If you want to read by 20+ Chapters from here you can visit my Patre-on.
[P] [A] [T] [R] [E] [O] [N]
[email protected]/Makimafic
••••••
"This replaceable piece of fur..." Groaned the girl, making Alexandra stop on her tracks and draw her wand as their little group of four arrived in a deserted corridor a little distance away from the Ravenclaw Common Room. "Have you discovered who is the Heir of Slytherin?" Pronounced the bushy-haired girl, not realising Nigel had stopped at the same time as Alexandra.
One second later and Alexandra had her magical wand directly pointed between the pretender's eyes.
"Morag, stop. This girl is not Hermione."
"What do you mean I am not Hermione?" The person in front of them was good, Alexandra had to bow her hat to that, but there was an undertone of panic in her voice which couldn't be fully dissimulated.
"I mean you are not you pretend to be. Do you want to know the errors you made, fake Hermione?" Asked Alexandra with a false cheekiness, as Morag and Nigel drew their own wands and respectively pointed them to the back and the stomach of the Gryffindor imposter.
"Okay. You won. Call the Professors." The reflexion of Hermione had turned livid and was now sweating profusely as she faced the combined use of three magical wands emitting flashy sparks.
"First, Hermione always carry more than five books in her school bag." Alexandra enounced in a disinterested tone, ignoring the proposition of not-Hermione. "It was the case in the late Defence class, and she would not have the time to go to the library or her bedroom to depose them."
Alexandra made the sign of 'two' with her fingers.
"Secondly, your entire posture and manners wrong. Hermione doesn't walk, and her speech manners, while sometimes intrusive, are never this abrupt."
Sign 'three' with the fingers.
"Thirdly, contrary to one stranger would have assume, we did and still do research on the Heir of Slytherin. Arriving like that and revealing your ignorance was a huge clue you weren't who you pretended to be.
Fourth, my friend never disdains Crookshanks like that. This ginger cat is one of our mascots, not a 'replaceable piece of fur' like you said it."
"And fifth," said Alexandra touching lightly her nose, "Hermione like me does not put so much perfume on her at any moment of the day. Seriously, you smell so strong with this thing I felt it two corridors away!"
"It's the Oriental Essence of Beauty!" Protested vehemently the person who was obviously not Hermione Granger. "It's the latest trend according to Witch Weekly!"
"Whatever." Alexandra said, internally disgusted once could prioritise fashion over common sense in a spying assignment. The good point was that it gave her a good idea of the person hiding behind this ingenious piece of magic. Not many students in Hogwarts, no matter how rich and influential, had access to that sort of product.
"Expelliarmus." The wand in the pocket of the Hermione duplicate flew in Alexandra's right hand. "Petrificus Totalus!"
"Malfoy is an idiot." Said joyously Ron Weasley. "He spilled everything in the middle of the Slytherin Common Room!"
"He spilled everything he knew." Corrected Leo Black. The expression of the Black Heir was profusely satisfied, but there was an undercurrent of frustration. "He didn't know the identity of the Heir. We are back to step one and all our Polyjuice has gone in the attempt."
"But we got a huge deal of dirt on all the Slytherins of our year," affirmed Neville in a smug tone. "Crabbe, Goyle and Vaisey are so dumb Malfoy and Nott never stopped talking about the Heir and all the rule-breaking they were involved this year. We have them hot and ready to jump...and they don't even realise it!"
"Well, I'm really happy for you and all," Huffed Lavender Brown at the other side of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, back in her Gryffindor robes. "But listening to this bitch of Pansy Parkinson wasn't that fun at all! You promised me gossip, but all I had was pug-face insulting Bulstrode, her parents and her whole House for untold generations! And the Carrow Twins sent me Stinging hexes all the way and I could not jinx them back! When I call back this favour you owe me, Neville Longbottom, it won't be cheap!"
And the brown-haired Gryffindor, widely acknowledged as the Gossip Queen of Hogwarts, left the toilet by almost shattering the door in the process.
"I am going to pay for this, am I not?" Asked the Boy-Who-Lived rhetorically. Leo Black and Ron Weasley nodded wordlessly.
The Longbottom Heir grimaced quite a few seconds.
"Okay we will need a new plan."
"To discover or the Heir or to avoid Lavender's vengeance?" The tone of Leo Black was the one preceding a particularly humorous joke.
"Both. Incendio!" Neville Longbottom's incantation struck the Slytherin robes which had just been used to infiltrate the Viper's Den and promptly reduced them to formless tatters covered in ashes before levitating in the toilets the rest of the compromising evidence.
"Evidence erased. Now let's throw these in a dustbin and go back to the Common Room."
"What about Parvati?" Ron Weasley voice was worried, as the red-haired boy was standing against a pipe marking the middle of Myrtle's demesne. "She should have come back one quarter of an hour ago."
"Either she was delayed..." Started Leo.
"Or Potter found out who she was." Finished the Boy-Who-Lived, already planning contingency issues to limit the potential disaster.
"But I don't think it will be a problem." Continued Neville.
"Are you sure mate?" Ron face and posture explained clearly he not followed the same reasoning.
"Unlike Malfoy, Potter has zero sway with the Board of Governors or the Wizengamot. She is the daughter of a traitor, so nobody will take her word over ours. And my grandmother told me Dumbledore is her magical guardian, no complaint or suing will come if the Headmaster does not want to. We have nothing to fear." Neville explained, slowly regaining his confidence the longer he talked.
"And what do you make of Morag MacDougal?" Leo opposed. "Her family has a lot of influence and she has not a Death Eater past behind her!"
---+---
A/N: If you want advanced chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/Makimafic