Chapter Nine

Gwen opened her eyes and looked around; she was in the hospital wing. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Madam Pomfrey walking around making the beds.

Gwen grunted and tried to sit up; Madam Pomfrey instantly came to her side.

"How do you feel?" she said, putting a hand on Gwen's forehead.

"I feel fine," Gwen replied, pushing her hand away.

Gwen was fine but felt that something was wrong. She rubbed her eyes and finally realised what was different, she didn't have her glasses or her hat on.

"My glasses and my hat!" Gwen yelled.

"Oh, well your hat's here but your glasses."

But before she could finish, Gwen had grabbed the hat from the side table and shoved it on her head.

"What is the matter?" Madam Pomfrey asked, looking at the frantic girl trying to shove her hair into the hat.

"My hair it's green and my eyes." Gwen shut her eyes, "has anyone else seen me like this?"

"What are you talking about? Your hair is not green. Did you hit your head that hard?" Pomfrey said, staring closely at the girl.

"My hair isn't green," she pulled out some hair from the hat, opening her eyes and focusing her attention on it; it was dark brown.

"And my eyes aren't red?" Gwen said, widening them and looking at Pomfrey.

"No," she replied curtly.

As Gwen lay back against the bed, memories started to flood back to her and she sprang back up again.

"Bole, Derrik, they're not.Bole and Derrik, they're someone else. I need to talk to Dumbledore," she started to get out of bed.

"Now, sshh." Madam Pomfrey said, pushing Gwen back into bed.

"We know. After the match, we went looking for Bole and Derrik and they were found in the Slytherin changing rooms, bound up. Here," she handed Gwen, a large bottle full of a deep red liquid.

Gwen took it and swallowed it in one gulp. She quickly regretted doing that; the mixture burned her throat as it went down.

"What was that?" Gwen asked, handing back the bottle.

"Dragon's breath," Pomfrey replied automatically.

"Aaah, it burns," Gwen said, stroking her throat.

"Good. It's supposed to."

Gwen shook off the slight pain and continued with her questioning.

"So, are the real Bole and Derrik ok? Did they know, who.what.,"

"They're fine and no, they don't know."

Gwen leant back again but the words that fake Bole and fake Derrik had said to her, shot back into her head.

"But I still need to talk to Dumbledore, it's about Voldermort."

Madam Pomfrey winced at the mention of the name.

"No, you need your.,"

"Please, this is important," Gwen begged the woman.

Madam Pomfrey looked down at the girl and shrugged, "better get some clothes on then."

***

"How long has she been in there for?" Fred asked.

"A week," Harry replied.

"It must be really bad," George replied, shoving some cereal in his mouth.

"Well at least Ron, Bole and Derrik are ok," Hermione said, trying to sound cheerful.

She was answered with resounding grunts from the other Gryffindors.

Ron had woken up the next day after the match with a slight headache but nothing too serious.

He was soon strong enough to fly again and could be seen on the quidditch pitch in the late evenings practicing.

And it had been commented on that he was becoming more and more like Oliver Wood everyday.

Although the difference was that Oliver had been driven by ambition while Ron was seething with hate and revenge, focusing it all on the Slytherin Team.

It was a lethal combination.

Bole and Derrik had recovered quickly, they'd just been stunned, no harm done or at least no physical harm.

It was said by gossiping students (Lavender and Pavarti) that Bole and Derrick were now petrified of their own reflections ever since the attack and that all mirrors from their dorms had been removed.

Although it was said by some other people (Fred and George) that with faces like Bole and Derrick you'd be scared anyway, attack or no attack.

"She'll be alright," Ron said, trying to break the awkward silence.

"Yeah.but we should have been watching," Fred said, nodding sadly, "after what happened to you, we should have known that those two weren't."

"Let's not talk about them anymore," Hermione said, she shook slightly when she spoke.

"So, who do you think the fake Bole and Derrik were?" Ron asked, looking around the table.

Everyone stopped; that had been the question on everyone's lips but nobody had been brave enough to ask Dumbledore or any of the other teachers.

Although everyone was sure that even they didn't know.

Bole and Derrik had only seen Bole and Derrick and so they were no help at all.

And the only other person that would know was lying in the hospital wing.

"Whoever they were, the dark arts were involved," Harry said quietly.

Everyone nodded; they didn't know what else to say.

"Hey." Hermione said, pointing to the door.

There stood a dark haired girl, who was now making her way up to the top table.

Harry noticed that she was limping slightly on her left foot.

Everyone watched her walk up but the girl seemed unaware of the attention.

Dumbledore stood up and smiled at the girl, "glad to see you're feeling better, Gwen."

Gwen smiled gently and said in a loud voice, "I need to speak to you, in private."

Dumbledore nodded and walked down to where Gwen was standing, and led her out of the great hall.

"That was Gwen," Ron said, his mouth slightly open, "she looks different."

"Well, she has taken off her glasses and removed her hat," Hermione said, obviously not impressed by Ron's goldfish expression.

"And she's got brown hair," Harry added, everyone looked at him and weren't sure what to make of that comment.

***

"Now, what is it you want to tell me?" Dumbledore said, sitting in his chair.

"That wasn't Bole and Derrik on the pitch," Gwen said quickly, collapsing into a chair nearby.

"I know," Dumbledore said, nodding his head gently.

"Who were they?"

"I'm not sure, but they may have been Morfal and Lafrom. Shape shifters," Dumbledore picked up a piece of parchment and stared at it, before placing it back down.

"But.shape shifters are extinct. There haven't been any for hundreds of years. Wizards wiped them out in the 11th century."

"That is true. But these two aren't true shape shifters. They were man made shape shifters, they were once wizards."

"But wizards can't be."

"They can, Gwen. The first shape shifters were believed to have been wizards and witches before they turned. These two in particular are the last of their kind. We now have very strict rules on shape shifters. It seems that people cannot control their desires to use this dark art for evil. So the ministry banned it."

"But if it was banned, how did they do it?" Gwen said, her voice wobbling slightly.

"Just because something is banned, doesn't mean that people will stop doing it,"

Dumbledore's gaze seem to drift for a while before he snapped back into life, "these two are twins; I remember them when they were here at the school, very talented wizards. But they had an obsession with the dark arts. One day, they must have been experimenting with some dark magic and gotten overwhelmed by it because there was an accident and the twins disappeared. We believed that they were dead. But a couple of weeks later, strange things started to happen. People started to appear in two places at once, have complete changes of character, do things that when later asked, they had no recollection of. Finally, someone caught one of them in the act of morphing and so, there was a search for them. They were caught six months later and were about to have their magic taken from then, when."

"Wait, what do you mean, their magic taken from then?" Gwen asked, she leaned in closer.

"Well, in extreme cases, wizards and witches can have their magic taken away from them, they become muggles. It's one of the harshest punishments that a wizard or witch can suffer, the only thing worse would be the Dementor's Kiss. We hardly ever do it, normally they're sent to Azkaban and that's the end of it. It's such a painful and time consuming process, for all that are involved. But in the case of the twins, we couldn't allow this dark magic in our world; it might bring the art back into use. No, it was too dangerous. So, anyway, just before their sentence was about to be performed, they somehow managed to escape. They then vanished and have never surfaced again, until last week."

After he finished speaking, Dumbledore put his hands together and sat silently, waiting for Gwen to speak.

"What did they do to me?" Gwen finally said, she suddenly felt exhausted.

"They froze you," Dumbledore said, a little distracted, something had caught his eye out of the window.

"Hmm." Gwen said, that explains the feeling of cold when she was hit and the dragon's breath she thought to herself.

"Nice present," Gwen muttered.

"What?" Dumbledore said, looking at Gwen intently.

"Well.Morfal and Lafrom said that Voldermort wanted to meet me and that he had a birthday surprise for me. Then they froze me and said that it was a present."

Dumbledore stared even harder at the girl, Gwen felt like the dragon's breath was in her cheeks.

"Well, this seems to be serious. I will have to inform the rest of the order," he nodded to himself and started to pace around the room.

"What could Voldermort want with shape shifters?"

Gwen didn't know whether this question was directed at her or not, so she shrugged her shoulders. But Dumbledore didn't seem to notice and he said something quietly under his breath, before sitting back down and looking at Gwen.

"I think it's best if you go back to hospital wing and rest."

Gwen stood up and was about to go, when Dumbledore added, "Gwen, please be careful around Hogwarts. Don't get into any trouble."

Gwen smiled and left.

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and stared out the window, "though I'm not sure, you can help it," he muttered under his breath.