TAG
You did not forget Grian, did you? Because while team ZIT was making accidental trouble, this little rascal was making purposeful trouble. One example being: TAG.
TAG was created during the first game night that Joe, Cleo and Xisuma had made. The game night quickly became a popular event, but there were always twenty five students that were there no matter what. That group of people quickly bonded together and would often interact with each other even outside of the game nights.
One of those examples was the study group Xisuma had started in Februari in order to help other students study for their upcoming exams. The group consisted of the main twenty five who quickly called themselves the Hermits and all of them knew Xisuma from the time(s) they had ended up in the hospital wing.
Grian was one of those people fortunate enough to be able to call himself a Hermit, the same went for Mumbo, Scar, Ren and Bdubs; another first year he had befriended. He loved the study sessions, as he quickly realised that, if he sat close enough to team ZIT, he would spontaneously gain lots of prank ideas. Not that team ZIT knew that.
But besides the prankage he was able to learn lots about what life at Hogwarts was like, what studying methods were successful and what was still ahead of him, like the OWL’s and NEWT’s as Xisuma had explained to them at their first session. Everyone helped each other.
Now in order to really understand how Grian ended up being part of this group full of special people, we have to go back a month or two. Because as I previously mentioned, the study group was for the main twenty five at the game night, but all of those had ended up in the hospital wing one time or another.
Grian prided himself for his gracefulness, it was a trait that belonged to a pureblood family but it could also be really useful for pranks. But sometimes that same gracefulness abandoned him, like when he accidentally went on the Quidditch Pitch (it was totally for a prank) and got hit in the face by the golden snitch.
How that even happened, no one knows. The snitch’s mechanics simply just broke at the sight of Grian.
It, unfortunately, hit him so hard on his nose that it started bleeding rapidly. Luckily the Hufflepuff team were practising and not the Slytherins, because the Slytherins would have just laughed at him even though he was a Slytherin himself. The Hufflepuffs were kind and compassionate, which is why their keeper accompanied him to the hospital wing, claiming that he had nothing to do anyway.
Now Skizz was not a part of the main twenty five, but he might as well be with how he would help everyone. Of course Grian knew that he was Impulse’s brother, but he liked to think that, even if they were not related at all, he still would have helped them during their study sessions.
“Let’s get you fixed up buddy,” the taller said as they made their way up to the hospital wing, Grian holding a handkerchief against his nose that Skizz had conjured for him.
As soon as Xisuma caught sight of them, he ran towards the pair.
“My goodness, what hit him? A bludger?” To which Skizz shrugged his shoulders. “I’m a keeper, don’t blame me! But no, the snitch hit him.” Xisuma had to grab his bearings for a few seconds.
“The snitch…hit him?” Grian nodded from his handkerchief. “How does that even happen?”
Regardless, Xisuma patched him up and Skizz stayed with him the entire time he was there.
Now that we got the traumatic stuff out of the way, we can focus on the real issue at hand here, which is that Grian gets an idea. Bad, didn’t I tell you.
It started with the game nights. Mumbo had gotten wind of an epic muggle machine Joe had built and was showing off on Fridays. Grian, naturally, tagged along. Mumbo, Scar, Ren and him had gathered in front of the Great Hall to go up there together. It was not normally that Mumbo got excited for something and that is why they all decided to go with him.
And they were not disappointed.
Unlikely friendships were formed, like Ren and a buff sixth year Slytherin who went by Doc, and information shared. Quite quickly it was not just Joe’s pinball machine that they were able to play, both muggle and wizarding games popped up everytime they had a game night. From the living dungeon crawler Tango made to an a bit too realistic version of Blood on the Clocktower that Cleo made.
Game nights often lasted till after curfew, but he was pretty sure the professors knew about it and did not do anything about it on purpose. He was even surer that the professors also played the games while they were not there.
But his idea for a game also originated there. It was his own, inspired by some other Hermits yes, but his nonetheless.
It started with Zed trying to convince Impulse and Tango to play the muggle game tag with him through the room. After he realised that neither of them even knew what it was, Grian did not either, he began to explain it to them. It was actually quite simple really, as Mumbo would say it, and it quickly got him thinking about all the possibilities.
But it was not until he overheard Doc ranting to Xisuma about the Ender Dragon he had befriended in Romania, that he knew what it was going to be. Apparently, according to Doc, Ender Dragon eggs would teleport as soon as a human touched them. This meant that they could only be moved with a Wingardium Leviosa.
The next time the Hermits entered the game room, there stood a blackboard with text written on it:
Welcome to TAG, a nice game with friends.
It goes as following; one person will hide a fake Ender Dragon egg somewhere in the castle and the others need to find it. The one who manages to hide it the longest wins!
Scoreboard:
Grian -
Signing in here below!
The Hermits grinned, this was going to be fun!