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* In the second [[Goosebumps|Night of the Living Dummy]] book, the heroine, her sister, and her parents enter the sister's room to find that all her bedroom walls have been graffiti'd. The mother yells at the youngest brother, a notorious prankster, but he stops her by saying that ''this'' time he's innocent, and that [[Even Evil Has Standards|this is messed-up even for him.]] Of course it turns out that Slappy did it, but who'd believe ''that?''
* [[Harry Potter]]:
** Harry and Ron use Polyjuice potion ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Chamber of Secrets (novel)|Chamber of Secrets]]'' to imitate Crabbe and Goyle, Draco Malfoy's two mooks, in the hopes of getting Draco to admit that he's the heir of Slytherin, and thus the cause of all the shenanigans happening at Hogwarts that year. Instead, they hear Draco ranting about how thrilled he is that it's happening and how he'd love to congratulate whoever is actually behind it.
** Similarly, in the film version of ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Prisoner of Azkaban (film)|Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban]]'', Ron initially guesses when there is a long line towards the Fat Lady that Neville Longbottom must have forgotten the password again, only to learn from Neville's exclamation that he was behind Ron the whole time, and thus couldn't have been the one keeping them out of the common room. It's revealed shortly afterwards that the reason they aren't allowed access is because {{spoiler|the Fat Lady was scared away from her painting}}.
** In ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Goblet of Fire (novel)|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]]'', Snape blames Harry's trio for stealing the Polyjuice Potion ingredients missing from his stores. Although they were guilty of that 2 books ago, they are not responsible for it this time -- {{spoiler|Barty Crouch is}}. Since Snape didn't mention ''when'' the ingredients were stolen, Harry thought he ''was'' talking about the original theft, so he was simply lying that he wasn't behind it.
* Fainne says this exact line in ''Child of the Prophecy'', by Juliet Mariller. It's really {{spoiler|her grandmother who happens to have similar powers and much more motive...}}
* [[Destructive Savior|Hero version]]: ''"[[The Dresden Files|The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault]]."''
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