t w e n t y - s e v e n

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“Okay, I am so sick of living in this library. Today better be our last day of this stupid little investigation. I do not want to spend Christmas in here, I repeat; I do not want to spend Christmas here. Are we clear?” Ginny questioned Blaise rhetorically and let out a deep breath. “Let’s just get this over with. I am so ready to wrap the Christmas presents and take a nice long bath.” She mumbled as she walked away to her usual spot.

“She’ll probably murder me if we don’t finish by tonight.” Blaise shuddered at the thought and shook his whole body. “ He ambled over to the table in the far back corner and took in a deep breath before walking towards the bookcase. “Might as well just choose a book while waiting for anything suspicious to happen . . .” He lifted his hand up in the air, moving his index finger across the spine of every book. He furrowed his eyebrows when he stopped at a very ominous black tattered book that didn’t quite seem to belong there. “I choose you.” He whispered as he grabbed the book off the shelf when a note suddenly slipped out. His eyes immediately caught the fallen note that landed on the ground. “I feel like I’m in a movie.” Blaise managed to say in the situation as he snatched up the note from the ground. He eagerly opened up the note and allowed his eyes to scan it as quickly as possible.

If we want the Polyjuice potion to work, get a strand of her hair. Then, we’ll be set for Christmas.

His eyes widened as he looked at the piece of note and almost dropped the note from astonishment. He looked down and examined the title of the mysterious book. “Potions . . .” He read and gripped tightly to the book, walking over to Madam Pince. “I was wondering if you could tell me who last checked out this book.” He asked as he showed her the book.

Madam Pince looked at the book and then back at Blaise. “How did you get this?” She asked, seizing the peculiar book away from Blaise.

“I found it over there on the bookshelf.” He answered, furrowing his eyebrows.

“We don’t carry this book in our library. Someone must’ve bought it at a bookstore in Diagon Alley and accidentally left it here. It’s not ours.” She said and studied Blaise for a long time. “Why are you in here? You and your pretty friend stayed in here for the whole day yesterday and the day before that, and so on. Are you planning on doing the same today?”

“We made a bet in the beginning of break on who could read the most books until Christmas. It’s a stupid bet, we—“ Blaise said with a nervous chuckle but got cut off.

“Just don’t make any loud noises or I’ll have to kick you out and oh, please do tell your friend to put the books back where she found them . . . neatly instead of shoving them into random places.” She told him with a glare.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, I’ll be sure to tell her that.” He said and looked at the book.

“I’ll be keeping this safe, don’t you worry. When the owner comes back, I’ll be sure to give it back to them. But in the mean time, it’ll be in my possession. Thank you for bringing this back.”

“Madam Pince, would it be possible if you could tell me when the owner comes by to pick it up? It’s urgent--personal reasons.” He quickly said as he looked up at the librarian.

“I suppose I can . . . only if you’re in here. I’m not going to leave this place and search the whole castle for you to tell you that someone picked up his or her book.” She scowled at him and dismissed him by looking back down the books.

“Right, thank you for your help.” Blaise said and walked over to Ginny with wide eyes.

“What did you find?” She asked as she looked around the place. She grabbed her book and cocked her head over to an empty aisle. She quickly walked over to the end of the aisle and looked around the library once more. “What happened?” She asked, shoving the book back into a random shelf.

“First, Madam Pince told me to tell you to start putting the books back in the right place neatly. I’m pretty sure she’ll kick you out if you don’t.” He told her with a smirk as he lightly laughed.

“Oh, shove it, Zabini.” She said with a frown as she grabbed the book back and sighed. “What if I don’t know where I found it?”

“I guess I’ll be the only one looking out for the spy with this new clue I found.” Blaise reasoned as he held up the note in front of Ginny.

“Alright! Alright! I’ll put it back.” Ginny surrendered and placed it back into the bookshelf. She turned to look at Blaise and saw him looking at her. “It’s the right place, promise.”

“I found something.”

“Obviously.” Ginny remarked with a scowl as she pointed to the note in his hand.

“A note, it’s not signed or anything but it does have something important.” He said as he handed Ginny the note.

Ginny quickly read it and looked back at Blaise, chewing on her bottom lip. “This can mean anything. It might be an old note from four years ago—“

“But I found it in a book, a really old black book. But the book doesn’t belong in this library.” He whispered to Ginny with a small grin. “This can mean only one thing.”

“Was the book called Potions, by any chance?” Ginny asked with wide eyes as she stared at him with uncertainty.

“How did you know?”

“And did it happen to have a few holes in the front?”

“Were you looking over at me when I was looking at it?” Blaise asked with wide eyes, furrowing his eyebrows. “And besides, that old thing had holes everywhere.”

“That’s my book.” Ginny said and looked over at Blaise. “I left that book under my bed back in my Gryffindor dormitory.” She said and furrowed her eyebrows, her body tensing up slowly. She crossed her arms across her chest. “That means that person’s been in my room.”

“It couldn’t have been a male student since there’s a charm on the girls’ dormitory. It has to be a girl and not just that, but a Gryffindor.” Blaise concluded and sighed as he leaned against the wall. “This person is one step ahead of us. Whose hair do you think they’re referring to?”