"... and then he'll have confessed to not only the whole of Hogwarts, but the wizarding press as well!" Hermione finished triumphantly.
"I like it," George nodded. "It's simple, straightforward..."
"...but has a slight flair for the dramatic" Fred added.
"And only involves brewing one highly illegal potion," Lee finished.
"We're in," they chorused together.
"Excellent," Hermione cried. "Give me a second to write-up the list of the ingredients we'll need. Most of them are, what shall we say, hard to obtain?" Hermione grimaced as she said the last part, recognizing that the dragon snot, tear from a unicorn, and invisible algae from the South Pole were a bit more than 'hard to obtain.' The rest of the ingredients were still highly rare, just not nearly-impossibly rare.
"Snapples has most of these, not the algae, but I think the rest," George muttered, looking over her shoulder at the list.
"Snapples?" Fred asked, bemused.
"I'm trying new nicknames for the Dungeon Bat. I thought Snapples had a certain, snap to it! You know, Snape, but like that drink Hermione's mum gave us?"
"Definitely a no-go," Lee shuddered. "You're banned from marketing now, on an unrelated note."
"Oy-"
"Ingredients! Focus! We need to start brewing by Saturday to take advantage of the new moon. It still will take two weeks past that for it to finish brewing, so I don't want to miss this and then wait weeks and weeks to even begin." Hermione lectured. She expertly dodged when Lee tried to ruffle her hair.
"Focus!" she admonished.
** JP ** JP ** JP **
"I've never been so tired in my life!" Lee moaned. "I think my arm might actually fall off."
"I don't know how we let Mini-Lee talk us into this," Fred agreed. "None of us have slept, and I can't tell if the shadows are moving on their own or if Snape is coming down on us for vengeance for err, liberating ingredients from his stores…"
"Shh, let me sleep!" George patted Fred's thigh, plumping it as if it were a pillow before setting his head down on his twin's leg.
"Should we test it or wait until we're awake enough to tell if it works?" Hermione yawned.
The other bounced to attention, George hitting his head against Fred's chin as he shot up the Snitch out of the box. The last two weeks of round-the-clock, constant-speed stirring (they'd taken shifts, carefully counting 1000 stirs clockwise then 500 counterclockwise, then 250 clockwise, 125 counter before starting again), temperature control (the room they'd brewed in had to be less than 15 degrees and couldn't have any magic used in it, so they'd been drowning in parkas and leggings and hats, which had only made the situation survivable, not pleasant), and ingredient procurement (Fred insisted the emotional strain of spending nearly half their fair winnings on the algae had been nearly as bad as their moratorium on pranking) and preparation had left all of them exhausted. The Veritaserum, well, they hoped it was Veritaserum after all that work, was done now though, a feat that most professors couldn't claim.
"Give me drop," Lee ordered. Hermione carefully pipetted a single drop of the precious brew before decanting the rest into a shatter-proof, spill-proof vial (also 'liberated' from the potions labs).
Hermione squeezed the pipette over Lee's protruding tongue. The twins and Hermione watched him raptly.
"What's your name?"
"Lee Jordan."
"Who do you have a secret crush on?"
"Cho Chang."
His three co-conspirators burst into furious discussion at the new information, while Lee clasped his hands over his mouth in obvious horror.
"How come you always comment on how beautiful Angelina is during matches then?" Hermione gleefully interrupted as Fred and George each grabbed one of Lee's hands away from his mouth.
"Because Wood fancies her, and watching his face go all dreamy every time I mention it is just too good to pass up!" Lee looked much less horrified to have revealed the Gryffindor Quidditch captain's secret crush than his own.
"We did it!" Hermione shouted, jumping up and shuffling in an awkward circle, her arms wobbly feebly at her sides. "We honest-to-Merlin brewed Veritaserum!"
"Is that supposed to be a victory dance? That is the saddest, most awkward victory dance I have ever had the embarrassment to watch," Fred said in obvious horror.
"Shut up and join me!" Hermione nearly yelled.
"Fair point," George conceded, dragging his twin up with him.
The quartet started jumping in the air and shouting "we did it" with as much abandon as could be mustered on a "gagillion hour" sleep deficit.
** JP ** JP ** JP **
"Do you think Skeeter is here?" Fred whispered.
"She said she'd be. I can't believe she'd miss out on this scoop, and she told me she didn't need our help getting in. Plus, she's a reporter. I'm sure she has a million tricks up her sleeve for surreptitiously watching important events," Hermione gushed.
"Are you ready?" Lee poked at George who had a glass of wine spiked with four drops of Veritaserum in front of him.
"Ready as I'll ever be," he whispered before stabbing his wand at the goblet and whispering Alimentubi. He and Fred has coaxed the kitchen elves into teaching them the spell for transferring the food onto the House tables earlier in the week, greatly simplifying how they would slip the truth-drug into Professor Lockhart's drink during the middle of dinner. He peered into his now empty goblet and nodded curtly at Fred who watched until Lockhart took a sip from his goblet then leapt onto the table.
"Professor Lockhart," he shouted. "What is your involvement with the 'Chamber of Secrets'?"
The Great Hall went abruptly silent as every eye turned to the periwinkle robed Professor who had a forkful of chicken nearly to his mouth.
"I beg your pard- I will unveil the perpetrator of these crimes, save the students, and earn the unending adoration of the wizarding world for my heroics," he stated. He looked around, confused as the Hall burst out in chuckles and (in McGonagall's case) nearly hysterical laughter. The professor calmly stood and started walking towards the along the edge of the table, towards the door.
Damn. That was not an admission of guilt!
"Have you harmed any students in this quest of yours?" Fred shouted quickly.
"I've only Obliviated a few!" The man, like Lee, covered his mouth with his hands as his eyes bulged. At this admission, a number of freezing charms from the head table froze the man in place.
"How many people have you Obliviated?" McGonagall asked in a tone that made every student sit an iota straighter.
"About 500," Lockhart ground out.
"500 students?" McGonagall gasped.
"No, only five or six students. Mostly wizards and witches who defeated dark creatures, the ones whose stories I used for my books." From the constipated look on his face, it seemed the wizard was fighting both his binds and the Veritaserum with his every ounce of strength.
"I really do hope Skeeter is here," Hermione wished fervently, watching the debacle ahead of them with an almost deliriously happy look on her face.
"He hasn't confessed yet though!" George hissed. "What else should we ask?"
"Which students have you Obliviated?" McGonagall pressed.
"Those Gryffindor twins and, err, their third-wheel. Never learned his name. Draco Malfoy… Vaisey… Marcus Flint…" The crash as the Slytherin table started firing hexes at the DADA professor nearly drowned out the Professor who claimed "he'd only done it trying to find out if any of them was the Heir of Slytherin" before Gemma Farley's stunning hex knocked him unconscious.
"Well, loathe as I am to say it, I don't think he was the actual prankster," Fred stated as he climbed off the table into the now frantically, disordered hall.
"Merlin I hope Skeeter was here for this," Hermione breathed again.
"Silence! Silence! SILENCE!" Dumbledore shot something rather like a cannon out of the end of his wand, bringing the chaos of the hall down to a low rumble.
"Mssrs. Malfoy, Vaisey, Flint, Fred and George Weasley, and Jordan, please meet me in my office, immediately." He nodded sagely before levitating the unconscious DADA professor ahead of him out of the Great Hall.
"Eff that!" Hermione muttered. "I'm definitely coming."
