Hermione pulled up a chair from one of the unoccupied desks near by, a slight scraping on the floor echoing in the room, she slid in from the side, knees bumping the edge of the desk, her arms bent in front of her, fingers laced and resting upon her chin, a pensive look crossed her face as she spoke in a low voice. "I'm going to be her next victim," the words stark against the near silence of the rest of the room, a shocked look crossing the boys faces.

"What? You can't be serious 'Mione, that's dangerous!" Ron couldn't control himself. Harry could only nod in agreement.

"I am. It's the only thing that hasn't been tried yet. She only robs men though, I think there's a reason behind that, so I'll need to create a ruse, and I'll need to use Grimmauld Place, Harry."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you need, Hermione. What's the plan?"

She leaned in conspiratorially, grabbing a blank piece of parchment from Ron's desk, drawing out images and making notes. The two boys caught in rapt attention. The plan was really quite simple they had to admit and were surprised that it hadn't already been tried. They would create an image of a rich wizard that had just moved to the area and throw a huge party for other elites at Grimmauld Place, hoping that the thief would show up. The guests would be a mixture of Ministry officials and aurors. Later, the guests would all leave and the aurors would stay close by while Harry and Ron stayed behind, waiting for anything to happen. Hermione, who would be impersonating the rich wizard, would be the presumed target of Aphrodite. She would attempt to do whatever it is she does, and Harry and Ron would barge in and arrest her.

There was only one issue, who Hermione was going to impersonate with a Polyjuice potion.

"What about Blaise?"

"Malfoy?"

"Neville?"

"Theo?"

Hermione shook her head in the negative to all of their suggestions, to which Ron threw his hands in the air and let out an exasperated sigh, "You've got to pick someone 'Mione."

Harry, a thoughtful look on his face, his bottom lip caught in his teeth, paused his musings for a moment, "Actually..." he stopped, his sentence trailing off, before he started again, "If this is supposed to be a new wizard, wouldn't it be safer if we didn't use someone that exists but created a new identity?"

Hermione couldn't help but agree with that thought, it was risky after all to use someone that Aphrodite could possibly recognize, or more importantly, that would give them an additional body there to help them. If Hermione had impersonated someone else, they wouldn't be able to appear at the party and would become essentially useless and it would be better to have more help just in case.

And that was how Hermione found herself creating her new image with the help of Harry and Ron, so far they had decided upon short brown hair that would be styled into a messy look, similar to Harry's with a 5 o'clock shadow, in an attempt to masculinize her face. She would have to bind her chest and wear multiple layers, they'd decided she would wear a vest and tie but no coat and some form fitting (though not overly tight) black jeans and boots (to add some height). Hermione hoped that she would look masculine and wealthy when all was said and done. Most of the clothes would have to come from a muggle shop, but as long as she was able to pull off the image successfully, she would make do.

Their plan was to come to fruition that Friday night, giving them exactly 4 days to solidify the details of their plan and ensure that people would be there, and most importantly Aphrodite. With no real way to contact her, and without making it seem overly obvious that this would be a trap, they just had to have hope that news would spread, and so they set about the rumor mill, sending it into overdrive.

This left Hermione to spend the rest of the time, nervously second guessing all her decisions as she readied her image and attempted to make several public appearances as her new persona. To make this believable, she had temporarily moved into Grimmauld Place and had to live for days on end, leading to buying multiple outfits, finding her comfort and living as... she still had not decided upon a name, something as simple as a name, but it had to fit her. It just had to, and she couldn't find one. She tried to draw inspiration from history, mixing names together, and after several attempts (read: a couple days), it was now pushing midnight the night before the celebration. She picked some names at random, and decided upon Josiah Cornelius Blane for the name of her new persona.

Now all she could do was ready herself and her nerves for the coming day. And hopefully their work would pay off and she would meet the elusive Aphrodite.