The box of the board game Harry Potter Clue lay strewn on the floor of John and Sherlock's flat. The two men had been conversing and Sherlock had made a rather dry joke about the original game with the four original characters. John, admittedly just trying to stir his friend, challenged him to a game right then and there. After about thirty seconds of silence, Sherlock had agreed.
Since John did not actually possess the actual game, he realized, they would have to settle with playing the knock-off Harry Potter version, which featured suspects, weapons, and rooms that were all within that world. As John came in and set the box down on the table, Sherlock raised an eyebrow, but kept quiet.
Sherlock studied John closely as he began to shuffle and divide the cards, placing three of each category into "Dumbledore's Office" in the center of the board. He then dealt the remaining cards evenly between the two of them.
"Pick a piece," John told Sherlock as he did so, motioning to the colorful character cards in the box and their corresponding plastic question marks. Sherlock took green, Neville Longbottom. John, after assuring that each of them had an even amount of cards, picked purple, Harry Potter.
Sherlock chuckled to himself. "Purple?" he quietly questioned.
John looked up at the man across the table from him. "What's wrong with purple?"
"Don't be silly John, there's nothing wrong with purple, it's the color of truth and homosexuality—would you like to go first?"
John sighed and, after a pause, rolled the three dice and moved his piece into the "Potions Classroom."
"Alright then," he started, "I think that Bellatrix Lestrange did it in the Potions Classroom with . . . the Petrificus Totalus."
"An unlikely accusation," Sherlock said, tapping a finger once against his cards.
John sat there looking at him for a while before asking, "Well? Do you have any cards to show me?"
"Right, yes. I do believe that I have the Potions Classroom."
John looked at his friend for another long moment before starting again, "You haven't even looked at your cards yet."
"Yes, but I have that card. My turn? Alright."
Sherlock didn't even bother picking up the dice and moved his green piece directly to the middle of the board.
"I'd like to make an accusation. Lucius Malfoy did it in the Room of Requirement with the vanishing cabinet."
John leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. "How do you know?"
"As I'm sure you realized almost all of the accusatory cards are bent in some way. However, what you didn't realize is that this makes them easily identifiable, so I can tell that you have Bellatrix Lestrange and the Mandrake in your hand without even having to see your cards, as with mine which is why I didn't need to look to know that I had the potions classroom. See," he picked up the card, which displayed a diagonal crease, "is why I know that neither of us has the Room of Requirement, because that is the card that had the most prominent crease."
John threw his cards down onto the table. "Anything else?"
"Yes, also you were bleeding. I could see the Sleeping Draught in your hand from a mile away."
John looked up at Sherlock, somewhat surprised. "So you cheated."
"No, I didn't cheat, you made a mistake."
"No, you cheated."
"You made a mistake."
After a few seconds of alarming silence, John began to laugh, as did Sherlock, as his friend opened the folder in the middle to reveal that Sherlock's accusation was indeed correct, and threw the three cards across the table, knocking the box to the floor, still chuckling to himself.
