Written for The Houses Competition, Year Two, Round Eight
House: Hufflepuff
Year: 5th
Category: Short
Prompts: [Speech] "Literally everything about this is illegal."
Wordcount (Google Docs): 785
Betas: Aya, starspangledpumpkin
Title: The Hex is On You!
Summary: James and Sirius get outsmarted at their own game.
"Mrs. Norris, where are you? Did we find someone out of bounds after curfew? I've got a trophy room that needs polishing, and a whole handful of old toothbrushes to do the job!"
James and Sirius had hidden away inside a suit of armor in the main hall. It was close to midnight, well after curfew, and the two fourth years hadn't managed to figure out what to do next.
"I don't want to clean the trophy room again!" Sirius whisper-whined.
"Me neither, but maybe we should make a little noise and let him find us this time," James stage-whispered back.
"Are you kidding? Literally everything about this is illegal!" Sirius whispered back, falling silent as the footsteps approached.
Through the dim torchlight coming through the cracks in the oversized set of armor, they could see Argus Filch hobbling closer to them.
It wasn't that they had simply gotten into a suit of armor, which was against the rules, but they'd been stuck there for three hours and hadn't figured out how to get out. And if that wasn't bad enough, it was made worse by the fact that they both were inside the same suit of armor.
They were both sweaty, cramped, and, above all else, hungry as well.
The boys waited silently, not daring to move a muscle until both the caretaker and his devil cat had moved on to the next level.
"What haven't we tried yet?" James asked when they were in the clear.
"You still want to play this bloody game? Unbelievable!" Sirius moaned. "Let's just knock this thing over and break ourselves out."
"Don't you dare!" James hissed. "And it's not just a game, it's a bet. We can't just give up!"
"But it's nearly midnight," Sirius said. "were gonna lose anyway. Besides, I gotta take a piss."
"No! I can't lose. I've never lost a bet, and I'm not going to start now."
"Face it, we're done for."
"Quiet! Someone's coming."
It was just their luck that Marlene McKinnon appeared around the corner. James could see it was her, based on the jet black hair he spotted through the cracks of the armor. "Ugh! Not her!"
Marlene stopped right in front of the suit of armor, hands of her hips and a smirk on her face. "Hi, boys. How's it going?"
"McKinnon, let me out of here, I have to piss," Sirius said, disregarding James' grunts of protest.
Marlene laughed out loud. "Oh, you two. I'll let you out when you finally admit it."
"Not this again," James groaned.
"Fine," Sirius said. "I admit to it."
"And what would that be?" she asked coyly.
"That you're better at hexes than we are."
"Speak for yourself!" James muttered.
"No way," Sirius retorted. "I gotta piss. Let us out."
"I'm waiting for James to say it too," Marlene said, tapping her foot.
"Blimey, Marlene!" Sirius whined. "Can we do this later?"
"No," Marlene said, and stomped her foot. "You and James made such a big deal out of telling me that I couldn't hex you into something that you couldn't unhex. You two were so obnoxious about it that at least twenty people in the Common Room have bets going. So I'm going to win this thing, and James Potter, you're going to admit that I'm better at hexing than you are, here and now, and then again in the Common Room, or Sirius Black is going to piss all over you!"
She turned on her heel and started walking away.
"Ok, ok, ok!" James finally said. "I admit it. You're better."
Marlene turned around, a big smile on her face. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," James said. "You're better at hexing than Sirius or me, by a long shot, or we wouldn't have been trapped in this thing all afternoon."
Crash!
The suit of armor fell apart at its hinges, and the two boys fell to the floor. Marlene left them where they fell and sauntered off to the Common Room to claim her prize.
"Good night, boys. Thanks for the fun!"
"Wait," James said. "She didn't actually cast an anti-hex on the armor, did she?"
Sirius was too busy hopping on one foot, trying not to piss himself. "Gotta run!" He ran off to the nearest loo, leaving James puzzled, next to the fallen suit of armor.
"You mean… argh!" he cried out. "All we had to do was admit that she was better… that was the whole hex, and we could have been out of the armor ages ago!"
"That's why she won," Sirius said, coming back from the loo. It had just been around the corner. "Because we'd never have thought to do that in a million years. Clever!"