"Are you sure that's your brother's hair?" Dirk asked with raised eyebrows.

Esme nodded, "It came out of his head."

Piper folded her arms, "It could be someone else's, that brushed against him. You could end up as Professor Slughorn, or someone worse."

"I took this hair straight from his scalp myself. It was quite funny, really." Esme shrugged.

Dirk groaned, rubbing his temples, "Doesn't that give it away? You going up to Ignatius and pulling some hair out of his head... He'll know what we're up to."

"No." Esme shook her head, "We're siblings. That's exactly how everyone expects us to treat each other."

Piper nodded, "She does have a point."

"Yeah, well... Whatever, Avery." Dirk grumbled and folded his arms tightly in disapproval.

"I don't think I ever thanked you guys for helping me to brew this. So cheers." Esme held up her glass to the two before taking a deep breath and swallowing the cup's murky grey contents.

Piper pursed her lips, "I still think this is a little far to go for a prank."

"You have no idea." Dirk shook his head, not entirely impressed that Esme was making him keep the truth of her intentions hidden from Piper.

Esme smirked slightly, thoroughly pleased with herself. She knew Ignatius was in detention tonight and this provided the perfect opportunity for her to take his place in the Slytherin common room and interrogate Regulus as to what the Black family was really up to.

"Well... Down in one, as they say." Piper chuckled with a shake of her head.

Eyeing the grey concoction in her hands, Esme took a deep breath before tipping her head back and rolling the potion past her lips.

"Merlin's... Beard..."

"I think I'm going to be sick." Dirk winced as Esme's shaky hand dropped the cup down into the sink and squeezed her eyes shut.

One thing Esme had not accounted for when conjuring up this plan, was the fact that she was going to be in her brother's own body. Looking at herself in the mirror, she wanted to punch herself in the face. Ignatius' perfectly maintained hair and cocky face was staring straight back at her.

"Do you feel okay?" Piper questioned quietly.

"Oh no..." Esme muttered, her - or rather his - face turning pale, "Oh... no..."

"What?" Piper's eyes widened.

"What's wrong?" Dirk held his hands over his mouth.

Gulping, she replied, "I kind of need the toilet."

"Well... that might be karma for you." Dirk chuckled now, leaning back against the sink.

"Shut up Cresswell."

Half an hour later, Esme stood in a pristine Slytherin uniform outside of their common room. She looked up at the door and let out a huge sigh. In their hurry to get her plan rolling, she had completely forgotten about requiring the password to enter into the common room. The dim narrow corridors of the dungeons were laced with cold breezes nipping at her cheeks.

Perhaps this whole plan was eccentric and stupid.

"Come on Avery, the Slytherins can't be that smart." Esme grumbled to herself, rubbing her temples. Her thoughts running wild was beginning to give herself a headache, and this wasn't helped by her desperate need to go and throw up.

Then the sudden words that emanated from the shadows nearly caused the girl to jump.

"Avery! What are you doing, lurking about?"

Whipping around suddenly, Esme was face to face with none other than Regulus Black. Stumbling backwards, she gasped for air.

"Are you alright? What's up with you?" Regulus furrowed his eyebrows.

"N-nothing..." Esme stammered, "Mate. Nothing's up."

Folding his arms he replied, "Well, why are you stood out here then?"

Esme closed her eyes for a second, inhaling deeply to calm her nerves. She could do this.

"Clearly I don't know the password, do I? Snape always remembers it; I've got other things to think about." She shrugged nonchalantly, before remembering what her brother always did when he was being cocky. She attempted to show a lopsided smirk as she ran a hand through her newly quiffed hair.

"I'm not surprised." Regulus lowered his arms, glancing sideways at the figure of Ignatius, before shaking his head and stepping in front of the door. There was something niggling at him - Regulus was suspicious. Perhaps it was just because he was under the impression that everyone was scheming against him, but something was off with Ignatius. More than usual, anyway.

"Mudblood." Regulus mumbled to the door with slight unease before stepping back slightly as it creaked wide open, "I'm heading up to bed anyway." He stated bluntly.

Esme stumbled quickly after the boy into the common room, "Quick question. It'll just take a minute." Glancing around the room, she was in awe of how surprisingly elegant the room was. The spectacular view out into the Black lake almost distracted her from her train of thought.

"No stupid insult? You must be in a good mood." Regulus chuckled to himself slightly before leading the way to sit on one of the empty armchairs in front of the fire.

Esme gulped, reminding herself she needed to act like a comfortable Ignatius and not her nervous self. "That was almost funny, Black. I was just going to ask you to stop being such a bore for a minute and stay up past your mum's bedtime."

The younger boy narrowed his eyes, "Didn't you have a detention tonight?"

"Clearly not, if I'm right here." Esme quipped.

Regulus Black could be stubborn, argumentative, and even oblivious at times. However, Regulus Black was not stupid.

"You told me you had a detention this morning, I remember now. What happened?"

Esme scoffed, "Told the professor I already had a detention in a different lesson tonight so I couldn't make it. In case you also couldn't realise, that was a lie. Now what's with the interrogation?"

Regulus leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, "Just making conversation."

Her legs had began to tremble and Esme reached for the fabric of the cushion she was sat on to pick at the seams as an unconscious distraction. "Though..." She began slowly, "I did need to ask you a question."

"Yes."

"Have you heard anything from your parents?"

"About what?"

"Christmas."

"Not anything new since I last told you."

Esme had hit a wall. Regulus had already spoken to the real Ignatius about this. She couldn't pretend to have forgotten what had been said without risking giving away her identity. Regulus couldn't be suspicious, surely. But, as usual, Esme was underestimating the boy.

"Well..." Her mind was running at a million miles an hour before she came up with one way to possibly get some answers.

"What exactly haven't you told my sister?"

Leaning back with a smirk, Regulus once again folded his arm across his chest. Esme too, reclined in her seat, but without knowing it gave away another warning signal to him.

Spotting what she'd just done, Regulus was more suspicious than ever. The boy he sat opposite was clearly Ignatius, but was acting like someone else entirely.

Someone with wit, intelligence, confidence to trick him, but also nerve.

Ignatius was arrogant, cocky, and oblivious. Most certainly none of the aforementioned characteristics. And, the person before him had folded one leg over the other, almost like most women would do when sitting down. Certainly not how Ignatius ever sat.

Regulus shook his head; he was going insane. The whole pressure of his family and the secrets swirling around were finally getting to him. Perhaps his sleep deprivation was causing him to lose the plot. Ignatius was weird, and clearly he was just in an extremely weird mood tonight.

"I haven't told her I don't actually know. Esme thinks I know what's going on even though you and I both know I don't. You're still the only one in the loop." Regulus shrugged with stifling a yawn, "You're still the only one that knows what's going on." he muttered disapprovingly, under his breath.

"Oh." Esme's voice came out more high pitched than expected, "I-I mean... Good. Can't have her knowing anything."

He hummed in restrained agreement, growing frustrated that he wasn't trusted enough by his own family to be told what was going on over the Christmas holidays.

Then it hit him.

To Regulus, it finally made so much sense why Esme was so angry all the time. She was kept in the dark as much as he was, and even worse, her family wasn't around to offer support.

"I did think of one thing though. Now, I know this is stupid and you'll laugh. I just thought of it today when reading the Daily Prophet and can't get it out of my head. Ignatius, at the end of summer I heard my father in his study talking to someone that I hadn't even realised had come over. I tried to eavesdrop because mother wouldn't tell me who the visitor was." Regulus leaned forward, sitting on the edge of his seat.

He was desperate for answers and if this was what it took to get Ignatius to tell him, Regulus would spill any secrets of his parents that he knew. Regulus was done with being kept out of the loop.

"Go on." Esme leant forward now, a glimmer growing in her eyes at the prospect of some progress in finding out the truth.

"I didn't hear much. What I did hear, might not even be true. But whoever my father was talking to in there, he called them a..." Regulus peered around the empty room before lowering his voice anyway, "A Death Eater."

Just like that, Esme's world turned upside down.

"S-sounds good... Black... I-I-I've got to go. Left my... er... book up in transfiguration. Really need it." Esme stammered, face draining of all colour as she clambered to her feet.

She had heard about Death Eaters over the past couple of months, they had been all over the headlines terrorising wizards and muggles alike.

Without knowing it, this one whisper would bind Esme and Regulus together on a journey they would never forget.

For them, this was the first step into the first wizarding war.

-

A/N

i would like to dedicate this update to AeliaNaqvi7 and the kind words they said to me about this book