The hide and seek game

It was a cold winters morning at Hogwarts and most of the school had gone home for the Christmas holidays. Romunus, Tamara and Ann-Marie hadn't as their families were at Hogwarts. Ann-Marie had taken to sleeping in Griffindor tower as Crookshanks because she was the only Hufflepuff girl left.

Dumbledore, the headmaster, loved to organise games for the 14 students remaining and his favourite was hide and seek. The rules were simple, you could hide anywhere except the common rooms, the staffroom, staff offices and the forest (of course).

Ann-Marie hated playing hide and seek because there wasn't many places where you could hide a 7 foot 4 inch tall ΒΌ giant like herself so she spent more time seeking then hiding. This time tho she had an idea, having been seeker for the 4th time she came up with a brilliant hiding spot. In the dungeon where they did potions, there was a tiger skin rug that Snape had put there to scare her into being good. It hadn't worked but it was a perfect hiding spot because Ann-Marie was an animagus. She quickly rolled up the rug and stuffed it into a near by cupboard. She then turned herself into a tiger and laid herself out on the floor to look like the rug. The seeker, who was Harry Potter at the time, came in and searched the room, not even realising when he saw the rug in the cupboard that he was walking on one of the people he was looking for.

It had taken Harry only 5 minutes to find Draco, the ferret surrounded by gold sparks, Malfoy who was using his fey magic to hover near the ceiling in the great hall. It took him nearly 2 hours to find Tamara who was hiding in a basket of dirty robes in dog form. It took him nearly 3 hours to find Romunus, the ball of fluff wolf cub, Lupin who was hiding in an empty goblet in the kitchen. As the students were found they met up in the Great Hall and Harry finally entered with a cheer 4 hours after the game had started.

"Great game guys. I won!" he crowed happily until Romunus called from the back of the room

"No you didn't. You haven't found Ann-Marie yet"

"How can you not of found someone who is 7 foot 4 inches tall?" came a query from Tamara who was looking worried "She must be patient to remain hidden for 4 hours!"

"You know Ann-Marie though." Romunus said also looking worried "She couldn't be patient if her life depended on it!"

"Everyone spread out and look for Ann-Marie" called Dumbledore "We must find her before Hagrid gets back from Diagon Alley in an hours time. He's off buying food for Fang and the owls at the moment and he will go mad if he gets home and we have to tell him we have lost his niece!" Everyone shot off in different directions at that point except Tam and Romunus who stood thinking of all the places Ann-Marie could be.

They were still standing there when Snape entered the room with a tiger skin rug rolled up under his arm.

"What are you two doing here?" he snapped in annoyance when he saw them.

"We are contemplating where Ann-Marie could be." responded Tamara "You haven't seen her have you?" Romunus knew they must have been getting desperate if they were asking Snape if he'd seen Ann-Marie.

"No I haven't seen your annoying friend but because my tiger skin rug didn't scare her I'm taking it to Diagon Alley to sell it." He hefted the rug under is arm and walked out the front door.

"Come on lets see if we can find her." Said Romunus and the duo headed off for Hagrid's hut.

Meanwhile Ann-Marie was getting bored. She rearranged the desks in the potions classroom so when they were looked at from above they spelt ST and she was having a peek through Snape's filing cabernet when she heard Snape returning to his office. As he came Snape was muttering about rugs not being scary and trying to sell the tiger skin rug. Ann-Marie took the hint and quickly swapped positions with the original rug so she was squashed into the cupboard and the real rug was out on the floor. Snape came in, rolled up the rug, still muttering as he did so, and carried it out of the room, not even noticing the rearranged desks. Ann-Marie who was glad she hadn't been rolled up like that quickly took her place on the floor again as she heard someone coming. An hour later she was struggling not to laugh, as Ron and Hermione had come and searched the room at different times and not even noticed the moved desks compared to the rug on the floor. Ron had tripped over her too but hadn't payed much attention to what they thought was a rug. Ann-Marie was quite relaxed knowing that she would only get found if Tamara or Romunus looked in here.

Tamara and Romunus were worried. They had searched almost everywhere and had seen no sign of Ann-Marie. They met up with everyone in the Great Hall and everyone could only answer no they hadn't found Ann-Marie.

"I fear she may be hurt," said Romunus voicing the opinion of both Tamara and him "She is not the patient type and she has been hidden for 5 hours!"

Tamara suddenly thought of something

"Ann-Marie is an animagus" she told the others "Did anyone see a ginger cat or a large tiger in their hunting?"

The answer to that was a no from everyone except Ron and Hermione who answered

"The only tiger we saw was Snape's rug in the potions lab an hour ago"

"An hour ago?" Romunus looked surprised "But that can't be right because 70 mins ago we saw Snape carry his rug out the front door! You must have your time wrong."

"No the time was right" Ron responded, "I would know. I tripped over the dam thing!"

"I think we have found Ann-Marie" Tamara smiled " Come on!"

The 13 students and Dumbledore raced down to the dungeon where they saw a tiger skin rug on the floor.

"That's what I tripped over!" cried Ron in triumph "Told you we didn't get the time wrong"

"That's not a rug" Romunus laughed as he knelt by the "rug" and pulled it's tail HARD! The mouth of the tiger shut quickly as if trying to stop it's self screaming in pain as Romunus pulled again even harder.

"Ouch! Okay I submit you win!" Ann-Marie cried as she became human again and slapped Romunus on the cheek. "So you finally found me did you?"

It was a rhetorical question with no answer required but it cause everyone to burst into laughter which became even louder when Tamara asked

"What did you do to the desks?"

"OOPS!" Ann-Marie gasped as she realised that Dumbledore was present and could read what the desks said "Sorry Professor! I was bored."

Dumbledore then laughed and said, "If that is all the damage you have done in being hidden for 5 hours then I'm impressed!

"My back is going to be permanently bruised from being walked on!" Ann-Marie added with a groan and they all headed up stairs for some dinner.

THE END