp on his foot should he have started to make too bigger fuss.

“This troll is taking a blimin’ long time to kill,” Blaise remarked. “I don’t suppose there’s some kind of roll I could make to see if it has any weakness?”

“Smart idea, Zabini. Pick a skill and see what it gets you.” Colin leafed through the pages of his Monster Manual book to a page. “Remember though, its Luna’s attack turn though.”

“Let’s try…a nature check.”

“Okay. You know that it’s a tough creature and that fire will do extra damage.”

“Great. Anyone in the party got anything fiery?” Blaise looked around the table.” Besides Gin’s temper, of course” He gave her a smirk and received a kick under the table from Ginny and a look of daggers from Draco for his wisecrack.

“I have alchemist’s fire on me but some people foolishly let me be grabbed.” Draco set a withering look circle the table.

“Then I suggest you don’t piss off your party members so often,” Ginny smiled sweetly at him and turned to her Ravenclaw friend. “Luna, anything you can really do on this turn?”

“I suppose I’ll just try to clock it one and see what happens.” Luna shrugged and started to jiggle a few dice in her hand for roll, as Draco let out a squeak of indignation. Luna was playing what a big and hard hitting character called a Warden that could potentially do quite some damage to Draco before he got un-grabbed.

“Malfoy, take seventeen points of damage,” Colin said dully, jotting a few notes down. “Ginny, you’re up.”

“I’ll fireball it.”

“Ginny!” Draco turned to his girlfriend, “Are you ever so possibly trying to kill me?”

“No but fire does it more damage. Also in case you hadn’t noticed, even with you grabbed Colin jotted down some damage for the troll when Blaise hit you.”

“Ginny, that’s meta-gaming. Don’t make me have to drop a rock on you,” Colin warned.

“Sorry. So, I cast fireball.” Ginny threw a load of dice across the table. “So that is twenty five fire damage. Is it dead yet?”

“No, but it doesn’t look so healthy as before.”

“Am I still grabbed?” Draco said, impatiently.

“Oh yes.”

Draco’s lip curled ever so slightly in response. Ginny glanced at her boyfriend and covertly slipped a hand in his under the table and gave it a squeeze. Draco’s eyes flicked to her and she gave him a small, wane smile. He responded with a rueful look and returned to paying close attention to the miniature models of their characters and the troll, which operated like Wizard Chess figures and were animated as such.

“I swear, you two, there’s some kind of telepathic link or secret language.” Blaise shook his head. “Honest to Merlin, it gets quite freaky sometimes.”

“Pipe down, Zabini, you’re just jealous because you scared off another of your conquests with the contents of your black leather trunk,” Draco retorted.

“’Black leather trunk’? Is that code for something?” Ginny said, incredulously. “On second thoughts, forget I asked. Knowing you, Blaise, it probably is and suitably sordid.”

“I do have a reputation to uphold, my dear Miss Weasley. I’d be happy to show the contents of my black leather trunk any time.” Blaise waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“That’s quite enough,” Draco said, shortly, and turned to Colin. “Who’s next?”

“You, actually. Want to try and get free?”

“Roll it.” Draco passed his green and silver twenty-sided die between thumb and forefinger to the Gryffindor boy, who promptly rolled it behind his Dungeon Master’s screen.

“You manage to break free.”

“Excellent. I anoint my blade with an alchemist’s fire and make a riposte strike.”

Colin scribbled more figures down behind his screen.

“And Blaise, should you attempt to show Ginny what’s in either black leather truck, it will go hard with you.”

“Draco, Princess, sweetheart, you can always be hard with me.” Blaise fluttered his eyelashes at his fellow Slytherin, earning himself an eye roll of distain.

“Blaise sweetie,” Ginny commanded the boy’s attention. “The day I let Draco run off with you is the day hell freezes over.”

“I dunno, the Slytherin dungeon is pretty much hell and have you been down there lately? It’s somewhat nippy. Besides,” Blaise tossed his bangs out his eyes and fixed the couple with a suggestive look, “I’m more than up for a little -”

“If your next word is ‘threesome’ I swear to on Merlin’s beard I won’t be responsible for what I do.” Creevey stepped in. “This was meant to be a civilised game.” He buried his head in both his hands.

“With these three in the game, the probability is somewhat lacking,” said Luna, dreamily from her position next to Colin and patted the boy on the shoulder. “I suspect Blaise has a nasty infection of nargles.”

“Or he just hasn’t gotten laid recently and is venting on us,” Ginny muttered.

“I’ll have a word with Pansy when I get back.” Draco muttered back.

“The girl is not a whore for hire, Draco.” Ginny admonished him.

“You wouldn’t know it some of the time.”

“ANYWAY, back to the world where you’re battling a troll. Zabini.” Creevey waved his arms in the air to get their attention.

“You could try to romance the troll?” Luna asked, absently. All the participants in the room turned to look at Luna, queerly.

“I could.” A look of inspiration passed over Blaise’s face.

“You…you want to…to try to…” Colin choked.

“Why not? I’m a Bard. I’m sure it might have some effect.”

“Well, yes, but maybe not the desired one.”

“It’s worth a try.” Blaise shrugged.

“I swear you main aim is to sabotage my games and rape, pillage and impregnate or enslave my entire world I made for you guys. Alright, give it a shot, Luna.” Colin bemoaned them.

Luna happily rolled dice and did indeed successfully charm the troll into submission of some sort.

*

“So, you learn something new every day,” Ginny said absentmindedly when she and Draco were stretched out in front of his fireplace on a thick rug. “Trolls are seducible as well as regenerative but vulnerable to fire.”

“It would make some of Blaise’s more exotic tastes somewhat difficult. I’ve seen inside that trunk. There are a few candles of some special wax.” Draco chuckled.

“’Special wax’? Do I really want to know?” Ginny arched an eyebrow at Draco.
“At the look you’re giving me, I’d hazard no.”

Draco kissed the top of Ginny’s head, pausing for a moment to inhale her scent before withdrawing.

“Blaise’s tastes are…somewhat more exotic than ours.”

“For which I’m rather thankful. Wax belongs to candles in my opinion. Chocolate however,” Ginny began to ponder.

Draco looked down at his sweet-toothed girlfriend with a slightly wary expression. “Ginny, the last time chocolate got involved with us, it ended up more all over your face and the bed sheets than anything.”

“But it’s so scrummy.” Ginny pouted in response.

“Which is why you spent the time eating out the tub instead of licking it off your boyfriend?” Draco questioned.

“That might have had something to do with it.” Ginny giggled. “And in my defence, you often taste like chocolate enough to not need actual chocolate-based products licked off you. That is when there isn’t a hint of peppermint about your person. I’m afraid in that particular incidence I didn’t care to mix the lick-able chocolate with you on a peppermint day.”

“Nice save there, Gin.” Draco smirked to himself at his love’s ability to talk her way in and out of everything. Ginny snuggled into him a little more. “So, I have chocolate days and peppermint days, do I?”

“Oh yes.”

“Might this be the contributing factor to when you tend to stay over and when you scamper back off to the Gryffindor Tower?”

“On occasion,” Ginny said, complacently. “Whether you’ve been in the potions lab also contributes. Forgive my vanity, Draco, but the smell of burnt potion and some of the less savoury ingredients that you seventh years seem to be using at present is not pleasant to lay in bed next to after a long day of classes.”

“Ah. I’ll make sure to have a word with Professor Slughorn if the entrails of creatures and Mr. Finnigan can be kept at a minimum from now on.” Draco allowed himself a smirk.

“Seamus can’t be that bad at potions,” admonished Ginny.

“It’s usually a minor miracle should the potion brewed by him not explode.” Draco shook his head. “I don’t know how he’s an N.E.W.T potions student.”

“Luck o’ the Irish,” Ginny winked at Draco, whose smirk instantly vanished. “Don’t worry; I’m not getting ideas about any other Irish luck.”

“Good,” Draco growled and rolled Ginny over to kiss her thoroughly.

A moment later, however, a loud bang issued from the portrait hole that served as the entrance to his and Blaise’s private room. Blaise himself came barrelling through the entrance, tossed his robes off, which landed preciously close to Draco and narrowly missing the blonds’ head before throwing himself down on his bed. The boy pulled his school shirt hem out from his trousers and began undoing the buttons he could reach of all his garments.

“Ahem,” Ginny coughed from floor under Draco.

Blaise bolted upright from the bed at the noise and whirled around wildly searching for the noise.

“Draco, mate! What’re you doing on the floor?” he asked, not yet noticing Ginny. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were going elsewhere tonight. Thought I heard mumblings of a romantic walk by the Lake or Forbidden Forest? Or was it a midnight fly around the Quidditch Pitch under the stars…”

“That was last week,” Draco said, coolly. “Zabini, kindly stop disrobing infront of myself and Ginny.”

Blaise’s eyes widened as he registered Ginny’s shock of red hair under Draco’s arm and the Weasley girl gave him a sarcastic little wave.

“I’ll…uh…I’ll just…” Blaise started toward the exit.

“I think you’ll just as well.” Ginny tried to give him a stern look but a hint of a smile crept through. “And, Blaise? Unicorn boxers? Really?”

The boy flushed red and fled from the room.

“I do believe you get more wicked every day, my dear.” Draco turned to look down on her, an appreciative smirk playing across his lips.

“I don’t know about wicked. Maybe chaotic neutral though. Now…where were we? Ah yes, I think I remember. We’re having a chocolate day.” Ginny grinned and pulled Draco back down for a passionate kiss.