Since the creation of the list, Indica decided that she had every intention of winning.  She wasn’t even a particularly competitive person, but with other people taking up the torch, she knew she had to at least be in the top three for the end of the year.  It was a matter of legacy – a matter of being amazing and having something the sixth years could take with them for the following year.  Or at least an idea – it’d be wicked annoying if they just took all of their suggestions and didn’t make up their own. 

But, she wouldn’t worry about next year when she couldn’t even think about next week.  She couldn’t even worry about an hour from now because she was meeting Eli in order to break in the office of one of the new professors.  A young bloke, by all accounts, but he was new and that meant he didn’t really know what went on in the castle – and certainly didn’t know what the seventh years had planned. 

So, what better way to welcome a new faculty member who (being honest) probably wouldn’t last more than a year to the school than by christening the office?  It probably had a heroic and historic list of past hook ups to its credit, but Indi and Eli were a particularly special pair of rule breakers who thought they could do it.  Besides, it was a good warm up to getting into other places in school and really racking up the points. 

So, Sunday night was the plan.  It wasn’t really night – dinner had just ended and Indi was making her way toward the Muggle Studies classroom.  It wasn’t like there weren’t people around the castle and there were already people who were getting into school work (gross), so it was easy to just walk (carefully) and when she was in the corridor where the classrooms were, her shoulders relaxed a little.  “Eli!” she hissed in a whisper, “Let’s go!”

Eli was certain that he would win, and the competition had just started. Professor Asher seemed like a fun enough guy, he didn't know him well enough yet. The first few classes had been fun, though and he was almost sorry that he and Indi would be defiling his office in just a minute. He was waiting in the classroom, lurking in the corner while waiting for Indi. The door was cracked slightly, and he heard her hiss.

"In here." He whispered back, "Hurry!"

Eli crawled to the door of Callum's office, wand in his mouth. He pulled himself to his knees and pointed his wand at the door. "Alohomora." He whispered, hearing the click of the door unlocking.

Interesting. One would think that professors would have better wards on their doors. "Indi, this guy doesn't even know how to make his office secure." Perhaps living among muggles had softened him a bit. "Let's do it."

Indi looked around – then down – and saw Eli on the floor.  Good idea!  Dropping to her knees, Indi followed suit, waiting as Eli cast the spell that opened the door.  She almost commented on how stupid he was that he thought that would be it, but when the locks clicked open, Indica gasped.  “Bloody brilliant!” she exclaimed in a hushed whisper. 

“Better for us,” Indi reached out and shook Eli by the shoulder before she pushed him through the threshold and quickly followed suit.  She didn’t think much of it as the crawled into the office.  The candles immediately came on as they entered, probably enchanted to do so and Indica raised her wand to lower the lights – it’d be easier to get away with it if the lighting was less obnoxious. 

Sitting back on the floor, Indica felt a strange tingle – maybe that was how much adrenaline pumped through her body, but whatever… Reaching up, she rubbed her face for a second and grinned before kicking the door shut.  “This is way easier than I thought it was going to be,” she laughed and crawled closer to Eli on the floor, pulling two tubes of slip gloss out of her pocket.

“What’s better?  Raspberry explosion or Nice ice?”  she looked at him.  Slip gloss had amazing side effects and raspberry explosion made these cool crackling sounds and nice ice was like minty and tingly… she liked both (obviously). 

"We did raspberry explosion last time. Nice ice." Eli replied, feeling oddly giddy and... Energetic. His muscles felt tense and-- tingly? Sometimes they got that way after an exciting quidditch match or whenever he was getting away with something he really shouldn't be getting away with. The excitement of it all gave him an adrenaline rush that only made him more willing to pull this kind of stunt later.

He waited for Indi to put on the slip gloss and crawled behind Professor Asher's desk, noticing just how... Odd this office was. It was full of sports stuff-- apparently he was a fan of both quidditch and quodpot. On a shelf on the wall was a weird trophy, with a picture of the counselor staring down at them, offering her blessings upon the snogging session to come. Part of Eli was a little unnerved that a photograph would be watching the whole thing. He felt much the same way about portraits. He often turned them around or covered them for privacy's sake.

Indi followed him behind the desk and he pointed up at the creepy trophy. "Should we cover her up?" Eli sighed, "I'm covering her up." He took off his cardigan and threw it over the trophy, knocking it over. He heard the photograph make an 'umph!' noise before complaining about being blinded.

It was time!

Eli wrapped his arms around Indi, hand resting on the small of her back. The moment of truth!

He had a point.  “Nice ice it is!” Indica grinned and uncapped the slip gloss, twisting it out and applying it to her lips.  There was an immediate cool sensation that made her teeth chatter.  When she breathed out, a puff of her air appeared in the air.  This was why it was the best of the slip glosses.  Grinning, she tucked both into her pocket again and once again, followed Eli as he maneuvered his way around the floor of the office.

It gave her a moment to look around, assess the professor.  Lots of sports – probably a jock, which was fine.  Wasn’t exactly Indi’s favorite thing in the world, but she could respect it.  She certainly appreciated the fine figure a quidditch uniform could cut (and showed that appreciation on more than one occasion).   The weirdest thing though, it seemed like she and Eli noticed it at the same time.

Her lip curled and Indica turned her head toward Eli, whispering harshly. “Is that?!” The trophy clearly had a picture of the counselor on it.  “Sex trophy,” she hissed, reaching over and digging her nails into Eli’s leg.  She nodded vigorously when he said he would cover it and she winced, visibly when it crashed to the ground and spoke.  “Oh Godric,” she looked at him, “is it going to talk the entire time?  The sex trophy is going to talk?!”  Indi kicked her leg out and tried to move the trophy further away – it protested, but at least it wasn’t next to them anymore.

Shuddering, Indica pressed her lips together (so tingly!) and then turned toward Eli, not even batting an eye at his hand on her waist.  “Alright,” she grinned, “let’s go!” She thought she sounded a little funny, but maybe it was just nerves – and squinting her eyes she thought Eli looked a little… off… but the lighting wasn’t good (per her own modifications), so she shrugged and leaned in, catching his lips with hers to stop the twelve point make out session. 

Sex trophy. There was no other explanation for why Asher would have a trophy of Counselor Maiko in the office. Perhaps the school's staff was having some sort of weird contest. Who knew? A lot of them looked pretty young and he was very certain that the counselor was bisexual or something. Rumor had it that she flirted with Aileen Reid last year and didn't die. That was a feat that even Eli hadn't been brave enough to attempt.

Immediately he felt his lips tingle-- though Eli was almost certain they started tingling before she pressed her lips against hers-- he returned the kiss eagerly, only mildly distracted by the trophy's protests and whining. Soon it became white noise-- Indi was quite a good distraction. For a couple minutes.

Then... Things got clumsy. He couldn't move his lips the way he wanted to-- they felt... Squishy. And puffy. Eli pulled away for air and gave Indi a confused look-- only to see her lips blown up on her face.

And her skin.

It was blue.

He tried to stroke her face, but his arms felt oddly noodely and difficult to control. The thing that slapped her face was not his hand, but this green lumpy thing. A tentacle. He had tentacle arms. Eli looked down. No. Not just tentacle arms. Tentacle legs. "What the...?!" Eli let out a laugh. Oddly enough, he was still game. That would be something to worry about later.

The trophy became the last thing to worry about because making out was so much more important in the moment.  It was a means to an end, and Eli was someone Indica kept coming back to.  Yes, it was because they were good friends and she routinely bestowed affection (of whatever kind her friends would receive) upon them, but also because he wasn’t a half bad kisser (amongst other things) as well.   

So, she pushed thoughts of the weird sex trophy the counselor was giving out from her mind (except to note that she’d need to ask about getting one for herself and handing it out – because that was bloody brilliant) and devoted all of her attention to kissing Eli. 

That was great.  At least… to start.  Sometimes kissing could be messy, but… when Eli pulled away, Indica did as well, her eyes fluttering open into a squint to be able to see better. 

Eli was as blue as a blueberry and his lips were huge.  The look on his face… Indi reached up to touch her own face but was stopped as Eli… smacked her?!  Blinking, she was going to curse him out, but when she saw the squirming, wriggling thing that was once his arm now chock full of suckers her eyes went from squinted to huge.  “Holy shite,” she laughed under her breath, lifting her difficult to control tentacle up before sticking a sucker to Eli’s very blue face. 

She had sort of wondered if it would stick and luck would have it because it was her arm, she willed it to do as she pleased and with a faint pop, she heard it suction to his cheek.  “Dis is ridiculous,” her words were a little slurred from the puffiness of her lips and she released Eli’s cheek with another pop, laughing a little louder.  “I wis’ I smoked ‘fore dis,”she suctioned more tentacle things to Eli’s face and peeled them away. 

"We need to get out of here." Eli gasped, the suckers on Indi's tentacles had left a mark across his cheek. His voice muddled though still comprehensible. He wrapped a tentacle around his wand and wiggle-scooted his way across the room, to the sex trophy.  "But before we go..."  He picked up the trophy with his other tentacle arm, it protested briefly before the figure of Maiko began smacking her head against the edge of the photo, lamenting her own existence, much like the real Maiko did.

"Geminio." He whispered, flicking his wand at the trophy a bit too hard. It duplicated, not once, not twice.... But twenty times.

He screamed, and the Maikos screamed with him. A choir of screaming. "Reducio." He sobbed to the original trophy, shrinking it much smaller than intended before stuffing it haphazardly down his trousers the best he could. He felt a distinct stinging where it touched the area between his hip and clothes. The Slytherin would ignore it in the name of victory.  Eli would try to convince people to help him take away whatever warding spells were on the damned thing. Maybe.

That was how Rick Donovan found Eli Amherst, sobbing in a pile of screaming Maiko trophies. Blue-faced, tentacled, with puffy facial features, he and Indi were quite an interesting sight.  As the trophies noticed Rick's presence, they quieted down.

The surly professor took one look at them and stared. "I don't want to know," he finally said. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Twenty points from both of you. My office. Now." He cast the copies another glance and shuddered.[1]

So Eli wiggle-scooted down to Rick's office with a mixture of disappointment and triumph.

End

---

Before they left, Rick put one copy of the trophy back in its rightful place and removed the others.

1.	With Sly's permission