"The Epic Game of Dungeons and Dragons"
Beautiful Alice
Summary: Harry is bored one afternoon, and goes into the boy's dormitory to fetch his invisibility cloak and his Mauraders Map, when he hears squeals-of laughter. Curious, he goes inside and his life is changed forever.
Rated: T for some language and battle scenes
Spoilers: Up to book four/five?
Characters: Harry Potter, Dean Thomas, Ronald Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Seamus Finnigan (minor character: Dobby and Hermione)
Notes: Absolutely no Ron bashing except for in the D&D game. Slight swearing and action scenes. Hardly any spoilers towards the series.
Harry was bored. It had been three weeks since his last adventure-the one where Ron and Hermione argued enough that Professor McGonagall had given them both a point's loss and detention-and now he had nothing to do. He'd already finished all of his homework (despite Hermione's claims that he needed to get some work done) and he didn't know what to do. He thought of exploring the castle further and decided that it was as good an idea as any. However, it was getting late, it was already seven o'clock, and the curfew hours would be in effect soon. So with that in mind, he headed upstairs to get his cloak and map.
However, when he got up to the door he paused as he heard voices. Curious, he began to listen in.
"And I, the mighty knight, will stab the beast so that it shall become dead!" Seamus Finnigan let out a cry of utter terror, and Harry hesitated, listening further.
"The dragon is not killed," A large voice boomed, and Harry froze. "The dragon seeks vengeance for being attacked, and it shall have it by chomping your head!"
Curiosity pushed him over the edge and he pushed open the door and saw something that truly impressed him:
Neville Longbottom was standing on a chest, wearing unfamiliar looking wizarding robes that were multicolored and had patches on them. Seamus Finnigan was lying sprawled on the floor, seemingly out cold-but he popped up as soon as Dean squeaked,
"Harry?"
All three boys looked at him in some surprise.
"Harry, Hermione wants to talk to you-what's going on?" Ron asked, coming up behind him.
"I have no idea," Harry admitted, staring at them.
"We're just playing a game-we didn't think we were causing any alarm." Dean offered, chagrin on his face.
"Really, Harry…Dean, I thought you cast a look-out charm on the door?" Neville added, turning towards Dean, who was decked up in armor. Real silver armor, and was waving a sword around. On the floor, Harry could see that there was a large board game spread out, and that there were several different kinds of dice on the board game.
"I thought I had too…" Dean said, his brow furrowed as he went to investigate. A second later, he looked annoyed. "Apparently, my spell didn't take."
"Because McGonagall won't allow students to put spells like that up on the door," Ron chimed in, explaining. They all looked towards him in surprise. He shrugged. "How else is she supposed to listen for anyone having problems?"
"Wow, mate, you sounded like Hermione," Seamus said with a giggle. Ron scowled, and then shook his head.
"So what are you guys doing?" Harry asked, moving towards his bunk.
"We're playing a game-dungeons and dragons," Dean explained. "It's a muggle game-it lets players create characters that go on quests, and it's all perfectly safe. There's even a small wizarding version, though the company hasn't expanded really well either." He said with a sigh.
"Though their stuff is brilliant," Neville chimed in. "They've got all of the latest dungeons and dragons muggle editions, and they've got a handful of awesome things for the game wizarding style, though that's slightly more expensive. I've had to persuade Gran to allow me a twenty galleon loan from her to borrow the voice changer."
"What's that?" Ron asked, gesturing to the mini-figurines that were spread out along the board, fighting one another.
"Those are the little figures that we purchased from the wizarding dungeons and dragons-they play out what your character is doing." Seamus put in, sitting cross-legged. "It's all very cool."
Harry frowned.
"How come I haven't heard about it?" He wondered.
"Because its muggle based-not to mention grown wizards thinks it utterly stupid that muggles want to do magic like the game suggests." Dean said, scowling slightly.
"Huh…can we play?" Ron asked, curious, and the three boys looked at one another.
"We'd have to get you guys some character sheets and you'll have to borrow some twenty-siders, but…sure," Dean suggested.
"Awesome!" Ron sat next to Seamus, and Harry hesitated before joining him. After all, he didn't want to be bored, and this looked highly interesting.
Three hours later and Harry had been decapitated by a troll, while Ron had been killed by being bitten by a werewolf and wasn't able to finish his transformation.
End.