AN: This Is my Round 7 Story for Quidditch League. I used the mandatory prompt: Polyjuice Potion.
Optional Prompts Used: Fireplace, and Envelope
Words: 1,700
Harry, Ron, and Hermione briskly walk to the second floor girls lavatory, taking extra care to look around for prefects. Ron doesn't need a suspicious Percy watching him, last time that happened, Ron made up a weird excuse about how he was hexed into sleep walking.
Inside the marble room, Hermione fills three glasses full to the brim with sickly looking potion.
"I can not think about drinking that!" Harry looks away with a grimace.
"We have to if we want to know who the heir of Slytherin is," Hermione states. "After that last attack, we've got no reason to procrastinate."
Ron gulps. "I just don't want to get caught."
"There. Okay, now all we have to do is add the hairs."
Sprinkling in the last and most important ingredient in the potion, each glass bubbles a different shade of puke.
"Essance of Crabbe, disgusting," Ron moans with his hand on his stomach.
Harry picks his glass up silently with Hermione and they clink them together. Ron clinks his glasses and moves into a cubicle.
"I don't want to change right in front of you, who knows if Crabbe will be able to fit into my robes? I think not. He'll burst right out of my clothes."
The look of confusion leaves the Harry and Hermione's faces as they follow suit.
"On the count of three, one ... two ... three! Drink up," Harry adds the last bit ruefully.
He couldn't concentrate too much on what was happening outside of his own body, because for a moment his stomach is splitting in two. His feet are itching beyond belief as they grow three shoe sizes. Everything about his back feels like it's breaking, and on top of it all he has to focus on not heaving his breakfast up.
He heard a terrible retching from Ron's cubicle.
Harry straightens up, popping his back ... or, should he say Goyle's back? Looking into the mirror above the sink, he takes off his glasses to get a proper look. Apparently, Goyle has 20/20 vision.
"Oh my God, the potion worked!"
Hermione looks absolutely horrifying. Dressed as a third year Slytherin, and shouting at the top of her lungs, that has Harry shaking in fear.
"Harry. You look weird as Goyle. Where's Ron?"
They move to Ron's cubicle and knock on the door, "You alright in there, Ron?"
Silence passes by for a hiccup. Then he says in a quiet voice, "I don't think I'm coming!"
"Why not? Did you change?"
"I heard retching, are you sure that you're fine?"
His two concerned friends glance at each other and hope for the best. This was a big set back to their plan. Goyle doesn't seem to have any other friends than Malfoy or Crabbe. Being seen with a Slytherin girl one year above him would catch a few eyes.
"Go ahead without me!" A small pause. I'm serious, go! Time's running out!"
Hermione and Harry leave the bathroom and head straight to the Great Hall. They talked this all out from the beginning, and the best line of action for entering the Slytherin common room would be to just follow a Slytherin to the exact location. It's actually a very simple solution.
"So who're you? I think I need to know your name," Harry asks with a chuckle.
"My name's Daphne, I saw it in one of her books. See any Slytherins?"
Oddly enough, there were not many Slytherins in the Great Hall at half past eleven.
Harry waves his hand.
"What are you doing, Harry!"
"Oh Merlin, I forgot! I saw Fred and George, and I just forgot that I'm not myself."
Hermione rolls her eyes at him. She turns around, ready to check out another area in the castle right when a group of Slytherins walk past laughing.
Harry doesn't know what to do, how can they approach the situation. Without thinking rationally, he just taps the tallest one on the shoulder.
"Hello, uhm ... I was wondering, if ..." He knew that he sounded too formal, and very awkward so he tries to rush on without mumbling. "Did you know the passwords changed?"
The tallest one looks down at Harry, who he believes is Goyle, and says ... "Did Malfoy tell you that? The passwords still the same. Don't believe anything that bastard tells you."
Hermione swallows hard. "Well, I've committed the new one to my memory, can you remember the old one?"
She hopes with all her might that her idea works.
"C'mon Nott, don't tell 'em! They can figure it out themselves."
"That will show them not to mess with us, Malfoy can go jump in the black lake!"
The tallest, Nott, deliberates for a moment and then sighs. "Silver blood, that's the password."
Nott's friends sigh, and cross their arms.
Hermione thanks the Slytherin boy, and they head down to the dungeons.
"Harry, did you notice how much those guys bullied you? I almost feel bad for Goyle."
Harry nods, but doesn't note that whether he's Harry or Goyle, he still receives critical comments from others.
Around a dark corner they turn. The two begin to see more students wearing green robes the farther down they walk through the passageways.
Seeing a boy uttering at a stone wall ahead, Harry and Hermione know this must be the entrance to the Common Room. The boy slips behind the heavy wall.
Doing the exact same, the pair slip behind the wall and into the grandiose, green room. It's high ceiling adorned with chandeliers, made with only the finest Goblin silver. Across the room is an enormous obsidian fireplace, which washes the room in a dim glow.
"Goyle! Where's Crabbe?"
None other than Draco Malfoy shouts from twenty feet away. Harry thinks he's an annoying git.
Harry shrugs, not daring to say anything if he doesn't have to.
Hermione realizes she's being a third wheel, when Draco bores his eyes into hers resentfully. Though she may be ruining this girls reputation, Hermione grabs Harry's hand in hers.
Harry catches onto the act and intertwines his fingers with hers.
"My girlfriend." That's all he says to explain. He gets the feeling that Goyle wasn't particularly auspicious anyway.
Hermione laughs, but covers it up with a sneeze. Malfoy's eyes almost popped out of his head at the news.
"Well then," Draco nods at Daphne. "Goyle, I wanted to ask you ... do you have the morning paper? I don't receive the Prophet anymore, mum says it's all lies."
Harry realizes that Draco's talking to him, and he immediately paws through Goyle's knapsack, which does contain an addressed envelope to 'Draco,' which has the Daily Prophet inside.
Draco sits down at a couple of arm chairs. Harry and Hermione sit on the lounge chair together.
"It's a shame that these attacks have been happening more frequently," Draco says. "I guess Dumbledore's trying to hush it all up."
Harry speaks up with his lowered voice. "Why would he?"
Draco rolls his eyes dramatically. "No one would want Hogwarts to close down, would you?"
Hermione leans forward and replies hastily,"No. If the killer were caught though ... then it wouldn't have to shut down."
Malfoy laughs ironically. "As if you would care, Greengrass ... you're father is on the council just like mine."
Hermione has no clue what that means, but it doesn't sound friendly. She stays silent, not having a rebuttal for his underhanded insult.
Harry says one more thing, and he hopes it's not too out of character for Goyle.
"If another Muggle born dies, Hogwarts will have to close. Someone must have an idea about who's behind it all ...," He trails off.
Hermione bites her lip with an anxious look in her eyes. That was a brave question.
"Ha! Goyle, who spiked your pumpkin juice this morning?" Draco gets up and begins to pace around the room a little.
"You know I don't know who's behind it all, if I did I'd have them straight into Azkaban! I think that if another Muggleborn has to die for that to happen, then in my opinion ... I bet it's Granger!" Malfoy's eyes are glinting in the dull low light of the Common Room.
Harry hurls forward ready to smack Malfoy, whether he's Goyle or not, Harry will deal with the consequences. Something catches his fist though, and he sees Hermione freaking out.
"Don't! Look, your scar," She whispers in his ear. Both of their own appearances were returning to them.
They both make a break for the door. Just as they reach the doorway, Hermione turns back. Harry looks on in absolute shock. Her hair is getting bushier and longer in the back. He watches her run back to Malfoy! With no hesitation at all she grabs his face and plants a sweet kiss, right on his cheek. Then she high tails it out of the room.
"What the Merlin's pointy hat were you doing!"
A blushing Hermione doesn't respond.
In Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, said ghost is floating around strangely happy.
"Ron, you okay?"
He moans.
"That's not a good sign."
Both of them bang on the cubicle door.
"Come out we've got a lot to tell you!"
Ron clicks the door open and Moaning Myrtle laughs hysterically. Ron has a furry face, which greatly resembles a cat. They take him to Madame Pomfrey's immediately to get that treated. It's good that Madame Pomfrey never asks too many questions. She must know students sometimes breaks the rules.
"The Polyjuice Potion is only for human transformations, and it was a cat hair I plucked off Crabbe," Ron mumbles still in pain. His whiskers have been falling off one by one since morning.
"We've have good news though, Draco Malfoy's not the hair of Slytherin he said so himself," Harry explains.
Ron grimaces, and holds his face as another whisker breaks off.
"That's not really good news," Hermione says. "but it's one step closer to finding out who's doing all these attacks."
The three kids look over at each other with fear in their eyes. They know that their adventure isn't over, and neither is this year. If they don't find out who's killing, then Hogwarts will shut down. Harry vows to do whatever it takes to find the culprit.