The Other Potter Book Two

Chapter Sixteen: I'm a Pansy

The boys finally joined Hermione and me in the bathroom. We divided up the potion – Hermione had generously given me more than everyone else (“What, we know half the time spells and potions don’t work on you, it’s a precaution.”) Hermione the Brave added her hair first. It turned a kind of bubbly yellow and smelt like poo.

"Urgh - essence of Millicent Bulstrode," said Ron, eyeing it with loathing. "Bet it tastes disgusting."

"Add yours then" Hermione said looking excited.

Ron's turned frothy poo-green and smelled strongly of rotting eggs.

Harry's turned a frightening murky poo-brown colour and reeked of body odour.

"Put yours in!" Ron snapped at me, looking at his poo potion.

I looked at the clump of Pansy's hair in my hand. I couldn't bear to part with all of it. I split it on two, shoved a handful into my pocket, and the other half into the potion.

It began to froth madly, changing colours before it turned —

“It looks like poo.”

“They all look like poo.” Hermione shrugged.

We all lifted our drinks and Harry said, "We'd better not all drink them in here ... Once we turn into Crabbe and Goyle we won't fit and Millicent Bulstrode's no pixie." 

"Good thinking," said Ron, unlocking the door. "We'll take separate stalls." Careful not to spill a drop of my potion, I slipped into a stall. 

"Ready." Harry called. 

"Ready," came Ron's and Hermione's voices.  

"I'M READY!" I said loudly.  

"One - two - three -"

I took a sip of the poo-potion, and nearly puked. Now, I’ve never tasted poop in my life, but if I imagined what it would taste like – this was it.

Immediately, my insides started writhing as though I'd just kissed Geo—

Brain no. Stop that please.

“I know where that sentence was going,” Lucy smirked at me.

I ignored her. Or me. I’m still confused about my whole mind-voice thing.

I left the stall and looked up into the mirror and saw Pansy staring back.

I shrieked in terror.

“I look like Pansy.” I said as though this was shocking. I groaned. “I sound like Pansy.”

"Are you okay?" Goyle said. Who was Goyle? Harry?

"Yeah," came the deep grunt of Crabbe.

Goyle unlocked his door and stepped in front of the cracked mirror. 

"Are you Harry or Ron? I have short term memory loss," I asked him.

"Harry," he said.

"Coolies. Whoa, this sounds so weird in her voice!" I exclaimed. I stared back in the mirror, and pulled the most contorted face that was possible and laughed at myself.

Ron's door opened. We stared at each other. Except that he looked pale and shocked, Ron was indistinguishable from Crabbe, from the pudding-bowl haircut to the long, gorilla arms. 

"This is unbelievable," said Ron, approaching the mirror and prodding Crabbe's flat nose. "Unbelievable."

“I wish I had Colin’s camera right now,” I said, pulling a grotesque face. “Then I could take a few selfies and blackmail Pansy. That’d be swell.”