Ha! I knew I'd eventually find a good use for all those things I learnt in schoolyard fights. This chapter's pretty short too, but at least it ends on a more solid note. I hope you like it.
The jet of purple light missed her by millimeters.
Fjeijei snarled and flung her hand toward the wand.
"Relashio!"
Scarlet sparks fell upon her outflung arm. She withdrew it with a hiss.
"Petrifi– ah!"
The base of Hermione's skull hit her back as Fjeijei yanked on her hair as hard as possible.
"You little–" Fjeijei's free hand gripped Hermione's wand arm just below her elbow. "How'd you get a hold of that?"
"Stupefy," deft fingers had pointed the wand in the right direction. The beam of red light reached its target, and Hermione gasped as her captor's limp body collapsed, crushing her.
"What is going on here?" panted Hermione as she rolled her attacker to the side.
Her doppelganger's peaceful, untroubled, and above all unconscious face gave no response.
"When the polyjuice wears off, and I find out who you are, I'll... I don't know what I'll do, but I can guarantee you won't enjoy it."
"The only question is whether I should send you first to Dumbledore or to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione thought aloud, "Or better yet..."
Hermione leant over the edge of the bed, and out of the range of the privacy spells she'd cast. As she inhaled in preparation to call for her roommates' attention, she felt something brush against her ankle. Her shock froze her words before they left her throat, and before she could do anything, she was pulled back onto the bed.
"Did you really think that would work on me? I know I'm a good actor, but I'm actually disappointed in you."
Fjeijei forced her captive's face down on the bed, and kneeled on her back.
"Good to know though. If all you wizards just assume your spells work, and never check, it'll make my job easier."
She brought her hands up to the base of her victim's skull, but in doing so left Hermione's hands free.
Fjeijei screamed in agony as the witch's nails dug deep into the back of her knees.
Bucking upwards, Hermione threw her doppelganger aside, and rolled off the bed. She was sure that her crash would have awoken her roommates, but felt her attacker jump on her again before seeing any signs of them.
"Right then, no gloating," she heard, as a freezing pressure on the base of her skull turned painfully hot.
--xx0oo0lOvOl0oo0xx--
Fjeijei stared at the girl. What she'd just done felt strangely wrong.
She'd done it correctly, of course, and the girl wouldn't be waking up for quite a long time, but there was still something off.
Fjeijei shrugged aside her unease, and sorted through what she'd taken the opportunity to copy from her victim's mind.
The people the girl had thought of as friends... they were not as numerous, or as useful as Fjeijei would have liked. She'd have to do something about that; it'd be no fun if she wasn't popular. One of them stood out though: the boy who'd lived. Friendship with him was probably the reason she'd been singled out in the first place.
Fjeijei smirked as she realised that the redheaded girl she'd incapacitated for Raevynne was also considered a friend. Their relationship wouldn't have mattered in the long run, but it was like a good omen, and meant that they wouldn't have to put forth any energy to explain the social connection.
Fjeijei was snapped out of her thoughts by the muffled inquiry of a roommate.
"Heard thump. 'S everyone okay?"
Fjeijei spent a second wondering at this delayed response, then answered in a whisper, "Sorry, rolled out of bed."
"'kay, g' back t' slee' now."
Luckily, for all involved, the speaker was not lucid enough to look past her bed-hangings and see two, rather battered, Hermiones.
Fjeijei listened to the sleeper's breathing slow, then considered what she was going to do with her mirror-image. From her vantage point, she could see that the bed had enough room under it to hide the girl. The chances of someone looking under there were probably pretty low, especially since the scarlet hangings were long enough to brush against the floor.
As silently as possible, Fjeijei pushed Hermione under the bed. She carefully adjusted the girl's position to avoid having to deal with the effects of prolonged lack of circulation in a squished limb.
"That's that then," Fjeijei muttered to herself. She stood and, with a faint rustling of cloth, her outfit changed to mimic Hermione's nightgown perfectly.
She glared at the void that covered her bed, and whispered something vile. In response the darkness shrunk, faded, then disappeared all together.
Fjeijei didn't bother to fix the rumpled covers; she simply flipped them up and crawled under them. She didn't notice that this caused a long, thin piece of wood to roll off the bed and away over the floor, but in her current state she wouldn't have cared.
She was exhausted, and her last coherent thought was about how lovely the pillow was. Fjeijei fell into a state that cannot quite be defined as sleep, but she did dream, and when she rose she was refreshed.
Yes, she was going to change her world.
