Dinner arrived much too soon for Amisty's liking.
She was tense as soon as she walked into the Great Hall. The Christmas carolling led by Dumbledore and Percy's bewitched 'Pinhead' badge had done their share in calming her down, but it wasn't enough to rid all of her nerves.
Hermione was just as stiff, dragging the three of them out of the hall just as they had finished.
"We still need a bit of the people you're changing into. And obviously, it'll be best if you can get something of Crabbe and Goyle's; they're Malfoy's best friends, he'll tell them anything. And we also need to make sure the real Crabbe and Goyle can't burst in on us while we're interrogating him," She explained, continuing without a beat as she pulled out two identical chocolate cakes. "I've got it all worked out. I've filled these with a simple Sleeping Draught. All you have to do is make sure Crabbe and Goyle find them. You know how greedy they are, they're bound to eat them. Once they're asleep, pull out a few of their hairs and hide them in a broom closet."
"Hermione, I don't think -- " Harry started, with Ron's, "That could go seriously wrong -- " overlapping.
"The potion will be useless without Crabbe's and Goyle's hair. You do want to investigate Malfoy, don't you?" She replied, brown eyes steely.
"Oh, alright, alright. But what about you two? Whose hair are you ripping out?" Harry asked, sighing in a mixture of disgust and defeat.
"I've already got mine!" Hermione smiled, pulling out a bottle from her robes with a hair inside it. "Remember Millicent Bulstrode wrestling with me at the Dueling Club? She left this on my robes when she was trying to strangle me! And she's gone home for Christmas -- so I'll just have to tell the Slytherins I've decided to come back."
"And you?" Ron asked Amisty, raising an eyebrow.
"The potion won't work with me, so I'll be following along as a wolf," She shrugged, giving a mischievous sort of grin.
Hermione ran off to check on the potion, insisting Amisty help the boys in case they messed something up.
The second her robes disappeared from vision, Ron turned to the both of them, "Have you ever heard of a plan where so many things could go wrong?"
Amisty laughed lightly and led them toward the entrance hall.
It was very slowly emptying out, and soon enough Crabbe and Goyle were the only two left in the Great Hall.
The boys balanced the two cakes Hermione had provided on the banister and then, once their targets left, hid behind a suit of armor.
"How thick can you get?" Ron asked quietly, a bright glow in his blue eyes as they watched them pick up the cakes and shove them into their mouths.
Within seconds, they fell to the ground, asleep. The three of them hurried toward the unconscious figures, dragging them along the floor and into a closet by the hall.
It was harder than they had expected. They were as heavy as they looked, but they did it. Harry grabbed a stub of Goyle's hair, and Ron from Crabbe, and Amisty picked up their shoes, wrinkling her nose.
Holding one hand over her mouth to keep from breathing in the foul stench, she gestured desperately for Harry and Ron to hurry.
They got her hint, thankfully, and they rushed up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
When Amisty opened the door she could barely make out anything through the black smoke that pumped from the stall with the cauldron.
"Hermione?" She asked, knocking on the door and suppressing a cough as the smoke flooded her lungs.
Her brown haired friend slid the lock and opened the door, looking excited and almost glowing.
"Did you get them?" She asked expectantly, her eyes bright. The boys held up their hands, showing the strands of hair they had collected. "Good. And I sneaked these spare robes out of the laundry. You'll need bigger sizes once you're Crabbe and Goyle."
Amisty stood on her tiptoes, peering into the stall to catch a glimpse of the bubbling potion.
"I'm sure I've done everything right. It looks like the book says it should... once we've drunk it, we'll have exactly an hour before we change back into ourselves," Hermione piped up, noticing her gaze and rereading the book.
"Now what?" Ron asked, easily seeing over all their heads.
"We separate it into three glasses and add the hairs," Hermione replied, picking up a ladle and pouring equal portions into three glasses.
Once she finished, she dropped the hair she had gotten in one. A few seconds passed, the potion hissed and turned a greyish yellow.
"Urgh -- essence of Millicent Bulstrode. Bet it tastes disgusting," Ron groaned, eyeing the bottle with a narrowed gaze.
"Add yours, then," Hermione ordered, sounding only the slightest bit peeved with his tone. So they did, both bottles fizzing and then turning khaki-green and a dark brown. Suddenly Amisty was glad she didn't have to drink any of the potion.
"Hang on. We'd better not drink them in here... Once we turn into Crabbe and Goyle we won't fit. And Millicent Bulstrode's no pixie," Harry protested, stopping the other two form picking up their own glasses.
"Good thinking. We'll take separate stalls," Ron nodded, walking out of the stall with Harry following.
Amisty waited in Hermione's stall, knowing she had yet to find a way to shift on her own.
Hermione pulled out her wand, giving a small smile at her as she did so.
"Lupus Estaria," She whispered softly, and once again Amisty was blinded by the familiar white light.
And then she was lower to the ground, with paws instead of feet, and her senses heightened.
Twitching her ears in thanks, she slipped out through the bottom of the stall. She leaped up onto the middle sink, taking a seat on the, still dirty, but slightly less nasty edge, her tail dangling off the edge.
At least it was better than the floor.
"Ready?" Harry's voice came from the middle stall. Amisty could see all their feet through the bottoms of the stalls.
"Ready," Ron and Hermione's voices replied in unison.
"One -- two -- three -- " Harry continued, and his words were followed by the distinct sound of swallowing.
Cloth ripped noisily, cracking noises flooding the room, and then it all stopped after there was a muffled thump.
All three had fallen to the floor at some point during their transformation.
"Are you two okay?" Goyle -- no, Harry, asked. Amisty nearly fell off the sink at the sound of his voice, so before she could be more overwhelmed she jumped to the ground.
"Yeah," And then that was Ron, not Crabbe, who replied.
Two sets of doors unlocked and out stepped Malfoy's goons, almost sending Amisty racing out of the bathroom if she hadn't remembered they were indeed her friends.
"This is unbelievable. Unbelievable," Ron muttered, staring into the cracked mirror with wide eyes as he poked and prodded Crabbe's face.
"We'd better get going. We've still got to find out where the Slytherin common room is. I only hope we can find someone to follow..." Harry replied, looking over to Hermione's stall.
"You don't know how bizarre it is to see Goyle thinking," Ron commented, earning a soft snort of laughter from Amisty, before knocking harshly on Hermione's door, "C'mon, we need to go -- "
"I -- I don't think I'm going to come after all. You go on without me," Hermione replied, her voice a few octaves too high to be deemed casual.
"Hermione, we know Millicent Bulstrode's ugly, no one's going to know it's you -- " Ron replied, rolling his eyes slightly.
"No -- really -- I don't think I'll come. You two hurry up, you're wasting time -- " Hermione protested.
Amisty was just about to squeeze through the bottom of the stall yet again when Hermione's shoe stopped her.
"That looks more like Goyle. That's how he looks every time a teacher asks him a question," Ron's voice barely registered to her as she tried to find a way to wiggle past the makeshift blockade Hermione had put in place.
"Hermione, are you okay?" Harry asked, once he noticed Amisty was getting nowhere with her attempts at sneaking in.
"Fine -- I'm fine -- go on -- " She replied hastily, but it was clear she was far from being fine.
Amisty pawed at Hermione's shoes, her claws almost getting caught in the long fabric of her cloak.
Her friend didn't budge.
"We'll meet you back here, alright?" Harry replied after checking his watch anxiously.
Amisty looked up at him, concerned.
He gave a helpless sort of shrug, there was no way they would be getting in her stall. So instead of pressuring her further, they headed out of the bathroom.
Immediately Amisty drifted into the shadows, her green eyes luminous in the dark light. On the hunt for a Malfoy.
"Don't swing your arms like that," Harry muttered through the side of his mouth to Ron, who was walking as he usually did.
"Eh?" Ron whispered back, raising an eyebrow.
Well, they certainly were doing good jobs at imitating the cluelessness of the two boys they were pretending to be.
"Crabbe holds them sort of stiff..." Harry replied, subtly showing him as he straightened his own.
"How's this?" Ron asked, holding them straight and stuff, almost just like how Crabbe did it.
"Yeah, that's better," Harry nodded minusculely, and they continued on in nervous silence.
"Any ideas?" Harry asked as they waited at the bottom of a marble staircase for a Slytherin to pass by.
Amisty, keeping careful to stay out of sight of anyone who wasn't paying too much attention, crept the slightest bit closer to them.
Her eyes dulled in their glow as she came away from the darkness, though they were still bright.
"The Slytherins always come up to breakfast from over there," Ron replied, giving a small nod to the dungeon entrance.
A girl, almost right as he finished talking, walked through. Amisty shot back into the darkness of the corridor, turning her head so her eyes weren't visible.
Ron walked toward her, well, it looked like Crabbe walked toward her, "Excuse me. We've forgotten the way to our common room."
"I beg your pardon? Our common room? I'm a Ravenclaw," She replied coldly with her chin high, throwing both boys a suspicious glance over her shoulder as she walked away.
Amisty scurried after Harry and Ron, who had rushed down the stone steps into the darkness of the dungeon corridors after the girl had left.
Their footsteps were monstrously loud, but it wasn't too surprising. Crabbe and Goyle, being the giants they were, naturally would make a clamor wherever they went.
It seemed to take forever before they had found anything, wandering around aimlessly through the cold, empty corridors.
She thought back to the warm Gryffindor common room sadly, desperate to head back even with her thick black coat to keep her warm. That is, until there was movement.
"Ha! There's one of them now!" Ron exclaimed, and they all picked up their pace. Unfortunately, it wasn't a Slytherin, it was Percy.
"What're you doing down here?" Ron asked, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't himself.
"That is none of your business. It's Crabbe isn't it?" Percy replied, just as cold and stiff as the Ravenclaw girl.
"Wh -- oh, yeah," Ron replied, fixing his mistake quickly before he blew their entire mission.
"Well, get off to your dormitories. It's not safe to go wandering around dark corridors these days," Percy's voice was dripping with authority.
"You are," Ron challenged, once again forgetting that he was Crabbe and not Ron Weasley.
"I am a prefect. Nothing's about to attack me," Percy countered with pride, lifting his chin.
"There you are. Have you two been pigging out in the Great Hall all this time? I've been looking for you; I want to show you something really funny," And then Draco rounded the corner.
Amisty backed up, trying to get even further into the darkness even though she was already well hidden.
He looked up at Percy with a sneer, "And what're you doing down here, Weasley?"
"You want to show a bit more respect to a school prefect! I don't like your attitude!" Percy replied, furious.
Malfoy just smirked and gestured for Harry and Ron to follow him. After a quick glance to make sure Percy hadn't spotted her, she scrambled after them.
"That Peter Weasley -- " Draco started, only for Ron to interrupt him as they rounded the next corner.
"Percy," Ron corrected, barely keeping his annoyance from his tone.
"Whatever. I noticed him sneaking around a lot lately. And I bet I know what he's up to. He thinks he's going to catch Slytherin's heir single-handed," He waved his hand, brushing away Ron's words.
Amisty felt a low growl build in her throat, but she fought it down, instead opting for the digging her claws into the stone floor option instead.
Unfortunately, the floor wasn't the quietest thing either, and a loud scraping noise filled the hall.
She froze in place, pleading and hoping that it went unnoticed. It was obvious they all had heard it, though, as all three of them stiffened.
Draco turned around slowly, his eyes immediately finding hers in the darkness.
She tried, even though she knew her attempts would be hopeless, to delve deeper into the shadows.
"Grab her," He ordered, a familiar glint in his steely grey eyes.
Amisty felt panic overwhelm her as Harry stepped forward, his apology clear as day in his eyes.
She wouldn't be taken without a fight, however, and immediately scrambled backwards, claws clicking against the stones.
Footsteps pounded after her, and it didn't take long for them to only be a few paces behind. She pushed herself to run raster, desperately trying to escape with her tail like the streak of a black comet behind her.
Unfortunately, Draco knew the dungeons better than her, and when she rounded the corner she ran right into his grasp.
She let out a strangled yelp as her paws left the ground, squirming around feverishly as what happened sunk in. She glared furiously up at Draco, battering his arms with her paws.
If it affected him he didn't let it show.
"You need to learn to stop your eavesdropping," He shook his head as he carried her back to where they had previously been standing.
Harry and Ron shot her regretful looks, having to keep it quick as Draco started speaking. Her attempts at escape never ceased.
"What's the new password again?" He asked, paying no heed to the squirming captive in his grasp as he looked over at Harry.
"Er -- " Harry started, looking slightly panicked for a split second. Thankfully Draco was paying just as much attention to his two 'friends' as he was to the girl -- wolf, in his arms.
"Oh, yeah -- pure-blood!" He called out, a door sliding open from the wall as soon as the words left his mouth.
Amisty stiffened immediately, the cold temperature and dark atmosphere of the Slytherin common room only enhancing her uneasiness.
Even with her thick black fur, the cold settled right in her bones, sending a shiver down her spine.
She nearly yelped in shock when Draco's grip tightened around her slightly, pulling her closer to his chest. For a boy so cold he had a high body temperature.
Even so, she only struggled more desperately.
There wasn't any way this could end well, warm or not.