The Hospital Wing and the Astronomy Tower, the Sequel

"Well Ron," said Harry. "You ought to know that Malfoy's on our side."

"No!" Ron shouted. "He's a death eater! And anyway, his own son suspected him..."

"No, no, Ron," said Sirius. "Lucius Malfoy isn't 'Bob', nor is he working for Voldemort."

"I don't believe this," said Ron. "What did he do to suck you all into the trap?"

"It isn't a trap," said Blaise. "It's the truth. But if it's a trap you want-"

"What are you talking about?" said Ron. "I don't trust you at all as it is!"

"I think it's Hermione you shouldn't trust," said Verity. "Has anybody else noticed she isn't here? And I doubt Ginny or Draco is 'Bob' because they were both, in some way, victimized. But Hermione isn't here. In fact, she's never present when 'Bob's' around."

"Neither are you," said Blaise. "How do we know it isn't you?"

"Because I'm here right now and 'Bob' is in the closet," Verity replied. "But Hermione on the other hand, is not here right now, so she's most likely in the closet."

"Or playing chess!" Ron shouted. "It isn't Hermione! I can't believe you'd accuse her of something like that!"

"Playing chess?" said Verity. "Now why on earth would she be playing chess?"

"Because for some people it's fun," said Ron. "And besides, how can she be in the closet if I left her only a little while ago?"

"Who was she playing chess with?" Blaise asked.

"That's irrelevant," said Verity. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Here I am, trying to be clever, and you call me irrelevant," said Blaise. "This is... it's... injustice!"

"But what does that detail have to do with anything?" said Verity.

"It doesn't have to be an important clue," said Blaise. "I'm just curious as to who'd want to play chess with that bossy cow."

"How dare you!" shouted Ron. He looked as though he wanted to punch Blaise, but being too well mannered, he simply glared instead.

"Oy, watch it," said Harry. "That's my best friend you're talking about!"

"I'm not talking about you though," said Blaise. "I don't have to like your friends, you know. You don't like my friends."

"You don't have any friends!" Ron shouted.

"I do have friends," said Blaise. "There's Draco. You don't like Draco."

"Yes, but Malfoy's evil," said Harry. "I don't like anything evil."

"And Granger's annoying," said Blaise. "I don't like anything annoying."

"She's evil," said Ron, pointing at Blaise. "You just said you don't like anything evil!"

"Ron, please," said Harry. "Can we get over this?"

"No, Harry" said Ron, "we can't."

"Ron," said Harry, exasperatedly.

"Fine," said Ron. "But it's not Hermione; I know for certain. And anyway, why would she do something so..."

"Stupid?" Blaise suggested. "Mindless? Oh, I don't know, maybe because it suits her personality."

Ron's cheeks flushed red and he clenched his fists. "Harry," he said through gritted teeth.

"Please, Blaise," said Harry. "Can we all just try to get along?"

"Anything for you," said Blaise, kissing Harry on the mouth.

"Enough of that," said Sirius. "You're far too young to be acting in such a way."

"Remember what you were like, Sirius?" said Remus, a reminiscent look on his face. "You're a terrible influence on Harry."

"So who was Granger playing chess with?" Blaise asked. "Or was she playing by herself? Because you know, she may not have been actually playing chess; I've seen my father move chess pieces around plotting murder. 'Course, he hasn't done that for about ten years, but I'm sure some queer people still do that."

"She was playing with Dean," said Ron. "I think it's a Muggle-born thing; they're really amazed by chess once they start playing."

"This coming from you?" said Harry. "Ron, you're the chess master. They must be addicted."

"I bet they're both 'Bob'," said Blaise. "Have we yet considered multiple 'Bobs'?"

"There could be more than one," said Verity. "In fact, it could be a whole team working together for one sick cause. I suppose anything's considerable. But we've caught one of them, if there's more than one, and he or she is in the closet right now."

"For the last time, it isn't Hermione," said Ron. "Why can't you understand that?"

"Has anyone seen Dumbledore lately?" Blaise asked. "I find his disappearance very odd. Very odd indeed. Very, very odd. Indeed, very odd. Odd very, indeed. Indeed odd."

"We get it!" Ron shouted. "So now you're suspecting Dumbledore? You're a crackpot! You're completely off your rocker! What next? Is Voldemort going to appear and save the day?"

"Nah, that would only work if we were all death eaters," said Blaise. "But I'm not sure about you, Ron Weasley. I'm becoming very suspicious. Very suspicious indeed. Very-"

"Stop!" Seamus interrupted.

"That was rude, Seamus," said Blaise. "Very rude indeed. Indeed-"

"All right, please stop," said Seamus. "Please very indeed stop!"

"Try it, it's fun," said Blaise. "Indeed very fun. Very fun indeed. Very, very fun. Indeed very, very fun."

"The words 'very' and 'indeed' have now lost all meaning," said Seamus. "Very much indeed lost all indeed meaning. Very strange indeed. Indeed very strange..."

"It is fun, isn't it?" said Blaise.

"Dumbledore," said Sirius. "Where's Dumbledore?"

"Nobody's seen him," said Remus. "Snape seems to think he's on business regarding the two missing pupils."

"Snape," said Blaise. "Now he is a suspicious character. Indeed very suspicious. This morning, he said to me, 'see me after breakfast, Ms. Zabini,' and then I forgot to go, and he tracked me down in Charms, and told me I had a detention. Come to think of it, I have a detention I'm supposed to be at."

"Blaise," said Remus, sounding humored. "You really need to learn to play by the rules."

"I'll bet you it's Snape in that closet," said Blaise. "Snape in a dress! That's funnier than Voldemort in a dress!"

"I've already seen Snape in a dress," said Harry. "In third year, when we were working with the Bogart."

"Did you really?" said Blaise, sounding envious. "Professor Lupin, how come we never got to see Snape in a dress?"

Remus smiled. "Because nobody in Slytherin was afraid of Snape," he said.

"Ooh, who was afraid of Snape?" Blaise asked. "Was it Longbottom? I bet it was Longbottom; he always goes pale whenever he see Snape."

"Yeah, it was Neville," said Harry. "But who can blame him for being scared of Snape?"

"I remember working with Bogarts," said Blaise. "Mine turned into a spider; and then I got rid of it by taking away it's legs."

"That's exactly what I did!" said Ron.

"Really?" said Blaise. "Did you have a bad experience with spiders when you were little too? I had this teddy bear, and my parents didn't like it, so they turned it into a spider. I don't like teddy bears any more..."

"Fred turned my teddy into a spider!" said Ron.

"Look, I'm glad you two are bonding and all," said Harry, "but I think we should open the closet now."

Remus looked at his watch. "We don't know how long ago he took the Polyjuice Potion," he said. "But I suppose it'll be safe to open the closet. And if he hasn't changed, either he really was Lucius, or we'll have a little longer to wait."

***

"The bottle is empty," said Lucius, throwing the empty bottle of MacRiddler's at the Astronomy Tower wall. "It's empty! This is just my bad luck!"

"Well," said Terry. "Now you can be good."

"I don't want to be a do-gooder," said Lucius. "I want to kill Muggles, I want to rid the world of Mudbloods! Don't you understand me? I don't like Muggles!"

"I understand that," said Terry. "But maybe you don't need to be evil to do that. I mean, if you still hate them, I suppose you don't need any lousy draught to fix your personality."

"Fine," said Lucius. "Will you join my side?"

"What side is that?" Terry asked.

"Lord Lucius' side," said Lucius. "Or does Lord Malfoy sound better?"

"Whichever," said Terry. "And I'll join your side, I suppose, if you'll tell me what your side is."

"All right," said Lucius. "My side is the side which supports me, Lucius Malfoy."

"Are we against anyone?" Terry asked.

"We're against the world," said Lucius. "The death eaters are traitors; therefore, we don't need them. We don't need Mudbloods because they're worthless. We don't need Voldemort because he'll try to steal our power, and we don't need Potter either, because he lost me my servant a few years ago."

"Could I ask you a question?" said Terry. "Other than the one I just asked."

"Make it quick," said Lucius.

"Why was You Know Who so bent on killing Harry Potter?" said Terry. "I mean, I know Harry cause You Know Who's fall an all, but why did he want to kill Harry in the first place?"

"His mother was a Mudblood," said Lucius. "Also, neither of his parents were willing to join the dark side, so naturally, Voldemort disposed of them. It's quite simple actually."

"How come Harry Potter caused the dark lord's fall?" Terry asked.

"You were only supposed to ask one simple thing," said Lucius. "But if you must know, the dark lord's power was already beginning to waver, and he had too much power. It could've been anyone, but it had to be a boy with scruffy hair and bad eye-sight."

"Is You Know Who still after Harry?" Terry asked. "I've heard his new target is your son, but does he still want Harry?"

"You keep asking questions," said Lucius. "And surprisingly, they aren't stupid questions. You're improving, boy."

"Thank you, sir," said Terry.

"What's your name?" Lucius asked. "Terry something?"

"Terry Boot," Terry replied. "Have you gone all this time without knowing?"

"You were on a bit of a roll," said Lucius. "But now you've lost it; you just asked a stupid question."

"Sorry," said Terry. "But could you answer my other question? Is You Know Who still after Harry?"

"Of course he is," said Lucius. "But now he holds a grudge against most of the Hogwarts pupils because they made a ridicule out of him last year. He thinks I told them about the sacrifice, although I didn't. I think I'll answer one of your earlier questions now: why did I part with Voldemort? It's because death eaters are meant to be loyal to the dark lord, and he seems to think I let him down. He shunned me out, and for nothing! But I suppose I can beat him, especially now; I've got the Head Boy on my side!" As he said this line, Lucius became suddenly very sarcastic.

"Please don't mock me sir," said Terry. "It isn't helping your case. I might just not join your side."

"And then I'd have to kill you," said Lucius. "But back to the matter: if Voldemort is here, then Dumbledore obviously isn't. And if Voldemort is here, I hope he bloody well gets to those Mudblood children before I catch him."

"Mr. Malfoy, you can't hate the Muggle-borns just because of their heritage," said Terry.

"They grew up like Muggles, and then one day, they're introduced to our world," said Lucius. "That seems unfair to me, because now they're taking over our world, and it shouldn't be theirs for the taking!"

"But a lot of the Muggle-borns here are a profit to the school," said Terry.

"I don't care," said Lucius. "If Voldemort gets to them, they don't stand a chance!"

***

"How long are you planning on sitting there?" the real Draco asked. "This might get really damn boring..."

"Who are you?" Ginny asked the Draco in Gryffindor robes.

The Draco in Gryffindor robes stared up at Ginny blankly.

"That was one Hell of a plan," said the real Draco. "Whoever it is, it's a Gryffindor female. How many of those are there?"

"Well, there's me," said Ginny. "There's Hermione, there's-"

"I don't need you to list each and every one in alphabetical order," said the real Draco.

"That's wasn't alphabetical order," said the Gryffindor Draco. "You can't just go from 'W' to 'G'."

"It's Granger," said Draco. "It's got to be! No one in their right mind would correct my sarcasm except Granger."

"Actually, I'm not Hermione," said Gryffindor Draco. "And chances are, you'll never find out who I am."

"Actually, we will," said real Draco. "Polyjuice Potion doesn't last forever."

"This one does," said Gryffindor Draco. "So you'll never find out who I am, unless I want you to."

"Really?" said Ginny. "How does that work?"

"We aren't that gullible," said real Draco, rolling his eyes. "The potion will wear off sooner or later..."

"And you're just going to wait here until it wears off?" said Gryffindor Draco.

"It seems quite easy to me," said real Draco. "Or we could lock you up in a box for safe-keeping; whichever you prefer."

"It isn't going to work, so you may as well let me go," said Gryffindor Draco.

"You can't expect that to work," said Ginny. "If you're that stupid, then you must be Kiera. Only Kiera would expect something like that to work."

"Kiera is way stupider than me," said Gryffindor Draco. "She's still an amateur, if you will."

"An amateur in the field of stupidity?" said real Draco. "You Gryffindors and your clubs... Give me a society of death eaters any day..."

"That's it!" said Ginny. "This whole charade was set up by that bloody Gossip Union!"

"Well spotted," said Draco.

"It's not as though you knew!" said Ginny. "All this time you thought 'Bob' was your father."

"Wait, wait, wait," said Gryffindor Draco. "His father's real name is Bob? Oh, and all this time I've been planning our wedding and his father's name is Bob. That'd be really shameful to tell people my father-in-law's name is Bob."

"What's this queer duck on about?" said real Draco. "Actually, maybe I don't want to know after all..."

"This is 'Bob'," said Ginny. "We've solved it, Draco."

"Now we have to wait for that damn potion to wear off," real Draco muttered.

"We don't have long to wait," said Ginny, eyes widening as Gryffindor Draco's hair lengthened and darkened, and his eyes became blue.

***

Lucius and Terry made their way out of the Astronomy Tower to another area of the school. Neither had any idea of where to go, so of course, they ended up dallying in one of  the stairways connecting the fourth and fifth floor.

"So here we are again," said Terry, sitting down on the bottom step. "And what are we doing here?"

"We're, er, conferencing," said Lucius, sitting down beside Terry, but not before he wiped the stair off first. "We're here to discuss some important matters. Such as the future of this school."

"Well, what's there to discuss?" said Terry. "Our headmaster's gone missing, the Potions master has attempted to murder the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher countless times, and there's some psycho rampaging around."

"Snape tried to kill Black?" said Lucius. "I'll bet that hit him right in the face."

"No, Lupin," said Terry. "Snape almost seemed scared of Black. And then he was always glaring at him. Actually, Snape's always glaring anyway."

"Has he washed his hair yet?" Lucius asked. "I always used to tell him it wasn't healthy to not wash your hair at all. He was always so paranoid about his hair; he stopped washing it when he found out from some old Muggle that washing your hair too much is bad."

"And when was this?" asked Terry.

"Just before he began coming to Hogwarts," said Lucius.Â

"Excuse me, gentlemen," said an amused voice behind them.

"Dumbledore?" said Lucius, turning around. "I thought you'd died!"

"Now why would you think that, Lucius?" asked Dumbledore. "I hope you haven't been misled."

"Oh, I assumed," said Lucius. "But now that you're here, I suppose we have nothing more to worry about. You ought to know you're school's being driven into foolhardiness by a raving lunatic."

"Is that right?" said Dumbledore. "And which lunatic may this be? You, or one of your colleagues?"

"Terry Boot is my only colleague just yet," said Lucius. "And he's your Head Boy, so you ought to trust me here."

"And what schemes have you snaked into my Head Boy's mind?" said Dumbledore. "And what would you be doing at Hogwarts when you're meant to be in Azkaban by law?"

"Sirius Black let me out," said Lucius. "And I'm here on Auror business, even if I'm not an Auror. It's for the protection of your school Dumbledore; you don't seem to be taking proper care of this place."

"Sirius Black freed you from Azkaban?" said Dumbledore. "This evening is full of surprises, isn't it? Now, I have three Malfoys in my school, none of which are following any sort of rules, two of which should lawfully be in prison, one of which should be in his dormitory sleeping. I know enough to understand Malfoys don't usually break rules for no reason, but I also know Malfoys are notorious for having mad alibis for foolish behaviour. Your son, I believe, is out of bed because he and his girlfriend have lost track of time. You are here because you feel you're helping your new friend, Sirius Black. Your wife is here for no apparent reason whatsoever, and nobody can fathom when or how she escaped from Azkaban."

"Narcissa's here?" Lucius asked. "And what's Draco getting up to?"Â

"You need not worry about your son," said Dumbledore. "But your wife came to see me, and she seems quite hysterical. I've left her in my office to calm down, perhaps gather her thoughts, but I think you might want to speak to her."

"I suppose you know all about Voldemort then," said Lucius. "You seem to know just about everything else going on."

"Voldemort?" said Dumbledore. "You may want to explain this to me, Lucius."

"Voldemort's gotten into Hogwarts somehow," said Lucius. "And now he's after Draco. He'll probably murder Potter tonight too, but then I suppose that'll be a gain for us all."

"It isn't possible," said Dumbledore. "Last year Voldemort used a secret passage as a means of entering the castle, but that passage is now constantly under watch. Every secret passage in Hogwarts has now been cursed to keep out Voldemort and his death eaters."

"I think you ought to curse the front door," said Lucius. "I came through the front door just fine."

"Yes, but you're no longer faithful to Voldemort," said Dumbledore. "You wouldn't be able to enter the castle, had you been loyal to the dark lord."

"So then how did Voldemort get in?" asked Lucius. "Unless he isn't faithful to himself or something."

"The curse will keep out all with evil intentions," said Dumbledore. "Yet, I think it may be weak, because I have seen someone inside the school tonight who should not be here. But this person is not at all loyal, and seeks only power."

"I do not seek only power," Lucius protested. "I don't follow Voldemort around like a lap dog, I am my own person, and I have all the money and power I need."

"But I thought you wanted more power?" said Terry. "Whatever happened to Lord Malfoy?"

"It is not you of whom I speak," said Dumbledore. "Peter Pettigrew is inside the castle."

"Pettigrew!" shouted Lucius. "I'll kill him! I never could stand that rat."

"And rat he is," said Dumbledore. "But he's not something for you to worry about, I think Harry Potter will come up with a suitable punishment for Pettigrew."

"Are you giving me a second chance?" Lucius asked. "You know, just to settle my curiosity; because you seem to trust me."

"No, Lucius," said Dumbledore. "I am giving you a third and final chance."