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Chapter 233: Drunken Darren?!!
At Hogwarts' Christmas dinner, everyone ate to their fill.
After the meal, Darren drank a few glasses of eggnog Hermione had slipped to him.
It tasted… fine, he supposed.
But the alcohol content was surprisingly strong.
Still, the moment it touched Darren's tongue, he quietly used magic to neutralize the alcohol.
He was just about to reach for more food when he caught Hermione staring at him in a way she clearly thought was subtle.
Harry and Ron were doing the same.
…Oh.
He understood instantly.
They were trying to get him drunk so they could sneak into the Slytherin common room.
So that's where Hermione got the eggnog.
Students were allowed to drink it, technically.
But he hadn't expected her to steal it specifically for him…
As a little Holy Father, of course he couldn't possibly get drunk from a few glasses.
Darren sighed inwardly and began rubbing his head like he had a terrible headache.
"Darren, what's wrong?"
Hermione hurried over, pretending to sound casual, but clearly tense.
Darren sighed again.
This Hermione was nowhere near the mature girl she would become—she was still easy to read, especially when she was plotting something.
But as a little Holy Father, he couldn't possibly imagine she had intentionally fed him alcohol.
So he just shook his head, put on a pained expression, and murmured, "I feel… dizzy…"
Before Hermione could respond, he let his eyes roll shut and collapsed straight into her arms.
"Okay—let's go!"
Hermione immediately hooked an arm around him and rushed him out of the hall.
"Put Darren in our dorm. No one's in there right now," Harry whispered nervously as the three of them hurried through the corridors.
They were planning to sneak into Slytherin tonight using Polyjuice Potion.
Hermione was going to impersonate Darren, which meant Darren couldn't be seen anywhere near the Slytherin common room.
They moved quickly and carefully.
Thankfully, most students were still in the Great Hall, and no one stopped them.
Otherwise, with the way they looked… people might suspect Death Eaters roaming the halls.
"What do we do now?"
The moment they set Darren down, all three began panicking again.
The thought of entering the Slytherin common room as Darren was insane—and if they were caught, Darren could get in trouble too.
"So what's your plan then?"
"If we don't go now, students will start returning. And if someone sees Darren—do you want him expelled?"
Hermione snapped, glaring at Harry and Ron.
Darren hadn't been coming to Gryffindor much lately.
Some students were scared of him, and he didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable, so he would retreat early to the Slytherin dorms.
Just imagining Darren sitting alone in that cold, hostile common room made Hermione's heart twist.
No one would talk to him.
They'd sneer, or mock, or outright blame him.
But mostly… they'd ignore him.
That kind of coldness—she'd felt it before. She didn't want Darren to suffer it too.
"Whether you two go or not, I will!"
Hermione declared.
She strode to Darren and gently plucked a single strand of his hair.
"Why do you have to pull his hair?" Harry asked, shocked.
"To become Darren, obviously I need a part of him. Don't look at me like that—I'm not harvesting organs, it's just hair!"
Ron and Harry stared at her as if she'd grown horns.
It finally hit them—they would have to drink Crabbe and Goyle's hair.
"Why don't I be Darren? We're twins, so it's—"
"Enough! Do you want me to impersonate Crabbe or Goyle instead? Do you think I could pull that off?" Hermione snapped.
Then she stormed out of the Gryffindor common room.
"Hurry up! We still have to knock out Goyle and Crabbe!"
She marched ahead.
Ron narrowed his eyes.
"She can't impersonate Crabbe or Goyle, but we can? Let's just be Darren! At least we're all blokes!"
Complaints aside, they followed her out.
Knocking out Crabbe and Goyle was easy.
They were gluttons, and Hermione offered each of them a slice of cake laced with Sleeping Draught.
They gobbled them up instantly.
By the time they dragged the unconscious boys into a nearby storage closet, the three were panting and sweating.
But their nerves were still worse than their exhaustion.
"Hurry, put their hair in!"
Each of them held a cup.
Inside was a Polyjuice Potion—thick, black, sludge-like. It looked like poison.
"Relax! I followed the recipe perfectly," Hermione said, tossing Darren's hair into her cup.
The potion hissed loudly, then turned a soft sky blue—beautiful, actually.
"If mine turns that color, I might drink it more willingly," Ron muttered.
He dropped Crabbe's hair into his own cup.
Harry added Goyle's hair into his.
Harry's turned a muddy yellow.
Ron's became an ugly brownish-black.
"Ugh! You expect me to drink this?" Ron gagged.
Harry nearly dropped his cup altogether.
Surely Polyjuice wasn't supposed to look that poisonous…
"Hurry up—mine's fine, really. And you two—quickly change into Crabbe and Goyle's robes. Once the potion works, you'll look exactly like them."
Hermione calmly drank her sky-blue potion.
She smacked her lips.
"It's a little sweet. Kind of like cake with jam."
Then she pulled out clothes from her bag and darted into the bathroom stall.
"Darren's clothes?! How do you even have those?" Harry yelped.
"Just—drink your potion!" Hermione yelled back in frustration.
Ron snorted. "She's not old enough for menopause yet, but she's getting there."
He stared into his cup, gagging.
"Maybe mine's sweet too. Maybe. Jam flavor—ugh—"
He forced it down, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep it from coming back up.
"Harry—just pour it straight down. Don't taste it."
Ron was already tugging off Crabbe's robes.
His body was swelling, stretching—his old clothes wouldn't fit.
"I should've fought harder to be Darren," Harry cried sadly. "Drinking his hair would've been way easier than this!"
But he pinched his nose and swallowed Goyle's Polyjuice anyway.
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