“There'll be a way around that,”

“There'll be a way around that,” said Harry dismissively. “You've done brilliantly, Dobby.”

“Kreacher's done well too,” said Hermione kindly; but far from looking grateful, Kreacher averted his huge, bloodshot eyes and croaked at the ceiling, “The Mudblood

is speaking to Kreacher, Kreacher will pretend he cannot hear —”

“Get out of it,” Harry snapped at him, and Kreacher made one last deep bow and Disapparated. “You'd better go and get some sleep too, Dobby.”

“Thank you, Harry Potter, sir!” squeaked Dobby happily, and he too vanished.

“How good is this?” said Harry enthusiastically, turning to Ron and Hermione the moment the room was elf-free again. “We know where Malfoy's going! We've got him

cornered now!”

“Yeah, it's great,” said Ron glumly, who was attempting to mop up the sodden mass of ink that had recently been an almost completed essay. Hermione pulled it toward

her and began siphoning the ink off with her wand.

“But what's all this about him going up there with a ‘variety of students'?” said Hermione. “How many people are in on it? You wouldn't think he'd trust lots of

them to know what he's doing...”

“Yeah, that is weird,” said Harry, frowning. “I heard him telling Crabbe it wasn't Crabbe's business what he was doing... so what's he telling all these... all

these...”

Harry's voice tailed away; he was staring at the fire. “God, I've been stupid,” he said quietly. “It's obvious, isn't it? There was a great vat of it down in the

dungeon... he could've nicked some any time during that lesson...”

“Nicked what?” said Ron.

“Polyjuice Potion. He stole some of the Polyjuice Potion Slughorn showed us in our first Potions lesson... There aren't a whole variety of students standing guard for

Malfoy... it's just Crabbe and Goyle as usual.... yeah, it all fits!” said Harry, jumping up and starting to pace in front of the fire. “They're stupid enough to do

what they're told even if he won't tell them what he's up to ... but he doesn't want them to be seen lurking around outside the Room of Requirement, so he's got them

taking Polyjuice to make them look like other people... those two girls I saw him with when he missed Quidditch—ha! Crabbe and Goyle!”

“Do you mean to say,” said Hermione in a hushed voice, “that that little girl whose scales I repaired —?”

“Yeah, of course!” said Harry loudly, staring at her. “Of course! Malfoy must've been inside the room at the time, so she—what am I talking about?—he dropped the

scales to tell Malfoy not to come out, because there was someone there! And there was that girl who dropped the toadspawn too! We've been walking past him all the time

and not realizing it!”

“He's got Crabbe and Goyle transforming into girls?” guffawed Ron. “Blimey... no wonder they don't look too happy these days. I'm surprised they don't tell him to

stuff it...”

“Well, they wouldn't, would they, if he's shown them his Dark Mark?” said Harry.

“Hmmm... the Dark Mark we don't know exists,” said Hermione skeptically, rolling up Ron's dried essay before it could come to any more harm and handing it to him.

“We'll see,” said Harry confidently.