"Pikachu, I choose you!"

"Are you really going to shout that every time?"

The box opened and an impressive looking hellhound (Good omens style before it shrank) appeared between the two boys.

A few feet away its brother was taking the form of an equally impressive zombie dog monster which the pureblood it belonged to had seen in a film called 'Resident Evil - Raccoon city'.

The series of zombie films had become a favourite of his and over the summer he had spent a few weeks staying at his new muggleborn friends house in order to watch them and many others. He had been very excited to discover the accompanying video games as well.

That had been his first ever time staying in a muggle home and it wasn't anything like what his parents had led him to expect.

"Ok Humphrey, fight!"

The hellound turned to look at his human with a tilted head.

Ryan flapped his hands in a 'go on' motion and the creature continued to stare blankly at him before turning into a giant alligator. The zombie dog immediately jumped on top of it, the both of them rolling around in play.

"I don't think these monster battles are going to work." Phillipe observed.

"We just need to train them some more." Ryan insisted jumping into the ring and trying to pull Humphrey Boggart away from Redfield who for some reason had just split his entire head in half.

"It won't work. Boggarts don't fight each other; they just scare humans."

"Goddamn it."

It had been an ambitious plan to be fair. Monster v monster. Hogwarts newest sport.

Unfortunately, the boggarts were being less than cooperative.

This was the third 'training session' so far and all the boggarts wanted to do was play around with each other and their humans.

If this was a normal year the students would happily be pranking the rest of the castle and recreating some of the chaos of last year; however with the new guests in the castle the witches and wizards in possession of the baby boggarts were keeping their antics under wraps as much as possible; not wanting their new pets to be confiscated. Especially after the incident at the welcome feast.

Tensions between the different schools were already running high. The Durmstrang students especially were very on guard.

A few of the teachers were aware of the new boggarts, but since they were no longer running riot had decided to leave them to it.

McGonagall in particular was taking a keen interest. As a transfiguration teacher she had always been fascinated by the shapeshifting creatures but never before had such an opportunity to study them. The two original boggarts were currently living in her office cupboard whist the babies stayed with their respective students.

…

Arvid Larsen waited behind the pillar and watched the door.

The door had not been there earlier. He had watched as the two boys he was tailing paced in front of the wall until it appeared. He wondered if the Durmstrang castle had any doors like that.

The other Durmstrang students had spent a week assessing the Hogwarts students to figure out which of them were acting suspiciously. These two were among a group who had been seen sneaking around. They were up to something.

Applying all of their combined cunning the tournament hopefuls from the Institute had split up to keep tabs on each of those students and gather information.

Arvid had been following these two since breakfast and there was definitely something up.

An hour after they entered the door opened again and the boys exited. Shortly after they stepped away, the door disappeared once more.

The young spy kept his eyes trained on his quarry. More specifically on the boxes they were each carrying. Why didn't they just shrink them and put them in their pockets?

Why did they carry them like that? With such care. Like something delicate. What was in those boxes?

Debriefing back at the ship revealed that other students in their target group had been seen with similar boxes.

The new mission was decided.

Operation box heist.

Thanks to The Arcticourt Spellwright for suggesting Humphrey as a boggart name. :)