SILENT HEIST
2 DECEMBER SATURDAY
The sun cast its bright glow through the massive windows in the staff wing and there wasn't a teacher in sight. The chaps, carrying their boots by their laces, tip-toed in a neat line, with James in the lead and Sirius close behind.
"I love the Golden Hour!" Sirius whispered.
"What is the Golden Hour?" Peter asked.
"The Golden Hour," said James, constantly looking between the doors they were sneaking past, "is on every Saturday morning at ten o'clock. "Nobody is here on the Golden Hour. Dumbledore is cleaning his birdcage."
"McGonagall is grooming her cats," said Sirius.
"Brussel Sprouts does all her repotting."
"Slug goes to the pub."
"And Jarmy Carkson goes for his morning drive."
"I think I heard a door!" Remus whispered.
They froze like gazelles and listened. Somebody was coming.
They fled inside the stationary cupboard and lay themselves flat on the floor, peering through the gap.
A pair of muddy wellies (bandname) rushed by. It was just Jarmy Carkson having forgotten his carkeys. He found them and the portrait guard was wishing him a safe drive in no time.
The staff chamber was only across the hall. This was the Golden Hour. The Golden Hour was safe. That was the very point of the Golden Hour. Therefore the chaps let themselves out of the stationary cupboard and entered the staff chamber.
The forbiddenness of their presence made them euphoric and giddy. James and Sirius went straight for the sofa group and began to test their springs. Peter wanted to join also. Remus saw an opportunity to catch up with some school work.
"You know something?" Sirius asked.
"What?" James replied.
"I actually think Captain Meat-Hook is kind of lame."
"Yeah me too!"
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
"His show used to be for older kids!"
"I know! And he would say a lot worse swears! Watch out!" James lept from one sofa to the other. Sirius did the same and now they had switched sofas, something they continued doing.
"Everybody listens to the show now!" said Sirius, beginning to get out of breath. "It was more fun when it was just us."
"Now everyone's all: Did you hear Captain Meat-Hook is coming to the yule disco? Like who cares anyway!"
"I know right!"
"I think Captain Meat-Hook is lame!" said Peter.
They hopped off the sofas and next they wanted to see if there were any leftovers from yesterday's Friday Tea and Cake. They found some remaining baked goods in the kitchen corner. Sirius sniffed the interior of a tin pot with some left over coffee.
"Anybody else want some coffee? Or tea, there's also tea."
"I'm good I found some milk!" said James, closing a fridge.
"That's good because this is grown-ups only! So Rem what can I get you? Come over here! We can do that later!"
So Remus came to the kitchen.
"So what do you say?" Sirius asked. "Do you want to share this coffee with me?"
"No. Never drink coffee that's been standing for a long time."
"I can make you some fresh coffee then, do you want that?"
"No thanks."
"Good because I wouldn't know how. Very well, I shall drink this myself."
And so he did, and when he had, his face wasn't praising the experience.
"The secret is to put milk in it!" said James, offering a milk bottle.
"I saw you put cottage cheese in that."
Sirius felt queezy now and when they found the cake stand he passed on all of it- even the jaffa cakes.
"What if I scrape off the chocolate for you?" said James. "Won't you even have a bakewell tart?"
"You're a bakewell tart."
"You're a bark well tart."
This was, as already mentioned, the Golden Hour, and the chaps wanted to be here for the full hour. They kept something of a checklist in their heads for things to do; item number 1: sofas, item number 2: cake and milk, item number 3: snoop in the owlholes, item 4: watch Spells & Curses on the tele-crystal-orb-vision (or telly). Item 5, if there was time, could be whatever their current whim dictated, such as spit in the yoghurt, chuck all the dishes in the loo, order a hundred pizzas, put mousetraps in the owlholes.
But just as they were going to snoop through the mail in the owlholes, something caught their attention, triggering their mild curiosity: a large cylindrical glass case with a domed top, empty, on a table by the window, where there usually was a busy lizzie or a geranium.
"I wonder what this is for," said James, only vaguely intrigued, mostly to break the lack of conversation.
"Maybe it's to function as a small greenhouse," Sirius thought.
"That could also be the display case for the gingerbread house," said Remus.
"They're getting a gingerbread house?"
"Dumbledore once said they always get a gingerbread house, one that is an exact miniature replica of Hogwarts."
"Wherefrom?"
"The Bread & Bakery."
A miniature replica of Hogwarts made from gingerbread, James and Sirius were already fantasising about some of the possible uses. By the next Golden Hour it would surely be standing under that glass case, such an impressive piece of craftmanship, full of delicate details, practically begging to be stuffed with mouse traps.
But the chaps needed not wait that long. Unfamiliar voices had each of them run under a sofa. Well Peter couldn't fit under there so he had to find another place to hide.
The bakers were here and they were quick, professional and gone in no time.
"Wow!" said James when he and the chaps were gawping over the gingerbread castle. "That really is an exact replica!"
A truly magnificent piece, it was every inch a true replica. Everything was spot on, the rough brick facade, the crookedness of some towers. The entire piece was seated on a hill made from cake dressed in royal icing and everything was dusted in generous amounts of icing sugar.
"Looks better in gingerbread," said Sirius, peering through the melted sugar windows. "There's little rooms!"
"And the tower over here, that's our tower! And over here is where we are right now!"
Without talking it over, James and Sirius lifted off the glass case and put it on the floor. They also found that the various floors hadn't been secured and thusly came off a treat. James got a birdseye view of the astronomy tower, praised the detail on the telescopes and put the roof back. He and Sirius even lifted the entire seventh floor to get a look at the sixth.
"We must be veeery careful with this!" said James when they were putting it back.
"Oh no I'm dropping it I'm dropping it!"
"Stop that you're making me drop it!"
The gingerbread castle was reassembled and the glass case placed on top of it, all without incidents.