I need a chump, I mean, a hero

Bria was lost. Or so she claimed. Peeves knew that the best way to cause chaos was to pose as this little third year Gryffindor. The plan was simple. Get someone to help. Then take them to a room he had found recently. And by recently, he meant about four hundred years prior. He didn’t know who had bobby trapped it (hehe, booby trapped it…) but he knew it was nearly impossible to navigate.

And Bria would be leading him or her straight through it.

Bria let out a howl, clinging to a moving staircase as it weaved in and out of other staircases. Peeves was helping for a do-gooder, or better yet a prefect like that prat James Wake. Someone who would feel really bad for a snot-nosed brat who had lost her way and would follow her to her next class. Then Peeves could really have his fun.

Destrey needed an innocent. Someone her brother would feel sorry for and try to save when she threatened to... She hadn't figured out what the threat was yet, but she would have it figured out by the time they tracked down Shylock.

The girl on the staircase was exactly the kind of person she was looking for. Too big to be a first year, this idiot still hadn't got used to the shifting stairs? Most people stopped having trouble with those by second week.

A smile tacked onto her face, it was almost criminal how kind Destrey could look when she wanted to.

"Are you all right, sweetie?" she called across the bannister as the girl's staircase slid past.

Bria glanced up as a voice reached her small, tanned ears. Inwardly, Peeves smirked. Too bad he had not used Faolan though. The girl was attractive and Peeves itched to stretch out and seek his simple pleasures. Still, a prank was a prank. It could be just as satisfying.

None of this registered on his little projection's perfect little angelic face. Bria was good that way- Faolan had too many aspects of Peeves to always be completely hidden by the flesh mask. But Bria never ever showed what lay beyond her. Thank Merlin.

Bria blinked up at the girl, who was on another staircase and shook her head wildly for no. She reached up and wiped the tears from her eyes, hiccuping. "I got lost. I'm trying to get there-" she pointed at the door of the secret room "-but I can't seem to."

Huh, Destrey had no idea what was in that room. Probably Arithmancy or Ancient Runes or Astrology or something. Whatever it was, she had never been there and had no desire to start now.

"Oh, I see your problem," she lied. "You can't get to that room by those stairs. You have to come up here and walk back down. Come up and I'll show you."

Well, that was astoundingly easy.