Ready Or Not
Original Works
Written by: kvmw
Edited by: Polarxo
The House Annual Games (which was cheerfully called “HAG”) was a yearly ritual performed during Winter Break. Though it wasn’t something that everyone watched, it was something that everyone cared about, for it determined who got bragging rights for the next year.
The games had a record for being trivial, and the moderators of the games were often lenient, leading to stories that would be told to hoards of wide-eyed first-years in common rooms. There was a famous incident from a few years ago in which a Griffin kissed their Honeybadger boyfriend to beat them in a game of Exploding Snap.
Thankfully for them, they had both been seventh-years and escaped any long-term irritation or embarrassment from such an event.
As the students were leaving to return home, they cheered on their competitors—three people from each House were staying to compete in the games, which had been announced a week before. The games consisted of Wizarding Chess, Bingo, and Broom Racing, and they would be run simultaneously. In addition to the twelve competitors, there were three moderators—Emma from Serpent, Fred from Honeybadger, and Eleanor from Raven.
Last year’s champions had been the Griffins (they had won two out of three games), hence why they had no moderator this year. The other houses were raring to steal their champion title, and as soon as breakfast was finished the next morning, the games were off.
The Wizarding Chess matches would occur in the Great Hall—Raven vs. Serpent, Honeybadgers vs. Griffins. The Bingo match would occur in the Library, and the goal was to find certain books in the Library that would form a straight line on each contestant’s card. The final game, Broom Racing, would be occurring on the castle grounds.
Emma, who was the moderator of the chess games, hovered between the two Wizarding Chess games, watching intently as the Raven competitor’s rook slashed off the head of the Serpent’s pawn. She internally sighed, but moved on, for the sake of the game.
The other pair of players, the Honeybadger and the Griffin, were fiercely headlocked over the board—rather, the Griffin was fiercely headlocking the Honeybadger, who refused to budge. “Cut it out, you two,” Emma was forced to call, to the major disappointment and amusement of the onlooking crowd.
Wizarding Chess, no matter how exciting the Knights leaping upon their opponents, the tiny pawns swinging feebly against their taller enemies, and the Queen moving dangerously on the board, was not a terribly exciting sport to watch. The crowd waxed and waned as people passed by, and often did not stay for very long.
The other sports drew larger crowds—if you could count the twenty-or-so students staying for the holidays a crowd. The Library, where the Bingo event was occurring, had an excellent second floor for watching the participants on the first. The Bingo event’s main purpose was to locate books in the Library until one had formed Bingo on his or her card.
A great favorite of the Bingo games was the Invisibility section—which, appropriately, had invisible books. It greatly amused the observers to see the student wandering aimlessly, attempting to find a book that couldn’t be found.
The great difficulty in this was actually determining which books were on Invisibility—all the contestants were aware that there would be an Invisibility book on there (the organizers of the event had a penchant for being cruel), but which one was it? Was it the book on Wizalbee’s Wonderful Potions? Or the book on Best Ways to Escape a Giant? Or perhaps a book on Predictise? No one would know until the end of the competition.
As the resounding voice of Eleanor of Raven rang through the library, the contestants ran off. Not a minute had passed before all the contestants had found the first book—Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, a classic textbook for all Hogsworth students. It was, of course, the “free” spot on the Bingo card, and from there, things became infinitely more difficult.
The crowd cheered with glee as the Griffin and Raven contestants fought over one of the books—Sonnets of a Sorcerer—while the Serpent quietly followed the Honeybadger, picking up any books they later found. This received general criticism from the crowd and after a warning look from the moderator, the Serpent stalked off.
Eventually, the Raven (to the shock of the crowd) beat the Griffin in the fight, and the two proceeded their separate ways. But the excitement and drama of Bingo was nothing compared to the broom racing competition.
Fred the Honeybadger, who had been the champion of broom racing some years back, was moderating so he could keep up with the contestants. The most amusing part of the competition was that they were all using school brooms, and this often led to mishaps and unexpected events that the crowd loved. Broom racing was a short but exciting event, and it often left time for the spectators to then go watch the other two events.
With the blow of a whistle, they were off! The Griffin had a little difficulty flying the school broom, being used to the way faster one they had, but were soon settled comfortably. The Raven was attempting to stay directly in front of the Serpent, and they were swerving around each other as if dancing, and every time some particularly fancy move occurred, the crowd would nod in appreciation.
The Honeybadger, being a first-year, was quietly ignored by their competitors, safely and smoothly flew towards the end of the course, which covered nearly all of the school grounds.
The end of the competition was marked by the end of the Bingo game—it turned out the contest creators had put not one, not two, but three Invisibility books on the Bingo card, which greatly stalled the game. Eventually, the Honeybadger came up on top, despite being stalked by the Serpent through a great portion of the game.
In the Wizarding Chess game, the final match had been between the Serpent and the Griffin, which nearly broke out into a fight but ended in a peaceful agreement. The Griffin won, and even though it didn’t really matter as the Honeybadger had won two games, the Griffins still celebrated.
That night, all the houses sat together at one table—bragging would come another day.