Out of Bounds

[Leo Benivieni]

Leo was on his first patrol as prefect. So far, he was relieved that he had not encountered any trouble with any students - the best part was that he hadn't come across any troublemakers in Gryffindor and he hoped it would stay that way. He smiled as he remembered himself before this year, Leo always went out looking for trouble and now here he was with a badge. No one could've seen that one coming. Currently, the fifth year was patrolling the dungeons, just in case there were people sneaking out to see each other or going places they weren't allowed to be. He was about to resign for the night and head back to the common room but something stopped him, not one but a couple of voices. Leo lit up his wand, he walked a bit further and sighed. Turns out, his hope of not finding anyone out after curfew was crushed. Leo stood there, arms folded, to see how long it would take his housemates to notice his presence. And he was so looking forward to his bed welcoming him.​

 

[Aurora Night]

The problem with having one of her closest friends in Slytherin, Rory thought, was that she was stuck all the way down in... well, Slytherin. Spontaneous decisions to go out and sneak around at night were all well and good when the majority of her friends were also in Gryffindor, but having Hayley all the way down in the dungeons while everyone else was up on one of the highest floors in the castle made for a lot of extra travel time to get caught in. There was no way Rory was going to leave Hayley out of course, but, man, even when the girl wasn't doing it on purpose, her friend lived to make her life difficult. The trip down into the dungeons had itself been uneventful, but this had the negative effect of causing Rory to let her guard down, and so it wasn't until they had almost walked into the older boy standing in the corridor that she realised she had been talking too much to pay attention to her surroundings. "Crap," shot quietly out of her mouth in response - but it wasn't a professor. In fact, she thought she recognised the boy as a fellow Gryffindor. Maybe they'd be safe after all. "Hey," she addressed him as they approached. "Just taking a, um, midnight stroll. You know how it is. We didn't see you, you didn't see us, right?" Rory tried for a winning smile, but attempted to walk past the boy as she did so. Hopefully he wouldn't make a big deal out of the fact that she was technically rule-breaking right now.

 

[Leo Benivieni]

Just as Leo had made up his mind and was about to turn around and leave them alone, because well, it was his housemates they were dealing with here and they were out after curfew, they began to walk in his direction so there was no backing out of it now. He had to do something about it. Leo unfolded his arms, putting his hands in his pockets. He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her statement. Not that any other excuse but 'taking a midnight stroll' would have made any difference, still this one only made the situation slightly worse. Had it only been a few minutes, half an hour or an hour after curfew, it would not have been as bad as right now. Midnight. He checked his watch to make sure. Okay, now as to how to handle this without getting them into too much trouble. "In fact, I used to cause trouble too when I was younger, I think until last year actually," he said, then realised what he'd let slip out. "I mean - not that I'm suggesting what I did was okay," he recovered quickly. "And the difference there is that I didn't exactly get caught."

He paused and squinted his eyes, noticing that both girls were Gryffindors - which meant that what he thought they were here to do might have been wrong. Why else did it look like they were walking towards the Slytherin common room? And if that wasn't it then what were they doing all the way down here? "Actually, guys, sorry to be such a mood killer, but I can't just let you go this easily." An idea came to him. "If anyone else catches you, you'll be in even more trouble. If you just tell me what you're up to I may or may not tweak the story when I tell Professor Kingsley." Leo had no idea where that had come from, but how else was he meant to deal with it? They were housemates after all, and even if Leo didn't want to take away house points he couldn't afford to disappoint the head of house. There was no winging out of this one.​

 

[Aurora Night]

Rory tried to keep walking past the older boy, but his sudden out-of-the-blue comment on her activities was to strange for her to continue. Wasn't it like, an unspoken rule that if you happened to pass by anyone out after curfew you just let each other be? Or it should be, anyway. It wasn't like she'd met many people in these kind of situations that weren't actually professors or other beings looking to get her into trouble. The thought failed to sound any alarm bells. Her brow furrowed in confusion, Rory had to respond. "Wait, what are you talking about? Why would you tell Professor Kingsley about this at all?" That was the strangest part, to be honest. Who would tell on someone else when they would then have to explain why they were out of bed to know about it? It just didn't make any sense. Unless... her breath sucked in suddenly. Rory didn't make it a habit to pay attention to the house prefects, especially when they usually tended to leave the rest of them alone, but she thought she remembered... maybe... "Please tell me you're not a prefect," she cringed, crossing her fingers hopefully.