It was a bright, sunny sky reflected on the ceiling of the great hall that morning. A cursory glance upward and one might assume they were in for a pleasant day. However, with further inspection, one might've noticed the storm clouds brewing off to the west end of the head table, indicating a bit of trouble weather-wise and otherwise, as it would turn out, for Avery Stone, who was so engrossed in conversation, she had hardly bothered to look up and see the storm heading right for her.

Sitting at the Hufflepuff table at the far right of the Great Hall was an assortment of students, including Miss Stone, who was sporting a long, wavy, straw colored length of hair today, when only just yesterday it had been nary an inch past her earlobes and bright blue. She was currently leaning across the table, talking animatedly with a visiting, rather distressed looking Ravenclaw.

"Detention? With Snape? Hm, best I could do would be five galleons, I'm afraid," she said with a shrug and a smile. She normally tried to keep her prices below a galleon or two, but scrubbing the cauldrons in Snape's classroom would be absolutely dreadful, and she was hoping to buy a new broom before quidditch tryouts, so it was a price to help kill two birds with one stone.

"Five galleons! You cleaned Seamus' trophies for two!" exclaimed the Ravenclaw, his cloak sliding down his shoulders, running his hand through his already messy mop of hair.

"Yeah, but that was working with Filch, an absolute joy compared to Snape. Last time I covered a detention with him, I ended up there all night cataloging potion ingredients. No. It'll be five galleons or your hide, mate. Sorry. It's the best I can do."

The Ravenclaw, a boy by the name of Dennis Aldermaston, gave Avery an exasperated look, too which she replied with a shrug, turning her attention to her toast and marmalade, assuming her price was too high and he wasn't going to agree. She felt it was a relatively fair price, and with a broomstick on the line, she wasn't willing to budge, especially since she had heard a few others were given the same detention for the incident on the train and if Dennis didn't take the deal, one of them might.

"Okay. Five galleons," he sighed, thrusting his hands deep in the pockets of his cloak and collecting the change, which he handed to Avery, who then tucked it into hers.

"Thanks very much. Now, when and where exactly?"

"Tonight in the dungeons. He said to arrive at 7," Dennis replied.

"Alright, let me just take note of your features, then," Avery replied, digging a quill out of her bag. Staring intently at Dennis, she made note of the way his nostrils flared a bit too much and the prominent line of freckles along his jaw, which she rather liked. She continued to stare at them, each one smaller than the last, trailing from the edge of his jaw down to his chin.

"Starting a bit early, aren't you?" he said after a few minutes.

"What's that?" Avery asked quizzically, losing her focus.

"You've got my freckles," he said, gesturing to the right side of her jaw, where a line of freckles identical to his had appeared.

"Oh, sorry," she chuckled. She began to concentrate hard until her skin returned to its normal ivory color. After his freckles had vanished from her face, she continued to stare, long and critically at him and his somewhat awkward, lanky, 5th year frame, wanting to make sure her replication would be one Snape and the other students serving detention wouldn't question. The longer she looked, the more imperfections she noticed, like a plethora of untrimmed nose hair and the way his left eye was just a touch lazy and drooped to the right, and finally, she decided she had had enough.

"Alright then, shouldn't be a problem. I'll owl you an update, and your clothes, of course. Otherwise, enjoy your free night tonight, and stay out of sight," she said, placing her quill and parchment back into her bag.

"Thanks, Avery. I appreciate it," Dennis said, standing and handing her some of his Ravenclaw Robes, and moving back to the Ravenclaw table with a wave. She shoved his robes into his bag, glancing about to see if anyone had noticed the exchange, and luckily the few students that were around her seemed to be all to engaged in breakfast and catching up with classmates to notice her and her dealings.

"All that cunning and not being sorted into Slytherin. I'll never understand it," her friend Marilyn scoffed beside her as she spooned herself porridge and skimmed The Prophet.

"Perhaps I wasn't quite this cunning three years ago. Perhaps I should be resorted. I've always said that eleven seems way too early to be sorted; you've hardly become yourself by that time. It'd be much more accurate if we were sorted at fifteen or sixteen," Avery mused, turning back to her toast.

"Perhaps we should be resorted every year," Marilyn added, although she didn't really seem to be paying much attention to the conversation. Marilyn had dark brown hair and eyes to match with rather pale skin and a dusting of freckles across her cheeks. They had been friends since they first began at Hogwarts, and this was usually how things went between them; Avery doing something questionable and Marilyn commenting on her loosely moraled behaviour but not stopping it for the most part.

"Maybe. Might liven things up a bit," Avery agreed, finishing her toast and dusting the crumbs from her hand, reaching for her bag just as Marilyn reached for her own.

"We've had bloody You-Know-Who here two out of the two years we've been at Hogwarts and you think things need livening up?" Marilyn scoffed again, and Avery smiled, but chose not to reply, as they started off for Divination, their first class of their third year together. In class, Trelawney, a rather unusual professor, predicted that Avery should "beware red haired men." However, Avery laughed it off, just like she laughed off her reading of Harry Potter's tea leaves, which she insisted looked just like a grim. Little did she knew just how accurate her prediction had been or how those storm clouds were slowly making their way just over her head.

That night at six forty-five, Avery made her way down the stairs of the entrance hall and towards the dungeons where the night's detention would be held, although, anyone who saw her on her path would not have recognized her. Dressed in the robes Dennis had lent her that morning and donning his short sandy hair, flared nostrils and freckled jaw, Avery was about to enter and complete Dennis' detention in his place. And as long as she didn't have to talk too much, no one would be the wiser.

Very few people knew that Avery would often assume the identity of other students in order to help them evade the unpleasant; she had often covered detentions, preformed awkward break-ups, or feigned interest at parties they didn't want to go to but didn't want to be caught missing. And it was one of the few well kept secrets of Hogwarts because if she was ever caught the students who used her would no longer be able to take advantage of her services. And Avery didn't mind, either, since they were willing to pay.

So it was into Snape's class she stepped, letting her cloak slide off her shoulders slightly in the way Dennis did, her hair ruffled like his had been that morning. In the class already waiting was her fellow Hufflepuff Jeffery Talbot, looking rather pale and jittery. She took a seat at the table adjacent to him, leaning forward onto the table. It had been a long first day, and she wasn't much looking forward to detention, despite the large sum of money it was for.

"Alright there, Dennis?" Jeffery asked, looking not very alright himself. Avery nodded instead of voicing a reply; the less she talked, the better. While she could easily make herself look like anyone she wanted, her voice was a different story.

Avery knew Snape made Jeffery incredibly anxious; Jeffery hated losing house points. It made him feel like he was letting everyone down and caused him a great deal of guilt and it occurred to Avery he must have been dreading this night even more than she was. She wished briefly that Jeffery had asked her to take his place; she would have done it for free knowing how anxious it made him. But, it was too late now and there was no sense in worrying about it.

Just then, the door to Snape's office opened and he stalked inside, scanning the room like a vulture, just waiting to pick them apart. Jeffery visibly swallowed.

"And where are the Weasley twins?" Snape wondered aloud, tutting their tardiness. "I suppose it'll have to be ten points from Gryffindor."

Like clockwork, Fred and George ambled into the room just as the last word left Snape's mouth, making to take seats at the table behind Avery. They made no comment on their lateness or the points they had lost, but then again losing points because of Snape was nothing new to them. They frequently lost points for their house and no one seemed to care all that much; the Twins, though incorrigibly mischievous were ridiculously charming and therefore popular. Or so Avery had observed from afar and heard from her fellow students who knew them; she had never actually met them herself, being two years younger than they and in a different house.

"That won't be necessary," Snape began, "your punishment will begin immediately," waving his had impatiently as the twins had begun to pull chairs out. They stopped as Avery and Jeffery stood from their own seats.

"You'll be scrubbing these cauldrons clean. No magic whatsoever," he said, gesturing to a pile of sickly looking cauldrons, beside which was a bin containing several scrubbing sponges and bottles of Mrs. Skower's All-purpose Magical Mess Remover. Groaning, the three fifth years and the one fifth year impersonator grabbed a cauldron each and set to work while Snape sat a few feet away from them at his desk, seeming to be going over lesson plans and occasionally glaring in their direction when the twins began talking too loudly.

"So he tracked me down in the bloody bathroom and was whispering Quidditch strategy to me through the door. Honestly, it's only the first day and Wood is already acting like a madman," Fred was telling Jeffery in a whisper, who chuckled politely but was too afraid of Snape's frequent glances to comment.

"Think if we nicked a calming draught from the hospital wing we could slip it in his pumpkin juice each morning? I'd like to just enjoy quidditch this year without Wood hounding me in between classes," George asked his twin.

"Excellent idea, George," Fred replied, grinning broadly. Avery couldn't help but watch them as they joked back and forth to one another quietly. Not only did they seem clever and interesting, but they were both well built and handsome with strong jaws and deep, hazel eyes. She very much liked their eyes in particular, staring at George's in a way she hoped wasn't too noticeable while he scrubbed the cauldron he held between his knees.

"What about you, Dennis? Davies troubling you with chaser strategy just yet, or is our captain the only one going bonkers already?" George asked, locking eyes with Avery as he scrubbed the outer edges of his pewter cauldron. Avery shrugged and grunted non-commitally in response.

"Well how'd it go with that girl on the train yesterday? You know, before we set off the dungbomb and consequently landed us all in detention-"

"Sorry about that, by the way, didn't mean to get either of you caught in the crosshairs," Fred added.

Avery stared down at her cauldron, a slight panic seizing her. Dennis hadn't mentioned a girl, so she wasn't sure how to respond.

"Urm, I'd rather not talk about it," said said honestly, in a deep voice. She truly didn't want to talk about it, just not for the reason they assumed.

"That bad, eh?"

"Don't worry about it, mate, there are plenty of fish in the sea," George chuckled.

The twins continued trying to make conversation with Avery, but as she gave shorter and shorter responses each time, the twins seemed to have thought better of being friendly and began to talk amongst themselves instead. She made a mental note to tell Dennis about the interaction in case anyone were to probe him about it later.

About halfway through detention, Avery noticed that Fred was oggling her, but not in a good way. His brow was furrowed at her curiously but she couldn't very well ask him what he was on about without risking exposing herself, so she avoided eye contact as much as possible the rest of the evening, until Snape allowed them to leave, each rubbing their elbows and smelling strongly of cleaner.

Jeffery and Avery were the first to leave the room, walking up the long and narrow passage together, some of Jeffery's color returning. Looking over her shoulder, Avery could see the twins huddled together, whispering conspiratorially. She assumed they were planning to sneak off to do whatever it is that the Weasley twins do, meanwhile she couldn't wait to fall into her bed. She would write Dennis a report in the morning, making sure to note who was at detention, what they did, and any other details she felt he may need to know in case anyone brought up the detention to him later.

"Headed back to the Ravenclaw tower, eh Dennis?" Fred asked, sidling up to her left side as she and Jeffery were heading out of the dungeons towards the entrance hall. She grunted in response.

"We'll walk with you part of the way; that way if Filch sees us he won't assume we're out for our own amusement and threaten to hang us by our ankles again," George came from her right side.

"Right," Avery replied, in her best impression of Dennis' baritone. She would have given anything to just sneak off, change back to herself, and get back to the Hufflepuff dormitories, but instead she would have to hike most of the way to the Ravenclaw common room until she could ditch the twins; otherwise, they might suspect something was amiss.

It wasn't until after they had bid Jeffery goodbye and the twins dragged her into an abandoned classroom on the second floor that she realized they had already suspected something was amiss.

"Hey, what'dyou think you're doing!?" she exclaimed, trying to maintain her best Dennis and failing in the shock of the twins manhandling her.

George had shut the door behind them and Fred was staring at her with his arms crossed over his broad chest.

"Something's off about you, mate, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable," he said, eying her suspiciously.

"Dunno what you're on about," Avery said, her impression of Dennis improving as she straightened her robes.

"Answer one simple question, and you can go. How's that?" George asked, standing next to his twin and mimicking his stance. Avery chose not to reply, but stared at them impatiently.

"What color are your eyes?" they asked in unison.

"Blue," Avery grunted. She had not only known Dennis for three years, but had also studied him intently this morning, and although she couldn't understand why they would ask such a question, she didn't care to ask since she knew her answer was one hundred percent correct.

"Now, I'm off to bed," she said, starting to push past them, but they each put a hand on one side of her chest and pushed her backwards. It was clear they weren't about to let her go anywhere.

"That's what I thought too. I was sure they were at the beginning of detention, but then I noticed they weren't anymore," Fred said, staring at her, his brow furrowed again. Horrified, Avery began to understand why Fred had been oggling her. She had a bad habit of assuming traits she liked of the people she was with. With Marilyn, she often assumed freckles across her cheeks. If she spent too long near Cedric Diggory, she often found herself wearing his smile. Before Fred had been oggling her, she had been oggling him and his twin and must have accidentally assumed their hazel eyes. She began to mentally run through a list of excuses as to why her eyes were no longer blue, but there weren't any. Gaping like a fish, Avery stared back at them.

"The truth would be the best option, mate. Who or what are you?" George said, throwing his shoulders back in what she assumed was an attempt to look menacing. Although they were a well built pair, she could hardly feel threatened by the ever-fun Weasley twins, who she had only ever seen laughing and smiling. But, in any case, she decided he was right; the truth was the best option. There was no lie they would believe (that she could think of on the spot, anyway,) and Fred and George being the mischievous pair that they were would no doubt understand her business venture and keep it a secret. So, without so much as a word, she began to focus on her normal features and gender, and morphed back into herself; a 5'6" female with a curvy build, heart shaped face, brown eyes, a slight gap in her teeth, and the same long blonde hair from that morning.

"My name is Avery Stone, I'm in Hufflepuff. Metamorphmagus," she said, in response to their open-mouthed stare. She was holding Dennis' pants up as she stood, his clothes very baggy on her frame.

"Bloody hell. That's neat trick," Fred chuckled. "But what are you doing pretending to be Dennis during detention?"

"He paid me to. I do it pretty regularly. Not just for Dennis, but a few students. If they need something done but they themselves can't do it they'll pay me to pretend to be them. But it's very hush hush. I can't have the teachers finding out about it so can we just pretend this never happened?" Avery forced a smile. She didn't like pleading, but she didn't want to be found out. The twins didn't respond, but look at each other and nodded as if agreeing on something they had wordlessly communicated in that way that only twins can.

"We'll be happy to keep your secret," Fred started, looking back to Avery.

"In exchange for your services, of course," George continued.

"Um, don't you think there are already enough people who look like you? I mean, you already have a person that can pretend to be you at any given time. Why would you need me?" Avery said, giving them an incredulous look. She didn't want to help them, especially if it had to be for free.

"For what we're planning, it'd actually be very useful to have a third. Now, off to bed with you. We'll meet you with the details in the morning," Fred said with a wink. And with that, the twins left Avery alone in the classroom, holding her pants round her waist, and wondering just how long this storm was going to last.