DECEMBER 9 SATURDAY
The chaps were thrown out of the duel arena at 5 am my Mr. Filth. They crossed off Friar Tuck in the kitchen pantry and then they went to bed.
They missed breakfast, and very nearly missed the golden hour, too. They found the final passage on the list in the staff wing.
They reset the password on Lord Grey's marble bust. After that they weren't sure if they had the time to unstack the entire gingerbread house and take pictures.
"Unleess," James scratched his chin. "it is protected from breaking by magic!"
"It isn't," said Remus.
"Well it was good of you to ask Dumbledore if it was."
"Thank you."
"Unleeess," Sirius scratched his chin, "it can just be reparod! What did Dumbledore say, when you asked if it could be reparod?"
"He said it couldn't be."
"Well damn."
Heavy footsteps disturbed the sanctity of the golden hour! The chaps could hear heavy breathing, which suggested Slug was back from the pub early!
"We have to put the roof back!" said James.
"No time leave it!" said Sirius.
They left the roof on the floor and fled through the marble bust. (It told a "riddle"! What is the difference between Professor Slughorn and a whale? A whale looks better in tweed!)
The marble bust took them to a tunnel with smokeless wall torches.
"I am famished," said James as they ambled along. "I'm so hungry I could eat a cake horse."
"When was the ball?" Sirius asked.
"On the 16th. Not that I care."
"Me neither. Pleh! Captain Meat-Hook! He thinks he's soooo edgy! 'I play what I want!' Bollocks!"
"I know! He just says it to be cool!"
Everybody were so hyped that the celebrity pirate radio DJ Meaty was coming to the ball. The ball was even going to have a pirate theme now! Not that James and Sirius cared!
They came to the end of the tunnel. James lifted a candle from a candlestick and a rotating wall forced them out into a busy kitchen. Busy bakers were too busy to notice them walk past them, into the café.
This was the Hogsmead Bakery. A liquid chalk sign said so. The chaps were immediately drawn to the glass that guarded the cakes.
"Look at that one!" James pressed his nose against the glass. "The marzipan on that Christmas cake is so smooth it looks like a fancy cushion!"
"Imagine if people made cakes that looked like cushions," Sirius dreamed. "You could put it on somebody's chair! They'd think it was a cushion!"
"Well who knows?" said James suggestively. "Maybe you'll get one for your birthday..."
"Ok but don't go putting it on my chair."
The chaps took their noses from the glass. A witch behind all the cake wiped away their nose prints with a tea towel.
"What can I get you?"
"We're from Hogwarts!" said James.
"Oh really? We recently delivered a gingerbread house to Hogwarts."
"I know! We saw it! It looks amazing! You must have..," A light bulb, that everybody had presumed dead, flickered somewhere in the back of James's quidditch infested mind. "had drawings!"
"Our templates are extremely detailed. They're 10 or something sheets in total."
"That's a lot of sheets! Let me take them off your hands!"
"I can't let you take them off my hands. We use them every year."
"Can you make copies for us, then? It's homework!"
"Certainly I can, if it's homework! I will go on a break in ten minutes, if you can wait that long."
Wow what a nice lady! The chaps could see that customers were flooding in and out, so to show their appreciation they decided to stay for some hot chocolate and wedding cake.