"I'm sorry, you're who?" Ron spluttered.
"I'm Stanley David Shunpike," Lucius said again.
Harry looked blankly at the man in front of him. Stan Shunpike was a scrawny and spotty young man, or at least, he had been when Harry had last seen him during the trials of those accused of Death Eater activity. He had been found innocent and his involvement put down to being under the imperius curse. Harry hadn't heard anything of him since then, and had met his replacement conductor of the Knight Bus, so he assumed that Stan had moved away to seek a quiet life after the traumas he had suffered during the war.
"Dodgy veritaserum?" an equally shocked Ron asked a puzzled Gawain.
"Not possible, it's made by a Ministry approved potioneer, he's worked there for years and never gotten a potion wrong yet," Gawain replied. He turned to Lucius, "If you're really Stan Shunpike then why do you look like Lucius Malfoy?"
"Body switchin' spell," he said. The voice was Lucius' but Harry could hear Stan's familiar broad cockney dialect and realised now why he hadn't spoken for so long. "Lucius knew 'e was goin' to get sent 'ere when they sent them letters out 'bout summonin' the Death Eaters to trial after you-know-who died. Said if I came instead of 'im, 'e would pay me thousands of galleons when I got out. Said it would be easy now them Dementors weren't 'ere no more and if I was good I'd be out in a few years."
"There's no such thing as a body switching spell," Gawain said angrily. "I've worked as an Auror for twenty years and I've never heard of one."
"I dunno 'ow 'e did it, but 'e looked like me and I look like 'im so it musta worked," he replied.
"I've heard enough of this," Harry groaned. "Take him back to his cell, whoever he is. We need to get back to the office and test that veritaserum you gave him and then find out as much as we can about body switching spells if they actually exist."
The guard nodded and took the man, Lucius or Stan or whoever he was, out of the room. Harry, Ron and Gawain all looked at each other, identical looks of stress and confusion on their faces.
Hermione had been back in her own department for four days now since her argument with Ron. Her boss had thankfully, accepted her return with few questions asked. It had been exceptionally quiet in terms of workload and Hermione found herself wondering if Harry had gotten any further in investigating Astoria's disappearance.
As with the previous few days, she arrived home from work early and had only just taken her coat and shoes off when Harry appeared in her fireplace.
"Hermione, great, you're home."
"Harry, I've already told you, I am not working with Ron no matter how much you beg," she sighed.
"No, it's not that, listen…"
He began to explain the story of his day, how they had interview Lucius and then forced him to talk using veritaserum only for him to tell them he was actually Stan Shunpike.
"…he reckons they did a body switching spell but no-one in the department has ever heard of one and I'm just in over my head with this investigation already," he finished.
"Wow. So there's a chance Lucius Malfoy is on the run somewhere?" Hermione asked.
"I really don't know. He can't be though, Hermione. There's no spell in the world that can make people swap bodies. There's only polyjuice potion but that's temporary, whoever that man is, he's been in Azkaban for four years, no polyjuice in the world lasts that long. And he said spell, not potion."
Hermione thought quietly for a few minutes. She was sure Harry was right about there not being a body switching spell, but magic had taught her that almost anything was possible. If someone had told her before Voldemort came back that a spell had helped him store parts of his soul in a snake she would have laughed. It was ancient and dark magic that few people in the wizarding world knew existed but it still did. Inspiration struck.
"Harry! The Horcruxes!"
"What about them?" Harry asked, looking at Hermione as though she had gone mad.
"Wait here," she gasped and ran to her spare bedroom.
She opened the doors of the wardrobe and rummaged around in the bottom of it, beneath the spare bedding, until she found her old Hogwarts trunk. She heard Harry calling for her impatiently from the living room but she ignored him. She dragged the trunk out and then knelt on the carpet in from of it, turned the key that was still in the lock and pushed the lid open. Inside the trunk lay a collection of books that Hermione had hoped she would never have to see again but had kept just in case. She grabbed one from near the bottom that was heavy and had a thick spine, it was bound in wrinkled black leather and had the words 'Dark Magic and its Ancient Roots' on the front cover in deep red curly letters.
Leaving the trunk still on the floor she raced back into the living room and sat down on the sofa next to Harry, who looked frustrated.
"A book," he said, "I should have known."
"Do you want my help or not?" she snapped back. He nodded fervently. "Remember just before we left Hogwarts, the day before Dumbledore's funeral I summoned those books from his office, the ones about Horcruxes?"
"Yes…"
"Well one night in the tent, when it was my turn to look out, I started reading one of the books. This book. I only got a few pages past the Horcruxes bit before I stopped, some of the spells in there are truly awful," she shuddered. "Including, this one."
She handed him the open book and watched as his face contorted into an expression of horror.
"The body switching spell…" he read aloud. "…enables the castor and participant to switch appearances until the spell is reversed…extremely painful…human sacrifice required?! Hermione, this is some seriously dark and disturbing magic. Surely Lucius can't have been that desperate to avoid Azkaban?"
"Well, the Malfoy's aren't exactly known for their bravery are they? It's not a very Slytherin quality."
Harry laughed humourlessly. "No, I suppose not. You think this was it then, the spell he used?"
"It seems like it."
"So then that really is Stan Shunpike in Azkaban…"
"There's one way you could find out for sure…"
"The reversal spell?" Harry said as he looked down at the open book on his lap.
Hermione nodded. "There's an incantation there, and you only have to cast it on one of the people who were swapped. Just point your wand at his face and say Corporis Minime Verto."
"I'm going to go, now. Thank you so much, Hermione, you don't know how much you've helped me. This is why I said I needed you on this case, please reconsider. Don't give me an answer now, but promise you'll at least sleep on it. Okay?" he implored.
"I'll think about it," she agreed.
"Thank you. I'll come back soon to tell you what happened." He gave her a brief hug and left through the front door, apparating from the front step.
The sun was starting to lower in the sky and there was a chill in the air when Harry apparated that had not been there when he left work. He set off at a brisk pace as soon as his surroundings materialized in the direction of the pier he had already been at twice earlier that day. The guard did not look surprised to see him again but did carry out the same security checks before letting him climb into the boat with the old boatman. The salty smell of the sea was stronger as Harry crossed the sea to Azkaban than it had been a few hours ago and he fondly thought of travelling in the tiny boat with Hagrid some hours after he had first found out he was a wizard.
The bump of the boat against the rocky cliff pulled Harry out of his thoughts of his childhood and he thanked the old man before climbing out of the boat onto the small stone platform where his wand was checked again before he began the ascent up the cliff in the lift with the new security guard.
When he reached the inside of the building and the front desk inside, the guard seated there barely had time to open his mouth to ask what Harry was doing back there, for Harry began to speak.
"I need to see Lucius Malfoy again. Quickly, please."
The guard held his hand out and grunted, "Wand."
Harry sighed at the delay and handed over his holly and phoenix feather wand whilst the guard checked it.
"Fine," he said finally. "Follow me."
Harry obeyed and followed the man who led him to the same interview room they had been in earlier, though that now felt like days ago. He did not sit down at the table but stood next to it, tapping his foot impatiently on the linoleum floor until the door opened and a new guard appeared with whom Harry was now convinced was Stan in front of him. He was seated and he looked up at Harry, fear in his eyes.
Harry gave no warning as to what he was about to do. He quickly raised his wand, which was still in his hand from the weighing, and pointed it at Stan.
"Corporis Minime Verto."
At first, nothing happened, and Harry was momentarily disappointed, but then the seated man gave a gasp of pain.
"My skin!" he yelled. "My skin is burinin'! Make it stop! Please, I'll do anyfin', just make it stop!"
Harry thought back to the human sacrifice part of the spell that had obviously been cast, the chosen witch or wizard who was to be sacrificed had to be set alight before the killing curse was cast, this part of the reversal was clearly some sort of sick penance for that.
He continued to scream at the invisible flames licking his skin, so the man didn't notice his features were beginning to change now, the filthy blonde hair seemed to be shortening, and turning more of a sandy shade of blonde. Pimples were appearing on the face that was considerably less pale and the jawline becoming far less prominent. Harry was disgusted and yet he could not tear his eyes away.
Stan's screams started to subside and became more like whimpers and Harry knew the process was nearing an end. He looked at the guard for the first time: the previously fearless looking man was now a pale shade of green and was clutching the back of a chair for support, had the situation not been so serious, Harry would have laughed.
Silence filled the room and Harry stared into the petrified face of Stan Shunpike. Miles away, in a filthy bathroom, Lucius Malfoy looked at his reflection and let out a furious scream.