Harry Potter

Harry Potter, by some called the 'boy who lived' or the 'troll slayer', was currently sitting alone in one of the unused classrooms in the astrology tower, patiently waiting for his friends. The room was quite quiet, as the only source of noise was the polyjuice potion slowly brewing in the cauldron located in the corner of the room.

Originally the planned to brew the potion in Myrtle's bathroom, as Hermione argued that no one would go there because of Myrtle's presence, but they decided to find another place after remembering that Michael Brown, the boy they suspected of being the heir, had apparently been visiting the bathroom quite regularly to talk with Myrtle of all people. Also, they all found the thought of drinking the potion brewed in the unused classroom much more appealing than drinking the potion brewed in the abandoned bathroom. For obvious reasons.

Because of that, Harry was currently in the astrology tower, waiting for Ron and Hermione to join him in planning their next move. Brown's words during the duelling club made everyone think that Harry was the heir, so they had to do something to convince people he was innocent, preferably by catching the real heir. However, his friends were absent for some reason, even though they were supposed to meet almost an hour ago. Did something happen to them on the way to the classroom?

As Harry was thinking that, the door to the classroom suddenly opened, revealing Ron and Hermione. They both looked quite distressed for some reason, entering the room at brisk pace and quickly closing the door behind them. Before Harry could ask what happened, Ron started speaking.

"Harry, change of plans!" He exclaimed, approaching Harry with a haunted look on his face "We are not approaching that maniac Brown ever again!"

"What? Why?" asked Harry, confused. They were following Brown for almost a week. What changed?

"Don't listen to Ron, Harry. He is being ridiculous!" stated Hermione. She looked a little shaken too, but contrary to Ron, there was a determination in her eyes "After what we have learned, it's obvious that Michael Brown is the heir of Slytherin! We can't just give up!"

"Have you already forgotten what that psycho did?! There is no way I'm ever coming near that guy again! For all we know, he will gut us the moment he learns we are investigating him!" Shouted Ron, apparently quite spooked by whatever he and Hermione learned "And that's assuming he is the heir, which I still doubt!"

Something clearly happened while they were gone, though Harry had no idea what. For now, it would be best to get some explanation.

"Can you stop arguing for a moment?" Harry asked loudly, making both Ron and Hermione focus on him, stopping their conversation. "Can you please tell me what's going on? Why are you both so freaked out?"

Ron and Hermione looked at each other, apparently unsure who should be the one to explain the situation to Harry. After a few seconds Ron gave up and cleared his throat.

"So, while we were walking here, we overheard some firsties arguing about the true identity of the heir. It's sort of connected to our investigation, so we decided to stay and listen to them, you know, to maybe learn something new. One of the students there seemed to know Brown, so we, or more specifically Hermione, decided to talk with him" Ron said "We learned quite a lot, you know? For example, did you know that Michael Brown is completely barmy? And not even Dumbledore kind of barmy, he is straight up insane!"

"What did he do?" Asked Harry, already dreading to hear the answer. If it was enough to spook both Ron and Hermione, it couldn't be anything good.

"Well, apparently one day he went completely psycho and spent the whole week terrorizing other Ravenclaw students to the point of torture! Don't get me wrong, I like a good Fred and George joke now and then, but what Brown did to these kids was on another level! Taping them to their desks and forcing them to listen to Binns? Making them think they were going to be decapitated? Secretly giving them laxatives and throwing angry geese into their stalls as they were relieving themselves? At least three of his classmates ended up having nervous breakdowns! Robert Danvers, the guy we talked to, had the same look during his explanations that my grandpa had when he was talking about Grindelwald's war! This kid is evil!"

"And Ron didn't even mention the worst part! Did you know that Michael Brown publicly insulted two teachers during their classes?" said Hermione, looking horrified at the mere thought of someone doing this "He's also deliberately sabotaging the point system, doing his best to lose as many points as possible! It's not even December yet, and he has managed to cost his house more than a hundred points! The worst part is that he's even started convincing others to follow his lead, causing many students to stop caring about the point system! He's so evil that it's obvious he's the heir of Slytherin!"

"That's why we need to stay away from him! Do you want to end like his housemates? Let's just focus on Malfoy, like we originally planned!"

"Ronald, you don't seem to understand how important it is to stop him. Michael Brown was trying to convince me that our teachers were abusing their authority and using Hogwarts' artifacts for nefarious purposes! Now he is trying to convince everyone that professor Dumbledore is evil and that the whole house system is inherently evil! Don't you see that he has to be stopped?!"

"…why are you treating breaking school rules as something worse than tormenting children and petrifying the students?" Ron asked, a little creeped out by Hermione's behaviour. Hearing that Hermione blushed, embarrassed by his unexpected question.

"I am not saying that, Ron!" She replied, though the fact that she was avoiding eye contact was quite telling "I just think his obvious disregard for school rules matches the content of Heir's manifesto. If he hates Hogwarts and it's rules, he probably also hates the Ministry of Magic"

"Maybe we should all calm down" Harry said, trying to stop his friends from jumping to conclusions. What he heard certainly made Michael Brown look quite unhinged, but in Harry's opinion it wasn't definitive proof he was the one behind the attacks "We can't just assume he is the heir just because he dislikes school…"

"He also hates quidditch, you know? He thinks it's a blood sport" replied Hermione, giving Harry a smug smile.

"Okay, so he is most likely the heir" Harry said, horrified by what he heard. How could someone hate Quidditch? It was the best sport in the world. Even that git Malfoy liked it. Michael Brown was a monster "What should we do to expose him?"

"Harry, what about Malfoy? You know, the other possible heir? Don't you think we should investigate him?" Ron asked desperately, doing his best to stop Harry and Hermione from approaching a dangerous lunatic.

"Ron, if you are so scared, you don't have to investigate Brown. In fact, as he seems to only have one friend, a girl named Luna Lovegood, it would probably be better for me to approach Brown on my own, pretending to be her. You can continue your Malfoy plan" Hermione stated "We need to learn more about both Brown and Lovegood for our polyjuice plan to work though. It certainly won't be easy, as according to Danvers Michael Brown is very elusive, which is quite bad, given his obvious evilness. Who knows what nefarious deeds he is committing as we speak?"

Luna Lovegood

She found Michael in the library, sitting at one of the tables and aiming his wand at an object lying on it, muttering something under his breath.

She had no idea what it was, as it looked like some sort of small, metal slab, with numerous buttons on it. The purpose of it was unknown for Luna, so, until proven otherwise, it was used to communicate with moon people or to summon the army of heliopaths. It was more interesting that way.

"hello Michael" Luna began speaking, making the boy jump in surprise. After Michael calmed down, recognizing her, she continued "What are you doing?"

"Well, I've been experimenting with my recorder, using some spells I found in a book recommended to me by To...friend" replied Michael, pointing to a curious object, apparently called a recorder "Normally it runs on electricity, but I tried to make it powered by magic. I was hoping that one of the spells in the book would work, but so far it's just...you know what, I'll just show you."

He took the so-called recorder into his hand and pressed one of its buttons. After a second, a distorted voice came from the object.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" groaned the recorder ominously before falling silent, apparently finished with its task.

"And what was it supposed to do?" Luna asked, not quite understanding the problem. Having a metal slab moaning in some foreign language was already quite interesting. In her opinion that so-called recorder was already perfect.

"What was it…Ah, right. You probably don't know what a recorder is, as it's a muggle device. The recorder is supposed to, well, record the sounds and repeat them. It's actually quite cool. I don't know how to make it run on magic though"

"don't worry, I'm sure you will be able to do that. You are already making it speak, so you are close" Luna replied with utmost seriousness. While Michael wasn't the most attentive student, he was quite capable when it came to learning things that actually interested him.

"Thank you" Michael responded, giving her a small smile. He then blinked, as if remembering something "But why are you here? Aren't we supposed to meet tomorrow?"

"I wanted to talk about the lecture" Luna declared "I discovered a new subspecies of glubbers this week, so I thought about mentioning it during the lecture"

"While I would love to organize the lecture, professor Flitwick was quite adamant about not giving us his permission"

"It doesn't actually need to be professor Flitwick. We just need a teacher willing to let us organize a lecture under their supervision"

"Really?" Michael asked, thinking about Luna's words. After a second a huge grin appeared on his face.

Hermione Granger

"…why?" She asked no one in particular, looking at the scene before her with a blank gaze. She wasn't a bad person, she actually considered herself to be a good one. So why was she punished like this?

"Welcome everyone! It's so nice to see so many truth seekers attending our first lecture" Michael Brown, target of her investigation and the host of this accursed event, spoke to the audience "As some of you already know, my name is Michael Brown and this is Luna Lovegood. I would like to thank professor Lockhart, who agreed to supervise this lecture under the condition that I remain silent during his classes"

Yes, she wanted to learn more about Michael Brown, and yes, attending the lecture would be a great opportunity to study both Brown and Lovegood. All of this was true. But the price was just too high! To make it even worse, Harry and Ron were not with her, choosing instead to investigate Malfoy, forcing her to endure this disgusting spectacle alone.

"The next two hours will be spent revealing Hogwarts' and Ministry's darkest secrets, hopefully allowing you to break free from your conditioning and embrace the truth. Are you ready?"

Hermione was in hell.