Sirius leaned on his elbow, staring out of the window. It was a horrible rainy Wednesday morning and he could think of a hundred places that he would rather be right now.
Skiing in the Alps.
Annoying the Giant Squid.
Sneaking into the kitchens.
Flirting with that hot Ravenclaw he'd seen giving him the eye at breakfast.
His lips curved into a smile. He could be doing a lot more than flirting, particularly if no one needed anything from the broom cupboard in the South Tower on the fifth floor. It wouldn't take long to convince her.
It never did for him.
He sighed and rolled his eyes back towards Professor Binns, who was giving possibly the dullest lecture ever conceived on the politics of the thirteenth century. Remus, who had read ahead as usual and was dutifully making notes (albeit with gritted teeth) two rows in front of him, had told him that the thirteenth century was particularly bloodthirsty. Sirius would probably have enjoyed the subject matter if it had been presented by anyone else.
As it was, he was existing in that boredom-induced torpor that Binns regularly engendered in his students.
Dumbledore ought to hire him out to St Mungo's, Sirius mused. He could be used instead of general anaesthetic.
Ordinarily, he would be swapping notes with James or Peter, but Peter was in the Hospital Wing this morning. James had made another ill-conceived attempt at winning Lily Evans' heart, and while Binns hadn't noticed a thing, McGonagall had. She'd marched into the room with a face like thunder, done a double take when she'd seen that Sirius himself was nowhere near the core of the mayhem, and separated them.
Consequently, Sirius now had the pleasure of spending the entire two hour lecture sat right next to the Ice Princess herself. She-who-refused-to-write-notes.
He sighed.
Predictably enough, James had promptly gone to sleep next to Alice Roberts, who wasn't far behind. The new girl, Eleanor, had been put next to Remus, possibly because McGonagall assumed that he had had nothing to do with it.
Teacher's Pet, he thought, with affection.
They seemed to be getting on alright, though Eleanor's shoulders were beginning to droop now. Periodically, Remus would prod her gently in the arm and she'd shake herself.
Sirius watched them for a moment, hoping that Remus might get over his eternal reluctance to flirt with a pretty girl and ask Eleanor out. They'd work well together. She was shy and fierce in equal measure, just like he was.
Sirius's stomach rumbled.
He leaned back and his chair and stretched. Beside him, he was astonished to discover, Lily had dozed off, her hair spilling out over the parchment covered desk like a wave of red satin. Gently, he eased the quill out of her fingers and screwed the cap back on her little bottle of emerald ink.
Ice Princess she might be, but that was no reason to let the woman get ink all over her face.
Momentarily seized by the urge to doodle on her while she slept, Sirius pushed the thought away. James would kill him. Besides, Lily wasn't actually all that bad, on those occasions when she allowed herself to forget the rules.
He stared at the ceiling, trying to forget that in his hurry to send one last hex in Snivellus Snape's direction that he had entirely missed breakfast.
As he sometimes did when all other options were exhausted, Sirius began to daydream. In History of Magic it was either that or leap out of the window.
Normally, his daydreams would focus on one female member of the student body or another – and they did start out there, but today he didn't linger.
Pretty soon, all he could think about was food.
Hogwarts was legendary for the quality of its food. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were always sumptuous affairs, even when there wasn't a special occasion like Halloween or Christmas to warrant a banquet. Really, every day was a feast.
But what he really wanted – what he'd wanted for a long time, dreamed about, fantasized about even – was a sandwich. Not just any sandwich, though. The perfect sandwich.
Wizards just didn't do sandwiches. Not the way Muggles did. The floppy triangles of cardboard he remembered from the school trips of his youth were a whole other animal.
He, James, Peter and Remus had spent a surprisingly uneventful (given their usual penchant for chaos) exploring the Muggle parts of London over the summer. None of them had grown up in a Muggle environment, though Remus, of course, was half and half. It was a good thing he'd been around, to be honest, or they'd have got themselves in trouble with the currency and the wide variety of alternative foods.
They'd watched the street performers in Covent Garden and had to rescue Peter from a man in a giant cat costume who seemed intent on making him a part of his show, whether Peter wanted it or not.
When they'd finally managed to stop laughing they'd found themselves outside something called a 'Deli'.
Sirius mouth watered.
The smells that were coming out of that small, unassuming shop were enough to make all four of them walk inside, half hypnotised.
It had taken a long time for them to order, since they'd never had the opportunity before. Sirius had, of course, created a monstrosity. It had had one of everything on it and been roughly the same size as his backpack. It had lasted through lunch and dinner – and he'd had the rest for breakfast the next morning.
All the while, though, he had been thinking about the perfect marriage of flavours that an ideal sandwich should have.
The bread ought to be firm, he thought, not too crumbly or full of air bubbles. Springy. Walnut bread, maybe, made with one of the older varieties of flour. The ones that actually tasted of something and didn't immediately collapse when you lifted it to your mouth.
Next it would have to be a pickle. Dill, perhaps, or something mustardy with a bit more bite. It would need to be strong, to match the bread and the meat, but not overpowering.
He wouldn't have them butter it. There wouldn't be any need. It would be juicy enough with the pickle.
Sirius leant on his elbow again and idly doodled a lewd picture in the margin of his parchment.
Pastrami, he thought, and licked his lips.
Pastrami, cut really thin and layered up with really crisp, bitter lettuce, freshly washed so there were still little drops of water clinging to the leaves. Then – and this is where he was sure the deli owner would give him the strangest of looks, a layer of sugar snaps, still in their cases. They'd be fat and round and bursting with the flavour of June sunshine.
You needed a bit of crunch in a sandwich.
He shifted in the uncomfortable chair and glared at the clock on the wall, trying to make the seconds tick by faster, just by force of will.
It has to be lunchtime, soon, he thought, unable to resist the melodramatic even in his head. It has to be, or I'll die.
His stomach growled in agreement.
Cheese next.
Thing slivers of something smoked. Most Londoners, he gathered from the owner of the delicatessen, preferred the Italian cheeses on their sandwiches. In his monster of bread and protein he had tried them all and come to the conclusion that he wasn't much like a Muggle Londoner.
His favourite was the Austrian smoked cheese, which didn't seem to have a name outside the description of its origins. It was the kind of cheese that arrived in a tube, like a cylinder of tongue melting goodness. He'd taken a sausage of it home to the Potters, who were putting him up, and the four of them had sat up late into the evening, eating slice after slice of the gorgeous, silky cheese and telling stories.
If Sirius had believed in heaven, that might have come close to describing that night.
It was a cheese that was impossible to stop eating.
A couple of slices of that would go nicely – not too thick, though, or he'd be tempted to just pick them out and eat them whole.
Next he'd have a layer of those tiny plum tomatoes, like fleshy rubies. The kind that had so much taste in them they could knock you sideways. As soon as he bit into them the juice would flow down his chin and over his fingers.
That, he decided, was part of the fun.
The tomatoes would be covered by watercress, just enough to let you know you'd eaten something really peppery. With a second layer of warm walnut bread the perfect sandwich would be complete.
Almost complete.
It would be one of those sandwiches that needed some support to stand up, so it would need a skewer – and what better to add to a skewer (the piece de la resistance), but a single, salted green olive.
He shivered, revelling in his imagination.
It would be like an orgasm on a plate.
He sighed, running a hand through his effortlessly perfect hair. If only the House Elves could be persuaded to change up the lunch menu a bit…
0o0
Eleanor paused by the entrance to the Great Hall, waiting for Remus to catch up.
"Sorry," he said, glancing at his watch. "We're probably going to be late for Ancient Runes now."
She continued looking past him and he glanced over his shoulder to where James and Peter were trying to extract Sirius's head from inside the dinner table.
"How…?"
"He – er – offended the House Elves," said Remus, rolling his eyes. "I have no idea how he manages to get himself in these situations."
"Maybe you should stay and help…"
She met his gaze and was surprised to see a flicker of amusement there.
"He's fine," he said. "James and Peter are handling it. Besides, I'll only get kicked in the face."
Eleanor shrugged and they fell into step together, both ignoring that barely tangible hint of attraction that they were in the process of convincing themselves that they absolutely did not feel.
"What did he do?" she asked, after a while.
"I don't actually know," said Remus, opening the door to the second floor corridor for her. She blushed and – hoping he hadn't spotted it, stepped quickly ahead of him, hiding her face. "Though with Sirius it's often best not to ask." He grinned. "It's just possible he's actually lost it, though."
"Why?"
"He was muttering something unsavoury about a pickle."