A/N: Written for QLFC round seven! I'm Keeper for the Wimbourne Wasps and my prompt was Felix Felicis.
It was one o'clock in the morning, the sky was pitch black, the whole school was fast asleep except for five Gryffindors, one of which was on his way to steal the sign hanging above the Hog's Head.
Harry stood on his toes to reach the hanging wooden sign. The metal hooks it hung from curved up and around, making it very difficult to take the sign and run. He wiped a bit of sweat that was on his brow and continued trying to lift the sign up.
How had he gotten there? The answer was a bottle of firewhiskey and a drunken game of truth or dare. It had been Seamus's idea, since he'd brought the booze, and it didn't take long for Dean, Ron, and Harry to play right along. Hermione had been caught off guard as she read in the chair and refused to play along, sighing audibly when they got loud. Eventually, she'd left with a loud huff.
After the firewhiskey was half drunk and Ron had just finished his dare to chug the bottle for ten seconds, Harry had been dared to steal the Hog's Head sign.
"No problem," he'd said, and stood to get his invisibility cloak.
"Nah uh!" Ron stopped him. "No cloak. You have to do this without any help."
Harry thought for a moment, his mind going through all the halls he'd need to go down to get to the front doors and out of the castle. "Fine," he said, not wanting to chicken out.
He sneaked out the portrait hole and the Fat Lady complained loudly about students always needing to sneak out after dark for one thing or another.
"Sorry!" Harry told her and she harrumphed in response, muttering something that sounded like, 'they always say that but they never stop'.
He hit every floor board that creaked and practically fell through the floor when he hit the vanishing step on the grand staircase, making a loud bang and swearing to himself.
Peeves rounded the corner, finding him with his foot stuck in the step and cackled loudly.
"Shush, Peeves!" Harry growled, though he knew it would do no good.
"Lookie, look! The Boy Who Lived, taken down by a step!" Peeves howled. "And out of bed past hours! What a naughty boy!"
Harry glared at the poltergeist and pulled as hard as he could until his foot popped out from between the steps, sprinting away just as Mrs. Norris came yowling around the corner. She seemed to be calling for Filch that a student was out of bed with her shrill meows.
Harry ignored her, taking the next turn and putting as much distance as he could between himself and the cat. Slowly her hisses became faint, but he didn't stop running, his feet slapping the ground loudly, until he came to the front doors which he threw open immediately. Cold winter air whooshed in and he was promptly reminded that he didn't think to wear a coat.
Then he took off again, sure that someone would spot him from the windows if he dawdled.
His foot slipped on a piece of ice, sending him tumbling to the ground on his bum. He cursed again, imagining that Seamus, Dean, and Ron were watching him from the Gryffindor tower and laughing hysterically at his fall. Embarrassed, he stood up, and proceeded to the Hog's Head with more caution this time.
Hogsmeade was dead silent. For the most part all the windows were dark and still. The only light came from the occasional streetlamp. Nothing wandered the streets but Harry and a stray cat that scuffled away as soon as it saw him.
He tip toed, finally making it to the Hog's Head, finding that perhaps the most difficult part of the dare was going to be retrieving the sign. It swung lazily above his head and creaked ominously. He stood on his toes, finding that he could still only barely touch it. If only he were taller!
Voices came from inside the bar and he prayed that no one would decide to come out. From the sounds of it, someone had just offered a round of shots, so he didn't think anyone would want to leave just yet.
He leaped at the sign, batting it so it swung up high, almost coming off the hooks. He tried again, swinging it higher. This time it came off. He wasn't expecting it to. It clanked off the hooks and it hit him on the head on the way down, clattering loudly to the floor.
Harry winced at the loud noise, glanced nervously at the door to the pub, and rubbed his sore head, bending to pick up the sign.
He examined it for a moment. It was a plain, wooden sign with the inscription 'The Hog's Head' carved crudely into it. Nothing special, but it would help him win that dare. He shoved it under his shirt so that if he was caught he wouldn't have the sign right out for them to see.
However, to his amazement, he wasn't caught. He made it all the way back to the Gryffindor common room with the cold sign tucked under his shirt, giving him goose-pimples, but nothing else.
When the portrait hole was firmly closed behind him he pulled out the sign for the boys to see. Their mouths dropped in awe.
"No way!" Ron said. "I thought for sure you'd be caught."
"Have a little faith, Ron!" Harry told him, laughing at their faces and swelling with pride. He tossed the sign to Ron who caught it and studied it in amazement.
"You made it all the way to the Hog's Head and back with out being caught once?" Dean asked.
"Sure did," Harry said, grinning. "No problem."
"Without your invisibility cloak?"
"Yup."
"You did not!" Seamus said, his face was flushed with booze. "How did you do it. Really."
"Really?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Really," he confirmed.
"I ran really fast!"
They laughed and Ron knocked his shoulder. "I still don't believe you," he said. "You did something. I know it."
Harry smirked, pushing the half empty bottle of Felix Felicis deeper in his pocket. They'd never know.