Yuletide Blessing

Imposter

It took the rest of the week for Harry and Hermione to master the switching spell silently and wandlessly. Harry checked his control of the spell by switching the contents of Snape's goblet with some pepper-up potion, "borrowed" from the hospital wing, during Sunday's dinner. Snape looked both funny and intimidating as smoke was coming out of his ears. Harry was not even looking in that direction, not willing to give his hated teacher the slightest cause to give him a detention.

It was also funny looking at the Weasley twins. Fred and George seemed to be jealous of whoever thought of that prank.

Hermione only tried it in a less spectacular way, switching Parvati's highly spiced rice with Lavender's bland one. None seemed to understand why their food suddenly tasted so wrong.

Harry would have moved forward to switch some of the contents in Moody's flask with the water in the vial he had in his pocket, yet Moody wasn't present at dinner.

Luckily, Moody was present at breakfast on Tuesday morning, just before they had Potions. Harry did the switching while Hermione kept the vial hidden. She only looked at it after leaving the Great Hall.

"I'm sure this is Polyjuice potion!" she said.

"How can you be so sure?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Have I not brewed it during our second year? That's not something I can easily forget; I don't think I'll ever forget anything about it. You should have known by now!"

Harry felt well humbled. "Of course, dear. What should we do now?"

Hermione thought for a moment. "Just to be double sure, I think I'll ask Professor Snape to identify it. I don't think you should be present, though."

"Well... I think you'll be safe enough with him for now, and I'd rather not stay near him any longer than strictly needed."

Snape didn't need more than a sniff to identify the potion, "Where have you found it?" he asked.

"I had to re-lace my shoes. When I sat on the stairs to do it, I noticed this vial on the stand of one of the statues. I didn't think it was safe to leave it there," Hermione improvised, not looking Snape in the eyes.

He seemed to have believed her. "Good thinking, Lady Potter. This is certainly not safe to let float around. I'll have it destroyed immediately."

"Thank you, professor. I was sure you'd understand."

Harry was waiting at the other side of the door. "Well?"

"Just what I thought – Polyjuice."

"What do you think this means?"

"Isn't that obvious? Professor Moody is an imposter."

"Shouldn't we tell somebody?"

"Who would you tell?"

Harry started thinking. "I can't really trust Dumbledore, not after all we've currently learned about him. I'm not sure if we can trust any of the school staff, for that matter. They all look up to Dumbledore and would do nothing against his will."

He stopped and pondered the problem some more. "I don't think we can tell anybody right now. We should try to catch the imposter ourselves and then call the aurors. It won't work any other way."

Hermione didn't like the idea, but after thinking some more, she had to agree that this was the most effective plan, if they would be able to carry it.

They had double DADA on Thursday afternoon, just before dinner. Hermione had already transfigured a small stone into a flask, a bit larger than Moody's. She then brewed a strong sleeping drought in their bathroom, which had enough space to spare. This simple potion only took her about an hour to brew, unlike the Plyjuice, which needed weeks to get ready. It also had immediate effect and was guaranteed not to interfere with all common potions.

Harry had already known from experience that Moody used to take a few sips from his flask about half an hour into the lesson and then an hour later. He waited for the first time to pass and switched the contents of the flasks a few minutes later.

Almost an hour passed before Moody took the flask to his lips again. He took a big sip and swallowed. His eyes opened wide in alarm but only for a fraction of a second, as they closed immediately and he collapsed down, letting his flask fall from his hand.

Harry didn't wait. He jumped up to the teacher's desk and addressed everybody: "Please stay calm. I'm sure this is only some kind of prank. Professor Moody is just asleep, so I think he will be fine, after he wakes up."

The Ravenclaw students were loath to waste their time waiting there. "I think you may leave, if you want to. Whatever put him to sleep, it will probably take him some time to wake up. By then, the lesson will be over."

All the Ravens left at once, as did most of the others.

"Now, please watch the professor closely. I think you may witness something interesting," he then said to the remaining Gryffindors. It only took a few minutes before the Polyjuice potion's effect was fading, making the imposter regain his natural form. As soon as it was clear that the person slumbering on the floor was not Moody, Hermione used a spell to tie him hard while Harry sent his patronus with a message for the head auror, before stunning the sleeping person, just to be on the safe side.

The rest was trivial. The aurors recognized the imposter immediately. He was interrogated under veritaserum, courtesy of Snape, in the presence of Dumbledore and McGonagal, as well as Hermione and Harry, who used his Lord privileges to be present, despite Dumbledore's objections.

The imposter, found out to be Barty Crouch Junior, spilled out all that he knew, incriminating his father as well. Harry was appalled to find that the whole complex scheme was intended to make sure he would be sent to some place where Wormtail would help Voldemort resurrect, so that the Dark Lord would finally be able to kill Harry.

As this was concerning him personally, Harry used his Lord privileges to request complete secrecy, letting only the head of the DMLE know about the incident. The official report would state that Professor Moody didn't feel well and collapsed during the lesson, causing an alarm among the students. Some oblivators made sure none of the students present remembered the event.

Dumbledore and McGonagal rescued the real Moody from his trunk, where he had been kept since the beginning of the school year, and moved him to the hospital wing. This was even fitting the cover story.

Madam Bones set the DMLE to search for Crouch senior, who was supposedly under Imperius curse. Although what he had done under Imperius could not be blamed on him, releasing his son from prison was a crime all by itself.

"I'll give you any political and financial support," Harry promised her.

"That can make a big change," she agreed, "despite the minister undermining every initiative we take."

"Don't you know who his main backers and advisers are? At least Malfoy is known to be a Death Eater. You need to find an excuse to interrogate him under veritaserum and you'll find out he is a cheat, a liar and a murderer, at least. I suspect you'll find more than a bit about bribery and improper conduct as well," Harry said.

"That may be a bit difficult, but bribery... Hmmm... That could give us the proper excuse for veritaserum, and with your political support, the Wizengamot will have no way to cover up such misdeeds. I'm going to try this as soon as we finish our current crisis with Crouch."