Chapter Text
A sharp pain lanced up your leg and you couldn't help but cry out. The next moment you had to roll out of the way as a boulder narrowly shot over your head. The movement jarred your leg again and you blinked hard to keep from passing out. The troll roared and slammed his club against the ground threateningly a few times.
Panting, you downed one of your modified Wiggenwelds as quickly as you could and tried to stay out of its reach. The pain was numbed, but with what you were pretty sure was a broken ankle, the potion could only do so much.
The troll charged at you again and you rolled away, but when you stopped, you heard a crunch and it wasn't you. Summoning every last bit of strength you had, you called down lightning upon the beast in the hopes it was enough to end the fight.
It slumped over, steaming, and you fell back, gasping in both pain and relief. Once you had caught your breath, you sat back up and reached into you bag for another healing potion. Your hand brushed something sharp and you hissed, opening the bag to investigate further. The earlier crunch you had heard were the rest of your potion bottles having broken and spilled. You cursed under your breath. The bottles from Sharp had been charmed with an unbreakable spell but you still hadn't mastered it yet.
Rolling your pant leg up and your sock down, you carefully examined your ankle. It had already begun to swell and turn colors. You thanked Merlin that there was no open wound, but knew putting weight on it would be absolutely miserable. Sure you had beaten another troll, but the real challenge would be getting back to Hogsmeade and Sirona in one piece. The cavern was too low to use your broom so you would have to figure out how to leave.
After a final visual search, you found the letterbox and placed all of Sirona's letters inside. That carefully stored in your bag, you braced yourself to stand and find a way out.
You looked in despair up at the ledge you had hopped off of earlier in the day. It was too high to simply lean and pull yourself up like you had with the last ledge. This one would involve a full jump, scramble, and climb. The surface of the wall was rough enough that there were plenty of footholds. The only problem was that one foot wouldn't bear your weight.
The fading daylight up above you taunted you and you briefly wondered if anyone was wondering where you were. You then laughed at yourself. No one cared where you ran off to or how long you had disappeared for as long as you came back to help them out. As much as you cared for Professor Fig, your mentor had become a one track mind. You couldn't fault him for that. These trials were helping him get closer to what his late wife had been working on.
Your friends had their own problems and agendas and you couldn't blame them either. It just hurt that no one bothered to check in with you to make sure you were alright.
Well, one person had. You remembered what Professor Sharp had said about asking him for help. For some reason you refused to take him up on his offer. Well, now your stubbornness and pride had you here alone in a former Troll cave, no one knowing where you were, and if you did manage to get out, you still had to get back to civilization.
Not if. When. You would get out of here.
Your first attempt with three limbs went about as well as expected. You now sat in the dirt with both palms scraped and lightly bleeding as well as a broken ankle to contend with. Looking around, you didn't see anything tall enough for you to stand on to help lessen the distance between your current level and the next. You were just going to have to try again.
The second attempt was the same as the first. The third you nearly passed out from the pain as you attempted to push yourself up with your bad ankle. The fourth you finally made it while screaming, rolled over so you weren't dangling from the side, then did pass out.