The Hospital Wing and the Astronomy Tower, the Sequel

"Well," said Draco. "Let's get a move on. We need to find 'Bob' and unmask him."

"Or her," Ginny added. "It could very well be a 'her'."

"Or it could be-" Lucius began. "Actually, never mind that..."

"So let's go then," said Draco. "It's a big school and he could be anywhere; we're wasting time here."

"And there're two missing students," said Lucius. "And normally, I wouldn't care, but one of them is the Parkinson girl, and I owe the Parkinson's already... But we won't get into that matter just yet."

"Okay," said Ginny. "Where to?"

"Out of the hospital wing?" Draco suggested. "We'll probably run in to someone somewhere."

"Let's go then," said Lucius. "We're stalling."

"I know we're stalling," said Draco. "And there's a reason for that."

"And what's that?" Ginny asked.

"I haven't thought of it yet," said Draco. "But we ought to go."

"So let's go," said Lucius, looking at his son.

Draco looked back at his father. "All right," he said.

"You first," said Lucius to his son.

"No, after you," said Draco.

"Oh! For heaven's sake!" Ginny cried. "I'll go first."

"You can go after her," said Draco.

"No, you'll go," said Lucius.

Ginny rolled her eyes, clutching Draco's arm and pulling him forward, out of the hospital wing.

Lucius followed at a rather slow pace.

Terry Boot, who was strolling down the corridor, stopped. He stared at Lucius for a moment. "There's an escapist from Azkaban in the school," he muttered, mostly to himself. "What do I do now?"

Lucius pointed his wand at Terry.

"No, father," said Draco. "He's Head Boy."

"He's the reason my son isn't Head Boy," said Lucius. "Why shouldn't he be disposed of?"

"Because it's against the rules," said Draco, surprised at his own words.

"Rules?" said Lucius.

"An escapist from Azkaban," Terry mused. "And he's accompanied by two Prefects."

"Terry, this isn't how it looks," said Ginny. "Not at all. Actually, Mr. Malfoy isn't an escapist- well, he is, but-"

"Oh shut up, please," said Lucius. "Have some mercy on me- I was just in Azkaban and the Dementors sucked the evil out of me, so I don't need to be annoyed by a Weasley who doesn't know when to shut up."

"I do know when to shut up!" Ginny protested. "You've got some nerve-"

Draco clapped his hand over Ginny's mouth. "Please," he muttered.

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Malfoy," said Terry. "I'm going to ask you to explain this situation."

"Which Malfoy?" Draco asked, removing his hand from Ginny's face.

"You," said Terry. "Why is there a convict in the school? And why are you with him?"

"He walked into the school," said Draco. "And I'm with him because he's my father."

"We can't have this," said Terry. "Not with Dumbledore gone. This is pure madness. This'll be the end of Hogwarts."

"Are you coming with us or no?" Lucius asked. "We're on a quest sort of thing to find Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort. I don't know where either of them is, but there's a large chance at least one of them is in this school."

"Count me in," said Terry. "I suppose I'll be promoted as an Auror if I catch a criminal one handedly."

"No," said Lucius. "I'll do all the criminal catching today. Either me or Sirius Black."

"Then what's the point of going with you?" Terry asked.

"You'll be safer with me than alone," said Lucius.

"I don't think so," said Terry. "I don't normally trust mad man death eaters."

"Stay by yourself then," said Lucius. "See if I care."

"I will then," said Terry. "And I'll report you to the deputy head mistress and all."

"You do that," said Lucius. "And see if I care."

"You're a danger in this school," said Terry. "I'm here to protect the pupils of Hogwarts."

"You sound like Percy," said Ginny. "I think that Head Boy stuff really got to your head."

"You've been spending far too much time with Malfoy," said Terry. "Come on, Ginny, you're coming with me."

"I am not," said Ginny.

"She's coming with me," said Lucius. "And if you have any objection to that, you can confer with my wand. But believe me, you'd be better off to agree with me."

"In that case," said Terry, "I'm coming too. But the only reason I'm not turning you in, Mr. Malfoy, is because you've got a wand, and any death eater with a wand is a safety hazard."

"Well let's get going then," said Lucius, leading them down the corridor and down a flight of steps.

Not long after, Lucius literally ran into Kiera McCourt. "Watch it, half-blood," he snapped.

Kiera looked up at him with wide eyes. "How did you know I'm a half-blood?"

"I have my ways of knowing," said Lucius. "And if I wasn't in such a hurry, I would take a little time to torment you, but seeing as I'm on a tight schedule, I think I'll leave you be. For now."

Kiera let out a tiny whimper.

Lucius sneered and began on his way.

"Father," Draco called after him. "Father, I don't think you should let her off quite so easily. I caught her perving on Snape."

Lucius turned with a disgusted look on his face. "Snape?" he said. "What a pathetic excuse for a girl this half-blood must be!"

"You don't know the half of it," said Draco.

"Well, I don't know what you expect of me Draco," said Lucius.

"I'll bet you she's in on the whole Polyjuice Potion scandal," said Draco. "She's probably one of the idiots we met earlier."

Kiera scowled.

"I'll bet she's doing it for publicity," said Ginny. "Otherwise, no one would even know she existed."

"Well, Weasley," said Kiera. "If half the stuff I know about you were published, you'd wish you'd never been rescued from the grasp of Tom Riddle."

Now it was Ginny's turn to scowl.

"And if you knew only a quarter of the things we've found out about you, you'd wish it was you who was in Riddle's grasps," said Draco. "Of course, you'd have never escaped; no one would want to rescue a filthy-"

"Play nice, Draco," Lucius interrupted. "Besides, what would Riddle have wanted with a half-blood? At least Weasley's a pure-blood."

"Is there a point to this?" said Kiera, snobbishly.

"Get to your dormitory, Miss McCourt," said Terry.

"Ginny's out of bed," Kiera argued. "And why is Lucius Malfoy here? I think-"

"I don't care what you think," Terry said. "You aren't a Prefect, so obviously you aren't on patrol or anything of the sort. Now be on your way before I give you a detention."

Kiera huffed impatiently and stalked off with a glare.

Lucius abruptly began walking again at a fast pace, Ginny, Draco, and Terry hurrying along behind him.

"Ginny, could I ask you an honest question," said Terry. "Why is there a death eater here?"

"Long story," said Ginny. "Basically, there's a dark lord and his assistant most likely running around Hogwarts, or so I think, and Malfoy and Sirius Black are here to hunt them down. And also, there's two psycho's at this school dressing up as Hogwarts students."

"Then I'm going to jump to the conclusion that those two psycho's are the dark lord and his assistant," said Terry. "Does this have anything to do with the disappearance of the two missing pupils?"

"It might do," said Ginny. "I think we'll soon find out."

***

"All right," said Blaise after a long silence in which Harry, Seamus, Verity, and Remus stood around silently. "I'm going to make a few clever assumptions and hope they're right. First of all, 'Bob' is not Pettigrew, nor Lucius Malfoy, but someone else, obviously. Second, Voldemort may as well be in Hogwarts as we speak, considering the lax security around the school these days. So thirdly, I think 'Bob' may as well be Voldemort himself. But why would he run away like that? Unless that was not Voldemort, but someone else, like... Like, er, Snape, or someone we've thought to be innocent all this time."

"Snape?" said Verity. "No, I don't think Snape would dress up as Madam Pomfrey. I think the real 'Bob' is Madam Pomfrey, I mean, no one knows what she gets up to."

"The matron?" said Remus. "Now don't be like that. She's always so kind and helpful."

"But Lucius doesn't wear dresses, so that's the only logical explanation," said Blaise. "Unless there's something else involved, like Tri-Polyjuice Potion. And if that was involved, then the suspect is obviously either a Slytherin or a staff member."

"Why a Slytherin?" Harry asked.

"Might be a Ravenclaw," said Blaise. "I suppose they're clever enough."

"Hermione made a Polyjuice Potion in second year," said Harry. "She was clever enough."

"Well now we have another suspect," said Blaise. "Add Hermione Granger to the list."

"I'm sorry, am I supposed to be writing this down?" said Verity. "So now we have three suspects."

"More than that," said Blaise. "It could be a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin."

"This is getting us nowhere," said Remus. "We won't find anything unless we look for it."

"Yeah, but what do we look for?" Seamus asked. "There's no knowing what the disguise may be."

"Why don't we go to Snape's hide-out place?" Blaise suggested. "If it was him, he'd have left notes or something; some sort of journal of his schemes."

"No, we're not trespassing anywhere," said Remus. "We're going to do this the right way."

"That's how you solve a mystery," said Blaise. "My uncle's an Auror, and he goes where he isn't wanted all the time."

"Who cares about that?" said Seamus. "What do we do with the rat?" He held up Peter Pettigrew (the mouse form) in the air.

"I'll decide that," said Blaise. "Give it here."

Seamus held the squeaking mouse out to Blaise, who took it by the tail.

"I'm going to have a bit of fun with this," said Blaise, looking the mouse over. "I just hope he doesn't decide to transform into a man again..."

"What do we do about 'Bob' then?" said Verity.

"You and Seamus come with me," said Remus. "We'll probably figure something out, and if not, Sirius most likely has it under control."

***

"So there's two missing pupils," said Lucius, still walking at a fast pace down the Hogwarts' corridors. "When and where were they last seen?"

Draco and Ginny exchanged guilty looks.

"Well, Creevey was last seen by Rachel Bell," said Terry. "And Parkinson was last seen by Blaise Zabini. Both seemed to be going somewhere, but neither said which. Either that, or our witnesses are holding information."

"That's not true," said Draco. "They were last seen passed out in the Astronomy Tower."

"By who?" Lucius inquired.

"Us," said Draco. "Ginny and I."

"When was this?" Terry asked.

"The night they went missing," Draco replied. "And I've left out one little detail."

"And what's that?" said Lucius.

"MacRiddler's," Draco replied. "I think that clue is now relevant."

Lucius stopped walking. "I really need some MacRiddler's," he said. "You don't know what it's like having the evil sucked out of you by Dementors."

"What's MacRiddler's?" Terry asked. "Is this important?"

"Yes, it is," said Draco. "It's a mind control potion; makes the drinker evil-minded."

"And then they were never seen again?" said Lucius. "Seems rather odd, don't you think?" He turned to Ginny.

Ginny nodded.

"This is all pulling together now," said Lucius. "There were two clones of me in the infirmary; there were two missing pupils. But where oh where might Pettigrew and Voldemort be?"

"How is it pulling together?" said Draco. "Whoever those clones are had to get a hold of your hair somehow, right?"

Lucius nodded. "And it was probably a simple task, considering I was in Azkaban."

"Simple?" said Draco. "Wouldn't the Dementors notice?"

"Would they care?" said Lucius. "The clone people probably got it while I was asleep."

"It doesn't make sense," said Draco.

"It does," said Lucius. "They obviously came to visit, or something, and that was probably after they drank MacRiddler's. I'm just going to go right ahead and suppose they drank MacRiddler's; am I right? Then after that, all this happened, driving everyone mad with confusion."

"Fine," said Draco. "So that's that solved. Now what about Voldemort? Do you really think he's inside Hogwarts?"

"Could be," said Lucius. "And we're going to do something about it."

"What are we going to do?" asked Ginny.

"Well, if we find Voldemort," said Lucius, "we can, ah, do something. And if we don't, then we'll, ah, not do something."

"Sounds like a plan," said Terry. "And what happens if Voldemort isn't involved at all?"

"Oh, he's involved," said Lucius. "So is Pettigrew."

***

Blaise and Harry were left alone in the empty classroom with the mouse form of Peter Pettigrew.

"We could turn him purple," said Blaise. "You know, it'd be sort of funny."

"Funny?" said Harry.

"You look like you could use a good laugh," said Blaise. "It'd be even funnier if Voldemort was here."

"Now how would that be funny?" Harry asked.

"You aren't visualising," said Blaise. "Picture Voldemort dressed like Madam Pomfrey."

Harry smiled, picturing Voldemort in the matron's dress.

"But he isn't here, so no point dreaming," said Blaise. "We could set Pettigrew's tail on fire, which might be interesting."

"Why fire?" asked Harry. "Isn't there something else we could do?"

"Well, we could always pour water on him," said Blaise. "I suppose he's afraid of water as well."

"We could just magic all his bones away," said Harry.

"And replace them with water?" said Blaise. "Or we could replace them with oil and then set his tail on fire."

"We don't want to do anything too cruel," said Harry. "And we don't want to kill him either."

"Why don't we just transfigure a chair into a cat?" said Blaise. "Or better yet, call Mrs. Norris; she's the nastiest cat I've ever seen. Sometimes I wonder whether she's really a cat."

"I haven't seen Filch lately," said Harry. "It's almost as though he vanished."

"He's probably somewhere around here," said Blaise. "But I don't understand how a filthy thing like Pettigrew got into the school."

Just then, the door creaked open and Kiera McCourt peered into the room.

"Can we help you?" said Blaise.

Kiera stepped into the room cautiously and closed the door behind her. "There's a death eater in the school," she said.

"We already know that," said Harry. "You should be in your dormitory; it isn't safe here for you."

"He's with Ginny Weasley," said Kiera. "And Malfoy and Terry Boot too."

"Is that right?" said Blaise. "Which death eater?"

"Lucius Malfoy," Kiera replied. "I think he brainwashed them all and now he's coming to kill us all."

"Was he wearing a dress?" Blaise inquired.

Kiera scowled. "I'm not lying."

"I didn't say you were lying," said Blaise. "I simply asked if he was wearing a dress."

"You're making fun of me," said Kiera. "Harry, don't let her make fun of me!"

"She isn't making fun of you," said Harry. "Was he wearing a dress?"

"Now you're making fun of me!" Kiera shrieked. "You both think you're so great! Well I saw Malfoy and I don't care if you don't believe me!" She whipped around and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

***

Kiera began walking down the corridor, hoping to run into someone else she could inform about her encounter with Lucius Malfoy.

Suddenly, Lucius came running down the corridor, wearing a dress!

Kiera cried out when she saw him, and was ever more shocked when she saw Sirius Black running after him.

Lucius ran into the room Kiera had just exited.

"Lucius," Sirius shouted after him. "What's your problem?"

Kiera backed away as Sirius neared her. "I have got to get some sleep," she muttered to herself as she walked into Seamus Finnigan, who was accompanied by Verity and Lupin.

"Have you seen-" Seamus began.

Kiera pointed at the door through which Sirius had just disappeared behind Lucius.

"Thanks," said Seamus.

Verity opened the door of the room and entered, followed by Lupin and Seamus.

"What in the name of Skeeter is going on?" Kiera wondered aloud.

"A lot, my friend," said a familiar voice behind her.

"Colin!" Kiera cried, whipping around and throwing her arms around her friend's neck. "Where have you been?" she said, letting go of him. "And what is Pansy Parkinson doing here?"

"I've been around," said Colin, ignoring the second question. "You've missed out on so many stories this week.

"Have I?" said Kiera. "What don't I know? Have you and this Slytherin become an item?"

"No," said Colin. "But we've split up Malfoy and Ginny!"

"Have you really?" said Kiera. "But I just saw them and they didn't seem split up. Unless they were just on some sort of mission or something."

"Most likely," said Colin. "But you won't believe who we met!"