AN: Thank you so much for the encouraging reviews! They definitely make this story fun to write. We've a bit more drama up ahead before we're back to our normal schedule of mayhem and glitter.

"What happened? I didn't hear a peep from anyone about glitter dongs from anyone, and I lurked around quite a bit. Did you abort the attempt?" Hermione was practically vibrating with excitement. "What?"

Her face fell at the confused looks the three Gryffindors gave her.

"What?" She repeated.

Suddenly, Fred's face cleared and he laughed. "Oh, you mean the dungbombs we tried to place in DADA? Lockhart caught us." He pouted dramatically, George quickly copying him with an even larger frown.

It was Hermione's turn to look confused. "No, with the book and the penises?" she whispered.

"Mini-Lee! How could you suggest defacing a book like that! I can't believe how much we've corrupted you." Lee's face was a mask of contrition, although the high-five he gave George belied the effect.

"Not funny! Tell me what happened!" Hermione nearly stamped her foot in frustration, knowing how much the boys loved to rile her up by dangling information she didn't have before her. But this project had been all of theirs and she didn't appreciate being left out for a moment.

"Dungbombs? Dungbombs are always funny," George corrected.

"Fine, if you're going to cut me out just because I'm in a different class, I won't share what I learned," the tiny third year huffed. She spun on her heel up to the girls' dorms, feeling more alone than she had since the previous year.

** JP ** JP ** JP **

"It's been nearly 24 hours, which if you recall, in Weasley twin time is…"

"About 10 years." George whined before popping a breakfast roll in his mouth.

"Exactly. Now, I'd normally advocate grovelling…"

"Except we've tried that," Lee finished for him. At Fred's glare, he held up his hands in mock surrender. "Your twin has his mouth full to bursting, and I didn't want to you to hurt yourself trying to finish your own sentences!"

"Aww, thanks Lee. Never knew you cared so much! Now, grovelling failed, and we can't apologize…"

"Because we don't know what we've done!" Lee again finished.

The three boys glanced over at Hermione who was sitting with her third year classmates, talking animatedly about their upcoming Charms class and whether they could use some of the lesson to make new Quidditch banners.

"We'll figure it out. We're smart blokes!" George mumbled around his half-masticated food.

** JP ** JP ** JP **

"I vote we kidnap her and make her tell us what we did wrong," George suggested.

"A Best Big Brother competition round II?" Fred waggled his eyebrows dramatically and dodged a punch from Lee.

"Just because you're jealous I won doesn't mean we need a repeat," the previous champion growled.

"If you're such a close big brother, why haven't you been able to get us back into the Mini Prankster's good graces then?" The question had a bit of venom underneath; Hermione had been mad at them for three days now, and their repeated attempts at reconciliation were rebuffed by her insistence they were keeping something from her. They were under the impression that she had turned her formidable intellect towards trying to figure it out, whatever it was. They all hoped she did, since they, apparently, were clueless.

Lee puffed out his chest, ready to respond when Percy practically fell into the common room, looking more disheveled than any of the Gryffindors had ever seen him.

"Penelope Clearwater was just petrified," he gasped.

Murmurs broke out like Fiendfyre, and Percy was swarmed by Gryffindors demanding details.

"Ugh," George grumbled, rubbing his head. "I had clean forgotten about these attacks. It almost feels like a bad drea-"

"We are going to a professor right now!" Hermione spat, having stalked over the group while the rest of Gryffindor mobbed Percy for more information. "Hand me the book and we'll go tell McGonagall what we know. I can't believe we tried sending this evil, awful… perpetrator silly pictures instead of reporting him! And now another student has been attacked and you all are still being so immature and not even talking to me about it!"

Lee jumped up and grabbed both of Hermione's hands, "Mini-Lee, please sit down with us for a moment. I swear on our sacred sibling bond that I am not ignoring you or keeping information from you. I am so confused, and swear on my life and my best pranks I do not understand what is going on. Please, just talk to us!"

"Fine!" Hermione tugged her hands from Lee's and dismissively motioned to the twins to scooch over and give her some space. They quickly complied.

"Okay, Mini-Lee, tell us what's going on. We honestly don't know why you're mad at us. From our perspective, we came back from DADA three days ago, and you were asking us about an experiment we don't know anything about."

"Where's the book?" Hermione asked.

"What book?"

Hermione was half-way to standing again when she glanced at the panicked look on Lee's face. A quick look at the twins confirmed they were equally confused.

"The book you stole from Ginny that we thought was a diary, but then we determined was actually a linked book to whoever has been pulling this Chamber of Secrets shite? The project we've been working on for months?"

The boys' faces were scrunched in concentration, a look Hermione usually only saw when they were focused on the potion formulation for a particularly tricky prank.

"Okay, either Mini-Lee has gotten way too good at acting and this is possibly the most mind-bending trick she's ever played-in which case, congrats Junior Prankster-or…"

"Or none of us remember something we've been working on for months." George grimly finished.

"Okay, do you remember Peter Pettigrew on the map? We found him when we were looking for suspicious activity." Hermione nudged. Her gaze darted between the three boys at a speed that would have had them doubled-over laughing at any other time.

"Oh yeah!" Fred exclaimed after a moment. "I remember looking for him and you gits being unsupportive, but when I try to remember why I was looking at the map it's all fuzzy. Ugh, why can't I remember. This was weeks ago."

"So you don't remember the book at all? Do you remember Ginny being so sad this fall?"

"Yes," George spoke slowly, "I remember thinking at the Burrow we'd figured it out… but I can't remember what it was we figured out."

"The book!" Hermione reminded him. "When you wrote in it, the ink was sucked into the page and then 'Tom' wrote back to us. Nothing?"

Lee laughed humorlessly. "If I didn't know any better I'd say we'd been Obliviated about the book. But Obliviation is pretty advanced magic. And who would want to Obliviate us?"

"You mean other than this Evil Prankster who just petrified Penelope?" Hermione nearly shouted. "You guys, this might actually be our break! We know that between the time you left for class in the morning and when I saw you at lunch that you ran into the perpetrator and they Obliviated you. So if we can reconstruct who you saw…"

"We can figure out who it was and Weasley their arse!" Fred jumped to his feet and did shout the last part, earning him a teary-eyed glare from his older brother.

"Little Sis, fill us in on what we've forgotten," Lee ordered. He ruffled her hair, and, for once, Hermione was so happy that she didn't even glare at him reproachfully at all.

** JP ** JP ** JP **

"Wait, Lockhart confiscated a glittery book from the twins?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, a couple of days ago. That's the only thing I remember of theirs being confiscated lately. It was puffing glitter everywhere, hard to forget," Katie Bell laughed, but trailed off as she saw the pensive look on the tiny Gryffindor interrogator's face.

"What happened next?"

"Well, Lockhart told the three of them to wait after class to discuss. They were back out maybe ten minutes later. I don't think it was a big deal; none of them mentioned it afterwards," Katie explained.

"Merlin!" Hermione cried, taking off across the common room. "Thanks, Katie! This has been so helpful!"

** JP ** JP ** JP **

"That actually would make sense," Lee stated, pacing in front of the others. Hermione had just explained her theory that Professor Lockhart was the mysterious prankster. "Dumbledore said the petrification charms required quite advanced magic…"

"And, Tom had been writing back during class, so that would explain why Lockhart was on the look-out for the book; he knew we had it out."

"Or subtlety is a skill you don't have a single iota of," Hermione muttered, smiling.

"And," Fred continued as if he hadn't heard Hermione, "multiple Gryffs agree we had a glitter book confiscated during DADA class which matches Hermione's description." He glanced at the detailed "Wanted" poster Hermione had charmed. While about half of the fourth year class had refused to talk to the group, considering it "rude" ("abhorrent", "shameful", "seriously, Fred, I'll tell Mum!") to focus on silly pranks while they were still reeling from the news about Penelope, the other half had been only too glad to indulge in a potential distraction and compare their memory of the confiscated book to the drawing.

"And," George added smugly, "none of us remember any of it!"

"So our theory is that Lockhart stole the diary back because he was worried we were on to him and then Obliviated you about it, not realizing their was a fourth conspirator to muck up his plan. But why did he do all of this? He's a secret Pureblood supremacist?" Hermione mused.

"But he's got such a massive platform through his books and his fame. You think if he wanted to stir anti-Muggleborn sentiment he'd use those levers, not attack children in a school," Fred argued.

"Maybe we should go back to our original theory. He was setting up a prank, thought it would make him popular. He rivals Ronniekins in his desperation to be adored. Remember dueling club?" George practically cackled at the memory.

"How does terrifying children make you popular? Did I miss a critical lesson here? I should have been terrorizing classmates to make friends?" groused Hermione.

"Malfoy seems to-"

"Oh, shut it George!" Lee exclaimed. "I've got it! Terrifying children doesn't make you popular. But rescuing them does! What if he set this up planning a grand 'defeat' of the perpetrator at the end of the year, leaving him as the hero? Sets up his next book, adoration from all the kids' mothers..."

"But who is the… oh no! Hagrid! He's been planting hints that it's Hagrid!" Hermione cried. "We have to stop him!"

"We have to stop him and make him pay for both the terror he's sowed and for Obliviating us! I want his face on the cover of Witch Weekly in disgrace, his arse in Azkaban, and… probably something else I'm too mad right now to even think about!" Fred agreed vehemently.

"I have an idea," Hermione whispered conspiratorially.