What Boredom Leads To

Natalie spun around and ran back to the main center of play since it seemed that she was getting too far away from the action. She could see that it was in fact a person she had nearly run into, a Gryffindor boy who seemed to know their newest player.

Not one for larking about, Natalie looked around for a piece of gear that the new boy could use. "I'm Natalie and that's Andy," she said in case he didn't know them, before grabbing the forgotten rod laying on the floor and pushing it into his hands.

Since there were no other available pieces of armor, it would have to do. She gave him a little shove toward Andy so the other boy could be tagged and took off running again, back the way she'd came from.

Hester grinned at James, her face flushed from all of the running.

"It's a game. Like tag. But you have to wear part of the suit of armour... I think," she panted. "I was kind of forced into it, but it's fun." She took a deep breath, trying to regulate her breathing. "I haven't got any more bits," she said. "The girl over there might- Hang on... She just ran into you, didn't she?" She remembered the girl's yell. "Well, I only got one boot, so..."

She stopped talking. James probably didn't want to play any way.

"Well," she said. "Andy's on, anyway."

Andy groaned. He was It again! That sucked. He thought out who he'd try and catch next when he saw a face he definitely recognized. Good timing, Andy thought, as he watched Natalie force the metal rod into James' hand. He sincerely hoped that his friend didn't decide to use that weapon on him for what he was about to do.

"James!" Andy called, lifting up the visor to see his friend clearly. "Come to play Armor Tag?" Andy grinned at his own name for Natalie's creation. He ran up to the boy, who still seemed slightly perplexed, and touched his shoulder.

"Too slow, mate," Andy cried and dashed off in the other direction. "Careful! Rod-Wielding-Gryffindor on the loose!"

Hester grinned at James and dashed off after Andy. She didn't like the look of that metal rod one bit.

Armour tag... An awesome name for an awesome game. She wondered where abouts in the castle they were now, since they had been running around for quite a bit, and she was a little lost.

She glanced over her should, hoping that James wouldn't catch her.

James looked at Hester as she explained the game and then had to grin. Andy. Of course the Ravenclaw would be up to something as random as playing Tag with a suit of Armor.

"Yeah, I just got out of the way. She would have trampled me for sure," James said to Hester, and before he had time to register what was happening, Andy was right there and tagged him.

"Ah! What?!" James said, "No fair!" He looked down at the metal pole that was forced into his hand. What was he supposed to do with that!?

He saw the girl that nearly trampled him and decided to go after her. He didn't have a handicap boot or helmet to slow him down after all.

Hester watched as James ran off after Natalie, without a metal boot to hinder him.

Hester was having difficulty with her own boot, so she sat down for a moment. She watched carefully, ready to jump up if anyone came near her. She wondered who would get tagged next.

She hoped that James wouldn't tag her... She didn't want to get hit with the metal rod.

This game was really fun, and certainly not what she had expected to be doing at Hogwarts. She really would have some interesting stories to tell her sisters. She decided to owl them later that day, when everyone had tired of the game.

Natalie shrieked as she realized that the new boy was following her. She could hear from the sound of his footsteps that James was gaining on her, and her only chance to avoid being tagged was to go somewhere that he could not. She was about to duck into a narrow passageway that would have made it difficult to manage the pole when she once again found herself on the floor after her one metal boot caught on a small piece of the stone floor that jutted up higher than the rest.

Hester scrambled to her feet when she heard Natalie shriek. She didn't believe that the girl was hurt, but she was interested to find out why she had made such an odd noise. Once she was upright again, Hester ran down the corridor, her boot clanking, until she caught up with Natalie and James. She had passed Andy on the way.

She almost laughed when she saw Natalie on the floor.

"Are you alright?" she asked, keeping a wary eye on James, ready to bolt if he tried to tag her.

James was gaining on the girl, and smiled. He'd be free from being It very soon. Running was not particularly his forté, but he didn't seem to be too bad at it. He rather liked it, in fact. He saw that Hester was nearby, but was in hot pursuit for the other girl.

James was running, and running rather fast. He saw the girl he was chasing suddenly fall to the ground and he tried to stop but he was going to fast. James liked running, but what he did not like was falling flat on his face, which is what happened next. James was running one minute, on his butt the next.

"Ow... Metal boots hurt," he said, rubbing his shin where his leg collided with her boot.

"You alright?" He hoped she hadn't broken anything or that she wasn't bleeding. James didn't like blood. He looked up to see Hester was there as well, asking the same question.

How he managed to trip over her and not break anything James had no idea, but now they both were on the ground, with Hester about ready to laugh at them.

Hester watched as James tumbled as well. She knew she shouldn't be laughing, but she couldn't stop now she had started.

"James!" she said. "Are you alright?"

She looked at Natalie again.

"Seriously? Are you alright?" She did stop laughing now, because Natalie hadn't yet spoken.

She guessed that Natalie was now it, because James had fallen on her, which was as good as tagging her, so she stepped closer.

"I'm fine," Natalie replied, still giggling. She flexed all of her appendages; nothing felt broken, but that wasn't really the important thing, she decided when she saw James, the new boy, rubbing his shin.

"I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" she asked, hoping that she hadn't hurt him too badly.

Andy glanced around and noticed that the three other people he was playing Armour Tag with were all in the same place. He wondered what was happening.

On closer inspection, Andy noticed that Natalie and James were on the ground and Hester was laughing. He grinned himself.

"Are you two changing the rules to Crawling Armour Tag now?" he asked, smiling. "What are you both doing on the ground?"

He lifted the helmet's visor so that he could see better. He looked down and saw James rubbing his leg. "What did you do now?" he asked his friend. "Did Sir Clumsy Butt knock you down, Natalie? Or did he wack you with his metal stick as payback? Not very gentlemanly of you, Jamesy." Andy shook his head in mock distaste.

Hester laughed louder at Andy's comments. She really needed to learn how to laugh quietly, she thought. She was glad that no one was dead, though. That would have really put a downer on the game.

"What's up, James?" she asked when she saw he was rubbing his leg. She wondered what you did at Hogwarts when someone was injured. She certainly didn't know any healing spells, and she doubted that the others did. She knew that there was a hospital wing somewhere, but she hadn't discovered it yet.

James looked at Hester. "I'm fine. It'll be an awesome bruise, but nothing more serious." He was glad that Natalie was fine though. He was about to get back up again, when he saw Andy had finally decided to join them.

He glared at his friend, muttering Sir Clumsy Butt, under his breath. What a stupid nickname.

"I am not clumsy!" he said, "And besides, I wouldn't have fallen, if she didn't fall."

James groaned. "Not Jamesy please. I'd much prefer Sir Clumsy Butt than Jamesy. Urgh!" James did get up then, and grabbed the rod that fell from his hand as he fell.

"I don't usually wack girls with this, Andy, but I'll make an exception for you." He smirked, ready to take off running again, if Andy decided to pummel him for the insult.

Hester wondered who was on. She couldn't work out if it was Natalie or James, or even if James and Andy had started their own new game. She held out her hand for Natalie.

"Do you need a hand up?" she asked. "Oh, and who's on?"

She saw James and Andy, looking like they were going to have a 'boy' fight. She rolled her eyes. Even though she'd been friends with loads of guys, that had been the one thing about them that she had never understood, and probably never would.

The sharp sounds of a fierce commotion clanged down the corridor, irritating Matt moreso than he already was. How was he supposed to tell students how rubbish their essays were if he couldn't hear himself think.

After a little investigation, he discovered the source of the ungodly noise- two boys and two girls, first years, from the looks of them. They were each garbed with a piece of armour, except the Gryffindor boy, who appeared to be in possession of a metal rod. The pieces of armour could only come from a suit somewhere in the castle, since it was unlikely that a bunch of first years got their hands on individual pieces in any other way.

He sighed. He really wasn't in the mood to berate students at the moment, but really couldn't have his first years disabling a suit of armour and wearing parts of it, and the noise was enough to make him hand out detentions. He did need some students to bottle some supplies though, so this could be a positive for him. Matt stepped out of the shadows.

"I would think that anyone breaking as many rules as you four are right now would know to keep the noise level somewhere around the amount produced at the Quidditch World Cup, which is about thirty decibels lower than what you were just making"

He glanced at the four of them. "I'm thinking a detention for the four of you, will be a suffice enough punishment, though you'd never hear me saying no to the old fashion punishments. And you can put that armour back to where you found it this instant."

He turned his back and strolled away, but not before calling out to them, "8PM. My office. Tomorrow night."

Andy was about to retort to James' crack about him being a girl, but stopped his mouth dead in it's track. Professor Hamilton was suddenly there and not very happy at all. He sighed. A detention? Really? What a bummer.

He watched the Professor stalk away, and smiled awkwardly to the other three.

"Well, that sucks," he said. "Fun whilst it lasted, I suppose."

Hester giggled, even though she had just been handed a detention.

"Oh well..." she said. "I wonder what he'll have us doing?"

They didn't give detentions as punishments at her muggle primary school, but she knew from older people that they weren't nice in the muggle world. They'd probably be worse here, seeing as the teachers were able to use magic.

James' eyes widened as Professor Hamilton was there, and then groaned when they got a detention.

"Damn. And it had to be him too, didn't it? I reckon he's the worst professor to get one from. Probably make us do all the gross stuff that he doesn't wanna do. And with no magic either. Phil, my brother, said that the professors always use the 'no magic' condition to make it so much worse for us." He sighed again.

"I guess we better put the armour back to where it came from." James looked at Andy. "Where did it come from?"

"I don't know where it came from," said Hester, feeling her spirits lower when she heard what James had to say about detentions here.

"Are we all going to the detention together?" she asked, hoping that they were. She didn't want to face the teacher on her own, it would be really quite terrifying.

She looked over at Natalie, wondering what she had to say about all of this.