Hermione was in the process of transfiguring one of the walls in the sitting room into walls that had built in bookshelves when Rick returned home six hours later. She immediately knew that something was wrong. He had a pensive, angry look on his face as he took a seat on the couch.
“Where are the kids?” Rick glanced around.
“Carl went with Hagrid down to his hut to help him with some chores,” Hermione explained. She walked over and took a seat beside him. “I put Judy down for a nap twenty minutes ago. What’s the matter?”
“Daryl wasn’t on the Hogwarts grounds yesterday afternoon,” Rick shared. “He didn’t get back from his last scouting trip until seven last night…but Carol and Maggie both swear they spoke to him yesterday right after they finished lunch in the Great Hall.”
“Someone’s using Polyjuice Potion to get on the grounds,” Hermione guessed. It’s not like that had never happened before. Her fourth year sprang to mind.
Rick nodded. “That’s what Harry guessed too. Severus thinks every adult on campus needs to undergo questioning while on some kind of truth serum.”
“Veritaserum,” Hermione supplied. “That’s probably a good idea. What I don’t understand is why? Why would someone want to get on the grounds in the first place?”
“Whoever was masquerading as Daryl was asking about secret passageways into the castle,” Rick filled her in. “They didn’t know what he was talking about. Next fake Ron shows up at your door and tries to lure you, a Hogwarts professor, out with him…”
“Someone’s trying to find a secret way into the castle.” This was bad, very, very bad.
“But who and why?” Rick ran a hand over his face.
“I haven’t the foggiest clue why,” Hermione shook her head. “As for who? It has to be a witch of wizard because of the Polyjuice Potion. Whoever it is knows enough about me to know that I dated Ron but not enough to know that it ended badly. If they had known they wouldn’t have shown up at my door as him. This person also doesn’t know as much as he or she thinks they do about the rescue efforts.”
“I love the way your mind works, darlin.’” Rick reached over and took her hand. “If you had been born a muggle, you would have made one hell of a cop. Any suspects comin’ to mind?”
“None,” Hermione answered him as knock came on the door.
“Come in!” Rick called out.
The door opened and Harry entered. “Sorry if I’m intruding but Snape wanted me to let you know that he went through his inventory and he has enough veritaserum on hand to question everyone. We can start interviews first thing in the morning.”
“Good,” Rick nodded. “The sooner, the better.”
“Oh,” Harry snapped his fingers. “Hagrid just got back from America and he’s got a North American fireneck niffler pup. He figured Carl might want to see it.”
“Carl left here with Hagrid almost an hour ago.” Hermione had a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“Mione,” Harry’s eyebrows scrunched up in worry. “I just passed Hagrid on my way here. He wasn’t on the grounds an hour ago.”
“Shit!” Rick jumped to his feet, Hermione joining him.
Hermione ran to the fireplace and quickly threw in a pinch of floo powder, summoning Dobby to come and sit with Judith.
“Harry, go and alert everyone,” Hermione ordered. “Someone pretending to be Hagrid has Carl.”
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