CHAPTER 3: PREFECTS AND DANCING TROLLS
"Strawberry and peanut butter with jelly slugs and nuts, please. Thank you, sir." Severus took the cone, a bit squirmy from the slugs, and handed over the last of his yearly allowance.
He sat in Florean Fortesque's eating his ice cream in his scratchy, second-hand robes, his bag of ratty used textbooks and seconds-grade parchment at his feet. He'd tried to have the hem on his old robe, the nice one he'd had since third year, lowered, but Madam Malkin had said it was no use. The bottom edge was frayed from constant wear, and even if she let out the entire length, it still wouldn't be long enough. It was terribly depressing.
He only had a bit of time before heading to King's Cross and Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and back to Hogwarts, and he was so occupied with hating all his new things and forcibly not being excited about seeing Sirius again that he didn't notice the other boy until he spoke.
"No, I think I'll have the chocolate this time," James Potter said. He was leaning over the ice cream counter, only his back and unreasonably messy hair visible to Severus.
"Very good, very good," said the old man beside him. "A chocolate cone for this young man if you will, Florean. Yes, very good."
Severus nearly got up and walked out, relative outside temperature and drippiness of his cone be damned, but something about the old man caught his eye. He was wearing expensive robes of the same light grey colour as his long hair, and his old-fashioned pointed shoes had gold bells on the toes that jingled lightly as he tottered to the register.
"Always a pleasure, Florean," he said in a surprisingly clear and steady voice as he handed over a fistful of coins with a gnarled, jewel-bedecked hand. When he turned, Severus saw behind his whiskers a wrinkled but smiling face with strangely familiar features.
"Pleasure's all mine, Mr Potter," the shop keeper answered. "Fine lad you have there, true credit to Gryffindor House."
"Frightful proud he makes his family, this one," Mr Potter answered back, ruffling the younger Potter's hair. "Clever like his mother he is, and spirited. Plays for the house team, always the highest marks, brightest in his class…"
At this, Severus snorted and licked the melting ice cream from the edge of his cone. A chilled but still squirming gummy slid from the top of the scoop and landed with a plop on the table, and he picked the slippery thing up in his fingers and popped it into his mouth.
When James Potter caught sight of him, his face twisted into a look of disgust. "I'm going to be late!" he told the older Potter imploringly. "We need to pick up my new broom still, and I have to get to King's Cross, the Express leaves at eleven sharp!"
"How convenient the world is today, Florean!" the old man exclaimed with a wave of his hand. "Why, in my day, there was no Hogwarts Express… in fact, there were no railways at all! No decent brooms either… certainly no decent ice cream… yes, I daresay not…"
"I'm serious, I'm going to miss the train!" Potter exclaimed in the tone of a petulant child, holding his ice cream out.
"Oh yes, quite." The old man tapped the cone with his wand, and his grandson (great-grandson? great-great-grandson?) tucked it into his pocket. Severus wished he'd said the incantation aloud so he could preserve his own ice cream, but considering he was a Potter, it was no wonder he was useless.
As the Potters left, the elder hobbling along with his intricately carved dragon bone cane, James shot Severus a dirty look, and Severus returned it with interest. When he was sure the pair had gone, Severus took one last lick of his disgustingly delicious, tongue-tingling, strawberry peanut butter jelly slug nut monstrosity, and tipped the rest into the rubbish bin on the way out. It hadn't done much to improve his dark mood, and it would be a travesty if Potter found an open car and he didn't.
The Hogwarts Express was packed full when Severus arrived, but he managed to locate Sirius amongst the crowd. He and Regulus were both wearing brand new robes, each of which probably cost more than all the contents of Severus's trunk combined. It made Severus angry, and if he could've, he'd've ripped his own robes off and thrown them at Sirius's feet.
Sirius didn't notice though, as he was always oblivious to everyone's problems but his own. He threw his arms around Severus and made a huge scene in the middle of the corridor, welcoming Severus back as though a long lost lover. Severus heeled him sharply in the toe, putting a nice dent in his expensive new shoes.
Sirius kicked a couple of second-year Ravenclaws out of a compartment, not because there were no empty cars, but because it was terribly authoritarian and cruel. As usual, it made Severus feel better, and they settled in to talk about their summers. Regulus sat by the window, unusually quiet, and watched the waving onlookers disappear as the train pulled out of the station.
"Don't you have any friends?" Sirius asked his brother.
"Shut up," Regulus told him petulantly. "I hate school."
"Don't mind him," Sirius told Severus with a dismissive wave in the second year's direction. "He's still sore I got him in trouble with Mum."
"I am not! And I didn't get in trouble. Everyone knew it was you who did it. I don't even know half those words, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn't teach them to our game pieces!" Regulus huffed.
To Severus's questioning look, Sirius replied, "I taught our wizard chess set some prime phrases à la Lucius Malfoy and blamed it on Baby Black. You should've heard Mum screaming!"
"Don't call me that!" Regulus shouted.
Sirius ignored him and made a rather detailed list of the "prime phrases" he'd taught his chess pieces. It was suitably impressive. "I've also got this really incredible project to show you, but it's secret, so I can't do it here. You know the ban on using magic if you're underage? I think it's bullocks. Did you just get those robes? They're awful. I mean, really, really bad."
Severus rolled his eyes. Who cared about robes? He was so past that. All he cared about was being back at Hogwarts, where he belonged. "Does this project have something to do with the destruction of the House of Gryffindor? I saw Potter in Diagon Alley earlier."
Sirius's eyes widened. "When? Today?"
Severus nodded. "He was with his grandfather or… great-grandfather maybe, hideously ancient in any case, getting chocolate ice cream and whining like a two year old about his new broom."
"I'm never eating chocolate ice cream again," Sirius declared. "What kind of broom does he have?"
"Hadn't got it yet. Just blubbering about having to go pick it up, and how he was going to be late for the Express if they didn't leave straight away," he said. "Quite pathetic. You'd've enjoyed it."
Sirius grinned wickedly. He opened his mouth to say something fittingly rude when he made a loud and spontaneous hoot of triumph and jerked the compartment door open.
There was a yell of shock and a loud thud, and Severus bolted up out of his seat. James Potter was sprawled face-down on the corridor floor, his robes up around his head, and his ice cream cone crushed into the carpet. Lupin and Pettigrew stood behind him gaping helplessly as their precious leader pulled himself up off the floor. Potter's glasses were bent and sitting cockeyed on his nose.
"Have a nice trip last fall?" Sirius asked him, hanging out of the doorway and waggling the foot he'd just stuck out to trip him with.
Potter looked murderous.
"Oh, did little Potty drop his ickle ice cream? Poor Jamesy-kins! Have to have grampsy buy him a new one, hm?" Sirius cooed.
"Shut up," Potter said, drawing his wand.
"Now now," Sirius cajoled, waving his wand as a nursemaid would a rebuking finger, "what would grand pappy think if he saw? Such anger, Potty-kins! Grampy will give you a spanking!"
Potter levelled his wand with Sirius's chest. "I'll make you pay for that, you--"
Sirius's wand pointed back. "Oh, is Grampy-kins too old and weak for spankings now? On his last legs, is he? Buying his sweet Jamesy-James a new broomy-woomy with his last breath?"
"I'll kill you!" Potter raged, "I'll fucking KILL you!"
"I'd like to see you TRY!" Sirius spat back.
"Stop! Stop, both of you!" Lupin's voice called. Hanging out of the doorway, it was hard for Severus to catch everything that was going on along the narrow corridor, but he now saw the boy pushing his way past a frightened-looking Pettigrew. "I cannot allow this to occur!"
Sirius snorted, parroting back Lupin's words. "What does allowing have to do with it? You going to stop me, you sickly little scaredy-cat? What're you going to do, faint on me?"
Lupin's thin face suddenly went a brilliant shade of crimson, and he spluttered incoherently until James told him furiously to, "show him! Show him your BADGE!"
"He's a prefect!" Regulus's panicked voice said behind Severus. "He'll take all our points!"
Severus's eyes snapped to Lupin's chest, where a shiny new prefect badge hung against his worn robes. Severus swore, having forgotten all about it.
Now that they were in their fifth year, one boy and one girl were chosen from each house and made prefect. Prefects had special responsibilities and could dock points for rule breaking. It was considered a great honour to be given the title, and the first step to becoming Head Boy or Head Girl. Obviously neither he nor Sirius had received the honour, but Remus Lupin had. Great.
"A prefect?" Sirius squawked. "You've got to be kidding me! THAT'S your prefect?"
"Yeah, now leave us alone, or he'll take points!" Pettigrew piped up. "Won't you, Remus?"
"Ah…" Lupin began, quailing. "Well, I…"
"Do it, Moony! He tripped me and ruined my ice cream and bent my glasses and stuck his wand in my face, and I didn't do anything to him!" Potter ordered. "Do it!"
"But I haven't even… I've not yet been to the meeting, I don't know if I should… James, this is really…"
"You can't do it, can you?" Sirius mocked. "I tripped your little friend, stuck my wand in his face, and insulted his dying grandfather, and you can't even do it, can you? You can't even take a single point!"
Potter howled with rage, and Lupin's face, which had faded into a sort of ashen shade, now blossomed with colour once more, and his bottom lip started to tremble.
"Shut up, Sirius," Regulus hissed, "or he might actually do it!"
"No he won't," Sirius declared. "He's a coward!"
"Take that back!" Pettigrew screeched. "That was really mean! James, make him take it back!"
"Remus! Take points!" Potter yelled.
"Coow-ward, coow-ward!" Sirius sing-songed. "The first-ever Gryffindor coow-ward!"
"Fine! Fine, I'll take points!" Lupin said unevenly. Severus couldn't understand why he looked so miserable. If Severus were a prefect and everyone was screaming at him to take points from Gryffindor, even the Gryffindors, he'd sure as hell do it! Lupin really was stupid.
"Do it!" Potter yelled.
"Do it!" Pettigrew begged.
"Do it!" Sirius bellowed.
"Shut UP!" Regulus shrieked.
Lupin's hands were balled at his sides, his eyes pointed at his feet, his entire body trembling. "Five points from Slytherin," he mumbled.
The other two Gryffindors grinned. Potter put his wand away, and Pettigrew patted Lupin on the back, telling him what a good job he'd done as though Lupin was a toddler who'd just learned to use the toilet. Severus could hear Regulus whimpering in the cabin behind him, and he himself was rather aghast. They weren't even to school yet, and Sirius had already lost them five points!
Sirius himself was strangely calm. He pocketed his wand, took a deep breath, and turned his gaze to Lupin. Severus reached into his pocket and put his hand on his own wand, because Sirius had obviously lost his marbles sometime over the summer, possibly from an overdose of secret pureblood Dark Magic, swearing chess pieces, boredom, or a combination thereof.
Sirius shot Severus a thoroughly pleased, lopsided grin which did not bode well. He then turned to Lupin and launched himself at the boy. Severus had his wand out of his pocket and an Impedimenta ready to fly from his tongue just as Sirius jerked Lupin's face forward and planted his lips firmly against the Gryffindor's. The entire corridor froze in shock as Sirius bestowed upon Lupin a loud, smacking kiss.
"Did you SEE that?" Sirius beamed at Severus, shoving the other boy's face away. "I made him take our points! The first ones of the year! And do you know what that means, Severus?"
Severus blinked, wand hand dropping to his side. He thought he might vomit. "No?" he offered.
"What in Merlin's name is wrong with you, you FREAK OF NATURE!" Potter demanded. Pettigrew was fluttering about Lupin's unmoving form, asking if he needed a cleaning charm for his lips, or a dust bin to be sick in, or some more chocolate to get the taste out. Lupin himself said nothing, the colour so drained from his face that his lips looked blue, staring uncomprehendingly out at nothing.
Sirius roared with laughter.
The Gryffindors left, Potter with a barrage of insults, Pettigrew with an offer of pumpkin pasties, and Lupin with a pinched sound from the back of his throat and much stumbling. Sirius pushed Severus back into their compartment and spelled the door shut. "Tell me you understand what I just did!"
"You just snogged Remus Lupin," Severus said, slumping down onto his seat.
"No no no! I just guaranteed our success! Don't you see?" Sirius straddled Severus's thighs, pulling him forward by his tie. "Remus Lupin won't dare take another point from Slytherin this entire year! I'm a genius!"
Severus carefully extricated his tie from Sirius's grasp. "You forced Lupin to take points and then kissed him, and this means he won't take any more points? What is wrong with you?"
"Did you see his face? He was terrified of me! And if he takes more points, he knows I'll do it again, and his system's too weak to take the shock, so that means he'll leave us alone!"
"Madman," Severus mumbled.
Sirius flopped down beside him, his hands clasped behind his head, a smug grin on his face. "This year, Slytherin shall rule Hogwarts! I am fantastic! I am brilliant! I am GOD!" he declared.
"You're bent," Regulus told him.
"Oh shut up, you brat," Sirius snapped. "I bet you don't even know what that means."
"I do so! And I'm telling Mum!" the boy threatened, crossing his arms menacingly. "Nancy!"
Sirius cast a Silencio on him and flatly refused to take it off until they reached school. When Regulus started crying, Sirius told him to go to sleep, as it was his own fault for being so nasty to his own brother. Eventually, Regulus began sobbing so hard he started to retch, and as Severus didn't fancy him vomiting in their compartment, he told the boy to write out a nice apology letter to his brother, and then he could talk again.
An hour later, Sirius had received a splendid apology, a promise to write Mum and Dad what a helpful, nurturing big brother he was, and Regulus's word never to say anything like that ever again, unless it was about a Gryffindor. Regulus's tears had dried, and he was happily munching on the lapful of liquorice wands and chocolate frogs Sirius had bought him for being such an obliging boy. He fell asleep with candy wrappers at his feet and Famous Wizard Cards gripped in his hand, his head on Sirius's lap.
With the last of their summer stress finally out of their systems, both Sirius and Severus relaxed and settled in for the long ride. Sirius petted Regulus's hair, the silky locks sliding between his rough fingers, and told Severus this was going to be the best year ever.
XXXXX
"I hate the sorting," Sirius groused. "Same old thing, every year. Huge waste of time."
"Well, how do you propose Houses be determined then?" Severus asked. He was unpacking several neatly-balled pairs of socks and setting them in a row along the end of his bed. He'd already unpacked his potions kit, textbooks, and ink, which sat beside the socks on the soft green duvet.
Sirius shrugged. "There's just GOT to be a quicker way than well, trying on clothing. What is this, a fashion show? 'Oh, the Sorting Hat is the in thing this season at Hogwarts, all the stylish first years are wearing it!' Really."
"Every word you say is more inane than the last," Severus sneered. "Why don't you just kill yourself now and save some other poor soul the trouble?"
"Yeah, Black," Aubrey piped up. "You should listen to Snape once in a while."
Sirius threw a shoe at him. "Don't think just because you're wearing that stupid badge we're going to listen to you, you fat-headed prat."
"That's what you think!" Aubrey rubbed his forehead, which now bore a bright red mark, and threw the shoe back. Sirius caught it. "I'm prefect, that means I'm better than you, and you have to do whatever I say!"
Ten seconds later, their new and better prefect was running from the room shrieking. His bogies, flapping their bat wings, were vehemently dive-bombing his face. "Idiot," Severus said, and stole a pair of his socks.
"Hurry up, I want to show you my plan," Sirius told him. He repocketed his wand and began fishing through Aubrey's trunk to see if anything caught his fancy.
"If it involves more snogging, I'm not interested," Severus told him, setting the remaining meagre contents of his trunk on his bed. "I'm scarred, you know. Not even the most potent memory charm could get that sight out of my head."
"No, the snogging was just a side benefit. One-off thing," Sirius informed him, wrinkling up his nose at a pair of Aubrey's pants. "Unless he tries to take more points. You think he will? He tasted like chocolate."
"Remember what I said before about killing yourself?" Severus asked, disgusted.
"So, my plan!" Sirius slammed the lid of Aubrey's chest and bounded to his bed.
Severus rolled his eyes. He didn't quite know what to think when Sirius came back with a huge, smudged piece of parchment that revealed itself, under closer inspection, to be a sprawling map. Clearly though, it was not a map of Hogwarts. "What is it?"
"One hint," Sirius told him, pointing to a wall next to a stairwell. "This is where the elf heads hang."
Merlin, that was his house? It was four stories tall, each spacious level laid out next to each other, with a mammoth hearth and dozens of rooms. A single story looked large enough to hold half a street of homes from Spinner's End. Severus was immediately furious.
"Wait, wait, look what I did!" Sirius grabbed his arm and pulled Severus back, setting a shiny Galleon on top of the parchment. Severus felt his anger ebb when the Galleon immediately started moving, straight through the pencilled-in walls, to a small room in the basement next to the kitchen. There, it vibrated slightly, but stayed put.
"That's Kreacher's room," Sirius told him. "He's our house-elf. The live one. I told him he had to keep the other Galleon on him at all times, so he sewed it into his rags. See? He's snoring."
"What other Galleon?" Severus slid the vibrating gold piece into the entrance hall, only to watch it slide directly back to the kitchen.
Sirius grinned. "The one I enchanted to make this one mirror its movements."
"You can't enchant things over summer, you're only fifteen," Severus pointed out.
"Yeah, I thought for sure I'd be in trouble. I mean, not expelled, since my Dad gave a load of money to the ministry a while back and he'd pull strings, but in definite, Mum-screaming-her-head-off sort of trouble. But nothing happened. You think they didn't notice?" he mused.
"Look, if you're telling me you… you created an exact scale replica of the floor plan of Grimmauld Place and… magically linked the actual three-dimensional space together with a two-dimensional piece of parchment, and then enchanted one coin to mirror another's movements using some sort of tracking spell and an artificial, distance enhanced, minimization… that's not possible," Severus broke off, highly annoyed. "It would've taken at least six spells--"
"Eight," Sirius told him. "Eight spells, all intertwined, and at least a dozen failed ones, and nobody caught me. Am I not terribly clever, Severus? And I'm going to make one for Hogwarts and catch those Gryffin-ninnies and get them expelled. I told you it was a brilliant plan!"
Severus was at a loss for words. For once, Sirius actually HAD done something terribly clever, something even Severus himself wouldn't have attempted, and calling him an idiot like he usually did just wasn't plausible.
"It's good, right?" Sirius asked, as though he needed Severus's approval in order to be properly proud of himself.
Severus should've got angry at Sirius for showing off. Because that's what this was, wasn't it? Showing off? Drawing a map of his huge house, bragging about using magic all summer without being caught, coming up with something completely genius all on his own and then shoving it in Severus's face that Sirius was the clever one? That was what he was doing, wasn't it?
Severus wasn't angry though, not at all. He tried for a moment, but he couldn't even work himself into a proper state of irritation. In fact, the only thing he felt was a strange urge to start sketching diagrams of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. "I suppose you'll need help and I should offer my services before you start begging," he told the other boy, but his voice wasn't half as harsh as it should've been.
"I knew you'd love it, I KNEW!" Sirius leaped about the room as though he'd a throng of particularly agitated juvenile fire crabs in his pants. "I was thinking of you the whole time!"
"You are unspeakably bizarre," Severus scolded him, but he had to tip his face behind his hair to hide his smile.
After dinner the next evening, Sirius was busy properly redrawing his map of Hogwarts with a promise not to start on anything important yet, and Severus decided it was his turn to set his own plan in motion.
Over holiday, he'd begun a large notebook containing every potion ingredient he could think of, their specific properties and uses. Along with these compiled notes, Severus had written his thoughts on possible alternate uses and testing methods for each ingredient. He'd categorized these into several different levels of difficulty, the simplest (and cheapest) of which he'd purchased an extra supply and would test immediately. The most unstable brews, which he'd categorized under Will Undoubtedly Blow Up in My Face, he would probably (and luckily) not get to this year.
Before worrying about blowing himself up though, Severus had to locate a suitably private place to do it. If there were other people about, they'd certainly distract him and waste his precious time, not to mention the fact that trying experimental mixtures unsupervised was assuredly breaking any number of school rules and would lead to extensive detentions. He could afford no such interruptions, as his DADA studies were already suffering as it was.
They were reusing textbooks this year in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but as he'd made himself a promise to get a full four hours' sleep last night, he'd only just now finished rereading The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble. The thought that he may have missed something in such an incomplete revision was omnipresent as he made his way up from the dungeons in search of an ideal base for his potions-brewing operation.
It seemed no place was ideal. Every room he came across was occupied or locked or too small or had so many windows, he'd be caught straight off. His frustration grew as he mounted each staircase, nearly kicking one when it decided to move while he was on it, and he could just swear the suits of armour were staring at him, delighting in his misery. Third floor. Fourth floor. Fifth floor…
And before he knew it, he was standing on the seventh floor with all his options exhausted, staring dejectedly at a highly improbable tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls to dance the ballet.
To make things even worse, a gaggle of miniature Gryffindors came flying through the corridor gibbering loudly about Peeves in their chirpy little voices. One of them was blind enough to bump into Severus, and audacious enough not to cower at the hateful glare Severus shot him. They had no respect for their elders, the hellish little creatures.
A place to brew potions, a place to brew potions… he thought, sending Barnabas a scathing look. I need a place to brew potions, he thought at the tapestry, and began pacing. But where could he go? He'd checked everyplace, there was nowhere, and he needed to brew potions!
Up and down the corridor he paced, every step seeming to take him farther from what he needed. Glancing at the tapestry mid-stride, he saw a troll fall on its face and thought it might be a sign that his current endeavour was equally ill-fated. Fine. It was fine, he'd go back to his room and insult Sirius's lack of artistic aptitude and come up with something else.
But then there was a door. It was directly across from the trolls in tutus, a large, darkly varnished wooden door, and he knew he couldn't possibly have missed it.
Severus drew his wand. "You were not there before," he told the door. "What are you?"
The new door didn't look particularly ominous, just large, wooden, and distinctly door-like. Severus felt a little silly that it'd startled him, and more than a little silly that he was attempting a conversation with it. "I'll just come in, then," he told it, just to be on the safe side. The knob turned easily in his grasp, and he held his wand in front of him as he swung the door open.
Behind the door, he beheld the most perfect potions laboratory imaginable.
Directly in front of him stood a large, white marble topped table, already set with a standard size 2 cauldron and cutting board. Behind the table was a wall of glass-doored cabinets, filled with more ingredients than an apothecary. Beside these was a large sink, above which hung shelves with extra cauldrons, bowls, and implements. The far right wall was also covered in shelves, stocked with a supply of empty glass jars and bottles, while the left was predominantly taken up by a large, circular window with a desk and chairs below it. It was only after Severus locked the door that he saw the books.
The wall behind him was lined with them, shelves and shelves of glorious, wonderful books of all shapes and sizes. Severus gazed in reverence at the many hundreds of titles, all tailored for the needs of a Potions master. His fingers went immediately to the flaking, gold-leafed spine of Facientibus Difficilissimis Potientibus, and he was half afraid it would dissolve before him, a clever illusion bent on the utter ruination of his tenuously-held sanity.
When he touched it though, his fingers met with the familiar feel of crumbling leather, and when he opened it, he knew that even his bibliophilic mind couldn't have come up with this much intricate and indecipherable Latin. He could've wept.
Instead, he tested exactly seventeen different methods of skinning, cutting, and boiling shrivelfigs.
He didn't tell Sirius about his room.
It was too new, too special, and too uncertain, and Sirius definitely fit into the category of Unnecessary Distractions. Severus was pleased with this decision, as when he returned to the laboratory the next afternoon, he nearly had a breakdown because the door was no longer there. It took Severus almost an hour to get the door to appear again, and even then he couldn't say how exactly he'd managed it.
By the second week, he'd found that the best way to conjure the door was to close his eyes in front of Barnabas and his galumphing trolls and walk up and down the corridor three times, all the while repeating in his head, "I need a place to brew potions" over and over. Doing this gave Severus the distinct impression he was going slowly insane, but at least it was a fairly pleasant, mouldering-book-filled insanity.
The first several weeks of fifth year classes dragged horribly, with all the professors prattling on about OWLs and assigning disgusting amounts of tremendously dull homework. Sirius was having difficulties getting the dimensions of his map to match those of Hogwarts, and he developed the habit of yanking the book Severus was reading from his hands, screaming profanities, and then tucking the book neatly back into place. He often followed up with a smile and a pat on the head, sometimes leaving biscuits. As acknowledging his roommate's antics only made him act out even worse, Severus generally ignored this.
By the end of September, Severus was walking around Hogwarts with an enchanted Galleon in the pocket of his itchy and hideous robes, and Sirius was kicking walls.
"What the bloody HELL is wrong with this fucking map?" Sirius demanded, throwing it to the ground. "The walls are all wrong!"
"If they're wrong, then you spelled them wrong," Severus told him. He fingered the coin, which was smooth and warm from his body heat. He imagined one day having a whole pocket full of them, shiny golden coins that could buy you anything you'd ever dreamt of. Especially comfortable robes. "How can they be wrong? Does kicking them help?"
"Yes!" Sirius declared. "Kicking them does help! And I didn't spell them wrong, I just can't get the spells to synch! Instead of putting you next to the wall, it says you're IN it, and Severus you are NOT IN A WALL!"
"Is there a chance I am and you just haven't noticed?" he asked.
"I fucking hate Gryffindors." Sirius kicked the wall again for good measure. "Ouch, damn it that hurts! James Potter, you will pay for this!"
Despite Sirius's efforts to drive him to distraction through tirade-seasoned cartography, Severus kept with his own plan and was the first to see results.
It began when Professor Slughorn assigned them the Draught of Peace in Potions. Severus had noted earlier in his textbook that if he added the powdered moonstone before the hellebore and stirred clockwise instead of counter clockwise twelve times, the potion would turn out much quicker. He made his changes unnoticed, with Sirius working beside him in his own cauldron humming discordantly under his breath.
"Shut up," Severus told him after twenty minutes.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"You're humming. Shut up."
Sirius hummed louder, and Severus knew he'd have to hex him after class.
"Hey, would you mind stopping that, Black?" a voice from the front row of tables asked. "Some people can't concentrate with all that racket." It was James Potter, and maybe he'd save Severus the trouble. After all, he had better things to do these days than throw hexes around.
"Yeah, well some people don't care who can concentrate," Sirius retorted. He flicked what appeared to be a rat spleen at Potter.
"Professor!" Potter called loudly. "Black's throwing things at me. Again!"
"I did not!" Sirius insisted, a look of bewildered innocence on his face. "I don't throw things, Professor! Never!"
"I saw him!" said Pettigrew, who hadn't been paying the least bit of attention. "He threw things!"
"Let us draw our attention back to the matter at hand, gentlemen," Slughorn told him, looking cautiously down into a cauldron behind them. "I commend your efforts, but more stirring is not necessarily better stirring, Miss Hobson. Do try to remember that."
Sirius and Potter exchanged glares, and Sirius pegged him in the back of the head with something small and black when he turned back to his cauldron. Potter started swearing, and Evans cuffed him. "Stop acting like a five year old, James!"
"He started it!" James insisted, a mortified blush rising in his cheeks as he turned and mouthed to Sirius, "You're dead!"
"Professor," Severus said, finding the conversation ironic considering the potion they were brewing. Maybe they should all take a sip after class. "I'm finished."
"Finished, Mr Snape? Well, surely not yet… perhaps you've forgotten the rat spleen. The colour would be the same of course, so it would give the false notion of being properly finished, but it would require much less… well, I do say, you've finished it!" Professor Slughorn was regarding his cauldron with undisguised pleasure.
Severus smirked when he called the entire class's attention to it, praising Severus for his speed and attention to detail, and awarded Slytherin twenty points. Sirius winked and surreptitiously tossed something into Lupin's cauldron. Evans, whose moonstone was still sitting on her table, looked rather perplexed. She straightened her prefect badge, which incidentally wasn't crooked, and went back to chopping her daisy roots.
Severus felt like a god.
"That was amazing," Sirius told Severus as they were packing up to leave.
"It wasn't a big deal," he replied with a smug sniff. "I just mixed things a little differently. If you hold off on the moonstone for too long--"
"Not your potion, Lupin's! I turned it red, really vicious-looking red, and it looked like it wanted to eat his hand! A man-eating peace potion, Severus! I should patent it, I'd make a mint!"
"You're becoming obsessed with Remus Lupin, I swear," Severus told him, annoyed.
"With jumpers like his, how can you blame me? Did you see the one he was wearing today? Hole in the sleeve. Means he's going to be sick again soon. We must get that map working, Severus. You know how much I hate Potter, but I really think the key to all this is--"
"Black." Remus Lupin was standing just out side the door, and Severus nearly ran into him when he stepped out. "I'd like to have a word with you."
Sirius smiled evilly and leaned back against the dungeon wall. "A word, is it?"
Lupin swallowed, looking cold and suddenly nervous. "Yes. About… about today. In class. When you… sabotaging other people's potions is, you shouldn't do it. I'm not talking about my potion, though you shouldn't have done that either, but James… I hate Potions, but he doesn't, so please, if you could just… I'm not a coward. I'm not, and I'm, I'm standing up. I'm saying you shouldn't do it anymore, Black."
"I'm on to you, Lupin," Sirius told him.
Lupin blinked. "…what?"
"Oh, I know all about your little secret. How you and the others sneak out in that cloak every month to have your little fun. You stay out all night and come back with dirty shoes and ripped jumpers and break about a dozen school rules, and it gets you so sick you end up in the infirmary. Yeah, I know exactly what you're up to," Sirius smirked.
Lupin's face grew paler and paler, his bottom lip beginning to tremble.
Sirius took this as a sign he was on the right track. "It's only a matter of time before I turn you in," he told the frightened boy, "so if you have any last words… tear-filled pleas… extravagant bribes… now would be the time."
Lupin's jaw worked wordlessly, his fingers grasping at the stretched-out sleeves of his pathetic, pill-balled jumper. "You don't know anything," he whispered. "You couldn't…"
"You're right!" Sirius beamed, throwing his arms open wide. "Total bullocks. I'm just being an arse!"
"He is an arse," Severus agreed. "You should take points for that."
Lupin's face was contorting between so many different emotions, it seemed unsure as to which colour it should choose. No doubt he'd not been able to easily put his last points reduction from his mind and had no wish to repeat it. "No, I don't think that will be…"
"Oh, come on," Sirius taunted, picking up on Severus's idea, "you know you want to. I threw a slug in your Draught of Peace. I lied to you. I tried blackmailing you! Come on, take a point!"
"Sirius loves it when you take house points. Turns him on something incredible. He was in the toilet hours after the last time. Nearly drove us insane." He leaned closer to the Gryffindor. "You should've HEARD."
"He… he was not," Lupin murmured, his face having decided upon beet red.
Severus liked this game.
"No, it's true," Sirius said quietly. "I'm mad for pasty, bookish blokes with dreadful wardrobes. Why do you think I keep Snape around? Come on, just one point, Moony. Please?"
"Don't-- don't call me that," Lupin whispered. Sirius had now backed him against the wall of the corridor. A trio of Hufflepuff girls hurried past, their hands to their mouths, but neither boy noticed. Severus shot them a dirty look.
"Your choice, Moony. Either take a point or," Sirius leaned in so that their lips were only inches apart, "tell me what you three are up to. All I need to know is…"
His voice dropped below hearing, Lupin cringed, and suddenly this wasn't so much fun anymore. Remus Lupin was sick and weak and obviously entirely unable to defend himself, and that wasn't the sort of person you picked on. Sure, it was fine to frighten unmannered first years a bit, or taunt your spoiled baby brother, or hex your new prefect when he was being particularly exasperating… but there were rules to this sort of thing.
There were.
Honest.
When it came to instilling absolute abject terror, it was best to save it for people who could benefit from it, like Potter. It was wasted on powerless, sickly nitwits with shabby jumpers who offered their mortal enemies apples in the infirmary.
"Sirius, he's not worth it," Severus told him, turning his back. "He just wants you to slip him some tongue, since it's the only way he'll ever get any. Come on, let's go work on your project."
Sirius grunted, and Severus was sure he was about to follow, when Lupin's small yet clear voice said, "A point from Slytherin."
He was mad, Severus thought. Remus Lupin was absolutely mad. He was mad, and Severus was never sticking up for anyone ever again because sticking up for people cost you house points.
Sirius knew when his bluff was being called, and he laughed, turning away from the Gryffindor. "A point! Well, I guess that leaves us with only nineteen for the day after Severus's work in Potions. Maybe you're not so spineless after all, Moony! I do like that name. Moony. Moooooony! Ha! Isn't that funny, Severus?"
Severus rolled his eyes. "Hilarious. Let's go."
Remus Lupin didn't seem to think it was hilarious either. He was still standing up against the corridor wall with his face in his hands.
"I almost had him, Snape! Why'd you have to give him hope of survival like that?" Sirius groused as they faced the blank wall that was the entry to the Slytherin dormitory. "What was the password again? Oh yeah, Snitchnipping. I can't wait for Quidditch to start up, can you?"
"Yes, Slytherin shall vanquish," Severus waved his hand dismissively as they entered, "but you know if that sickly creature had keeled over and died, it would've been your fault. And since I was there, I'd've been blamed too, and my father did not make large monetary gifts to the Ministry that would prevent my expulsion. Think of these things, Black."
"Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch. It was just a joke, and a pretty damned good one at that. I thought for sure he'd shit himself. But all I want to think of now is my map," Sirius told him. "It's been nearly a month, and this time I'm going to catch them, I don't care what it takes. I'll stay up all night if I have to!"
Severus sighed, surveyed the occupants of the common room with a disgusted glare, and braced himself for a long, aggravating night.
He was not disappointed.
TBC