The imposter put his hand into his jacket pocket took out his wand and tossed it to Bligh, smirking all the while.
"You're making a terrible mistake, Auror," the imposter said. "Think twice before doing anything you'll regret."
Bligh lifted his wand to aim at the imposter's face. A point-blank Stupefy to the head was known to cause irreversible damage. "On the ground now, or we do this the hard way. I'm not asking again!"
The eerie smile did not waver. "Have you ever lost someone dear to you, Auror?"
"On the ground you little shit, before I kick your teeth in!" Bligh growled.
"A friend, parent, a sibling? A partner perhaps?" the question hung in the air.
Tonks sensed a different kind of trouble brewing. "He's throwing you off, Don. Bind the boy and be done with it. I'm about to send a flare."
The stranger casually glanced over his shoulder at Tonks, as if just noticing she was there. "Huggins, isn' t that the name of his girlfriend? Pretty, blonde Auror. Blue eyes, petite. Hell of a Chaser."
A quick glance at Bligh's face showed that the insinuations were hitting their mark.
"Astrid, that's it," the imposter carried on, this time addressing Bligh directly. "Pretty name for a pretty girl. She' s got rounds this evening, too, doesn' t she? I bet the two of you like meeting up for a drink after her shift ends."
And then the sinister smile was gone. In its place was undiluted malice. The cajoling tone of voice disappeared too. What remained was not recognizably Draco, in any way.
"If you walk away now, Auror, I'll tell my people not to gut her like a pig, after they have their way with her. We'll string up her remains like confetti all over the grounds. It'll take weeks for you to put that gory puzzle back together again. Have you ever seen the damage that five, highly depraved individuals can inflict on something so small and fragile?"
That was all it took. It didn't matter if the threat was empty, or that Bligh had eleven years of Auror training and service behind him, which meant that he should have known better.
"Donald, no!" Tonks called out, too late.
With a snarl, Bligh lunged at the imposter seconds before Tonks fired a stunning spell. Bligh tackled the stranger' s midsection, causing Tonk' s Stupefy to pass through the air, hitting a tree in the distance. The pair struggled on the ground for a moment, but it was all the distraction the stranger needed to gain the upper hand.
He rolled away from Bligh with a remarkable quickness, reached into his pocket to remove something wrapped in wads of paper, and hurled whatever it was at Bligh.
Now offered a clear shot, Tonks' second Stupefy did not miss. It hit the stranger, chest on, and the he collapsed backwards in the dirt, out cold.
The thrown object was a glass ball, not much larger than a man's closed fist. Bligh grunted at the contact of cold glass smashing against his arm. Dark, smoking liquid seemed to be burning through his uniform. Something shiny tumbled down his sleeve, almost in slow motion from the thick, wrecked glass.
Transfixed, the dazed Auror flicked at the shiny item with his hand.
And promptly vanished.
Tonks cried out in frustration. The cursed thing was a Portkey! Moody was going to break something when he found out.
Grimly, she fired a signal flare into the air, before crouching down to take a closer look at the unconscious imposter. At the moment, the captive was their only link to Bligh' s location. The stranger, whomever it was, was lying on his side. Looking at him, if indeed, it was a he, was like looking at a mirage.
Tonks was thus able to confirm her earlier suspicion that it was not Polyjuice at work, but a Metamorphmagus, like her.
And the implications of that, were many and extraordinary.
Within minutes, the stranger would shift to his original form, as Metamorphmagi were not able to sustain their shift unless they were in a conscious state.
"Who are you?" Tonks whispered. There was nothing to be done but wait for back-up to arrive. She hoped it would not be Astrid.
"Someone who' s going to be extremely pissed off with you when he wakes up," said a voice behind her.
Tonks whirled around to face whomever had just snuck up on her. She managed to get a good look at the person who clipped her on the side of the head. Her last thought before